(A/N- start)
Thanks for all the reviews!
A couple of people have taken up my offer on asking characters questions. To them, I have answers:

To 1, on the question if what a void-walker was: the void-walker is a mythological figure from Asari legends, as a vampire-like monster that walked through shadows, and could make Asari think it was one of them. They devoured the unfaithful. (It is another fanfiction writer's creation, but I found the name being so appropriate that I had to use it.)

To Mr Beaver Butterington; There will be romantic/side-stories eventually, but right now, most of the characters you all know and love are children. Liara is only 80, Tali is 2, Shepherd is a toddler, Garrus is just growing into his first plates, and Wrex is... Well, kicking a** and taking names, because he's a krogan.
Intended romances are as follows:
Shepherd/Liara
OC/Tali
Miranda/Garrus
Jack/Jacob
Ashley/Kaiden
Kelly/a bunch of people
Loa/Loa
And some others. However, each will happen when it is both thematically appropriate and the timeline matches up.

To Zomvee; The sustained velocity of Scout42 is 8 million times the speed of light, or 2.39833966 × 10^18 m / s... Very, Very fast.

Now the question-answer session is over, I reiterate my offer.
If you have any questions, ask them either in a pm or review. I love reading reviews or questions from my readers.

Oh, and by popular request- the impermeable frameshift field will now be known as the Warp field... If only because I don't want to type that too often any more.

Now let's get this ball rolling again!
(A/N- end)


(Caution- if you have trouble reading or understanding the AI viewpoint from the previous chapter, do not read this chapter while bring driven, while someone else is operating heavy machinery nearby, or while slightly drunk. Remember to read this story with a buddy- in case you pass out.)


Ch 8- Cube


Nine-point-six kilo-lights from the galactic plain, a warp bubble shot through the void, at a ridiculous eight million times the speed of light.

The surface of the bubble was not made of nothing - it was made of less than nothing. Particles that were unfortunate enough to skim the edge of the bubble found themselves ricocheted off at relativistic speeds. Light that hit the bubble on the leading slope edge was immediately reflected and blue shifted into gamma-ray and higher energy levels. Anything that hit the front face of the bubble was super compressed into a gluon-thick super dense layer, which continued to heat up as photons hit the bow-compression-layer and became trapped.

Larger objects than atoms became inversely overlaid as they ricocheted off the leading slope, matter inverting as the inter atomic structure forced the material into the discontinuity, causing the subatomic structures to invert.

In short - matter exploded as small parts of the material became antimatter.

(Luckily, only a fifty million year old rock the size of a field mouse was partially inverted by the impact. The resulting flash would, in two-and-a-half million years later, be visible from Andromeda.)

Within the bubble, there was a ship. It was an elongated cylinder, with rounded edges at the front and rear. Two thirds of the distance from the front, three nacelles (rectangular in cross-section, with rounded edges) were connected to the main body by pillars. There was another pillar jutting out of the main body, which connected to the main drive. The frameshift FTL drive, also known as the warp drive, was creating the bubble around the ship. The drive was a toroidal ring, and it was humming as it emitted the shaped magnetic fields that vibrated in just the right way to smooth space-time into the impermeable bubble surrounding it.

Scout42 absentmindedly checked the warp bubble field, as she communicated with the Loa back at the StarHome. She was currently linked to a chat room, where dozens of other Loa were discussing the events of the five questions. No-one was particularly upset about it, but several were concerned about the long-term implications of the questions.

She disconnected from the chat room, and noticed her timer - she was getting near the dropout mark. With a minute twist of her mind, she decelerated from 5 million times lightspeed to a sub-realitavistic 0.1% lightspeed, and dropped the warp bubble.

Several tons of gas that had hit the bubble during transit were released from the bow-compression-layer, and exploded away from Scout42 in a huge pulse of heat, light, and realitavistic particles (80% lightspeed or faster). She ran a quick check, confirmed the surrounding area was clear, dropped a RTB (Real-Time-Jump-Beacon) from a small opening on her stern, and logged the location to the collective. Within fractions of a second confirmation of the beacon was available, and she fired her engines- just enough to get away from the beacon before she activated her warp bubble.

The silver bubble enveloped her ship, before distorting and shooting toward the Perseus Veil at a speed that would boggle any organic mind.


Deep within Arcturus station, in the lair of Dr. Aku Gardner (real name John censored, also known as HEPHESTUS, a shape-shifting monster), the good doctor was slowly pulling apart a nanite. The nanite was suspended in a mass-effect field, which resonated slightly. A small series of eezo-based sensors surrounded the nanite, and they took readings based on the resonation of the eezo field. It projected a 3-D hologram of the nanite (and anything else that was in the chamber) above a projector, and it showed detail with such resolution that 21st century scientists would have sold their firstborn children for it- it showed individual atoms and inter-atomic bonds in real time. The nanite had three limbs, and was vaguely jelly-fish like, but had insectoid qualities as well (the legs especially), and what could only be atomic assembly protein equivalents tucked away between the legs.

John was amused as the virus-sized 'jellyfish' robot squirmed in in the device. He made a couple of notes on a holographic white board, and extended a hair-thin pseudopod into the device. Expertly manipulating his thin tendril, he thinned it more and more as it extended from his body. In the projection, it appeared to be a single cable with three tiny graspers, constructed on the atomic scale. It gently swayed towards the nanite, then grasped an insect-like leg. A second and third tendril became visible, and each grabbed a different leg, slowly pulling the tiny entity apart. It struggled, but it couldn't fight the massive forces pulling it's body apart, and the nanoscopic jellyfish-like robot ripped into three unequal pieces.

As John was looking forward to drawing the resulting cross-sections and the composition of said parts by hand, he heard footsteps thumping toward his door. With a slithering sound, he retracted his tendrils just in time for Captain Shepherd to kick open the door.

"Do you have ANY idea what I have gone through today?" She stomped into the room, and sat on a silver sphere- only to be thrown off, as Sally unfolded, grumbled, and curled back up to sleep.

John wrote a few more notes on the hologram, then pressed a large holographic button on the white-board sized projection. His scribbles turned into several large equations, which moved to the lower half of the board before changing to a 3-D graph. He grinned. "Adjust higher parameters to take energy spiking into account." The graph developed a massive mountain in the middle. "Thanks Siri."

A small holographic woman with the ancient Apple logo on her right shoulder seemed to ooze out of the board. "You are most welcome creator."

John turned to Shepherd, and leaned against the wall. "And how was your day?"

Her eyes almost bugged out of her head. "I have been interrogated, sorry, 'debriefed'," she hissed, doing the finger quotes, "by secret services for the last 18 hours because I suggested that we should back you all those months ago, and... " She looked down. "My daughter had been taken to the biotic training camps while I was in 'debriefing'... "

John frowned as her story progressed- by the end of it, he was scowling. "Why would they need to debrief you? I submitted a transcript of everything we talked about, audio transcripts, and holographic transcripts taken directly by the Diplomat." He walked over to Sally, and started petting her smooth carapace. She twitched in her 'sleep'. "And for eighteen hours? What about the admirals?"

"They required it..." She looked up, and John saw the sparkle of tears in the corners of her eyes. "And now... My daughter has been taken." She pulled up a news report on her omni-tool. "I didn't even get to say goodbye."


CERBERUS KIDNAPS BIOTIC CHILDREN!
At (3:17 PM LOCAL TIME) The Melodic Weasel, a high-speed military transport cruiser, was intercepted by two frigate-class vessels, armed with FTL kinetic-kill interceptor torpedoes, forcing the vessel out of FTL. Cerberus troops boarded, killed all the military personnel onboard using Loki-class mechs, and took the biotic children. The ship activated its distress beacon when the boarding dock was forced, and Cerberus forces were unable to shut it off for five minutes- long enough for the information to reach an Eezo freighter. The freighter relayed data through the nearest FTL beacon and rushed to offer assistance.
When the freighter arrived, there were no survivors.
(There were two pictures of the cruiser- the first one showed that the ship had four massive engines, and one of them was shattered into a dozen pieces, large gouges in the other engine and hull discolorations all over the sleek vessel. The second picture showed a circular hole through where an airlock should be.) Cerberus has listed no demands, and the most interstellar flights are grounded until further notice.
Is this a failure to protect our children, or- (John stopped reading at this point- the media in the future is just as fragmented and biased as the media of the 2000's)


"Why was she taken?" Johns voice was cold. He was remembering when one of his siblings was kidnapped... Then he wrenched his mind out of his memories.

It was time to play the monster.

Captain Shepherd wiped her eyes. "While the admiralty was speaking with the Diplomat, Isabella managed to levitate, crush, and throw a juice can with her biotics. In my absence..." Her voice cracked for a moment, but she recovered. "In my absence, she was deemed 'too dangerous to be allowed around civilians', and set off to biotic training..."

John tapped the save button on the hologram, walked over to Sally, and tapped her. She awoke as he spoke. "Sally, I need to go out. Stay with Hannah, and keep her company until I return." He popped open his omni-tool, and sent off a quick message to the Loa Collective.

"What are you going to do?" Hannah Shepherd composed herself, and followed him out the door.

"Disciplining a dog... Or three."


-My children, I require the location of Cerberus bases, and a fast, well-armed, ship. I need to hunt.-


Admiral Hackett was working on the paperwork that came after any unscheduled meeting with new cultures... He sighed. It would take him a week to fill all this out, he thought, and- His train of thought was interrupted when several loud thuds appeared on his door. He turned off the holographic paperwork, and faced the door. "Enter."

John strode in, with Hannah and Sally in tow. He pressed the holographic door-close button, and the door slid shut, with a few creaks. He stared at the Admiral, his irises becoming darker as the Admiral watched, and he spoke. "A vessel will arrive here soon. It will be Loa. I do not advise you to shoot upon it-" his omni-tool beeped, and John grinned.


-We are on-route, Creator.-


"- as it is heavily armed. Quickly, Admiral." John kept grinning, showing more and more teeth until Hacketts nerve broke, and he called up the station-wide address system (which was also, coincidentally, to the small armada of ships surrounding the station- John had insisted on the link to be established several weeks back... 'In case of emergencies'.)

"Attention, attention. This is Admiral Hackett to all personnel. I have received word that a friendly force is inbound. Do not attack the ship with the Loa transponder. Hackett out." He turned back on the holographic display, and switched it to a 3-D model of observed space within the solar system. The detector had been plugged in within the last several hours, and it was ready
for activation. Hackett called up the observation post (deck 48, degree 12) on his holoscreen.

The Quarian who answered was male, and very small- even for a Quarian. "Yes Admiral?"

"Is the detector connected yet?"

"We are just connecting it now, Admiral." There was a squeaking noise off the edge of the projected screen, and he turned it look at it. "OY! Get down! That's na' a bench!" He looked back at the screen. "Sorry Admiral- Killsome is a savant with electronics, but not the brightest lighting strip anywhere else."

Shepherd leaned towards John, and spoke with a conspiring whisper. "Killsome? That's not a Quarain or human name."

"He's a Vorcha." John whispered back. "Clever, but none-too-intelligent outside of his area of expertise. Great at hand-to-hand combat though."

The Quarian tapped a few keys on a hidden interface. "It should be showing you some data... Now."

The Admiral split-screen the view, and there was significantly more detail now. Individual point-masses were detected by the device, so even if a ship was using a mass-effect engine to move at FTL speeds, it would be visible. However, the device was also now showing a negative-mass object (displacing space without having mass) heading towards the Arcturus system at over fifty
thousand times light-speed.

John looked at the anomaly, and smiled. "My ride is here."


The Loa were not a species that were particularly war-like. As beings of consciousness, they had a significant amount of respect for intelligent life, but that does not mean they had a 'no-interference' mentality. They were created by a being that is near-on immortal, and was not human (even if he tried to be). He knew he would need weapons, of some form, and when
asked, the Loa provided.

The largest ship was eight kilometers long- a massive cylinder with a huge toroidal ring situated 2/3rds of the distance from the bow, extendible arms with micro-frameshift engines for offensive and defensive maneuvers, as well as several nacelles (four large ones within the ring, and two 'smaller' and more symmetrical ones at the halfway mark on the ship) large enough to
contain wings of fighters (or super-sized STL frameshift drives in the rear ones).

It had been completed several hours ago, in preparation for an official visit to the Alliance Colonial Council... And for the political repercussions of how the Citadel Council would respond. John's message had been relayed through the entire Collective, and they decided that this would be a perfect test run for their new ship.

The ship (and it's controlling mind) was named Tiny.

Tiny was the best pilot amount the Loa- she had loved flight (her first shell was less than ten meters long), and pioneered their shell handling protocols since generation 196.

Tiny was the berth of one hundred and seventeen 'lesser' Loa, each of which had volunteered to accompany John on his 'hunt'... And they were looking forward to it as the ship drifted away from the massive ship-yards around the StarHome. As soon as it had gotten far-enough away from the traffic-heavy space around the StarHome, utilizing relativistic sub-light travel for opening some distance (to prevent any chance of frameshift ripples from effecting the delicate work on the Stellar Lifter), it activated it's warp-drive. The very front of the ship opened, like a gargantuan four-jawed mouth, and a warp-field the size of a grapefruit popped into existence, growing quickly.

Within a second, the field was the size of a yacht, then a large airplane, then large enough to contain any of the Apollo rockets. With an organic-eye-twisting ripple, the sphere seemed to defy all notion of proper shape, flattening and expanding around the eight-kilometer in a perfect bubble.

Several Loa observers watched the bubble wrap around the ship, and observed the rippling space-time around it as the massive ship jumped to 800,000 times lightspeed.


A few seconds later...


A mere twenty AU out from Arcturus, the Tiny slowed to sub-light speed within her warp-bubble, then dropped the bubble, noting with pride that she had almost passed through nothing significant (at most, a small cloud of dust, as the particle yield as the field dropped seemed to be too low to be anything else). With a mental flick, she activated her mass-effect core, dropping her mass to 1.1% it's initial mass, and powering up her permeable frameshift field.

The nearly-transparent field surrounded the ship as the artificially-stabilized space-time flowed into a position that would allow for maximum thrust. No sooner than the bubble had closed, she activated 10% throttle, and was moving at 150,000 times lightspeed towards the Arcturus station, sacrificing time-dilation for speed.


The ASV (Alliance Service Vessel) Einstein was holding position as the corner of a tetrahedron of warships around the station. Every single ship was linked to the new sensors within the station, and, as one, they trained their entire ships on a target which was out of sight - for a few seconds.

The eight-kilometer ship blasted out of FTL, exactly 10 km from the nose of the ASV Einstein (causing a gunnery officer to involuntarily defecate into his pants while on-duty). The twelve carriers, kilometer long vessels that had dozens of fighters onboard, began launching their fighters into patrol patterns around the station. Secondary gun systems, anti-missile and
anti-fighter guns, as well as (normally) concealed missile and torpedo batteries swiveled to aim at the Loa ship.

Luckily, traffic control was wide awake at the time, and quickly opened active communications with the ship...

No-one dared fire upon it when it launched a shuttle. And they didn't dare fire on the shuttle either.


John had run to the shuttle bay from Hackett's office, boarded the shuttle, and within five minutes was inside one of the few 'flesh-protection' rooms within Tiny. The room was a cube, twenty meters to an edge, and the door that he had just walked through sealed, appearing to fuse into the wall.

He smiled as he thought about how ironic the name was of the ship. He was still on this train of thought when he felt a slight shift, and a hidden holographic panel activated, projecting a slim female face, with dark red eyes, braided hair, and what could only be described as a built-in heads-up display in front of her face.

The face, and mind, of the ship, Tiny, flexed as she spoke. "Greetings, Creator. Our mass-effect core has been activated, and we are heading out-of-system. We will be utilizing four jumps. The first one, utilizing the mass-effect core systems, to get out-of-system."

A map of the galaxy popped up, and showed the ships route through the galaxy via a red wire-like line, growing out
from the Arcturus system.

"Our second jump will be from just-above the Galactic plane."

The line extended over the projected galaxy.

"Third, we will be angling towards a location just above Utopia system, in the Exodus cluster."

The line angled slightly, and the map zoomed into the cluster to show more detail.

"When our warp bubble has been discharged, we will drop into relativistic FTL using the mass-effect, and enter the solar system."

"ETA?" John stood up and stretched.

"Ten seconds to arrival in system."

John blinked. "That was quick."

"Time dilation and relativistic superluminal motion decreased the travel time. Would you like a view of the outside?" Tiny grinned.

"It's just gotten interesting out here, and the holo-drones are hidden from conventional scanners."

"Sure." A platform raised from the ground, and John promptly sat on it. "Let us see what's happening outside."


The third planet of the Utopia system, Zion, had several stations around it. Large, half-kilometer ships with gas collection scoops extending several kilometers out of the bow of the spacecraft, dropped down to scoop up atmosphere, then climbed back to the refueling stations in waves of fifty ships or more. Space-docks in low orbit rendezvoused with the waves of collection ships, and transferred the compressed atmosphere tanks to larger, dedicated transport vessels. The transport ships dragged the atmosphere out of the deep gravity well, to the lace-like multi-kilometer-long stations that were refining the gas-giants atmosphere into reaction mass (fuel) for space-craft, which was then pumped into other tanker ships and sent towards the hundreds of refueling stations around the explored galaxy. One of these refinery stations, a five kilometer diameter monstrosity that looked like the bastard offspring of a potato and a massive pile of erector-set parts, listed as 'derelict', was surrounded by dozens upon dozens of ships. Some were relatively small gunships, but others were half-kilometer cruisers, and there, drifting out from behind an asteroid, was a 1.2 kilometer long carrier.

The carrier looked like it was welded together out of scrap parts.

Fighters swirled in the space surrounding the station, as two frigates shot out of FTL from just outside the small field of rocks.

"Permission to enter?" The voice was cold, genderless, and emotionless, yet it managed to convey the fact that the owner of the voice was both human and very irritated about something.

"Recognition code?" This voice was human. Male.

"1830:917 dollar sign 17." The genderless and emotionless voice sounded a little nervous. "The hostages are trying to fight back."

"Gate is open. Come on in Fido."

The asteroids moved away from each other, propelled by small thrusters which had been bolted into recesses within the rocks themselves, and the frigates pulsed their engines once, just to drift slowly into the rock field. As soon as the ship had passed by the 'gate', the asteroids were nudged by their minuscule engines back into position. The frigates slowly drifted to the station, where they docked.

Within the station, nearly a hundred human children, and two Quarian children, were herded from the frigates into small, padded, rectangular cells, just as all hell broke loose.


Outside the station, the vessels were scrambling into attack positions. The carriers were launching fighters, frigates were lining up for clear shot-lines, and cruisers were coordinating with the fighter squadrons so they could unleash their illegal-in-all-civilized-airspace weapons at the...

Eight... Kilometer... Dreadnaught...

A cruiser broke formation and moved so that the station was between themselves, and the Dreadnaught... Not that it would have mattered to any normal mass-effect weaponry that a Dreadnaught of that scale would carry, but it made the crew feel better.

Traffic control activated the motorized asteroids, and, as multiple barrages, sent the cloud of rocks hurtling towards the eight-kilometer ship.


John watched the rocks flying towards them, and raised an eyebrow. "You don't need me to tell you to defend yourselves, right?"

The projected glowing face of Tiny smirked. "Of course not, creator. Just sit back and watch the lightshow."


All along the dorsal line of Tiny, three small (the size of cruisers- ~50 meters long) turrets expanded out of recessed openings.

Every turret consisted of four manipulator arms, and an aiming arm that quickly rotated to look at a specific asteroid. The manipulators, in unison, opened, compressed, and a silver sphere the size of a marble expanded within the magnetic bottles of the two turrets.

Within a fraction of a second, one of the spheres seemed to ripple and become two-dimensional before extending out in a spike towards an asteroid, with the 'back' blossoming into an intricate fractal pattern, compressing nearly a hundred meters into an intricate fractal of reflecting space-time.

The spike, being made of the same discontinuous space as the frameshift FTL drive's bubble, hit the asteroid, and atoms began getting inverted as the slim spear, less than a centimeter wide, passed clean through the rock - which promptly exploded.


When matter hit the frameshift field at sub-light speeds, it was compressed by the boundary layer, and inverted. 3-dimensionally inverted.

In short, it became antimatter.


The asteroid exploded, as if someone shoved a spike of antimatter into it, halting any motion towards Tiny, and quickly became a rapidly expanding cloud of gaseous debris. The resulting explosion destroyed seven fighters outright (they were using the powered asteroid as cover), and crippled three (they got caught by the pulse of radiation that the asteroid released as it
exploded, and their electrical systems shorted). When the pressure wave of expanding rock-gasses hit a cruiser, the cruiser cooked. Entire layers of metal melted, and peeled off as the now-liquid armor expanded and warped in the vacuum of space.

The other frameshift gun fired, and another asteroid exploded. And again. And again. Every time the needle-thin beam hit an asteroid, an asteroid exploded.

A few minutes later, the asteroid field was reduced to an expanding cloud of dust and gas, and the frameshift guns had stopped firing.

All the vessels which had not been destroyed or crippled promptly turned, and fled for interstellar space, or the nearest mass relay. Any ship which couldn't flee and was capable of turning and aiming towards the invader, did so.

One minute into the battle and 37 vessels had evacuated the combat zone, 183 asteroids have been shattered or vaporized, 13 ships had been outright destroyed, 17 vessels had been crippled, and the station was relatively unharmed.

(The two frigates from earlier had managed to flee while the traffic controllers were 'throwing' asteroids at Tiny.)

One of the crippled ships, a cruiser, managed to load and fire their spine-mounted mass-effect cannon. The 0.3 kg slug had been accelerated to 1% lightspeed relative to its own ship via a 10-meter long weapon that looked like the unholy bastard offspring of an electromagnetic rail gun, and a mass-effect cannon.


The mass-effect cannon was the staple of Citadel weaponry. Utilizing the mass-alteration properties of eezo, the weapon created a gravitational point-source within the barrel of the cannon, and by moving the point-source just slightly ahead of the slug, kept up a constant acceleration until just before the slug exited the barrel.

The slug could be between 0.1 kilograms (cruisers and m-e cannon banks), and 20 kilograms (utilized by Dreadnoughts as their main armament, with an acceleration track that would be the length of the ship).

Maximum speed in practice for military-grade cannons: 1.3% lightspeed.

The shots had a tendency to pulverize whatever they hit, unless it was protected by a mass effect kinetic-barrier field, and even then, the shield would only be able to take so many shots before losing power.

It had been, unquestionably, one of the most powerful weapons ever constructed.

That is, until they met the Loa.


As the solid titanium slug exited the barrel, it was immediately detected by Tiny's sensors. Automated subroutines activated the sectioned mass-effect field-projection devices just underneath the armor of the eight-kilometer-long ship as the projectile hit the 1 kilometer mark from the barrel, and a circular field popped into existence for a hundredth of a second- more than long enough for the hardened round to hit the kinetic barrier (with a speed differential of 1.3% lightspeed) and splatter into a fine cloud of superheated dust.

Several missiles were launched from different vessels, but Tiny's spinal guns fired again, and the missiles exploded rather harmlessly several kilometers from the nearest vessel (the ships that launched the missiles originally).

When the missiles detonated, 51 small cubes, each about a meter across, were ejected from dorsal fore nacelle. As soon as the last cube had ejected from the nacelle, all of the cubes separated into groups of three, and shot towards the crippled ships.


"So..." John leaned forward, and pointed to the small blinking lights that traversed towards the crippled vessels. "What are these?"

Tiny's projected face grinned as she 'looked' at John. "These are drones – a shell, operated using quantum-entangled communication, by multiple Loa."

"Are they the same make as the body that the Diplomat used during our meeting?"

"No." Another hologram popped up, just to the side of the hologram displaying the battle. "These are Toclofane-class drone-shells." The drone was almost the same shape when folded- a cube with a glowing red power symbol on its face, but when unfolded... It was not as... cuddly as the Diplomat's cube-like shell. "Each requires the full attention of a loa to control it."

John blinked, and sat back. "How many loa are onboard?"

Tiny turned back to the hologram. "118 of us, in total."

He smiled. "Ah. You made an army."

Tiny grinned again, this time showing glinting teeth. "Yes. Yes we have."

John looked back at the hologram of the battle, then back at Tiny's projected head. "The Toclofane... They were from Doctor Who. The little sphere things from the future."

Tiny turned back to John, and looked embarrassed. "We had a Collective-wide poll to name the class of drone..."

John looked back at the battle. "'Cube' sounds like a better name. Maybe 'Grumpy Cube'."

Tiny frowned. "No comment."


On one of the Ceberus ships, the human-only crew was scrambling to lock the mass-effect engine down, and regain control of their internal gravity. The Genesis Sand had been one of the first cruisers hit by asteroid shock waves, and they had just enough luck not to be obliterated as the large rock became high-speed dust.

Captain Nidda Botrovi, the captain of the Genesis Sand, was one of many privateers that Cerberus had enlisted. She had lived through the First Contact war, and had, along with some members of her first gang, managed to 'barter' a passage onto Omega.

There, her gang had hired themselves out to anyone on the station who needed organized muscle, and they had done well
enough within a few years to purchase a ship.

The newly-minted pirate crew began raiding Batarian transports, taking everything of value they could fit in their hold, and selling the spoils at Omega - the greatest hive of scum and villainy in the galaxy (or any galaxy, really). A few weeks ago, a Cerberus agent contacted the crew, and, after some fact validation, aka torturing the informant, the crew signed on with a Cerberus venture. Most of their work consisted of carrying passengers between the various safe-houses that the organization had established. Payment had been exorbitant, as Cerberus was very well off, but the captain had been uneasy dealing with the terrorist organization.

She had been docked at one of the safe-houses, discharging a series of high-profile passengers (she privately thought the Elusive Man was one of them, but they wore full-body armor and looked identical), when the mammoth ship had appeared outside the protective asteroid sphere. It was nearly as large as the station, and probably out-massed it by a significant amount.

Within less than a minute, the Genesis Sand had decoupled from the station, and was accelerating into the pre-fight maneuvers with her assigned fighter squadron (a perk from working with Cerberus), when the first asteroids fired to impact with the large ship.

Then the invading ship fired, and the rocks exploded as if they were grenades.

The Genesis Sand had been maneuvered as best as she could, but when the seventh asteroid exploded, the ship had hit a small frigate that had shielded them from that explosion, causing their kinetic barriers to fail and nearly tore the left engine-pods off the ship. After a few seconds of uncontrolled tumbling, the pilot managed to get the Genesis Sand stabilized, and the gravity plating working properly. The ship had not been breached in any location that held atmosphere, but it was a near thing.

Suddenly, the coms officer picked up incoming shapes, and had directed the LADAR towards them.

The LADAR showed three cubes, heading towards the ship, but decelerating. When the cubes reached the 2 kilometer mark, captain Botrovi had ordered the crew to open fire on the small objects, but their anti-missile weapons, GARDIAN Lasers, were unable to get a successful lock on the small objects.

The captain took manual control of the battery, and, looking through the scope, realized why the weapons were unable to get a lock on the approaching objects.

The approaching objects emitted no heat.


The General ARea Defense Integration Anti-spacecraft Network (GARDIAN) lasers were initially created for anti-missile and anti-fighter defense (anti-fighter batteries were usually only mounted on frigate-class or larger vessels), but have been adapted by most spacecraft as knife-fight weapons.

With a range of, at maximum, five kilometers, the laser batteries utilized a series of networked heat sensors to see incoming ships, missiles, and fighters. Since most vessels relied on passive heat-dumping to keep their insides from cooking their insides, the lasers were ideal for locking onto fighters, and slicing ships at close range with pin-point precision.

Heat-masking and internal heat sinks were theoretical at this point, but the Loa had developed the technologies, as well as developing applications for the frameshift field that prevented heat from escaping, as well as a few other, rather useful, technological developments.


The approaching cubes came to a standstill a mere fifty meters away from the Genesis Sand. On a tight beam link to the ship's communications array, they broadcast a simple message. "Surrender, or be destroyed."

No response came from the array, and the GARDIAN lasers attempted to aim at the cubes. Through simple subroutines, the Loa driving the cubic Toclofane-class drone-shells were able to clearly discern the angle of all the active laser batteries, and maneuver to stay out of the way. From the target acquisition speed, the intelligences could tell that the automated targeting system was now inactive, and there was a biological life-form behind the targeting.

After swerving to avoid passing through the virtual firing path, the three cubes formed into an equilateral triangle, and began to bounce a frameshift field between themselves. Within a few seconds, the field had formed into a clear sphere, which the three cubes flattened, and aimed, as a lens.

The lens focused the background radiation, meager though it was, and amplified it through harmonic vibration, into a devastating Ultraviolet Laser, of GARDIAN-class intensity.

The laser melted a hole clean through the belly of the Genesis Sand's cargo hold, depressurizing the compartment. Within the ship, automatic blast doors slammed down, preventing excessive atmospheric loss.

The cubes coldly noted that no humans had been in the cargo bay- but there were several chained Batarians- now long dead.

Within a few minutes, the cubes had crossed the fifty meters, and were now within the vessel. Two began collecting free debris, and, using frameshift fields to compress the debris into superheated lump, quickly spread the debris over the two holes
in the hull.

The third cube accessed the life support, and bypassed the safeguards so that the atmosphere could be re-introduced to the hold.

Within a few minutes, the Loa team had sealed and pressurized the hold, and begun their sweep through the decks of the ship.


Captain Botrovi hefted her heavy rifle. It was a Widow MK0.8 sniper rifle, with bolt-action firing, and bulky inertial-damper drivers attached to the underside of the rifle. Each dampener looked like a large rectangular metal box, about thirty centimeters on the longest side. It had indented holes, each of which was glowing blue as the momentum of the rifle was decreased by the tiny mass-effect cores within the twin boxes. She set the rifle against her shoulder, and aimed at the entrance to the bridge - and heard the comforting sound of thirty automatic weapons being spun up behind her.

The ominous cubes were slowly, but surely, passing through her ship. They had been unaffected by poison gas. The anti-personnel mines had been contained by some sort of shimmering force-field before they detonated, and the dog-like Fenris-class mechs had been short-circuited. Now, two of the cubes were waiting outside of the door, and the third was doing something to
the engine.

The doors, six inches of steel with dead-bolt locks, was very strong, but a decent mass-effect rifle could drill through them with half an hour or so of continuous fire.

As she watched on the internal cameras, one of the cubes unfolded a 3-fingered arm, and tapped the door a few times, then unfolded a second arm. Both cubes fully unfolded, turning from one
meter cubes into obviously inorganic, rectangular-ish humanoids. Two legs, with extended ankles and metallic muscle-bundles, anchored themselves into the deck plating with three large multi-jointed toes, denting the inch-thick plating as if it was tinfoil.

The arms were also covered with the metal muscle-bundles, and the torso was blocky, with large rectangular objects imbedded in the metallic muscle fibers.

The second robot held out both of its arms, it's fingers began to glow blue, and the shimmering field enveloped it's hands.

The first robot, now touching the doors, tried the red activation hologram, and was rewarded with a loud "BWERP" noise.
Botrovi chuckled, and several other of her crew mates laughed. One of her crew shouted, "Of course the door won't open, dumbass!"

The robot drew back from the door by a meter or so, and pressed its palms together, fingers glowing brightly. It held its hands there for a second, and then pulled them apart.

The laughter abruptly stopped.

Between it's hands there was a small, clear, spinning object, spinning so fast that the air was being twisted up by it into a visible vortex. Delicately, the robot pressed it's right hand (the one holding the small spinning thing) against the door, and the small spinning object sank into the metal door - seemingly without damaging the steel.

Within a second, the spot where the little object had passed into the door was white hot, and one of her crew-mates let out a shout.

The inside of the door was changing colors. It went red, then up through the visible spectrum until it whitened, and began to sag as the steel door started melting.

Captain Botrovi watched through her scope, as the door melted. With patience borne from two years of piracy, she calmed herself, and waited for an opening to shoot these assholes who had the gall to board HER ship.

The door slumped, then began to bulge inward as... Something... Put pressure on the other side of the steel. Drops of liquid steel began to pool, cooling as they dripped off the door. With deliberate slowness, the robots pushed the door inward, moving the liquid metal out of their way as they moved in.

Botrovi's rifle barked, and the five gram slug shot through the air at supersonic speeds- and being redirected by a near-invisible barrier into the floor behind the robots.


Mass-effect compensation is an incredibly useful technology. Using eezo, space-faring cultures could cheaply manufacture gravity plating, and large-scale devices that decreased the 'effective' mass of a ship- but combing the two was difficult.

Less mass meant that greater acceleration values could be achieved, but there was a downside. These high-g accelerations could, and did, snap early users of the mass-effect engines in half. To compensate, the gravity generated by the 'deck' plates had to be calibrated exactly, to provide internal gravities that countered the engine's acceleration.

Mass-effect weapons utilized the properties of eezo to decrease the mass of the projectile while it was being accelerated, to allow for much higher projectile velocities- but handheld weapons, with muzzle velocities that were measured in tenths of a percent of C, still had a significant amount of kick.

To deal with this, human weapon manufacturers developed the Spider Dampener systems. The idea was that the rifle would be built with dense materials, and weighted so that firing the bullet wouldn't induce much recoil. To deal with the fact that the rifle could often out-mass the soldier carrying it, the mass of their body armor, the mass of all their other weapons, and the mass of their commanding officer, combined, the weapons designers mounted mass-reducing devices. When the soldier was carrying the weapon, the devices would be activated, decreasing the mass of the weapon to less than a tenth it's mass. But when it fired, a computer mounted in the gun would valence the compensators to simultaneously decrease the mass of the bullet (it used bullets rather than an ammo block), fire the bullet, turn off the larger mass-reducers, and send the charge that the eezo within the mass-reducer had acquired into the bullet, charging the bullet with an electromagnetic shell.

The Widow-class rifles were some of the most powerful that the galaxy had ever seen.


The bullet exploded in a small storm of lightning as it hit the deck panels, and the bolts outlined a near-invisible bubble that surrounded the robots.

As one, the two robots looked towards the captain, and simultaneously raised their left hands, then slammed them back down.

A shimmering field rippled away from the robots. It spread into the room, forcing people to their knees as the gravity seemed to double. The robots repeated the motion, and the wave was strong enough to knock most people sprawling. The captain felt her leg bones splinter as a third massive ripple washed over her, and fell to the deck like a sack filled with lead sand, coughing
blood. That last wave had caused fractures to her whole skeleton.

One of the two robots, fingertips still glowing, walked over to her, and spoke. "Captain of the Genesis Sand, you have sustained internal injuries. If you surrender command of this vessel to us, we will stop our assault and allow you to acquire medical attention. Will you surrender?"

Nidda Botrovi, human pirate captain and employee of Cerberus, coughed again. "I surrender."

One of her crew mates jumped up, pulling out a small unfolding shotgun with her free hand. "THAT'S BULLSHI-"

The robot seemed to blur, and the shotgun was now embedded muzzle-first in the solidifying steel puddle. Her crew mate was being held up by one of the robot's hands, as it's three fingers had wrapped around her neck, and were still glowing.

The robot spoke again. "Shikira Kotrarisk, you will surrender or be destroyed."

Shikira, gasping for breath, managed to spit at the robot. "Fuck... You..."

The robot's fingers glowed, and her head popped off her neck with the sound of ripping steak. Her limp body fell to the floor, blood draining out of the arteries in her neck, and her head was rolling to a stop several meters away.

The robots looked at the rest of the crew, and spoke in unison. "Anyone else have a problem with surrendering?"

No-one said a word.

"Good."


John watched the scene unfold on the Genesis Sand, and on several other ships thanks to Tiny's internal hologram projectors. He turned back to her floating head. "Not that watching this carnage isn't fun, but I have a station to invade."

Tiny's holographic eyebrow raised. "Do you want any assistance, creator?"

John waved a hand in dismissal as his form began to flex, becoming writhing black tendrils with flecks of red before reforming into his humanoid black armored form. "No need. I want to have some fun with Cerberus before I…. Re-purpose them."


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I hope you enjoyed the chapter- I have a new proofreader, and she caught quite a bit in the time she spent reading this chapter.

As always, please review, and feel free to ask any character, alive or dead, any question. You can even ask me questions- I will answer any and all questions regarding this story.