You all go ahead, I’ll be right there. 72%
“I’ll be right down, just going to see what Legion wanted to talk to Shepard for,” Fluttershy excused as she walked away from the elevator and went out back where the situation room was located. Shepard looked over his shoulder at the door as Shy entered and gave her a questioning look. “Mind if I listen in?”
“That Okay, Legion?” Shepard asked.
“Affirmative,” the geth stated. “Shepard commander, we have completed our analysis of the reaper data core.”
“Find anything useful?” Shepard asked as Fluttershy took a seat out of the way to the side.
“We were sent to the old machine to preserve the geth’s future. We are prepared to reveal how. The Heretics have developed a weapon to use against geth. You would call it a ‘virus’ It is stored on a data core provided by Sovereign.” Fluttershy felt her skin crawl at the mention of the reaper they’d defeated nearly two years ago. “Over time the virus will change us, make us conclude that worshipping the Old Machines is correct.”
“That’s not good… So all the geth would receive heretic logic and go to war with organics?” Shepard asked with concern.
“Yes. Geth believe all intelligent life should self-determinate. The heretics no longer share this belief. They judge that forcing an invalid conclusion on us is preferable to a schism.” That actually surprised Fluttershy. She’d heard about the geth schism, of course, but the fact that that was the geth’s beliefs was a real surprise to her.
“How fast would this virus spread?” Fluttershy cut in, curious as to how much time was left.
“We are networked via FTL comm buoys. Most would change within a day. Isolated platforms would remain unaffected until they rejoined the network.”
“You know where this thing is located?” Shepard asked, his concern now dialed up to eleven.
“It was previously located in the heretics’ headquarters station on the edge of the Terminus system, but intercepted transmissions indicate it has been moved planetside for deployment within range of Rannoch in the Far Rim,” Legion explained. “We will provide coördinates for planetary landfall.”
“What do you know about this place? The Far Rim doesn’t have a lot of places where you can go planetside. Did they set up on Heastrom?”
“Negative. The planet is… an anomaly. Sensors are being disrupted by a planetary shield of unknown origin.” Legion walked up to the holographic projector that was built into the room’s table and switched the hologram of the Normandy out for one of the planet. A golden shimmering shield covered the planet though a little part above a desert was a sickly green. The terrain below was slightly distorted as Fluttershy tried to make out landmasses. “Heretics entered through the anomaly in the shield, geth attempts at entering have been met with grou-”
Fluttershy’s eyes went wide as she suddenly stumbled back from the table, her pupils shrinking as she suddenly turned, sprinting out of the situation room and out into the CIC where she rapidly tapped the down button to the crew level in the elevator. Shepard just managed to slide into the elevator with her as the doors closed.
“What the hell is going on, Shy?” Shepard asked confused, Fluttershy was breathing rapidly as she tried stammering her answer.
“I... That… It-” The elevator door slid open, Fluttershy immediately ran towards the port observation bay, stumbling over her own hooves. The others there, who were enjoying drinks, looked up at her with the same type of confusion as Shepard while Fluttershy tried to utter a coherent sentence.
“Little angel, you need to breathe,” Garrus said, placing a comforting hand on Shy’s shoulder as she took the advice. “Now what’s going on?”
“The geth found Equis.”
Dash chocked on her drink while Luna's slipped from her telekinesis and smashed apart on the ground. The group fell silent as they processed the information, Luna lit her horn as she was the first to recover. In a flash of light, everyone who was in the observation bay was teleported to the situation room where Legion was still waiting, Luna immediately focussed in on the hologram hovering above the table.
“Legion, please brief them as well,” Shepard told it, letting Legion repeat the things he'd already said to the new group.
“-Every geth attempt at breaking through the shielding has resulted in failure.”
“I can open up a hole in the shield for the Normandy to pass through, I'm aware of the mechanism responsible for the shielding… though I'll admit I never expected to see it activated, much less from this side of the field,” Luna told them. “What I'm concerned about is the green spot over there…”
Legion zoomed the hologram in on the anomaly. “This is where Heretic vessels descended through the shield, geth vessels were unable to follow.”
“Tia would never allow anything through, she was deathly afraid of anything from out here… something or someone else must have let them through from down there.”
“That's a problem. Any idea who might be responsible for opening the shield up there?” Shepard asked now they didn't have to go in blind.
“It shouldn't be possible…” Luna murmured. “They shouldn't be alive anymore, I destroyed them long before my banishment…”
“You destroy who?” Tali asked as Luna kept muttering to herself, deep in thought.
“Changelings,” Luna answered darkly. “The green spot is directly above the badlands, their old fortress still stands after over two millennia… it's a dark and treacherous place.”
“What are those?” Rainbow questioned as neither she nor Fluttershy were familiar with the species. “I never heard of anything called changelings back home.”
“Much of the records pertaining them were lost when I fell to darkness a millennia ago. The war against them was mostly fought in the dark with my thestrals, the regular ponies of the realm just knew them as the terrors in the dark. I'm sure what few documents still exist will be located in the night guard's library in Canterlot,” Luna explained. “But that doesn't matter, they may not be alive in the first place and this is just a last present they left behind.”
“This is your planet, Princess, where do you suggest we land?” Shepard asked.
“We could drop right on top of the location where the geth, hit them hard and fast,” Garrus suggested.
“I’m not confident that I’d be able to break the shield there if it is truly being manipulated from within,” Luna countered. “I would suggest landing outside of Canterlot and establishing contact with the guard before organizing a raid on the badlands.”
“I want to go by Ponyville,” Fluttershy stated out of the blue. “I want to see my friends, Commander.”
Everyone turned to look at Shepard as he thought it over for a bit. “We can lose some time sending the shuttle out while we make first contact,” He eventually decided.
“Just know your friend Twilight Sparkle may not be there. She is single-hoofedly responsible for the revealing of our planet. If my guard failed, Tia may have her imprisoned.”
Rainbow swallowed nervously. “Do you think that Princess Celestia may have… you know...”
“Nay Rainbow Dash. My sister had been put under immense stress after you and Shining traveled to find Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle went rogue. My, slightly rash, decision to head out after you too will not have helped either,” Luna admitted. “But she is no tyrant. I also have the fullest confidence my guard has kept her safe.”
“We’ll take your word for it, Luna,” Dash sighed.
“Well then, let’s set course there immediately,” Shepard said, “EDI, compile the discussed information and make sure the rest of the ground team gets the memo.”
“Understood, Commander.”
“Joker...”
“Already on the way, Shepard,” Joker answered before Shepard could finish his order.
“Perfect. Now we’ve been going pretty much full power ahead for a good few days now. Everyone get some rest, we still have a job to do when we reach the planet. Dismissed.”
Luna pulled Legion aside for a bit longer as she wanted to discuss free passage for Shining and the freighter of gear they had managed to acquire into geth space. It wouldn’t help directly in their current struggle but the ability to get supplies onto the planet to start defense preparations against a reaper threat would be invaluable.
Fluttershy and Rainbow smiled at each other as they stepped out of the situation room.
“We’re going home.”