Boot up Sequence
Initialize boot up sequence…
Central Computer rebooting…
Complete
Fusion Reactor warming up…
Complete
Nanolathes reorienting…
Complete
Conversion drive integrity…
100%
Fuel Check…
64%
Destination…
Error, location not found
Engaging scans…
Boot up sequence complete...
Garrus stared at the computer screen, munching on a protein bar as records scrolled by idly. He looked up every once and a while to see if anything has changed in the last couple of minutes. With nothing piquing his interest, he returned to idly scanning Csec files.
"Yo, Garrus you might wanna see this." He looked up to see Jared, one of his human coworkers, looking a bit pale and pointing behind him to beckon Garrus outside. After Garrus shut down his console and meandered outside, he looked up to see a strange looking ship floating between the arms of the Citadel, how the hell did the fleet miss that? "Some people say it's some kind of Geth infiltrator ship, what do you think?"
"That we need to get the civilians out of here," Garrus says calmly, sending that message up the chain of command.
"Fair enough" Jared immediately got people to stop gawking at the object and move to safer places, most people were stubborn, others obliged by screaming and running away, and thankfully some people actually just left without a fuss. "We getting some SWAT teams here sir?"
"What?" Garrus looked at the human confused, he had never heard that term used before.
"Special Weapons And Tactics, basically an elite unit that takes care of these kinds of things," Jared explained as they looked up at the odd looking ship, it was unlike anything they have seen, even by Geth standards. It was a long and cylindrical ship, it's hull smooth and silvery, almost as if the outer shell was made entirely out of one continuous piece of metal. It spun in slowly and lazily, like a drunken ballerina. Garrus felt a chill down his spine, and in the corner of his eye, he could see his compatriot have a similar reaction. "You feel that?"
"Either someone walked over my grave, or somebody just looked right at me…"
Bio signs detected… Confirmed
Error: Proteins incorrect, Dextro amino and Levo amino detected in large quantities
Scanning…
Dextro amino based lifeforms detected
Specifying...
Garrus felt his gut tighten, heat draining from his body in a cold sweat, he could swear the ship was looking directly at him.
Meanwhile, a Quarian felt the same chill coat her body, scaring the crap out of her.
Warning…
Dextro amino lifeform β has an inadequate immune system
Planning to rectify…
Other lifeform variations also detected…
Human, amphibian, reptilian...
Systems detected…
advanced binary system
Accessing...
"Sir! Someone or something is hacking our systems!" Garrus spun around to the Salarian and looked at his omnitool. The screen was flickering with all the screens spinning, opening and closing at absurd speeds far faster than anything he had ever seen. "It's gotta be Geth sir! No organic made computer can process at these speeds!" Garrus could see the Salarian try in vain to fight off the intruder.
He looked at the ship, as the defense fleet slowly approached it, Destiny Ascension dwarfing the machine. He felt a small calm wash over him, the gargantuan Asari dreadnought would easily take care of it. He then got everyone to calm the folks down and after an hour everything returned to normal.
Meanwhile, no one seemed to notice the commotion coming from the nearby bar.
Scanning unknown objects…
Gravitational Anomalies detected…
Unknown material detected...
Correction, Element Zero detected…
Scanning radio chatter…
Deciphering languages…
"Does anyone have any information on that thing?" Turian Cruiser 'Titanborn''…
"Looks like a tin can, anyone else?" Human Heavy Cruiser 'Imperius Rex'…
"No tin; titanium and graphene, copper, some semiconductors, and hydrogen." Salarian Corvette 'Pathfinder'…
"Any weapons we can detect?" Asari Dreadnought 'Destiny Ascension'…
Heavy weapons detected…
Warning… Salarian Corvette 'Dream Walker' dangerously close…
Firing RCS thrusters...
Salix watched the unknown object as it began to burn chemical thrusters as if it could detect them. She gave the order to continue shadowing it, and it still burned its thrusters.
"Ma'am, I'm detecting a massive thermal buildup in its engines, it's preparing to burn out of the Citadel." The helmsman states as he floats as close to the unknown object as possible. "Strange, its drive is far different than anything on file."
"What do you mean?" Salix looked at the helmsman, as the cylinder began to ignite its engines.
"It appears to have some kind of-" his exposition was interrupted by the engine igniting and accelerated past the arms of the Citadel, after leaving its immediate vicinity it flipped over and fired off its thrusters again and decelerated in empty space. The first to react to the ship moving was the Destiny Ascension, with Imperius Rex, and Titanborn closing in from behind. The crew of the stealth ship groaned, and the captain was not happy to find their stealth system was fried by whatever that damned thing used as propulsion. As the captain stood up, she also realized she was being hailed by Csec.
"This is gonna be a long day."
The Captain of the Imperius Rex, Abigail Adams, was trying to remember where she'd seen the design of the object before. That thought had been bothering her since she got the call about it. She dug through her memories to find something, maybe some kind of science project? Old science fiction book? A video game? It bugged the crap out of her, nearly growling in frustration a few times, her training helping her restraint that instinct. It took her XO shaking her to jostle her from her reverie.
"Captain Adams? Are you alright?" Commander John Malkovich asks, his hand removed from the captain's shoulder as her attention came out of her memories. "We're being hailed."
"By who?" She asked as she stood up to respond.
"By what actually, it's from the object." She stared at him for a second, then turned to the cyber warfare consoles, who nodded, then she turned to the screen, giving a silent prayer of hoping that she doesn't doom her crew.
"On screen."
Comm line activating…
Engaging Contact Protocol…
Complete…
"This is the SSV Imperious Rex, identify yourself unknown vessel." Female, 34 years old, minor genetic alterations, ginger, fair skin, green eyes, Abigail Adams… Cross-Referencing...
"Abigail Adams, any relation to Lucious Adams?" Surprised, worry, relation conformation 50%...
"Yes, he is my great grandfather, why do you- Oh my god…"
"I hope I didn't miss too much history when I traveled." Creating an avatar… Man, it'll feel weird having a humanoid body again...
I couldn't believe it, I saw him form in front of my eyes, the shaggy black hair, framing lightly tanned face with soft blue eyes that lay behind a pair of black, square glasses, blue jacket, jeans, and black boots. It was Samuel Caliban, the uploading volunteer for the Diaspora project, one of humanity's earliest extrasolar colonization efforts besides the Manswell expedition. But the probe would take millennia to get all the way out here, and engine emissions didn't match what an Orion drive would output. So she had to ask: "How did you get out here?"
"No idea, last thing I remember was being on route to the Epsilon Erandi system, I went into sleep for a bit because even the entire library of modern day entertainment ranging from the Nintendo Switch to Dungeons and Dragons, although the latter is very difficult with only one player, you can still go nuts with boredom regardless." He gestures with his arms as he spoke plainly, chuckling and rubbing his forehead. "I've made so many campaigns, I could run each one a 3-hour campaign a day and not run out till the turn of the century." He laughed and sighed regaining his composure after a minute. "So, anything I missed while I was gone?"
We were interrupted by Destiny Ascension's Captain Malani hailing my ship. I command "On screen." and brings up the blue-skinned beauty, as all asari are, even as a Matriarch of 536 years. The captain raised an eyebrow facsimile, probably because she saw the casually dressed human male instead of seeing some kind of robot.
"Hello, I am Captain Malani of the Destiny Ascension, who are you?" Her voice was soft and yet stern, years of experience drip from her intonations of the words. Samuel tilted his head and smiled at her, giving her a nod.
"Pleasure to meet you, my name is Samuel Caliban of the extrasolar colonization program Diaspora, for Epsilon Erandi." He says politely, placing his hand over his heart and giving her a small bow. "I hope I haven't intruded on anything, I was more or less asleep on the wheel." he gave a small chuckle, the Matriarch's eyes narrowing at him.
"Follow the Ascension to the Citadel docking bay." He gave her a confused look, and in return, she gave an exasperated sigh. "The station we are orbiting." She cuts the line and heads to the bay, as the cylinder ship glides behind it, using it's RCS thrusters in short bursts.
"I hope everyone is as friendly as she is," Samuel remarks sarcastically, earning a sigh from the captain.