Author's Note: Talked about this yesterday, But I may be working every other Saturday for a little while which will reduce the time I dedicate to writing. In any case Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 68: Rannoch Part 3
13M 27D 19H Until the Colossus Fires
The second Rift Sphere was a mass of censors, Mass Effect based propulsion devices, all built around a single core of black fluid, Thorian material turned Prothean organic computer, hooked into a crystal fibre cable that would convey information at 99 percent of the speed of light. In the worst case scenario every thing that wasn't the organic core tethered directly to the cable could be discarded and the core retrieved. Aside from the sensors various sample taker's were prepared as well, the fact that things could be seen inside of the rift was proof of the fact that things could be taken, and if samples could be taken then more data could be collected. Aside from the project ongoing at her research station at the rift Liara turned to face the project that was giving her the most trouble.
The problem with the council's attempts to apply Mass effect fields to everything is that they were getting in each other's way, especially with the Council's prided Silaris ship armour. The Silaris ship armour was locked into the shape that it was in on a molecular level via a powerful Mass Effect Barrier, the Newly proposed 'Tachyon Lance, Mass Effect Deflectors and Mass Effect Propulsion' technologies all were creating mass effect phenomena pointed in different directions from the epicentre of the ship, tearing apart the ship in question during every test run they put it through as Liara let out a sigh.
"Is molecular locking even really necessary?" Tali asked as she looked down at the results of the research that she had been conducting alongside the Shadow Broker. "I mean we already have the repulsion field and psi-barrier technology."
Of course Neutron density material isn't the strongest or most sophisticated material the Union had available to them. The issue here is that they can't get access to the new Dragon Scale, everything was dedicated to building the Colossus, old Dragonscale on the other hand? The Union was outfitting their existing warships with the latest in shield, propulsion and weapons technology, the intention was to use them as a escort fleet for the Colossus, in this case though they should have no problem helping them to deal with the Contingency too. Still the biggest problem with the Contingency was buried deep in their territory. Without dealing with the White Hole the subjugation fleet wouldn't even be able to reach the Contingency let alone eliminate them, at the bare minimum they need to get rid of that. As the two of them were going over that scenario another figure made their way into the meeting room, Wander was living up to his name at least.
"Can you understand what we're saying now?" Mordin had been working on a translation program that could translate what the rest of them were saying into a language that it could actually understand, to mixed results thus far. Based on how it wasn't responding to what they were saying it looked like they would be back to the drawing board. However completely ignoring the two women's conversation the inter dimensional life form raised its arm up and placed its finger equivalent onto the holo-screen depicting the Rift Sphere project.
"-home~!-" While Liara and Tali were trying to figure out what the ghostly figure was talking about it used it's technopathic abilities to bring up a new file, the clearest picture they had on the white hole generator. "Right Here~!" The two alien women looked at each other and then back to the Wanderer.
13M 27D 11H Until the Colossus Fires
Liara's office wasn't parked too far away from the research station with the Astral Rift, not if you use the Mass Relays anyway. As a result in less than a day the Wanderer was now floating around the first Rift Sphere while the second one was delving through the Astral Rift. Eventually the Wanderer formed a sphere of Zro which he handed to one of the Salarians that had been watching him before going back to examining the sphere.
"What is it?"
SpeedJunkie on a Hover-platform/workstation flew over and set out to answer that question, his claws clicking against various buttons and switches as he worked.
"ZPM device, or something close to it." Very carefully the Salarian put the device down and stepped away. "Odd." The Synthesized voice of the Tebrid admiral carried its confusion.
"What's so odd about it?" Tevos asked with a questioning glare.
"A fresh ZPM should be full of energy, this one has some exotic particles in it." SpeedJunkie did more laps as he continued to examine the device. "Not ZPM. Incorrect materials. Different construction." As the Tebrid was thinking through this Wander had brought over two more of his not-ZPM's and put them on the table before he continued on with running around the sphere. "The function is close though." In the mean time the Tebrid Admiral was continuing to clack his claws as he tried to figure out what was in these not-ZPM's, then he turned his attention to Wander as he continued to examining the Rift Sphere. "ZPM like devices are containers for something from the Rift Sphere?" A pause as the admiral turned his attention to the Astral Rift that was outside of the station. "No not the Rift Sphere." The Admiral clicked on his communicator. "Recall the Rift Sphere immediately!"
This time Wander went on a rampage as he made more of the crystal spheres, while he had done that the Admiral had taken the liberty of trying to examine the Spheres more closely. Tevos smelled something was up. Whatever they were pulling out of that rift it was important to this thing, potentially that made it important to them too. So she decided to play diplomat, again.
"Excuse me Wander was it?" The Unbidden paid only the bare minimal amount of attention to the Asari as he worked, that was how important he deemed what he was working on. "What exactly are in those spheres you keep making?" Wander didn't say anything as he kept working. As Tevos was about to leave the creature spoke up.
"Boil em, mash em, stick em in a- -stretch- -roll- -weave-~!" Wander stated in at least three different voices, never stopping his work.
"What are you talking about?" Tevos asked sounding confused. "Are we supposed to do that with those things that you are making." Wander appeared to just shake his head as his synthesizer made the equivalent to a sigh.
"I see so that's it!" While Wander had been busy making the ZPM like devices Speedjunkie appeared to have finished his analysis. In the short amount of time that Tevos had started conversation the Tebrid had fabricated a small Mass Effect Field generator and was now using it to contain the contents of what he had extracted from the ZPM like devices that Wander had made.
"What is it?" A group of Salarian's had already assembled around the floating Tebrid and his prize: a mass of shimmering threads that had been trapped inside of a mass effect barrier.
"Tangled Exotic Particles, woven into threads, producing a hair thin layer of distorted time and space."
"Exotic particles?" The Salarian's were torn between trying to get a closer and get to safety. "The same particles that break the laws of physics and punch holes into the fabric of time and space?" Not unlike the hole that they were there studying? "Those exotic particles?"
"Correct." Which is why SpeedJunkie put the threads back into their containment unit as carefully and quickly as possible.
"How exactly is something like that possible?" The Salarian's were already trying to wrap their minds around what was going on.
"I know how normal thread is produced." SpeedJunkie instead went into a completely off topic subject. "Plant matter is crushed into fibres, pulled taught and spun into thread." The Tebrid admiral floated over to the observation window. "We've conducted all kinds of tests on this Astral Rift, the edges are composed of heavily distorted space, every probe we've sent that gets close is crushed. The Probes we sent inside prior to the rift spheres get stretched and twisted. These... Astral Threads could be a by-product of Exotic particles caught inside of the rift."
"What can we use it for?" Tevos asked her face making a screw. Logically if Wander was so desperate to collect them...
"At the moment? Absolutely nothing." The Tebrid stated bluntly holding one of the Astral Thread Containers in his tendrils. "We've only realised what this material is a few moments ago, actually learning what we can do with it will come from significant scientific research. We will however through that research obtain a better understanding of the rift itself and improve our own efforts towards our understanding of the universe." The best scientific research is often conducted from an outside point of view after-all, by first finding out how this dimension is different from the next one over their understanding will increase in direct proportion. "Most important though. Observe our friend." The number of Astral Thread containers had multiplied since the conversation had started. "Watch how frantically he works to collect these threads, imagine how precious they really are, that such a being would be so desperate to collect them."
Tevos Visibly swallowed her saliva. Yes she could see how that would be rather important.
"Let's start by trying to figure out a more efficient way of gathering them." The Salarians nodded to Tevos's suggestion and scattered. "Let's see if 'Wander' can get a break, I'd like for his lexicon to be expanded upon in the mean time, and we need to look into getting more Unbidden on our side."
13M 24D 08H Until the Colossus Fires
Catching the Unbidden alive was a lot harder than killing them, especially the unique variants that kept appearing in the galaxy since the Reaper's attack. It was something that would take a while, but in the mean time the Turian's were proving why they earned their council seat, because after getting their hands on every ship they could they began retrofitting them with Tachyon lances. The Turian's had actually taken a very simple approach to resolving the issue of the conflicting mass effect fields, one group of Ships dubbed 'Shield' armed with locked Silaris armour plating and the second group dubbed 'Sword' older models armed with Tachyon Lances. Shield and it's vastly superior defensive capabilities was screening most of the shots from the Contingency ships, in the mean time Sword was doing it's best to fire back at the Contingency ships, skilled pilots supplemented by linked VI programs were performing trick shots, the Tachyon's caught in the gravity well being produced by the Union ships and bending around their allies to blast the Contingency ships. Matter Disentegrator's was less effective when the matter was being forcibly held together via Mass Effect fields, so there wasn't as much of the Unbidden born weapons flying around, they were best used when supplemented with energy drainers.
That said, the Real war was being fought in Cyber Space.
"Ship 245's 3rd gun has been compromised!"
"On it!"
Hundreds of Quarians were strapped to consoles as they constantly monitored the coding inside of the myriad VI programs of the Turian's ships. The Contingency was aggressively attempting to hack into the Turian ships, aside from the existing Anti-Virus programs the code wars were being supplemented by the Quarians manually reviewing each of the hundreds of individual programs on board the Turian ships manually in search of anything that could be Contingency sabotage. Either they needed to run out of Contingency ships to blast or they needed more technicians. In the mean time some extra nasty surprises were being prepared to deal with the Contingency. Despite what the massive scrap belt of Reaper Debris might imply Jump Bombs were still too prohibitively expensive to spam.
Perhaps research with the Astral Rifts might change that soon, but for now the Tachyon Lances to crack open enemy ships and then Thorian and Javelin shots proved the most cost effective strategy. A Union born mining drone had been turned loose in the area, neutron density blades were shredding material from the growing debris field as it's own in built matter decompression unit, circuit frying EMP field and nanite refinery processed the supply of raw material and shipped it off deeper within Council Territory, where fresh ships were being assembled together almost as fast as they were being dismantled by the Contingencies endless tide of ships.
Liara was looking at the feed from the surveillance cameras of all these locations, and was growing increasingly displeased by the moment at the lack of progress they were making.
"Increase the number of Harvesters for raw materials from that debris field." Liara ordered as she looked through the reports about the situation on the Contingency front.
"Ill advised Shadow Broker." Glyph is what Liara had dubbed the Shadow Broker's VI assistant, this close to the Contingency front Liara didn't have the luxury of a direct Line to EDI, or a more complex AI assistant. "The factories are already at peak capacity for the raw material that they can handle." After all even when they decompress only the smallest pieces of Contingency Hull the amount of raw material that they end up having to deal with can be measured in terms of mountains. "This isn't about needing more raw material. Every day that debris field is getting closer and closer to habitable worlds, at their smallest the weight behind those pieces of Contingency hulls are as heavy as a mountain, if those debris keep getting pushed into Council space then we'll be looking at multiple extinction level events all across council space."
"Understood Shadow Broker. Which Factory would you like to divert to produce Harvester Drones?" There lied the rub of the situation it would seem. Building something else meant that they had to take away from the ships that were already struggling to keep their numbers up with the enemy ships, 'casualties' were at a minimum thanks to the technology to back up a person's mind and rebuild their body effectively from scratch, but every ship that gets destroyed has to be replaced. The easiest solution would be to get more factories up and running but that still deprived them of precious numbers in the short term. What they need the most desperately at this exact moment was numbers that could overturn their situation. As Liara was struggling with this situation...
"Oi 'Shadow Broker!'" On of the old Shadow Broker coms came online.
"Wrex? What are you doing?" Liara asked confusedly looking at the console.
"Since those useless Turian Pyjaks were taking so long we have to step in to do the job again!" Liara took the situation with a calculated Grimace. The Krogan's main area of expertise was in ground combat, they didn't have the ships to engage in battle in space, there should be very little that they can- Suddenly a old bomber appeared out of a Jump Portal and released something into the middle of the Contingencies side of the debris field before disappearing again. It looked like a giant meat ball, something like a big yellow eye in the middle. That was about as much information as Liara could make out before the Contingency took offence to it's continued existence and destroyed it, suddenly a psionic scream echoed through Liara's mind producing a massive headache in the process.
"Wrex, was that what I think it was?"
"You should probably pull back your forces." Suddenly worm holes opened up all along the battlefield. "Like right now!" And then, the Prethoryn started to swarm through.
13M 20D 22H Until the Colossus Fires
The Gestalt's presence managed to do some serious damage to the Contingency, they were pissed and they were hungry, and while Contingency ships aren't as good for them as eating organic matter, however their scales require lots and lots of alloys, their fat needs huge reserves of exotic gas while the rest gets processed into Rare Crystal and Mots. Their various nutritional needs are most easily fulfilled by eating the ultra material dense Contingency ships. This wasn't to say that the Gestalt was coming out of the subsequent brawl unscathed either, in fact the weapons technology of Contingency was vastly superior, even though the Prethoryn were more durable with their Dragon Scales they had taken a lot of injuries and were diving in and out of battle through their home made wormholes in shifts, carrying their corpses through with them and either eating them or tossing them into the pile for more newborns on their birthing worlds.
The Gestalt's presence were bringing more benefits too, their bodies were giant refineries for exotic materials, salvage teams were hard at work gathering them from their bodies and as a result the factories could step up production a bit. That said, over half of the Factories had stopped producing ships, instead focusing on harvester drones and factory parts. The Gestalt wouldn't be here forever, they would go back to their territories soon and then they would be back to where they were with the Contingency, before that could be allowed to happen they need more ships and more production to deal with the Contingency's attacks. More important than that, they have to prepare their counter attack.
The third generation of Rift Sphere had been completed, with Wander's help they had built devices to help harvest Astral Threads from the rift and installed them into the Rift Sphere. Now that they understand how Astral Threads are produced work was being done into the methods to manufacture them artificially, for now though Wander had been satisfied that a steady supply of this material would be coming. Which also meant that Wander could be put full time into the effort to break into the Contingency's territory.
"What exactly is going on here?" Liara was looking on in confusion at what had been built in her ship's weapons bay. In simple terms, it was a jump drive unit. However Wander had been making several modifications to the machine in question, going as far as to integrate several of the precious Astral Threads he had so desperately gathered together. Aside from that a layer of dragon scales had been prepared as Wander continued to oversee the construction of a ship, or rather a missile.
"And what exactly are you planning on doing with this?" Liara asked as she looked at the contraption that was being built inside of her ship.
"LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR~!" Wander shouted with a dash of heavy metal in the background, his synthesizer was getting better, but Liara was hoping that he would stop having to rely on music clips soon.
"You mean the Contingency right?" Liara asked severely concerned.
"Yeah~! Yeah~! Yeah~!"
Small Miracles.
"We have some more of your people captive aboard one of our research stations. Would you like to talk to them?"
Wander suddenly stopped working on the missile and flew out of the weapons bay. Liara didn't know how Wander knew where the other Unbidden were being kept only that he had soon arrived at the laboratory where Dr. Adolpho had been keeping his specimen jars. The Baseline Warlock, the Half Thorian Druid, the Gaseous Cleric, the Mass Shifting Wizard and now the Wandering Bard were all in the same room together, Adolpho wanted to kiss someone. The five energy beings communicated with each other in the form of seemingly wordless whispers, like gas escaping, the occasional crackle of electricity through a neon tube. Eventually the five of them seemed to reach an agreement, the Bard released them from the tube and the five of them were let loose in the station. Of course, Security was notified, No one was the shoot the good doctor's lab animals even as they made off with Eezo, Thorian samples, and various minerals and took it all over to the weapons bay to complete their project.
"Thorian Organic computer unit, Mass effect Accelerators, gutted Jump Drive, Exotic Plasma chamber, Zro Circuits..." Tali gave credit where due, the bastards work fast, but the ability to pull matter out of thin air probably helped.
Still Tali was trying to figure out what this thing was doing. Reading through data on Jump Drive technology and you come to the understanding that Zro helps to stabilise the jumps, they're still not sure how this happens but it does, presumably Wander does know how that works and thus can make it work better. Then Wander integrated that with one of the weird Astral thread things, assuming that it doesn't completely change the function of the drive then it instead enhances upon it. Alright so Wander took one of their jump bombs and dramatically enhanced upon it, cool, Tali had a recording done of the entire process and Jump Drives would be getting upgrades soon but what else? Mass Effect Accelerators? Tali knows that they're normally used to boost travel distance in real space but would they work for the Jump Drive technology too? Okay so the Jump Drive bomb could travel a incredibly huge distance. Carrying a Payload of Exotic Gas.
"Wait a second. Are you guys...?" If Tali had come to the conclusion she reached sooner, she would've stopped the Extra Dimensionals at all costs.
"Fire in the Hole~!" The Jump Bomb was deployed, and Tali ran for the nearest escape pod and sealed herself inside.
The White hole was the singularly biggest artificial Mass Effect Phenomena in existence affecting a good third of the Terminus Sector, and it just had a chunk of Exotic Plasma, a substance that causes Mass Effect fields to go haywire, directly inside of it. The Explosion could be seen across the entire sector, as suddenly every bit of Mass Effect locked material caught inside of the Anti-Gravity wave was pulled in different directions being completely torn apart in the process. Crawling out of her own escape pod Tali looked at the damage. For one, she had yet to be sucked into space.
That at least was promising.
13M 18D 20H Until the Colossus Fires
It was a feat of destruction comparable only to the loss of a Mass Relay, one of which was reportedly destroyed leading to a secondary explosion and another Astral Rift that the Union would be looking into later. The Council Fleet had managed to narrowly escape complete destruction at the hands of the Unbidden group aboard the research centre, there was a range that the White Hole Transmitter was able to operate at but the Council fleet was barely outside of it. For now they were trying to assess the damage done to the Contingency but it wasn't promising, the planet sized constructs were still there after all. It made sense, if the System Killers were made out of the same neutron density super conductors as the Unbidden made their fleet out of then it would be continuously pushed away by the white hole just like their ships were too, so for now they still had a hoard of omnicidal machines that they needed to wipe out.
"Well, suppose that the hard part of the job is finished." Of course, Liara brought in her best expert in breaking things to help them finish off the Contingency. "Now we just need to do the rest of the Job." Shepard explained as she and the rest of her associates for the mission into position.
Liara of course already got her infiltration experts ready. Thane, Garrus, Wander and Kasumi, joining Shepard in Smashing was Wrex and Liara herself in her Fenrir suit, plus a Tech expert in Tali.
"With Luck, a ground team at all won't be necessary." With Luck Liara emphasised. "Previously my previous concern has been trying to prevent extinction events from the debris of the Contingency crashing into Council worlds. Now though we need to make this very extinction event happen as soon as possible."
"We pick up junk from the Contingencies own ships, hurl it back at their System Killers, and call it a day." Garrus summarised their mission while he was eating dumplings.
"Well, I've got a few designs for ships I want to try out anyway." Tali was busily scrolling on her data pad. "If Silaris plating is being taken off the table, then I want to try out a Quarian designed barrier generator. It'll probably help with the plan to break the Contingency's System Killers."
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: I think Andromeda should've had more aliens in it. The first three games had more than enough for a trilogy.
Monster King: Working on it.
Gianfranco Cembran: Thank you.
Guest1: I recall seeing a series on Youtube discussing Advance Space Faring Civilisations that are too stupid to actually exist, Canon Council should be on it if it isn't already. It seemed diplomatically unwise, to tell off a technologically and militarily superior faction that their ancient boogeyman that they've built their entire culture around doesn't exist. I'm saving Eezo for endgame levels technological development.
Guest2: It's far from perfect mind you. The Batarian's still exist in the same galaxy, in the same governmental entity, as the Turian's ostentatiously as allies.
Guest3: Good to know?
Guest4: Well I didn't go through the trouble of introducing seven or eight other races just to focus on humans all the time.
Guest5: Yeah pretty much.
Guest6: Molluscoid portrait Starfish #17.