Interlude II - Adrift

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Starcraft is the property of Blizzard entertainment.

Mass effect is the property of Bioware.

Any elements used in this story are used only in order to create a story for no monetary gain nor do I claim any ownership over them, beyond the names and characters unique to this story.

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Unknown system.

Exandra of the Khalai cast.

A Protoss of the templar cast might serve in deep space during an extended period of time. Their physical prowess paired with the advanced technology provided by their Khalai artificers allowed them to operate in a comfortable manner in the vacuum of space.

Exandra was not of the templar cast and nor did she have in her possession a micro fabricator that could get her out of her plight.

After regaining consciousness, the young woman found herself aboard some sort of shuttle of unknown design.

She did not know how it was that she had found her way there. The instability of the containment field and the subsequent rupture in space time due to the overflow of void energies had the phase-smith mentally preparing herself to meet her now gone father.

After the initial shock of finding out she was still alive and safe for the time being the Khalai engineer began to explore the vessel she found herself in as she called for another member of her race, but the khala remained empty.

During the end war Amon, the dark lord tried to usurp the minds of her people through the khala. In this manner he wished to enslave the Khalai protoss and use the golden armada against his enemies.

But just as the Protoss were about to march through the stars in a parade of carnage his control was abruptly severed. To the relief of the Protoss their minds were theirs once again and through the ingenuity of a Nerazim warlock they devised a way to stave off the dark one from the khala.

But as suddenly as this grim savior appeared no trace of him remained after his subsequent aid and once they asked the leadership that remained of the dark templar no information ever came of this particular individual, it was as if he had never existed.

This now worried the engineer.

As she trekked through the vessel Exandra found that this vessel must have served a civilian purpose, this was due to the obvious absence of any weapon or tools for protection. After arriving at the cockpit of the vessel she was horrified to find two bodies in the piloting seats.

She had met members of the Terran race once before. She found them crude and unwelcome in their curiosity of her work.

These bodies weren't Terran. While one resembled the physiology of a female Terran, what differentiated her was the presence of crests along the back of her skull. Her now mummified skin showed that it once had a bluish or purple pigment.

The other corpse she could not compare entirely to a Terran. Though it shared many features with the physiology of that species, this one presented characteristics of a Protoss in regard to its lower half. A highly ornamented armor suggested to her that this creature did not take it off on a regular basis.

The visor along his suit was off, below it a smile presented to her. In his last moments this creature had been happy, as he clutched the hand of the other on his own.

This created a sense of dread within the Protoss. Here she was, alone and adrift in an unfamiliar vessel without knowing how long it would take for the hybrid to find her.

Remembering a lesson from her father she decided to live by the wisdom imparted in his words: "Even as we are ruled by the decisions of the conclave and protected by the will of the templar it was due to the ingenuity of the Khalai cast that the stars were explored by our people. We never surrendered under the trials of time, never give up, my daughter".

The fond memory of her father galvanized her spirit and made her take action to survive and try to contact what remained of her people.

With all the care she could muster, she moved the corpses out of the cockpit and placed them in the vessel's small cargo bay.

Once the bodies had been laid to rest next to each other she made her way back to the cockpit, as she tried to activate the vessel's systems she realized two things:

For one, her curiosity on dismantling Terran equipment would come in handy as these components had a striking resemblance to Terran circuitry. In turn this made her even more paranoid on what this vessel could offer her.

The second began to confirm her fears, this vessel had been adrift for a long time and in turn had lost all power. Bringing back online any systems would take time and few sacrifices on her part..

The tools she had integrated along her gauntlets made the repair and modification of componentes a doable endeavor; the crystal that powered her personal shield generator could be used to operate certain components for a short period of time.

Giving up on trying to bring the vessel back to a space faring state she focused her efforts on trying to restore its communication systems.

Time passed…

For several months she had been orbiting a binary system. Thankfully the orbit of her vessel was a stable one.

After much trial and error she managed to activate the vessels short range communication in order to emanate a pulse of information in short cycles. She managed this by cannibalizing a small fragment of her shield's power source, this placed her at a disadvantage if any enemies tried to board the vessel but this did not mean that her shields were completely gone.

The message she had been projecting contained information that was a simple mathematical principle. It would suffice to try and contact any form of intelligent life.

For another month she waited, her small beacon repeating the message for any vessel that would approach.

And she knew that other vessels would come. For in the distance she could make the shape of some sort of structure. One that did not emanate any sort of psychic presence from any life form, but a small light that flickered in the distance betrayed any semblance of it being inactive.

Quarian frigate - Kai'Tonkar

Gael'Jonar vas Kai'Tonkar.

Gael's captainship had come as a great boon to his clan. Despite the one child policy imposed on the migrant fleet that almost always ended in the dissolution or eventual disappearance of several clans names, his remained as one of the only that preceded his people's flight from Rannoch.

His kind had been forced to become practical people after the tragedies of their fall. As such, the quarians had been forced to acquire vessels from other species as they lacked the facilities to produce new ships.

But some vessels from their original fleet remained. These ships survived only due to the frantic repairs done by their engineers. This vessel was such a ship, nearing the point of no return as it was as old as their exile.

"Captain. Our transit to the Raheel-Leyya system was successful. No systems report signs of stress" responded his second in command and yeoman Hika'Tiam. Gael had known her since they were nothing but small children playing and traveling through the cramped corridors of their home vessel, the Rayya.

"Excellent… Have our sensor array activated once again and sweep the area for any anomalies in the system" his friend complied and began to delegate his orders across the vessel.

His mission was simply to investigate the system in preparation for the quarians to move there as part of their migration across the stars.

This task was once of the most important for his kind. Each time the migrant fleet moved, it caused a great commotion across the systems they traversed. As the sheer quantity of vessels moving across the mass relays would disrupt transit and generate a metric ton of complaints directed at the quarian race.

"This place surely is empty…" commented his friend. "But I'm sure that Jona will appreciate the relative proximity to Rannoch…" The mention of his wife's name brought a smile to the captain.

"She will surely bore my children with stories of the homeworld" Hika laughed at the joke made at the expense of her twin sister.

Her existence along with that of her sister was rare among the fleet. Twins were a welcomed gift among their kind, for such an event was rare as none could even understand.

Jona had given him the even rarest gift of them all: two twins of her own. Gael thought that this was a greater gift than the vessel he now commanded. He hoped for the end of his duties that day so he could meet with his family as they awaited him in the captain's quarters.

"You better erase that smug smile from your face, we still have a mission to…" Hika began to berate him but something that appeared in her monitor stole her attention "Captain. You better see this…"

Gael did as she said and what he saw left him truly perplexed.

In a long band width frequency a signal repeated itself on a constant interval. This couldn't be a rescue buoy for it was not a written message that was asking for assistance. No, it was repeating a single mathematical pattern. One that factored the curvature of the circle as a constant.

"This is… odd" began his yeoman "We might be able to track where it's coming from… there" her starmap focused on an object orbiting the star

The ship's sensor could not make much detail of the object, only that it was metallic.

"This warrants investigation. Get a squad of marines on a shuttle and get them to identify the nature of the object" his orders were followed and a little under twenty cycles later a squad of marines began to make their way towards the object.

Several more cycles passed until they reported on their findings "Captain. The derelict is an Asari vessel" began the voice of a marine through the radio. Xila, the daughter of admiral Han'Gerrel as he remembered "The vessel seems old and… there was a flash of light in the bridge. What are your orders?"

He pondered for a second before he became convinced that this warranted investigation "Board the vessel and find the origin of the anomaly"

The squad complied and they made their way towards one of the ship's access ports.

Exandra

After months aboard the derelict Exandra began to lose hope. Even though she had managed to make the signal self-sufficient and accessed the ship's internal water reservoir for survival her mental state had degraded to such an extent that she even began to miss the Terrans.

At least their loud mouths could destroy the silence…

A flashing light broke her out of her thoughts, the vessel had remained in such an undisturbed state that she had begun to take naps in the pilot's seat.

She activated her shields and began to view through the window. There she made the figure of an approaching vessel, rescue.

She disabled the signal and made her way towards the cargo hold to greet them. But before she could manage to enter the corridor that led to that part of the ship she found that the intruders were accessing one the lateral access ports.

Before she managed to react several figures appeared before her as the gate finally opened. All were members of the same race as one of the corpses, not good.

Xila'Gerrel vas Kai'Tonkar

As the most veteran member of the Kai'Tonkar marine Corp she had been entrusted with the command of this group.

Her group had accessed the vessel's entry port without much trouble. But as the technician in their group managed to open the internal gate to the vessel, what welcomed them on the other side was not what they expected…

Towering over her stood an alien that none of them had ever seen before. Neither the young nor the old among them recognized what this is or what it was capable of.

All of her marines trailed their weapons upon the tall figure before them, waiting for her command. She had been frozen by the initial shake but also aimed her weapon at the alien.

"Team leader, what's your situation?" Her captain spoke through the intercom "Team leader, report" he commanded.

"Captain, we are in front of a creature I don't recognize… it's just staring at us…" the creature began to raise its arms and spooked the team, they began to threaten it due to this. As they shouted for it to not move, the alien's arms rested on the air as if…

"What was that team leader?" the captain spoke again. As the sudden storm of marines barking for the alien to not move was shouted through their intercoms.

"I…" she read the alien's intention "I think it's surrendering sir… what are your orders?" The captain remained silent for a few seconds.

"Does it understand us?" Before she could ask the alien a voice in her mind spoke.

(Y-yes… I can understand you) a feminine voice spoke directly into her mind. Xila saw as she wasn't the only one that 'heard' this, whatever had spoken to them sent the marines into a frenzy as they searched for the origin of the voice. (It's me. The one in front of you) they turned once again to the alien in the room. She moved her hands a little to confirm that indeed she was the one that spoke to them.

"Team leader?" The captain waited for an answer.

"She can, captain" Xila responded, she proceeded to ask something before the captain could give her another order "What are your intentions?"

The creature looked beyond the squad, her sight directed on the entrance to their shuttle (I wish to parlay with your commander) this surprised the quarians but passed her intentions on.

"Captain, she wished to speak with you. What are your orders?" The silence endured for another moment.

"Bring her in" the team leader complied and motioned for the alien to move.

The meeting would seal the fate of the two races. But one thing was for certain.

Exandra had survived.

Afterword.

Welp, my week of rest begins as of today. See you next sunday.