Author's Note: Not a lot to say right now, Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!

Chapter 69: Hub Alpha

13M 19D 23H Until the Colossus Fires

Cyclonic Barrier Technology, an attempt by the Quarians to solve the problems faced by traditional Mass Effect based barrier technology. Traditional barriers cannot block heavy kinetic missiles since they add mass to the barriers, the Cyclonic Barriers solve this by creating rapidly oscillating rotating barriers to crush projectiles between barriers or slap them aside and off into deep space. Trying to shoot through the gaps of the barrier is like trying to shoot through rotor blades.

There are drawbacks though, chief among them being that the complex technology can't be used on anything bigger than a council frigate. The complex array of sensors on the outside of the ship requires constant maintenance. If the array gets partially damaged it can prove a huge risk to the ship slicing it apart via multiple rotating Mass Effect fields, though a safety feature 'locks' the Gyro that the shield array balances on into a standard Mass Effect Array.

You'd have to say have a self repair array already built into the ship proper to take care of the sensors, and a advance AI program capable of tracking the rotating fields and keeping them under control.

"Passing through the debris field now Shadow Broker." The Normandy had been refitted with the Cyclonic Barrier technology quite successfully, and was now as a consequence dragging behind it a excessive amount of neutron matter that was being repeatedly subjected to the process of being smashed together and torn apart by the shifting mass effect barriers of the Cyclonic Shields leaving behind sugar cube sized debris. "Arriving at the first target location now Shadow Broker." EDI was operating the ship from her Synthorg Body, the hope there being that the organic parts of her mind could resist and block out the malevolent Contingency programming. "Switch to cloak."

The Union prefers active camouflage for it's cloaking, each individual scale of the hull of the ship simultaneously changes colour to match the background of the space around it, this was paired with a stealth drive that trapped all the detectable emissions that the ship itself gives off making it impossible for enemy forces to be able to detect them using sensor data, in theory. In reality the Contingency has had millions theoretical of years to devise workarounds and other solutions, so they would still be engaging at range and still have the upgraded jump drive ready to fire to escape.

"Charge the Tachyon Lance." A single Sugar Cube worth of Neutron matter was enough to trigger an extinction event, so what happens when you gather thousands of these cubes and use a Tachyon lance to fling them at a planet?

"It doesn't appear that it will be necessary."

The first of the System killers that the group had arrived at had been heavily damaged, a combination of debris from Contingency ships and getting hit with the force of the nearby Mass Relay that had detonated. Still the Contingency were insistent on salvaging their project, which was understandable, considering that it was the size of a small moon at this point, and hence were in the process of rebuilding it.

This presents two rare opportunities.

"Either we destroy the Contingency weapon, or we examine it to determine its function and purpose, which will hopefully give us more of a idea as to what to do to deal with the threat we are dealing with." This was a fair point, and as the inheritor of the Shadow Broker's base of operations it was Liara's job to gather intel whenever and where ever possible. So that just leaves the question, how are they going to get information out of this one. Even if sending people down there to obtain information was a good idea, how would they do it? It's not like the Contingency would need signs, they can't hack their systems without taking the risk of compromising their own.

"A data Collection probe." A hologram appeared from a console at Liara's work station. "Several of which will be deployed in the structure of the machine itself and use various information gathering sensors to track the construction and design of the Contingency's weapons." At this point everything that they know about the Contingency's system killer weapon was limited to speculation, information could be the thing that stops them instead of delaying them, that said, they were here to delay them, so delay them they will. "The sensors will be sealed inside of spheres of neutron material before we hurl them at the surface of the sphere. Once the data has been gathered the Quantum entangled transmitter inside will send the data back to us instantly and then self-destruct, cracking open its ZPM battery. The ensuing destruction will at minimum destroy this weapon's future capacity to threaten Union and Council space, at the most it will feed everything here into another Astral Rift though that seems unlikely." Well that should do some damage.

"Shouldn't we be aiming for subtlety?" Liara asked as her face scrunched in concern.

"We'll be extremely subtle. We'll hide the probes alongside so much of the Contingency's own junk that they'll be too busy trying to keep the planet from falling apart to worry about looking for probes."

"If you plan on repeating this scheme then have enough ready for the rest of the system killers before we get there." Liara just let out a sigh as she decided to go along with EDI's schemes.

13M 19D 22H Until the Colossus Fires

The second Astral Rift already had a facility built around it, the excess of Contingency and Reaper scrap provided an excess of raw materials to work with. The Rift Sphere was working to the latest designs, which from a certain point of view was impressive, considering they had done so without any Union support and barely any Council.

The current Salarian Generation shared a brain, being effectively half Thorian and a third Eezo at this point in time. They had recently acquired the aide of a Union scientist who happened to be quite familiar with Psi boosting technology that the collective consciousness of the Salarian's were tampering with to try and make modifications and 'improvements.' Henry would let them have all the fun they wanted, right now he had his own research that he needed to conduct.

The Rifts weren't just filled with strings of tangled exotic particles at the end of the day, his personal factory was a more efficient use for the anyway, no his main goal has always been in scientific research, and right now that is exactly what he was doing. The second rift had been radically different from the first. The alternate dimension opened up into what Lawson has dubbing Fluid Space, a massive single celled organism filled with oversized multi layered organelles one of which he had taken as a sample. The Sample showed a remarkable psionic resonance with the Salarians, to the point that he initially thought the Thorian might be connected to the other dimension too.

And then the Salarian's were spontaneously jelled, their bones disappearing and their insides turned into jelly. With Henry's daughters doing their best to help them get into a position where they won't crush themselves underneath their own weight he couldn't help but notice a similarity to the Hanar. Now the question of whether the Jellyfish evolved naturally or as a by product of having their genes altered by a Astral Rift was a matter that could be saved for later, because another by product of the jelly ball was that a significant amount of time had been save pulling Alpha back together again, her genetic structure had been reset allowing her body to pull itself back together again, the fact that her insides had all turned to jelly was unfortunate, but within hours she had reformed herself from the inside out, her bones reforming and the fibres that made up her muscles and organs having respun and rewove itself.

"Feeling better now?" Henry asked as he watched his daughter walking around his office.

"As well as can be expected." Though up and about Alpha hadn't gone through her experience completely unchanged, her scales were still growing back and a pair of crystal-like antlers were growing out of her head. "Are we going to open another rift to study?"

"I believe that might be a bad idea, and I think the union recognises that as well." The instability of the current Astral Rift was greater than the intensity that the researchers experienced from the first one, which could mean that the Mass Relay has had more time to build up exotic particles than the Union's warhead, or it could mean that their poking holes into the fabric of reality is leaving it unstable, or it could mean nothing. Considering they were dealing with the literal stability of the universe here caution was the better part of prevention. "Between the Rift that we are working with and the Rift the Union is studying we should have plenty of research data to go through already."

Of course, now that he knows to look out for increased instability in the rifts then if and when more rifts open he can track that instability, and if he can confirm it then he'll know that the rifts are too dangerous to keep opening. It also carries implications for when the galaxy was destroyed from the mass detonations of the Mass Relay Network as well, if the Astral Rifts were cuts in the fabric of the universe then the hyperlanes were the scars left behind when those same wounds closed, faded but far from gone.

"Do we want anything from the Contingency?" Alpha asked as she pointed out the window at more debris.

"Nothing worth picking a fight with your biometrics donor at this point in time. Certainly nothing worth giving up all the scientific research that we are conducting here on the Fluid space." Lawson replied with a shrug of his shoulders. "After we're finished with getting the Salarian's back into functional shape again we need to divert our focus back onto our main project here."

Which point of interest was actually not the Astral Rift, that honour went to the large satellite transmitter that Lawson had been building and augmenting with the Astral threads that he had been gathering.

13M 19D 21H Until the Colossus Fires

The 'bombard the System Killer with the Contingency's own Neutron Scrap' part of the plan had been a rousing success. The 'Recloak and then escape the system as quickly and efficiently as possible' part of the plan? Less so. As soon as the scrap entered the artificial atmosphere of the artificial world it was met with a hail of fire from Contingency anti-air weapons. Of course the group had deliberately chosen to target the section of the system killer that had been most heavily damaged in the initial disaster and thus had the weakest defence, with a sprinkling over the less damaged area's, which would have been followed by immediately turning on their jump drives and fleeing as fast as possible from the area before retaliation inevitably followed.

Instead the group was grabbed hold of by a familiar piece of technology, a tractor beam, and following that the entire ship was promptly ripped out of orbit and slammed clean into the broken tear of the system killer. The good news was that the Normandy was pretty much intact, it's own armour and shields having protected it from harm and the area that it had almost crashed into largely being open space, that was however the extent of the good news.

"You were the one who wanted to learn what the Contingency was using this place for." Liara stated as she looked on at what she was looking at.

"Ignorance may bless as the saying goes." EDI replied as they stared ahead.

Mountain sized Shredder blades. City Block Sized refineries. City Sized Assembly Lines, by the look of the holo-mold projectors ones that were designed specifically for producing ship parts, which meant producing ships. The System killers were giant planet sized factories designed to shred materials best measured in small cities and then process that material into more instruments of death. Unfortunately EDI had a theory as to where this material would come from: Planet's which had been cracked open by the Colossi weapons that were built directly into the System Killer proper, though without looking at the weapon itself it was hard to say. It was theoretically equally possible for the weapon to be a nanite dispersal unit designed to transform the entire population of a planet into husk slaves.

"The Real question that we need to answer here is how are we going to get out of this situation." Liara stated as she let out a sigh.

"The Contingency could have killed us, but they didn't." EDI let the implications hang in the air.

"Meaning that they want our Grey Boxes for information?" Liara suggested as she stroke her fringes.

"Or they intend to use us as the basis for more terminators." EDI followed up with her own theory, both options were incredibly bad. "Either way we must prepare for battle, and have our own ground forces ready."

The edges of the ruined factories were stirring, the Contingency likely hasn't had many security forces prepared but they did have ships and repair drones, not to mention any number of still functioning factories that would be producing dedicated soldier and security units even as they speak. Right now though the biggest priority is securing their escape in a timely fashion, for which they need to deal with the anti air and tractor beam weapons that would halt their escape, and eliminate the ships that would be able to give chase once they were free and clear of the planet itself.

As a start:

"Fire everything." Liara stated bluntly.

"Is that wise?" EDI asked by way of follow up.

"We literally can't miss." Liara countered her tone that of someone who spoke with infallible logic.

"Turn the Cyclonic barriers on too." There was a minor concern that they could be hit with shrapnel from what basically amounted to internal bombardment of the planet, but it was literally do or die time. Thus the entire ship became a giant mass of death spewing chaos.

13M 19D 19H Until the Colossus Fires

While the Normandy was busy doing it's best to wipe out the Contingency's entire military force all by itself the team had been deployed ground side in order to try and deal with the enemy's defences. There is more than one way to skin a cat, and more than one way to hack a target after all.

"Boop~!"

Kasumi was using a device mounted on her gun that resembled a laser sight, shining it in the eye of a Geth unit, quickly there after the sudden influx of anti-contingency coding turned the unit against another of it's kind and proceeded to brutally tear into two of it's kind. Garrus on the other hand was sniping the poor bastards from a distance. In both cases they ended up creating such a huge distraction that Thane was able to sneak up on the Mass Effect barrier that was blocking the group's path and plant a Exotic Plasma bomb on it breaking the security barrier.

"Looks like it's party time Shepard." Garrus stated as two familiar figures broke through the cover they had prepared.

Grunt was in his favourite Dragon Scale armour, on top of that was the Tech Armour of a Sentinel. A Cable had been tied around his body, leading to Shepard who was standing on top of a door turned makeshift sled with her mace in hand.

"Party time Grunt." Grunt stretched his hand out and gave Shepard a Thumbs up.

Breathing deep Grunt triggered the Blood Rage, letting out a mighty roar even as his biotics flared and he ran forward with a charge, slamming face first into enemy opposition with his full body, anything he missed or passed by was smashed by a mace wielding Shepard who was being dragged along by Grunt. Anything that attempted to threaten them at a distance was sniped at a distance by Garrus, had anti-Contingency coding infect it, or had a master thief and a master assassin teleport in on it. Either way progress. It also helped that most of the Contingency's attention was focused on the seemingly inexhaustible supply of weapons fire that was coming out of the Normandy. Of course the Normandy had a lot of ZPMs inside of it, and it could also pull energy from the rest of the environment too, but even with these factors the energy supply isn't limitless either and would run out eventually.

Thus both for the sake of the safety of the individuals involved in the operation and the Normandy proper speed was of the absolute essence, hence the strategy of using Grunt as a sled dog as Shepard played polo golf with the Contingency forces.

"Where are we putting it?" Grunt asked as the two of them rapidly approached the tractor beam that put the Normandy into this mess in the first place.

"The Barrel!" At once Grunt ground his rampage to a stop, using a omni blade to sever the cable connecting the two of them together.

Grunt grabbed hold of Shepard by the cable before spinning around and tossing Shepard through the air at the barrel of the tractor beam projector. Various Contingency weapons fired off at once, lasers, flak guns, missiles even, most of which were vulnerable to telekinetics in on form or another, so dealing with them was as simple as dragging some missiles into the line of fire. Shepard landed on the end of the barrel before jumped back off to another direction, discreetly leaving behind a canister bomb of exotic gas as she went. Now for the two of them to start making their way back as they went. They would take two separate routes, breaking anything that looked vaguely important along the way that they could find, draw as much attention away from the weapon she had just sabotaged as possible, and right now she had a obvious target. A giant obvious satellite transmitter array that the Contingency had set up, the kind of thing she suspected would inconvenience them in the long run, at the very least the anti-matter plant powering it would make a good boom.

Thus Shepard took off into the air again, booster pack helping her along the way as she flew over to wreak havoc, Contingency laser and flak weaponry firing at her, they had apparently learned not to use large projectile arms against her, though apparently they still didn't know her very well. Holding up her hand Shepard drew on her pyromancy training and all of the laser weapons fire was drawn to her hand, doing no damage but turning into a mass of white hot heat.

"And for my next Trick." And then hurled that mass of fire into the on coming flak storm incinerating the projectiles before they could reach her as she dropped down on the the edge of the dish. "Now what's the best way that I can break this over my knee?"

There wasn't what you'd call an atmosphere, so the dish wouldn't be a stranger to extreme temperatures both from the soul sucking darkness of space and the extreme heat of unprotected solar radiation, really both were to the benefit of the Contingency, it might not give them enough power to move the ship but they can get a lot of power from direct unfiltered solar radiation, and the soul sucking cold meant that the super conductors in the machines processors could operate with a huge increase in efficiency. That same lack of atmosphere made it so that her offensive options would be limited. She could use her mace to smash it, but considering the army of Contingency drones that were likely on their way here to kill her she didn't have the time or the luxury of breaking this thing apart with her mace.

"It should be based on a mixture of Geth and Union tech. I know that the Union builds everything with the intention of taking it apart later, the Geth should have some tech in common with the Council." Which isn't easy to guess what parts they have in common, Turians focus on sturdiness, Salarian ships are like lego blocks, Asari are supposed to focus on quality over quantity, the Volus likes lots and lots of redundancies. There was one thing they all had in common, well two things really but he was focusing on one thing. "Hey EDI remind me how does the Council break back down all the random crap that they make out of Omni-gel again?"

"Vibrating Mass Effect fields." EDI summed up succinctly.

Shepard just wanted to sigh by way of response. Of course it was, even the only other thing that the council uses in all of their tech used Mass Effect fields.

"Your new Mace has been reinforced with Neu Eezo." EDI explained, with the Tebrid engineering team slapping an incredibly dangerous material onto the end of her mace and finding a way to make it work any way seemed to exactly their kind of thing. "I'm already sending a sub program to your mace to have it break down the omni-gel at an accelerated rate."

"You're a saint EDI, don't let anyone tell you otherwise." Shepard's mace started to vibrate in her hands.

With a downward swing Shepard sent a rippling pulse through the entire structure as it started to break down into reddish/orange gel. Of course it wasn't like the Contingency was completely helpless against the Normandy either. One particularly industrious Geth Leaper had spent the entire assault on the Normandy waiting for the perfect moment to strike as the Normandy expended its ammunition and prepared to leave. With the collapse of the Contingency satellite dish the ship was now rising above the hail of retaliatory fire from the Contingency and flew through the air. The Leaper tracked the Cyclonic barriers and timed its jump, leaping through the air and only getting hit with one of the barriers slicing it in half at the shoulder, narrowly leaving the power core and a single arm for the leaper to grab onto a single antenna of the Normandy. As the Normandy flew over Kasumi rapidly Jumped on and off of the Normandy grabbing members of the ground team every time as she went as the Cyclonic Barrier continuously deflected the incoming weapons fire from the Contingency. Shepard was the last one on board. As the Normandy left the pull of the System Killer the Tractor Beam fired, and exploded as the canister inside of it turned into plasma and broke the beam up into dozens of smaller beams that wreaked havoc across the artificial moon.

"Huu. Mission Accomplished." Thus the Normandy, and its hitch hiker, successfully escaped the Contingency by the Skin of their teeth.

13M 19D 13H Until the Colossus Fires

Free of the Contingency, all of what few computer systems the Normandy had on board had been proven to be clean of Contingency influence, but they were still having a hard time getting a transmission off. As it turned out according to EDI the problem wasn't software but hardware as something had been throwing off the antenna that they needed for the transmission, Shepard naturally offered to go outside and get the thing realigned.

"EDI we need a Faraday cage set up in the cargo bay as soon as possible." Shepard stated through the ship's communications systems.

"Shepard?" The Synthorg acting as the ship's central command computer showed nothing but confusion.

"We have an stowaway."

Review Section:

Monster King: Thanks.

RonaldM40196867: True. It did. I've answered this question already, one wrong move and you're sucked through a crack in your ship into the soul sucking darkness of space.

Guest: You're welcome.

Dakota Bruder: Months Days Hours Until the Colossus fires.