The Beginning of the End
A Mass Effect / Battlestar Galactica (RDM) fanfic
Spoilers: Mass Effect ending, BSG S4E10 Revelations
Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect or Battlestar Galactica Those are owned by the fine folks at bioware and the Motherfrakkin' genius that is Ron Moore, I have no intentions or ability to make any money from this.
Chapter 2: Monsters are Real
First Lieutenant Jeff Moreau, better known as joker watched the Arcturus dockworkers as they worked on the Normandy repairing the damage the ship had taken during the battle of the Citadel, and upgrading several systems with new state of the art systems developed from the study of the reaper, Sovereign's wreckage. "Hey!" joker yelled at one of the techs from Arcturus "What the hell do you think you're doing cutting into those beams" the tech was as equally short tempered as the pilot "If you don't shut up I'll leave it and the ship can snap in half next time you pull more than 5g's" the tech bellowed in his thick German accent, while waving the welding torch around in frustration. "Is there a problem here gentlemen?" asked the gruff voice of Admiral Hackett both men knew better than to argue if, despite his age the admiral was still a very intimidating man, at 6'3" and built like a brick wall he could probably hold his own against Captain Sheppard in a fight, despite being in his late 60's, "Sorry sir," Joker apologized "just worried about our girl here, she took one hell of a beating at the Citadel."
Sheppard looked around his ship Joker's comment had been a major understatement more than half the structural members were cracked or showed signs of severe metal fatigue, there were holes in the armor where Sovereign's energy weapons had boiled the metal and ceramic plating right off the ship, the kinetic barriers still wouldn't stay active for more than 50 seconds, and the superconducting coils in the forward rail guns were completely depolarized, and the Normandy was one of the lucky ships over 50 ships had been destroyed, about 25 ships were so badly damaged they were scrapped after the fight, and another 47 had to be stripped down to the framework and rebuilt. "Joker do the techs have the comm room working yet?" asked Sheppard "Yes sir, it's still a bit of a mess, but at least our communications equipment works now, if only we could get more than 15 percent power out of the engines, and possibly get some working weapons, we might actually be able to get going." Thanks Joker" said Sheppard as he led Admiral Hackett, Laira, Garrus and Chief Williams to the comm room. The group entered the circular room in the center of the ship, when the doors closed Admiral Hackett started the briefing "I have to warn you some of the images I am going to show you are very disturbing, if you want me to stop the recording at any time just say the word and I'll shut the display down" he said looking as grim as he had aboard the space station "This is P3X-6844" said Admiral Hackett as a holographic representation of a dull grey planet appeared in the center of the room, the image zoomed in to reveal ancient structures made of burnt and twisted metal and crumbling concrete. "The planet was discovered three years ago during a mining survey, all evidence indicates there was a planet wide nuclear catastrophe roughly 2000 years ago, many leading archeologists believe the cause was a nuclear war, the most recent expedition to the planet was lead by a man by the name of Dr. Bryce Tanner." explained Hackett as the doctor's picture and record were brought on to the display. "I know Dr. Tanner," Liara added "He is a brilliant archeologist; he recently discovered evidence of an incredibly advanced robotic species buried on the planet." "Yes" Hackett continued as an image of a chrome plated humanoid looking robot appeared in front of him "The machines he discovered were believed to possibly be as advanced as the reapers, despite Dr. T'soni's warnings against re-activating the robot he found, he re-activated it believing this discovery would give the council a good enough reason to continue funding his expedition, however the robot became violent as soon as it was activated, this footage was recovered from the facility's security system." A video began playing on the display it showed the robot sit upright and stab a Turian scientist with some kind of knife built into its forearm, the guards had drawn their pistols and begun firing at the machine, but the bullets failed to even slow it down. "Sir stop the recording" said Sheppard as he looked towards Liara, she looked like she was going to be sick, "Liara, you don't have to watch this." he said speaking softly as he kneeled down beside her. "I need to know what happened" said Liara standing back up "Admiral you may continue the briefing" she said. The video continued the robot hit the nearest guard so hard he flew into the wall and fell limp to the floor, it took the downed guard's gun and shot the other two guards at the door before they could even react, they could see Dr. Tanner run out the door of the laboratory trying to escape the nightmarish machine the security cameras showed the machine mow down anyone who got in its way, a salarian guard had armed himself with an assault rifle, however he froze up upon seeing the robot approach him its sinister pulsating eye focused on him, by the time he fired it was too late he missed the hulking machine's center of mass and simply shot off its shoulder plating, the now damaged machine grabbed the assault rifle as it killed the defenseless salarian. It examined its new weapon fired a few rounds and continued its deadly rampage, it was obviously capable of learning at a frightening pace, it had finally caught up with the unfortunate Dr. Tanner, it picked up the scientist by the neck and spoke in a low droning voice "Are you one of the five?" the machine demanded, Dr. Tanner could be heard whimpering its next inquiry was "Are you human?" The scientist answered its question and pleaded for his life, the horrifying machine answered "You must be exterminated" as it tightened its fist and took the man's life.
Garrus was the first one in the room to speak "What the hell was that thing, and how did it know what humans are?" there was a pause Sheppard was trying to comfort Liara who by now had tears in her eyes, Admiral Hackett stood silent giving them a minute to recover from what they had just witnessed, Ashley was staring intently at the frozen image of the monstrosity trying to figure out how to kill it. Hackett ran a hand over his bald head before regaining his composure, "I don't know what it is other than what we have just seen, it is a synthetic, obviously designed for combat, as for how it was able to recognize humans, that's what I want you to find out Hank" Hackett said handing Sheppard a folder containing all of the relevant material. "There's something else, I sent our other SR Class ship, the Normandy's sister ship the Gettysburg to investigate P3X-6844" the admiral explained as the image showed a view of space over the site from the Gettysburg's camera A ship had appeared in a bright flash of light it was in the form of a pair of 2 kilometer wide discs on top of each other joined in the centre it descended towards the planet "Initial scans showed no signs of organic life aboard, It easily has enough firepower aboard to wipe out one of our battle groups, the Gettysburg was able to avoid detection, that ship picked up our metal friend from the surface, and left just as fast as it showed up" the image showed the ship disappear in another flash of light "Going by the size of that ship I'm guessing it's safe to assume there's a lot more robots where the one on the surface came from" asked Sheppard "I'm afraid you're probably right Hank" said the admiral "I don't know what this is, it could be the beginning of a reaper onslaught, or it could be a new equally dangerous enemy" the recording jumped ahead 5 hours, multiple bright flashes appeared over the planet a whole group of ships instantaneously appeared over the planet there were two large, heavily armed ships at the lead of the fleet the first was about 1200 meters long. "The sensor results indicated the lead ship is made mostly of iron an weighs about 850,000 metric tons", it was ribbed with girders and seemed to have two pods extending outwards from its sides, "the second ship however appears to be made of mostly organic materials" said Hackett, the second ship looked more like a space faring starfish than a starship. The two ships were accompanied by about 50 smaller unarmed ships, about 30 of which descended to the surface followed by a group of small fighter sized ships launched from the large Iron ship the Gettysburg's footage skipped ahead another 2 hours the ships which had previously landed returned to formation in orbit, most of the fighters returned to their carrier, while a few of them began to patrol around the fleet. Admiral Hackett ended the recording and carried on with the briefing "The ships appear to be carrying organic life forms unlike the last ones they stayed in the system for about two days before leaving the same way they got there" he said "I ordered the Gettysburg not to make contact due to the possibility that they could be hostile like the first ship, however a friend of yours, Miss Tali Zorah Nar Ryaah has informed us that a Quarian scout ship picked up the same group of ships 480 light years away a few seconds after the exact moment they left orbit, if they continue on their current course we estimate they will arrive in the Sol system in two weeks, your mission is to go to their current location and attempt to make first contact, the Gettysburg will be going with you as backup, if they are hostile you are to prevent them from reaching Sol by any means necessary, I have made arrangements to concentrate all of this station's resources on completing repairs to the Normandy within the next twelve hours, as soon as the repairs are complete you are to head to the unidentified fleet's position immediately, Godspeed Captain Sheppard" Hackett said as he turned to leave the Normandy. "Dismissed" said Sheppard before going to the cockpit to fill Joker in on their flight plan "So boss, I guess we have our new assignment." said Joker as Sheppard approached the cockpit, "We're never going to have a normal shakedown run" Joker added.
Next Chapter: Bill's Bucket
Author's Comments
There you go you got to see Joker and a huge frakking Basestar in one chapter, and just to make it even more special I already gave you hints of the Galactica and some vipers
The next one is even better we finally get to have Sheppard meet Admiral Adama, the word frak gets thrown around a lot, Tigh drinks a lot, Dee goes crazy, Tali and Wrex are back, and there are Evil toasters and Geth involved.
I don't think I'm going to introduce my Fifth Cylon for a while but I will tell you it's not Starbuck, I have something special in mind for her.