Of Cats and Dark Energy
Part 2: "Can we render assistance?"
Before Shepard could ask for an explanation, EDI interrupted. "Commander, the unknown ships' systems are coming back online, and the crew have recovered consciousness. Any orders?"
"Keep our shields up and stand by." Shepard said. "Let them get themselves up to speed before we do anything to scare them."
"Scare them?" Grunt said. "They're ten times our size! That'd be like a volus scaring me!"
"Just so you know," the Doctor said, "the Enterprise could cut the Normandy in half in seconds. Fortunately, the crew and captain are a very civilised lot. They'll want to talk."
"Commander," EDI said, "their shields just came online. Kinetic and energy barriers, even our Thanix cannon couldn't scratch them. We are also being scanned by a very powerful and sophisticated sensor array."
"Are they hacking us?" Tali asked.
"No." EDI replied. "They are making no attempt to breach our firewalls. They are examining our structure and energy signatures. They are also making bio-scans.
"One moment. Commander, they are trying to signal us across a wide range of frequencies."
"Put it through here." Shepard said.
The voice that came through was a mellow, controlled baritone. "Unknown ship, this is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation starship Enterprise. We are here on a peaceful exploration mission. Please respond."
Glancing quickly around his team, Shepard responded carefully. "This is Commander Shepard of the Normandy. Can we render assistance?"
"Thank you for your offer," Picard replied. "but we are in no immediate need. There are no injuries among the crew, and results from our preliminary diagnostics indicate all ship functions are nominal.
"However, I would appreciate a meeting with you as soon as convenient. There are several matters on which I would value your input."
"Half an hour?" Shepard asked. "Shall I send a shuttle?"
"No need." Was the answer. "I and my Away Team will transport directly to your location. I look forward to meeting with you, Commander. Picard out."
"How are they going to get here?" Miranda demanded. "Holo-comms?"
"They have matter transporter technology." The Doctor told her. "Among other things."
"Right!" Shepard said. "Miranda, Tali, Samara and Garrus will be in the meeting with me. You too, Doctor.
"Grunt, Zaeed, I want you two to look at the intel from the two alerts we received earlier. We can't ignore those, and there might be a connection with what's happening here. Tactical analysis, full breakdown. I'm not going in blind if I can help it.
"Kasumi and Jacob, I want you to look at everything our sensors got about the Enterprise and her crew. Risk analysis. If these guys are hostile, I need to know what we can do to stay alive, even if we can't beat them. Kasumi, if you can find a discreet way past some of those firewalls, it'd be a big help. Mordin, look at the bio-scan data. We've already had one visitor who looks human but isn't. See what you can find.
"Thane, Jack, I need you to make sure that all the sensitive areas of the Normandy are locked down tight. We don't know what these people are capable of and I don't want any espionage or sabotage going on."
As the crew departed about their tasks, EDI reconfigured the room, closing down the hologram and bringing up seats. Shepard turned to the Doctor.
"You seem to know about these people. What can we expect?" He asked.
"An iron handshake in a velvet glove." The Doctor said. "StarFleet is the military and exploration arm of the Federation - which is like your Council. They'll always look for a peaceful solution, to make friends, to understand, but if you cross them, they'll defend themselves, and they have the power and skills to do it, and do it well.
"The Enterprise is the Federations' flagship, so the crew is even more elite than most. I only know Jean-Luc Picard by reputation, but he's more than just a soldier. He's a diplomat and a scholar, but not a politician."
"Will they know you?" Garrus asked.
"They'll know of me." The Doctor allowed. "I'm a little bit famous, unfortunately."
It was at that point, following a brief massage from the Enterprise, that the 'Away Team' arrived, in a manner Shepard had never seen. Shimmering globes of energy appeared first, hanging in mid-air at about the height of a man's mid-section. These then expanded to form human-like silhouettes of sparkling energy, which gradually solidified into living forms. The process took about half a minute, and five people stood in the room.
Three of them definitely looked human. A compact, balding man of medium height in a black and maroon uniform, a tall red-haired woman in black and blue, and a wiry black man with yellow patches on his uniform and an odd-looking device across his eyes.
Of the other two, one was definitely alien. A tall, powerfully built man, also in black and yellow, with a dark-skinned, craggy, bearded face, a hawklike nose and a massive, domed forehead, marked with a pattern of ridges, which gave the whole head the appearance of a battering ram.
The other, also in black and yellow, was simply...different. Compact and wiry, with sleek dark hair and an unremarkable face, he had a golden skin and yellow eyes which roved over the room and the people in it with lively but detached curiosity.
The balding man tapped a golden badge on the front of his uniform. "Safely arrived, Number One. We will check in in an hour." Then he stepped toward Shepard, putting out a hand.
"Commander Shepard? I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Permission to come aboard?"
"Granted." Shepard replied. "Welcome aboard the Normandy. Please be seated and let me introduce my crew. My First Officer, Miranda Lawson; Gunnery Officer Garrus Vakarian; Chief Engineer Tali'Zorah vas Normandy; Justicar Samara. This is our other guest, the Doctor."
Picard acknowledged each introduction with a courteous nod, but subjected the Doctor to a more than ordinarily keen glance. Then he said: "These are my Away Team. Ships' Chief Medical Officer Dr Beverley Crusher." The tall redhead. "Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Commander Geordi LaForge." The man with the odd optical device. "Head of Security and Tactical Officer, Lieutenant Worf." The big alien. "And Operations Officer Lieutenant Commander Data." The yellow-skinned man.
Everyone seated themselves, then Shepard began. "So, Captain Picard, can I begin with the obvious? Who are you and where did you come from?"
"Before I answer that, Commander, may I ask what may seem an odd question?" Picard requested.
Shepard was about to consent, when the intercom beeped. "Commander?" It was Mordin. "Have some information. One of the visitors has no life-signs. Energy pattern indicates artificial life-form. Thought you should know."
Shepard shot a questioning look at Picard, who nodded. "Commander Data is an android." He admitted. "Is that a problem?"
"An AI!" Tali yelled. "They brought an AI on board!"
Garrus was out of his seat in an instant, his heavy Carnifex pistol aimed squarely at Datas' forehead. But Worf was just as quick – perhaps a shade quicker – and was also upright, a hand-weapon of unfamiliar type levelled at Garrus.
There was a moments' tense silence, then the android said in a pleasant tenor voice. "Sir, I perceive that to be a projectile weapon. I must warn you that my skull is constructed of centimetre-thick duranium alloy. In the unlikely event that you can fire before Lieutenant Worf stuns you, you will do me no significant damage, but the resulting ricochet might well cause injuries among the rest of you. If my presence aboard the Normandy causes any distress, or contravenes any law or regulation, I am quite prepared to return to the Enterprise at once."
This statement, delivered with apparent sincerity in a voice that held the same calm tone throughout, left Garrus nonplussed. The Doctor, however, growled: "This isn't the time or place for quarian collywobbles. Data isn't a geth, far from it."
"No, he isn't." Tali looked up a little sheepishly from her omni-tool. "I'm sorry, I overreacted."
"Stand down, Garrus." Shepard ordered.
"As you were, Mr Worf." Picard commanded.
As the two aliens holstered their weapons and retook their seats, a glance passed between them. Understanding and mutual respect.
"I apologise, Commander Data." Tali said. "My reaction was instinctive and irrational. My people were driven from their home by a race of AIs, and the war between us continues."
"I understand, Miss vas Normandy." Data replied. "But I belong to no race. I am, in fact one of only two or three of my kind."
"Commander Data has been legally declared a free citizen of the Federation." Picard added. "He is a decorated officer in StarFleet and a valued member of my crew."
"Then we welcome him as such." Shepard said. "Though it might be as well to let the majority of my crew go on thinking he's some kind of alien, at least for now.
"But you had a question for me, Captain?"
"I did." Picard allowed. "An odd one, but one that I do need answering. Can you tell me what year this is?"
Shepard blinked, then said. "2186. Why?"
Picard sighed. "When we arrived here, we scanned the area and detected an anomaly. You see, Commander, our ship comes from the 24th Century. We were testing an experimental TransWarp drive module. There was some kind of malfunction, and we found ourselves here. Star patterns indicated that we had travelled not in space, but in time, back to the late 22nd Century.
"This has happened before on several occasions, time-travel being something of an occupational hazard for StarFleet crews. However, in our history, by the year 2183, the Federation had been incorporated for some twenty years, and this area was one of it's most densely-populated zones. We should be detecting StarBases, transmissions from colonies and StarFleet communications.
"There are certainly colonies out here, and we have detected military communications, but from several different factions, including the Human Alliance. Also, your ships' configuration is entirely unfamiliar, and we can detect no warp drive, just a core of some unknown element and a source of Dark Energy.
"As to who we are, the Enterprise is primarily a deep-space exploration vessel. Her crew comprises some 400 StarFleet personnel, their families, and a range of mission specialists, passengers and others, depending on the precise mission or missions we are undertaking. The ship is armed for defence, but also has its' place in StarFleet line of battle, should the necessity arise. Naturally, I am keen to get these people home as soon as possible, and to minimise any disruption to your culture caused by our presence here."
"It's not just their culture you're disrupting, Jean-Luc." The Doctor put in.
"I gathered that as soon as I became aware of your presence here, Doctor. Our sensors detected both your TARDIS and TimeLord life-signs on our first sweep. Naturally, this was flagged up and we have been briefed, but I wanted to assure myself that it was you, rather than the Master.
"But perhaps you can explain what is happening here."
"Despite what people think, I don't know everything." The Doctor grumbled. "Just more than anyone else! The fact is that the Enterprise has been sent not only backwards, but sideways, in time. Back to a history that never existed. A history where humans discovered the Mass Effect from Prothean ruins, rather than Zefrem Cochrane inventing the warp drive."
"Kind of a Schrodinger's Cat thing?" LaForge asked with a frown.
"What's Schrodingers' Cat?" Garrus demanded.
Data answered. "A 20th-Century human scientist named Schrodinger proposed a thought experiment to challenge the prevailing Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. A cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor detects radioactivity, the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. When the box is opened, however, the cat is seen to be either alive or dead. The question posed is at what point does quantum superposition end and reality collapse into one possibility or the other?"
"But," Geordi added, "there's another interpretation called 'Many Worlds'. According to that one, if you open the box and find the cat alive, you immediately create an alternate world in which it's dead. The worlds are completely decoherent and unaware of each other, but equally valid."
"I know the theory," Garrus said, waving a hand impatiently, "I was just wondering what a cat was?"
"A small, carnivorous mammal kept as a pet by some humans." Dr Crusher told him, unable to suppress a grin.
"I have one called Spot." Data added.
It was difficult not to laugh. Tali was staring at Data, and Shepard, who was the only one who had seen under her mask, could imagine her expression of near stupefaction.
The Doctor, however, was having none of it. "That's right as far as it goes." He stated. "But, being human, it only goes half-way. A lot of these alternate worlds do exist, that's true. But they aren't equally valid. It's about probability, you see.
"Finding ruins on Mars with the secrets of a technology that allows you to change the mass of objects is a lot less probable than an eccentric drunk with a penchant for loud music building a warp drive behind his shack in the aftermath of a war.
"The future you come from, Picard, is in the main timeline. This one is an offshoot, a might-have-been. It's a lot less real and a lot more fragile, and the longer you stay here, the more fragile it will become. But if it breaks, if the Time-corridor surrounding it fractures and falls away, all the energy contained within it will get loose!"
"And that would be bad?" Miranda guessed.
"Very bad." The Doctor affirmed. "There are races and creatures both inside and outside normal time and space who could find that energy and use it. Some are harmless enough, but the others...! The Daleks, the Reapers, even the TimeLords could make terrible weapons with that energy. It's happened before, during the Time War. That's how the Nightmare Child was born. We even dipped into the alternate histories to create the Could-Have-Been King and his army of Meanwhiles and Never-weres."
"We just stalled an attack by the Reapers." Shepard said. "You mean they aren't just part of this reality?"
"The Reapers aren't a part of any reality." The Doctor said. "They're outside. They can only attack realities whose walls are weak. But with the energy of a whole timeline, they could attack stronger ones, and increase their own power.
"Your Mass Effect technology uses dark energy, and dark energy is part of the complex of forces that sustain the corridors. That creates a fissure the Reapers can exploit, but only after building up a lot of energy themselves."
"That explains the long intervals between Reaper incursions." Shepard said.
"I had suspected something of the kind." Picard noted. "As soon as we detected your presence, Doctor, we guessed that there was more at stake than a simple desire to return home."
"It's not that!" The Doctor snapped. "There's enough brain-power in this room without me to figure that little puzzle out. No, something else is going on. Is Q behind this? Because if he is, he'll regret upsetting me!"
Picards' eyebrows shot up. The Doctors' reputation was considerable, but he had never heard anyone speak so lightly of Q.
"When Q decides to subject us to one of his tests," Data said, "he invariably announces himself. He has not appeared so far, so it is safe to assume he had no part in this."
"Who, or what, is Q?" Samara asked.
"The biggest and most annoying meddler and mischief-maker in all of Time and Space!" The Doctor growled. "Worse than the Vorlons! I've crossed paths with him once or twice. He doesn't like me much."
"I wonder why?" Garrus murmured. "Given your sparkling personality."
The Doctor looked over at the turian, and sighed. "Garrus, I'm thirteen lives in, and I've made a lot of mistakes. I try to help where I can, and it isn't always easy. You'll forgive me if I don't waste time or energy trying to be nice. I'm not nice. I'm the Doctor. The only person who understands that properly is Granny Weatherwax."
Garrus was about to ask who Granny Weatherwax was, when he caught Shepards' eye. He subsided, opening and closing his facial flanges in mild exasperation. The Doctor also turned to Shepard.
"So, has anything else happened around here?" He demanded. "Anything strange, out of the ordinary, weird?"
"Apart from visitors from another reality and a grouch in a blue box?" Shepard asked. "Well, we did get a couple of requests for help."
"Well, why didn't you say so?" The Doctor demanded. "What's happened and where?"
Shepard called in Massani and Grunt to report their findings. The scarred mercenary spoke first.
"I've been looking at the raid on the human colony. It was a non-Alliance one called Rainbow World. Damn silly name, but they had reasons for it. Seems the backers are a charity group promoting species integration. They didn't just invite humans, but anyone who wanted to come. Kind of an experiment to see if we could all live together. Nice idea, but they never got time to see if it worked.
"According to records, half the population were human, but the rest were a mixed bag. Some asari, some volus, a number of salarians, quite a few quarians, but the majority were turians."
"Not surprising." Garrus noted. "The turian government is worried about humanity, but as individuals, our two species get along better than most. We're a lot alike. That's what worries the governments."
"Some quarians like to spend their Pilgrimage planetside." Tali put in. "Partly because they think they'll be living on ships for the rest of their lives, partly because they don't want to lose the skills of living on a planet."
"And the asari like everybody!" Shepard finished, earning a rare amused glance from Samara.
Zaeed shrugged. "Anyway, the attack came out of nowhere. Communications were blanketed, and what defences they had failed to react until they were manually activated. Apparently, the enemy ship didn't show up on sensors, nobody knew it was there until they saw it. It stayed in orbit, but was visible from the ground – we have pictures."
He fiddled with his omni-tool, bringing up a series of images on the table projector. They seemed to be sourced from omni-tool data, and most were blurred and distorted. The clearest showed a view of hills and forest, but the sky above them was almost bisected by a grey, angular shape.
"Best we can figure out from the accounts, the enemy ship was cube-shaped, and the size of a small moon!" Zaeed went on.
Picard and his team exchanged worried glances, then the Captain said. "Can you tell us more, Mr Massani? How did the raid proceed?"
Zaeed shrugged. "Pretty much a walk-over. Raiders just appeared out of nowhere groundside, no landing craft or drop-ships, no gunships or heavy weapons, just infantry. The first wave ignored the colonists, they went after tech. They took the cannons, comms gear, even the main reactor! Weapons and anything that had a mass-effect core. They also took all the Element Zero they could find. They'd pick the stuff up, or a bunch of them would surround anything big, and it and they would just vanish same way they appeared.
"Of course, the colony had a militia, and they got busy, but the raiders just ignored them. They tried everything – incendiaries, cryo ammo, disruptor, shredder, armour-piercing, tech powers and biotics. Thing was, you could only use one weapon or ammunition type once. Kill one, and it would disappear, but after that, all the others were immune to that type of attack or weapon.
"Then the second wave came in, and they went for the colonists. Not to kill, but to capture, and they were very choosy. They ignored children, old people, the sick and the wounded. They only killed the ones who wouldn't stop fighting them. The others they grabbed and injected with something, then disappeared with them. They also didn't bother hunting out ones who hid.
"They got most of the humans and turians who were in good shape, all the asari and about half of the salarians."
"What about my people?" Tali asked anxiously.
"That was one of the weirder things." Zaeed said, in a softer tone than was usual with him. "One of them grabbed a quarian, looked him up and down and said -the only time any of them spoke – 'Too fragile. Unsuitable for assimilation.', and let him go. After that, they only bothered with quarians who tried to fight, and they just killed them, about half a dozen." He looked at Tali. "I don't know whether I'd be relieved or insulted, myself.
"Then the ship just left. The remaining colonists jury-rigged what was left of the comm gear and called for help. The Alliance and the Council sent ships to get them off. They wanted to take them all back to their homes, but apparently they won't be separated. They've got them somewhere safe. They've left the scene just as it was for us to investigate."
"One more question, if you please." Picard said. "Is there a physical description of the raiders?"
Zaeed nodded. "I was getting to that. Colonists said they came from different species – none they recognised except for humans – but they all wore the same black armour, had grey skin and had cybernetics. Not discreet cybernetics, but big, clunky, crude-looking things. Mostly arm extensions and optical replacements."
"It has to be the Borg, Captain!" Geordi said.
"The evidence would suggest that Geordi is correct, Captain." Data confirmed. "Though I would recommend investigation on the ground for full confirmation."
"You know something about this?" Shepard demanded.
"We cannot, of course, be absolutely certain until we have investigated fully. "Picard told him. "But everything we have seen and heard here seems to point to an adversary we have faced several times in our own...reality.
"They call themselves the Borg, and they are not a race or species as such. They term themselves a 'Collective', individuals are known as 'drones'. We know nothing of their origins or original purpose.
"What we do know is that their ships, either cubes or spheres, travel along Trans-Warp Corridors, covering vast distances at high speed. They emerge from time to time to explore an area of space. When they come across a species or a technology they have not encountered before, and which they deem to have value, they assimilate it. By means of advanced nano-technology they can retrofit any new technology to their own systems and rewrite the DNA of any new species into their own, adding any new skills, abilities or traits to the Collective as a whole.
"As a result, they have highly-developed offensive and defensive abilities. Their shields, both ship and personal, can adapt quickly to any attack, and their weaponry adapts equally quickly to overcome any defences. However, their primary aim is not destruction or conquest, but assimilation. They have been known to pass by heavily-populated, scientifically-advanced worlds which offered nothing new, only to assimilate a primitive race for the sake of a unique genetic characteristic. Certain races, however, appear to make better drones than others, and are more frequently taken. Humans are a particular favourite."
"Oh, wonderful!" Shepard said. "Grunt, what do you have? Is it the same?"
The massive krogan managed to make the spacious conference room look crowded just by standing up. He shook his fearsome predators' head. "Not even a little bit." He said. His voice was certainly deep, but not guttural, and his tone was quiet and measured. "We have preliminary sensor readings, for one thing. The ship made a standard approach. It was unknown configuration - saucer-shaped – and not broadcasting. It seems the planetary defence grid got a lock on it straight away. The asari hailed them, asking for identification, and that's when things went dark.
"There was only one more communication after that. This is it."
The image was of an asari. Like all asari, she was strikingly good-looking, but her blue skin was marred with dirt and blood. She looked desperate, scared and hopeless.
"Hello! Hello! Anyone out there? Listen, we're dead, we're all dead! I don't care if you're batarian or vorcha or even bloody geth, but warn someone, warn everyone!" She took a deep breath, and began again, more calmly. "This is Major Kaira T'Sek of the 52nd Asari Commando. I am reporting the total destruction of the Leoraim colony by an unknown force. Their ship crippled our planetary defences and comms net in seconds. They attacked everywhere at once in overwhelming force. They appear to be machines. AIs, but more intelligent than the geth and less vulnerable. Most of our weapons don't seem to touch them. Biotics and tech powers have minimal effect. They're fast, deadly and organised. They're not looting or taking prisoners, just killing everyone. All my troops are dead, all commandos eliminated. This emergency channel is the only one open. If anyone hears this, get the word out, tell the Council, we.."
She broke off, turning and rising so her body blocked the camera. As she did so, a harsh mechanical voice came clearly over the line. One word: "Ex-ter-min-ate!" The holo went blank.
"That's all." Grunt said. "But from what the Major said, it seems like different tactics from the other attack, and a different enemy. That was a raid, by living beings, even if they had cybernetics. This was a ruthless and intentional massacre by some new type of AI."
"Not an AI, and not new." The Doctor said heavily. "Oh, their intelligence is computer-assisted, but there are living minds inside those shells. Living things that hate all other living things. They're the Daleks, and compared to them the Borg are a joke and the Reapers are schoolyard bullies."
"Query." Data said. "Is not the Dalek species extinct? The last record we have of them is over a century old, when a single saucer was destroyed by the combined Romulan and Klingon fleets."
"Not extinct." The Doctor told him. "Though we TimeLords tried our best to do it. Scattered through time, certainly. But they come back. They always come back. They're bred and programmed to survive, you see. At any cost.
"And like the Borg and the Enterprise. the Daleks aren't supposed to be here. Every moment they stay weakens this reality further. Somehow, we have to get them back where they belong!"