"Bout time." Dani said as Myls'Stanis walked into the cargo bay. She was busy configuring something on the display on the forward bulkhead of the compartment. Uli'Narah sat on a crate leaning against the rear bulkhead while Zen was against the far side of the cabin tinkering with his drone that was hovering next him. Myls set down next to Uli.

"Okay," the squad leader started "We all know this was as last second as missions get, but by now we are a used to that. But the reason that we got sent out here in a human freighter will be obvious in a moment. Six days ago a long range radio telescope got lucky and picked up the emissions of a large vessel coming to the last jump point we just passed. It was barely in range of other optical sensors but we were able to get this."

An image popped up on the screen and everyone just stared. Whatever they had been doing wasn't important. Zen's arms fell slowly and his drone disappeared. Myls gave out a low whistle. And while you couldn't see it Uli's mouth dropped as she gasped very quietly.

Dani let it sink if a second before continuing. "A Geth Dreadnought. This close to the Perseus Veil it was out of visual in only a few hours. But the radio telescope was able to continue to track it until it got fully into the Veil. It was lost for a full solar cycle and thought lost until miraculously our telescope picked it up again. In fact the signals were slightly stronger than before. Deeper analysis on electromagnetic field we picked up showed not one but two signals. Identical." The next few slides showed the non-visible spectrum and the analysis. As she had said there were two identical signals only a few hertz apart on the spectrum.

"Two Dreadnoughts?" Zen asked. "The flotilla was tracking two dreadnoughts?"

"Oh more than that." Dani answered "The fleet continued to track the two and then received heavy natural interference as they moved into a Neutron star system."

All three let out their own groans. Neutron stars put out a lot of energy and radiation left over from the mass which they were now comprised of. It meant the team would be going into a very 'hot' zone.

"Can it." She said sharply. "Anyway, the star itself is not only putting out radiation but for some reason it is amplifying the emissions from the vessels. As the two started getting closer to the star itself we started getting more signals." Up came another screen, once again the analysis showed not just two, but seven separate identical emission signals. In addition to the stack of identical signals the display showed something else as well, two other emission signals.

"What are the other signals?" Uli asked.

"As best we can tell," Dani explained as she zoomed in on the first of the secondary signals "This signal is only really been readily recorded around the Omega 4 Relay."

Myls cocked his head to one side and asked "Collectors?"

Dani brought the next slide up of a Collector vessel near the Omega 4 Relay. I was large and cylindrical, made of what appeared to be rock and stone with a metallic ring array around its center on heavy spokes breaking through the central part of the ship.

"We think so. Allow why they would be meeting with a Geth fleet of Dreadnoughts is anyones' guess. The admiralty are of mixed conclusions on this one. Best guess is they are collecting species from the far side of the Attican Traverse. But that's only a guess. And then there is this. "She zoomed in on the final emission signal spread. It was larger than almost all the other signals combined.

Zen brought up his Omni-tool downloading that spec on the screen to take a closer look at it himself. "What is this?"

"The fleet doesn't know. The only thing that comes remotely close are anomalous stellar reading from the Thorne system. And that's a Brown Dwarf competing with the G class star it's orbiting."

Zen kept staring at the screen and then back to his Omni-tool to re-analyze the signal.

"So you had a Geth Dreadnought fleet meeting the Collectors and something huge of unknown origin. Our scientist estimate that whatever it is colossal in structure. It probably dwarfed everything around it. There they all stayed until just about seventy four hours ago. Then most dispersed deeper into the Veil. But then we picked up one more signal orbiting the Neutron star after the fleet had left."

Another slide came up on the display. This time there was a smaller signal just above the noise floor.

"What is it?" Uli asked. "If you hadn't shown us this I would have never known it was there."

"Science teams believe that the star is echoing off the hull of a Dreadnought." Dani said.

"Is that even possible?" Uli countered.

"You got me Uli, but the egg heads seem to think so. There is still a lot we don't know about Neutron Stars." Dani shrugged. Uli shook her head in understanding.

"So what does the admiralty think is still there?" Myls said as he got up from his seat, moving closer to the screen to better look at what could only be described as the Harmonic echo of whatever was still there.

"That's what we're here to find out. But they've never seen a convergence like this so they want answers." She answered. Looking over at Zen she asked, "Zen, how much longer until we're on target?"

Zen looked up from his display, then realizing what was being asked he tapped his omni-tool and another display came up. "We are about forty minutes from the system center, Boss. On target that's another story. But sensors are already showing a spike in the rads."

The radiation from a Neutron star is incredible, but radiation doesn't bother Synthetics the way it does Organics which is probably why the Geth used this system for their meeting. That could of gone unsaid, but how it affected the Collectors was a mystery.

"Uli that crate you're sitting on has our Rad meds. Everyone start your doses now. And watch your counters people, as it rises so does your dose. You all know the protocols and I'm not your damn mother."

Uli started to get up and Myls let out an audible groan. "You have a problem with that, Qwib Qwib?"

"Those meds make me nauseous Dani." He started but was silenced as the injector hit him from behind.

"Aaaaahhhhh….." Uli cooed as she finished his injection "Does your tummy hurt?" You could actually hear her pouting her lips as she asked. Myls turned around scowling at her as Uli injected herself with her dose. She handed the injector to her leader then wrapped her arms around her lover. "I'll make it up to you later," she whispered, "I just want to make sure there is a later."

Dani injected herself and then threw the injector to Zen as he slipped back into the cockpit. "All right people, let's get one last weapons and systems check before we get there."

-

Zen sat down and pulled up the HUD. Hull Shielding was down over the windows due to the radiation, and due to all the ambient energy he had to keep cleaning up his visual display. His orders had been passive sensor sweep only, which he understood but didn't like. So far they hadn't picked up any sign of Geth activity in this system, but with the strange readings the Neutron star's energy was giving his sensors Zen didn't fully think he could trust them. Hoo-man technology could be a little loopy.

But he did know where they were going. Whatever was left behind was big, and the stars energy was pinging off whatever it was like a rock banging off a metal wall. Finding this thing wasn't going to be a problem. Zen hit the intercom. "Heads up! Whatever this thing is, it's big and it's settled into a stable orbit around the star."

Dani popped her head into the cockpit. "Stable Orbit? Is it a ship?"

"Don't know yet." Zen answered cautiously "I'm not picking up any means of propulsion though."

"How is that possible? Shouldn't it be pulled in to the gravitational field of the star?" She asked

Zen continued to analyze what little he was getting from the sensors not turning around. "That would make sense, but I'm not getting anything on the passive sweep. I can go active an…"

"No." She didn't yell, but her message crystal clear.

"All right boss. But when we get there I'm going to have to open up one of the hull plates to get a look at it." Zen replied.

"Yeah I figured. Try using the veiwers first." Dani'Breizh recommended.

Zen brought up the veiwscreen, the picture was filled with static breaking periodically to give a view on a black on black starscape. The only illumination from the star was the ignition of gas and debris as it fell into the swift orbit. And except for what appeared to be massive leaps of lightning off the blackbody of the compacted material of the matter of the star stuff, this star was dark.

With only that minor amount of illumination and the poor reception of the viewer from whatever type of rays were hitting the viewer, there was no way to make out what it was in orbit around the star.

"Well crap." She said, unhappy with the results.

"It's the hoo-man equipment. I've added it to the list of things to fix when we get back." Zen reported distractedly.

"Any idea what it is?" She asked.

"I have a thought, but I don't want to say until we get into actual visual range."

"No, Bos'tet on that. If you know what it is then spill it. She ordered.

Zen cycled through the controls bringing the display back up. Each was a freeze frame still from the same feed they had just seen. Finally stopping on a semi clear shot of a gigantic lightning streak curving over the surface of the star. Zen tap the controls and a small square highlighted and then zoomed up on the area. From the screen you could see a part of the lighting in the background, but zoomed in like this you could see the blurry silhouette of something.

"Okay," Zen sighed, "I can't clean up the image any more than that. But by calculating the size in relativity to the star's mass itself…." Zen dipped his head and scratched through his suit. He didn't like what he thought, but the numbers… "…the mass of the object equates to a large starship."

Zen picked up his head from his hands and turned in the chair to look up at his officer in charge. "It's a Dreadnought Dani."