Authors note: the following story based upon the "Mass Effect" and "Freespace" universes, the rights to these belong to them. Inspiration has been taken from several Freespace mods including but not exclusive to "BluePlanet" and "Shadow Genesis" and the respective original ideas and rights belong to them accordingly. Everything else my own, free to use to everyone for non-monitory gain only on condition it must be referenced if used.

3rd Contact

Prologue: From The Blue

By DGW3321

"LENORA COME ON! GET THAT GODDESS SPIRIT WHATEVER DAMMED FTL ONLINE BEFORE THE REAPER GETS HERE UNLESS YOU LIKE THE IDEA OF BEING A MECHANICAL ZOMBIE," Captain Velaria shouted over the bridge comm to the Asari engineer swiftly followed by a hard hand slap down on the control panel, severing the connection. It was hard to sound intimidating being Salarian but the situation was dire. The ship had been floating in space freely for over three hours now after escaping from a Reaper attack and making matters worse the bridge was barely functional after a brutal scavenger hunt by Lenora's assistant, damn Quarians.

After that uncharacteristic outburst from his usual reserved self Velaria slouched back into his command chair, leaning exhaustedly on one arm contemplating the events of the past few months. The Reapers had been hitting every colony and industrial complex of outer Citadel Space. Word had reached the crew the previous hour that Palaven was now under siege with the Reapers having drawn much of the Turian fleet out into futile battles and the Batarians, well their worlds are all but lost with huskified abominations roaming every city.

One day prior: Terran Calendar - 5th September 2392 – 0532

"Captain, orders come through sir" the Turian first officer Vickal announced. She wasn't really officer material but was the best the Captain could do given conscription of him and his converted civilian transport ship into local defence forces, hauling vital HE3 fuel. "We are ordered to evacuate the HE3 facility and as much necessary equipment and personal as possible to continue HE3 fuel production, refugees are of secondary concern. Reaper capital ship sighted. Time until intercept 13 hours approximate." There was a brief two second silence while Vickal pondered what the Captain was thinking, what she could do to help but she was never the best at anything no matter how hard she tried, staring at the man as orange holograms flickered around the bridge illuminating the stress lines on the captain's face, Spirits this thing is junk.

"Very well, hail the HE3 facility tell them they have 9 hours to get themselves and gear stowed. XO, time until docking?"

XO Vickal glanced over to her right at the display, "19 minutes at max burn Captain."

"Make it so and inform the facility of our arrival time, I expect no delays"

"Sir"

The XO began issuing out commands, No delays? Who was he kidding! And where is that ship garrison, this is an important facility.

A modular design, the scared and grey ship accelerated as fast as it's weak mass effect fields would allow, the name having been scraped off long ago before the Reaper invasion with only it's number designation remaining, rumour had it that the Captain had donned a spacesuit and scraped it off by hand, no one knew why but there were theories. On any other occasion the situation might have made it into an ad for the Salarian merchant navy. A transport rocketing through space towards a gas giant, sunlight on it's flanks, small green fluorescent nebula in the background with stars twinkling around it and around those stars tens of thousands of malevolent eyes observing their harvest.

11 hours and 33 minutes later: The ship was still docked and someone spilt HE3 fuel over the cargo deck in the confusion. Refugees that found their way from the surrounding systems clogged the docking and freight terminal, jostling for a chance to be saved, many families crowded together reassuring spouses, children and friends, it was amazing what looming xenocide can do to people's dispositions, no longer able to escape for the confiscation of their vessels. A gathering of citadel and non citadel species, succeeding and some failing not to break down into sobs, "Mummy?" a little Asari asked. "Yes dear?" replied the mother. "Are we going away from the monsters?" "Yes dear, as far as we can."

1 minute later: "CAPTAIN" the XO practically yelled in his ear, "sensor buoys have sighted a Reaper capital ship in the outer system."

Damm, it's early. "Contact docking, cast off immediately, any person or machinery we will just have to do without."

"Aye Sir."

"Ops, send a warning to the station, anyone who can get off meet us at these coordinates," stated the Captain while quickly typing on the hologram, "Standard encryption."

"Sir, standard encryption ciphering is insufficient against Reapers," interrupted the XO.

"I know that Commander, no one on that station is getting out of the system alive anyway, send the message."

Vickal looked stunned for a moment, "Sir..." Vickal nodded to the operations officer "...message sent."

Velaria looked at his XO, "There is nothing we can do for them, Vickal."

"Sir," Vickal turned back to her status board.

"Captain, docking reports they are holding the doors open for more people."

"What part of my orders did they not understand ... retract the docking arm Now"

"Sir we'll space civilians"

"Follow my orders NOW commander or I'll find someone else."

"Sir" Vickal tapped on the controls, "I-Its...done sir."

"Plot an FTL course to the coordinates we sent to the station, hold it for one minute drop out and change course to..." the captain scanned the galaxy map "...here, engage."

The shuddering old transport drifted free of the station, re-orientated, blue shifted and shot forward into FTL, with civilians still clutching each other and whatever they had left, floating in space amongst the debris and the Reaper Destroyer watching the crop flee.

Reaper Destroyer POV, also known as Genesis: Letting out a mental exasperation... It's annoying when they do that.

Back to reality

"Vickal, get down there and help her, find out what's..." A bright blue flash suddenly lit up the port view "...what is that?"

"Unknown sir."

Citadel Public Information Codex: The Subspace Mass Effect Dichotomy

Subspace and mass effect, the relationship between the two could be described the same as matter and antimatter, two opposites that seemingly in each other's presence utterly annihilate each other. That is until the hybrid subspace mass warp drive system. In reality it is not really a hybrid between the two systems simply two independent FTL (Faster Than Light) systems working to cover each other's weakness, up until a certain point that is.

Normally when you combine mass effect and subspace mechanics, lightening an object in a mass free envelope in a area of space with a high concentration of subspace radiation results in either a disappointing fizzling out of the core, or it swiftly heating up and melting into a unrecognisable mess on the engineering deck potentially flash frying the engineers.

However this can be overcome using the warp FTL principles first explained by the human physicist Miguel Alcubierre (amazingly inspired directly by the pre computer era science fiction show Star Trek, which remains popular almost four hundred and fifty years later) and later significantly improved upon to make the energy requirements viable by other notable Earth physicists. Principles which incidentally are already used by Terran and Vasudan vessels in a sub-light capacity to propel their vessel efficiently in combination with their standard plasma fusion and ion drive.

Instead of utilising element zero to create a mass free envelope, an almost non-existent element in GTVA (Galactic Terran Vasudan Alliance) space due to its destabilisation by subspace radiation, the space in front of the vessel is compressed while the space behind is expanded propelling the vessel to faster than light speed while avoiding the problem of relativity, moving the normal space round the ship instead of travelling through it. The element zero core however still requires significant radiation and energy shielding to prevent a meltdown. Speed is currently limited to approximately ten times the speed of light, faster drives are expected with anticipated the conclusion of project Fireflash at the alliance's high level physics complex in the Beta Aquilae system. An interesting side note is that the warp drive works conventionally without the use of element zero for FTL in areas lacking in significant quantities of subspace radiation, further amplifying the paradox of the subspace element zero relationship.