Chapter I: Chronos
Ginsa System
October 2, 2190
Systems Alliance Cruiser 'SSV Arnhem'
Major Samuel Travers had seldom been privy to the finer details of the ongoing naval missions while stationed aboard the SSV Arnhem, a fairly unremarkable Alliance cruiser save for the fact that she had been one of the lucky few to survive the Battle of Earth two years prior. As the commander of the small onboard detail of Alliance marines, sixty in total, Travers' primary focus was to uphold a degree of operational capability, as expected of him, to defend the ship and provide a seasoned armed away party if needed. He gladly left any decision regarding the ships naval operations to the relevant officers, keeping his nose out of the business of others unless required to execute the task at hand.
"A Reaper carcass," the Arnhem's Executive Officer, or XO, a Lieutenant Commander by the name of Dina Illaris said with a serious tone as Travers had sat down in the briefing room adjacent to the ship's combat information center.
"It is orbiting here," she said and pointed to a holographic representation in a blue hue appeared above the center console in the spacious circular room. It showed the derelict Reaper, orbiting a massive gas giant in a desolate star system on the edge of Systems Alliance space. The activation of an ancient superweapon had rendered all artificial intelligences across the galaxy inert, causing mayhem with their internal systems and in many cases annihilated them entirely through reactor containment failures and rampant weapons systems exploding. This husk of a former capital ship size Reaper was surprisingly intact though, unlike anything Travers had ever seen since the end of the war.
"The gas giant has no formal name, only an archival designation and there are no colonies in the system, human or otherwise," Dinaris explained. Another reason for finding the answers to its presence, Travers thought. Reapers had targeted colonies of all space-faring races, but they were rarely found in desolate systems aside from the odd scout ship.
"What is the mission?" Travers asked, interjecting. Illaris looked at Travers with her cold blue eyes.
"The mission objectives are investigation and destruction. As for the reasons it being here, the brilliant Dr Mercado here will accompany your away team, locate the approriate data terminals and try to fetch the internal logs and sensor registry from the Reaper. That should give us some answers," Illaris said. The young woman with auburn hair next to her nodded. "She is a researcher specialized on Reaper data storage technology and she has plenty of field experience,"
"Great," Travers said making eye contact with Mercado and nodding approvingly.
"To dispose of it, you're placing a Mark Six nuclear warhead aboard, its detonation propelling the ship into the gas giant, eventually crushing it," the Arnhem's ordinance officer, Lieutenant Renard, chimed in gleefully.
"Your marines are no strangers to this, Sam," Illaris told Travers. "But as a principle, I would advise caution,"
Travers nodded. "Understood, ma'am,"
-
The Arnhem had positioned itself above the northern pole of the gas giant, preparing to discharge its drive core into its magnetic field as the away team prepared to depart. Travers entered the port side armory adjacent to one of the ship's hangar bays. His troops were assembled, donning their protective armor suits.
"Renard's men are loading the warhead as we speak. We're taking three shuttles over there," Travers informed the marines, as he was going over the written mission briefing dossier as prepared by Illaris the ship's and tactical officer. "The target is a Sovereign-type capital ship with, hopefully, the typical layout,"
"It's a maze then," one of the marines chuckled.
"That it is," Travers said. "So make sure to test your comms and transponders before departure. Also, we're bringing along a VIP, a researcher specialized on Reaper data storage, Dr Mercado. We move fast and effectively, you know the drill,"
The trio of navy-blue UT-47 Kodiak shuttlecraft departed hangar bay A heading in the direction of the Reaper. Travers noted the tension increasing the closer they came. He knew that every single man and woman under his command had lost at least one family member to the Reaper onslaught. For the ones that had seen combat against the Reapers, seen their comrades fall in battle, this was always going to be personal. The hunt for incapacitated and derelict Reapers and their subsequent destruction was cathartic, even to Travers, who otherwise prided himself on his level-headedness. The joyful teasing banter prior to departure had been replaced by the silence of professionalism. Helmets were locked in air-tight mode, fresh heat sinks were inserted into their assault rifles.
"Does it happen? That there are flesh and blood people onboard?" Mercado asked curiously. Travers nodded, tight-lipped.
"Salvagers, fortune seekers. But most are just empty," Travers said.
"Fought an entire Batarian salvage crew last month," one of the marines said. Mercado stared into nothing for a moment. Travers noticed it. "It's not going to be a problem, this system is as backwater as it gets," he said to calm her pre-emtively. She shook her head to return to reality. "It'll be fine," she said. "Indeed," Travers responded.
The pilot of Travers' shuttle gently eased into a narrow open hangar bay on the starboard side of the Reaper. Touching down inside the dark cramped space with excellence. Travers' patted her on the shoulder in appreciation before pulling the lever to open the exit hatch. The marines fanned out two-by-two, pointing their rifles forward in a precautionary manouver. The interior of the hangar was eerie quiet, the thump of boots against the metallic floor and the crunching armored suits. Traver's moved to the left and placed himself next to a typical Reaper interior bulkhead door. A marine engineer walked up to him and worked his omni-tool to try and remotely power the bulkhead mechanism via a battery pack on his back. It opened. Two marines hung back by the shuttle and had their guns lined up downrange between the two doors of the bulkhead. No contacts.
"Dr Mercado, the coast is clear. You can step out," Travers said on the radio and the short woman exited the shuttle, stepping out with a bulky wheeled cart that Travers had failed to notice onboard the shuttle.
"What the hell is that?" He remarked.
"A Reaper Interface Terminal, RIT for short," Mercado said and powered up and electrical motor the cart had installed. "It allows us to link up with Reaper data cores without damaging our own systems,"
"Looks a bit bulky," the engineer who had opened up the bulkhead doors said.
"It is," Mercado said. "But the Reaper systems are booby trapped to overpower most standarized computer systems that try to connect. This badboy is hardwired to take the punishment, usually a pretty strong power surge," she said and patted the device affectionally. Travers chuckled as the relatively small woman walked alongside the massive metallic lump with archaic dials and levers on its interface panel.
"Okay, let's move out," Travers ordered the marines.
The cavernous interior of the Reaper was akin to some underwater caves on Earth. The architecture was chaotic, mesmerizing and random. Dark corridors, open atriums. Impressive pillars in organic shapes, and dark corners.
"No Geth," one marined remarked. "What does he mean?" Mercado asked Travers. Travers kept walking and explained. "Usually the Reapers had complements of Geth troops to protect against boarding parties in the later stages of the war. They are usually found laying around, dead,"
"This is creepy as it gets," Mercado said. "Dead robots would make it even worse,"
"Perhaps, but this is out of the ordinary," Travers said ominously. "Here, this corridor should lead to an computer mainframe access point," Travers said and made a left turn around a corner. However, as he did, he halted midway.
"What the hell is that?" one marine following close by asked. In front of them, twenty meters or so, a massive sphere was suspended from the ceiling inside an impressively large room. It had numerous pipes leading to it and several lights on, indicating it had electricity connected to it.
"Strange," Travers said quietly. He noticed the other marines becoming uneasy at the prospect of being aboard a Reaper with an active source of energy. "Can you connect that thing to that terminal?" Travers asked Mercado about the RIT, pointing to a computer terminal to their right. "I'll try," she said and hurried over, the RIT rolled after her.
"Erickson, Caspar, head back to the halfway point and arm the nuke. And secure the exit route. We might want to leave in a hurry," Travers ordered two marines. On the right hand side, Mercado was in full swing connecting the RIT. "It's working," she yelled across to Travers and the remaining four marines. "It doesn't seem to be surging, but its hard to tell," Mercado said as Travers walked up to her.
"What do you reckon that is?" Travers asked her, pointing his rifle at the spherical structure. Mercado shook her head.
"Whatever it is, it's outside my range of expertise. It resembles some older drive core designs I've seen in Asari archeological archives, but on a Reaper? Doesn't make sense," she said.
"How old?" Travers asked curiously.
"Ancient, like, before the Protheans old," Mercado said and resumed fidgeting with the interface of the RIT. "Okay, I'm getting some data here. It seems the entire power grid of the ship itself is down, so the sphere must be running on some independent system," Mercado said. "Okay, so..." Travers said but was interuppted by Mercado pushing him back onto the floor as the RIT caught fire and sparks exploded from its inner workings.
"What the hell?!" Travers yelled out as he kneeled on the floor.
"Power surge, sorry for the push," Mercado said. An ominous pulsing sound filled the room, the vibrations stirring their helmets. Travers looked around the room. "Okay, let's go," he ordered. The marines formed up and began backtracking toward the shuttle.
"Arnhem, Travers here. We're heading back out," Travers said on the radio uplink to the cruiser. There was no reply. Mercado and the marines followed Travers at a brisk pace down the maze of corridors until they arrived at the shuttles.
"What took you so long?" The shuttle pilot asked, standing in the side opening hurrying them along. Travers shook his head. "Where's the other shuttle?" Travers asked. "They left twenty minutes ago! We haven't been able to get a reply from the Arnhem or you," the pilot said. Travers and Mercado looked at each other worryingly before boarding the shuttle.
"Twenty minutes. How is that possible? We were right behind them," Travers said. Mercado leaned her head against the headrest, shaking in disbelief. Travers got up and climbed over to the pilot. "Are you sure you got the timeframe right?" he asked her in a stern voice.
"Yes! Caspar and Erickson came to us a few minutes after you ordered them to fall back. After that, we waited for you for twenty minutes. I told the other shuttle to depart earlier," she explained. "I wanted to wait because after your order we couldn't get a hold of you,"
"We didn't receive any radio messages for the duration of our stay," Travers acknowledged. "Can you contact the ship?"
"Arnhem, Arnhem, shuttle Alpha-Sierra-Nine-Nine, comms check, how do you read?" the pilot called out on the radio. No reply.
"Try to get a visual on the scope when we're clear of the Reaper," Travers told the pilot. "Yes, sir," she replied. She pulled up a different interface from the navigational one, displayed in orange holographic hue, a display of the shuttle's visual ranging equipment. "There," she said, pointing to the display. Travers looked on with relief, the Arnhem was still where they had left her. "Leave an open channel," Travers said. The pilot adjusted the communications settings accordingly.
"Why can't they hear us?" Travers asked after repeated attemptes at contacting the ship. "I have a hunch," Mercado said from the back. "Pilot, can you bring the Environmental Factors Diagnostics Unit online?" Mercado asked. "What for?" The pilot asked. "Just do it," Travers said as the shuttle began to rattle. The pilot turned on the EFDU and a variety of numbers appeared on screen.
"There, mass effect field detector," Mercado said and leaned forward to read the small text. "That's our mass effect field," The pilot said. "Yes, but underneath," Mercado pointed out. The pilot shook her head. "What are we looking for?" Travers asked.
"The gravitational pull is greater than what the planet generates and it's fluctuating, increasing even," Mercado explained. Travers shook his head. "What does it mean?" He asked.
"I have a hunch, but it's hard to be..." Mercado said but was interrupted by the crackling of the radio.
"Alpha-Sierra...shuttle...contact..." the voice of the Arnhem's comm officer was received sporadically.
"This is Alpha-Sierra-Nine-Nine, we read you one by five," the pilot said.
"What's our distance?" Travers asked. "Four-hundred clicks," The pilot said. "We shouldn't get this much interference, not this close,"
"Perhaps the magnetic field..." Traver said but was interrupted by Mercado.
"Not the magnetic field, the mass effect field. That drive core on the Reaper must have generated a massive field, literally massive. The time delay between us leaving for the shuttle, it makes sense," Mercado said quickly with a hint of a scientist's excitement.
"It really doesn't, not to me," Travers remarked with a hint of glee.
"Alpha-Sierra-Nine-Nine, bay six...ready to receive..." The comm officer's voice came in significantly clearer. The pilot acknowledged.
"Look, you probaby don't remember this from school but in physics there is a concept known as time dilation. The closer you are to a source of gravitational potential...like a black hole...your experience of time passing by is not the same as a person observing you further from the black hole. At their locatin, time passes by faster relatively to yours," Mercado said with excitement, although Travers noticed the worry in her eyes.
"So when we arrived at the shuttle later than we thought?" He asked hesitantly, not fullt grasping the concept.
"Yes!" Mercado exclaimed. "That core must have come online, generating a singularity that affected the local gravtiational potential significantly,"
"Hang on, we're entering the bay now," the pilot said. Travers saw the gray and blue exterior of the Arnhem through the port side viewport as they approached the shuttle bay. The shuttle wiggled closer and closer until it slid through the opening in the cruiser's starboard side.
"Who knows how long the ship has waited for us," Mercado said anxiously. Travers gripped the overhead bar and leaned close to the port side door awaiting its opening. Outside, the hangar deckhands stood prepared to receive the shuttle and her passengers. The door opened with a hydraulic hum and Travers removed his helmet.
"Major?!" The familiar voice of the ship's XO cut through the noise of servicing equipment, deckhands walking across the hangar floor, and the sound of the still humming drive core of the shuttle.
"Ma'am," Travers said and saluted her casually. Mercado stepped out of the shuttle behind him.
"Status report," Lieutenant Commander Illaris said calmly.
"We're fine, has the other shuttle arrived?" He looked around the hangar, finding no other shuttle.
"They're fine." Illaris said. "We had a bay door malfunction and they docked in bay two. What happened, Major?"
"We must get out of here...sorry, sir, ma'am..." Mercado blurted out. Illaris gave her a confused look. Traver held up a hand.
"It's okay ma'am, she has a good reason to worry about our stay here," Travers said. "We found what seems to be an archaic version of a drive core, separate in design from the Reaper itself but housed within it. We...Miss Mercado here...has a theory that we are in a time...direction?" Travers said and turned to Mercado.
"Time dilation...I'm afraid we're in the sphere of influence of a massive singularity, generated by that device, trapping us in a point in time relative to the rest of the galaxy," Mercado explained. Illaris nodded.
"That explains a lot. Sam, what time is it according to your omni-tool?" Illaris asked. Travers pulled up his left arm and eyeballed it.
"Sixteen-fifteen. Yours?" He said. Illaris did the same.
"Oh-one-fifty," Illaris said. Mercado sighed with relief and fear. Travers gently patted her on the back. Dinaris turned on her heel and launched her communication application on her omni-tool as she headed for the elevator, standard issue Systems Alliance naval boots thumping on the metal floor.
"Illaris to Captain Winters, we have a problem,"