I'm starting to run out of the parts I mostly wrote months ago, now entering the territory of random, unconnected paragraphs I need to piece together.
And a plot might help. Rate of updating will likely now slow.
I had been taking a break from the serious business of assembling a dedicated team of professionals for a ludicrously dangerous mission given to me by a smug bastard so that I could unwind by firing probes at planets. It helped me relax.
That and, you know, minerals. Useful for things, apparently. The boys in the lab - well, alien doctor in the lab, or rather just a kind of cabinet I walked up to that offered me a variety of options, but you get the point - couldn't get enough of them. And also nice to find the occasional lost artefact. Business and pleasure, that's probing planets.
Back in the old days I used to be able to take a Mako down and just drive around a worryingly featureless landscape for a few hours. Maybe hack a crashed satellite and pull out an upgrade or two, maybe drop a beacon next to a massive chunk of gold. Maybe fall down a ravine.
Not anymore though. Guess Cerberus' budget didn't stretch to putting a Mako on board. Guess I broke the bank. Oops.
Still, one could not zip around in space without consequence, of course, and before too long the core needed dumping.
Luckily for us, the podunk system we just-so happened to be in - I'd heard there was something valuable on one of these planets, another of those lost artefacts, something someone somewhere would probably want to get their hands on - had a nice big gas giant perfect for this, and so it was around that that we were sitting.
And there I was, in my cabin in my briefs, sipping coffee from my 'I heart space-Mondays' mug, when there came a request for my presence on the bridge. Some development or other, no doubt. It was always something.
"Now what?" I sighed, rubbing at my temples, setting down my mug.
"You'll want to see this, Commander," said Joker's voice through the cabin intercom. I glared at it, but this achieved nothing. I sighed again and stared at my fish instead. They swam around.
Why had I spent money on fish again? At least the little spaceship models were neat looking.
Oh yeah, Joker had been speaking to me. Something for me to see. That'd mean putting trousers on again.
"Cool, great, down in a sec," I said, grunting as I stood, shuffling down to the bed to get dressed.
A little under a minute later I emerged from the lift and power-walked my way to the bridge, mug in hand. I came to a halt behind Joker and took an especially loud sip to announce my presence.
"Alright, what's gone wrong now?" I asked.
"Not so much wrong as, well, just thought you'd like to know about the giant, mysterious ship that appeared out of nowhere in the same orbit as us," said Joker.
I blinked.
"Run that by me again, thanks?"
"A very, very big ship is sitting in orbit with us. Basically bumper to bumper, actually. I'm kind of afraid to move in case I scratch the paint."
He sounded remarkably calm about all this. It really kind of sucked the urgency out of the situation. Then again, the situation was just so out-and-out weird that it was kind of hard to take seriously in the first place. Was I missing a joke? I blinked again.
"Where did it come from?" I asked.
"We don't know. It literally just appeared. Not in the 'jumped in suddenly' sense, but in the 'it wasn't there one second and then it was' sense'."
"That's...impossible?" I ventured, tentatively.
"Improbable, given that it has observably happened," EDI chipped in.
"Thanks, EDI," I said, scratching my chin and wincing. A lot of me was still pretty damn raw from the whole 'dying' thing, and a lot of me also still looked as though I had been recently stuck back together. This was because, well, I had been.
I was thinking.
As a rule - and this I'd learnt first-hand - ships popping out of nowhere was never a good sign. Friendly people had a tendency not to do that. So what I was thinking was how best to get out of here as quickly and efficiently as possible.
We hadn't finished dumping the core yet. In a pinch we could cut it now and probably run, but it would hardly be pretty and it was one of those things that would do more harm than good in the long run.
Then again, in the short run getting blown to bits was also quite bad. This was something I had also learnt first-hand. Not a fan.
Also when we usually said that someone had come out of nowhere we usually meant they'd jumped in and we hadn't expected it, not that they had literally come from nowhere. That was a new one for me. I had no precedent for that.
"Is it doing anything?" I asked. Given that no-one was panicking and no alarms were going off I assumed 'no'.
"Nope. Just sitting there. Being mysterious," said Joker.
That was something, at least.
"Right, well, put this thing up somewhere for me so I can see it."
This happened, and I got a look. I imagine that my expression spoke volumes.
"What the hell is that?"
It looked as though someone had ripped a chunk off of a cathedral, turned it sideways and then stretched it out and put a big gold-inlaid beak on the front end and a nest of tubes on the back. And then covered the rest in what looked like guns, if my trained eye was any indicator.
Big guns.
"Subtle and understated," Joker said. I gave him the side-eye and he went quiet again.
"What have you got on that ship, EDI?" I asked.
"Very little I am afraid, Commander. It does not match anything yet encountered."
I could have told myself that, but I decided not to bring that up. Instead, important questions:
"But it's not a Collector ship?"
"No," said EDI.
"Absolutely positive?"
"Yes."
A definite plus, and I felt myself relax just a tiny bit, standing up and folding my arms.
"Well then."
On the one hand this was an obviously good thing because it meant that we weren't caught flat-footed (again) by murderous aliens. On the other though it meant we'd been caught flat-footed by a mysterious unknown which could quite easily turn out to be murderous aliens anyway, of some kind never-before encountered.
Less than ideal.
"What else can you tell me about it? If anything?" I asked.
"You might have to be more specific, Commander."
I threw up her hands. Damn computers! Read the room!
"I don't know! Something! Anything! Life signs. How about that? Is anyone even alive on it, for a start? Perhaps it's a wreck."
Seemed pretty unlikely, but still. A pause.
"I am detecting approximately sixty five thousand life signs," said EDI after a moment.
Another pause, but only because I was standing there with my mouth hanging open a little bit.
"I'm sorry, what? Run that number by me again," I said.
"Sixty five thousand life signs, approximately, Commander."
"Sixty five…" I said to myself.
That couldn't be right. That was ridiculous. That was colony-ship levels of people, and why would anything like a colony-ship be here in the arsecrack of absolutely fucking nowhere? And why would a colony-ship look like that anyway?
Who in their right minds would put that many people on a spaceship? Why would you need that many people on a spaceship?!
"I have also detected several significant energy signatures that suggest weapons, and numerous external components that also appear to be weapons. They are far in excess of what a civilian vessel - even one of this size, adjusting for scale - would require to defend itself," said EDI, as though partially reading my mind. Or, perhaps, just reading my stunned silence.
I'll admit I felt a certain level of vindication about spotting the weapons, not that it improved my mood a whole lot.
"So it's a warship?" I asked.
"It is pure conjecture at this point, Commander, but it would not be unlikely "
Wonderful.
"Well great. Fantastic. This has made my day. A bucket of guns masquerading as a spaceship and packed to the gills with people for no obvious reason pops out of thin-fucking-space-air while we're here unable to really go anywhere or do anything about it. See if we can hail them, let's get this over with."
"You'll take it here?" EDI asked. I gritted my teeth.
"Yes I'll take it here. Not walking all the way back there to talk to them," I said, waving a hand towards the stern where that fancy-pants quantum-entanglement communications room was sat. That just seemed a little OTT for someone who was practically close enough I could have reached out and shaken hands with them.
"Hailing frequencies open, Commander."
I took another sip of coffee, which was now cold.
Let's say I was still Alliance. Why not? It'll be a lark. I'll probably be able to hear Miranda pouting at me from all the way up front.
"Unknown vessel, this is the Systems Alliance Normandy SR-2…"