Chapter 8: Contact Report
Serrica took a breath and squared her shoulders before moving out into the Normandy's midriff section. Her and Pressly's room was close to the captain's quarters on this second deck near the lift, within walking distance of the tiny Mess area and the duel staircases heading up to the bridge.
The Normandy was one of the smaller ships she had lived on in her career. She'd been used to cruisers before now and only once before now had she been a member of the regular crew and not simply an attached ground team commander or part of a platoon on her way somewhere. Space on a ship like this was scarce, so the quarters were designed to be the size of small cubicles and were rarely used for anything other than rest and freshening up before duty. On a ship this size, she was lucky to even have a room – most of the crew had the distinct pleasure of using the sleeper pods located near the Mess or on the lower deck near the docking area.
Serrica managed a glance at the empty Mess area, noting happily that no one had decided to stop and rest when the new stealth drive core was getting it's last test, and made her way towards the lift and the stairwell that lead to the command deck.
There was only one person on duty heading to the stairs from the lift when she got to the stairwell entrance corridor and his eyes went wide when he recognized her. He saluted her even though she wasn't wearing a headdress. Resisting the urge to smile at his anxiety, she instead nodded to him and walked up the curving one staircase. They were both heading in the same direction as both stair sets curved upwards towards the bridge, but she supposed the nervous serviceman thought the Commander Shepard wouldn't take to being in the presence of lesser mortals and he chose to take the opposite stairs. She was shaking her head as the doors slid open to the bridge. She walked around the far wall from the right access-stairwell and made her way passed the communications room to the other side of the bridge.
"Arcturus Prime relay is in range. Connecting through Charon relay." The bridge comms system resonated about her she turned the corner. The pilot, a certain Flight Lieutenant Moreau with a big mouth, but lots of commendations from flight school, reported the his pre-relay checks over the intercom as per normal for an Alliance military vessel. "Initiating transmission sequence."
An enormous galaxy map was displayed on the central command console of the bridge. Around it where sixteen computers and a half-crew monitoring what the computer picked up as vital to it's searching and scanning algorithms. Along the walls were several alcoves with large work-chairs in them where crew members could monitor ship systems, munitions, and drive core immersions, – a lot of 'itions'.
"We are connected. Calculating transit mass and destination." She saw Nihlus near the cockpit and began making her way passed the map. "Relay is hot. Acquiring approach vector." Pressly nodded her as she went by the end of the galaxy map and she popped a quick smile back to him with a nod before continuing to both the neck and nose of the ship and the cockpit within.
"All stations secure for transit." She passed more alcoves along the ship's neck and then the escape pod and docking hatch before finally making it to the cockpit which contained the central piloting alcove with chair, two co-pilot chairs attached to it with separate computers, and two navigation terminals with seats opposite them.
Lieutenant Alenko was seated in one of the co-pilot chairs, but he didn't raise his head from the terminal as she entered the cockpit.
"Board is green. Approach run has begun." She could hear overlap now with the pilot's voice in the seat as she approached. She made a quick note that the pilot should probably police his beard since it wasn't cropped to standard military facial hair protocols then watched through the viewing windows as the Normandy made it's way towards the massive blue energy emanating from the relay's element zero core between large arms and a gyroscope spinning around it at high speeds.
"Hitting the relay in three… two… one…" There was a distinctly awful feeling of dizziness and some nausea as the mass effect fields from the relay surrounding the ship for transit smoothly took the Normandy into the practically mass-free corridor attached to another relay. By the time the relay had shot them through into the Exodus Cluster, Shepard was standing comfortably beside the pilot's chair, monitoring the progress of the ship after the propulsion on the screens above with interest.
"Thrusters: check," said the pilot nonchalantly. "Navigation: check. Internal emissions sink engaged. All systems: online. Drift:" He paused checking the screens front of him, then smugly added: "Just under fifteen hundred K."
Shepard raised an eyebrow at that last, went over to the empty co-pilot seat, and checked the drift readings herself.
Mass relays created a corridor in space-time between one and other so that ships could travel distances across the galaxy that would take centuries under normal faster than light travelling technology, but before the vessel could travel through any relay, the ship had to give ship's accurate mass calculation and transit destination information. The relays would link using the information as a blueprint to send the ship where it wanted to go. The ship would approach the relay and get spat out at the relative location of other. 'Relative' because, unfortunately, drift from the original destination marker was common since the galaxy had a tendency to change every nanosecond or so – objects in space were constantly moving and often not with as much consistency as most people would assume. The sub-space mass-free corridor created between the relays was incredibly accurate in terms of length, but within the range of the mass relay's 'exit' from corridor, ships often found themselves more than five thousand kilometres out from where they were supposed to end up. This meant that the relay's transit data was not too concerned with the 'width' of the exit of the corridor and individual pilots with the help of computers and calculation aboard ships would have to compensate in transit to hit the four dimensions required for a more accurate exit. No one knew why it was necessary to do so. Why would the protheans create a system of travel that had inherent errors in transit data? It baffled many scientists and prothean experts that this type of error seemed so specific on relay systems. The relay calculation programs were almost deliberately inaccurate for any non-prothean spacecraft.
Serrica felt like whistling at how well the flight lieutenant had judged the 'width' of the corridor, but didn't want to encourage Moreau's cocky attitude. A drift of fifteen hundred kilometres was pretty damn skilled for someone piloting a combat support craft. Getting a frigate to come out of a relay corridor at anything less than three thousand was amazing – fifteen hundred kilometres of drift was nothing short of outstanding.
"Fifteen hundred is good. Your captain will be pleased." Shepard looked back at the turian in surprise from the computer she was monitoring. Surely, the spectre knew how talented someone had to be to have so little drift?
Nihlus' eyes drifted to her. He nodded briefly, turned, and then left, heading back towards the galaxy map and who knew where. His footsteps made no sound against the grate beneath and he did not seem to mind that Serrica's concerned gaze followed him.
She was relieved, but also feeling like she should follow to speak with him, explain herself, and come to a compromise that he might understand.
"I hate that guy," said Moreau dryly.
This time Shepard had to look away to hide her smile from the cocky pilot.
"Nihlus gave you a compliment," Alenko pointed out. He was frowning, paying only a little attention to the pilot beside him while making modifications to the information on his terminal. "So, you hate him?"
The pilot fiddled with his naval cap and turned towards Alenko with a look of exaggerated derision on his face. "Kaidan, you remember to zip up your jumpsuit on your way out of the bathroom – that's 'good'." He put emphasis on the last word by throwing his index and middle fingers up and creating air-quotations. "I just jumped us halfway across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead. So that's incredible!"
"Hardly halfway across the galaxy, Flight Lieutenant Moreau," commented Shepard. She made a point of checking the emissions sink energy readings that kept the prototype stealth drive up and running. "From Charon to Arcturus is maybe one and sixteen hundred thousandth of the distance to furthest relay we have access to." Satisfied with the readings, she turned back to see the pilot recoiling back from her in abject awe.
"Holy shit, Commander! I didn't even see you there!" He looked back and forth from Lieutenant Alenko and back to the Commander.
Serrica allowed herself a small smile, her eyes darting to Alenko's full grin. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, Lieutenant." She leant against the back of the empty co-pilot's chair and crossed her arms.
Moreau frowned at her. "Why don't you call me Joker like everybody else? 'Flight Lieutenant' or variations of it make me feel like less than the extraordinary human being that I am." He spread his arms out dramatically in the chair, nearly hitting Kaidan, who ducked still grinning.
Shepard shook her head at him. "Fair enough. I thought you hated that nickname in flight school though."
Joker shrugged. "Why fight it now? It didn't apply to me in flight school, but I know who I am now. If the sexy crystal shoe fits, I might as well be the lucky lady that wears it." He winked at her.
"Lucky you," she huffed.
Joker hissed slightly as if in pain. "Right." He shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "Though I mean not everyone must refer to you as the Butcher, right? I mean, 'Badass of Elysium' is a good title too. And what about your training? Somebody like you had to have had a nickname with either the drill sergeants or with everybody else on course, right?"
Kaidan winced. "Little personal for someone who's your XO, Joker," he mentioned, a slight warning tone in his voice.
"It's fine, Lieutenant," she said with a wave. She then made a show of looking at the current drive core readings.
"Uh, the world is waiting, Commander…" Joker droned impatiently.
Shepard looked at him innocently. "It's fine for you to ask, but that doesn't mean I have to give you answers to any of your questions."
Kaidan laughed quietly and Joker pouted. "Fine," said the pilot with a sigh. "Be all mysterious. You're worse than Nihlus. Though you can make and take a joke or two so I guess you're less likely to be trouble."
Shepard frowned. "What kind of trouble do you suspect of our turian guest, exactly?"
Joker snorted. "Nothing really, but he's a spectre. It's inevitable that he's going to be trouble at sometime, somewhere, and most likely that trouble will find us and suck us in like a black hole of deathly-death. That's what spectres do: they fuck shit up, ma'am. I don't like having one on board."
"The council helped fund this project; from the seat you're sitting in to the prototype core downstairs," reasoned Shepard. "They have a right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment. Nihlus isn't going to start any trouble on this mission."
Joker gave her a look that bordered on disappointed and contempt. "Come'on, Commander. You're still following the 'official story'?"
"Until I'm allowed to do otherwise, I'm afraid." She rolled her eyes at the thought. Does everyone on this ship know about the beacon now? "So much for security and trying to keep this on a need-to-know."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that," chimed Joker. "When the captain got whiff that the secret got out, he discretely locked all outgoing comm channels. Anybody wanting to use the comm, the extranet, or even answer their mail needs to go through a little team Anderson put together himself in engineering that sifts through the data and messages looking for any mention of anything weird."
Just then, Captain Anderson's voice came over the comm and rang through Joker's terminal. "Joker: Status report!" it hailed.
"Speak of the devil." Joker quickly opened the channel on his terminal. "Just cleared the mass relay, Captain. Stealth systems engaged." He double checked the feed from the chief engineer and nodded. "Everything looks solid."
"Good. Find a comm buoy and link us into the network. I want mission reports relayed back to Alliance brass before we reach Eden Prime."
"Aye, aye, Captain. Better brace yourself, sir. I think Nihlus is headed your way."
"He's already here, Lieutenant." His voice was in no way kind and Joker shook his head with a wince at the tone of it.
"Tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the comm room for a debriefing." The channel cut out before Joker could respond with an affirmative.
"You get that, Commander?" asked the pilot.
"Yup." She uncrossed her arms and began walking briskly towards the stern of the ship. "Don't break the ship while I'm gone. The captain already sounds upset as it is."
Joker brow remained furrowed, though his wince was now gone. "He always sounds like that though."
"Only when he's talking to you, Joker," piped Kaidan as Shepard walked out of the cockpit. "Only when he's talking to you."
"You refused." The tone in Captain Anderson's voice made her want to cringe and reconsider, but she wasn't about to do so unless they heard her out first.
Presently, she shrugged. "It's not a political move, sir," she began simply. "I just don't think it's a good idea." Her eyes darted to Nihlus who'd chosen to take a seat in the chair closest to the entrance to the comm room and had yet to say anything to her.
Anderson took a heavy breath. "Well, I'm willing to hear what you have to say, Commander." He voice bordered on confusion, but his intent seemed genuine. "If this is about Torfan –"
"Sir, Torfan was one hell of a shit-show; yes." She straightened up in front of the older soldier, but kept herself at the position of 'at ease' with her hands tucked tightly behind her back. "But it's not the main reason that I think I'm not the right choice."
"Then explain it to me, Shepard," pleaded the captain.
Shepard recoiled. She felt trapped in this little circular room with too many chairs and not even one table to lean against nonchalantly. She could back away onto the railings that kept the ramp in place heading to the door of the room, but that seemed too far.
"I'm not as completely opposed to the idea as I was when Spectre Nihlus approached me," she confessed, tilting her head somewhat and closing her eyes. "I've had some time to think since then – not a lot of time, but enough to know how I feel about this." She turned her head to open her eyes and saw Kriyk watching her intently. "Make no mistake, I still think it's a bad idea. But I've come to the conclusion that if it isn't me, who else is suited in all of the soldiers I know in the Alliance?"
"So, that's a 'yes'?" asked the captain, hopefully.
Serrica looked back at him, her jaw almost locking in place after some grinding. "More of a 'perhaps'." She clicked her jaw out of its tensing tendency. "After Torfan and Akuze, I never go all-or-nothing lightly." She nodded to the spectre. "He and I need to talk some more about the job-description."
"It's obvious to me that you believe you must show me more of who you are before I bring your name forward to the Council for spectre candidacy." The spectre had chosen to remain seated as he reasoned – he would have to refrain from stressing the commander's already tight nerves by keeping his distance and not being his usual quietly-pacing-with-reserve self until he gained more of her trust. "And if you think it wiser, I could recommend that we take on several more missions together than what is usually standard between the mentor and the mentoree in spectre training. Would this help in your decision?"
Serrica visibly relaxed at the mention of what was essentially going to be her 'more-time-to-convince-you-not-to-pick-me' time and Kriyk suspected that she thought she would eventually succeed in dissuading him. He had no doubt that he'd missed much of what made her into the woman she was now – that much was abundantly clear from the end of their last discussion – but he still believed in his feeling that she was the right selection regardless of how terribly he'd judged her value system. There was something about this human…
There was a kind of intensity within her and without her, even when she was chaotic. He could not quantify it and it was something he doubted she or he could fathom.
She watched him now, that strange, utterly unknown strength showing in her resilient eyes. "I think I would only agree to that if you let me walk at the end if I wanted to," she said finally.
Kriyk nodded. "That goes without saying, I think." He got to his feet and walked over to extend a talon to her slowly.
She was guarded, of course. Reluctance showed even as she extended her hand out to return his gesture, but in the end she nodded and shook his talon. "Just keep in mind that you might not like what I show you," she warned, eyes narrowing slightly. "I don't hate you, Nihlus, I just think you'd dead wrong."
The turian opened his mandibles and mouth to say something when Joker's earnestly scared voice rang through the comm room.
"Captain! We've got a problem."
"Report," Anderson ordered.
"Transmission from Eden Prime, sir – You better see this."
Shepard felt a chill run down her spine at the urgency in his voice and immediately walked over to the holographic emitter at the end of the comm room. She set it up as a viewing-screen and nodded to the captain.
The feed had degraded, but the images were clear: Alliance Marines in a fire-fight with the date and time stamp on the bottom left corner of the feed while the location was a series of bounced satellite locations. What the marines were engaging wasn't clear, in fact the signal was so poor Serrica could barely make out that they were truly marines, but they were clearly loosing ground wherever they were.
An officer managed to grab the feed and shove it into his face. "Contact! Grid: 56873 87543! Enemy is in unknown combat armour and carry several mechanical drones, heavy arms, and an overwhelming force! The entire unit was engaged almost simultaneously in a multi-pronged attack across a thirty-eight-kilometre radius – including the city, outlaying farms, and tram-station! Dig site is compromised! I say again: DIG SITE IS COMPROMISED! Bounce this report of any channel you can! All other local communications have been cut. We need reinforcements here yesterday! We need –"
Shepard shut her eyes briefly as a bullet when through the man's head in the feed and opened them in thought. Disrupter rounds, she thought analytically. It had to be – that thing went right through the officer's shields without so much as an electronic ripple. Whoever these invaders were, they were well equipped and co-ordinated enough to initiate a simultaneous, multi-pronged attack across multiple types of terrain if the entire unit was engaged.
The feed swung over to the enemy fire in an attempt to get a glimpse of the attackers, but a rocket hit the ground in front of whoever was using the omni-tool to record the information and sent the marines sprawling backwards. When the originator got up, he or she managed to catch a glimpse of – something – descending on the distant horizon.
Shepard squinted at what amounted to barely a second or three. It looked like an enormous red-coloured hand was reaching down out of the sky from a lightning storm. It could have been a ship of some sort, but if so it was a dreadnaught of insurmountable size and she couldn't recognize the make, style or build of the thing at all.
The thing – ship – made a groaning noise so loud the marine filming it fell over again, throwing the ship out of view. Then the marine was running away with rockets hitting either side of a retreating line of soldiers.
One missile hit just to the side of the feed and the image went dead.
"Everything cuts out after that. No comm traffic at all." Joker's worried voice was the only sound in the room other than the strange ringing in Shepard's ears. "It just goes dead. There's nothing."
Anderson got his XO's attention. "Reverse and slow at time: 38."
Shepard nodded and reversed the message to see the enormous hand-like structure in a series of freezing frames.
Nihlus' mandibles twitched outward and his eyes were wide with shock at the slow-motion sight of the hand-like ship gripping Eden Prime's lower atmosphere. Shepard couldn't say that she felt any different than he looked when she saw the images again.
"How much time to get there and are we the only ones to see this, Joker?"
Joker didn't hide the anxiety in his voice. "I've already pulled in a request for aid, but there are no other Alliance ships in the area. We're seventeen minutes out if I push her, sir."
"Than push her, Joker! Ping me when we hit the system."
"Yes, sir!"
Anderson walked forward and took Shepard's arm. "You have a team, Commander? Small and fast? That's our best chance to secure the beacon in this mess."
Rica pried her eyes from the image and locked them with Anderson's for a moment. "I've got one, sir. They'll be suited up in less than fifteen. Briefing for them?"
"Tell them what you think is necessary." The captain nodded towards the door. "Get going – this mission just got a lot more complicated." He looked around for Nihlus, but found that the turian had already left the room. He sighed at that, but let go of Shepard's arm. "Get me a comms specialist from the bridge on your way out. I'm going to try and scramble more Alliance support before we commit, but I won't hold my breath if Joker says there's no one else in the area."
Shepard saluted quickly and all but ran on the ramp heading to the door.