Ron the True Fan: Do I LOOK like Gene Roddenberry, or that I work for Paramount or CBS?! Tell the bloodsucking lawyers to piss off!
Takeshi Yamato: We also don't own Mass Effect, or anything else that might make a cameo in this story… what can I say, I love importing things from other franchises and tweaking them to fit the destination! It still belongs to whomever created it, though.
117Jorn: We just own our characters and their shit. HIT IT! :D
Delta Quadrant - edge of Northwest Passage
The Delta Quadrant.
A place mostly inaccessible to Starfleet, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Star Empire for centuries.
Voyager's journey through the Delta Quadrant from 2371-2378 helped Starfleet learn a lot about the Quadrant, but long-term exploration was still not possible.
All that changed in 2409, when the Solanae Dyson Sphere was revealed, along with a Gateway connecting it with the Jenolan Dyson Sphere, which had jumped through subspace into the Delta Quadrant.
Now, Starfleet, the Klingons, and the Romulan Republic had all formed an Alliance to explore the Delta Quadrant.
Of course, there were still plenty of enemies to deal with in the Delta Quadrant. Including semi-familiar enemies, such as the Borg and Undine.
Which was exactly what was happening to a Sao Paulo-Class escort near the so-called Northwest Passage, where the Borg and Undine were engaged in a tug-of-war over the sole area of space untouched by the borg. It was not going well.
"Jeez, we just had to be on patrol in this area when the Undine and Borg decide to throw down, getting us caught in the middle," the ship's Captain, a Human male with dark brown hair done in a buzzcut, a bushy moustache the same color as his hair, and amethyst eyes said from the Helm Console, where he preferred to command his ship rather than the center chair, which was instead occupied by his XO. He pulled on his Manual Steering Column, steering the ship out of the path of a beam from a Borg Cube, before he turned to the Communications Station. "Rina, any word on backup?" he asked.
"The closest ship is 15 minutes from our position!" Rina Nuras, a young Bajoran woman with dark red hair and blue eyes, replied. "And with this many Undine and Borg ships, I don't think we're going to last that long!"
Three Quantum Torpedoes slammed into a borg sphere, destroying it seconds afterward, followed by a Sovereign-Class starship flying out of the debris.
"Guess they weren't as far away as we thought," the Captain, Takeshi Yamato, replied as he opened up with the Pulse Cannons on a Borg Probe, tearing through its shields before a Quantum Torpedo finished it off.
"That's because it's not the ship," Kimberly 'Kim' Johnston, the ship's Sensor Operator, reported from her station. "That's the Ra-Cailum: she's supposed to be back at the Jenolan Dyson Sphere."
The console beeped as they received a message from the Ra-Cailum. "We're being hailed," Rina reported.
"On screen," Takeshi ordered. "Raging Tempest to Ra-Cailum, nice of you to join the party."
The captain of the Ra-cailum appeared on the screen. "Ronald Pinkerton of the Ra-Cailum," he said. "Sorry to crash your party, but I heard these fuckers coming and I thought I'd head out to assist."
"No worries," Takeshi replied. "Glad you showed up, actually - we were on a routine patrol when the Borg showed up, then the Undine came out of their Fluidic Rifts, and they started shooting at each other, with us caught in the middle."
"Then let's pay them both back in kind," Ron said. "Besides, I owe the Borg for what happened to me 6 years ago. We'll drag the cubes and spheres off your ass: pick off the small fry, then focus on the larger ships."
"Understood," Takeshi replied as the transmission ended. He then turned to his Tactical Officer, a Xindi-Reptilian Male named Tholra who had joined the crew in the aftermath of the Undine attacks on Earth and Qo'nos. "Tholra, set the Pulse Cannons on Scatter Volley Mode, and queue up a full spread of Quantum Torpedoes."
"Aye, Captain," Tholra replied, keying in the requisite command as Takeshi oriented the Raging Tempest on a cluster of Probes, firing off a cone of Pulse Cannon fire which tore through their shields, allowing the volley of Quantum Torpedoes to detonate between and around them, shredding their hulls.
The Raging Tempest tore the smaller borg ships apart, and began moving onto the larger spheres and the more dangerous Undine bioships, including a Tethys dreadnought that came out of a fluidic rift. The larger assault cruiser took down a standard Cube, but the Borg called in the big guns with two Tactical Cubes and a V'ger-type command ship.
"Hoo, boy, this doesn't look good," Takeshi remarked. "Might be a good idea to try getting out of here, let the Borg and Undine fight it out without either of us in the way…"
The command ship fired some kind of high-energy tachyon beam at the Tethys, which responded with opening a fluidic rift, allowing bioplasma in from fluidic space. The singularity, however, was destabilized by the beam, and another Cube exploding did not help matters. In fact, they made matters worse.
"Captain, that Rift is throwing out all sorts of Tachyon and Chroniton radiation!" Kim reported. "It's also destabilizing rapidly thanks to that exploding Cube! Recommend we get out of here before-"
The rift encompassed the command ship, both Starfleet ships, one of the Undine Nicors and a tactical cube, then collapsed with all of the ships inside it.
Jenolan Dyson sphere - Joint Command headquarters
The first Dyson sphere discovered by the Alpha Quadrant was now filled with ships of all kinds, including the one that started this debacle in the first place: the Intrepid-Class USS Voyager NCC-74656.
On Voyager's Bridge, Admiral Tuvok sat at his command chair, planning out various strategies of fighting the various enemies that were hampering exploration efforts throughout the Quadrant. They had made some allies: The Talaxians, the Ocampa, the Benthans, the Kobali, and the Hazari… but the Kazon were as violent as ever, they were near the home territory of the Borg, clusters of Undine were still a threat, even though he'd dealt with the one that had taken the form of Doctor Eric Cooper, and the Voth still sought both the Jenolan and Solanae Spheres for themselves.
"Admiral, we've lost contact with the Ra-Cailum."
The dark skinned Vulcan looked at Lieutenant Commander Van'Zyl, who was carrying a PADD with the report in question. "Indeed," he remarked. "Did Captain Pinkerton say why he left the sphere in the first place?"
"Only that he 'heard something' before taking off at maximum warp."
"Commander, the captain of the Ra-Cailum is in a similar situation as Seven of Nine," Tuvok informed. "He is a former Borg drone. It is likely he heard the voices of the Borg collective. What was his last known course?"
"He was heading towards the Northwest Passage," Van'Zyl replied. "We actually got a distress call from that region a few minutes ago, as well - apparently the Raging Tempest was patrolling the area and got caught in the middle of a skirmish between the Borg and Undine…" she paused for a moment as realization sunk in. "And that's likely what Captain Pinkerton picked up on."
"Send the closest ship in the area to investigate," Tuvok ordered.
"The warbird U'Hanyu is the closest ship, according to the charts," Van'Zyl informed. "I'll order them to vector to intercept and investigate under cloak."
Meanwhile…
A woman wearing full armor and carrying a large sniper rifle moved toward a group of rocks to use as cover.
"Commander, this is some serious shit," one of her teammates, a man, informed. "I'm seeing smoke from the spaceport, even from here. Think we should tell Nihlus?"
"Probably a good idea," replied the woman, activating her helmet's comm systems. "Shepard to Nihlus: We're seeing smoke coming from the spaceport. You want us to check it out?"
"Negative," came the reply of Nihlus, the Turian Spectre assigned to the mission. "I'm already en route. Stay on mission. The beacon's your priority, Shepard."
Nicole Shepard sighed. "Understood." She turned off the comm. "Sometimes I hate my job."
"Normandy to Shepard: we're seeing some freaky shit up here," came the voice of Jeff 'Joker' Moreau, the pilot of the SSV Normandy, the ship that had ferried them here. "Might be reinforcements for whoever attacked the colony."
"Understood," Shepard replied. "I'm assuming Captain Anderson's wanting to check it out?"
"Yeah, no shit. Might be able to keep them from landing anyone else on the surface while we're at it."
"Got it, Joker," Shepard informed. "Kick ass."
"I'll sure as hell try."
The call ended, and Shepard looked at her team. "Jenkins, your colony. Lead the way."
Private Jenkins, a native to Eden Prime, nodded as he took point, leading the group towards the site where they unearthed the Prothean Beacon. Next up was Kaidan Alenko, the man who'd pointed out the smoke from the spaceport.
Shepard brought up the rear, along with their last teammate - Hitomi Yamato, an N7-Trained soldier like Shepard, only trained as a Vanguard while Shepard trained as an Infiltrator.
"And here we thought this would just be a milk run, eh, Nicole?" Hitomi asked Shepard in a whisper. "Even when we learned about the Beacon, or that we were nominated for the Spectres, part of me still expected this to be a simple milk run."
"Really? You two were nominated for-" Two drones entered view and opened fire on Jenkins, who was killed within seconds, screaming. Kaidan took cover while asking himself a simple question. 'Was that a Wilhelm Scream?'
Shepard quickly aimed and fired off a shot with her Mantis Sniper Rifle, hitting the first drone even as Hitomi used a Biotic Charge to slam into the other one, before drawing the ninjato on her back and slicing the drone in two.
Kaidan ducked out of cover to check the poor son of a bitch. "Blew through his shields," he said after a moment. "No chance."
"We'll make sure he gets a burial later," Shepard replied. "Let's get to the beacon."
"Yeah," Hitomi replied as they set out again. "So much for a milk run…"
Elsewhere on Eden Prime
Nihlus stuck to cover like his life depended on it, which it did. He had identified the invading force as something that seemed impossible: the Geth. While the Geth were dangerous, they stayed behind the Perseus Veil ever since they kicked the Quarians off their homeworld, Rannoch. Why they even let the Quarians live was an object of fierce debate, but irrelevant to the current situation.
"…the conversion spikes," he heard a familiar voice saying. "We might as well use these humans for something useful."
Nihlus peeked out of his cover to find something even MORE impossible: an old friend leading the Geth. Saren Arterius was directing the Geth to perform tasks. He was HELPING them. 'This is not good,' he thought. 'I know he hated humans for what happened during the Relay 419 Incident, but this is above and beyond anything that excuses this!'
That said, Nihlus wasn't an idiot. He knew that simply confronting Saren at this point would likely only get him killed. Instead, he needed to collect evidence, evidence he could present to the council to prove what Saren was doing. Manipulating his Omni-Tool, he had a camera visor drop down over his eyes as he peeked out again, to record the images of Saren giving orders to the Geth.
Two Geth, larger than the rest, approached the seemingly rogue Spectre, saying something in the geth language. "Two ships in orbit? Interesting. The Alliance had someone in the area to check on their colony. Send one of the ships to investigate. I will be attending to the beacon." Saren walked toward the transport that would take him to the spaceport and the beacon.
"Damn it," Nihlus whispered. He activated his comm, calling Shepard and her team. "Shepard, we have a problem."
"If you're talking about the Geth, we know," Shepard replied. "We linked up with a survivor from one of the local battalions, who identified them for us."
"Not that," Nihlus replied. "It's who's in charge. It's a Spectre: an old friend of mine named Saren. Seems like the man's lost his mind."
"What makes you say that?" Shepard asked.
"He lost a few friends to your military during… it," Nihlus informed. "You know what I'm talking about."
"The First Contact War, we get it," Shepard replied.
"Either way, Shepard, get to the spaceport," Nihlus instructed. "Saren's on his way there."
"Would explain why the Beacon wasn't at the dig site," Shepard remarked. "It had already been moved to the spaceport for pickup. We'll get there ASAP."
SSV Normandy SR1 - in orbit
The Alliance frigate approached the two contacts as stealthily as it could. "Captain, we're coming up on those ships," Joker reported. "Ladar images are pretty fucked up: they don't look like normal ships." David Anderson looked at the aforementioned ladar silhouettes.
The smaller of the two, possibly a small bit larger than the Normandy, was rather compact, with a rounded front and flat rear, though there was a small, somewhat-rectangular protrusion sticking out of the bow, and two… he'd almost call them 'winglets'. but they were almost as thick as the main hull, and didn't extend more than a few meters away from it. Whatever they were, they were slightly shorter than the main hull, and swept forward. All in all, this ship looked like it was designed for combat.
The larger ship, however - and it was much larger, possibly on par with an Everest-Class Dreadnought - was also much more graceful-looking, with an oval-shaped disk resting on top of a slender secondary hull, with two pylons at the aft of the secondary hull sweeping back and ending in two long nacelles.
If a single word could be used to describe each ship, Anderson would call the larger one 'elegant' while the smaller one… well, Joker would probably call it 'badass'.
"We're coming up on them now, Captain," Joker informed. "And holy shit, that thing is huge!"
The Normandy finally came up on the two ships, and Anderson had to agree with Joker: the larger of the two ships was almost 700 meters in length, over four times the size of the Normandy, while the other ship was roughly the same size.
"Joker, get ready to take the stealth systems offline and prime the weapons," Anderson ordered.
"Attention, unidentified jackass," came a voice over the radio. "Get any closer and I'll be forced to take drastic action."
Anderson was shocked. They could see through their stealth systems? "Joker, full stop for now," he ordered, not wanting to take chances with these unknowns. "Unidentified vessel, this is Captain Anderson of the Systems Alliance vessel Normandy. Identify yourself."
"Ronald Pinkerton, captain of the United Federation of Planets starship Ra-Cailum," came the reply. "Would you mind explaining where the fuck we are?"
Anderson blinked. Something weird was going on here. "You're near Eden Prime, a Systems Alliance colony world," he informed.
"I didn't ask for the name of the planet, you-" Captain Pinkerton began, before he was interrupted by another voice over the radio.
"Captain, the computer's calculated our location," the other voice said. "Looks like we're 6000 light-years from our previous position."
"Son of a bitch," Pinkerton remarked. "Try to contact the Raging Tempest."
"They're barely operating on aux power, same as us, sir," came the reply. "The only reason we're capable of talking to anyone are our more powerful fusion reactors."
Anderson was blinking in confusion. Over 6000 light-years? Unless they used a Relay, that shouldn't be possible, but the energy signatures they'd picked up weren't indicative of a Relay Jump. And fusion reactors? They didn't use eezo? This was getting stranger by the minute.
"Captain, we got something closing in on our position, and it's hostile!" another voice said. "Weapons are armed!"
"Fuck!" Captain Pinkerton swore. "Get our Peregrines out there to protect the Tempest! All hands, stand to battle stations!"
"Captain, we got a ship coming up from Eden Prime!" Joker reported. "Like you heard over the comms, that thing's coming in hot! Database isn't coming up with a definitive match, but it looks similar to what Geth ships are supposed to look like!"
Anderson swore. It just had to be the Geth that attacked Eden Prime, didn't it? "Prime all weapons systems," he ordered. "Once that ship gets in range, disengage the stealth systems and open up with everything we've got!"
The Geth ship fired on the Ra-Cailum, but the shot only impacted some form of shield.
"Those aren't kinetic barriers!" Pressly exclaimed. "Who the hell are these people?!"
Energy ran through a channel on the large cruiser's dorsal saucer before a beam of light lanced through the Geth ship, heavily damaging it.
"Looks like they don't use Mass Effect-based weaponry, either," Joker remarked. "Hey, I know this might sound crazy, but… you think these guys might come from another dimension?"
"Only one way to find out, Lieutenant, and that's out of the question at the moment," Anderson replied as the Geth ship (a cruiser, judging from the size) turned and ran, but the beam weapon hit it again, knocking out its' engines before a larger ship made its' appearance.
Looking vaguely like a cuttlefish, Anderson knew it from the footage sent from Eden prime before contact was lost.
"Attention, unidentified vessel, this is Captain-" Pinkerton began, before the massive ship fired a red beam of sorts at the Ra-Cailum, again impacting the shields. "Oh, NOW you're just being rude! Corpsa, kill the fucker!"
Another beam lanced out from the Ra-Cailum, cutting a massive gash into the hull of the cuttlefish before a pair of red projectiles flew from the Ra-Cailum, blowing a chunk out of the cuttlefish's hull and blowing a tentacle clean off.
The cuttlefish didn't seem to like that, and flew forward in attempt to escape, flying over the Ra-Cailum. 'Smart option,' Anderson thought, 'seeing as no ship has aft facing-' Two more beams shot out from the two pylons, hacking off three more 'tendrils' from the underside. "These guys even have aft weapons?" Joker exclaimed. "Who the fuck ARE they?"
"I think your theory about an alternate universe might be a sound one, Joker," Anderson remarked. "We'll need to find out for sure once the colony is secure."
USS Ra-Cailum - bridge
"Send a security team to transporter room one. I want them fully equipped with personal shields and armed to the teeth," Ron ordered as he marched to a panel and pressed a button, flipping it around to allow him access to a Type-3 Mod 2 phaser rifle. This was a rather underused weapon, as the only ones to use it regularly were the crew of Voyager during their trip through the Delta Quadrant. "I'll be joining them. Sonja, you have the bridge."
"Aye, Captain," Ron's Chief Engineer replied as he strode from the Bridge.
"There's a shuttle launching from the Raging Tempest," Corpsa reported.
"Ignore it. I've got bigger problems, like getting main power back online. Corpsa, the bridge is yours." The Andorian seemed to blanch at that, but before she could protest, Sonja had walked into another turbolift.
Eden Prime
Shepard and her team, which now included local soldier Ashley Williams, had made their way to the spaceport, linking up with Nihlus along the way, before boarding a cargo train and shooting off along the path Saren took.
They weren't expecting weapons fire when they arrived. The Geth were fighting someone. And if the weapons being fired at the Geth were any indication, they weren't fighting any of the locals.
"Come on, assholes!" a voice was yelling. "I've fought kittens tougher than you fuckers!"
"We need to secure the beacon, but we might as well give whoever's fighting the Geth a hand," Hitomi remarked, priming her shotgun.
The Geth were retreating from the unknowns, only to take a bolt of energy to the back once in a while. "Judging from the Geth running, I don't think they need help," Nihlus remarked.
"Point," Shepard replied. "Make sure you don't get caught in the crossfire, though - those energy blasts don't look like they're affected by Kinetic Barriers."
A bolt hit Ashley in the head, knocking her to the ground.
"Damn it, Carmine, cease fire!" Yelled the first voice.
"Sorry, Captain!" another voice replied.
"If that weapon wasn't set to stun, I'm going to be VERY pissed off!" the 'Captain' informed.
"Uh… heavy stun?" 'Carmine' replied nervously.
"Marcus, he's your man," the 'Captain' said. "YOU deal with him."
"With pleasure, sir," came the reply.
A man jumped down from cover, wearing something that didn't resemble anything remotely linked to combat armor. If anything, it was just a uniform. "Sorry about that, people: Carmine's the FNG of my security force, and known for stupidity. At least she's not dead."
Kaidan had knelt down and checked Ashley's suit vitals, confirming that she was indeed still alive.
Shepard just shook her head. "FNGs always seem to make the most mistakes, or take the most risks," she replied. "Anyway, thanks for the help with the Geth. Commander Nicole Shepard, Systems Alliance Military."
"Ronald Pinkerton, captain of the United Federation of Planets starship Ra-Cailum," he informed. "I decided to pay a visit."
"Do visits usually involve fully armed security teams?" Nihlus asked.
A Geth sniper fired a round at Ron's head, but the man's personal shields shrugged off the high impact round before he pointed the rifle at the Geth. "Only in a combat zone," he said as he fired, hitting the Geth and vaporizing it.
Shepard nodded. "Makes sense," she said. "Kaidan, stay with Williams until we can get her back to the Normandy. Hitomi, Nihlus, you're with me - we're going to find that Beacon."
"Mind if I tag along?" Ron asked. "My team can secure the station, but I want to know exactly what the hell's going on."
"Like me wanting to know how the hell you hit that Geth without even looking at it?" Shepard queried.
"One of my eyes is artificial," Ron replied. "Filters visual data into my brain. It's a simple matter to create a datalink into an optical targeting system."
'Like hell it's that simple!' Shepard thought. 'That's beyond anything we're capable of!'
"Regardless, we have assholes to kill," Ron informed. "Shall we?"
Shepard nodded. "Let's go," she said, readying a pistol for more close-in action than her Mantis would provide. Hitomi primed her shotgun, a blue Biotic aura flaring around her as she used a Biotic Barrier to supplement her shields, and Nihlus readied his assault rifle.
A squad of Geth met them at the first turn, but they didn't get a chance to fire before Ron pointed at them. "YOU!" The lead Geth pointed at itself before running away, the rest of the squad following suit before Ron chased after them, screaming bloody murder. "Why am I reminded of one of your old vids?" Nihlus asked.
"I'm not sure, but I expect something to happen," Shepard remarked. A digital-sounding scream was the answer to that. "Let's go, before he destroys everything."
"Agreed," Hitomi replied. The three started running after Ron.
He came running back, firing at a swarm of Geth with his energy weapon. Whatever it was. "TOO MANY!" he yelled. "TOO MANY!"
"Hey, Cap, why aren't you using the other rifle?" One of his team asked.
Ron paused and pulled out another weapon, looking similar to the twin-pronged rifle he was using, only more narrow. "Right, the shotgun," he said as he fired the weapon, causing a cone of death to impact several Geth, and send them running again with him on their tails.
"Actually, you know what? He'll be fine," Shepard remarked. "We'd better find the Beacon before he does - because he might destroy it by accident."
Saren cocked his head to the side upon hearing multiple explosions and what sounded like a Geth Wilhelm Scream. "What in the name of the spirits is going on down there?!"
At that moment, he heard a high-pitched whine that didn't sound like anything he'd heard before. Looking up, he saw a small craft approaching, with graceful curves and two stubby engine nacelles sticking out the back. He was then forced to leap away as twin beams of orange destruction emerged from the front corners of the craft, digging deep furrows into the ground where he had been mere seconds earlier.
"Shit!" Saren yelled as he ran off, having taken what he needed from the beacon earlier, taking cover until that thing landed before he ran off to a gunship.
Soon after it landed, Takeshi stepped out of a hatch on the back of the craft, followed by a woman with red hair and blue eyes, then several other security personnel. All were wearing the standard 'Odyssey' Uniform that had come into standard use earlier that year, though they had the 2370's-era Combadge, golden Rank Insignia, and Takeshi was wearing the Long Jacket version of the uniform.
"Pinkerton to Raging Tempest security team," Ron's voice said over the comms. "We have a large number of synthetic targets down here. Personal shields are a requirement. Proceed with caution."
"Roger that," Takeshi informed, even as he and his team double-checked their personal shields. "We just chased off an unknown alien who appeared to have several cybernetic augmentations." He paused as he saw a gunship take off. "I think he's connected to the attackers somehow, because he just took off in one of their ships. Anyway, we'll home in on your position and link up with you. Yamato out."
"What the hell are you doing, you idiot?!" Ron shouted incredulously. "Shoot that damn thing down! Your phasers are good enough for the job! Fuck!" Several phaser bolts shot toward the gunship, with all but one missing. (On the gunship, Saren jumped when the hull was breached by an energy bolt.)
"Ra-Cailum to ground teams," came the report from the ship. "We're tracking a craft leaving the atmosphere. Our phaser capacitors are too drained to disable the damn thing and the Normandy is out of position."
"And I doubt the Raging Tempest will be able to engage," Takeshi remarked. "I remembered Matt mentioning before we left the ship that he was needing to completely re-crystallize the dilithium matrix, and we just can't run the weapons on auxiliary power."
"Damn it, he's getting away!" one of the Ra-Cailum's personnel yelled.
"That's enough, Commander," Ron replied. "Fenix, sweep the compound and secure it. Coming to you, Yamato."
"Roger that," Takeshi replied. "See you shortly."
A group of armored personnel, mostly human with a single alien Takeshi couldn't identify, approached from one of the ramps, followed by Ron, wearing his 2370s-era uniform. "Compound's secure, even though that bastard got away," Ron informed.
"Looks like the Beacon's intact, too," Shepard remarked, looking at the Prothean Beacon.
"I wonder why it's glowing like that…" Hitomi mused as she stepped closer.
Takeshi looked at the 'beacon', blinked, then back at the armored personnel. "That looks rather strange for a 'beacon'," he said.
"Well, technically, it's not ours," Shepard informed. "Almost all Prothean tech has an appearance that might not be seen as normal."
Ron reset his phaser to its' maximum setting. "I get the feeling this thing uses psionics." Hitomi got too close to it, and was dragged towards it. "Goddamn it, I hate my life."
"Hitomi!" Shepard yelled, running up to her and grabbing her, she tried to throw Hitomi away from the Beacon, but before she could do that they were both lifted into the air as the Beacon began downloading its data directly into their minds.
The captain of the Ra-Cailum sighed before taking aim at the beacon. "No!" Kaidan yelled. "If you do that, you might kill them!"
"Meh, we have shit that can bring them back from the dead."
Kaidan continued to attempt to wrench the phaser rifle out of his hands, but Ron used the neural neutralizer he had been 'given' by the Borg on Kaidan, knocking him down and allowing him to open fire.
However, before he could shoot, Shepard and Hitomi were flung back as the Beacon exploded. Once they landed, Nihlus ran over and checked their vitals. "They're still alive, but unconscious - I can't get a clearer reading than that. We need to get them to a medbay for a proper examination."
"Pinkerton to Ra-Cailum: lock onto my signal and beam us directly to sickbay," Ron ordered.
"Standing by, sir," came the reply.
Nihlus didn't have a chance to ask before they were encompassed in light, then reappeared in some sort of medical facility, complete with a large number of people in matching uniforms, only the turtlenecks were a deep blue instead of red.
"Sick people, Captain?" asked a seemingly human woman, albeit with spots running down either side of her head, wearing the same uniform as the others, plus a white overcoat, as she walked over and took a look at the two unconscious women. "Neural shock, from the looks of it. They'll be fine, but I'd prefer to keep them here until I'm sure."
"Fine," Ron replied. "Everyone, this is Commander Rutia Yulanra, my chief medical officer. Rut, these are..." He looked at the conscious group from the planet. "Actually, I have no idea who you are. Regardless, I've got better things to do then play meet and greet."
"Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, Systems Alliance Military," Kaidan introduced.
"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, same," Ashlen said.
"Nihlus Kryik, Citadel Spectre," Nihlus finished.
"Doc, you deal with them," Ron said. "I'm going to main engineering. Sonja shouldn't be having THAT much trouble with the new warp core."
"Considering that it's one of the newest models in the fleet? I'd say she'll have problems," Rutia called out as Ron left the sickbay, waving dismissively. "Well, take a seat on one of the biobeds. Doctor's orders."
"But we're-" Kaidan began to say.
"Doctor's. Orders," Rutia repeated, smiling with her eyes closed. It looked elegant but…
Kaidan, Ashley, and Nihlus felt an incredible pressure from the woman, and each immediately sat on a biobed, a single thought running through all three of their minds.
'Scary!'
"Thank you," she said. "Ogawa, look after those two women, make sure their neural patterns aren't beyond help. You, my alien friend, are my problem."
Nihlus would have paled, had it been possible, as she took out a tricorder. "Um… uhh…" he said, trying to say something, but nothing was really coming out, given how terrified he was from the aura she was giving off.
"It's a non-invasive scan. Nothing to be worried about. Just taking biometric readings. And for God's sake, calm down: if I don't get a standard reading, I could fuck up in giving medication to a member of your race, should we be spending more time here then most of us would like."
Nihlus nodded, and tried his best to calm down. At the same time, though, he was glad that Doctor Chakwas back on the Normandy wasn't as scary as this woman.
One of the other doctors put a hypospray against Ashley's neck, injecting her with some form of medication, although she reacted by putting the man in an armlock. "What the hell?! I was just doing my job!"
"You don't do shit that-"
"Young lady." Ashley looked back at Rutia, who was now holding a small weapon the size of her thumb. "Let him go. NOW."
Ashley released the man, bowing apologetically (and repeatedly) to Rutia.
"Perhaps the next time you get hit with a phaser, we won't give you the medication needed to not suffer a massive headache for most of the next day as a lesson." She continued scanning Nihlus as Kaidan looked at her.
"You're not human?" he asked.
"No," Rutia replied. "I'm a Trill."
"Trill?" Ashley asked, curiosity temporarily overriding her fear of the woman.
She lifted up part of her uniform to reveal a small scar. "Trill are a symbiotic species: a host and a symbiont. I'm what's usually referred to as a joined Trill. We always take on the symbiont's name as our own once joined."
"So..."
"Before I was joined, my name was Rutia Tarem. Now I'm Rutia Yulanra." She closed the tricorder and moved on to Kaidan, taking a new tricorder in the process. "I have 6 centuries of experience and memory inside my head. Of course, that's nothing compared to the Captain."
"What do you mean by that?" Ashley asked.
Rutia's eyes darkened slightly. "Computer, do we have enough power to use the holographic systems?" She asked.
A beep followed her request. "Negative," the voice of the computer replied. "Main power is offline. Auxiliary power is at 35%. Battery power is not yet engaged."
"Shit. Access the batteries and activate the Borg tutorial program, authorization Yulanra twenty-two Beta Charlie Echo."
Soon, what looked like a holographic window appeared in front of Ashley. "What the…" she began.
A face belonging to a woman wearing a uniform much like Ron's, only with gold trim, appeared. "Good day, everyone," she said. "My name is Kathryn Janeway. Over the next few minutes, I'm going to touch on the basics of the Federation's most feared enemy." Janeway's face disappeared, replaced by a man wearing some form of armor, a prosthetic arm and eye and tubing connecting everything to his head and body. "The Borg. The first thing to know about them is where they come from. We don't know where the Borg came from, but we do know that for millennia, they were a small collection of beings limited to a few systems in the Delta Quadrant." An image of the galaxy appeared, with a red hand-like emblem showing the location of Borg space, which then grew. "The Borg expanded their hold, mostly through their ability to adapt and assimilate."
Ashley watched, as the image switched to what looked like a man in the same uniform as Ron and this Janeway person, though he was strapped to some kind of nightmarish table. A man in the same armor she had seen before walked up to the man strapped down, and then injected him with something through the organic hand's knuckles.
"The assimilation process has two basic steps, the first being obvious." The image changed to that of red blood cells and some sort of machine attaching itself to each cell. "Nanoprobes are injected into the victim's bloodstream, which begin rewriting the DNA, and subverting organs to the process, creating implants within the body." The image changed to that of a woman with pale skin and implants growing out of her head. "Once the process is complete, the body is ready for the next step of the assimilation process, running on automatic as a neural transceiver in imbedded in the upper spinal column, and a neural processor is embedded just below the ribcage, often on top of the victim's clothing. Other, more optional, surgical modifications include replacement of a forearm with a functioning prosthetic, and one eye with a holographic imaging scanner that can see through the entire EM band. After modifications are finished, the new Borg drone is connected to the hive mind, becoming part of the collective conscious, wholly robbed of all sense of individuality, and placed a purpose in mind, and a designation assigned to reflect that purpose."
Ashley continued watching, horrified that there was a race out there that did something like this.
"Most Borg retain the experiences they had when they were individuals, adding to those experiences with every individual they are forced to add to the collective, although processing drones retain the experiences of all assimilated Borg on their respective vessels."
Ashley looked at Rutia fearfully. "He…"
"He was one of the latter."
"The Borg are ruthless and efficient, and although we have dealt them heavy blows over the years, they come back stronger than ever. This concludes part one of the lesson. Thank you for your time."
The hologram winked out. "So… that's what you meant when you said he had even more memories than you," Ashley said. "It's… it's hard to believe something like these… Borg… exist."
The lights dimmed slightly. "Warning," the computer informed. "Auxiliary power at 32%."
"Wonderful," Rutia remarked. "At least the Raging Tempest doesn't have the same warp core problems we have."
USS Ra-Cailum - Deck 16, Main engineering
Ron marched into main engineering, a sour look on his face. "Lieutenant Commander, where the FUCK is my warp power?"
On top of a grav lift, fiddling with a piece of dilithium, was his chief engineer. "I'm working on it," she said. "This warp core is a new model, based on designs taken from the Undine, the Solanae Dyson Sphere AND the Voth! I barely finished reading the technical manual before we got sent here!"
"Oh, for fuck's sake, just put the dilithium back in the chamber!"
"If we suffer a warp core breach, I blame you!" She placed the crystal back in the slot before closing it and lowering herself back to the deck. "Restart the reaction."
After a few seconds, there was a thrum of power as the Matter/Antimatter reactions restarted, and the lights soon returned to full intensity.
"What do you know, we're not dead," Sonja remarked.
"Bridge to captain."
"Go ahead."
"The Raging Tempest just regained warp power, and we've finished our scans of the Normandy. Looks like they have something on their ship that Commander Henderson might want to look at."
"Understood," Ron replied before he looked at her. "Contact the Tempest and get on the horn with their chief engineer. I want you both on this."
He then left main engineering as Sonja sat at a console. "Computer, open a channel to the Raging Tempest, directed at their chief engineering officer," she said.
Soon, the image of a blond-haired, blue eyed man with a beard appeared on the screen. "This is Matthew Williams, Chief Engineer of the Raging Tempest," he said. "To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"
"Sonja Henderson, your counterpart on the Ra-Cailum," she replied as she brought up several scans and looked through them briefly. "We might have something we need to contend with, seeing as that ship out there doesn't use warp drive. I'm forwarding the data to you now." She pressed a button on the console, sending him the data.
"Thanks," he replied, looking over the data. "Hmm… you're right, they don't seem to use warp drive, but they've got some different power source… Look near the rear of the ship - they've got some energy signature I've never seen before…"
"I sent a shuttle to recover the power core of the ship we took down," Sonja informed. "Maybe that thing'll give us some answers."
"Well, at least we'll have one engineer who knows what he's doing."
Sonja's eyes narrowed. "Do you see the warp core behind me? It's based on Undine, Voth and Dyson Sphere technology. YOU have a standard warp core. I have to deal with a finicky prototype!"
"Point taken," Matthew replied, "Though I had my own problems - re-crystallizing Dilithium isn't a walk in the park, you know, especially when your Captain is a combat-fueled adrenaline junkie who commands from the helm, and wants it done now so that he can fight. Standard safe timeframe for re-crystallizing Dilithium is three days, two if you want to rush it - I got it done in six hours, and even then I still ran a few test patterns to make sure there were no flaws before I started the core back up."
Sonja was not impressed. "I'll be seeing you in a few minutes, Commander. That power core will be delivered to your ship. Henderson out." She closed the channel and got to her feet. "Mitod! You have the ship! Try to make that thing not blow up while I'm gone!" The Orion transfer glanced back at her superior before simply nodding.
USS Ra-Cailum - sickbay
"You know, I can remove those implants if they're giving you headaches, Lieutenant."
Kaidan blinked before he looked at Rutia again. "Huh?" he asked.
"What, you think those biobeds are just there to sleep on? They've got advanced medical sensors. The tricorders are better at taking detailed scans, but the basic ones the biobeds made on you say that there's a set of implants that are giving you migraines. Why they're even there, I don't know, and I really don't care."
Kaidan shook his head. "Thanks, but not really necessary," he said. "I need those to control my Biotics. At least migraines are the only side-effects - some of the others with L2-Implants aren't nearly as lucky. L3-Implants would let me do the same thing without migraines, but I don't think people know just what would happen if we removed the old models to put in new ones."
"I can do it with my eyes closed."
"Doctor, I-"
"Lieutenant, I studied medicine at Starfleet Academy for 8 years. I know the anatomy of every race in the Federation and I can perform routine operations on them in my sleep. I was the one who operated on Captain Pinkerton and helped him regain his humanity after the ship I was on recovered him from the Vega colony. Removing and replacing those implants is NOTHING to me."
Kaidan thought for a bit, before he nodded. "Alright," he said. "Once we can get to somewhere where they install those kind of Implants, like the Citadel, or Arcturus Station, I'll let you see about trying to get the new ones in."
"No need to go anywhere," Rutei informed. "The nurse's tricorder scanned those implants of yours and uploaded the specs into our computer. With a bit of work, I can make them better then your L3 model implants."
"And you're a tech specialist?" Kaidan asked.
"No," Rutia replied as the door to sickbay opened, allowing Ron entry. "He is."
"Doctor, you rang?" Ron asked.
Rutia pointed in the direction of her office. The captain sighed, walking into it.
"Him?" Kaidan asked, semi-incredulously.
"Remember, the man was a processing drone," Rutia explained. "He had millions of minds with specialities ranging from cybernetics to medicine to just about everything going through his head. Came at a price, though."
"I'd imagine," Kaidan remarked. "Probably has a hard time keeping all those memories straight."
"That and he has nightmares of the day he was assimilated." Rutia looked through her surgical equipment, finding something that resembled a scalpel. "Now, I suggest you strip, Lieutenant: that armor's only going to get in the way."
"Um… are you sure that's really nece-" Kaidan began, flushing a little bit from embarrassment at being told to strip in a place with so many women.
"I. Insist." The evil smile returned, and Kaidan paled before complying.
"I'll, uh, go take a walk. See what's around," Ashley said, quickly making her retreat from sickbay.
"I think I'll join her," Nihlus added, muttering something about 'evil witch doctor women' before quickly walking (although Kaidan swore he was running) out of sickbay.
"Isane, get my surgical gown," Rutia ordered. "I'm going to need it."
USS Raging Tempest - Main Engineering
Matt stood in one of the few Cargo Bays they had on the ship. Early in the ship's life, while it was being completely rebuilt from the Defiant-Class USS Tempest, Captain Yamato had decided the Aft Torpedo Launchers were really not getting enough use to justify why they were there. So, the Aft Launchers had been completely removed during the rebuild, and the space where their Torpedo Magazines would have been were converted to cargo holds - rather useful at this point in time, because the alien power core was too large to fit in Main Engineering without obstructing movement.
"Any luck on finding out what the hell that unknown material in the core is?" he asked.
Sonja ran her tricorder over the core several times. "Well, I can rule out almost every single substance in the Ra-Cailum's database."
"That's surprising," Matt replied, before looking over at Kim, who was using her own Tricorder to look it over. "What about you, Kim, you have anything?"
"Well, like Sonja said, Matt, this thing isn't in any of the databases," Kim replied. "Can't tell much else, really."
"And I actually have a partial match to something in the database," Sonja informed.
"What's that?" Matt asked.
Sonja scoffed slightly. "It's ironic. We have the shit lining our warp cores as I speak." She closed the tricorder and sighed. "It's trilithium resin. Sure, a few things are different, and there's a few molecules added to it, but it's basically detoxified trilithium resin."
"What the…" Matt remarked, looking at the core with shock… and a bit of fear. "Didn't some people use Trilithium in weapons once? Star killing weapons?"
Sonja glanced at the man and shook her head. "That's not trilithium resin. that's detoxified and crystallized trilithium. Some el-Aurian jackass named Soran blew up the Amargosa star and nearly blew up the Veridian system, if it weren't for Picard and the E-D. Course, you all know what happened to that ship. Trilithium resin's used in Romulan plasma torpedoes: it's the primary detonator. Hell, even the Republic still uses that shit."
"Ah," Matt replied. "Still, these people are using it as a power source?"
Sonja sighed and checked over the core. "If the electrical current's changed, it can reduce or increase the mass of an object. Plus I'm detecting a few impurities associated with soil and rock. This shit's naturally occurring."
"Huh," Mat remarked. "That's very interesting… and would explain why they don't have Warp Drive - drop an object's mass enough, and you can achieve FTL with conventional sublight engines."
"Regardless, Capt'n wants this thing hooked up to your power grid: he's planning on accompanying the Normandy back to this Citadel place and judging from information we lifted from their database, these things are the only way to connect to something called a 'mass relay'. We get this one hooked up to yours and I can build one on the Ra-Cailum."
"Alright," Matt replied. "Let's get this done."
USS Ra-Cailum - bridge
Ashley had been wandering the ship for what seemed like hours, finding her way from sickbay to the shuttlebay to main engineering before getting into a turbolift and heading for the bridge. It was a rather… freaky experience, seeing as the lift literally shoved her onto the ceiling after she pushed a few controls.
She'd managed to get her feet back down to the floor when the lift arrived, the doors opening and allowing her to step out into something that was smaller, and yet more high-tech, than anything she'd seen before.
"...operations nominal, Commander," a voice was saying. "We have a slight issue with the shield generator, though."
"Tell Mitod to get a team to take a look at it. The last thing we need is to lose our shields in the middle of a firefight," a blonde woman said before turning her gaze to Ashley. "Well, this is a surprise."
"Sorry if I'm intruding," Ashley replied. "Been wandering around the ship somewhat aimlessly."
"For 46 minutes and 36 seconds, prior to you stepping into that turbolift," the woman replied.
Ashley blinked. "What?"
"Our security systems have been tracking you since you left sickbay. Corpsa and I have been making bets on where you'd end up next. Speaking of which, where's our alien friend?"
"You mean Nihlus?" Ashley asked. "Not sure where he's ended up - we ended up going in different directions after we left sickbay. And speaking of sickbay, you have a really scary doctor."
"Only one person on this ship doesn't fear her, and I wasn't talking to you. Cor?"
A blue skinned, white-haired woman with... 'Are those antennae?' on top of her head chuckled briefly.
"Deck 34, near the antimatter storage pods. He's lost."
Ashley's eyes widened. "Antimatter?" she asked, somewhat shocked. "You guys use antimatter?!"
"Yeah, so what? It's normal. Deuterium/antideuterium reaction, plus-"
"Ma'am, your brother is not going to be happy with you if he finds out you're talking about our power generation systems."
Ashley's eyes were wide in shock. "Antimatter… We've been able to harness it, but not in such a way that we could power starships - let alone something of this size," she remarked.
"Well, we have more than just a few grams of the shit in the pods," the blonde replied. "Speaking of which, Corpie, can you beam him out of there? If the magnetic containment fields go offline because of him screwing around down there, there's going to be an explosion that'll make all of our photon torpedoes look like a sparkler!"
"I'm locking onto him now. And don't call me Corpie."
A few seconds later, a sparkling column of light deposited Nihlus on the bridge. "Huh?" he asked, looking around.
"Welcome to the bridge," the blond replied. "I'm Lieutenant Commander Riza Pinkerton. I'm going to have to ask you to never go below deck 30 ever again: those are the bowels of the ship, and if anything goes boom down there, everything within a few thousand kilometers of us goes boom."
Nihlus blinked. "But… how-"
"Nihlus, they use Antimatter as a power source," Ashley informed. "And apparently they use a lot of it."
Nihlus' eyes widened. "Are you serious, Chief Williams?" he asked.
"Technically, no. We use a controlled enhanced matter/antimatter reaction. And Commander Henderson will be pissed off if you did anything down there: that warp core is a prototype." Suddenly, the lights went out, followed by the feeling of weightlessness. "…I am going to fucking kill you."
If he could, Nihlus would have looked sheepish. "…oops?" he said, nervously.
A roar of rage was the response to that.
USS Raging Tempest
The sight of the Ra-Cailum's blue warp plasma cooling vents and red Bussard collectors being black as night and the lack of lights was not a good sign. The sight of the Ra-Cailum's chief engineer looking livid was even worse. "ARGH!"
"Umm… should we get you back over there?" Matt asked cautiously.
"I! JUST! FIXED! THAT!" The roar of rage could probably be heard three systems away. (On the Citadel, people wondered why they heard a loud-sounding scream out of nowhere) The Mars-born engineering officer ran to the transporter room, cautiously and fearfully followed by the Raging Tempest's engineering crew.
"A… anything we can do to help?" Matt asked.
"STAY THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY!" Sonja roared back before her form disappeared in a transporter beam.
The RT crew backed away from the transporter room, even though she was no longer there. "I'm scared," said one of the younger engineers.
"Agreed," Matt replied. "She's got quite the temper." He shivered a bit. "Let's get back to work on linking that local power core to our systems."
"R… right," the rest of the engineers replied.
USS Ra-Cailum - somewhere between decks 1 and 16
Nihlus had rarely felt fear since joining the Spectres. Confusion, apprehension and such, yes, but not fear. NOW he had something to fear as Riza Pinkerton chased him through the Jefferies tubes in zero-g. The crew didn't do a damn thing to stop her: if anything, they treated it as business as usual.
'Is every woman on this ship scary, crazy, or both?!' Nihlus thought to himself as he shoved off another bulkhead, shooting down another tube to try and escape the blond berserker currently on his tail.
He made his way into a main corridor, but this proved to be a mistake, as Riza had pulled out what appeared to be a fucking scythe and was leaping after him with it in hand. Needless to say, the Turian was not wanting to get close to that thing. "FUCK!"
Another roar was heard as a woman with brown hair forced the doors to the transporter room open, wielding a pair of nasty-looking… Nihlus wasn't sure if they were knives or knuckledusters.
Still, with the look in her eyes, he didn't want to stick around and ask, as he immediately bolted away from both her and Riza.
Mitod kicked the warp core, somehow reactivating the M/AM reaction before everyone fell to the deck with a scream or two. "Sounds like Riza and Sonja got pissed off," she muttered.
"HELP ME!" came another scream, this one filled with fear.
She shook her head and got back to work, as the warp core wasn't going to keep itself running.
SSV Normandy
"OK," Anderson said, looking at his Ground Team, which was now reassembled in the briefing room, minus Jenkins but with the addition of Ashley. "So the Geth were led by Saren, who managed to get away. Shepard and Yamato were both caught by the Beacon and received some kind of vision, before you were all transported to the larger of their ships, where they upgraded Kaidan's implants so he doesn't have migraines anymore, and Nihlus ticked off their chief engineer by doing something that accidentally shut down their reactor mere hours after they'd gotten it up and running." He sighed. "Am I missing anything?"
"Only that Nihlus is currently in the Ra-Cailum's sickbay, undergoing major surgery," Ashley remarked. "Those two were pissed off."
"And he let them off the hook?"
"I think the Captain threw them in the brig," Shepard remarked, having regained consciousness in time to witness the aftermath, "but he was a hair's breath from going on a rampage himself, so…"
Anderson sighed again. "Well, once he's back to full health, and their ships have been modified to use the relays, we'll head to the Citadel - we need to get all this information to the Council."
"I think the Raging Tempest is ready," Kaidan informed. "The Ra-Cailum's actually building their own ME core."
"Wait, what?" Anderson asked. "Don't you need Eezo for that?"
"Apparently, they can make it."
Anderson sighed. "Of course they can," he said.
"I think it's a waste product from their M/AM reactor," Kaidan continued. "They just need to electrochemically alter it to be, well, eezo."
"And they're doing that right now," Anderson replied, with yet another sigh. "Remind me to add 'don't fuck with these people' to my report."
"Yes sir," Shepard replied.
"That'll be all for now," Anderson informed. "Dismissed. And welcome to the Normandy, Chief Williams."
"Thank you, sir," Ashley replied, as they all left the room, though Shepard and Hitomi stayed behind.
"Sorry for getting you dragged into that vision business too, Nicole," Hitomi said.
"Not your fault, Hitomi," Shepard replied. "Besides, we have bigger problems now."
Hitomi nodded. "True," she said, before smiling. "But let's not worry about those problems for now."
She then pulled Shepard into a passionate kiss.
Anderson, who had been waiting at the door for Shepard and Hitomi to come out, could soon hear sensual moans coming from within the briefing room. He smiled ruefully, before setting the door to not open until they were ready to come out.
USS Ra-Cailum - Captain's ready room
"Ladies, while I understand your desire for vengeance, that poor son of a bitch in sickbay is barely hanging on by a thread," Ron informed. "That LAST thing I need to deal with is political bullshit." Both women exchanged a look before looking back at their CO. "Consider yourselves on probation for the time being. When you're not on duty, you're to report to the brig. That's the way it's going to be for the next two weeks."
"Yes, sir," Sonja replied.
"Yes, Onii-san," Riza agreed.
Both turned to leave. "By the way…" They looked back at him. "Next time, leave a piece for me." Ron tapped the monomolecular kilij sitting on his desk. "Report to your stations and get us to this Citadel."
They nodded, before leaving the ready room.
Ron went back to work on his monitor, reading through Starfleet's rules and regulations. He had heard of Captain Yamato's disregard for certain regs. Something he intended to put an end to. If it weren't for the Klingon War, Takeshi wouldn't be commanding a starship. 'Then again, neither would I, as I would still be at Starfleet Medical.' The ship shuddered slightly as it made contact with the mass relay, sending them on their way to the Citadel.
Takeshi Yamato: And so the story of Crossover begins once more… though things are a bit different this time around.
Ron the True Fan: Mostly because I'm limiting Jorn's pull on certain events. Seriously, there's a reason I use canon while changing as little as possible: limiting the headaches I get.
Takeshi Yamato: Not to mention the Shepard/Hitomi Pairing is already established this time around. For those curious - in this version, Shepard and Hitomi were already starting to become closer than friends by the time of the Elysium Blitz, and after the events of the Blitz, where Shepard saved Hitomi's life several times, with Hitomi returning the favor an equal amount of times, the two realized just how close they were, and admitted their feelings to each other.
And yes, this means that Shepard and Hitomi are both following the War Hero backstory of holding the line at the Blitz. And they both got nominated by Nihlus for the Spectres from the word 'go'.
Ron the True Fan: And we've introduced a new beginning, thanks to Delta Rising. And for those wondering why I'm not working on HAH URE… Patriot-112 is why. He's NEVER on, and he's involved. Blame him.
Takeshi Yamato: Or, rather, blame his workaholic grandfather, who pulls him into project after project, leaving him little time to actually help us with the stories he's a part of.
Ron the True Fan: It works.
Ja Ne!