Author's Note: Alright, got this one out during the weekend. I'm glad you all seemed to enjoy the last chapter. For those of you looking for a lot of action and fighting, I'm not going to have a lot of that right now. This is a different first contact that's going to follow some characters more closely because...eh, that's how I'm writing right now. This chapter has some more build-up for the characters and they'll get some things out of the way so we can get them to the bubble with only more entertaining interludes.
For now, shall we?
There was a shudder and she heard her and the other three screaming as the ship thrusted forward with a lurch, that felt more like being kicked in the back of the chair. For a moment she was sure she had died and was on her way to Athame before she realized she could still feel the distant vibration of the ship as they traveled through...where she didn't know. Her scream died in her throat as she looked around out the windows, unconsciously leaning forward out of her chair to do so as the lights danced around them. Wispy clouds of light, shells of gossamer glow punctuated by multi-colored beacons that seemed to pass by them slowly and yet at incredible speed. In the back of her mind she began to realize she could almost hear someone. No, more than one person, as if she were in a crowd of reverent Matriarchs whispering something important to her.
An uncharacteristically innocent smile spread on her face and she felt like a child again.
Childhood memories could be said to be well and gone by the time an Asari reached the Matriarch stage of life. As Matriarchs, they were meant to bring their experience and wisdom to advise and guide and for nearly every Matriarch there was no wisdom or experience that was remembered from childhood. Benezia had been surprised by this when she had brought up how she had actually been able to relate to her daughter when Liara had been at the innocent age of forty and entranced by the sights in the parks on Thessia. She and Liara's father had been on the cusp of being matriarchs when they had conceived her, which was fairly rare among their peers, among other things.
Now though, she could only be grateful she still had those memories to reflect upon. She remembered being with her mother in the Temple of Athame on Thessia again, the somber and respectful atmosphere was broken when she, in the youthful energy of thirty three, had run up to the statue of Athame and nearly yelled about how pretty she must have been. Her mother had been nearly horrified but the priestesses had been very tolerant of her outburst and had put on a bit of a show with their biotics as they lifted and explained each artifact with whispered wonder.
A light laugh escaped her as a cloud of lights passed by them and she noticed the single, bright yellow point of light they seemed to be moving towards without actually making any progress.
She took a moment to look around at the others on the bridge, Velictus seemed completely stunned, looking off into nothing with a very stiff and forcefully neutral look on his face. Both Salarians were busy either furiously typing on their omni-tools, no doubt taking readings as best they could, or their eyes were darting around at the outside, trying to see everything all at once. She then glanced at Marcus and she realized that he was looking in her direction with a mildly amused look on his face.
Then she heard it, it almost sounded distant but it was distinct. Stress on the hull, metal being flexed. She glanced at the windows again before looking at Marcus who simply raised an eyebrow before jerking the throttle lever back and looking forward. She reached back and began to pull herself back into her seat and looked forward just as the star rushed forward to slam into them.
She slammed herself back into her chair and four clipped cries hung in the air for a moment before Marcus chuckled. That was when she realized that they were not going to crash into the star but had simply arrived out of whatever FTL that humans used.
She let out her breath and forced her hands to relax off the armrests as she took in the sight of the star in front of them.
Odoln was the first to speak after the jump, "Commander Marcus, I don't even know how to begin to categorize the questions I have for you so I will go for the simplest - What was that?!"
Marcus just worked the controls of his ship, controls that reminded Benezia of nothing more than the controls of fighters she had seen in her life, angling the ship gracefully so the star was not dominating the view but rather seemed to be just below the front of the ship. The corona of the star now able to barely be seen moving slowly as great gouts of plasma was pushed serenely off into the void.
"That" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder outside as all of the chairs turned to face towards the center of the bridge again, "was a hyperspace jump. Thirty-two light years in an infinite second."
He paused as they all faced each other and seemed to be waiting for more questions for a moment but was met with more silence. Either Odoln was shocked or just waiting for more and Marcus fidgeted for a moment.
"Well, I say infinite second because it always feels like forever but any clock on board says the time elapsed is mere seconds. Time always feels...itchy for me right at the end. Any of you get that?"
He looked between the four of them and let out a small, nervous laugh before Velictus suddenly seemed to shake himself out of whatever shocked mindset he had been in.
"What were those voices, those whispers?! I swear I heard them...Spirits..." Uolon jumped at the question even though Velictus had nearly whispered it, looking at Marcus again.
"I heard something too, like it was just on the edge of what I could hear or make out and the lights and, and...what was that?!"
"Hyper-space, it's a different dimension that we use to travel between star systems instantly. Well, now it's instant. Didn't always be that way but yeah, and those whispers you heard and the lights you saw? I have no idea. I see and hear them too but you look at any recording or video of what happened during that jump and any, and I do mean any recorded media digital or analog will tell you that there's nothing but silent blackness out there."
Incredulous stares met him for a moment before Odoln and Uolon suddenly brought up their Omni-tools and went through replayed their readings.
"You're right…" Spectre Odoln's Omni-tool arm dropped to the arm rest after a moment of him looking, "There's nothing. The view is completely empty and silent beyond the ambient noise of the ship and our breathing."
Odoln looked up at her, "and what sounded like a small laugh from you Matriarch"
Having regained her sense of dignity, "Yes, it was a rather delightful display. It had reminded me of a trip i took while I was young is all. I find myself...fond of this mode of travel if all jumps are like this."
Looking at Marcus again, "You say there is no recording that shows what we see or hear though? I find that difficult to believe."
"Yes! Exactly! The universe is objective and consistent. Two plus two is the same anywhere in the universe and photons that hit our eyes are the same that would hit the cameras. How did they record nothing."
Marcus just shrugged, "No idea, hyperspace is a good bit outside of regular up, down, left, right, forwards, and backwards. It's at right and left angles to anything that makes sense. I asked one of the FSD engineers about it once and they showed me the math. Never want to look at that stuff again.
Odoln got visibly interested at that, "Can we see that math?"
"Thaaaat is something that's way above my paygrade." He clapped his hands together and hit a button on his armrest and the chairs all turned forward again.
"As much fun as it was to see your reactions to your first hyperspace jump, we do still have over a hundred and eighty of those to go so you'll have a good bit of time to get readings and such without me trying to tell you anything that might get me hung back home."
He edged the throttle up and pivoted the ship so the star was 'above' them and they suddenly heard a short series of clunking noises and:
{Fuel scooping started}
Any further questions were silenced for a moment as they saw something pop up in front of Marcus' view and low whine began to build as they appeared to move around the star quite quickly. The four of them just watched as prominences and streams of plasma arched off the surface of the star as they went by, a distant hissing noise could be heard.
{Fuel scooping complete}
Followed by more clunking and then Marcus angled the ship away and lined up with a circle with a quarter of it open and human writing next to it.
"Marcus, what was that?" He looked over at her and then over his shoulder at the other three before dropping the throttle down again.
"Just a second." He held down a button on the control and a noise built up to a deep, thrumming sound that seemed to resonate through everything. Suddenly, the readouts in front of Marcus and those superimposed on the front window were populated with various icons. Icons that vaguely looked like planets to her with a large one that was obviously the star they had just flown around. The chairs all turned towards each other again and Marcus leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees.
"Ok, so this pretty much confirms that our technology bases are pretty different. Save your questions for now." He holds one hand up with a single finger up, "Number one: Hyperspace jump - punch through to a dimension that had different rules and pop out near the largest gravity source in the destination system. Could be a star, could be a black hole, could the the barycenter of a binary star system. Hard to say."
He raises another finger, "Number two, fuel scooping, that's what you heard, the voice and the clunking? Fly deep enough in the corona of certain classes of stars and the device I have installed on this ship will scoop up to 1.245 metric tons of atomic hydrogen from the star."
Uolon went to say something at this point but Marcus just held up his other hand to cut him off.
"Three, we have our other version of FTL, Supercruise. All part of our Frame Shift Drives, or FSD, that get us from one point to any other in the galaxy that we want. Within a certain range of course."
Odoln spoke up, "Thirty two light years wasn't it?"
Marcus just nodded, "Close, this ship right now can do about that with what were' carrying right now but the more weight, the shorter the jumps. How much shorter is dependent on the hull and class of FSD installed."
He sat back after that, relaxing a bit, "Ok, so I'm sure there's some questions and I'm willing to answer just what's public knowledge for us so I can say I'm trying to stay out of trouble."
He shrugged and a smirk pulled at one corner of his mouth, "Try to at least, I'm enjoying talking about all of this. It's been a while since I've really talked to anyone. Although can you three not yell at me, just talk into your omni-tool and let it translate. Yelling does no good."
He pointed at Uolon, "You especially, I don't know if what you're speaking is different from Odoln's or if it's just your voice but it's a bit grating on the ears." Uolon scowled at that for a moment before nodding along with the other two.
"Who's got the first question, we'll do a few and then get some more of these jumps in."
Benezia cleared her throat, getting the attention of everyone besides Velictus, who seemed rather more quiet than usual.
"What was that thrumming noise we heard just now? Before you turned around after the fueling."
"That was the discovery scanner, charge it up and then it boosts out a hyperspace scan that hits everything within about half a light year. Gives a general scan of what's out there. If it's a star, planet, asteroid cluster, all that stuff. If I wanted…"
The holograms that would have been in front of Marcus if he had been facing the front of the ship blinked out and he took the controls. The ship began to turn, facing a small but bright dot that was ringed in a yellow circle.
"I pick one of these things picked up by the scanner and once I get close enough the surface scanner kicks in. This is close to the star so it's probably small and I'll have to...there!"
Marcus hit a few more buttons and the area between all of them flickered and an image of the objects in the system popped up.
"Once you're close enough you can see here that it shows the general makeup of the planet. 46% iron, 20% silicon, 8% of this, 3.4% of that, you get the picture. Don't ask how it does it. I never asked because I'm sure the math is beyond me."
Uolon and Odoln looked sour at that but after some typing on their omni-tools they seemed satisfied.
"Fast and reasonably accurate scanners, advantageous for exploration I suppose." Uolon seemed to think to himself for a moment, "If you make so many of these jumps, you've never seen any element zero on those scans? How many systems have humans visited?"
Marcus looked up, thinking at that, "Not sure, I've turned in thousands of scans. A lot less detailed scans though. I usually just scan the star, honk, er, that thrumming scan we call 'honking', and then if there's no life-bearing worlds or interesting stars to scan I jump."
"Life bearing worlds?" That had piqued Benezia's interest, "You come across those often?"
"Not a lot, gas giants with ammonia or water-based life are about every fifth system if I scan for it. Ammonia or methane biospheres are every fifty or so systems. There's some that are just right for humans though, those scans are worth a good bit. Those are fairly rare though, I'd say every few hundred or thousand in my experience."
"Life in gas giants? Ammonia biospheres?" The implications were profound for her and what it could mean for the Council. So much in the galaxy that hadn't been seen….
Spectre Odoln had gotten into a very business like manner however, "Could you share some of that data with us? Life bearing worlds or even those needing attainable amounts of terraforming are vanishingly rare in our space."
Marcus brought up the omni-tool he had and looked at it for a moment before hitting a few things on his controls, his eyes looking through menus that they couldn't see.
"That...uh, How? Our computer systems don't seem to be compatible."
Odoln just shook his head a bit, "Not an issue, if I can dig down to get to the Prothean…..base...co- Your species has never heard of the Protheans have you."
Marcus just shrugged.
"No, of course not because if you had you'd know of element zero." He muttered a few more things that were not translated.
"Now you see the problem. Wait, if every race you've met knows of these Protheans...how do your races decide where to put the relays? I mean, my species needed to do something like that in our early hyperspace days so the placement of those relays has got to be a big investment."
The four of them shifted uncomfortably, Velictus seemed to be about to say something before Odoln cut him off.
"Sorry, above our pay grade Marcus, sure you understand." Benezia frowned at that but said nothing. That was a subject she was beginning to feel would be best left at the professional negotiating level as well.
"Well, how about this Marcus, we think of some questions for you while we make some of these jumps. We can take a break occasionally and keep moving at the same time."
"That could work, I'll look every system over for things to get detailed scans of other wise with the fuel scoop I have on this thing the entire process of honk, scoop, jump takes all of fifteen seconds."
The chairs all rotated forward at that and Uolon and Odoln began going over questions. Velictus seemed preoccupied while Benezia looked out the window as Marcus aligned with their next system.
"How far to the next system"
"31.4 light years"
She nodded as she heard the FSD charge, the voice in English announcing that it was doing so.
"I do think that of all the diplomatic missions I've been on.
The countdown started again, she smiled and looked over at Marcus.
"That this will be the first I enjoy that travelling."
The ship jumped to hyperspace and lights danced in Benezia's eyes.
Ask any member of the Council species where the seat of power is in the galaxy and they'll remember an image of the Council chambers. A vast area, tiers of balconies facing the largest view of the serpent nebula behind them with the five arms of the Citadel in front of them as they deliberate within the democracy of the Citadel Council.
Few know of the secure chamber deep in the presidium where many of the more unsavory discussions and decisions are made. The uplifting of the Krogan, the contact with the Turians, the Genophage, the Quarians, and more times than any Councilor cared to dwell on, the Batarians.
The room did little to present it's importance. In fact that was part of it's security, it didn't feel important. Just another small conference room with top-tier galactic security measures.
Now, three figures sat discussing an event of importance as is always the case in that unassuming room.
"Scans of the ship as it left read very little. A heat build up on the areas of the ship that are the obvious radiators but controlled in a way we've never seen before. In the infrared they radiate nearly perpendicular from the surface."
Sparatus frowned a Turian frown at Bursik, "So they may very well have better heat management in a battle. That could be an issue."
Bursik seemed incredulous for a moment, "Better? No, this implies their control of heat is an order of magnitude above ours. Especially considering if you believe that he is simply an explorer and not under the auspices of a government."
Irissa held up her hand, stalling the conversation and giving her a chance to speak, "We know very little of how advanced or out of date Commander Marcus' ship is for his race. We don't need to focus on that."
"No, of course not. Thinking of benefits to our technology base if we had the know-how."
She nodded at the Salarian before sitting straighter, "I think we should increase patrols of Terminus border systems. I can sway the Circle to provide Asari ships and favorable economic deals to the Turians to expand your fleets to meet the need."
Sparatus thought for a moment before nodding, he wasn't a warmonger but he nor any Turian he knew, would object to something like that. Duty was one of the life bloods of the Turian people.
"I'll inform those that need to know. I'm not sure how much use it will be though until we know more. The positioning of the pirate cruiser still concerns me."
"It was damaged and attempted to flee, engines must have failed there and the ship caught it."
Sparatus stood and with a flick, projected the map of the system the contact had occurred in over the table.
"That still doesn't answer my question, the distance is enough that the light from their drop from FTL wouldn't have reached the location of the freighter that was attacked."
He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, "If Shiala's timeline is accurate, which since it seems to match up with other evidence I'm assuming it is, then that means a race that has no apparent knowledge of the relays or element zero knew to chase the ship in a direct line to the relay and then when and where it dropped out of FTL to attack it."
Silence stretched in the room as the three of them stared at the reports projected in front of them. Each of them doing their best to use what they knew to try to envision the best path through the events unfolding.
Finally Irissa spoke in a quiet voice, "It is good that it is Benezia travelling with them then."
Sparatus leaned forward, quickly swiping two files and setting one to play, the clip of the frigate-sized ship moving forward and then suddenly darting forward, the last frame paused showing an odd, redshifted afterimage that seemed to suggest the ship was half behind something that wasn't there. The other the image of the gaping hole in the pirate cruiser.
He rested both hands on the table, "I do hope you are correct Irissa. There is a lot of unknown and too much riding on this Commander Marcus' goodwill."
No one spoke after that, an unspoken agreement that the business was concluded for the time being. As they all passed through the door, Irissa spoke up.
"What do we tell the public?"
"Thirteen hundred years?" Marcus wasn't quite sure but it seemed that the Salarian had a distinctly incredulous look on his face.
"Yes, we took a while to really get in the step of things but we put a person on our moon about thirteen hundred years ago, I'd say that counts. And we've been over the math, it's roughly equivalent to Thessian years too, give or take a decade."
"It is strange that your race has not encountered anything Prothean or even any element zero. Only a few races have been space faring for longer than that in the Council. It is anomalous to say the least."
He thought about that for a moment as he adjusted the heading towards the next planet he was scanning, "Well, there's about 400 billion star systems in the galaxy. You can't honestly expect all of them to conform to your expectations can you?"
That expression Marcus didn't have to guess at, he had apparently offended the Spectre.
"Besides, the first few centuries we never used any faster than light travel, it was all generational ships."
"Your species actually used generation ships? We envisioned something like that but never actually got anywhere past the concept."
"There were quite a few colonies founded that way. Then again there were probably more failures on average than successes. We still find some of the derelicts floating out in space. The logs are almost never good."
"The Asari never had the concept of generational ships, we are much more long-lived than most species. That and we discovered mass effect FTL very early on comparatively as well. The courage of those humans on those ships…"
"Well, yeah, later on it caused some friction once FTL was figured out and our homplanet wanted to rule. They felt they made the trip so they shouldn't have to listen to those that didn't. Usual colonial stuff."
Velictus perked up a bit at that, "Yes, Turians understand that very well. Our species was on the tail end of the Unification Wars when the Council found us."
His mandibles tightened against his face a bit, "It was a bloody time in our history."
"Well, it didn't go well for us either. In fact, it didn't unify us but ended up with two and eventually a third faction. The Federation headed up at our homeworld, Earth and the Empire of Acheron. They were one of the first successful colonies if I remember right. History is a little fuzzy off the top of my head and it was around a thousand years ago."
"What was the third group?" Marcus looked back at Uolon as he throttled down after the scan on the planet was done, another icy world.
"The Alliance. Not really a single government but basically an area of systems that don't want to be under the other two. They were hard fought to exist and still less influential of the three but they've earned their right to exist."
The four of them thought about this as Marcus angled the ship for the next jump. Benezia seemed like she was about to ask him something else when he activated the FSD. They all got quiet, taking readings or just observing. They'd had plenty so far, they'd made their thirty-eight jump and were about to do their thirty-ninth.
He glanced up and saw they were going to be hitting a neutron star next and quickly cancelled the jump and turned the chairs in.
"Ok, we're near our fortieth jump and I figure we can get a few questions in."
Spectre Odoln spoke first, "This will be the thirty-ninth, at this speed we'll make the hundred and eighty in a day."
"Well, we'll need to sleep so I'll be landing on a planet eventually for that. Sleeping in gravity is usually better than zero-g. Well, the sleeping part is like on a cloud but waking up after gently bouncing around is very disorienting."
He laughed a bit, "Heh, well, that and I bet all of you are much more accustom to gravity in general."
Bringing up his omni-tool and glancing at Benezia he appeared to be taking the lead on questions this time around.
"We are and appreciate that. First question I have is this, how does your FTL drive work? In general of course, similar to how I described ours?"
"In general? Alright, easy enough. The FSD, or Frame Shift Drive works on two principles. One was theorized before we had really left our atmosphere and fairly recently."
With a thought he brought up the basic animation of Supercruise. A ship icon around a planet hologram popping up between all of them.
So we don't have a way of manipulating mass at all and that is, as I'm sure you're all aware, what keeps you from actually transmitting information from one frame of reference to another faster than the universe seems to allow, the speed light goes. We use "C" in our equations to represent that.."
With their full attention on him and what he was saying, Marcus played the animation. A bar for speed and power output popped up below and as the ship approached C, the power output darted up and eventually when the speed bar touched C, the power bar turned into the infinite symbol.
"Now since we've found that in spacetime, going even as fast as light takes infinite energy, we made an observation and extrapolation. While nothing could go faster than light in space. Space did not, could not, be subject to that same limit. Whatever medium, if any, spacetime exists in has to allow space to travel faster than light or the universe would not have been able to expand like it had to have in the earliest moments after it's birth."
Odoln looked impressed if Marcus could discern anything from his expressions, "Your species theorized this before you left your atmosphere?"
"Yeah, we found that space was expanding in our early optical astronomy efforts and soon after that it was in fact expanding. That was about the time we had steam engines."
For a moment the Spectre seemed to relax, "I think our species will get along splendidly. We made similar discoveries early on in our scientific efforts."
Marcus just smiled and nodded before continuing, "Well, since we had no other way we knew of getting faster than light, an idea came up. Find a way to manipulate a bubble of spacetime to go faster than light."
He reached down at that and jammed the control to one side and they all looked out as the ship spun, Odoln did not seem surprised but Benezia, Velictus and Uolon seemed to finally notice that they were still in zero-g.
"I admit, I hadn't noticed. We are used to not feeling the motion of the ships we are on." He just nodded at Benezia.
"I had thought so but, to continue, the ship compresses spacetime in front of the ship and expands it behind it. In reality, the ship doesn't move but the bubble of spacetime, or the frame of reference of the ship, moves. With that we can move faster than light."
Odoln and Uolon busied themselves with their omni-tools, he watched for a moment before Odoln looked up, "You can answer a different question, him and I are going to be busy."
Nodding, he looked between Benezia and Velcitus, Benezia leaned forward, "I do have a question, I am curious, if your species was so determined to explore and expand to do so without faster than light engines, how much space has humans expanded to?"
"Well, we call it the bubble, centered generally around our homeworld and the few original colonies." The area between all of them cleared and a dot appeared.
"This can be called Earth."
Lines expanded out of it, one at first then two as they connected with two dots. There was a pause before more lines expanded out to another dot and another. Suddenly the lines seemed to snap out to other dots.
"Then we discovered faster than light and expanded a bit more rapidly but while fast, it was dangerous and not nearly as quick as "Faster than Light" Sounds to most people."
The dots kept expanding, sometimes slowing almost to a crawl before an area would push out in a general sphere from Earth.
"You can see why we call it the bubble. As it stands before about a century ago, it was only three hundred light years across. A lot of stars but I imagine it's nothing compared to what all of your races have."
He looked over at the two of them only to see all four of them just staring at the image quietly. Their faces controlled although Marcus couldn't be sure about Velictus since he couldn't quite make out what the mandibles on his head were doing.
A little confused he continued, "Hyper-space was dangerous back then, small ships had to dock with mega ships that took long periods of time to charge up using a very energy dense fuel. You saw the sudden pushes outward, that was usually the time to get the resources and money for the effort."
The projection zoomed out so they could see a larger area of the galaxy, a few hundred more light years of space around the bubble. The bubble was highlighted brighter while the rest of the galaxy's stars were dimmed.
"Recently we've made more advances, the current generation of FSD's came out and moving around the galaxy became easier."
With that, lines of stars began to light up around the bubble in all directions, sometimes expanding a few stars around the endpoints.
"A lot easier. Smaller ships were able to make jumps more safely and the option between fighting over resources or ideology came up. You could just get a decent amount of wealth and up and leave."
The map zoomed all the way out until the entire galaxy could be seen, a small, bright dot seemed to mark the entire area they had been looking at.
"It seemed like a lot but against the four hundred billion star systems? Well, I still think we're small. One of the reasons I became an explorer and keep coming back, there's just too much out there to stay in a few hundred light year bubble. The past decade has seen the most, with miniaturization and other advances.
Suddenly bright lines streaked out across the galaxy from the point that was the bubble. Some in seemingly random directions, others between the bubble, a point near the center of the galaxy and the center. The paths brightened as they were travelled over and over. A line hit the edge of the galaxy and all four of their eyes were glued to it as it traversed the entire circumference only to soon be followed by others. A trail was blazed to a point on the other side of the galaxy farthest from the source bubble and got brighter as others followed.
Marcus just smiled as he watched the exploration heatmap play out in front of him. With another thought he stopped the animation and it reset to the bubble being the only brightened stars.
"Now, this is mine." The bubble flickered a bit, suggesting he had first stayed inside the bubble before a line darted out and back, another went after that in a different direction. Then again to the point next to the center of the galaxy and then the center.
"You've been to the center of the galaxy?!" He looked at Benezia, surprised at being pulled from watching the animation after having been pulled into the recollection of it all.
"Well, yeah, it's kind of like a right of passage." He pointed at the dot next to the center, "You go to Colonia, the colony around the first mega ship that tried to jump across the galaxy."
He pointed to the center, "Then to the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy."
He looked at the four of them and shrugged, "It's actually a bit of a tourist destination, there's a tourist beacon there. I've taken a few passenger missions there in fact."
"Should...should I keep going?" Looking between the four of them he was starting to get worried, they seem rather shell-shocked at everything.
Odoln was the one to answer in a quiet voice, "Yes...this is...yes, please continue."
"Exploring, like I said, involves jumping around and scanning the systems you go to. Getting data on the celestial objects. Makes it worth jumping around just for the fun of it profitable outside of taking tourists and scientists to notable objects."
The map zoomed in on the area of the galaxy they had seen originally, the point between their destination and the system first contact had happened it. The line of stars brightened in a general zig-zag between the two, sometimes jumping ahead a farther distance before it hit the last system, paused and then a nearly straight line back to where they apparently were.
"That's where we are now, the next star we jump to is a neutron star. We'll be able to get a boost from it but it'll be a rough ride." The four of them seemed to not know what to say or do at that. He sat in his chair as the moment stretched awkwardly.
Benezia finally seemed the most composed and seemed to come to a decision and her mood changed suddenly and she turned to him with a hopeful look on her face.
"Commander Marcus, I think, your contact aside, this could be the most eye-opening first contact either of our people's have ever had."
"Well, if you feel that way even after me mentioning jumping through the relativistic jets of a neutron star then yes, I think you're right."
While the others seemed to have the rational reaction to that statement, Benezia seemed determined to stay hopeful.
"You've done this before, correct? It did appear that way from the path you seemed to have traced towards Council space."
"Of course, the Neutron Highway is the fastest way to Colonia. I just wanted to warn all of you and usually when people learn about how we do it they're more nervous."
He looked over at Velictus, "Like I'm assuming how he's nervous."
"Nervous? That's one word for it, we usually stay far, far away from collapsed stellar cores." The omni-tool's projection was shaking as Velictus did his best to hold his composure.
"Now Velictus, if Marcus had done it on the way over and his ship is still in good repair I think we will fare just fine. If it is as exciting as everything else we've seen so far I look forward to it in fact."
Part of Marcus' mind marveled at how similar the Turian surprised expression was to what he was used to, except they had the advantage of those mandibles to help the expression. Before his train of thought got much further however, Velictus pulled his mandibles against his face and his eyes took on a steely glare. An image flashed in his head of the pirate in the ship he interdicted after he had pried the ship open. Whatever the other four said between themselves after that faded into the background as he sat at the controls, staring into that Turian's eyes. His hands moved calmly and deliberately as he pulled Lucy back and angled the beam laser reticle directly at the bastard.
He felt his finger tighten on the trigger and resistance of the spring as -"Commander Marcus!"
He jumped at that and shook his head, looking between the four of them all staring at him. Benezia looked concerned, Uolon was glancing between him and his omni-tool, Odoln had a calculating look while Velictus studied him with a mixture of worry and resignation.
"I'm sorry...bad memory came up and I..." He wrapped his hands on the controls as he sat back in his chair, his fingers flexing around the familiar shapes.
The genuine concern in Benezia's voice struck him as odd, "Commander...Marcus, you have been through what I am sure has been a most extraordinary few days and you seem to have handled it very well as best I can tell. If you are worried about something we do not need to rush."
Marcus looked up at her, meeting her gaze, not sure what to say.
Uolon took his cue from Benezia's concern, "We are all accustomed to other races. If this has affected you that much, we can go back to the rooms you showed us."
When Marcus didn't seem to react to that he continued, "Is it something about the neutron jump?"
That got his attention, waving his hand dismissively, "No, I'm not worried about that at all. If I was bad at boosting on a neutron star I'd be dead a long time ago."
A pause as he tapped his fingers on the throttle control, "Like I said, I'm not a trained diplomat so don't take this the wrong way Velictus, for a moment you reminded me of one of the pirates I saw on his ship before I killed them during the pirate attack. First contact and all that."
The four of them stiffened at that, Velictus straightening in his chair, "There are pirates of every race in the Terminus systems, where you made contact Commander Marcus. I know our species are different enough to you that we may very well all look alike. I would not be on Matriarch T'Soni's crew if I were to be offended by such a misunderstanding."
Marcus looked to Velictus, "Not until you made that face, your..." he motioned at his jawbone, "mandibles pulled in against your face and your eyes got...hard. That look was the one the pirate gave me before I melted the bridge of his ship."
Velictus, to his credit simply flexed his mandibles and nodded sternly to him, "One less pirate in the galaxy Commander."
Marcus and Velictus held eye contact for a moment as an understanding passed between them. Marcus looked to the diagram in the center of the room as he mentally sent a command to display the next system.
"Alright, that's out there now but let's focus on why we're all on this boat together now shall we? Now only three of these seats are actually rated for combat maneuvers and that's about as close as the manufacturer got to how we'll be getting tossed around."
Benezia suddenly flared her ethereal blue aura and interrupted him, "Marcus, I have the ability to keep them safe if the duration is not longer than the last ten jumps. I can use my biotics to put them in stasis. They will be unharmed."
Marcus just blinked a few times, "Right, I guess with what I seem to have been surprising all of you with it makes sense that you'd have something that can surprise me too."
He grabbed the controls and the chairs all faced forward and he throttled up to full speed and engaged the FSD.
As the engine charged he glanced over at Benezia, the blue tendrils of power lazily moving just over her skin, "Matriarch T'Soni?"
Benezia's gaze stayed glued forward like she had on every jump, personally, Marcus was a bit flattered as she seemed to enjoy the hyper-space jumps for their own sake. Normally her gaze seemed excited in a subdued way he had seen in very disciplined people, now it was slightly distracted as she answered him.
"After Shiala had told me of what you'd been through I felt that using my first name would allow you to connect with me, an Asari, easier."
The countdown started for the jump and the ship vibrated and crackled like the thousands of other jumps he had done. He barely noticed this time as he watched the numbers plummet to zero when he realized something.
"It has actually Benezia."
The colors and lights of witch space danced around the ship as it stayed trained on the piercing blue-white pinpoint that was the neutron star.
She watched the lights dance around, the swirls and shells of light they seemed to travel through while their destination stayed at a standstill, the bright blue-white light they faced.
'Progress…'
She felt a smile on her face as one of her hopes was coming true. Marcus may not end up involved in any way with the official proceedings once they made contact with the human governments but she had decided that she would do what she could to ease his concern around her people.
A deep red light flashed by the side of the ship, her eyes followed it as it went past and she admired the strange shapes that played around them.
'If nothing else comes of this I will feel very fortunate to have seen this strange dimension. I am sure Spectre Odoln will have the Salarians working tirelessly on our access here.'
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the ship shifting as the jump was nearly complete.
Her eyes moved to watch the point they moved towards, not knowing what to expect when they were jumping to a neutron star. She felt the strange resonating through her body that seemed to have been part of her forever before she felt the ship shudder.
A very un-matriarch-like gasp escaped her as the sight exploded into view. The bright blue point was now a blazing beacon in the center with two wildly spinning cones of blue light that seemed to be convulsing violently into the universe.
"Oh boy, this is a lively one!" Her head snapped to look over at Marcus, seeing he had throttled down to zero and the deep thumping sound reverberated through them.
"How close are we to the neutron star Marcus?!" She had tried not to yell but with what she knew of mining eezo from around neutron stars they were never close enough to see the plumes of the star like they were looking at now.
"We are point-seven-one light seconds from the core, so about two hundred thousand kilometers."
Benezia did something she hadn't done for centuries, she cursed and she didn't think she would regret doing so.
Marcus, thankfully, seemed much more interested in what was going on with the ship and very deadly, very close stellar remnant than her cursing however. He watched one of the displays until a small sound played and the information in the panel seemed to fill in before he looked over and saw her, pushed as far into the seat as she could go and her fingers a pale blue as she gripped the arm rests.
"Don't worry, our sheilding and hull block anything that could harm us. Given the small range of mass a neutron star can be on stellar scales, I always drop out about the same distance."
Finally he angled the ship around and away, rotating the ship so they weren't staring directly at the neutron star.
As she watched the jets of energetic matter spinning violently in the cone shape away from it she decided she didn't particuarly enjoy that view either.
"Now Benezia, you said you could keep the others safe in that stasis, right?"
She forced her arms to relax and took a deep breath, "Yes, how long until it will be needed? I can hold it for some time but I will need to concentrate."
"I'll take this a bit slower until we get in the cone but you can start now, it won't be much longer than thirty or so seconds before we hit the turbulent part."
A very real worry landed in the pit of her stomach as she looked over at the human Commander, from the species that had only just recently met.
"We are entering that?" She pointed at the wildly spinning cone.
"I did warn you it would be intense, you can all move to the rooms and strap in if you'd like."
For a moment she honestly considered it but quickly dismissed it.
'If he has done this before and is confident...we are in his ship going to meet his race.' She took another breath before just pushing out of the chair, catching herself with her biotics and moving to the center of the area.
"Proceed Commander Marcus." She felt the eezo nodes throughout her body charge, the tingling buzz as her body charged. She made the motions and reached out, putting the others in a stasis as she increased her mass downward, anchoring her to the floor.
Marcus looked over his shoulder at her for a moment before sitting back and she felt the ship move as he angled the ship and they began to move. The spinning stream of matter flailing into space grew until it took up the entire view. The movement of seemed to draw in her entire view and made it nearly impossible to discern if they were still moving or if it was just the jets spinning near them.
She concentrated, using all her centuries of experience to calm herself and exert her will through her biotics. The status would hold for minutes after she stopped her efforts at this point. A fact she was very grateful for as one of the spinning jets seemed to loop up and behind the ship. Suddenly it felt like the walls of the ship were trying to reach out to her and bash her. She felt herself stumble and slide against one of the walls even with her increased mass.
Her feet left the ground and her back hit something that drove the wind from her and stars danced in her eyes.
She wheezed as she tried to gain her bearings and she felt someone grab her arm and a floating sensation. As she felt herself pushed into a chair her vision cleared and she was finally able to get her breath again. She looked up and was surprised to see Marcus pushing her shoulder down and she felt a strap across her chest.
He seemed to say something and point over and she looked over and her head swam, a blue smudge stuck on her vision.
"Wha-" gasp, "What?" She put her hand on her forehead and closed her eyes shut tight for a moment and just took a few breaths, clearing her mind.
She opened her eyes and looked over and finally made sense of what she was seeing, Velictus was sitting looking over at nothing, glowing a wavy blue in the stasis field. She looked over at the other two and they were both in the same place with the same wavy blue field over them. She took a shuddering breath as relief passed over her, realizing that they had survived.
"Matriarch Benezia, you shouldn't have been just standing there like that!" Marcus had pushed back, holding himself near the chair still however and the concern on his face did help her focus.
"I cannot stasis myself Marcus. I had thought increasing my mass towards the floor would provide me some measure of safety but it seems I was mistaken."
She tittered a small laugh and closed her eyes as she rested her head back, "I'm afraid at my age you don't even think of assuming most of the younger races over estimate the severity of events."
She opened one eye, looking over at Marcus, "I will remember not to do so with your advice Commander Marcus."
She felt for the stasis fields in the room and released them, sounds of exasperation and relief were heard.
Marcus pushed off and looked over Velictus and Uolon but was waved off by Odoln. After doing that he drifted to his chair and situated himself.
"If you're ok Benezia, the FSD was charged. I should make this jump and then I'll land on a planet and we can get some rest and food. I think after that it's time for a break. I'll cut neutron jumps out of the route."
Benezia thought for a second, "What benefit do you get from flying through that anyway Marcus. I assumed it was a boost to the jump but if we still need to make the jump then it was nothing like what I thought."
She heard two omni-tools open, "It's not some sort of slingshot manuever or anything like that, flying through the high-energy cone of a neutron star gets you about a three hundred percent boost in distance on the next hyper-space jump. Before my max with our weight was about thirty-five light-years. Now the next system is a hundred and forty light years away."
She opened both eyes and looked over at him.
"It's any jump range that's boosted too, if your ship only does ten light years a jump you're only doing thirty, if you're in a stripped-down explorer you can hit around three hundred light years in a jump."
No one said anything at that before Benezia rested her head back again with an exaggerated sigh, "I really should try to not be surprised anymore Marcus but I am looking forward to when our people can work together."
She looked up at nothing for a moment as her mind worked, "This will change many thing for the Council, just knowing of such things. Change that some will welcome."
Marcus angled the ship and she heard the human phrase signaling the start of another jump, "I'm sure there'll be a good deal of that on my species side too. There's a lot of people that just want to go about their lives and not worry about things outside their immediate surroundings. Still, I'd like to think we're a curious species. I'm sure there's going to be crowds of people clamoring to meet all of you, can't keep back change forever right?"
Liara's father came to mind and her passionate speeches to the Circle and she couldn't help but smile at the memory as she closed her eyes and thought of Aethya.
"No, I think you're right Marcus. I know of a few Matriarchs who will rather enjoy the process."
She opened her eyes and watched as the ship began to thrum and crackle with energy before the shudder and flash of hyper-space.