Disclaimer:
Warhammer 40K is the property of Games workshop
Mass Effect is the property of Bioware
Authors Note
abdacom3015 - Maybe, haven't decided yet.
thenewgod - i wasn't to sure on the speeds for plasma torch drive the imperial use. But i just want to stress that ME ships are inherently fast to the point that they can perform the Picard manoeuvre at will.
CHAPTER 04 – DISCOVERY
Location: Paz system, Vallhaland Threshold
Timestamp: Citadel year 2137, same time as events in Fatum system
Silhouetted in the distant light of the star Paz, a battered and bruised former Batarian frigate drifted through the system. The old and nearly obsolete Ku'larn class frigate renamed the Red Nebula by her latest mistress, who was at the moment was reconsidering here career choice as a small time pirate. Onboard the battered ship Captain Sel'ya Myrah and her crew had barely escaped a botched raiding attempt on a mining colony on nearby Garvug. Relying on information purchased from a local info broker, she and her crew had assaulted the colony after an infiltration team had brought the outer defenses down. But as her assault squads were hammering the colony guards, four frigates under the Blood pack had jumped from behind several asteroids and had brutalized her ship and her second frigate while deploying several shuttles of Krogan and Vorcha behind her men, trapping her assault teams between the colony guards and Blood pack like a hammer and anvil, pounding the life out of many of her best. And she herself had barely managed collect her routed ground troops to escape only to sacrificing her other frigate to escape to fight another day.
She and her personal ship jumped out of the system to a random point of interstellar before jumping again to avoid being followed by the mercs only to ending up in the Oort cloud of the Paz system, However she took the chance to affect repairs knowing that the local relay would be under watch by the mercs. She knew that it was only matter of time that the mercs would comb through the local systems connected to the relay and find her but the former commando she would not just give up. Not when she could hide in the icy debris of Paz's Heliopause. She instructed her pilot to set the ship adrift and make random course adjustments with their maneuvering thrusters to avoid traceable ion trails from the thrusters. So far no one had come in looking for them. Perhaps she could hide her until the Blood pack mercs get bored and just find an old freighter, destroy it and pass it off as her ship. She could then slip by and rebuild her enterprise then. But for now she and her crew had to survive.
"Captain, you might want to look at this" came the voice of her pilot. Moving into the observation screen which was displaying what the pilot was seeing at the moment. What was initially thought to be trail of icy and asteroid debris was instead something else that piqued her interest.
Location: L5 Lagrange point of Tribute, Fatum system
Timestamp: +1 Day later
Solan still couldn't take his eyes of the titanic constructs that were displayed on the screen of his omnitool. It's been almost a days since the first contact team and the aliens have made contact. And the main think tank based on the ship were collating all the facts they had gathered during that time. From the start, Captain L'nora made a commendable effort in establishing trust with the aliens, who seemed to be uneasy with the prospect of meeting a race that had an eerie resemblance to them. But he could be wrong, he and the other scientist had no baseline of emotional, cognitive and cultural baseline of this new race. Maybe new race isn't the most apt description for them, among some of the information that was revealed to them was that they were they have been space faring for at least forty millennia of their years, which fortunately easily corresponded easily enough with citadel time standards. So they were older than the Asari in terms of a civilization, which made him wish to see the reactions of the haughty matriarchs back in Thessia on this.
But that raised the question of why weren't they seen before now, such an elder civilization would have dominated or at least made their presence known when Salarian were still making stone tools. The aliens have provided an explanation they were generation ships that had crossed the intergalactic void to colonize the galaxy. A closer look of their ships made by the sensors onboard the dawn of the alien ship hulls collaborated that, the hulls were old, pitted with countless micrometeorite impacts and radiation bleaching that could have been made after centuries of space travel. But however there were still a few facts that didn't fit in perfectly….
"…..the facts do not lend enough credence to their claim of an extragalactic colonization effort" came the voice of major Remus which broke Solans train of thought bringing him back to the daily debriefing he was in
Captain L'nora spoke up saying "So far we have no overt reason to doubt them on that aspect of their origins, however I will take your own report into consideration when I make my report to the council. Thank you Major Remus". L'nora spoke up looking at the rest of the taskforce in the briefing room "As you know, the council will send representatives in five days time on the Turian Dreadnought Actios as the aliens refused to send one of their members to the Citadel. But agreed to meet a delegation in this system". "And if there is any other relevant information that you could parse together, please bring it to my attention before then so we could bring them up to speed. Thank you and you are dismissed" with that the daily debriefing onboard the Dawn was concluded.
After exiting the briefing room Solan noticed Remus staring out of the observation port toward the alien flotilla, "I believe you don't usually follow the skeptical & pessimistic Turian stereotype, major, But tell me, do you think that your hypothesis might arrant further inquiry" The Turian gave an amused glance, "No agent, I usually don't, but my training asks of me to expect the worst in any situation and plan accordingly" "Like I said before there are facts that do not fit with the narrative they are presenting" But before Solan could pry for further insights to the Turians position, he was interrupted by a feminine voice behind them.
Solan turned to look at an Asari with a Serrice University insignia on her lapel, Professor M'tela the head of the Xeno-archeology/cultural studies division of the taskforce with whom they had both had become acquainted in the last few days. "I went through your report yesterday, major" The professor quipped, "However what made did you say that about the Humans? "We have century's worth of sensor logs of this region of space, at least around the mass relays, if there was an elder civilization concurrent to ours, we would have detected trace radio transmissions emanating from their core worlds that were emitted millennia or centuries ago." Argues the Asari.
"Professor M'tela, as I mentioned in my report, it's just that I don't completely buy their story of a colonization mission from another galaxy. Because if they came from extragalactic space then they would have first settled on the edge of the rim or one of the Halo of stars that orbit above the main disk of the galaxy or on one of the dwarf galaxies that orbit ours and then move inwards. But here they just appeared in the titan nebula fifteen years ago." He moved his mandibles in a way that signed exasperation, "the details don't just add up for me"
"I didn't know that the Hierarchy were enlisting scholars into the Blackwatch?" M'tela gave the Turian an appraising look. "The Hierarchy needs competent officers, professor. Officers who are knowledgeable enough in many fields so that they could spot deviances that could show potential ambushes and save lives, professor" Remus posed as if were a poster boy for the Hierarchy. Both of us rolled our eyes at the Remus, still endearing him to the rest of the crew, even with his Blackwatch background".
"Heh, you've been practicing that haven't you? " She quipped.
The Turian gave her a shrug. "But tell me Asari, what do you think of the Humans?" Remus asked turning his head back towards the Human flotilla holding orbit over the Verdant moon. M'Tela joined him in the gaze.
"Well in my field usually you can't ask the people that you're studying questions directly, like in the case of the Protheans. So you learn to read in between the lines. Even in their first conversation with us, they shed a lot of clues on their culture." They are aristocratic, hierarchical, posturing…at least the portion of their species that is represented here is, and might be a theocracy if the reference to a god-emperor is to be taken at face value, where the reigning monarch is revered as a living deity" she looked at Solan "and if Solan report on the ships they have are of any indication the clues also point to a society that is rigid, militaristic but still is artistic and industrious.
"Sounds a bit like the Batarians don't you think?" Remus quipped with a sarcastic inflection in his voice which was intended to be a jest. But the thought that an advanced race might be another slaver society left the group in a less than comfortable feeling.
Location: Paz system, Vallhaland Threshold
Timestamp: 3 days later
"Captain, you would want to take a closer look at this" came from the Batarian that was operating her sensor suite. Sel'ya made her way up to the bridges observation screen. Her ship while drifting had detected what was initially believed to be a trail of ship parts and alien bodies toward what was initially thought to be a large metallic asteroid but then again asteroids don't have the distinct profile of a ship do they?. She had her crew to collect some of the bodies and parts for examination, the few bodies that were recovered didn't tell her much, they were too damaged by decompression, void freeze, fire and one seemed to had been ripped apart. She didn't have an extensive medical suite or an experienced medical expert on board. Whatever equipment they had was damaged in the last engagement with the Blood pack mercs. But she could tell that they, weren't Turian, Asari, Batarian or any known species she knew or anyone else on board. And that had pique her interest, the radioactive emissions would give her location to someone eventually but the potential of getting her hands on alien tech, schematics or any live aliens themselves would probably set her up for a very long time, and in Asari terms that was a lot of credits.
However the artificial monstrosity in front of her ship was causing her and her bridge crews mouths to hang agape in awe. At this proximity the ship's hull rose like a metallic cliff in all directions. At two kilometers in length it dwarfed any ship that had existed in the galaxy as far as she knew in dimensions and raw tonnage. And the alien design didn't helped either, sure it didn't have the insectoid aesthetics' of the Rachni ships she had seen in the archives but even at this range the ornate motifs, tapered prow and are those gun ports? She could probable berth the Red Nebula in one of those gun ports. She shuddered on the firepower of those weapons if turned on a colony. She told the pilot to approach the behemoth from the aft, which h would hopefully keep her out of the firing arcs of any weapons.
With the Red Nebula approaching closer to the mystery ship she could see that the dorsal surface had long deeps rents carved into the hull. And there were other signs of extensive damage as well, areas seemed had buckled under enormous stress while near the aft had seemed to have been melted and had reformed hull into undulating mass but Sel'ya couldn't stop thinking that the mass was moving subtly when she wasn't looking to closely or when looking from the periphery of her vision. After a cursory examination of the rest of the ship she noticed several areas at amid ship were also missing hull plating exposing the inner compartments into the cold void. Sensing an opportunity and not seeing any open cargo holds large enough to enter the ship, she ordered her crew to prep to board the ship. She had two shuttles on board that were space worthy.
"Jes'la, get two squads ready, we're going to salvage anything of worth from this monster. And get the grunts to pack all the drones they can use, well need them to cover more ground than we can" She ordered her Asari second in command to do so without removing her eyes from the wall of floating metal in front of her ship. "Aye, Captain." She left leaving the captain to stare at the strange behemoth.
Location: Paz system, Vallhaland Threshold
Timestamp: + half an hour later
"Bak'kar, get your lazy ass into that shuttle, Morun double check on the relay transmitters. Move it people!" Jes'la barked out orders to the boarding squads aboard the Red Nebula's cargo bay. Normally she wouldn't be joining the grunts but the losses they suffered at the hands of the Blood pack has left them short of available hands. She made a quick inspection of her own gear, as she boarded the shuttle, she gripped her disciple shotgun from her commando days in the Asari republic of V'ley. The trusty shotgun has kept her hide safe and her enemies dead. With a quick request to the bridge to open the cargo bay. With the hiss of depressurization followed by silence, the door of the cargo bay opened silently to the void disgorging two shuttles loaded with pirated unto the mountain of metal in front of them. The pilots gently steered unto an exposed piece of floor plating that extended deeper into the bowels of the wreck. Setting down with a silent thud that was only audible to the pirates inside the shuttles and anyone or anything that was pressing an ear to the superstructure of the wreck.
Clad in modified EVA capable combat suits, the two shuttles disgorged her compliment of looters into the impromptu landing pad and began to secure the perimeter. Jas'la was the last to leave her shuttle and took in the first hand glimpse of the alien wreck. Edges of the impromptu platform she and her posse were in seems to have been some kind of hallway or large corridor that ran the exterior of the ship flanked by two openings at the ends. The metal wall that was the hull here seems to have been sheared off by some great force leaving gleaming exposed metal that would have vacuum welded her soles of her suit to the metal if she wasn't careful enough. But she could say whether the damage was from weapons fire or impact from debris but she was sure that they would find more information as they ventured inside
"Jes'la, Report." The captain's voice came through the radio. "Setting up a defensive perimeter and base of operations captain, will be ready to head out in ten minutes."
"Good girl, but send the drones in now, so it will save us some time. Remember they are mercs still looking for us." With that Jes'las radio cut out. At her command the engineers in the squads sent out dozens of drones from their omnitool to map out the dark passages that were in front of them. It didn't take long for one of the drones to register an item of interest about a hundred meters inside the ship.
"Morun, take two from B squad set up some defensive turrets and monitor our progress from here" she ordered the Salarian engineer. "Bak'kar take A squad take the right opening and try to head towards the engines and engineering, take what were that seems to be valuable and not bolted down but keep a look out any usable tech or samples. We don't know what kind of tech these aliens use so be careful and keep an eye on the radiation counters" she chided the squad over open squad channel. "The rest of B squad, on me. We will take the other opening and try to head towards the stern of the ship and hopefully the bridge. All right move out" with that command the two squads of pirates were swallowed by the darkness of the wreck.