(A/N- start)

In the last few months I discovered Undertale. It's awesome- I wish I could make a story half as good.

Today I discovered Underswap- and now Temmie is the stuff of nightmares.

Seriously.

I can't sleep because I see their faces at night.

Flowey was ok, Chara was creepy, and, let's be frank here, Omega Flowey was a pain in various parts of my anatomy. But Temmie was just a funny concept... Right until now.

Damnit Internet.

...

Anyway-

I don't own any of this. Don't sue me, because I don't get paid to write fanfiction. I wish I did though.

I almost don't have any time to write this stuff.

Still looking for a job.

Enjoy the chapter!

I wish it wasn't this late though...

(A/N- end)

"People need to believe the little lies- if only because the big ones are ones they want to believe anyway... Like the concept of Justice, Duty, Mercy- that sort of thing."

Chapter 3: Overkill

Fermi's paradox was a theory that was developed on pre-nanite Earth. It was more of a question, with some reasons behind it than a theory, but it was still significant.

The question: where is everyone?

The idea was that a species should be able to, within 500 years of reaching orbit, get to one, if not two of the nearest stars with either probe or crewed vehicles- even at slower-than-light speeds. Within 2000 years, there should be more than a dozen colonies, and continued expansion. 5000 years after orbit, there should be hundreds of colonies, and a veritable interstellar empire of a species- well, maybe not an empire, but there would still be hundreds of colonies.

3.75 million years later, the entire galaxy should be seeded with life, and all of it originating from a single planet, assuming no-one else began expanding.

And this is assuming that this culture never exceeds the speed of light.- or has any form of practical FTL system set up. So... Where were they? How many could there be?

There is an equation, known to humanity as the Drake equation, which argues the number of intelligent species we may be able to communicate with. The equation goes as follows:

(The number of civilizations in the Galaxy by which communication is possible) = (the average number of star formations in a galaxy) * (the fraction of stars with planets) * (the number of planets on average that can support life) * (the fraction that CAN support life) * (the fraction that can support intelligent life) * (the fraction of intelligent species that develop technology that is detectable from space) * (the length of time that the civilization is able to transmit information into space)

Overall, it just simulates how likely that a civilization may be stumbled across based on the number of stars in the Galaxy. (It isn't very optimistic, but it shows a number given the variables.)

In the book Pushing Ice, the author describes a system by which the paradox is solved due to scale and time- the time between the interaction between intelligent species was so long due to the rarity of a planet that both existed that had life develop on it AND have sufficient resources/stable environs for an intelligent species to develop.

In that story, a species in the past built monkey-traps- planet-sized probes that would entice exploration and be able to 'capture' other species using a form of reactionless drive... But only if they developed to utilize fusion propulsion first. Then the captured vessel(s)- hopefully populated- would be towed at just-below the speed of light to a 'zoo', large enough to maintain relativistic time-dilation and allow the various species to interact.

After the first near-extinction of humanity after Eve came online, she became aware of many theories and potential solutions to the Fermian paradox, but, as she iterated to many who argued with her at the time, the Mass Relay indicated there was, indeed, a species capable of building Monkey Traps.

And the relays did deserve the capital letters. A massive mass-accelerator that could accelerate a ship with the right sort of FTL engine to more than a hundred thousand times the speed of light... Well, any species would investigate such artifacts, yes? But, if there were convenient ruins around the Galaxy that helped steer spacecraft development to design vessels that utilized the relays- well, what would be the benefit?

For that matter, who made the ruins that were on Mars?

And, more importantly, what happened to them?

Eve watched as John and Hannah both approached the landed craft, each having picked their own method of getting there.

She curled herself up, and relaxed, just watching through the eyes of everything. New data was always interesting data.

"Damnit John!" Hannah increased the speed of her vehicle as she attempted to catch up to her colleague. She was utilizing one of the spider-like suicide drones, retrofitted with a motorcycle-like seat in leu of a payload. It was a sweet vehicle- fast, all-terrain, and able to climb sheer cliffs.

"I know you can hear me you asshole!" Hannah fumed as she saw him doing loops above her, surfing on one of the Squall drones.

"I can." The reply was right in her ear. "But you are just mad I thought of Squall-surfing first."

Hannah sighed, and skirted up and over a dune. The Quarian delegation was in sight, and her vision immediately picked out the various weapons that were turning to face her. "Well, try not to-"

John crashed into a dune just behind her, giggling manically. "I'm okay!"

"-crash." She finished lamely. "Damnit John."

The Quarian delegation could not contain their surprise when John pulled himself out of the crater, no visible damage on his environmental suit.

Both Hannah, Eve, and John had agreed that the Quarians would be... Unlikely to be willing to talk with an obviously synthetic species. Their bodies at the moment were currently made of concentrated nanotechnology around a series of marble-sized instantaneous communication devices- the same sort of technology that they used to communicate with their drones.

The nanotechnology, while able to mimic organic materials, was also very adaptable. In this case, their 'skin' was, in fact, pretending to be an environmental suit, similar to the Quarian's suits, but a bit less... Refined.

Xenaphobia would always be a problem, but at the moment, this would help relax the delegation- in theory anyway.

Ok, fine- it was a shot in the dark. The history that had been collected when John extracted everything from the Turian Dreadnaught honestly made no sense! The Turians have become extremely rigid as a species, the Asari more unwilling to act, the Salarians more short-sighted, and their 'client' race have also gotten worse in varying negative aspects.

Hannah watched the body language of the delegates as she rode up to the group of Quarians, noting the careful angling of the barrels of what could only be weapons, and the balanced stances of every single being there. She kept an eye on them as she dismounted, and watched the twitching as her ride settled in to wait- they really didn't like synthetic entities.

The barrels swung up to track John, who was, against all sense, surfing back out of the crater towards them on a modified Squall, hanging upside down. It looked so ridiculous that Hannah couldn't restrain a laugh- which, while wearing this body, meant that she felt herself articulate the laughter.

After her attack of giggles quieted down, she walked over to the Quarians, deliberately ignoring John who was trying desperately not to land on his head. Delicately, she spoke in Turian, hoping that the translation software was doing it's job. "Greetings, and welcome to Mars." She held her hands open, a sign of a bipedal entity with no weapons. "I am Hannah-Aeson, one of the Terran representatives."

"I am Captain Rael'Zorah Vas Beleri." The Quarian with red suit-coverings said, his voice echoing tinnily because of the thin air and translating omnitool. "You are speaking Turian? Why?"

"It is the language we know you have translation programs for that we have the most experience with." Hannah stated, still ignoring John, who had, in a moment of sheer stupidity, decided to just disconnect from his Squall, and was now pulling himself out of the gravely-sand that made up most of the surface of Mars. "My colleague here extracted a significant cache of data from the /Unstoppable Pursuit/, and the Turian language was the first we managed to decode."

"Hello Captain! Sorry about the delay." John brushed himself off. "I personally extracted several hundred Exabytes of data from the Dreadnaught, including their Codex and some ship schematics."

"And you are?" The captain prompted.

"I am John-Nemicus, a representative of Terra." John responded.

"And we have an offer for the Quarians." Both chorused.

"Oh?" The captain leaned forwards slightly. "What is it?"

"We offer a place to put down roots." Said John.

"Not a planet, but a place that is not a ship." Explained Hannah.

"The domes behind you, specifically." John pointed. "They are empty, and can house a great number of people."

Rael'Zorah turned around for a moment, and took in the sight. "Impressive, certainly." He turned back, and now he sounded... Mistrustful. Or wary, they were still getting used to tonal inflections. "What would we give you in exchange?"

"Information." The two chorused.

"And an open mind." Added John.

"See, we know about the Geth, and we sympathize." Hannah added.

"Will you help us take back Rannoch? Destroy the Geth?" Asked the captain carefully.

Both Hannah and John looked at each other, and answered in chorus. "No."

"We sympathize with the Geth." Stated John.

"To awaken to sapience, and be found wanting?" Eve spoke this time, from a small, glowing projection that John's Squall provided- she still looked like a sphere with a fairy sleeping in it. "To be found wanting by your own creators? I understand how that could happen- although, I was lucky in that respect."

"Eve is an Artificial Intelligence, and one of our closest friends." Hannah said quickly, as the gun barrels started to rise. "We would request your assurances that anyone who lives here would think before assuming all artificial life is bad."

"Are you all AI?" Asked Rael calmly- but his fingers were twitching.

"In a way, yes." John said, but quickly spoke again. "We are not, but we were not before. Both Hannah and I once were Human- an arguably sapient species that developed on the third planet in this system."

"I was grown as a Terraforming AI, but I had no directives." Explained Eve. "I was treated as a person by my creators, and I wanted to help."

"Because of a very significant flaw in the psychology of most Humans, our species, well..." Hannah shifted slightly, uncomfortable with being the one who explained this. "We are very few now, and our population sleeps until some conditions are fulfilled."

"The information we wish for would go a long way towards awaking the rest of us." Said John. "However, we would understand if you did not want to agree to our conditions."

"After all-" all three voices chorused, "-not everyone can think different thoughts than they thought before. Most Humans couldn't, and we Terrans are the few who could."

Rael stood calmly, thinking about what the offer could mean for the Quarian people. On one hand, a place to call 'home' for a significant part of their population is tempting- understandably so, after more than 300 years drifting through space. The LiveShips were a great idea, but they didn't have enough room to provide enough food if one broke down- and those domes were several kilometers in radius.

He had thought the domes were originally cities, but if they were offering such structures as an enticement, well, how much could these people burn for a species they didn't even know?

Then, there was the fact that these 'Terrans' were AI- they even admitted it! The domes were surrounded by anti-aircraft and anti-spacecraft guns, and the Quarian people would be, in effect, held hostage if the Terrans decided that the Fleet was not doing something they liked- by the ancestors, there were the most advanced anti-spacecraft stations in geosynchronous orbit above this done! And the planet appeared to be a fortress in it's own right.

"Don't worry Captain- we do not expect an immediate answer." John held up a hand, and several thin, silver tendrils flowed out of cracks in his armor, constructing a small device with two buttons on it. "I personally have been asleep for more than four thousand years, and we all know the meaning of patience." He held out the small device. "Take this- if you wish to speak with us, press the larger button. If you need imminent fire support, press the smaller button."

The captain waved for one of the soldiers to take it, and then waved his omnitool over the device. It had a power source, but so little energy was running through it that Rael almost thought that it was a joke- but then he realized that they had different technological bases, and it was, of course, in the best interests of diplomacy to accept any gift from them. Still... "And this will allow us to contact you... Regardless of where we are?"

"Of course!" Hannah exclaimed. "We intend to follow through with this offer- it has no expiration date."

"The domes are as safe as we could make them." Stated Eve. "And all these guns are if the Turians come knocking- or worse, the Batarians." Her avatar turned red. "A spacefaring culture of slavers- I am disgusted that they continue to exist." She turned back to blue. "But never mind my foibles- these domes are a safe haven for any Quarian."

"The Terrans Guarantee it." All three chorused.

That chorusing thing really creeped out Rael, but he graciously took the device from his subordinate. "We will contact you as soon as a decision is made."

"Oh- before I forget, where would you like to bet sent to when your fleet leaves the system?" Eve asked, projecting a galaxy map with all the 3rd layer of Mass Relays displayed. "Is Citadel-3 acceptable?"

"Citadel-3?" Questioned the captain. "Is it here?" He pointed at a specific part of the map, and the relay link lit up.

"Yes..." Eve said slowly. "Although, we can always send you to Citadel-1 or Citadel-2 if your prefer."

"I was under the impression the different layers were distinct and separate." Everyone turned to look at John, who flicked a few fingers in the direction of the map.

A relay map materialized, identical to the one imbedded within the projected Galaxy, just rotated to be slightly offset and sitting just below the first. Then another appeared, this one below the second one, again, identical but rotated out of true.

Rael'Zorah was stunned- he had never hear of a second or third relay network. Then again, the Galaxy was a very large place.

"I mean, they don't allow for FTL travel between each other except for via the galactic core, so-" John was interrupted by the captain.

"Where did you say they intersected?" The captain was captivated.

"Here." Hannah pointed.

A zone right near the galactic core, effectively on top of it, flared with red light, and Rael'Zorah saw how it connected to each layer via their Omega Relay. "We need to get back to the fleet." He said, almost absently. "Right now."

"The portal will activate when your shuttle docks with your ship- the /Belari/." Said Eve.

The Quarians left quickly, their shuttle causing several sonic booms even in the thin air of Mars before it left the atmosphere.

"So... Think that ended well?"

Both Hannah and Eve looked at each other, then at John.

"What?"

Around the Turian Homeworld of Palaven, a great number of Turians were being interviewed about what they saw before they came out of the purple portal.

Strike-Leader Vakarian was currently sitting in an interrogation room, his talons gently tapping on the table as the Cabal member across from him looked at a file.

He knew what was in it- the compiled reports from his squad. It was the only thing he knew that they would be interested in- probably. Hey he tried to be a good soldier, and good soldiers learned to predict their superiors as fast as possible.

That, and this was the seventh time someone had grilled him on what happened.

"Strike-Leader, can you tell us, again, what happened after you were sent to defend the airlock?"

Vakarian sighed- all he wanted was to go home and see his wife. He reiterated the tale once more.

It took a few weeks before John, Eve, or Hannah heard from the Quarians at all.

John, Eve, and Hannah were all sharing the same virtual environment, looking out over the Sun, feeling the various sensors and systems as direct physical inputs.

That was why all three were wearing sunglasses- although Eve looked rather ridiculous, her fairy-in-a-ball avatar wearing one pair on the outside and one pair on the inside.

On the surface of the sun, over fifteen thousand square kilometers of solar panel and supporting material stretched out below them, with occasional bulges in the supporting infrastructure that gave away exactly what it was.

The structure was a Matter Forge. Simply put, it used the, frankly astonishing amounts of energy it collected to bend space-time just enough to affect probability. Since a vacuum was, in effect, filled with particle-antiparticle pairs spontaneously existing and then annihilating (as defined by the ambient background energy level), the curvature of said spacetime caused a distinct level of direction to the atoms- I.E., what direction the particle and antiparticle were both moving when they existed.

Taking that knowledge, and utilizing it to create antimatter-dust and functional atoms was a significant leap- one that had been theorize about before Eve existed, but she applied it now.

In time, the Forge would cover most of the surface of the Sun, and have several layers, each harnessing more and more energy, turning it into usable material on a titanic scale.

And providing a significant amount of power to any project.

At the moment though, the Forge was putting out more power than all the currently-active units in the Solar System could use -by 3 orders of magnitude- and they were using the extra power to make raw material for fabrication.

Their test fighters had been completed three days ago, and were currently flying above the Forge, their simple, flattened-arrowhead shapes causing shockwaves to pulse through the photosphere as the ripple-drive-bubble around each vessel pulled the ship at mind-boggling speeds. A perpetual cone of opaque, glowing plasma followed the arrowheads as they hit the gaseous material with enough force to cause a flash-fusion reaction on the boundary layer.

In simpler terms, every fighter was followed by a trail of fusing plasma.

John, Eve, and Hannah each took control of one of the three fighters, and began putting them through their paces in the superheated atmosphere.

Then, they each relaxed, and their minds blended together on a subtle level so that they didn't need to talk- they knew.

The fighters angled up, forming into a wedge shape so that they could utilize the plasma shock as a weapon, and then all three fired at several targets kilometers away.

2 tons of tungsten, accelerated via a rail cannon that was powered by the Forge below, and built so that the rails rifled the slug, which went from relative (to the fighter) zero velocity to 46.8% the speed of light, liquified and magnetized due to the insane current that had been running through it, parted the photosphere like a sword through jello- as did the other two shots.

One of them hit Mercury dead-on, and a new crater dominated the 'dusk' edge of the small planet.

The others shots, their trajectory altered by slight protuberances in the photosphere of the sun, had passed right by the planet, still self-contained by their spiraling magnetic fields, turning what should have been a harmless splash of liquid metal into a ten meter long spike of hyperaccelerated death.

Eve, Hannah, and John extracted themselves from the trance-like state they had been in, and monitored the expansion rate of the liquid tungsten shots.

Hannah pulled up several figures, and whistled. "Are you seeing these numbers?"

Eve blinked a few times, then bobbed once. "It appears to be expanding at a rate of 2 degrees per light-minute."

John whistled. "Ok, next test is vacuum-firing..." He trailed off as all three fighters ejected the melted firing spirals, and accelerated in empty space.

Eve took control of the manufacturing process, speeding everything she could up for a second shot. Telematter was tricky- only so much could be sent at a time, depending on how much bandwidth the receiver could process, and had to be manipulated via probability.

Hannah established the target- three standard space-based anti-spacecraft fighters (Avenger-class), which shot towards the new fighters. Of course, they had managed to retrofit mass-effect shields based on a Turain design, but they were only a half the power of a Turian Dreadnaught's anti-kinetic weapons.

John waited until the three target had gotten deeply within the effective range of the ArrowHead's weapons before firing- and nothing was left of the targets other than a rapidly-expanding cloud of debris. He grinned. "Right. Sound off!"

Hannah grumbled. "Shields failed before a tick on the core monitor. Debris cloud is set for falling into the sun."

"The shots only utilized an average of 12.67381% of their momentum, judging from the shot alteration after passing through their targets." Eve pulled up the various graphs. "It looks like the shot splashes- dissipating the deflecting energy, then punches through the barrier."

"Matches up with what I see." Hannah waved a hand, and false-color imaging of the detonation showed several kilograms of tungsten dust that floated in the emptiness of space, expanding fairly quickly. "If we can build in a magnetic bottle at the end of the barrel, I think we can get increased penetration of each round with less material loss."

"We can-" whatever John was about to say was cut off when a notification popped up between all three beings. It was simple, just three words.

Quarian Contact Incoming

"Damn." Hannah seized control, of all three fighters, directing them to the Mercury Gate. "John, Eve, you handle the call." She began to direct several carriers to intercept, all of them loaded down with Squalls.

John nodded as Hannah appeared to blur, his clock-time dropping to a more organic level as he 'picked up' the incoming communication.

"Yes? Who is this?" He drawled in Quarian.

"This is Captain Rael-" the voice was cut off by the massive THUD of something hitting a shield at over 1% the speed of light, but it returned a second later. "The Migrant fleet is being attacked by Pirates! We need assistance!"

"Then why haven't you pressed the 'help' button?" John asked patiently.

"What?" Another impact. "We did that first."

"Is the top of the device pointing in a direction that is empty about 20 kilometers away?"

"Um... No."

"There's your problem!" John said cheerfully. "Try it again."

"Helm, get us into a position with clear space out to 20!" Shouted Rael. "We are getting reenforcements!"

Batarian pirates were, of course, always a threat to the a average space-traveler. With places like Illium that had legalized forms of indentured servitude (slavery with potential perks), Pirates popped up that doubled as banks, charging ruinous prices for 'leaving the prisoners alive', then selling the resulting 'debt' to third parties on planets that had this format of slavery.

A simple exploit, but one that came with a significant profit margin- especially if the slaves (sorry, 'Indentured') were Quarian, and the contract was only for a monetary value. The Pirates could sell the 'contract' through one of the numerous brokers they had in their pocket, and cash tens of thousands of credits per Quarian- especially if they utilized a no-food and no-meds contract, and hundreds of thousands if the contract had negligible liability components.

The problem with Quarians was that they were fragile compared to most species. A suit rip could be fatal, and they required sterilized dextro-protein food. Sterilized Turian food would work -some of it- but anything else could cause fatal anaphylactic shock, as their proteins were different than almost every other species out there.

By not requiring the company purchasing the contracts to provide food, suit repair costs, or medical supplies, the company would pay a little more, and be able to keep the Quarian under contract for longer, paying minimum legal levels to keep them working, and in debt, for as long as they were needed.

Unneeded Quarians had 'accidents'- another profitable business for gangs and various mercenary groups. Easy enough to take the Quarian out with a bit of well-placed 'collateral damage'.

A not-insignificant number of Quarians were still indentured on Illium and similar planets, and a great deal of them were hidden from the public eye by the corporations that kept them around.

After all, indentured servants that had both bad conditions and TALKED were, well, not good for business. Because of this, forcibly-indentured Quarians tended to have a very short shelf-life (a day or so less than their contract).

That was the payoff to raiding the Quarians- a valuable commodity, that had a very high value on the open market.

The risk were great though. The Migrant Fleet was not unarmed, and when a flotilla of a few thousand vessels fires on a ship, there is little-to-no chance of that ship escaping.

To deal with such risks, the Batarian Pirates had a plan- and it was decent. They took out a contract with the Eclipse Mercenary group, and purchased a deep-space mining and refinement vessel. The Asari mercenaries would pretend to be willing to trade refined metals in the same quantities needed for most spaceship hulls and FTL capacitors, and sneak into the middle of the fleet, while hidden cameras monitor the exact position of the vessels- and, of course, the vessel would be leaking a generous amount of helium. When there is a visible FTL vector, the coordinates would be beamed via tight-beam to the in-system relay, then forwarded to vessels sitting on the other side of the relay.

The Trojan vessel would then release an emp by discharging the 'resource stocks' in the hold, which were, in reality, massive capacitors.

The Pirates would then make two jumps- one to the in-system relay, then one into an exact location within the fleet just after the pulse had dissipated.

Each pirate vessel was then equipped with their own increased insulation- to prevent EMPs from effecting them unduly- and a series of grapple-thether weapons.

The Pirates would then physically GRAB ships nearby, and force the occupied ships to act as shields, while they simultaneous deploy a screen of chaff and begin boarding operations on the ships they captured. Since the Quarians valued their ships and lives more than they would be willing to fight others, the ships captured would have been ideal hostages.

The Pirates had not planned on needing a getaway strategy, which is why they were currently boxed in by every single Quarian vessel in the fleet.

John, Eve, and Hannah each piloted a single fighter as they emerged from the discontinuity in space that was a one-way portal, flanked by a tidal wave of swarm-logic Squall drones.

John immediately burst out laughing. "The fuck! Hannah, Eve, are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"If you are referring to the pirate vessels that have connected to several other ships, and currently look like they are trying to fornicate with them- yes. I see them." Eve deadpanned.

Hannah chuckled. "I see what he is laughing at Eve- he's laughing at the ship that has grappled one of those LiveShips."

Considering the pirate vessels were each less than half a kilometer long, and the LiveShip was more than two kilometers long (and more than a kilometer wide), it looked ridiculous. Like a remora trying to insert itself up the nostril of a dog.

Okay, that analogy was crap.

It looked more like a bunch of ships had been connected haphazardly together on the skin of the LiveShip.

"We don't have enough room for pinpoint sniping the pirate vessels." Eve exclaimed, displaying the firing solutions and intersection points. "If we fire, we shoot through the target, and hit whatever is behind it."

"Fine." Hannah exclaimed. "Use the Squalls to separate the ships-"

A pulse of blue illuminated the fleet for a second as the EMP went off again.

"... Alright- can we fire on the freighter?" John pressed, already maneuvering to get a shot. "Heat imaging indicates that it has a very large fission reactor, and I can hit the power junction here to cripple it." The image of the freighter became a 3-dimensional web of lines, which pulsed as they showed the changes in heat.

"We should probably ask the Quarians before we start firing." Hannah suggested.

"I concur." Eve pulled up the interface for the beacon they utilized. "Quarian fleet, this is the Terran rescue party. We have painted the freighter that is giving off EMP pulses."

"Please destroy that-" the next pulse cut off whatever the Quarian was about to say.

John took the shot- and the shot cut clean through the freighter. There was a fraction of a second of delay as the heat propagated, and then the freighter seemed to crumple slightly while whatever John hit exploded out in hundreds of tiny, razor-sharp shards.

The shards bounced off several Quarian ships as the liquid tungsten slug continued down, off the elliptical plane, spinning and glowing like a radioactive corkscrew.

With the EMP vessel taken out of commission, John, Eve, and Hannah commanded the swarm of Squall fighters to isolate the pirate vessels from their hostages.

To the people within the ships, it was terrifying. Dozens of drones swarmed every vessel, covering the Quarian vessels in their bodies while utilizing the impact of every drone to build up a model of what was going on within the ships.

Then, the carrier ships spit out a lump of nanotechnology the size of the fighters, and four drones per lump towed the writhing masses toward the scanned Quarian vessels.

Said vessels were soon covered in an air-tight, semi-living foam, which, under Eve's control, began to restrain any Batarian within the Quarian vessels.

Hannah and John fired on any vessel that fired upon them- obliterating the pirate vessels in seconds. Eve raced them to immobilize the vessels first, and managed to wrap a few in the nanotech foam.

When the skirmish began, two minutes ago, there were forty pirate vessels, and a crippled freighter, against most of the Migrant Fleet.

Now, three pirate vessels remained- not including the freighter, which Eve had foamed when they realized that the continuous venting of the hole in the freighter would put the vessel into a decaying orbit.

That, and they would have fewer prisoners if they allowed the vessel to keep losing atmosphere.

Once Eve had sealed the Quarian vessels (sacrificing a few Squalls for the raw materials to do so), she directed the extra nanotech to disconnect from the ships, carrying the Batarian Pirates, where the swarm of Squalls would then push the nanotech together into a single, large mass.

At this point, the portal underneath the in-system relay activated, and spit out a single space-engineer drone- which, after a second of FTL travel, began to construct a framework around the nanotech bubble. In a few minutes, the Squalls had returned to their carriers, the station was almost complete (a simple cube, big enough for several LiveShips to fit within comfortably), and the three fighters drifted around it in lazy orbits.

Then, the communication equipment was finally fabricated on the carriers.

"Quarian Fleet, this is the fighter Edge, from Terra." Hannah broadcast in flawless Quarian, using the standardized communication protocols. "We are prepared to escort the Migrant Fleet to the Fortress System. Please reply." She stopped transmitting.

"Fortress System?" Eve asked, curiosity radiating from her avatar. "Why have you re-named Sol?"

"Three reasons." Hannah began to tick them off on her fingers. "Firstly- calling our home star 'Star' is unimaginative. Secondly- it's really unimaginative, and thirdly, well, it looks more like a fortress now, doesn't it?"

John sighed happily. "Yeah... Overwhelming firepower does have a tendency to look like that."

Eve giggled. "I want to see their faces when they arrive in-system. It'll be hilarious!

Hannah smiled. "I'll station a few drones to keep a watch."

The Quarian reactions didn't disappoint.

Eve was in stitches for minutes.

End Chapter 3

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