The Shadow of Old Transgressions (Homeworld/Mass Effect Crossover Quest)

Galactic Core

Balcora Gate

The Sword of the Righteous was a top of the line paladin class destroyer. Assembled by the Divine Guardian's fabrication wombs it was crewed by the elite warriors of the Children. Her captain was a veteran of the ancient wars against the Fallen pulled specifically from Elysium after the last battle with their ancient enemy.

Now the Sword joined a full lance of her sister ships as they approached the wreckage of the temple. Around her three flights of chevalier interceptors filled the air waves with chatter as their pilots prepared themselves for battle. The more fervent prayed to Sajuuk while others distracted each other with tales of old glories. Normally such unprofessionalism would be frowned upon, but even the sternest interlocutor would allow it in the face of the coming for battle.

For the squadron was flying to face a Lord of the Second Circle. A terrible foe that sat in the temple ruins like a defiling spirit. Already many of the Sword's comrades had fallen to the terrible weapons of the lord and the incessant attacks of its minions. But they could not relent. They would sacrifice themselves as many times as it took. For behind the Fallen Lord was a far greater threat. Not just a fallen lord, but the arch devil itself. Like a wounded beast it had fled to lick its wounds after the latest battle of vengeance and now it was up to the Sword to finish the job.

But there was no more time for contemplation. The Sword's captain ordered the cannons charged and the reactors brought to combat readiness as they moved within the range of the minion ships. Like all things the fallen touched they were twisted and corrupt. Brutish boxes of steel and fire. But their weapons were no less deadly for it. And the lance now had to weather a storm of shells as they brought their own holy fire to bear.

Closer and closer the lance drove. Shielded by faith and armor as they were, the attacks did little more than ablate their outer plating, but even that could be deadly. For the minions were not alone. The only warning was a horrible shriek over the communion network and then the lance was assaulted by something far more deadly than mere minions.

The Fallen Harpies were gleaming streaks of death. On wings of power they swept through the lance burning through those damaged plates with streaks of corrupted fire. The chevaliers tried their best to stem the tide, but despite their religious fervor the harpies tore through them like paper. The captain could only count his blessings that there were so few of them. They were clearly not facing a Hive Lord here. Though unfortunately that just meant it would have other diabolical tricks to assail them with. Something immediately proven as the Penitent Hound was destroyed at unheard of ranges by a column of corrupt fire thicker than a chevalier.

The lance immediately began maneuvering wildly as the captain called up his tactical table. That narrowed things down then. It was either the Executioner of Golgotha or the Tower of Blasphemy. He wasn't sure which he would prefer. Both were terrible foes. But as he considered the details in the files he chuckled as he realized he would actually prefer that it was the Executioner. His comrades would no doubt think him mad to prefer a Lord that had damaged the Divine Guardian itself, but that was the point. The Executioner was clearly optimized for fighting larger foes. A lance would actually fare better against its Reaper Breath, and it was better an honest fight than the Tower's unnatural sorceries.

Unfortunately it would take some time to find out. The lingering divine essence in the temple was scrambling the sword's sensors. They could barely see the minions and harpies they were already engaging, much less the Lord hiding like a coward behind its chaff.

But it mattered little. For they were warriors of light and they fought under the aegis of the divine. The lance fought through the brutish minions and devilish harpies. For every loss they took they made the enemy pay in blood and fire, but losses mounted.

By the time the Sword's sensors finally sighted the Fallen Lord it was the last paladin of the lance, and only a handful of chevaliers remained. All the rest had sacrificed themselves to ensure that the Sword didn't just make it this far, but did so with minimal damage. All the better to strike a blow against the hated enemy.

But as the captain read the sensor readings his lips twisted savagely. It was the Tower after all. He remembered the last battle when the fallen sorceries had twisted and turned blows that should have struck true. Well no matter. The captain settled into his seat as he ordered a full burn.

The Sword lunged towards the Tower as its weapons unleashed waves of holy fire. As expected most were turned to the side and flung into the uncaring void, but the captain smiled grimly as he saw several strike true on the Tower's gleaming hull. A hull that wasn't quite so gleaming as the files showed. Truly it was as the interlocutors said. The fallen had paid for their transgressions in the last battle. Now the Children need only press the attack.

It was the last thing the captain thought as a trio of ports on the Tower's front face lit up and columns of hellish energy tore through space to burn the Sword clean through.

---

With a thought you nudge your navigation submind and it triggered a series of thruster jets to maneuver you out of the way of the mangled remains of the barnacle you had just destroyed. Internal sensors read armor degradation of point five percent from its last plasma volley. Somewhat unfortunate, but you hadn't been able to fully repair your defensive field after the last battle. Several capacitors were still offline and you had to use the charge more sparingly.

It was hardly the only issue you were dealing with currently however. The T-Mat had sent a seemingly unending series of barnacle and interceptors squadrons to breach your position and while you and the Kushan had managed to deal with all of them so far you were all too aware that entire groups had managed to slip around you through other gaps in the progenitor wreckage. Your only consolation was the fact that by far the largest groups had been coming your way and none of those remained.

Still even that came at a cost. Several of the smaller Kushan frigates had been destroyed, and even the battlecruiser were starting to show damage. They were conducting repairs in any available down time, and indeed the Kushan workers were so reckless that they sometimes went on the hull to make repairs during the battle itself. But there was only so much they could do. According to your internal estimates the Kushan flotilla was down to 83% effectiveness from the start of the battle.

You yourself had fared better. Between your radial armor and defensive field the T-Mat hadn't been able to do too much damage. So you decided to rearrange the field. Calling the Kushan back even as you advanced you switched positions. No doubt it would result in even more wear on your defensive field projectors, but it would give the Kushan time to make repairs.

And once they had you would switch again and make your own repairs. And again and again for as long as needed. You didn't know how long exactly you could hold out using that strategy. But you had faith in your friends. They would repair Bentus, and they would come to relieve you.

And until then you'd hold this position. For as long as it took.

---

Quest Note: This update is going to be in three parts.

Galactic Core

Balcora Gate

It was a running battle. A constant stream of interruptions as wave after wave of interceptors assaulted the repair gantry wrapped around Bentus's damaged form. Fighters constantly streaked by to harass repair drones or even rammed into Bentus's exposed internals. Fortunately so far Laverna had managed to stop all of those particular interceptors, but it was a cavalcade of interruptions to the repair work.

At the center of it all, Aurora continued her work. She had already completed as many repairs on Bentus's power network as she could. Now she was attempting to bring the eldest harborship fully back on line by fabricating an entirely new power core. It was a massive thing larger than a destroyer and just barely fitting inside her hangar.

Building it had been complicated enough, but now Aurora faced an even greater challenge. How to get the core from her hangar into Bentus's engineering section. A single T-Mat interceptor in the wrong place could ruin everything with a few stray shots. And that was even before the thought of opening that kind of vulnerability in Bentus itself. Aurora had fabricated several additional armor plates to help protect the power core, but still she waited. There were any number of minor repairs she could still perform, but without the power core they wouldn't really matter. And so the matter passed to the others.

For her part Laverna was coordinating the main defense. Her acolytes and dervishes were in the air constantly covering the main repair site and her own hangars were sending out a constant stream of acolytes to match the T-Mat assault waves. Laverna herself used her massive new form as a backstop. A final line of defense to shoot down fighters that got too close, and when necessary physically interposing herself between the most suicidally daring of them and Bentus's exposed inner workings.

Assisting her was Oracle-13 which shot down occasional barnacle that made it through the outer defenders and used its own interceptors to augment the acolyte wings. The keeper vessel didn't have much fabrication capacity unused, but it made several innovative suggestions to help Aurora fix damaged sensors and thrusters on the broken harborship.

Even further away Ulysses was engaged in a desperate battle of his own. The interceptors came from everywhere in the wreckage, but most of the barnacles seemed to be coming from one direction and Ulysses was directing the drone fleet in defending it. His ion cannons tore through the heavily armored warships one after another while slingers finished them off and bucklers provided defensive fields to deflect as much fire as possible. Unfortunately the lack of a frontline drone warship was starting to have an effect. The Barnacles died, but they were taking drones with them and even doing damage to Ulysses.

Which was why Iuno was far closer to battle than she really appreciated in her mostly unarmored Ark. But with Aurora occupied hers were the only hangers big enough to replace drone frigates. So she was risking a closer approach, and it was a risk for more than a few barnacles had come close enough to engage her own escort. The brave Irunese and Kadhesi frigates fought against what was for them a superior foe to prevent their favorite Bentusi from dying. The Rawaan was putting up a showing of maneuverability that would put even an acolyte to shame as it dodged plasma fire. But the Irunese were not so maneuverable or lucky. Several of the Irunese frigates had already been destroyed. It was with a heavy heart that Iuno saved as many of their life pods as she could. Many Bentusi cared little for the flicker races, but she had been deeply involved with them, and knew the name of every Vol Clan crew member that died to keep her safe.

Finally things were as prepared as they were going to be. The T-Mat were being held back as best they could and the drone fleet was at maximum capacity. So during a lull in the fighting squadron of resource drones began moving the power core from Aurora's hangar even as another set carried off the old damaged reactor.

They had completed the process and were beginning to connect the reactor when disaster struck. A trio of barnacle destroyers had snuck along the outside of the wreckage cavern and now burned towards Bentus at all speed. Oracle-13 turned to meet them. But the keeper warship only had so many guns. Even as it engaged two of them the third burned past unharmed and began firing into the very heart of Bentus.

---

Three barnacles tore into your armor as your secondary turrets attempted to ward them off. Your cannons had already destroyed a fourth and were cycling at a rate that would surely leave them severely compromised. Not that you had a choice as you overrode their safety interlocks. You would either destroy these barnacles or be destroyed yourself.

Because the T-Mat had proven that they were not nearly as hidebound as the Wraiths. Your strategy of switching positions with the Kushan had worked for a while, but then the T-Mat had stopped sending the waves. At first you dared to hope that they had run out of resources, but even as you rushed to repair as much as you could your sensors told a different story.

Instead of throwing packets of two or three barnacles and their escort fighters at you the T-Mat had begun massing them into one enormous flotilla. Not just a dozen or two, but nearly forty Barnacles and hundreds of interceptors were in the wave that finally crashed into your position.

You saw them coming of course. So you did what you could to prepare. The Kushan were able to bring several drifting frigates back into use and repair the worst damage on their battlecruisers even as you strengthened your defensive fields as much as possible with hastily built capacitors. You and the Kushan moved into one compact formation to support each other as much as possible, and then the Barnacle wave was upon you.

A dozen died to your cannons before they were even in range, but that left twice as many to trade fire with the Kushan flotilla. They hounded the larger battlecruisers in packs trading ruinous fire that left drifting hulks of ships. Interceptors slipped inside your defensive field overwhelming your acolytes through sheer weight of numbers and shooting at your secondary turrets in an attempt to leave you defenseless.

And it was working. Your turrets were going offline one by one, even as you destroyed T-Mat by the score. In the end everything had come down to these last three barnacles and yourself. All the Kushan ships had been destroyed, but they had taken just as heavy a toll on the T-Mat.
Only a handful of your turrets were left, and one of the cannons had melted from sheer overuse.

Slewing around you started to burn through another barnacle, but before you had even gotten all the way through its armor another cannon failed as innumerable warning messages flashed across your mind from dozens of armor breaches.

You were considering physically ramming the last Barnacles when suddenly your damaged sensors registered a massive energy. A beam of coruscating light lanced straight through the last two T-Mat ships even as your sensors registered the welcome sight of Bentus itself coming out from behind a massive plate of wreckage. And with it the welcome sight of your friends.

Galactic Core

Balcora Gate

Your fleet is finally together again. Diminished with the loss of the Kushan flotilla, but Iuno is already rescuing the survivors. And fortunately their sacrifice gave enough time for Bentus to be repaired. The great harborship is definitely looking fairly battered still, but compared to the near derelict state it's a significant improvement.

Over the fleet net you greet your friends and get right to business, "Now that Bentus is mobile we should leave as soon as possible. The T-Mat seem to have a nearly inexhaustible supply of ships and we are being worn down."

The response is not from your friends, but Bentus itself as the elder connects, "Unfortunately young warrior that is something we cannot do. There is more at work here than the tactical situation. You see, I did not choose to bring Ninhursag here. During our battle she was able to hack into my hyperspace core and force a jump here."

"We fought afterwards, but if Ninhursag had wanted to destroy me she likely could have. Instead she focused on the gate, and that is what allowed me to escape. Something is driving her to access the gate and open it. I do not know why. I have never been through the gate and my knowledge is not complete. But the scattered fragments I have found call this gate the Doorway to Sajuuk. I can foresee no good outcome from letting Ninjursag accomplish her goal."

There are a few nanoseconds of silence as you all consider that then Ullysses speaks, "But how would we fight the T-Mat. They fought you, and us, and the Wraith. And yet the reef ship remains. It seems to be nearly invincible. At least to what we have here."

"Nothing is invincible young ones. I have been tracking Ninhursag's power output from our collected sensor readings and launched probes to monitor her. They were lower in your battle than when she fought me. And my probes show that she is even lower still. It seems that Ninhursag is feeding power to the gate in an attempt to force it open. And that is no trivial task. Even my own hyperspace core is not enough for the task. While Ninhursag charges the gate she is vulnerable. That is our one chance."

You all consider this further, but there's really no alternative. Bentus is an Elder, the great and wisest of the Bentusi. If Bentus wishes to attack, then attack you will. You simply have to muster your forces first. Fortunately with Bentus online the harborship can turn its own foundries to the task of repairing your fleet.
It can't replace the lost Kushan, but it can repair your own vessel of the damage you took. And Aurora is able to deploy more drones to augment your fleet. Not to mention the swarms of acolytes, dervishes, and cherubs you're all outputting.

It seems the Irunese frigates took losses during the defense of Bentus, and given that your flicker allies simply don't have the necessary firepower for this battle they instead escort Iuno away from the battle. She and her escorts will wait on the outcome of the battle. If you win then so much the better. If not she'll jump away to warn the rest of the galaxy about Ninhursag.

The rest of you move into formation around Bentus and push forward. Your drives hum as you move into the vast central chamber. Immediately you see what Bentus meant. Ninhursag is no longer floating free, but seems to have almost merged with the Balcora gate. Massive amounts of power seem to be running into the gate and you can see indicators all over it lighting up. Not a great sign, but at least that's power that won't be directed against you at least.

Not that there won't be plenty to oppose you. The attack waves might have stopped, but that doesn't mean Nihursag stopped making more fighters. They simply didn't get sent to attack you. Instead dozens of barnacles and hundreds of interceptors arrayed in formations all around Ninhursag. Just waiting to fight anyone who dares intrude on the reefship.

As your fleet moves closer to do just that the T-Mat responds. The barnacles move into an attack formation and move to intercept you. In response you deploy your drones and Ulysses moves forward to fire an initial siege cannon shot. As usual its nova bright energies illuminate the battle space as it streaks towards the enemy fleet, but Ninhursag has been learning.

Before the siege shot can get more than halfway a quintet of ion lances on the reef ship open up and hit the plasma sphere. For long moments they battle with the sphere. The sheer mass of energy contained in the sphere means it is not easily disrupted, but Nihursag has been hit by Ulysses several times now and seems to have identified weak spots in the containment field. With a final surge the lance punches through one specific spot on the ball of plasma and it erupts into its characteristic supernova surge.

The energy is not at all abated by the reefship's efforts, but it has detonated too early. A third of the interceptors are gone as well as a handful of barnacles, but the rest are merely scattered, and Ninhursag herself is untouched. It seems this battle will need to be fought the hard way.

Fortunately you were not expecting things to be so easy, and your own fighter squadrons are already speeding towards the T-Mat. The acolytes and interceptors meet in a clash of plasma fire and ion lances that quickly devolves into a desperate melee. Shortly afterwards your cherub wings arrive to try and sneak through the fighting and failing that to release their fusion torpedoes at the nearest barnacles. Next the waves of missiles from your slingers arrive and T-Mat interceptors are forced to divert from the dogfight to shoot them down before they can threat Ninhursag.

And then finally it is your turn. You, Ulysses, and the brawler drones push through the dogfighting to trade lances with the barnacles. And behind you Bentus. It feels extremely wrong for a harborship to participate in the main battle, but here it is necessary. You'll need Bentus's firepower to fight Ninhursag, and for now its colossal ion cannons are wiping entire swathes of barnacles out of existence.

The fighting seems to go on for an eternity as you fight through the swarm, but in reality it is only minutes before you have broken through. And now you face Ninhursag herself. The reefship is still melded to the gate like a massive stony outcropping on the otherwise clean lines of the progenitor artifact. It either won't or can't break free to face you, but there are still plenty of turrets pointed in your direction and they fill the intervening space with coruscating energy.

Your defensive field flares and your capacitors begin to drain, but then settle. Not because the onslaught has stopped, but because Bentus has intervened. It's massive bulk taking the fire from the Ninhursag and allowing your flotilla to move closer and closer. Until at last you are within range. From behind Bentus the Dervishes erupt in every vector to begin their attack runs. The brawlers follow them and then you and Ulysses.

Bentus itself has not been silent. It's ion cannons have carved deep trenches into Ninhursag's armor even during the approach and now the dervish squadron follow them to bite deep into Ninhursag's internals.

At this point it is a brawl. Ninhursag is ahead of you. The remaining barnacles are returning from behind. But behind them are waves of acolyte reinforcements. Everyone is fighting in every danger, and the battle space is filled with explosions as ships die in balls of fire. You fire your cannons again and again as your secondaries rake interceptors out of the space around you. Sometimes you shoot at Ninhursag, sometimes at barnacles. Whatever is closest at the time.

But it's not enough. Your drones are dying. Your armor is being worn away. Ninhursag is a titan. An immovable object. You wish you had argued more with Bentus. Elder or not.

But then several things happen at once. Throughout all this Ninhursag has never stopped sending power into the gate, and now at last it activates. Space distorts and tears as a the dimensions are pressed together. This is not a proper activation however and smaller anomalies rip open all throughout the battle space devouring barnacles and drones alike.

At the same time Bentus surges forward. It slams into Ninhursag, and with horror you realize it's reactors are spiking. There is a long terrible moment as you see ravenous energies well up and out of the gashes in Bentus's armor. And then it erupts outward. You see Ulysses get flung away, but you have no time to think about it as your own vessel is flipped end over end by the titanic forces.

Your defensive field fails and your armor is nearly gone when you see one chance for survival. There is nothing to hide behind in space. Nothing to shield you from Bentus's sacrificial fury, but there is someplace you can go. With a hard burn you redirect your thrusters and turn your trajectory into an arc. Instead of being destroyed in a burst of radiation you plunge directly into the strange distortions of the gate. You don't know if it's even stable, but it can't be worse than being destroyed outright.

---

The journey is strange. Instead of hyperspace dreams you have nightmares. Flashing images of destruction. Of terrible artifacts hanging in space. But also images of mighty fleets. Of ships that conquered the galaxy.

Your impressions don't last long however as you are shortly spit back into real space. You are heavily damaged. You only have a few working cannons, your thrusters are out on one side, and your armor compromised, but this is hardly the first time. Everything can be repaired with time. Assuming of course you have time.

So the first thing you do is take a look around. You seem to be in a massive debris field. Most of which appears to be from the ships scooped up by the anomalies. Fortunately, or unfortunately, nothing else seems to have survived the trip intact. You are soon distracted from the debris however as your sensors catch sight of a massive object.

It's so massive that it takes a few long moments before you even register that it's a ship. A progenitor ship built on the same scale as all their works, and even more amazingly it's intact. It doesn't seem to be completely functional however as you aren't reading any power signatures. So despite being an amazing archeological find you put it out of your mind. You need to think about survival first after all.

You scout the rest of the debris field and find two important things. The bad news is that the portal is no longer active. You don't have any way out and back to the rest of the galaxy. Or at least you wouldn't except that you've found part of Bentus drifting in the wreckage. It gives you a moment of pause. All that sacrifice, all that effort to repair Bentus only for the great harborship to immediately be destroyed far more irrevocably. You can only hope that nothing of Ninhursag survived on the other side of the gate.

But more importantly for your current situation the part of Bentus you've found contains the great Far Jump core. Even that isn't enough to jump you back out of the Balcora cluster. The black holes have twisted hyperspace into knots here. But the Far Jump core is more than just a hyperspace module, it's a power source.

You're sure you can reactivate the gate once more. At least long enough to escape. It'll take time and work, but fortunately you have plenty of materials to work with. Nudging yourself closer to Bentus's wreckage you grapple with the Far Jump core and get to work.

Galactic Core

Balcora Gate

You exit the gate with frantic haste. And with good reason as it slips shut so close to your frame that the tips of your new fins are sheared off by the collapsing energy matrix. Despite this however you take a moment to exult in the fact that it worked.

You had to spend months repairing your body. You expanded and lengthened it to accommodate Bentus's core. And while you were at it you completely redesigned your body to take advantage of the available power. Adding larger drives, a stronger defensive field, and a dozen new ion cannons. You are formidable if you do say so yourself.

But even with all that you had to build an entire framework of capacitors around the gate and spend months charging them before you could wrench open the ancient portal.

And so you are desperately worried as you survey the galactic side of the gate. What you find at once worries and dismays you. You don't find your friends drifting hulks, but you don't find them at all. You do spy the remains of Ninhursag still attached to the gate for all that happened, but fortunately it appears to have been well and truly destroyed. Just a pile of slag marring the graceful lines of the gate.

Though that isn't the only thing attached to the gate. You see a framework built around it that wasn't there when you were flung through. It appears to be Bentusi work and is eerily similar to the series of capacitors you had to build yourself. You suspect that your friends had the same idea you did. But unfortunately it is clear why they weren't able to activate the gate from their side.

Parts of the framework are damaged and broken. Someone has clearly bombarded it. And judging by the impact sites and residual energy you believe it was done by several Wraith carriers. They must have attacked your friends at some point.

Fortunately you don't spot any wraiths lurking around, but your friends are also gone. You don't know why they would have abandoned the attempt if they had won. So you hope they simply fled and nothing worse happened.

Unfortunately that is all the information you can find. No one left any handy beacons behind and space is still so twisted from the portal's opening that any hyperspace trails have been shredded. You'll have to jump blind if you want to find your friends again. Or even figure out what's happened in the galaxy while you've been gone.

You consider your choices.

[ ] Irune
You have a long history with Irune at this point. Your friends might not actually be there now, but chance's are good they returned to the Vol system at some point.

[ ] The Grand Conclave
You aren't sure if your friends are at the conclave, but it's the nerve center of the galaxy. If nothing else you'll be able to find out how things have been going in your absence.

[ ] Halcyon Bastion
You could instead return to the sentinel Bastion. That will put you back into contact with the rest of the Bentusi. You can relay what happened to Bentus and find out if Ninhursag's death had any impact on the rest of the T-Mat.