A/N: I know Mass Relays aren't supposed to randomly shoot anything near them to another system in ME canon. They do here. Attack of the Applied Phlebotinum!
Chapter 3 – Arrival
The return to the Citadel was surprisingly uneventful. No honor guard or red carpet, but on the other hand, no one attempted to haul the Normandy's commander away for "working with terrorists." Maybe it had to do with the clear appearance of teeth-clenched teamwork involved in the venture, or perhaps it resulted from gratitude over the end to Collector attacks. Either way, Sam wasn't complaining. The only notable occurrence came in the form of a huge piece of space junk a few dozen kilometers from the Citadel. Whatever it was, it didn't match any design Shepard had seen before. A cordon forced Normandy off-course, but the sheer bulk of whatever it was remained visible from kilometers away. Once Normandy docked, there was practically a stampede as the war-weary crew all tried to get off the ship at once. Some headed for the Dark Star, including Legion (reason: further observation of organic social behavior). C-Sec's chronic inability to identify an actual geth, demonstrated by the flagging of two innocent asari as a risk for "geth infiltration," meant Legion's presence would probably be of no greater note than the rest of Normandy's crew. Others sought to stuff themselves with the first "real" food they'd had in months.
Mess Sergeant Rupert Gardner yelled at the retreating backs of the crew "Oh, so those fancy ingredients weren't good enough, huh? Implacable bastards!"
"Relax," sighed Shepard. "They're sick of this ship, the stale reprocessed air, the close quarters…it's not just you or your cooking."
Various members of Shepard's team had personal issues to handle. Thane wished to spend more time with his son, given his guaranteed-death-by-Kepral's-Syndrome. Garrus departed to have a "family chat" with his sister and father over vidcom, while Jacob stopped in to see survivors of the Gernsback incident. Grunt simply had to see the Krogan Monument. While Grunt was not as mindlessly destructive as he could have been, Shepard took no chances, sending Miranda with Grunt to keep an eye on him. Kasumi planned to shop (whether she planned to spend credits was another matter entirely). Tali, with her engineering staff, visited every shop on the Citadel which sold starship parts, searching for any way to improve Normandy's odds in a fight. Zaeed cleaned out several gun stores with his Cerberus paycheck, buying any ridiculously over-the-top weapon he could get his hands on. Rumor had it he was jealous of Shepard's M920.
A few stayed behind: Mordin to analyze yet more data, Samara to mediate and Jack (Shepard couldn't imagine Jack enjoying anything on the Citadel). After seeing most of her crew off, Shepard returned to her quarters, filing mission reports and doing other paperwork.
The disappearance of several ships (Curators, not exactly pushovers) while poking around the large, silver constructs that kept popping up in random places caused the Trans-Galactic Republic to display more caution. Henceforth, no vessel was to be closer than five kilometers to any "blue ball" (as the objects had become known, due to the purple-blue glow emanating from inside two spinning rings at the "back"). The Republic wasn't about to let these scientific curiosities remain unexplored, though. It was noted that probes placed next to the glowing, spinning portion tended to disappear in bright flashes of light. Initially, all contact with these probes was lost immediately following the "flash," but a modified probe equipped with a HoloNet transceiver was able to transmit a brief burst of data.
In the bridge conference room of the Revenant, the short video played on the viewscreen. Though it was less than a minute of footage, it told the Republic all it needed to know. The hull of a Curator came into view, its dorsal escape pods jettisoned. The damage did not appear to be from traditional energy weapons—the hull had been torn and warped in several places. Holes drilled into or through the ship were either neat or left twisted messes behind. None showed the telltale glow resulting from turbolaser fire, nor did the blasts resemble strikes from known heavy ordinance. That meant either the ship was destroyed long enough ago for residual weapon energy to cool or attackers had used weapons the Republic hadn't seen before. Due to the high power levels detected from the ship's still-functioning reactor, it was likely the Starlight Wanderer had been attacked recently. Behind the wrecked ship, a space station spun slowly against a backdrop of purple, its five arms attached to a central torus. Ships of unrecognizable configuration appeared, there was a flash of light and the video ended.
Whatever could do that kind of damage to a Curator merited investigation. The Republic would never strike first, however considering whoever lived at the other end apparently did the equivalent of a galactic hit-and-run, a battle group would be assembled quickly to set the record straight.
One day prior
The Starlight Wanderer edged closer to the huge "blue ball" construct. Captain Erickson wanted to get a better reading on the hypnotic blue-purple glow.
"One hundred meters…" came the report from helm.
"Get closer" she barked.
Anna Erickson had been promoted precisely because she excelled at exploration. As part of the Archaeological and Cultural Exploration (ACE) program, she discovered gravitational anomalies within the center of these blue spheres. For reasons as of yet unknown, the spheres' centers displayed unusual properties when examined with a Crystal Gravitational Trap: the mass changed, pulsing from high to low. Electrical impulses from the rest of the construct seemed to correspond with the alterations in mass, and Erickson was determined to find out more.
Fifty. Forty. Twenty…
Everything went nuts. The ship lurched forward, stars stretching into starlines.
"Report!"
Inertial compensators kept the crew from flying across the bridge, unlike in the holovids the crew loved (Space ACE Adventures topped the list—whenever engines failed the actors ended up flailing around the screen helplessly). In reality, sudden hyperdrive engagements were rather rare (usually from a faulty motivator), but they did happen. However, unless inertial compensators also went off-line, the only change was a rapid change of scenery outside the ship. This didn't look like hyperspace—more like the ship accelerated trying to reach lightspeed but never made it as elongated stars whipped past the ship without the expected transition to smooth white.
"Ma'am, the hyperdrive was never activated!" came a cry from Operations. "I don't know what we're in, but our speed is impossible!"
"Whatever happened, this is not normal!" came the response. "Go to General Quarters!"
As quickly as it began, the wild ride ended. Space returned to normal, though it appeared Wanderer now near a planet. Space traffic near the planet seemed light. In front, a flotilla of ships, none of which Erickson recognized, moved out to meet the unexpected intruder.
On the bridge of the Wanderer, Erickson turned to her comm officer.
"Open a channel, see if these people are willing to talk to us."
A harsh, guttural sound filled the bridge, then abruptly cut off.
"I'll be damned if I shoot first" said Erickson. "initiate the Cartographer Protocol."
The Cartographer Protocol dictated that all Republic "explorer" type ships were to carry an easy-transmittable database of information about both the ship and the Republic for conveyance to new civilizations in the hopes that understandings could be created, rather than conflicts.
A communications officer spoke up, addressing Erickson.
"Ma'am, we have confirmation the data packets are away, and the packets should have been received."
"So now we wait."
The Revenant and her attendant ships were the largest concentration of force the Republic Navy had ever gathered, christened Terra Nova Fleet. This fleet had also coalesced at breakneck speed—less than an hour after the probe's video feed came through, ships swarmed the anticipated departure point. Based on information pulled from the probe, it would be best to use a "blue ball" located in a nearby system (rather than the one used by Starlight) for travel to wherever the probe had ended up since, if the probe's readings were accurate, Starlight's original destination using its "blue ball" wasn't where the probe had ended up. Whether this device could accommodate the 35km long Revenant would remain to be seen, as the ship was several times the length of the tuning-fork shaped construct.
Due to data gathered by several probes, in addition to sensor logs of nearby ships, the silver stations were given the formal name "mass pulsar" from the constantly-changing purple ball found at one end. It alleviated the myriad pool of nicknames (one included "hamster ball"), since every ship seemed to have its own phrase referring to the mass pulsars.
Fleet Admiral Grayson, in command of both Revenant and the overall operation, opened a channel to the fleet.
"Let's give them something to think about—everyone follow Revenant. One-at-a-time after us!"
Minutes passed with no response, until a something slammed into Starlight Wanderer's dorsal arc.
Erickson's XO, a chipper man named Jaruut Skelton, remarked "Well, that's certainly not a polite greeting." Speaking of the aforementioned attack, he continued "That might have knocked a plate loose or two if particle shields were down, but nothing we can't handle."
"Still" Erickson cut in, "raise energy shields."
If the crew of Starlight Wanderer thought the journey to this foreign place a bit jarring, the remainder of the week would be downright rattling. Six massive ships appeared from nowhere, firing as they came. The yellow beams struck Wanderer across the forward dorsal shield array. With only one shot per enemy, the shield had drained five percent.
"Definitely not friendly" growled Erickson. "Return fire!"
The assailants were easily within range of even the weakest of Wanderer's weapons. Red quad turbolasers lanced out, causing brief spurts of fire to sprout from the attacking vessels, but that didn't stop the assault just yet. More weapons fire slammed into Wanderer's forward shields. By this point, smaller support craft from cruisers down to starfighters had joined the fray, using the constant firing of the large dreadnaughts as cover. Just as with swarms of fighters from its home galaxy, Wanderer had trouble swatting the "gnats" appearing as a cloud around the ship, as the majority of its own fighters were still docked. The dozen launched at the battle's onset had been torn apart.
Starship design in the TGR had swung to "big"—large vessels requiring a hefty screen to keep away those enemies which could not be smote by the main guns rather than nimble picket ships with effective point-defense armaments of their own. As a result, Wanderer took a massive beating from the only ships she couldn't hit, while larger enemies retreated as red sheets of death poured off the sides of the Star Destroyer. The six aggressors who began the conflict took terrible damage due to being bombarded by long-range turbolaser fire. Two were outright destroyed and three crippled beyond the ability to retreat. Only one slunk away.
Despite the victory over what appeared to be the enemy's largest vessels, Erickson found herself at a disadvantage. Her mighty ship was fast becoming combat-ineffective, stung by smaller vessels the big turbolasers could not hit. She gave the order to retreat, swinging the ship's bow 180 degrees while putting all shields aft, remaining power to engines. About to order a semi-blind hyperspace jump, she noticed another of the spinning-circle, blue-ball stations like the one that hurled Starlight Wanderer to wherever "here" happened to be.
"Let's head for that weird blue thing!" she barked, pointing at the swirling mass of energy. Angled alongside the construct, the massive ship surged forward, losing bits and pieces of itself as it went. The now-familiar sensation of almost-hyperspace took over, for a shorter period than the last time.
Emerging from "whatever that was," the forward viewport filled with purple. A space station resembling a five-petal flower spun in the distance. Ships hung around it, but they appeared to be non-hostile as no weapon power signatures lit up Starlight's sensors.
"Go for the station, it might be our best chance!"