Chapter Text
Amazon System, Agebinium (Lanhaloth Primus) Low Orbit
Transport Ship "Acceletra"
Vikal Fen awoke with a shudder.
It was cold.
And then, it wasn't.
All sleep left his body near-instantly as he felt a cocktail of chemicals enter his body, last vestiges of his cryostasis already thawing. He knew what he had to do - he remembered right away, his recollection jogged by a stimulating neuroelectric pulse. Already, he was moving, not even a second out of the stasis pod, armored soles thumping on the metal floor along with those of his comrades.
If they were being awoken, it meant less than 15 minutes until insertion. Exactly enough time to double-check their equipment on the go, do a quick head count, and get situated in the drop-pods.
The comm channels were silent except for their commanding officer issuing the same orders they were already aware of - just to be sure no one was left confused by the stasis. The technology is good, but nothing is ever idiot-proof, and it's best to be sure. But so far, everyone seemed to be behaving according to protocol. They were a goal-oriented bunch, Mehrnanans. Comes with the territory of being brought up on an irradiated husk of a planet.
Each one of his comrades - as well as Vikal himself - were equipped in massive armor, with neutronium-lined plating, personal gravity fields (the neutronium plating on its own required grav generators to manage), reactive pulse armor beneath the plates, shield generators and hardening amps on top. The power for it all plus servos supplied by a cold-fusion cell.
They were the heavy infantry. They were the living equivalent of armored vehicles, with just as much protection and firepower as a tank, while maintaining more mobility and a smaller profile. They were usually the first ones unto the line of fire - when quelling minor rebellions, excising disruptive criminal elements, or bringing primitives under the Imperium's rule, they were the first - and often last - measure. After they were done, all that was needed more often than not was a PR team to keep the blood and giblets out of public view.
So, even though he would soon be setting foot on an alien world in an alien galaxy, about to be the first to face unknown aliens, he wasn't worried. As he strapped into a drop-pod and put his heavy machine shotgun into combat-ready state, he could only look forward to the bragging rights this would afford him.
Corvette "Lukrepal's Retreat"
"Comm check, all clear?" Said Japra as she activated the sound dampeners and narrowcast communications of her armor, having just strapped into her seat aboard the shuttle.
"Yes, ma'am." Came the reply of Cymaris in her ear.
"Clear." Came Aralyr's reply less than a second later.
"Good. Cymaris, bring us in to the surface. Close-right trajectory, with thrusters and afterburners engaged. I want to be down there less than a minute after the pods."
"Acknowledged. Hangar bay opening in three seconds..."
The shuttle shuddered as the surrounding atmosphere and pressure of the hangar was vented in less than a second. The next second, the artificial gravity was disengaged. And on the third, the doors out into the cold vacuum of space slid open.
"Launching shuttle..."
The spacecraft shuddered again as the propulsion was activated, instantly propelling the vehicle out of the hangar, the doors sliding closed behind them. The gravity of the planet down below was already pulling them towards the surface.
"Correcting descent trajectory..."
The entire vehicle tilted forward, coming down at an angle close to 90°, the front section of the vehicle heating up as afterburners activated along with the thrusters.
"Trajectory stable. Prepare for rapid deceleration in 40 seconds."
Japra looked at Aralyr. "Ready?"
Her partner’s voice was as cold with calculated calmness as it ever was. "I've been ready for the last hour." He said as a laser rifle sat in his lap, ready to be taken up the second they landed.
Japra simply nodded as she held onto her seat's handle with one hand, the other holding a massive machine gun. "Good."
Agebinium Surface
Elanos Haliat stumbled as the ground beneath him shuddered, a large cloud of red silicate dust rising up not far from his and his men's encampment. Less than a second later, another impact struck the ground even closer, and then another, and another. A veritable rain of projectiles struck the edge of their camp.
Elanos hurriedly contacted one of his techs, aboard one of the vessels stationed on this planet. They were supposed to be monitoring their surroundings! Warn them if anyone grew bold enough to attack, or if random space debris was about to fall on them!
"Fasvin, you useless grunt! What the hell is going on!?" Elanos yelled as soon as the connection was established, stumbling on his way toward his ship.
The batarian technician replied in a similarly frantic and frazzled voice. "I've got no clue! None of these are showing up on the sensors! There's only one signature descending down here, looks like a shuttle but I'm not reading any eezo emissions!"
"Useless!" Shouted Elanos as he gripped a nearby crate to stop himself from falling as another object landed a scant dozen meters from him, the resulting cloud of dust covering him entirely. "Men, scatter!" He broadcasted to every one of his meager crew that wasn't presently aboard a ship.
From this close-up, even through the billowing silicate dust, Elanos could make out the silhouette of the object. Taller than him, cylindrical in shape, seemingly made of some black material.
Far too geometric in shape to be space debris or a meteor.
Purely on instinct, Elanos drew his assault rifle and shakily aimed it at the object, and just as he did, he saw the front of it burst open, and large figure step out of it, a weapon aimed at him.
Elanos opened fire.
As his ammo slammed against the transparent field of energy around the figure, it unleashed its own volley against him. A cluster of projectiles slammed into his own shield, instantly breaking through it and into his armor before exploding. He was knocked off his feet, sent flying a few meters through the air before landing on his back next to a stack of crates, a dull pain spreading through his diaphragm first and then his entire body. He quickly rolled behind a crate, another cluster of explosive pellets hitting the ground where he was a second ago.
He could hear weapons fire all around him. His men were also engaged in combat. They were ambushed, taken off guard, the billowing clouds of dust barely penetrated by the red star's light limiting visibility and keeping them isolated.
"Regroup! Regroup!" He tried to yell hoarsely at his men through the comms, but even if any heard him he couldn't tell through the rolling clouds of dust and the sound of gunfire. At the very least, no one answered or asked for orders yet, which...
Given the power the weapons of their attackers packed - as he felt on himself, touching where he was shot gingerly before wincing, his armor dented, blackened and torn by the explosions where the enemy bullets struck - and the suddenness of this ambush, their chances were not great. None of them were that good in combat, the useless lot.
Ah, he can hear the sound of boots thumping along the ground, drawing close to him. Well, he wasn't going to surrender. With his rifle knocked out of his hands when he was knocked down by the first shot, he instead drew his shotgun, ready to open fire on whoever he first saw.
A tall figure, clad in dark, bulky armor, taller than even him were he standing, stepped into his field of vision, weapon aimed down at the prone Elanos. The turian instantly opened fire, slamming shot after shot out of his shotgun until it overheated in his hands.
And yet, there was no visible damage to the figure. Not even a scratch on its armor.
Elanos prepared himself to be shot.
Instead, a heavily-armored boot hit him in the face, cracking his helmet and knocking him out.
"Ma'am, all hostiles neutralized. The only active lifesigns we're still picking up are from those ships. Permission to clear?" Asked the commander of the Mehrnanan infantrymen, his voice right in Japra's ear as she surveyed the battlefield, red sand crunching beneath her boots.
Though, calling it a battle may be a little much. Not a single casualty - no damage to armor, even, the shields absorbed it all. The hostiles were cleared under a minute - 36 seconds, to be precise. The last of them was put down just as her and Aralyr got off the shuttle.
She glanced at Aralyr. "Agent, I need you to accompany them in sweeping the ships. I'll stay here and relay what information we find up top, plus help coordinate with whatever units may arrive in the meantime."
Without a word, Aralyr nodded and approached the commander, the two of them walking off in the direction of the ships at a brisk pace, the commander organizing a boarding party out of unoccupied infantrymen.
Those ships weren't going anywhere, so they had time to properly regroup. The vessels in orbit, plus some additional precautions, made sure of that. Their own corvette was blasting malicious code across all available frequencies (all friendlies having been warned ahead of time, or course), the code itself encrypted by enigmatic tech and Shroud protocols; the pods were all deployed in a pattern surrounding the area of operation and were narrowcasting interference signals between each other, creating a net wherein no comms could function that didn't have special quantic keys; other agents' ships brought with them FTL-inhibitor buoys that they deployed in low orbit; and the destroyers were saturating the orbit with ejected junk to make any escape attempts visibly ill-advised (while forwarding navigational routes through the artificial debris field to the friendly vessels).
She herself, meanwhile, approached one of the apprehended aliens. Laid on their fronts on the ground, both their upper and lower limbs bound with magnetic cuffs, their weaponry on the ground next to them.
While there were, of course, fatalities on the hostiles' side, the infantrymen were ordered to prioritize nonlethal takedowns if at all possible. Which, given that the alien guns barely did any damage to their shields, was more feasible than anticipated. So, of the 34 hostiles, 29 remained injured, but alive. However much can be extracted in a similar condition from the ships remains to be seen.
Japra kneeled down and examined the aliens. There seemed to be a collection of at least two species, though they both were humanoid in stature. One was taller and thinner, with slicked back helmets - most likely to accommodate for some kind of crest or fringe - and seemingly digitigrade legs. The other, shorter and somewhat stockier, she couldn't deduce too much about from just their armor. They'd have to wait for the psionic units and research teams.
As for their weapons...
She picked up what looked like an assault rifle. Foldable design for compact carry, bowed at the top, heat sinks and a solid metal block in place of ammo - not exactly standard, but not an unheard-of design back home. No, what really interested her was the method by which the projectiles were propelled.
She aimed at the ground with the alien rifle, and fired. The recoil was insignificant to her - thanks, most likely, to her armor's kinetic counteracting mechanisms, meant specifically to nullify recoil of heavier weapons. She fired a few more times, firing off several bursts and briefly drawing the attention of the infantrymen around her as the rounds kicked up small plumes of red silicate dust, before they went back to their assigned tasks.
Laying the weapon back down on the ground at her feet, next to the laid-out and bound aliens, she pulled up the readouts from her onboard sensor suites. Kinetic energy transfer from the recoil, heat accumulation and dissipation in the weapon, estimated projectile speed and barrel erosion, and... there it was.
Miniature gravitational fields, appearing for less than half a second at a time, coinciding with electrical current feed from the capacitors in the weapon. These weapons were using antigravity munitions, utilizing variable gravitational fields to propel shavings from the metal block within the gun.
She scoffed in amusement. No wonder these weapons did no damage. Handheld mass accelerators could be decent weapons, but they were tricky to get right without ending up as heavy arms, and given the readings she was seeing, these ones were at least five generations behind modern weaponry.
It seems she worried for nothing.
Aralyr leaned over the alien consoles aboard one of the ships. The sweep had gone smoothly, even without his assistance. Not surprising, given that the heavy infantry mere professionals. But, now that the alien threats had been neutralized - a lot have actually surrendered, abandoning their weapons and holding their hands up - he was trying to see if he could glean anything from their technology before the research teams arrived to take a closer look.
From what he could see, most interface was actually haptic, as opposed to physical. Not a great idea, in his opinion. You never fully know what you'll encounter, and thus it is better to have a more reliable method to control your own vessel. Cosmic storms, hyperlane climate, EM interference, malicious code, any number of things could cause a haptic to fail. He once knew another agent who retrofitted his vessel to have haptics. Passed to close to a black hole, and not even vessel shielding helped, the controls just fizzled out and he lost control of the ship, and ended up being pulled into the black hole. Fragments of the vessel were only recovered because that particular black hole had a Matter Decompressor working it for resources.
Regardless, he could understand nothing on the interface, other than the schematics of the vessel itself, which he could decipher easily enough. Based on the general knowledge he possessed and the graphic depictions before him, he could figure out the basic designations and translations of this alien language, given what they labeled.
'Reactor'. 'Thrusters'. 'Main Weapon'. 'Hangar Bay'. Standard fare.
The ship itself was closer to a corvette in size, than anything. Around four hundred meters, if he had to guess, based on the estimated size he noted from the outside, and the schematics in front of him right now.
After spending another few minutes attempting to figure out this alien technology, as the infantrymen carried out - or led out, in case they were still conscious - the neutralized hostiles, Aralyr instead contacted Cymaris.
He may be meant as a navigational AI first, but he is still a general autonomous intelligence. And there's no one better at electronic infiltration than AIs.
"Cymaris, connect to my armor's visual feed."
"Connecting..." Rang out in Aralyr's ear. "Done. Do you require assistance?"
"Yes." Said Aralyr, positioning himself to get a better view of the entire ensemble of haptic consoles in front of him. "I need you to get into their systems, and tell the ground team, as well as the incoming research teams, everything you find. Do you see a way for you to infiltrate?"
"Attempting translation... limited success. Try to use one of the interfaces. I will match your armor's ID to the one requested by the system. I will attempt to enter the system via handshake protocols. If that doesn't work, you may attempt to open a debugging console, allowing me to examine the source code of the system, and develop a sequence that can be inserted into it to allow me direct access."
Aralyr nodded and began attempting to swipe at one of the floating, digital windows.
SSV Normandy, Artemis Tau
"Commander, incoming signal from Fifth Fleet HQ on the Citadel."
Joker's voice caused Shepard to look up from the galactic map in front of him.
"Commander Shepard. Something uncomfortable has just come up."
Followed shortly by Admiral Hackett's voice coming over the communicator.
"In the First Contact War, we fired a lot of espionage probes into turian space. We just received a Mission Complete burst from one of them."
That caused Shepard to come up short.
"Where's it been in the meantime?" He couldn't help but ask. Hardware like that rarely gets lost only to show back up out of nowhere.
"No idea. Lost in transit. These probes were built in a hurry after first contact." Explained Hackett.
"And what, exactly, makes this 'uncomfortable'?"
Shepard was no fool. If Hackett was contacting him directly, then it was important. And nothing important is ever simple or easy - wouldn't be important if it was. So, it was generally a good idea to be well-prepared - as much as he could be, in any case. He thought they were prepared for Therum too, everyone knows how that played out.
Come to think of it, he also thought they were prepared for Eden Prime.
Maybe 'being prepared' is all just a hoax, judging from his experience.
"When these probes were launched, we didn't have any idea who we were fighting. We didn't want to risk aliens examining our technology."
That did not fare well. Alliance usually had only one method of keeping things out of enemy hands...
"The probe has a demo nuke built-in. A 20-kiloton tactical fusion warhead. About equal to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima back in the 20th. If someone finds that probe, tampers with it - you don't need me to finish, commander."
Did he ever. The problem therein lie in that very fact - Tali'Zorah may be a quarian technician, but he somehow doubts she's had experience defusing old Alliance nuclear booby traps. And with a payload this volatile - not to mention this old, who knows what 20 years of no maintenance did to it - every variable could result in disaster.
"I understand that this must be handled, but I don't have anyone trained to deal with this sort of thing, sir." Shepard tried to diplomatically redirect Hackett's attention from himself.
Because that was just as he said. Something like this requires a specialist to handle, which he had none of in his crew. And besides, even if he did, there was still Saren to chase.
"I know. I wouldn't ask if there was an alternative. These probes have been secret for 26 years. If the Council found out, they would call nuclear booby traps dangerous and irresponsible. Alliance would face censure. I'm asking you because the Normandy can get on-site quickly and quietly. It's in the Voyager System."
That's about what Shepard surmised. As convenient having a stealth vessel was, it came with unfortunate downsides in the shape of certain expectations from higher-ups.
Still.
If a little risk on his part is what it took for humanity to remain unmolested by the Council, so be it. Far be it from him to shy away from a challenge.
"We'll get on it immediately, Admiral. And we'll be discreet."
"I appreciate that, Commander. Good luck. Fifth Fleet out."
And with that, the comms cut off.
"I take it I should set course to Voyager Cluster, Commander?" Asked Pressley from his place next to the galaxy map.
Shepard nodded. "Yes, Pressley. Let's deal with this quickly and quietly, so we can get back to our main mission."
"Aye-aye, Commander."
Elanos awoke groggily, with a pounding headache and a dull yet strong pain in his abdomen. An attempt to move and examine himself proved futile as his hands and legs were unflinchingly locked in place - his arms behind him, and his legs together.
A quick look around through his cracked helmet - the spiderweb of damaged visor covering a good 40% of his view - revealed him to be in a barren, rectangular room, with plain metal walls. He was seated at a rectangular metal table, with a sterile white light shining from above. He could see no other features - no windows, no doors, nothing.
"Damn..." He muttered to himself as he recalled what had happened prior - the sudden attack, his inability to fight back, him getting knocked out-
His mental recollections were interrupted by a sound of metal smoothly sliding against metal from behind him, and armored footfalls which quickly carried the figure they belonged to into view. Several of them, in fact. Two of them humanoid in shape, and another which resembled nothing like it. If anything, the third one didn't walk, it scuttled on four elongated limbs, its silhouette resembling some kind of giant insect if it were capable of wearing armor.
The other two, while more tolerable, still had some peculiarities. The one who took a seat opposite of him at the table wore sleek black armor, the plating absolute vantablack with grey outlines for something like scales across it. A featureless helmet, not even a visor or an optic. A large weapon - seemingly a machine gun - at its waist. The second one had a large, elongated helmet with glowing blue optics and seemingly golden plating. Its armor was black, like the other ones, but had strips of blue across its forearms in a flowing, aquatic patterns.
Neither of the three said anything, merely staring Elanos down.
If they were attempting to intimate him, Elanos wouldn't give them the satisfaction, glaring back at them through his cracked visor in return, not a word spoken.
If only his headache would go away.
But it didn't.
The light from above them was reflecting in the second's helmet's surface. It was annoying. Like it was aimed right at his eyes. He didn't turn his eyes away, or squint - he wouldn't give in, despite how profoundly annoying it was.
And this headache just wouldn't go away. He tried to dismiss it, but it annoyingly nagged at his brain, forcing itself to the forefront.
The one sitting at the table started tapping its finger on the table.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
It was... so fucking annoying! He could barely take it. His armor was feeling too tight - it dented when he got shot, that must be it. The cracks on his visor were taking up entirely too much space, and yet still let the annoying light shine right in his fucking eyes. The tapping was far, far too damn loud! Spirits, his own breathing was starting to feel too loud!
His headache throbbed, pulsating in time with the tapping. Every time the alien tapped the table, it sent waves of dull pain through Elanos' head. Like a giant bell, from within his own mind, the pulsing ache echoing still, even as another toll began.
He couldn't help it. He groaned in pain, his expression becoming pinched, his mandibles uncontrollably twitching as he averted his eyes down at the table. The pain mounted with each tap. It felt like several dozen atmospheres worth of pressure attempting to burst his skull from within, while also trying to crush it like a hydraulic press. He soon became numb to sound, then to sight. Only the ache remained.
"-group! Regroup!"
Ḍ̵̇e̴̅ͅe̸̤̽ṕ̴̧è̴̥r̸̼̉
Flashes of light, and of sound, despite his eyes being closed - when did he close his eyes? - appeared before him.
"-bably what's causing the faulty readings. Now off with you!"
Ḍ̵̇e̴̅ͅe̸̤̽ṕ̴̧è̴̥r̸̼̉
He... was remembering. In painfully vivid detail. Every sound and sight appeared as if right before him, as if he were living it. But it was also... fast. So frantically fast. One after another, torturously vivid scenes flashed in a frenzied blur.
What was happening? His cranium felt like it was about to burst.
"Haliat! You fucking bareface! You think we forgot how you ran like a coward on Torfan!?"
No! No, you mutineering scum, he didn't run! It was a tactical retreat! What could he do against a human armada? He would have lost all his ships, he - he would have been captured, or killed! It was only pragmatic!
Ḍ̵̇e̴̅ͅe̸̤̽ṕ̴̧è̴̥r̸̼̉
"-etting out of here, is what! Do you expect to stay and fight an entire army!?"
"You have an army of your own here!"
"An army of scum-sucking pirates, swindlers and malnourished slaves, against human commandos! Now out of my way!"
"You traitorous-"
BANG
That's right, he shot him. Some turians never change, clinging so tightly to military honor and pride that they can't fathom retreating. Like his first mate at the time. He had no choice but to shoot. He had no choice!
Ḍ̵̇e̴̅ͅe̸̤̽ṕ̴̧è̴̥r̸̼̉
"-is taking so long!?"
"We can't breach southern section!"
"Why the hell not!?"
"Some jumped-up human is holed up in there! Gave the civilians guns, and now they're somehow holding the perimeter!"
"You- they're untrained humans! Just mass a push there and we can be done with this blitz!"
Yes, the first time he heard of him. That human who ruined him against all odds. That human nearly single-handedly held off his entire ground force, with only some civilians with scavanged guns as backup.
Haliat would later learn - and grow to hate - the name of that human.
Shepard.
Ḍ̵̇e̴̅ͅe̸̤̽ṕ̴̧è̴̥r̸̼̉
The memories kept flashing in a haze of vivid panoramas, a kaleidoscope of sounds and sights ripped from key moments in his life. His head continued to ache, a great pressure crushing his brain from within. The last memory he saw before he passed out was blurry, ill-defined. It was an old one - one he could barely remember, and now it was dredged up and forced to the forefront.
It was him, seated at a small desk. Other turians - young, barely able to walk and talk - were seated in neat rows to his side and behind him. Another turian - female, an adult - was in front of them. Teaching him - them - letters, numbers, words.
It was the last thing Haliat saw before his head thunked against the table, blue blood seeping from his nose and eyes.
Japra Wek stepped out of the impromptu interrogation room - thankfully the newly-arrived science ship had some free space in it. The science officer in charge of the ship - an arthropod xenobiologist - and the commander of the Intelligence Squad of the Psi Corps walked beside her.
"What did you learn?" she asked the psionic.
He didn't turn his golden helmet to her, and did not, in fact, speak, instead communicating via telepathy. "I got the language base, and some context as to these aliens. From what I could infer, they're criminals - most likely pirates."
Japra scoffed. "First contact, and we run into criminals. Brilliant."
"On the other hand," chirped the science officer, the mechanical servo arms extending from his hardsuit quietly whirring in what seemed to be anticipation. "no alien government will object if my team examine them more... invasively."
"No, I suppose they won't." replied Japra. If she was being entirely honest, out of all the scientists she has worked alongside in her carreer, xenobiologists always unnerved her the most, what with how obsessed most of them were with vivisections. "But, just as a preliminary assessment, what can you tell us about them?"
"This particular species..." buzzed the arthropod, his limbs clicking along the metal floor. "Based on what I got from external scanners in that room... a rather curious one. An external carapace - but not an exoskeleton - with integrated trace amounts of heavy metals."
"Could this be a gene mod?" asked Japra.
"Could be." Said the scientist with as much levity as he could inject into his clicking speech, seemingly unconcerned about anything. "Won't know until I get to cut one open, which shouldn't be a problem to get approval for, now that we know they're criminals."
"I see." said Japra a little woodenly. "Anything else?"
"Vestigial mandibles, digitigrade legs, dextro-amino acids, cellular structure that seems resistant to carcinogenic effects at a glance. Nothing too extraordinary."
The three came to a stop at an intersection in the ship's hallway. The science officer scuttled further along before turning around. "I believe I will be seeing more of you in the future, but right now I have to send in a permission form for autopsies and live studies alike." he said before turning back around and continuing down the hallway.
"I must take my leave as well. This vessel is in possesion of an extensive language modeling database, and I should upload what I learned to it, so we may faster begin conversing with these aliens." sent the psionic through telepathy before marching in another direction at a brisk pace.
Japra sighed and proceeded to an exit off the ship. "Why was I even here..." she muttered to herself.
"Uh, Commander? You're gonna want to see this." Came Joker's voice in Shepard's ear.
"What is it, Joker?"
He hoped it wouldn't be anything too major. They were being delayed enough as is with this errand.
"I'm seeing unknown ships in orbit around the planet the probe signal came from."
And there goes that hope.
"What do you mean, unknown ships?"
"Don't look like any ships I know of. Don't look turian, or asari, or salarian, or anything else. Although, more concerning is probably the fact they have a dreadnought."
Oh no.
"I'm coming down to the cockpit."
"Aye-Aye."
Shepard marched from his quarters down to the pilot's seat, his disposition alerting what crew saw him that something was wrong. Leaning over Joker's seat to peer at the visual displays, Shepard couldn't help but frown.
"Tali, I'm sending you a visual feed from the cockpit. Do any of these ship designs look familiar to you?" Shepard spoke into his omnitool as he sent a brief video file to Tali down in engineering.
A stereotype it may be, but quarians generally know their ships - a necessity, given their way of life. Tali'Zorah, maybe even more than most, if what she told him about her father being an Admiral is anything to go by. She must have seen all sorts of ships in the Flotilla. Shepard would bet good money that if there was a possible ship design out there, a quarian has decent odds of IDing it.
"Let me see." Replied Tali, her voice coming over the omnitool.
After a few moments of silence, she replied once again, sounding unsure of herself - a notable departure from her usual demeanor that did not reassure Shepard. "I... can't say I've seen these designs before. They remind me of some older turian ships, but just a little."
Shepard resisted the urge to sigh. "Thank you, Tali. Anything you can tell me just from looking?"
"Not much. They're blocky, lots of flat surfaces, which isn't good for deflecting smaller debris, or projectiles, so they probably make up for it with armor. Though it's just speculation."
Shepard nodded to himself. Better than nothing, he supposed.
"Joker, bring us in closer."
"Uhh, are you sure you want to get close to a scary dreadnought we know nothing about?"
"We'll investigate with our stealth systems on, from far enough away to not alert whoever that is. I'll let Hackett know that whatever was going on with the probe is no longer our main concern, and then contact the Council."
Joker just sighed and began adjusting the flight path of the Normandy. "Whatever you say, Commander."