Needless to say, Mass Effect isn't mine. The Sphere setting is part of a collaborative effort, so I can't claim credit for that, either.
Bad Neighbours
Lights shimmered and danced, running through the emptiness like glittering rivers of stars, etching the outlines of a great spiders web across the void. Not a web. Towers, giant towers that stretched towards the black heavens from a ground composed only of light. Then, a forest, an amphitheatre and a simple starfield. The entities congregating amongst the glowing shifting light paid their wildly fluctuating surroundings no heed. Indeed, they seemed almost as malleable as everything else, one moment formless clouds of sparkling motes, the next a collection of robed monks.
"They are a threat."
"They do not concern us."
"They concern the others."
"We left the others behind."
"Not all of us."
"Some of us wish to see what happens next."
"They will never follow us if they are dead."
"It is unlikely they will ever follow us in any case."
"Nevertheless."
"We have never fought a war. It would be interesting to see what the results are."
"Perhaps they hold knowledge of the Precursors."
"We suggest action be taken."
"Agreed. Is there objection?"
"No."
UNS Intrepid
UNSO-0350
2195
Leah watched as the airlock opened with a solid clunk, the doors withdrawing into the walls to reveal a gaggle of civilians and a laden micro-gee sled. The large, bearded man in the turquoise and black ARROWS uniform stood out like a sore thumb, because of his almost absurd size as much as the colour of his clothing. Smoothly, he pushed off of the bulkhead he was floating near, dodging around the leading civilians as most of them fumbled with handholds and ziplines.
"Vladimir!" Leah called, waving to attract his attention.
"Ah, Doctor Williams!" Vladimir rumbled. "I was wondering if you would greet m at the airlock."
"Are you kidding? You came on the first ship to visit this backwater in three months. I came for the news, not you."
Vladimir laughed. Leah was sure she could feel the bulkheads vibrating under the force of the Russian's guffaws.
"Of course, of course. Come, I must report to the captain of this ship, but we can talk on the way. I will tell you of events outside this system- as if there were much to recount- and you shall satisfy my curiosity." That said, he launched himself further into the bowels of the cruiser. Leah followed with less than perfect grace, even if almost a year in micro-gee had made her considerably more adept at moving around ships than the newly arrived scientists and technicians. When she eventually rejoined the Russian, he was floating patiently at a six way intersection.
"Ha! It seems there are still things that I am better at than you, my friend, no matter how much you have improved from the last time we met."
"Some of us don't have your many years of experience, you old reprobate. Not to mention whatever gene tweaks you're holding over me."
Vladimir simply grinned widely, exposing a crescent of startlingly white teeth from amongst the salt and pepper beard.
"We must all have a few advantages, no? You have a brain many times more powerful than I, and I am better at moving about spaceships than you. You do not have it so bad when looked at in that manner, I think. Now! What is it that you can tell me of this construct I am to help you investigate?"
Leah waggled her finger.
"Ah ah ah, not so fast, buster. You agreed to tell me what's going on in the rest of the Sphere first. We don't get hypercomm here, so this is the only chance we'll have to find out what's happening in the real world for months. I'm telling you nothing until you cough up something interesting."
"Bah, you drive a hard bargain for such a small woman. But, very well. There is, after all, not much to tell; my countrymen continue to squabble with the Chinese over colonies that want to submit to neither of us. We all know how well that situation worked out for the Europeans and Americans. The Europeans and Zodiacs are still muttering at each other, and trying to prevent the Harawayians, Mercians and Albionans from restarting the war with their stupidity, while the Americans and Japanese sit growing fat and rich. The UN is still debating if it is time to launch another recontact effort into the Deep Rim, and accomplishing nothing. Little has changed since the end of the war; I was considering resigning from my position and taking a job on a drone whaler to relieve the boredom before I was assigned to this system."
"A whaler, huh?"
"Da. Good job; exciting, well paid..."
"Incredibly dangerous."
Vladimir waggled his hands from side to side.
"Maybe. A little bit."
"If the drones don't get you, those crazy transgenes or the pirates would."
"It would take more than a drone or a few Magnate supersoldiers to lay me low," Vladimir mimed punching something, narrowly missing a crewman gliding down the vertical accessway before him. "I would break them all, with my bare hands. Then sell their technology and retire to a tropical island. Ahh, yes, sun, sea, sand, attractive women in grass skirts and coconut shell..."
"Alright, that's enough you old pervert," she interjected. "I'll be grilling you more later, so don't think you've escaped. And nothing more about hula girls, kapische?"
"Yes, yes, no more girls. Now, tell me of this object."
"It's a catapult. Maybe."
"You are not sure?"
"Well, it's not doing anything. It seems unarmed, which rules out a defence platform- not that there's anything out here to defend- it's not a research lab or habitat, or if it is, we've found no evidence of habitation inside it, and nothing identifiable as scientific equipment. In fact, we've eliminated just about every option other than it being a cat... except it's not anywhere near a jumpzone.
"That's not the most intriguing thing, though. They'll go into this in more detail when they brief you, of course, but the short version; it's not Postie, and it's not anything like the xenotech we're familiar with. Granted, we're not exactly experts on the latter, but the Zoc professor we've managed to poach from the Kanonese is adamant that it's got no metric-altering tech anywhere that she can find, and it's obviously too artificial to be what we think of as xenotech. So, it's nothing to do with the Precursors, nothing to do with the Posties, and nothing to do with whoever left behind every other example of xenotech out there. We've got no idea how it works, or even how to turn it on. Hell, we can't even interface with any of the computers, which isn't all that surprising, given it's from a completely novel technological background.
"What we can say with certainty is that it's been here an awfully long time; long enough that space dust blown by the solar wind and micrometeorites have scuffed the paint, so to speak. We think that this thing was here well before our ancestors had opposable thumbs. It's the right time period for the Precursors, but there's no delta dust. What evidence we have points to them using dust for everything, and this thing has no evidence of any sort of metric-altering tech anywhere. As far as we can tell, it's best friends with Einstein."
"Hm." Vladimir nodded. "Interesting."
"That's all you have to say? Good God, man, this is clear indication of a spacefaring civilisation contemporary with the Precursors. They might have traded with these people, fought wars with them, anything! And it's an intact installation, not fossilised nanocomputers or those wrecked garbage balls that occasionally turn up orbiting a gas giant. Who knows what we might find when we unlock it's secrets? If it is a catapult, then they must have had a metric-compliant FTL drive, for a start, which I'm sure you military types would just love. Not to mention the fact that, if it still works and we can turn it on, it has to actually go somewhere."
"Of course. Jump lines off of catapult network are slow as shit, even on a good route. If the Europeans could get a fleet to any Zodiac world without worrying about the systems in between, the war would have been over quickly."
"Right. Same with the Zocs, of course. Good thing this is a UN mission, in my opinion; pirates and drones are bad enough, without the possibility of somebody trying to steal this for their own profit."
As if provoked by her words, the general quarters siren began to blare. Both of them grabbed for a handhold as the slight illusion of gravity provided by acceleration abruptly ceased and, with a swooping feeling of vertigo, reversed itself, intensifying significantly as the UN cruiser picked up speed. For the first time on the trip out to the jumpzone, Leah was actually standing on something, as opposed to floating with her feet on the deck.
"That was turnover," Vladimir stated, accent suddenly thickening. "We are headed back to jumpzone. Something must have happened."
"I just had to mention pirates," Leah sighed. "Hang on a sec, I'll find out what's going on."
On wobbly legs she advanced towards the hardline phone secured to a nearby bulkhead. Experience had told her that wireless comm units, at least the sort she had access to, were wholly incapable of penetrating the alloy bulkheads of the cruiser. Snatching up the phone, she punched in her authorisation code, and then stabbed at the button that would connect her to the Intrepid's CIC.
"CIC, Commander Alverez."
"Comander, it's Doctor Williams. I'm not far from the airlock the transfer shuttle just docked at with Lieutenant Commander Romanov and a bunch of technical staff. What's going on?"
"Ah, Doctor. Now is not the best time. I'll be happy to explain everything after we exit the system, but for now... well, the research station is under attack in some strength by unidentified ships. We can't hope to fight them all, and we're too far away to offer meaningful assistance."
"So you're just going to leave them to..."
"We won't accomplish anything by charging in and getting everybody on this ship killed as well as those on the station, [I]Miranda[/I] and [/I]Lilac[/I]. We will inform the UN what has happened here, and allow them to form an appropriate response. Now, if you would be so kind as to escort our guests to their safe area and inform the Lieutenant Commander that I shall speak to him once we are safe, I have a job to do. Goodbye."
The Intrepid's captain hung up with a final-sounding click, and Leah turned to Vladimir with wide eyes.