Mass Deviations (Worm AU/Mass Effect)

[Slider214]

Investigation 06
Current Active subsystems: Durability, Reflexes, Intuition, Strength

"Oh you did not just shoot a rocket at me!"

I leaned to the side as Missy caught the incoming projectile and twisted it through a loop of space. An instant later it was flying back towards a screaming mercenary. I didn't spare the man or his two compatriots any further attention; their shields wouldn't stand up to the rocket. Instead, I knelt and punched one of the larger pieces of the debris lying in front of me. It went arcing through the air and knocked another of the mercs off the narrow platform. Her scream faded even as I pushed off the ground and smashed my fist into the front of the mech ahead.

"Stop screaming, assholes! This is what you get for trying to kill a kid!"

"It's just a job you psycho bitch!"

I glared to the side at the mercenary that had yelled back at Missy. The pilot of the mech shouted something inarticulate as I idly pulled the entire front of the cockpit off and threw it behind me. His shotgun didn't do anything to me except tickle and draw my attention back to him, my eyes narrowed. Durability was a wonderful subsystem. I'd probably have a slight bruise later, but that would heal fast enough.

"What is wrong with you people?!" The merc yelled. His eyes were hidden behind his helmet, but I imagined they were wide and darting back and forth. I didn't particularly care.

"Your friend shouldn't have said that. A job being a job is fine, but there are jobs you don't take. My parents have always been very particular about threatening kids. My Mother's sister was kidnapped when she was a child. Assassinating kids? It's like you wanted us to wipe you out."

"I don't even know who you are, lady!"

I grinned, showing my teeth to the idiot. "Hebert. Jane Hebert. Not so nice to meet you. Tell you what, show me where your boss is and I'll let you live."

"Fuck you!" the merc snarled.

I shrugged. "Good choice, now I don't have to feel guilty later." Reaching through the gaping hole in the mech before he could jab at the self-destruct button, I wrapped my hand around his throat. I jerked my arm back and let go, sending him screaming over the edge of the bridge.

I climbed into the newly vacated cockpit and stared at the controls for a moment, soaking in the layout of the systems.

Second panel from the left has local data. Second panel on the right has system settings.

Nodding to myself, I listened to my Intuition and pulled up the area schematics on the left-hand panel. It only took a few seconds of searching before I found a facility map. "Oh wow, they didn't even bother to hide their base. No wonder they keep getting these mechs destroyed. Talk about lax security."

Downloading the data to my Armstool and memorizing it for good measure, I clambered back out of the machine. A quick roundhouse had it hurtling over the edge as well. I walked over to Missy as she stood, hands on her hips glaring down at one merc. This one was still alive, her hands on her head, bowed down to the floor, her whole body shaking.

"Not done yet?"

"She's trying to surrender. I'm trying to decide if I want to let her."

"Hmm," I knelt down and tapped the woman on the shoulder. She audibly swallowed as she lifted her forehead off of the ground and met my gaze. "How old are you?"

"53, Ma'am," the Asari mercenary answered. "This was my first job outside of Thessia. I just wanted adventure. Please, let me go. I'll go home. I'll wait until I'm older to go out again."

I frowned. "Did you know what you were signing up for?"

"Mercenary work."

"Not my question."

"The job was supposed to be to take the child to someone who could help her control her abilities. It only turned into killing her after she trashed a lot of our base and pissed off the boss."

Had reservations about following through, but thought that was how the galaxy worked. Thought that people had to be hard to survive. Thought she had to learn to be hard.

My lips twisted into a scowl as I stared through her. "You still would've followed through."

"I-I had friends there. She killed them when she ran!"

Attempting to gain sympathy.

I knew that. Sometimes my powers were stupid.

"Lift up your head and look at me." She followed my direction, shaking hard enough now that it was hard to keep her gaze locked on mine. "I'm going to ask you one more question. Your response determines if I let you live or not. You're smarter than your friends, but you don't get to lean on the 'following orders' excuse. Now, if you had caught up to Gillian, would you have killed her or would you have let her go?"

She flinched, her jaw working silently as she looked to the weapons on my belt. Then she slumped, all of the fight leaving her. "If the others were around I don't think I would have been brave enough to go against them."

"And if they weren't around? What kind of person are you in the dark?"

"I don't know," she whispered.

Would likely have let Gillian leave and lied to the other mercenaries. Timid, but unlikely to go against personal morals without the threat of a weapon being turned on her.

I narrowed my eyes. "I'm not going to force you to go home, but you can't stay here. If you can't bring yourself to follow your own conscience then you have no business being in a place with as few laws as Omega. In places like this, you follow your own code, or you stay the hell away. If you can't muster up your own courage then go hide under your Matriarch's skirts until you can. Understand?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"You get one shot from my family," I said standing. "This is yours. Don't let it go to waste. Get the hell out of here and keep your nose out of trouble. You're very lucky that I think you can learn to stand up for your beliefs. Or, if I'm wrong and you can't, one day, I'll find you. And then you'll wish I killed you here. Next time I won't pull any punches."

"Yes, Ma'am, thank you Ma'am!" The mercenary scrambled to her feet and was running away almost before I had finished talking. I watched her until she had rounded the corner out and gone out of sight.

Missy glared at me, scowling. "Why did you let her go?"

"Lisa was on the wrong side to begin with too, but now she's family. Same with Mimi and Simmy. She should get a chance."

Missy huffed. "She's old enough that she should know better."

"Asari take longer to mature than humans, Auntie. Come on. I found the map. Let's go express our displeasure with Mr. Massani and then see if Enola found anything."

\/\/\/\/

Ten minutes later I felt like I was wearing a permanent scowl as yet more things blew up around me. The base was easy enough to get to. The initial whirlwind of rockets, bullets, and grenades was also child's play to ignore, thanks to Missy. I'd lost count of how many mercenaries I had killed at this point, and still, they kept shooting at us. The mech I was holding up to block all of the stray rockets was little more than slag at this point, but it was slag doing its job well enough. Any shrapnel that made it past the scrapheap was swiftly diverted towards the nearest merc through twists of shortened space.

"Even the Batarians weren't this stupid. Don't any of them realize how moronic it is to keep shooting at us?" I spat. I leaned to the left to knock a thrown grenade back the way it came. Panicked shouts were my reward - all of which almost immediately cut off as the thing exploded amidst four mercs.

"Normally, I would say that there is some benefit to continually attacking something until it dies," Missy said. She sighed as she walked beside me, twisting her hand and jerking her head - another Blue Suns member went from standing on solid ground to falling from 50 feet up. "Even gods can be killed if you get lucky and hit the right spot after all. Fortuna proved that."

"Yeah but -"

"But, these idiots are led by a human - who should know better than to attack us with what amounts to paint guns. Enola would've had a harder time, sure, but not me, and certainly not you."

Another rocket melted the core of the mech. I was going to have to get a new mech in a few seconds. Or find that asshole with the last rocket locker. Either one would be satisfying.

"If they were expecting Enola, then they are even more idiotic than I gave them credit for," I hissed. My fists tightened around their handholds. The metal screeched under my Strength and sheared away entirely. The mech dropped to the ground and I was left holding two jagged shards of metal in my hands. Growling I punted the worthless piece of machinery towards a group of enemies and then reared my arms back and threw both chunks of scrap into the heads of other Blue Suns members.

"Hey, Jane, Enola's fine."

"They attacked my sister," I snapped. "They had an ambush planned for my sister. It's not enough that they tried to kill a teenager. No, they had to go and attack my family!"

"Jane."

"No one else gets to surrender! They've had their chance. They could have laid down their weapons when we waltzed in and deflected everything they had at once. They made their bed, now they get to lie in it!"

Missy's hand squeezed my shoulder. I spared her one glance and the tired look she had was almost enough to give me pause.

Yet, they had attacked my family. This had been planned for my sister.

I scowled deeper and shook her hand off. Missy just nodded. She stepped to the left and was suddenly directly in front of two mercenaries. Neither lasted long as she cracked their weapons and then punched them backwards just enough that their stumble brought them through a loop of space that twisted directly over a large gap in the floor. From their fading screams, it sounded like it was quite the drop. Good.

For my part, I snatched a rocket out of the air as it came hurtling towards my face, twirling with it in my hand until I had done a complete turn, and let it fly back to its originator. "Finally got you, asshole." Tickling against my side saw me snapping my head to the left. I glared at the five Blue Suns who had lined up on top of a pile of scrap, their stances set as they all emptied their rifles at me. I kicked off the ground and in two jumps I had landed beside them. One fell off the pile, his shield winking out as he slammed to the ground below with a crack.

"Why won't you just die already?!" one of the men - a Turian? - shouted.

"You first." I punched him and he crumpled. A roundhouse kick took out the last three.

Missy stepped out of her space warp next to me as I jumped back down to the ground. "Their leader is up there." She pointed towards a structure in the middle of the large room. "Want a lift? I can sort out the rest of the small fry."

I just jerked my head in acknowledgement.

She pushed me forward a step and we were on top of the fortification. Missy was gone again. It didn't matter. Zaeed Massani was standing in front of me. His hand falling from his ear to clutch a rifle at his side.

"Never mind, Vido. She's right here." He barked a laugh as his eyes raked over me. "Just my fucking luck. Here I was all set for a big score, and in walks The Littlest Hebert instead."

Was contracted for Enola.

Heat roared in my chest as my eyes narrowed to slits. "Was there ever anything that you had against Gillian or was she just a means to an end?"

Zaeed shrugged. "At first she was good bait. Everyone knows how you Heberts are: can't resist a good sob story or someone in trouble. Then the little bitch killed one of my top lieutenants. I figured she'd still be useful bait even if she wasn't the writhing kind."

I started stalking towards him, one slow step at a time. "Who hired you to go after my sister?"

"You don't seriously think I'm going to answer that do you? I'm dead either way. I was dead the moment you showed up on this godforsaken rock."

"You were dead the moment you took the job," I hissed.

"Probably. But the way I see it, girl, you are all too full of yourselves. How are the rest of us ever supposed to accomplish anything on our own with you lording above us like the Greek Pantheon? No. I built the Blue Suns with my own hands. I built it and it dies with me. If I could've knocked you arrogant bastards down a peg or two in the process all the better. These may not be my preferred methods, but the promised results would've been worth it."

Believes that his employers can hurt us. Willing to do anything to help them strike even a single blow.

"I should leave you alive for my sister to pick over and tease out your secrets. She's good at that. I just bastardize her work and [Negotiator]'s particular talent."

"You should," he agreed. He raised his gun and laughed. "But we both know you're never going to get me back to her. Let's see if I can't hurt you, girl."

He fired. My instincts screamed at me to move. I twisted, contorting my body into a direction that the human torso was not meant to bend. The bullet still clipped my shoulder.

[Pain] echoed out from that wound. The multiversal layers collapsed around my shoulder, slamming into one, and fire radiated out from the hole. Time sped up as I abandoned my human face and opened up my larger senses.

[Horizon] and [Intuit]'s gazes immediately zeroed in on me. I ignored them, focusing on my shoulder. I flickered my form, trying to shove my [multi-stacked] nature back into it. The foreign substance lodged in me fought back, resisting the [layering]. So I cut it off instead.

I snapped back to [Human] as I closed my [layering], cutting off the section of my shoulder that had been infected. That part of me sloughed away, falling to the ground, the pain vanishing with it.

Barely a fraction of a second had passed in real-time. Zaeed was still trying to adjust his aim down towards me as I had twisted away.

A roar escaping my throat, I leaped for him.

He didn't stand a chance.

\/\/\/\/

Missy knelt down next to me, laying her hand on my back and rubbing small circles as I held the piece of me that used to be my shoulder, staring at it.

"Your Mother is going to kill me," she murmured. "I had one job. Watch out for you, make sure you were okay, keep you company in a mini-Network." She sighed. "Dammit."

"It's eezo."

"What?"

"It's eezo," I whispered. I poked at the strange element embedded in the discarded piece of flesh. "Except it's like it's been…activated. Charged. It felt like…"

"[Sting]", [Intuit] and [Horizon] both said in our heads at the same time that Missy and I said it aloud.

I lifted my eyes to meet Missy's. "We need to get back to the ships. Then we need to talk to [Mother]."

Missy nodded.

 

[Slider214]

AN: My degree is in Aeronautical Engineering with a concentration in Aerospace. I fully admit to geeking out over the planetary calculations and taking several minutes to actually run some basic numbers for the general gravitational force between Earth and various planets. So the quoted figures might not be exact, but they are very close for simplified two-body equations.

\/\/\/\/

Interlude: Goddess Interrupt

Taylor
"No," I stated, shaking my head. This was so incredibly stupid and pointless. How had this gotten onto my schedule? Had I pissed off Emily or Paige and they were getting back at me?

President Harding, leader of this Instance, frowned as he briefly met my gaze. He was only able to hold it for a moment before he dropped his eyes back down to look at the papers that he was shuffling in front of him. "Just like that, Your Eminence? Won't you even look at the proposals we have written up?"

"Just like that. This is ridiculous and a waste of my time."

"Your Eminence please I -"

"Okay, you know what, I'll humor you for a moment," I snapped. Leaning forward, I laid my crossed arms on the table and jerked my chin towards the papers. A quick burst of [Reach] and they flew up into his hands. He swallowed as he glanced up again, his gaze focusing somewhere on my cheek. "How many Thinkers have signed off on your plan?"

He grimaced. I didn't give him a chance to reply before I plowed on. "How many Tinkers? Got any of the Dragonites to look it over?"

"Yes!" he nearly shouted, the papers falling back down as he sat up straight, the smile spreading wide as he seized on that. One of the other idiots around the table just closed their eyes in response; at least that one knew they had already lost.

I already knew the answer to my question: Rebecca's first 'Rule of Negotiation': never make a query you don't already know the answer to. That this fool of a President hadn't picked up on the sarcasm in my voice…he was proving with every word that I was being punished. I was going to have to get someone flowers. Hopefully Madison knew. Madison always told me who was angry at me.

"Which Dragonite cluster? Fafnir?" I asked, still not showing anything in my expression.

He swallowed hard and slumped. "They said the proposal was -"

"Fafnir has been looking for an excuse to do his experiment for twenty years. He is on every blacklist throughout the Alliance with specific warnings that he is not allowed to comment on planetary calculations without direct oversight from Dragon Prime or one of the Core Shards. So, again, has anyone signed off on your proposal?"

"Your Eminence, the numbers are sound and -"

I hissed, slamming my hands onto the table. "No! You do not have permission to crack Venus! Do you have any idea the sort of problems that would cause for the Sol System as a whole if you delete a planet?"

One of the talking heads flipped a page in his own report and said, "We could do Jupiter instead Your Eminence. We initially were hesitant, as gas giants are more difficult to harvest compared to one of the rocky Inner Planets, yet it's still feasible. There's actually a better energy efficiency in doing so, even factoring in the distance. Plus with it being farther from Earth, there should be far less impact on us."

I had to close my eyes and count to two thousand before I could respond.

Having issues, Taylor[Avatar]? QA laughed.

Someone tipped you off about this. That's why you specified that I had to take this meeting for you instead of the one with Yutani Industries tomorrow.

QA snorted. We had been together too long, and she had learned the appropriate places to do that. Let's be real here, if it was me dealing with those fools I probably would have killed someone there. Likely that last idiot. Less of an effect? Jupiter? Anyone that bad at basic math is a danger to everyone around him. I'd be doing this Instance a favor.

I'm tempted to agree with you.

Opening my eyes, I tapped [Projection] and held up both my hands, forming an image of Venus over one and Jupiter over the other. "Scale, child. Scale is important. The barycenter of the Sol system is not the Sun. It is outside the Sun, largely because of Jupiter. Since you seem to like numbers Mr. Shut-the-Hell-Up-and-Don't-Speak-in-My-Presence-Again, not taking into account any other planets or even the Sun, the approximate gravitational force between Venus and Earth is 4.69x10^28. The approximate force between Earth and Jupiter is 1.21x10^30. That is, for your primitive mush you call a brain, twenty-five times larger. Jupiter is farther out, but Jupiter is far, far larger. And that doesn't even take into account the stabilizing force it has on the asteroid belt or how it gobbles up comets like candy, protecting your world from errant civilization ending impacts."

The President nodded, hurriedly trying to cover for his stupid staffer. "Yes, that's why we abandoned the idea, Your Eminence. Venus was a good contender, but we could explore other options like Mars or Mercury or -"

"I'm going to put this in terms you can understand, okay?" I said, speaking slowly and softly. He swallowed and quickly nodded. "You can't blow up Venus. You can't blow up Mars. You can't blow up Mercury. You can't blow up any planet. You aren't even asking to do this in an uninhabited Instance, you're asking to do it in your own. I refuse to evacuate your entire Instance because you moronic tapeworms are too lazy to file a few weeks worth of paperwork. If you want more power, then you can apply for it. Just. Like. Everyone. Else."

"I understand, Your Eminence." The President at least seemed to finally get that I wasn't going to budge. He grabbed a different folder and opened up to the first page. "There was another item that we had needed to discuss. The transport lines seem like they are being prejudiced against…"

Their voices drifted into a droning buzz that I tuned out. My clone back home had just heard Lisa yelling about Jane, Enola, and Missy calling in.

Taylor.

I heard it, I murmured back to QA. Have our clone tell Lisa to stall for a few seconds.

I'll tell her myself. I'm already there.

Don't you dare start talking to our daughter before I get there you crystal shard-monster!

Better hurry then! QA laughed, closing the connection down to its normal trickle.

"Stupid teasing shard," I muttered, standing up.

All talking stopped and I stared directly into the President's eyes. "I'm needed elsewhere. Here's your answer: No. None of this is discriminatory. You're all too lazy to use the bureaucracy that we have setup to get a larger energy budget and longer transport-portal windows. You want more stuff? File the fucking paperwork. Don't bother me again, or I'll have Brad take over rulership of your Instance for a decade."

I didn't bother to portal home. It would take too long. Instead I just popped my current avatar and linked my consciousness into the clone's body. As the refresh finished, I made sure to copy all of my normal power taps and body modifications, bringing the body back up to goddess-spec. I had already stepped into the living room as the final adjustment snapped into place.

The image of the girls was just finishing resolving in front of me. Perfect timing!

Except everyone was backwards. Oh, right, the projector was on Lisa's tablet. QA lifted a hand in greeting from her position behind my wife; whether the shard-girl was waving at me or at Jane and the others, I had no idea.

Either way, Lisa was in my spot.

"Budge over!" I shoved into place drawing a chuckle from QA and a squawk of protest from Lisa.

"I was sitting there, Tay!"

"Yes, 'was'. Past tense. My seat now!"

"You are squishing me!"

"Well then tell Colin to make the pickup field larger if you don't want to be squished, Lise." I smiled wide for the camera, waving to my kids. Missy's eye-roll on the second projection was almost audible.

"Hey, Mom! And Mom - again! And QA!" Enola shouted. Only one hand was gesturing wildly towards us, the other was wrapped around Jane's shoulder, holding her sister tight against her. That was…odd. Enola was a hugger, but she wasn't usually clingy like that.

"Hi, Mother. Hi, Mom. Hi Auntie Lise," Jane said. Her smile was forced. I didn't have to hear her over the Network to see that much. My eyes narrowed slightly.

"Hey, Taylor, QA, Lisa," Missy said. She was positively quiet compared to normal.

"What's going on?" QA and I asked at the same time.

"Was someone hurt?" I continued.

"Were you attacked by an actual threat?" QA asked simultaneously.

Lisa groaned and slapped her forehead. "Really, you two? Give them a chance to talk!"

I glanced up at QA, she sighed, dropping down to lean against the couch with her elbows against the back and her head to my right with Lisa to my left. "You're the one who started off human, you go first."

I nodded and focused on the girls. "Is everyone okay? Do you need help?"

Missy held up a hand before either of the kids could talk. She met my gaze and shook her head. "Everyone is mostly okay, but it could have been different if reactions were slower. There is an actual threat out here and I'm not sure where it's coming from, though I have my suspicions. I think this is more than just the Evil Brainwashing AI Warship."

I frowned. "Everyone is okay?"

"A bit shook up, but yes."

"Alright," I said, leaning back. Lisa rubbing small circles on my back helped to ease a small amount of my tension. I pushed the voices of the Network back, assuring them I was fine and letting them listen in through QA's avatar. "In that case, let's go in order: Enola?"

"Small talk is a thing you know," Lisa murmured. I ignored her and gestured to the chatterbox.

Enola perked up, releasing Jane's shoulder as she stood and spread her arms wide. "Me first? Cool! Okay, so, I've been tracking Evil Spaceship Man."

"Evil Spaceship Man?" Lisa cut in, her voice completely deadpan. "No. Just, no. I did not raise you like that. You have the attention span of a goldfish sometimes and there's nothing wrong with that; but I'll be damned if you take after Taylor with naming things once you get 5 minutes away from home!"

"Hey! I've gotten better!" I protested.

"Linker Bug."

I felt a blush spread across my cheeks and turned back to the girls. I would let her win this round, I had more important things to focus on.

Enola giggled, her hand over her mouth, Jane also smiling behind her. Oh…sneaky, sneaky. As ditzy as Enola could be, it was easy to forget sometimes that she was Lisa's kid first and foremost. She knew exactly what she was doing - most of the time.

"So anyway, I tracked the bad AI thing to Omega. Garrus and I found out that other races called it a Reaper. I'm almost certain that there is more than one, because basically every reference was in the plural."

QA held up a finger. "Garrus?"

"My Turian buddy!" She fiddled with her Armstool and a hologram floated into view in front of her. I would have to remember to thank Colin for outfitting my kids with those things. "I swiped him from C-Sec. They were totally wasting his potential. Such a rebel. You guys would love him. Strangely focused on accuracy though…How many times can you calibrate a single gun?"

"Never enough!" a distant shout came from somewhere behind Enola.

She laughed and jerked her thumb towards the noise. "See?"

"Enola, dear, focus, sweetie," Lisa sighed.

"Right! Okay, so, Garrus and I found the name of the brainwashing starship, we figured out it was leading us to Omega, but this place isn't really that bad, all things considered. I think Aria liked me so I had an easy time here. Bet it didn't expect that, hah!" She pumped the air again, though she ended up frowning. "But I think she was more interested in screwing you, Mom. Moving on! So, we were getting to the Geth terminal, so that I could hack it and download the data I needed to track this Reaper thing, and we ran across a kid that had gotten away from a merc group."

I leaned forward. "Do you mean got away like 'I wanted a career change' or got away like 'oh god help'? It's an important distinction, Enola."

"Oh agreed, Mom." She scowled. "And it was the second. Jerks were trying to kill her because she destroyed some of their stuff. Apparently being held captive doesn't give you the right to blow up their shit, according to them. Garrus and I firmly disagreed and helped her continue blowing up their shit as we went to the terminal."

"Good call," I nodded.

"You'll like Gillian, Mom. Both of you will. QA, you might not, she can't take a shard, she's biotic. Real strong. A prodigy I think. Anyway, you guys'll love her! I'm adopting her; so you'll get to meet her soon. So yup, once we got to the terminal I started trying to decrypt and decompile it, but Geth programming is incredibly counter-intuitive so it was going slow. My squishy organic brain just can't do what they do, and the shards are independently intelligent, unlike the geth. But I made it work, and then everything was in Geth! I can speak French, I can speak Klingon, I can even speak binary, but they don't use binary, and Geth is a weird language."

I just stared at my daughter as Enola paused for breath. "Please tell me we're coming back to how I'm now a grandmother."

"How none of the other spawn have managed to beat Enola there is the bigger mystery," Lisa muttered. "God I feel old."

"You're too young to procreate," QA said, frowning. "Taylor, tell her she's too young. She's barely more than 50 years old!"

I inclined my head and opened myself up to the Network briefly. All of the shards were confused. For as long as they had been with us now, they still barely understood us. "QA, you understand, but you don't get it. Humans don't work on your timescale, even with us being so much longer-lived now. Most humans don't wait as long as Enola has. Our family is unusual in a lot of ways."

"You guys done? Cool." Enola nodded once. "So yeah, I'm adopting Gillian, I can't read Geth, the Blue Suns are continuing to send people into the meat grinder, and Garrus keeps being noble and protecting us while I try to learn Geth. This is when Missy and Janey showed up."

She was not going to give me more information about the girl - apparently my new granddaughter - right now. Damn that kid! Letting out a breath, I looked over to my next target. "Missy?"

Missy nodded, dropping into a seat as she crossed her arms. "Jane and I approached their position with our team. We found Enola's group under attack, and took care of the stragglers, then met up. After exchanging information, we left Legion -"

"Hold up," Lisa said. "Is that the Geth platform I sent to shadow you guys? You got it to choose a name?"

"We did yeah, and yes it is. So, we left Legion with Enola to help with the translation and Tali to help Garrus with protecting them and Gillian. Then Jane and I went off to track down the Blue Suns leadership."

"As well you should have," I responded. My eyes were narrowed and nostrils flared as I pulled the relevant information from the Network's storage. "Zaeed Masanni. Unwilling to resettle in an alternate Instance, like most malcontents. Grudge against the Alliance as a whole - for some perceived slight that I never figured out. Driven by personal success." I scowled. "I personally warned that jerk that if he wanted to go and build a fiefdom of his own, that was his right, but if he pissed off the neighbors, or flouted local laws, I'd come for him. Humanity cleans up its own messes. Putting a hit out on a teenager most definitely crosses the line."

Missy nodded. "Yeah, I was there with you that day, Tay. My memory is nowhere near as good as yours, but I remember. Besides going after kids in general, that's why I got so annoyed."

"So you and Jane went after him and his gang?"

"Mercenary group, Tay, but yes," Missy said. "We found their base easily enough. Cutting through the rabble was also simple. They kept trying to shoot at us with various types of rounds, even after seeing how nothing was having any effect. At the time it just seemed like they were being the normal idiot grunts. In retrospect, they may have been distracting us. If everyone is shooting, what attention are we going to pay to one more bullet, right?"

I shook my head. "That doesn't make sense. Why would the mercenaries let themselves be killed?"

"I think they were just that stupid, Mother." Jane sighed. "The Batarians did the same thing. Missy pointed out during the fight that, really, they might not be entirely wrong to keep trying. Just because we're near invincible doesn't mean we are invincible. They could have thought that they would be the one to get lucky."

"And then they would have gotten a pat on the back, maybe a promotion, and a bonus," Lisa said. She licked her lips. "No, I think Taylor's right, this doesn't track. Mercenaries are smarter by their very nature. They don't last long if they can't learn, and shooting at someone who is laughing off your best shots without a care in the world, at worst would have mercs running for the hills, and at best throwing down their weapons in surrender. Mercenaries know when a job is too much and they fall back, or they quit, that's how they survive. They wouldn't throw away their lives for a bonus that would be spent in a week."

Enola nodded fast enough that her hair flipped in front of her face; she blew it back out of her eyes with practiced ease. Taylor had to hold in her snort of amusement at seeing the familiar gesture from her daughter. "It's the Master effect, Mom. Garrus and I ran across another similar group before we left the Citadel. I doubt they were far along, just enough to feel confident and a bit addled."

Missy's head snapped to the side, her gaze focusing on a point just to beyond the projector's display. "You didn't say anything about that before!"

"You didn't give me a chance, Aunt Missy! Why did you think I asked you to blow up the big spiky thing in their base before you left?"

"I thought it was dangerous!"

"It was! It was projecting a Master effect! I mean, probably. I would have had to study it to be sure, but Aria was nice and I didn't want to leave a potential problem in her back door, or try to lug a Master artifact through her station as we left. That wouldn't have been very respectful to Ms. Pirate Queen."

I looked at QA, and we silently polled the Network. Lisa tried to calm Missy down as I collated the responses. Finally getting a consensus, I grunted and looked back to the camera. "Enola, we're all in agreement that it was probably better to destroy it, rather than risk transporting the thing. However, in the future, I expect you to verify if there truly is a Master effect on similar artifacts before blowing them up. Safety is paramount, yet, we need to know for certain if others are being affected by these beings, and if they can leave tech behind that influences people on their behalf. Missy, Jane, if either of you see similar items to what you damaged as you continue on, make sure that Enola or Legion has a chance to look at it first. Hopefully the Geth are immune and if they are not, Edi should be able to help restore Legion."

Both of them nodded as the argument petered off. Finally, I lingered on Jane, and smiled encouragingly as I gestured to my youngest. "Alright kiddo, you're up."

Jane winced, but sat up straight as she squared her shoulders. Taking a deep breath, she started, "After we had taken out a lot of the grunts in the Blue Suns headquarters, Missy dropped me off at the central platform. I was going to take care of Zaeed, while she finished mopping up the rest. He went on a stereotypical villain motive rant about how none of the little guys could ever accomplish anything or amount to much while our family was around. He said that he was going to hurt us, no matter what, and that he knew that he'd signed his own death warrant by standing against us so directly. It didn't matter to him, he just wanted to strike a blow any way he could, and he truly believed that the people backing him could help him do so."

"Did he say who they were?"

"No." Jane shook her head. "However, there were enough cues he gave off that I'm fairly certain that it was two different groups. One, backed by someone named Tim, was the original entity that had contracted the Blue Suns to kidnap Gillian. Somewhere along the line, a second group reached out to him - likely once they realized that Enola was inbound - and asked him to capture or kill my sister. He switched to using Gillian as bait, then tried to kill her when she annoyed him, figuring that would still get Enola to come after him directly."

Lisa's eyes were narrowed to slits and her hands were clenched. "I don't like where this is heading."

"I can take care of myself, Mom," Enola said, rolling her eyes.

"Sure," Lisa agreed, "but you are neither as durable as Dean, nor are you as destructive as Anne. You're a Thinker kid. You solve problems. You're a detective, not a fighter. That's why you grabbed a Turian bodyguard isn't it?"

"I'd survive if the worst happened. It would hurt, but I'd survive. And…I like Garrus, he's…cute." Enola leaned back, staring up at the ceiling, a small blush on her face.

I had to bite my tongue and swallow the first thing I was going to say. Before I could regain my composure, QA beat me to it. "Enola, reshaping you and rebooting your memories is not as simple a process as you think. Especially since the Network has collectively agreed to leave the final memories intact during the reboot. You get all the pain of dying, despite your new form not having a scratch. It's not something humans enjoy and it's one of the reasons we're leaving those memories."

"Intuit would also need to return here so that Shaper could help it rebuild your body," Lisa said, scowling.

Enola nodded, still not looking down from the ceiling.

I needed to hammer the point home. She wasn't a child anymore and she couldn't be so cavalier about this. "Enola, the shards are specialized for a reason. Intuit wouldn't be able to rebuild your flesh without returning to Sol. You're not a projection and even if you were, it can't do projections. It's not configured for that sort of thing. Yes, you would technically survive, but you'd be in limbo for a while too, and Intuit would be vulnerable during that period. You're extremely powerful and smart, but you're not just going to instantly respawn - not if you're away from Sol. Please be careful."

She nodded again. "I know. I'm just…I don't know, used to working at home. Sorry. I'll be more careful, I promise."

"Thank you sweetheart," I murmured.

"You better," Lisa agreed.

I glanced at the others and they waved for me to go ahead. Turning back to Jane, I said, "Alright, honey, now that we've sufficiently reminded your sister that death is not cheap, what else happened when you confronted Zaeed?"

Jane squirmed in her seat, refusing to meet my eyes. Finally, after several seconds of silence, she whispered, "He sh-shot me."

Lisa frowned, cocking her head to the side, while QA just leaned forward squinting.

"How is that different from the other mercs?" Lisa asked.

"You say that like it's something important, Jane," QA said.

Neither of them seemed to understand. QA really should have. Besides being my other half, she had helped raise Jane. Jane called her 'Mom'. She had taught Jane how to Shard. QA should be able to recognize the girl's tells. Maybe as much as Jane was a hybrid, she was still too human for QA to truly understand her…

I stood and moved closer to the camera, making sure that I was nearly filling the frame as I knelt down. "Are you okay, baby?" I murmured.

"It hurt, [Mother]." Her voice was barely audible and even though I shouldn't have been able to hear the concepts through the quantum link, I could feel it in the tenor of her voice and the impact on my skin. Inside I raged and beat against my mental walls, outside I was calm as an icy lake. My daughter didn't need the roaring Hebert Temper. She needed a rock.

And I needed a way to leave Sol and hurt whatever had harmed my child.

"It pierced my shoulder and it locked a section of me into place. One place, Mother. The bullet felt like [Sting]," Jane continued, her voice growing slightly stronger as she spoke. She licked her lips and lifted her head to meet my eyes. I ignored the gasp and the curse behind me and held Jane's gaze nodding. "He tried to kill me, actually kill me. If I hadn't had Reflex active he would have succeeded. Even with Reflex it was only because I can twist in ways that regular humans can't that I was able to get my head and torso out of the path of the bullet."

"You said it felt like Sting?" I clarified. Lily's partner was already shouting that it had been in Sol with us for decades and enjoyed the Network, that it would never do anything to endanger someone beloved by the Network. I quieted it with a mental smile and pat on the head and refocused on my youngest.

"Yes, but let me finish first. My shoulder was locked into one dimension and it was just pain. It felt like it was dying. I was able to isolate it from the rest of my body and cut that part of myself off, but it took a good chunk of my arm with it."

"And after?"

"I, uh, killed him. Quickly and violently."

"Good."

"He was already lining up for a second shot and…"

"Jane," I said, cutting her off. She swallowed, blinking up at me. "Don't ever apologize for killing someone who is trying to kill you. I'm proud of you, baby."

"…Thanks, [Mother]."

"I've always been proud of you, I may not say it enough, but that's because it's obvious. And you shouldn't get too big of a head unlike your illustrious mom beside me," I said smirking. Both Lisa and QA scoffed protests while Jane cracked a small smile in response. Perfect. "Now, tell me what you learned about this threat."

Jane nodded. "It was eezo, but it had been manipulated into an energy state that made it react like it was a knockoff Sting projectile. We haven't had much time to examine it yet. Intuit is looking it over with Enola. The best guess we have at the moment is that this may be why the shards have issues with eezo in general."

"Can you explain that hypothesis more?" QA chimed in. "None of my memories have anything like that."

"We think that all eezo may have the potential to enter this pseudo dimensional-collapse state, but that the work required to force such an effect is colossal. It's almost a different element at this point. Intuit said that it struck some very old memories in it when it saw it. This is an extremely early guess, but I think that Sting's effect may have been based off of a naturally occurring variation of eezo that it took and refined. Someone saw humanity and our shards, had a general idea about how to activate eezo to this alternate state and…"

"Set a trap," I finished. I narrowed my eyes, shaking my head. "Someone used Zaeed's grudge to set a fucking trap for my family."

"The good news is that we all survived, and anyone who may have seen me hurt was killed. So they may not think that their fancy bullets worked."

"They shouldn't know how to make them to begin with!" I hissed. "If Sting based its work on a variant of eezo, that would have been millions of years ago. Nothing would have been around back then that could feed this sort of thing to an agent, except another Space Whale. And they are not this subtle. None of this makes sense!"

Enola leaned over, meeting my eyes. "Mom, it would if…if these evil spaceships are, well, a lot older than we had thought. I had initially been going on the assumption that they were about 100 to 300 thousand years old. But, what if they've been around longer? These things are called Reapers. What if that's what they do? They 'reap' the Milky Way regularly. Like a Cycle, their own Cycle. If that did, they would be bound to have come across evidence of the SWs at some point right? Just by sheer chance. Soo…"

"Fuck me," Lisa muttered. "Evil AI spaceships that developed crude tools to fight the Whales, the Whales don't know that they exist because they probably don't come around often enough to cross paths with an active infestation, and now they're testing their tool on the closest things to the Whales they can find, us."

"It would make sense," Enola said.

I growled. "Okay, new plan. We wipe them out. All of them. No survivors. This is no longer an idle, interesting investigation. This is a me-damned war. These things want to try and kill my daughters. The void will hear their screams of agony before I'm through with them." Everyone nodded. "Missy, Enola, find the source of these things. Jane, I want you to -"

"No."

I blinked, my train of thought crashing as I stared at my daughter. "What?"

"I'm not coming home, Mother."

"Jane this is not a debate, if Enola had been hit with that sort of round there is a high chance that Intuit could have still rebooted her afterwards. You don't have that fallback. You're your own shard."

"I know," Jane said, her voice firm, unyielding. It reminded me of me, back when this had all started, before I had ever even left the loft over the factory. "I'm still staying. I'm not going to let them scare me. So they hurt me? So what. That just means I need to be more careful. I can still stomp almost everything in front of me and I'm still one of the biggest guns that you can send out. Besides, Intuit said that it would take a lot to change normal eezo into this special version. It's not going to be something we see often."

"Unless they've been stockpiling it for a war," I spat.

"I'm still staying."

I glared at her. After several seconds, I twisted to look at Missy.

"Missy? Your opinion?"

Missy sighed, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. "The kid knows what she's doing, Tay. We can't coddle her forever and we can't keep her chained up in Sol, as much as we may want to. I don't like this anymore than you do, but if she wants to keep going, then I think we should let her. She's not a baby anymore. I'll watch over her, you have my word. She's partly my girl too you know."

I scowled, crossing my arms. "I despise when people use logic against me. Fine. Okay, Jane, you can stay out there for now. However, I expect regular reports, even if it's just to call in and say that your day was boring and you're coping by buying a Space Hamster. I also want to send more help to you three while I raise the fleet."

"Taylor," Lisa said, her hand dropping onto my shoulder. "We can't."

"Bullshit we can't!"

"If we send more people, our enemies will know that we're worried and they will ramp things up on their end. We have to take it slow and sneaky-like. We find where they are first. Then, we go in with overwhelming force and crush them into a singularity. Sting bullets aren't dangerous in small quantities; we don't want to give them an excuse to ramp up production."

"And if they already have?" I asked, trying to keep my voice calm and probably failing utterly.

"They won't. They don't know if it works and they're AI. AI are efficient above all else. Look at Theresa and the Dragonites. They don't commit to something unless they know that there is a benefit, and the Geth are the same. The good thing about AI is that even while they are very similar to organics, they don't seem to have that same, let's say, 'irrational itch' that we do. They're resource conscious and almost always inherently rational. They stick to what they are sure of. Once these things know that their round works and once they know for sure that we're escalating, then they will ramp production. Until then, they will keep things efficient. Probably."

I looked to QA. My other half sighed, and nodded. "I think she's right. It's what a pure shard would do as well."

"Fine," I spat. "But if Lung just happens to find out about a new fighting arena wherever you find these things nesting, don't be surprised."

"I won't, Mother."

"Got it, Mom."

"Thanks, Tay." Missy looked to the side and sighed. "Hey, we're getting close to the Mass Relay. Anything else you need to talk about girls?" Both Enola and Jane shook their heads.

I bit my tongue and reigned in my temper as I tried to force a smile onto my face. "Alright, I'll let you go and concentrate. Enola, remember what I said about resurrection not being simple. Missy, take care of our kids. Jane, sweetheart, you be safe out there baby. I can't come and find you like when you were a child. Be careful."

"I will. I love you, Mother."

"I love you too. Take care girls." Both of the connections closed down and I leaned back against Lisa, my eyes closing.

"Dammit," I muttered.

"Agreed," she responded. Her hands started to kneed my shoulders, and I let my head drop to rest on my chest.

"Sometimes I really despise being tied to Sol."

"Technically we could leave to help for a short time," QA mused. She dropped down onto the couch, her chin resting on her hand as she crossed her legs. "It's probably pointless though. We couldn't take the whole Network and our combat capability would be vastly diminished without the others. Hmm, I wonder if we could lure these enemies to Sol instead."

"We have to find where they're hiding first," Lisa said. "Don't go putting the cart before the horse. I'll call Rebecca and see if she can reach out to her contacts in the STG. Maybe there are some records of encounters with the Reapers. If they are old instead of just old, then I guarantee you that either the STG or the Asari have hints about them."

"The Asari huh," I murmured. Groaning, I let my head loll back, meeting Lisa's gaze. "I'm going to have to talk to Aria aren't I?"

"She does have good contacts on Thessia," Lisa said. "While we could probably get names through other channels, she would be fastest."

"You just want to win the bet with Madison," I muttered. "Fine, win the damn bet. I'll call the crazy, lusty, pirate queen and see what info she can give us and what contacts she can pass along. If it gives us a better chance of being able to help our daughters…I can bite that bullet."

QA laughed. "You two have fun with that. I'm going to go and consult with Sting, Simmy, and Monarch. Maybe between the four of us we can figure out a counter to this activated eezo. No one is going to touch the Network's child again if we have anything to say about it."

Her avatar vanished from the couch and Lisa folded her arms around me.

"You know that Jane would have come back if she was really scared, right, Tay?"

"I know," I murmured, holding her arm and hissing her hand. "That's part of why I'm so worried, Lise. I don't know if she's scared enough. The rest of us, we can all more or less survive a few pop shots from a Sting-analogue - as long as it's not followed up by a planetary scale bombardment. But Jane…"

"We have to let her grow up. Even if that means that she gets into dangerous situations."

"I know. It doesn't mean I have to like it though."

Lisa kissed the top of my head. "And that's why you're a good mom, Taylor."

"Thanks." I pulled her tighter to me, chuckling softly. "I still think that I'll be a better one once I atomize those things threatening my daughter though."

Lisa laughed. "Spoken like a true parent, Taylor. Spoken like a true parent."

 

[Slider214]

Pursuit 01
Current Active subsystems: Charm, Reflexes, Intuition, Regeneration

The call to our parents ended and Enola stood up, stretching, her joints popping and her neck cracking. I eyed her, my eyebrows raised. "That's your response, sis?"

"What? I'm stretching, Janie. I've been running around for weeks tracking this stupid warship thing. It's interesting, it's fun, it's weird, it's new, but I never expected it to set elaborate traps for me and our family. Excuse me for being a little stressed and needing to stretch." She sighed and reached down, pulling me to my feet once I grabbed her hands. "Come on, we're not going to be able to talk to Missy until Horizon and Intuit are done shaking off the effects of the Relay in a few minutes and we still have to travel to the next system. I want you to meet Garrus and Liara before then."

"Not Gillian too?" I asked, smiling. "Nice job teasing Mother about adopting her by the way. She's never going to leave you alone about that once you're back in Sol."

Enola's expression fell into something far gentler than I had seen from her in a long time. Not since Rexie had died. Poor insect-dino. I missed that guy.

"Gillian is sleeping. Jane, I wasn't kidding about her. She doesn't have any family left that's worth a damn. Her father abandoned her on Omega - Omega! - and her mom is dead. She's a good kid with a good head on her shoulders. I'm taking her in and I'm going to watch over her."

I squeezed her shoulder. "I'm happy for you, sis. The others will be too."

"I hope so. I'm pretty sure there's some unspoken taboo against having kids in our family. I don't know why. You're too young to realize it, but the rest of us…Jane, I'm over 50 years old and I've never once even thought about it before. I know for a fact that Annie hasn't either. I talked to Dean and Erica too. None of us seem hardwired for children at all. Maybe it's because of how we were born, something that Amy did to let us even be possible, or the nature of Mom herself…I don't know. I just…I don't want -"

"Hey," I cut her off and pulled my sister into a hug. Enola squeaked, then rested her head on my uninjured shoulder. "It's fine. Have you met our family? You're way overthinking things, sis. Everyone is going to love your new adopted daughter and they are going to squeal and show her the family album and tease you up the wall about everything. You're not weird because of this, you're just the first. Okay?"

She nodded, her hair tickling my chin. "I guess I probably am freaking out over nothing."

"You totally are. Your mind runs way too fast sometimes and you stick on the oddest things, 'Nols." I pulled back, playfully punched her in the arm. "Now properly introduce me to your friends."

Enola smiled, nodding quickly and skipping away down the corridor. I followed her into a large common room, and was guided to a seat at the table near her Turian and Asari companions. Garrus looked up from his weapon, putting his tools aside, his mandibles shifting in what Intuition whispered to me as 'curiosity'. Turian facial expressions were weird.

Asari were easier to read, though without eyebrows it was still harder than humans. At least they approximated most human expressions with their subtle muscle movements. Actually, most of the races I had come across had at least some general cross-species similarities in facial movements/expressions. Everyone from Asari, to Salarian, to Krogan, they all had some things that were universal.

There was probably some deeper meaning there. Ah, whatever, I wasn't the philosophical kid. That was for someone else in the family to deal with.

"Alrighty team!" Enola announced, slamming her hand on the table, her wide grin firmly back in place - you'd never have known it had ever left - as she looked at the others. "This, as you sorta met earlier, is my baby sister, Jane Hebert! Say hi, Jane."

"Hi Jane," I deadpanned.

Enola groaned, while Garrus snorted, making no attempt to hide his amusement. Liara covered her face with her hand. "Oh goddess, there are two of them," she muttered.

"I walked right into that one," Enola sighed.

"Yes, you did." I held out a hand, shaking Garrus and Liara in turn. "Hello, it's a pleasure to meet you both. Thank you for helping my sister and trying to keep her alive, even if you failed to keep her grounded."

"I didn't do much of the protecting, but I'm happy to help with the mission. If even half of what I've been told is correct, it's certainly worth looking into," Liara said. "My research certainly isn't going to go anywhere in the few months that this could take, so I don't see the harm in assisting. I just wish Enola understood the type of Doctorate I have! I am an expert in Protheans. I don't understand these…Reapers that we're trying to track. That they apparently hunted and exterminated the Protheans is certainly relevant, and it tracks with what I've determined on my own, however I'm not sure how much help I'll really be in the matter."

"Don't sell yourself short, Dr. T'Soni," I said, shrugging. "If Enola thinks that you can contribute, you can contribute. She jumps from topic to topic faster than a lot of us can follow, but when she makes connections, she's usually right. Your Prothean background will definitely be of help as we track these things."

"I hope so." Liara grimaced. "I haven't exactly gotten out much in the past few decades. I don't want to drag the investigation down. And please, it's Liara. If we're going to be working together, there's no need to be formal."

"Apparently we have a Geth and a Quarian on the same team," Garrus said. "Somehow I doubt that you'll be the one to create any friction, Liara." He paused and looked at me. "While we're on the subject, how in the hells did you get that to happen?"

I laughed. "Aunt Lisa said they needed to work together and threw them both onto my ship. They're actually starting to get along. Merely glaring at each other is a massive improvement, I'll have you know. The Geth have been friends of Sol for almost a decade now. Dragon has, more or less, adopted them as a species. The Quarians just recently started trading with us and we're trying to smooth interaction between the two species, help them integrate again…one day. How much do you know about Sol?"

"Not very much. I mostly dealt with C-Sec before Enola all but kidnapped me. I know your species is somewhat insular and I know that we are warned to call for backup if we ever run across Emissaries. It seems I'm just lucky to be pulled into a group with three of them."

"You have the best luck, Garrus," Enola murmured. She was leaning forward, her chin resting on her hands as she grinned at him, her eyes wide. Oh god, this was adorable. Mother would tease her about it forever! I needed a picture of this for their inevitable wedding.

"What I did not know," Garrus continued on, pointedly ignoring Enola, "was that you can apparently utterly shrug off the near loss of a limb. Doesn't that hurt? Are you even inconvenienced at all?" He pointed to the hefty chunk missing from my right shoulder, mandibles fluttering in distress. Hmm, really? Well now, that was interesting. I was going to have to leave Intuition up for awhile when I was around Garrus until I learned to natively identify his tells.

I looked at the battle scar grimacing. "It hurt like hell when it happened and, yes, it is inconvenient as fuck. I'm regrowing the lost tissue at the moment though. By the time we hit the next planet you won't even be able to tell that I had been hurt."

"That is fascinating," Liara murmured, her eyes wide.

Garrus nodded. "I didn't know humans could do that."

"Most can't." I shook my head. "I'm not really human, not exactly, not entirely."

Enola lifted her head from her hands and turned to glare at me, her eyes narrowed to slits. "You are human, Jane. Don't you dare say things like that!"

I held out my hands to ward her off. "Hey, it's true! That's the entire reason that I was even born, 'Nols!" Looking towards Garrus, I tried to explain - both to head off the family drama and to avoid the inevitable question. "I'm a hybrid. Sol is the current home of the 'crystalline wanderers'."

"We should have left their official name 'Space Whale'. There's nothing wrong with Space Whale," Enola muttered.

"Auntie Lise and Auntie Ames would have likely tried to kill Mother in her sleep if she had made that name official, sis, and you know it. Anyway, Sol is where the civilized wanderers - or whales per Enola - are based. They bond with humans and give us abilities. They're freaking huge though and generally leave most of their body in an alternate reality or two. Humanity as a whole is starting to bond with them more, but there are still only so many that can be connected at once and once bound, we're tied to Sol unless we take our partner with us."

"Hence our giant ships," Enola said, gesturing around her.

"Those are the Emissaries, right?" Garrus asked. "The people tied to the giant monsters in another world?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Most aren't really monsters. They think along different lines than most people or are just weird, but they're not inherently bad. As an example, Intuit - Enola's shard - is a bit nuts for pirates."

Garrus blinked. "What?"

"It's kind of adorable really. Remind me later, I'll give you great blackmail material."

"Don't you dare!" Enola hissed.

I blew her a kiss. "But yeah, the point is, in Sol, they're civilized. Wanderers by themselves are a bit like a virus, infesting a world and destroying it utterly before moving on. We're fixing that. Slowly. We have a mobile wanderer that is flitting around searching for others of his kind to make them civilized as well. If he can't he kills them. The system has worked pretty good so far.

"Completely apart from all of that, I'm something totally different. I'm a hybrid. I'm part wanderer and part human. My mother, Taylor, mixed DNA from all of her partners for the human side of things, and then she had help from her own bonded entity to mix in the shard side of things. I'm a new species. I'm both stronger and more limited than a normal Emissary. I'm mostly what I appear to be, but I actually exist in a few extra dimensions that you can't perceive without significantly advanced tech. I can change my 'powers' to a few different configurations, based on what is exuded into local space. The trade-off is that I am my own shard and host in a singular body. I can't be rebooted into a new body like my family if I'm killed."

Garrus pointed at my wound. "So when you were hit, it damaged your ability to regulate that part of yourself in our space?"

"Not quite, but close enough. This form was hurt and I'm growing that part of myself back, it's just taking some time."

"Wait," Liara said, frowning. "I have a different question. If you have genetic contributions from all of the Emissaries, aren't they all akin to your parents? Asari have similar concepts to our 'Father'. Most other races don't seem to understand why we still refer to our mother's partners as Father, yet it seems like you at least would - if this is a similar situation that is."

Enola groaned. "Oh, please don't get her started. Janie is weird. She talks in shard-speak with some things. Especially with our parents. So when she said Mom So-And-So but had it layered with all the right meanings, but nobody understood her, she got soo annoyed."

"I was a kid!"

"And she decided that if people couldn't understand that she meant Mom Lisa instead of Mom Madison, she would just call them all Aunt to stop people looking at her weirdly at the playground. Only Taylor and QH were Mother and Mom after that. She still slips back into old habits sometimes and calls the rest of them Mom when things get emotional, but it's not super often."

"Ennoola!" I was not whining. I was too old to whine.

She turned her glare on me. "There is no good reason not to call our parents 'Mom', Janie! They may not care, but I do! They deserve better."

"They know what I mean…" I murmured, scowling and dropping my head. "It's hard to remember not to speak in concepts when talking about family. 'Aunt' makes that easier."

"Whatever. Justify it all you want, it's still disrespectful, especially now that you're older."

"Excuse me, not to interrupt the adorable family drama, but I'm going to interrupt the adorable family drama." Garrus was now my official favorite person. I snapped my head up and met his gaze. "I assume we have a destination?"

Enola tapped a few buttons on her Armstool and a hologram sprang to life above Colin's invention. A snapshot of a solar system hovered in midair, slowly revolving, one planet in the system blinking.

"This is Jartar, in the Dis system, Hades Gamma cluster." Enola punched in a command and the view changed, bringing up a grainy shot of…some sort of gigantic ship. It looked like a cross between a squid and a hot air balloon, all bulbous upper half and tentacly lower half. There were huge holes penetrating the ship in multiple places visible in the image as well, so it was no wonder the thing had crashed. "From what I found on the Geth terminal, this 'Leviathan of Dis', is actually one of the Reapers. I think. Probably. The descriptions are similar and the threads in the terminal lead there. So it's a good starting point."

Liara gaped. "The Leviathan?! That's over a billion years old!"

I frowned. "Wait, Enola, how sure are you? When we talked to Mother, you said you thought the Reapers might be old, but that's…"

"I'm not entirely sure. And I think the dating scheme they used on this thing was all wrong. It doesn't help that the Batarian dreadnought that went to try and sneakily move the thing vanished without a trace two decades back."

"I remember reading about that as a kid," Garrus said. "There's warnings all over the Citadel now not to go to that system. A lot of people still believe that whatever shot the Leviathan down might still be active."

"I don't think so," Enola shook her head. "The markers in the data terminal were clear. There were visitors to that system very recently. It was the jump off point to reach Omega. There are several other destinations also, but a lot of those were false flags with obvious misleading information. The only other real option for investigation I found was Noveria, but I couldn't figure out why. I'm hoping that if we go to Jatar first, we'll puzzle out why they went to Noveria as well."

"Enola," I asked, poking at the dead ship. "Just how obvious was this location compared to the others?"

"Pretty obvious."

"Hmph," Garrus grunted. "Well, does anyone else smell another trap?"

"Yes," I said.

"It does seem rather suspicious," Liara agreed.

"Well, it's probably a trap," Enola said, rolling her eyes. "But come on! This is our best lead! Just because it's at trap doesn't mean that it's not a real target, and that thing does exist and we'll need to look at it eventually if only to get a good idea about what our target's capabilities are. Traps only work if you don't know they are a trap, or you are stupid!"

I pinched the bridge of my nose doing my very best not to sigh in exasperation in the process. "Why Mother thinks that Anne is the one that needs a minder is a mystery for the ages. You are totally the one who most needs someone to look after you, 'Nols."

She reared back, gasping and holding a hand over her mouth. Garrus nodded in obvious, enthusiastic agreement. Liara refused to look at either of us and had suddenly found a particularly interesting spot on the wall to examine.

"Traitors, all of you," Enola muttered. Shaking her head, she continued, "Seriously, guys, no matter what we do, it's going to be dangerous. We can head to Noveria first, but I really do think this is our best bet." She sighed and turned to me, eyes downcast. "Jane, it's your call. I'm just the detective, you're the one who our parents sent to actually deal with the problem."

I frowned, staring back at the hologram. "How far ahead of us do you think they are, Enola?"

"Realistically? Probably a few weeks. I know Mom likes to make fun of the Council, but they really do have an excellent information network - for unbonded at least. The STG alone would have given them a heads up if there was even a hint of anything big going on. No, these things are being sneaky and they are being smart. They wouldn't have been able to fake the data markers I found. The movements are too specific, too large, and too recent. Anything older would have been flagged by the intelligence agencies. Even these are likely to hit the desks of the Council shortly. There's a limited window of operations."

"They knew we were coming then?" Garrus asked.

"Or they are stepping up their operations because they're close to finding whatever it is they're looking for," I said. "This can't just be about Sol or my family. They would have come after us before if it was. No, we're just a bonus and they're playing speed chess to take potshots at us while they pursue their main goal."

"I think so too," Enola said. "It fits with their sneaky plays. Why grab a hefty chunk of the Geth and pretend to be a machine god if you just have a grudge against Taylor Hebert? Why bother brainwashing your squishy crew if you want to fight the space whales? You've been around for hundreds of thousands of years, maybe millions of years, maybe more; you don't devote yourself to wiping out a singular system of entrenched annoyances. You bring back your buddies from their hidey-hole, and you wipe out everyone all at once."

"And if you happen to hurt the locals who are currently most dangerous at the same time, all the better," Liara commented.

Enola nodded. "Yeah. It fits the data, it fits the extrapolations. My moms told me to find their nest, then call for help to exterminate them. Searching the Leviathan may not help find the nest itself, but it should give us an idea of their capabilities. Searching Noveria will help us find the nest. Like I said, it's your call Jane."

I leaned back, rubbing my chin. "So we have two main options. The first is to spring the trap early, get some data on what we're fighting and a clue to narrowing our search. Or we let them build their forces a bit more while we skip ahead and try to search for a needle in a stack of needles in the dark." Sighing, I stood up. "As much as I want to go try to find the needle, it seems foolish to hunt for something when we don't even know what we're looking for on Noveria. Let's keep going to Jartar."

Everyone's heads bobbed in agreement and we all picked ourselves up from the table, moving our separate ways.

Now I had to figure out how to plan for an ambush. And be ready in case they had more of those Eezo-Sting bullets…

Oh, this was going to be so much fun. Ug.

 

[Slider214]

AN: And with this, I'm caught up! Woohoo!

\/\/\/\/

Pursuit 02
Current Active subsystems: Durability, Reflexes, Intuition, Strength

Our ships decelerated in the Dis system bringing Jartar into view ahead. Almost immediately my skin started crawling and I shivered, my entire form in this dimension - and every other one - shuddering at once.

"Jane?"

I clenched my fist and forced the tremors down. Waving Enola off, I rotated out my human standard eyes for something more shard-like. The spectrum shifted around me, below us the planet faded from its normal reds and oranges into the deep black of a mass depression in the local spacetime. My vision wasn't strong enough to easily see all of the other planets in the system, but I could at least catch a faint glimpse of their own impressions on local space. Glancing to my left, Enola was a shining beacon with a thread of light that linked back to the brilliant sun of [Intuit] above us. I couldn't see anything around [Intuit] thanks to that radiance drowning out the rest of the system.

Not that there should have been anything to see in that direction. That way was above the ecliptic for the system. Nothing natural was ever above the ecliptic in old systems like this other than the occasional rogue asteroid.

Except we were expecting a potential trap…

"[Intuit] can you please rotate about your X-Axis 180 degrees?" I asked.

"How are your eyes that color?" Liara asked, her voice right in front of me. I could barely even see her, though there were glowing points of blue dotting areas roughly equivalent to limbs and her spine. Was that eezo nodules along her nervous system? "That shade does not actually exist in nature. Your eyes must be several shades at once in order to be producing that overall effect!"

"She's doing her scan. Jane, what did you feel when we dropped out of FTL?"

"I'm not sure. Something brushed against me," I murmured. [Intuit] finished rotating the ship and I narrowed my focus as I peered at the rest of the system trying to take in everything I could. Not finding anything out of the ordinary, I sighed, swapped my eyes back to normal and shook my head. "It felt like someone was poking me; like a probe only…without a probe. It was definitely something light - a touch that was intended to be unnoticed, but ended up burning."

"Can you clarify that?" Liara asked.

"It was a slap instead of a caress, because I'm smaller and more sensitive than normal shards."

[Intuit] would have felt such an investigation had a search been conducted in the vicinity.

[Horizon] would have been aware of any imperfections in local space.

Both of the shards in the local mini-Network voiced their frustrations.

Enola shook her head and cupped her chin. "Not…necessarily. I mean, it's possible that a carefully calibrated scan on a wide-angle search wouldn't trip most shard senses. You guys are designed for big, flashy things. Jane isn't. She operates on an entirely different scale."

"Wonderful," Garrus grunted. "So the bad guys already know we are here and the only reason we have any warning about that is because they were intending to slip under the notice of a giant, not realizing they were being tripped up by a fairy instead. This trap gets more and more fun every time I turn around."

"They should have realized they were going to be confronted by Jane shouldn't they?" Liara asked. She peered first at me and then out the viewscreen towards the Leviathan. "Wasn't that fight on Omega about trying to kill her and the other members of the Hebert family?"

"My specific abilities and situation are not widely known, even in Sol. I'm the youngest daughter, but almost everyone just assumes that means that my parents had empty nest syndrome or something, not that they wanted to run an experiment with the future of our race."

"That wasn't why you were born, stop saying that." Enola snapped. She strode past me and fiddled with a few dials on the nearest console, scowling at the readout. "I'm not seeing anything that screams out as wrong. Nothing beyond the corpse of the Reaper. Jane, did you see anything in your scan?"

"No. Whatever was looking at us, it was either too far away or too small for me to see it."

"Perfect. Do we abort or do we continue?"

"Well we knew it was a trap…Can you connect us with the Normandy?"

In answer, she pushed another series of buttons and Missy appeared on the display next to Jartar.

"Kids. Teammates," Missy said. "So, Jane, Horizon is saying that you felt a system-wide scan?"

"I think so."

"We expected that. We should push forward."

I frowned and leaned back against the nearest console trying to put into words what was firing off my instincts. "I agree. I'm having a hard time describing what the issue is without concepts."

"You have two shard-bound people, and their two shards. We understand concepts, Jane, and then we can try to translate for the others; if you can't."

I shook my head. "I don't think that I can even put it into concepts either though is the thing. It's not even really a strong enough feeling for Intuition to key off of. It's just…something is wrong and it has me on edge."

Missy glanced around the room. "Okay. Give me a second to think."

There was barely a pause as Missy crossed her arms and dipped her head, beginning to visibly pace on the screen. At the exact same time she murmured in my head, "Jane? I don't want to ask this out loud to avoid embarrassing you, but, real talk: could this just be nerves? You were just confronted by a very real threat to you specifically only a few days ago. It's okay if you're scared, kid. It's also okay if you're not and if this is a real concern that we need to watch out for. But you need to be honest with yourself. Is this a real threat, or are you nervous and projecting?"

I bit my lip, running over the sensations I had felt as we dropped out of FTL again. There had definitely been the sense of something like a spotlight shone over me, burning my skin, before it pulled back.

"I think it's real, [Missy]( Mom) . Once it realized that I could detect it, it pulled back. I know we expected a trap; I don't know why I'm suddenly so wary about this. There's something I'm missing, something obvious."

Missy gave me a mental pat on the back through the link. "It's okay kid. It happens to all of us. If you get a clearer picture as we move forward, speak up."

"I will. Thanks, [Missy]( Mom) . And thanks for keeping this private."

"Anytime, kid."

In real-space, Missy stopped her pacing and met my gaze. "I think it's best to keep moving forward, but we should have a quick extraction plan in case things go south."

"That's a good suggestion. Instead of splitting into several teams, we can stay as a single larger one, that way if something gets sprung that we can't fight our way out of, you can just warp us back out of danger and get us to the ships."

"Sounds like a plan. It's probably best to limit the party size if we're going that route though. Most of my main limiters don't apply anymore, but I'd hate to miss someone on the edge if we're in a hurry. Remember, it's harder to pinch space in cramped hallways too, so we'll have to at least get outside the ship before we can put real distance between us and the threat."

Garrus sighed. "I'm good in a fight, but I think the scientists are more important here and we already have several strong fighters in the group. I'll stay behind."

Liara spoke up next. "I'm really more useful for Prothean items or analysis after the fact. I can fight as well, but like Garrus said, you have several. It's probably best for me to remain as well."

"Shepard-Commander," Legion said, the display shifting to show its head. "Legion volunteers assistance for this mission. If the Leviathan is an Old Machine, this platform could be invaluable."

"I should probably go as well," Tali stated. "You're not going to find a better machinist than a Quarian. Well…I mean, that was accurate - before I went to Sol - humans cheat…"

I nodded. "Missy, can you ask Mordin to come as well? With his background, he's more likely to see something the rest of us miss. Also, grab Miranda." I glanced at Enola and raised my eyebrows.

She gave a small salute. "I'm going too, Aunt Missy. So it'll be seven of us. Is that small enough for you?"

"Yeah, that's fine. You guys take a shuttle, I'll get my group down the old fashioned way. The shuttle only fits 8 anyway so it'll make it easier to get us all back up to the ship after we're done."

As her screen dropped back down to just showing us Jartar Liara peered back and forth between me and Enola. "What did she mean by 'the old fashioned way'? How else is there besides a shuttle?"

Enola giggled. "She's going to have them jump."

Liara's mouth dropped open, her eyes widening to imitate dinner plates.

"Huh," Garrus said. "I've changed my mind. I'm keeping my human. Commander, consider my request to change ships rescinded."

"What request?" I asked.

"Exactly."

"Wait! Seriously, what request! Garrus, come back! Enola, what's he talking about!"

\/\/\/\/

The shuttle settled down on Jartar a few minutes later and I still couldn't shake the phantom feeling that I was being watched. It was all I could do to avoid turning around and shooting at the bulkhead behind me. Stupid extra senses that were extra sensitive.

"You're going to make me jumpy if you keep twitching. I'm already hyperactive. I should probably take meds or something for that one of these days. Hmm. Nah. I made it this long without them, I'm fine."

I eyed my sister, and sighed. "This is why we worry about you, 'Nols."

She waved me off and looked outside as the shuttle settled down. "Hey, is it just me or does that Reaper look kinda like a space squid? We've space whales with the shards, now we've space squids with the Reapers! Do you think they have a whole space ecosystem of mammals and cephalopods out there?"

"And that is the other reason we worry about you," I muttered. Laughing, Enola flipped me off and we both stepped out of the shuttle a moment later, greeting the others on the team who were already waiting for us. I winced as I caught sight of Tali who was bent in half, her hands on her knees and breathing hard.

"Jane, the next time I volunteer for a mission like this, please don't accept. Not unless we're using a real shuttle. Or landing the ship."

"Stop being a baby, that barely even qualified as a HALO drop," Missy said.

I walked over to her and helped Tali straighten up. "You get used to it," I paused and looked over my shoulder at Missy. "Eventually."

"I'm beginning to see why your people think that the Quarians and the Geth can reconcile. If you're this insane, anything must seem like it's possible."

The light in Legion's head flashed and he stepped closer. "Creator-Tali, the Warper-Emissary was in full control of our descent. If there was no cause for concern, why was the maneuver considered worrisome or ill-advised?"

Miranda patted its shoulder and walked past the mobile platform. "I'll explain back on the ship, Legion. Commander, I have a full report in your ready-room for you of the items that occurred while you were indisposed. Shall we continue with the mission, Your Eminence? I am honored that you chose for me to attend you here and I'm eager to prove my abilities. I won't let you down, Your Eminence."

So much for Lisa's talk toning Miranda's fervor down. I was going to have to deal with this when we got back to the ship if she was going to join us planetside again anytime soon.

"Yes, continue. Good plan. Leviathan emitting signals. Electrical, subvocal, biotic, multiple electromagnetic frequencies. Unknown purpose. Unwise to stay nearby for prolonged periods." I stared at Mordin as he consulted his glowing omnitool. "Hmm. Concerning levels of activity for derelict. Bio-organics? Bio-organics. Still…massive energy core to power secondary systems for so long after fatal blow."

"Okay, well, Mordin has apparently found useful intel already. Can you direct us towards those powered systems?" I asked.

The salarian nodded. "Yes. Easy enough."

"Okay, we all follow Mordin's directions. I'll take the lead, Legion and Mordin behind, then Tali and Enola, Miranda and Missy will be our rear guard.

Everyone rogered up and moved towards the supposedly dead ship.

It really did look a bit like a space squid from this angle.

\/\/\/\/

"Well, if this isn't the most creepy bio-mech ship I've ever walked through. Ugh, gross, it's leaking." Enola cringed away from one of the walls, her hand dripping some sort of orange goo.

"Have you been sneaking around other bio-mechanical ships without telling us, Enola? I'm jealous!" Missy teased. Enola rolled her eyes and held up her middle finger.

Mordin was already leaning over my sister with his omnitool out. "Coolant and conductant both. Odd combination. No, not conductant…What is this?"

"I think it's some kind of neuro-gel substrate," Enola sighed. "It feels disgusting. I should've worn gloves. Tali, are you able to trace this conduit?"

"Give me a moment. This ship may be a mess, but a lot of the internal shielding is still in place. Somehow. Our ships are falling apart after 300 years, this has been here for millennia and it's still nearly intact. The principles behind it's construction…"

I glanced behind me as something flitted across my vision. Scowling, I glared at the blank wall. "Stupid, fucking ghost ship. Miranda, are you okay back there?"

Her hand dropped from her head back to her gun and she nodded once. "Fine, Your Eminence. I just keep hearing a low hum and it's becoming frustratingly difficult to ignore."

"Stick with 'Commander' while we're off the ship, Miranda. Aunt Missy?"

"There's something here. I can't put my finger on it, just that it hurts my head in a way I haven't felt in over a century. Horizon is taking care of most of the issues, so I'm good to go, but yeah, I see why most people have issues around these things if all Reapers do this."

"And this is when it's dead," I said. "Goddess, I hope whatever it's emitting is ramped up instead of down."

"Shepard-Commander, this line of the conduits converges ahead, around the next bend." I acknowledged Legion's report and turned my full attention forward.

As we exited the corridor, I saw what Legion had traced out through the wiring and pipes. Whistling, my head swiveled, taking in the gigantic room we had arrived in. The walls were the same metallic grey that we had been walking past since entering, yet instead of claustrophobic halls, it was a huge spherical area wide enough to house a football field. There were several claw-like appendages that extended down from the ceiling and met near the center of the room with what passed for consoles on their faces. Along the edges of the room were large spears shooting into the air. Each spear had a robotic corpse impaled on it.

Partially robotic, largely robotic. Oh jeez, those things used to be people. Maybe not human, but definitely people. Large chunks of their bodies had been replaced by cybernetics, leaving very little of the fleshy bits behind. There was just enough of the original body there to leave traumatic images and shudders behind as I quickly backed away from the nearest corpse.

"I am going to have nightmares about this place…" Enola muttered.

"Techies, do your thing," I said, swallowing hard and forcing my voice to remain steady. There were more of those cyborg corpses lying along the edges of the platform too. "Mordin, find anything you can about the brainwashing effect - it's probably related to whatever this damn thing is doing to all of us right now. Tali, Legion, Enola, find its weakness and where we're supposed to be going next."

"Yes, Shepard-Commander."

"Roger," Tali said, with a little salute.

"Certainly." Mordin didn't even look up from his chosen console as he replied.

"Got it, Sis."

Miranda moved to stand near me, her back to our companions as she stared out at the edges of the room. "Commander, some of those corpses are fresh."

"Wait, what? Which ones?"

"There, there, there, and…maybe that one too. That entire group on the other side is also of a different age than many of the rest."

"Want me to check it out, Jane?" Missy asked.

I shook my head, gripping my weapon tighter. Something flitted across my vision again. I didn't turn this time. "No. Stay here. The last thing we want is to get too close and get caught in whatever pulled those other people onto the spikes and made them, well, robot monsters."

"There are organic portions left on them, Commander," Miranda corrected. "Not much, but some. I can see -"

"Yeah, so can I. But it's almost entirely been replaced by tech. They're skeletons Miranda. This ship ate them and turned them into servants. We can't even say that it probably did it while it was alive because - like you said - some of those things are fresh."

"It could be part of the trap." Missy frowned as she talked, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "We shouldn't have been allowed this deep into the ship. Something isn't right here. I don't think this ship is as dead as it seems."

"Fuck but I hope you're wrong. Be ready."

Miranda frowned, swinging her weapon to the side. "Perhaps they are trying to let the ship affect our minds rather than attacking us directly?"

I nodded. "It's possible. Let's hope for that. We're going to stop by Sol once we're done here so anything that this place did to us is going to get cleaned out by a dedicated shard."

Miranda sucked in a breath at that and her eyes widened. The expression would have been comical under another other circumstance. Here it was almost a relief to see the eagerness. It was something normal, something that wasn't my mind playing tricks on me.

Tali cut through my thoughts as she asked, "Legion, can you look at this? I think this is written in code, but it's no programming language I've ever seen and I'm a bit stumped…I recognize the patterns though and I think…"

The Geth shifted from working next to Tali to stand with Enola and peered at her screen. "It appears to be an amalgamation of programming and organic speech. Early Geth attempted something similar to communicate between Creators and Geth. We did not understand and the attempt was misunderstood by the Creators."

"A combination? That would mean that this is…And then this is…Oh and this could be a substitution for…okay that makes sense but…Ohhh…"

"Enola?" I asked. One of the corpses twitched. That was a trick of my mind. Right? "Anytime now, 'Nols, I don't want to be here longer than we have to be."

"Hang on, I think I got what we need. This is a search result. Whoever was here last was paging through old records and star charts. They were trying to find references and directions to someplace called…uh…Ill-i-ol-las. Yeah, I think that's right. Illiolas! Gotcha you bastards!"

"Found several items as well, Commander." Mordin held up his arm showing a download in progress to his omnitool. "Creatures along the edge are: Husks. Not the only combat form; simply most prevalent; are easiest and cheapest to create. Other forms are Abominations, Scions, Praetorians, Harvesters, and others. Brainwashing appears to be called: Indoctrination. Implies subtlety. Does not appear subtle. Poorly named."

"Scion? Perfect, because that's not going to be confusing at all. Tali? You and Legion done?"

"I'm in the surveillance records now. I've already downloaded some of the basic information I could find about the ship itself, though that is vanishingly rare. Or saved somewhere wholly illogical."

"Commander, I think it's time to go!" Miranda called out, clearly worried.

"Holy shiiit - Yeah, I agree, time to leave people! Tali, download what you can! We're leaving, now!" My eyes widened as I saw a few of the closer spikes start to retract. As they struck their bases, the tech-corpses - Husks - stood, shook themselves off and started to scan for nearby personnel.

Missy stared, her mouth hanging open. "That's just wrong. And I saw a friend get her brains splattered across a parking lot then stand back up a few minutes later."

"Stop yapping about Mother and shoot them!"

"I'm good!" Tali stepped back, turned around, and nearly fell over as she backpedaled from the incoming creatures. I snapped several rounds off from my weapon. None seemed to even slow the things down.

"What the hell?" I dipped into Intuition and, thankfully, only had to wait a moment before I got a response from my ability.

No pain receptors. No higher brain function. 'Android' more accurate than not. Essentially automatons. Catastrophic damage required to incapacitate.

"Fuck. Heavy damage to incapacitate! There's not enough organics left in them to register regular hits! I'll take rear guard, Missy, you have point, everyone else, stay between us!"

While Missy and I could probably fight off the enemies in this room easily enough, I seriously doubted that this was the sum total of the forces involved. Assaulting the Batarians or the Blue Suns with their known abilities and weapons was one thing. Assaulted a complete unknown, on its own ground, while our people were under mental assault, with unknown numbers, and we already had the data that we had come for? Not necessary. We didn't need to kill something that was already dead and we could always blow this thing up from orbit now or do a full sweep later on, after developing a countermeasure for this Indoctrination. Getting out of the ship now was the proper way to do things.

Everyone quickly fell into line with Tali and Legion firing off shots from their weapons and omnitools intermittently. The tech blasts seemed to have more of an effect than I would have expected - something to do with the mostly cyberized nature of these Husks? Intuition suggested yes.

How many of these things were there? As quickly as I destroyed them, more popped up to replenish their numbers. For every one I crushed or shot, two more poured down the corridor. Some were coming from holes in the walls, others crawled out of spaces near the floor, and several dropped from the ceiling. Their shrieks and moans were grating and disconcerting and not a single one reacted when I threw pieces of the ship - or their own fellows - at them. I shivered as yet another one opened its mouth to scream at me while the Husk inches to its side was crushed by a console that I threw.

They were the perfect shock troops. While they weren't exactly tough compared to me, there was something to be said for sheer numbers, and for the average species they would be more than enough. These things probably couldn't ultimately hurt me, not with Durability engaged, but they could seriously injure or kill most of the rest of the team.

It certainly didn't help that they were disturbing as all hell. Even beyond the mindless nature, these were wrong. I was fairly used to cyborgs. One of my mothers was a cyborg. These weren't cyborgs. These were goddamn monsters. Their synthetic parts were almost eating the fleshy bits and what was left of the organic side was pitted and inflamed and diseased.

They were monsters.

"Emissary! Left!" Miranda shouted and tackled Missy to the ground even as the words left her mouth. I snapped my attention forward, away from the Husk that I had just thrown into a wall and gasped.

"What the fuck is that?!"

A 7 foot tall deformed…thing had peeled away from an alcove, its arm mutated into a titanic cannon, a fleshy purple sac pulsating on its back. It had just shot something that looked for all intents and purposes like organic lava towards Missy. Miranda's tackle knocked her well out of the way, but from the splash damage on the opposite wall…

"That is the Scion! Multiple organic sources. Biotic components assist with forming the organic weapon. Ultimately failed alteration. Still deadly!" Mordin's shot pierced the sac on the shoulder, and the beast exploded into chunks. "Also, explosive! Very interesting. Do we have time to analyze them in detail?"

"Mordin, escape the trap first, research the crime against nature later!" I shouted.

"Auntie, stop focusing on the corridor and let me navigate!" Enola yelled. "This place is a maze and you're making wrong turns!"

"No shit! The doors have shifted and I can't rip these fucking things off to just bull-rush back the way we came; there's no gaps! It's like they were grown into the walls themselves."

I grabbed another Husk before it could reach me and heaved it into several of its friends. "Less arguing, more retreating. These Husks are coming thick and getting thicker! I'm starting to think I need to hot-swap for a space-manipulation ability if we can't leave soon. Is there enough room to warp us forward to get us some space?"

"There's no point!" Missy yelled. "There are too many closed doors and too many enemies pouring in from the sides. We'd only get a second or two free and the disorientation isn't worth it."

"Legion, look at this map, I think there's a shortcut to the hull through this exhaust vent." Tali swiped on her omnitool, and a glowing display appeared over the geth's arm.

"Legion concurs. This route is faster. Heavy weapons required to open the way."

"Janie, I'll cover the rear, you burst the panel." Enola muscled next to me and shouldered a heavy rifle shooting at the swarm of approaching Husks. "Holy crap. You undersold how many were back here, sis…"

"Do you have this?" I asked. Grabbing a piece of debris nearby, I heaved it down the corridor, taking out at least eight of the creatures and causing several others to stumble.

"Just don't dawdle, Jane."

"Yeah. Starting to think this might have been a bad idea."

"Hey at least the humming has stopped."

"Enola, that's not a good sign!" I grunted, running back to the section of wall that Tali and Legion had indicated. Trusting Enola and Mordin to cover our rear while Miranda and Missy kept watch up front, I thrust my arm into the wall, punching straight through.

Enola was wrong anyway, the background hum wasn't gone, it was just harder to notice because of the fight. That was almost worse. This dead thing was still trying to attack our minds and now we couldn't actively fight it since we were too busy to notice it. My family should be mostly fine, thanks to the shards, but the others…we needed to get out of here and get back to Sol to check everyone out with a dedicated shard who specialized in that sort of work. I didn't trust myself to do more than a rush job.

The rest of the material peeled off under my tender administrations and I pulled back. "Right vent?"

"Yes, this should give us nearly a straight shot out," Tali agreed. She pointed at my bleeding arm. "Are you -"

"I'm fine. The material here is harder than I'm used to, but it's fine. Everyone into the vent! Same formation!"

Missy nodded, looping a final shot from another Scion back towards the sender before falling into the new path. We all filed in behind her, and I threw the piece of material I had torn off down the corridor as I jumped in after them. The Husks shrieked behind me.

\/\/\/\/

"How much further guys?" Missy asked, her tone tense. "This feels like we've been running out a lot longer than when we were running in."

"If my math is right the exit should be another 200 feet," Enola panted. "Jeez, this ship is long!"

"Detective-Emissary is correct, exit is ahead."

Tali gestured down the vent. "The scans show something like a grate or fan I think. It's hard to tell, but it should be obvious once you hit it."

"A grate? I think I see it. Everyone hang on, distorting."

Space warped around us and one moment we were running in the exhaust vent, the next we were stumbling just outside the ship, the grill behind us bending back down into the infinitesimal grates that it had started off as.

I shook myself and did a quick headcount. "Okay, we're all here. Back to the shuttle. Enola, we'll get you onto your ship once we're in orbit. I'm not staying down here with those numbers behind us."

"This was a fun trap," Enola said. "You know, even with all of that I feel like mmmmphh -!" She cut off as Missy's hand clamped over her mouth.

"Do. Not. Finish. That. Sentence. Don't even finish the thought, girl. How old are you? Don't you know not to tempt the universe like that? Ugh, stupid kids." She pulled her hand away and ignored my sister's glare.

The shouts of the Husks and the roars of the Scions echoed down the vent. A second later more answering screaming came from a doorway into the dead ship a hundred yards away.

"Time to go. Fall in people! Missy, get us closer."

She nodded, narrowed her eyes and twisted her hand as we closed ranks. One hop later, the shuttle was next to us. Thankfully, it was still intact. I keyed the code, and started ushering the team inside.

As Enola passed me, she grabbed my arm. "Jane, that ship…it was old. Older than Scion. These things…We can take them out - they're limited to the normal physics not our bullshit - but they are old. And I'm willing to bet my inheritance that they know about the space whales. Mom's right, we need to wipe them out. The files I found, Jane…"

"We'll find them and we'll destroy them, 'Nols. Now get onboard so we can -"

My jaw snapped shut and my head back, my eyes focusing skyward.

"Jane?"

The burning spotlight was back. Every part of me itched and crawled, needles were poking my skin, shudders ran through me hard and fast enough that it felt like a river along my back. I flipped my eyes to their shard form and narrowed my focus. I could feel it but I couldn't see it. It was here, but not here.

I hadn't been looking in the right direction last time. I looked 'sideways'.

"Oh fuck. Oh, ow! What is that?"

"Holy hell, Horizon what the devil is that?! Enola, Jane! We're leaving right now!"

It was on the moon. Not this moon. One of the alternate moons. Two dimensions adjacent. It was glowing, a luminous brilliance that lit up the entire sky. It was…enormous, covering a significant chunk of the part of the satellite facing us. I hadn't seen something this large since…

Since leaving Sol.

"GET IN!" I screeched, shoving Enola into the shuttle.

Something arched down from the hidden space whale, cutting across the dimensional gap, aiming directly towards us.

There was no time. There was no time.

I switched my internals, ignoring the wrenching fire inside my gut. Slamming my fist against the wall of the shuttle, I used Space to shove it as far away as possible, trying to warp the interior to reduce the inertia while I still could.

The attack lanced towards me.

There was no time.

I whimpered. Then I did the one thing I swore I would never do again. I [Shifted].

Between one breath and the next, all of my extended mass moved sideways, and it was as if I had never been in that reality at all.

\/\/\/\/

The world was barren and cold. The air here was stale and arid. I could almost taste the rock around me. There was nothing here. There never had been. This world was dead.

Sitting down on the closest boulder, I pulled my legs into my chest and laid my head on my crossed arms.

" [QueenHub]( Mom) , [Taylor]( Mom) , [Missy]( Mom) , please…I don't like it here. It's so quiet. It's so [Quiet] and I'm so [Alone]. Please…"

 

[Slider214]

Interlude: Goddess Interrupt 2

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN JANE'S GONE!?"

It took every ounce of Aria's centuries-long experience not to wince at echoing shout that reverberated through the entire house. When Taylor Hebert had frozen in the middle of their tryst, Aria had thought that she had been doing well. Perhaps she had even been succeeding in charming the self-proclaimed 'Goddess'.

Then Hebert had literally disappeared between one blink and the next, and then the entire structure had shaken from an inarticulate roar of rage.

"Perhaps…this was not my smartest idea," Aria murmured to herself. Carefully collecting her clothes, she stepped out of the bedroom. She wasn't above admitting to herself that she was grateful for the presence of one of the household members just outside. The sight of Paige Ryan leaning against the hallway's wall, one foot resting on the tan surface, a hand clutching her tablet while she tapped away at it…it was all decidedly normal. A guide in this unfamiliar, potentially hostile, world with an upset Goddess wasn't something to sneer at; especially when aforementioned guide appeared all-together ambivalent about the continued seething screams from just down the stairs. Screams that would have made many Krogan weep in envy and arousal.

"Our apologies, but we're in the middle of an unpleasant situation at the moment. You can stay or you can leave, it's up to you," Paige said. "You should be aware that if you decide to stay we can't guarantee when Taylor will be available to complete this arrangement. She will eventually be free, but family comes first. I'm sure you understand."

Aria chuckled. That at least was nearly a universal concept - barring some rather unique exceptions of course. "Certainly. Family is always the most important item on any agenda. Perhaps I can help?" Her primary purpose was already in tatters, might as well make herself useful in another fashion. This entire trip was always about cultivating an asset after all.

"We're still getting details, though with what we do have, I rather doubt it. Thank you for the offer, even with the strings I know would have been attached."

"Hon, we really need you back down - oh Aria's here. I didn't realize that," Dennis Ryan cut himself off as he crested the staircase and came within sight of them. Clearing his throat, the human male stood straighter and squared his shoulders. "Ms. T'Loak, welcome to the Hebert household. I'm sorry for my rudeness, but I need to collect my wife. We need to try and calm our friend down before something important blows up. Paige, Madison isn't going to be enough for this and Lisa and Amy are making it worse. Help!"

"Taylor isn't going to destroy the house, she's finally gotten everything where she likes it. Besides, Erica is still home and she'd never do anything that looks bad in front of that girl." She waved her hand in the direction of her husband, dismissing him - not that he actually left. "I'll be down in a moment." Paige let the tablet fall to her side, ran her eyes up and down Aria's body, and finally centered her attention on Aria's face, holding her gaze.

As Aria stared into those eyes, a shiver ran down her back that had nothing to do with temperature. It wasn't just the human woman looking back at her. The sense of age and calculation and scrutiny behind that expression was…It was far more ancient than any Krogan or Asari that Aria had ever met. There had been rumors months back about an old fungus on some forgotten Prothean world; a fungus that had been around since the Protheans fell or perhaps longer. The thing staring back at her now dwarfed that.

"Humanity really is bound to something old isn't it? Something older than my entire race," she stated. As disconcerting as those eyes were, she didn't look away. Meeting the Hebert children had been interesting. Powerful people routinely passed through Omega and graced her door. Even meeting their mother hadn't truly provoked this response in her. And yet…Taylor Hebert had been very careful not to meet her eyes hadn't she? Aria had thought it showed weakness…

There was nothing normal about the Heberts at all. She had vastly underestimated this entire clan. Their children were young and naive. The adults were anything but.

"Some of us are. I don't like to let mine out much. It leaves me alone unless called and I leave it alone. That said, for crisis points, it's best to cut through bullshit fast. You don't like bullshit either so let's not dance around. If you stay, you're going to hear our problems and then you're stuck here until this thing is over. House arrest; for your safety as much as ours. We don't know who is a friend or an enemy at this point and if you try to leave after hearing too much, Taylor is very likely to kill you just to be safe."

"And if I go now, before I'm aware of the full details?"

"Then you're just another player on the board and there's nothing wrong with you going home to Omega. This is nothing personal either way, Aria. You just have bad timing is all."

She leaned back against her own wall with a confidence she did not feel. It had been a very long time since she had been anything but in control. A very long time. Centuries even. This conversation should be pissing her off. Aria dictated - she was not dictated to. She ruled Omega, it was hers. She was Queen there. Everyone knew it, everyone paid her their respects.

Yet her tiny little corner of the universe was nothing compared to the power bloc she was trying to court here. Old partners on Thessia, friends on Tuchanka, business relations on Palaven, contacts in the STG…All were fun or profitable. But they were not Sol. They were not an entrenched system of nearly unassailable might, with each combatant a nation unto themselves. This system had a ruler of unparalleled local power. Aria might as well have been a Maiden still stripping in a bar for all her two-bit contacts were worth compared to this prize: a physical god, yet one that was still mortal enough to be relatable. Aria should stay and finish what she had started. If she stayed she'd prove that could be trusted with their secrets, moving her even further up in their eyes.

And yet…if this issue was causing problems for Taylor Hebert, Goddess of Sol, who knew how long it would take to resolve. Who knew how long it would keep Aria away from Omega?

Was it worth that? Was it worth potentially losing the seat of her power just to prove herself worthy of strong allies for the days to come?

"MISSY, I SENT YOU OUT THERE TO WATCH OVER MY DAUGHTER!"

"What do you think I tried to do Taylor! I fought that fucking thing with everything I had just to make sure we could push past it! I know a lot of goddess-damned tricks, but I can't fight a full Whale and win! I HURT it and I slowed it down and I kept it's attention off Jane when she ran! Stop FUCKING YELLING AT ME!"

"Paige…"

"Sorry to rush you, Aria, but I need that answer."

Aria felt a smile grace her features and she chuckled. "Well, I might as well stay and see if there isn't anything I can do to assist. You never know what help a Pirate Queen can provide. If I'm stuck here long enough that Omega goes to shit by the time I get back? I suppose I already took it over once before. It won't be that hard to whip everyone back into line a second time."

"Okay then. Feel free to comment with useful suggestions. We can explain the context later if you don't get the finer details."

"Am I - what was the human phrase? - being fully read in?" Her normal confidence seeped back in and the fake smile was no longer forced as she realized the implications in that trust.

"Not fully no. You're getting more than a lot of others, partially because you actually cared enough to come and ask us directly for an alliance and information - which almost no one else has done. We've said repeatedly that all anyone had to do was ask, and we would share info. The galaxy likes its games too much apparently."

"Which galaxy are you referring to exactly? I've heard you are in contact with a great many."

Paige's sigh was heavy with disappointment. "All of them."

Well, that switched from teasing to realistic far too fast. "And the other reason?"

The woman perked back up, a smirk lighting up her face, and Aria was reminded of her old games with Patriarch, before he lost his quad. "If I know Taylor, she's about to take very drastic action. After Taylor's done tearing this universe a new asshole, any secrets that Jane had are liable to be blown wide open to anyone in the galaxy who cares to look. So come on, let's go watch the fireworks. This is always the fun part."

"Hon, I think you and I have very different definitions of fun," Dennis muttered as he turned and hurried down the stairs. Aria and Paige followed swiftly in his wake.

\/\/\/\/

Taylor

"Missy, I'm trying not to yell, but I swear if you don't start explaining right now -" I snarled. Madison murmured something too soft for me to understand and squeezed tighter, pulling herself almost flush against my back. Her calming attempts didn't do much.

"Will you tone it down! I am trying and you keep cutting me off!" Missy snapped. She winced, holding a hand to her head. A spike of guilt flashed through me and I ignored it. She'd lost my daughter, she could deal with a little pain. "Fuck, between twisting that moon into a goddamn pretzel, forcing a solar flare, and the Relay jump…I need to fucking sleep. I hate doing anything but lying down after a Relay jump as it is. Listen, we're close and we're turning around to go back and search now, but we needed to leave time for Intuit to lead that fucker away on a wild goose chase. We baited it to follow her when we split up."

Aria, Paige, and Dennis entered the room, the latter directing our guest towards a seat on the couch. I ignored her and did my best not to grind my teeth. "So, instead of just one lost daughter, now we also have one being chased by a rogue whale? Is that what you're telling me, Missy?!"

Missy growled. She'd been hanging out with Lung too much. "Enola is in the second best ship we have and she is hands down the smartest one of all of us! Lisa included!"

"I feel like I should take offense to that, but she is my kid and I fully agree with that assessment…so yeah," Lisa commented. I twisted to glare at her and she just held up her hands in surrender.

"Taylor, Enola knows how to give it the slip. We had to slow down in order to even let it follow us to begin with, the thing wasn't going fast. This is a wild goose chase not a getaway drive with capes on your ass."

"…It didn't crack what was left of the moon or the planet to follow?" I asked, after pacing a small rut into the carpet. I slowed as I realized that Madison had to nearly run to keep in contact with me. Her soft moue of thanks as she again fit herself against me was…almost enough to cool my frustrations.

"No. Jane's there on Jartar. Horizon and Intuit both felt her shift out of the path of whatever ability Belial shot at us. Do you seriously think I would let that fucker have the slightest chance to try to harvest the planet? She's my daughter too, Taylor!"

"I have to ask, Missy. And Jane's not there!"

"I know! I know." Missy dropped down into a seat, rubbing her forehead. "She is on Jartar, I felt her move, she's just not…"

"In our Instance," I snapped. Frowning, I narrowed my eyes. "Belial?"

"Seemed appropriate," Missy sighed. "I mean, we have Eden, Zion, Abaddon…Belial seemed right. I'm pretty sure this one wasn't Abaddon, from what the Network remembers about the saboteur. The configuration of the outer shards wasn't right."

"I don't care what the fuck we call it, it's still going to die!" I snarled. "How did you all miss this?"

"I'm sorry! We weren't looking for a fucking space whale, Taylor! We were looking for a creepy AI ship that likes to eat its crews' minds! We didn't think we'd have to scan other dimensions for threats too! Who would have ever thought that Space Squids and Space Whales would work together against a common enemy? They should be natural enemies themselves. Belial must really hate us to not just gobble these things up. We fucked up and underestimated the nature of the threat, okay? We let ourselves think that the surface level trap was all there was and got lazy which is exactly what they were waiting for."

Lisa grunted. "To be fair, they messed up too. If they were actually smart about it, Belial would have fired on you while you were still inside the dead Reaper. That you were able to get out to the shuttle was a stroke of good luck and idiocy on its part."

"Not. Helping," Madison hissed, her head turning towards Lisa. Twisting back to me, she let her forehead rest on my shoulder, squeezing her arms wrapped around my waist and trying to quiet the shivers of rage running through me. "Hey, this is a good thing, Tay. Belial is still a stupid idiot. Just like Zion was before you gave him some of your memories. We can blow him up easily. Enola can probably do it herself once she tricks him into a star or something!"

"Mom, don't try to talk up what Enola can and can't do just to put a cherry on the top of this shit sundae," Erica sighed. She sprawled along the couch and stared at the ceiling. "Enola and Intuit can't fight a full Wanderer. They can run real good, but they can't fight that thing."

"Erica's correct," Paige said. She walked to my side, one hand holding a datapad and the other tapping away. "I'm going to send Vicky, Dragonite Cluster 14, and…Lung out to take care of it. Between the three groups we should be able to destroy it before it realizes the fight it's picked. As long as someone is able to convince Lung to stay out of the way when the 14 fires at least…And if not, maybe I can finally get that asshole killed."

"No."

"Taylor," Paige looked up from the pad and sighed. "I know you think he's useful but -"

"Vicky stays here."

Paige's mouth snapped closed and the room fell into dead silence. Cassie was the one who ended up breaking the stunned quiet as she swallowed, standing and raising a finger in the air. "Uh, Tay? You know that Vicky is basically…the strongest fighter we have after you…right? Maybe we could send Lily, but Sting is difficult to use on dreadnoughts even with really precise timing. It's doable, but you know Lily hates it. Fighting a Whale is a bad idea unless we let Sting go at it on its own and…I thought we wanted to avoid shard to shard combat since it's bad for local Instances?"

"Vicky stays in Sol. I need her here."

"If I may interject."

"No." I slashed my hand in the air and Aria cut off. "I don't know if you had anything to do with this. The timing is highly suspect. You show up and my daughters are attacked at the same time? You can sit right there on your ass until I sort this out."

"Mom, that's a bit harsh. Aria had nothing to do with -"

"Erica, baby, I appreciate the attempt, and I'm not going to hurt her. But she doesn't get a voice in the family discussion. She shouldn't even be down here." I glared at Paige who just met my gaze and didn't even do me the courtesy of flinching. "Why is she down here?"

"She was in the house and you were already yelling and screaming. She's smart, Taylor. She was going to be a problem if we didn't deal with it head on. Better to loop in a potential ally then to alienate them by kicking them to the curb."

I glared harder, but Paige didn't back down. She knew me too well. "We'll talk later."

"Taylor," Amy said, leaning forward and resting her chin on clasped hands while her elbows stayed planted on her knees. "Why is my sister staying in Sol?"

"Because I'm taking over for her while she's gone," Vicky stated. She crossed her arms and met my gaze, eyebrows arched. "Right, Tay?"

I nodded. "That's right."

The room damn near exploded as everyone started yelling.

\/\/\/\/

It took me almost 10 minutes before the group had calmed down enough that I could get a word in without more screaming and shouting resulting. Finally, with almost everyone glaring, I waved a hand towards the hologram of Missy.

"Jane is lost in the multiverse. She has no native way to find our Instance among the billions and billions of options out there. She could be lost forever if we don't find her and guide her back."

"Which is exactly why Horizon is out there with her!" Lisa snapped. "Horizon is -"

"Not able to do that," Missy murmured. Madison's eyes widened to an absurd degree and Erica gasped while Lisa's mouth snapped closed.

"What? Aunt Missy…but you said…"

"I'm keeping her company. I'm keeping her safe. The goal was never to find her if she got lost, it was to make sure that she didn't have to get lost again. Horizon can't search the multiverse, Erica." Missy hung her head. "We bend space. We don't bend universes. While we might be able to cheat the system and look through alternate realities, we can't search."

"But…you're going back…" Dennis said.

"She's doing the equivalent of a 'hunt and peck' instead of 'QWERTY' typing," I said. "Missy and Horizon aren't designed to flip through Instances and find specific ones. They might have been able to get lucky and find her given enough time, but this is an emergency situation and that isn't ideal. They don't have a place to start and the odds that they get lucky are beyond minimal. We need a specialist."

"So send a specialist!" Amy shouted.

"That's what she's doing, Ames." Vicky laid a hand on Amy's shoulder. Amy leaned into her and shut her eyes, shaking her head. "Taylor, can you explain it a bit better for everyone else?"

"There's only two shards that can really search for a single target like this. The Eye is one of them, and one of the Core Shards in my Hub are the other. I think we all know that I don't trust The Eye outside of Sol."

Paige frowned. She pulled up an image on her display and flicked it onto the wall, showing the bios for several personnel. "You can't split off that Core Shard? We have several people who Emily and I have finished vetting that are ready to Bond. I can personally vouch for these five as being worthy of a Core Shard."

I shook my head. "Even if I could, I don't want to. I'm not going to trust just anyone to find my little girl for me. I'm going."

"Taylor, think about this for five fucking seconds." Cassie stood, her hands held wide to either side. "You. Can't. Leave. Sol. What happens to the rest of us if you take the Network away? What happens to Sol itself? We're all dependent on it now! Hell, our economy is dependent on it! What about the other Instances? How are they going to survive without the portals or the Dyson Spheres sending them power? We can't just separate from the Wanderers anymore! We're not like we were anymore dammit!"

"Cass -"

"I love that girl too! But you can't just run off and leave the rest of us to die! Even if we figure out how to make it alone for a few weeks, Sol would be defenseless! What if someone decides that that's the best opportunity to come and attack us! What if this is what that rogue Wanderer was waiting for!"

"Cass -"

"What if -"

"Cassie!" She stopped and I rubbed my forehead. "Done? Good. I'm not taking the whole damn Network, Cass. I just said that Vicky is staying behind and stepping in for me. I'm only taking a few key Shards so that I can stomp anything or anyone that comes looking for a fight - including Belial if Dragonite 14 doesn't get to the fucker first. The only other thing I'm going with is what I need to find our daughter. The rest of the Network will stay here with a backup copy of my mind in case something happens. QA is also going to be here too, so -"

QA's avatar flickered into being behind me scowling. "And what makes you think that I want to stay behind and not go on this little jaunt to find the girl?"

"Can you come and still leave enough infrastructure intact for Sanctuary to take the reins?"

QA huffed. "I've been sectioning off bits of myself for the past hour to make sure I could. Take a moment to actually look, Taylor, and you'll see the groundwork I've laid already for us. Victoria, you, Sanctuary, Taylor, and I are all going to be far closer once we get back. Sanctuary is going to need to meld a lot more deeply with many of the processes I'm leaving behind then I'm normally comfortable with and I doubt she'll be able to fully pull herself out of it once we're back in-system."

"We're okay with that," Vicky said.

"Good. I'm trusting you to watch over things while I'm away, Vicky," I said.

"I know, I won't let you down Taylor. I'll keep us all safe and I'll keep it running smoothly." Vicky moved to embrace me, then stepped next to QA and silently started exchanging the data she would need to keep things intact.

"Hold up here! Time out, what the fuck? Why is Vicky the one who is your successor? I mean, I'm not jealous. Please don't take this like I'm jealous," Lisa said, her hands lifted in a T. I raised my eyebrows; she sure sounded jealous. "Oh don't look at me like that. Madison, Amy, and I were with you from the beginning. Paige and Emily basically run this theocracy. Vicky mainly - Vicky, I adore you, and don't take offense - Vicky mainly hits things and also waxes poetically about philosophical stuff."

"You're forgetting that I happen to be the only one besides Taylor who's completely merged with her shard," Vicky said, not even bothering to glance to the side.

"That's, that's…that's um…"

"She's got you there, Aunt Lisa," Erica said. "Your generation is hesitant and my generation just wants to experience our own lives a bit before taking that final plunge. Mom, is this, you know, safe for you? You've been linked to the entire Network for over a century now. Even if you take a decent chunk of your main shards with you, that's going to be a heck of a shock disconnecting from so many others. Travel-wise alone, it's just not possible without…wait…fuck. Mom…"

Madison pulled away from me and moved to her daughter frowning. "Sweetheart? What are you thinking? We've talked about this honey, you have to use words, not implications."

She really didn't need to, Erica was always on the same wavelength as me and I already knew where her mind had gone. "No, I'm not going to crack any of the dead worlds to use as jump-points. It would be a good boost, yes, I won't deny that, but then I would need to do the same somewhere en route and there's no guarantee that I would find enough that I'd be able to do it without sacrifices."

"But?"

Damn, that girl did know me too well. Sighing, I shook my head. "But, I am going to drain Sol 1408 before we go."

"Mom!"

"That system is entirely dead anyway! We've already stripped most of the planets, it's the asteroids that'll be a lost cause since the star won't have the same gravity anymore…"

"That's-you can't just-no!"

"The system's cursed anyway. I swear it's fucking haunted. I'm doing it a favor."

Lisa winced. "Taylor, do you need that or is it a safety net? Erica is right. If you need it just to get to Dis, there could be bigger problems when you are in-system."

"I want to be powered up as much as possible. I'm not going to have all of my tools, so making sure I leave with a supercharged tank at the ready is the best option."

"That's not an answer, Taylor," Lisa murmured.

"It's what you're getting." I snapped back at her, this was my daughter, I wasn't going to take chances.

"Oh I need to figure out how to use Beacon better and I need to have done it yesterday," Erica muttered.

"Drain a sun?" Aria sucked in a breath and a blue aura flared around her in the tell-tale display of wild biotics. I had upset little Ms. Pirate. Well too bad. If she wanted to seduce me, she'd have to deal with our family issues eventually. Better it be early on rather than later. If she couldn't deal with this, then she didn't deserve to deal with us. I was woman enough to admit she probably wasn't involved in Jane's problems. I still liked making her squirm a bit. She was far too confident in herself - most of these older Asari were.

"Yes, just one, nothing drastic."

Erica's frown didn't diminish. "Okay…Say I believe you. You still have space issues. No ship can take all of the shards you'd need to be even a significant fraction of your whole. So I'll ask again, Mom: Is this safe?"

QA was the one who nodded. "Yes. We weren't always what we are now. We remember what we were and we can adapt."

I gave my daughter a thumbs up. "It's going to hurt like hell, but I've dealt with worse and it's not forever, just a few days, maybe a week or two. I know what I'm doing."

Amy scowled. "I don't agree with this. I don't agree with this at all. Taylor, you can't just leave Sol. Not even for Jane. We don't even know for sure that Jane can't get herself back! She did before! She -"

"Ames, stop." Vicky stepped in front of me before I could do more than snarl. Amy was scared, I knew that. I could feel that. She was worried for Jane, for the Network, for Vicky, for me…That still didn't give her the right to say those things about our baby girl. "You were off-world when Jane side-stepped, you got your info second hand and it was white washed because it was fucking terrifying."

Amy pulled back, sitting up straight, her skin paling. "It couldn't have been that bad. I mean…"

Vicky shook her head. "We didn't know she could slip realities. She didn't know she could slip realities. No one was watching, no one was paying attention in the right direction. She got spooked, she fell back on instincts no one knew she had, and she was just…"

"Gone," QA finished. "She was gone like she had never existed. She's not like one of us. She doesn't leave a noticeable wake when she travels; she's too small."

"Yeah but…"

Madison reached over and gripped Amy's hand, squeezing hard. "Remember when Emily kept asking you to check over the various Krogan settlements? Remember how it took four months when it really should've only been four weeks?"

Amy licked her lips, not trusting herself to speak.

"It took me four months to find our girl, Amy," I said. I shut my eyes and clenched my fists, letting my breath out in a slow wheeze. "She was alone the entire time. She doesn't have the natural navigation component that shards are born with. She can't figure out her relative place in the multiverse - her human side overwrites that bit, wipes that instinct out. It's the main downside to hybrids. The Network has been trying to find a way around that issue. Without a work around, hybrids are never going to be safe; and you already know my views on the future of humanity. Either way, for the moment, it means she's stuck wherever she wound up."

"Unless sis wants to spin the roulette wheel again," Erica muttered.

"Yeah, she won't," Lisa sighed. "Best case, she'll cobble together a ship and work her way back to Sol then spin the wheel until she winds up in an Instance that we control so that she can walk back through a regular portal to home or call for help."

I froze. Snapping my head to Lisa, all of my focus centered on her. QA went a step further and vanished, reappearing right in front of her, hands on her knees. Both of us spoke at the same time, "We hadn't considered that. How likely is that?"

Lisa blinked. "A century on and I still haven't gotten used to that…" Shaking herself she said, "I guess it depends where she is and what's around her. I checked into Jartar. There's not much on that planet really so unless our Instance is the odd one out, it would take a pretty unlikely roll for her to wind up in a world where she had the necessary raw materials to build a ship in any decent timeframe."

"Over, under?" Cassie asked.

"If she heavily cheats with abilities that aren't really made to be used that way and tires herself out constantly, then cheats more to keep it held together on the trip home…um…I used to be better at this…one month at the lowest, 3 months at the highest? Give or take 1 week on the low end and 3 weeks on the high end? Jane's not just a scared kid anymore, she's resourceful."

"No, you're low," Dennis argued. "That might be right to get her to Sol, but not to get her home. She'd have to start searching for an Instance we're involved in after that which is a huge dice roll on its own. And if Taylor is sitting here looking for her at the same time, they could miss each other in transit dozens of times and never know it, just making the whole thing even harder and be more demoralizing for everyone involved. Taylor, you need to go find her before she leaves that planet. Damn, we need to work out protocols in case this happens again."

Paige nodded. "I'll get with Emily and we'll work something out."

"As I've been saying," I agreed. I looked to the side and cupped my hands to shout, "Monarch! I know you can hear me and I know you've been listening! If you want a year's worth of excess candy in the span of two days, I need a Princess that can pump out Dimensional Relay Critters!"

Monarch buzzed from the next room. The monitor on the wall sprang to life and a block of text popped up.

Monarch has already assigned 12 Reginas to assist and accompany on task. Monarch does not need to be bribed to assist Jane Hebert. Monarch likes Jane Hebert.

I grinned. "So I'll just keep that chocolate then."

Angry buzzing wafted into the room.

Monarch advised that it does not need to be bribed. Monarch will still accept bribes.

"Crazy bug. Thanks, buddy. Alright, I'm going to finish breaking myself into pieces and going to find our daughter. Vicky, you're with me. We need to go over a few things before I cede control of the Network to you fully."

"Got it, Taylor."

"Madison, keep the household in order."

"Okay," she murmured. I tried to ignore the bright sheen over her eyes and the sniffle in her voice. "Please be careful. And hurry home."

Running a hand down the side of her face and resting my forehead against hers, I murmured, "Always, Mads." Pulling back I looked at Lisa. "Lisa, you're in charge of the Alliance. Don't let Becca bully you into anything."

"When have I ever, Tay?" she was smirking but the vulpine confidence wasn't there. I didn't have to dip into our link to see the worry etched across her brow.

"Paige, I know you and Emily can handle the day-to-day stuff while I'm gone. If anything really pressing comes up, let Vicky know and she'll deal with it. She has my authority."

"Nothing will get to her, we'll make sure of it." Paige flipped a few tasks off of her tablet and shut the thing down entirely.

I chuckled. "Well, maybe make sure she has some work to do, even if it's just busy work. Can't have her being bored, right?"

"Excuse you, I am perfectly happy with this being a nice, boring little endeavor, thank you very much." I rolled my eyes at Vicky's comment and waved her off.

"Dennis, make sure your wife doesn't forget to rest. I'm trusting you to run PR also. Make sure that no one panics that I'm gone."

He smirked, winking at me. "Come on, Tay. I'm better than that. By the time Ethan and I are done, everyone else in the galaxy will be terrified that you can leave Sol whenever you want and humanity will declare this a new national holiday!"

"I'm not sure what's scarier, that you might be joking, or that I think you can, and would, actually do that," I said, laughing. "Amy -"

"I know, I know, don't be a bitch. I'm sorry, okay! I just -"

"Amy," I knelt down in front of her and took her hands in mine, waiting for her to meet my eyes before I continued. "Don't be a bitch." We both laughed as she bit her lip. Once her chuckles subsided I continued, "Seriously, I get it. You do understand why I can't just leave this alone though right?"

"Yeah, yeah I do. I'm sorry, I'm…Shaper and I would never be able to do what you're doing Taylor. We can't split ourselves like that."

"I know. There's nothing wrong with that, Amy. You and I took very different paths to get where we are and we have very different relationships with our shards. That's fine, but it means that I can go find our girl. Help the others keep things running back here, okay?"

"Okay."

I stood, letting her drag me into a short kiss. As Amy pulled back, I turned to Erica. My third eldest had her arms crossed and was scowling as she stood in front of me.

"I don't like this, Mom."

"I know."

"You're going to hurt yourself."

"Probably."

"I could take your Core Shard. I could find Janie. We've already been training for this."

I looked at her, pausing for long enough to truly consider it. Slowly, I asked, "Erica, answer me honestly: do you truly believe you have enough practice as a [Hub] or as [Beacon] to be able to find Jane when she's not linked to a Network? Don't bluster, don't inflate your prowess. Can you do this?"

Erica wilted, her shoulders slumping and her head dropping to her chest as her eyes closed. "…No," she whispered. "If she was still touching Horizon or Intuit…then yes. But…on her own…I…she's so small."

"She is. That's both her best and worst quality." I pulled my daughter into a bone-crushing hug. "Come with me. There'll be enough room on the ship I'm taking for another three shards. I was planning to grab Simmy, but I'll have her follow with Lung instead. Follow along, watch what I do, learn how I sort through the Instances. Then, if we have another crisis, you can go instead. Deal?" Her head bobbed against my chest and I heard a soft sniffle; like mother, like daughter.

"You're really deploying Lung?" Missy asked. I turned my head to watch her hologram. I had almost forgotten she was still here.

"Yes. There's at least one rogue Wanderer and it's working with these Reapers. Lung, some of his Krogan friends, Simmy, and…"

"Annie and Lily," Cassie supplied. "If you're thinking of going against a Wanderer with brute force, those two are the way to go. Lung and Simmy to distract it. The Krogan to annoy it. Annie and Lily to kill it. Let Lily complain about the timing with the dreadnought, she can still do it."

"Or me," Lisa said.

"No, you need to stay here in case something does come for Sol. You're our ace-in-the-hole, Lisa."

"Yeah. I know." She sighed. "Fucking powers."

"Okay, last thing, Aria, thank you for not making a fuss," I said.

She shrugged, feigning nonchalance almost well enough that I nearly believed her. "You don't get to my level without learning to pick your moments. I fight battles I can win. I'm rather outclassed in this room and I'm looking to make friends, not enemies. One day I may need your help. When that day comes I hope you'll remember this evening."

"Always playing the game," I murmured.

"Always, Taylor," she smiled. "Always. Do you require ships? Omega has several large freighters that I can repurpose for your needs in very short order."

Lisa snorted. "Ha! What the Citadel calls 'dreadnoughts' we call 'minimum effective size'. We're good honey."

"Yes, thank you, but no," I sighed, doing my best to ignore Lisa. "We've been building, just not in this Instance. Avoiding prying eyes and all. If you want to go back to Omega, you can. I would suggest you stay in Sol until I get back. You don't have to, and no actions will be taken against you should you choose to leave, but I can't guarantee when I'll be free next if you do leave. Also, I'm sure this goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: if you repeat a single thing you heard here to anyone, I will pull the blue out of your ass before I kill you. I actually rather like you, which is something I didn't really expect; don't waste that goodwill, Aria."

"Noted. You are not what I expected either, Taylor Hebert. I'm pleased that you've vastly exceeded any expectations I had."

I frowned. "Really? Well, now I feel rather disappointed that you had lower expectations of me. Maybe I do need to get more and accidentally terrorize a few neighbors. In the old days people freaked out when I went for a walk in the park with my dog…"

Madison groaned. "Taylor, your dog was - and is - an Endbringer. It could've destroyed the city in 15 minutes, if you asked it to."

"…Yeah, but nobody should be scared of an EB when its name is Spot."

"It has three flaming heads," Paige stated. "You and Rachel are still the only two who find the thing cute."

"Right. Okay. Nice talk. Alright, folks, I'm off. Vicky, QA, Erica, with me." I started towards the door leading to our workshop. I made it a few paces before I remembered one final thing. Looking back over my shoulder, I shouted back with a deep scowl, "And somebody find where the fuck Zion is and figure out WHY HE ISN'T DOING HIS JOB!"

 

[Slider214]

Offensive 01
Jane
Current Active subsystems: Innovation, Perpetuity, Intuition, Strength

I stared at my creation, hands on my hips, a small scowl crossing my features. Shaking my head I kicked at the engine, a dull whine echoing across the barren landscape as the thing sputtered again.

"Stupid piece of crap. Wilson, I have serious doubts that this is even remotely spaceworthy." I glared at the rock I had chiseled to look like a volleyball with a smiley-face. My parents never should have let me watch Castaway. Nightmares for days, that movie. Well, at least I had something to talk to to keep my mind off of the creepy fucking moon in the sky.

I swore that damn moon was alive. Sleeping but alive. It made my skin crawl trying to sleep on this planet with that thing hanging above me at all times. I knew it was probably just lingering paranoia over the attack from the rogue Wanderer.

That knowledge didn't make it any easier to sleep.

"It's been two weeks and the ship is…sorta ready. There's been no sign of Erica." I winced, hand clenching. "I…Wilson I don't even know if Erica can find me. I know Mother can. I have to go home. Right? That's the smart thing to do. It is. It…it is. We can get away from the watching moon, maybe start trying to flip through some alternate realities when we get back to Sol…That's a smart plan. It's a good plan."

The engine whimpered, dying a few moments later. I shut my eyes and dropped down to the dust next to Wilson. "Fixing the engine will probably take another two days. Making sure the rest of the ship is spaceworthy using the very limited material available will be another two. After that…I'll wait until the end of the third week. I'll see if I can give Erica a month. Then…then I have to get out of this system."

Wilson didn't respond. Of course he didn't. He wasn't part of the Network, he wasn't even alive. Nothing on this planet was alive anymore. There weren't even bones; just ancient ruins of a long-dead civilization. Not a single body anywhere to be found. No organic matter at all. Anywhere. It was like someone had taken a giant vacuum cleaner to the place after everyone died. The vacuum of the gods. Wherever the organic stuff had gone, it had broken a lot of the tech too as it was taken. Just my luck.

I was starting to miss the dead Reaper and its nice inviting trap. At least that was something that made my skin crawl for a reason I could see and understand.

"I don't think I'm cut out to be away from the Network for this long, Wilson," I sighed, leaning back and staring at the moon.

I swore that fucking moon looked…meaty.

I needed to get off this planet before I really went insane.

\/\/\/\/

Taylor

"Mom, I think I'm starting to get the hang of this. When you're flipping through a new Instance, you're sending a Ping along the entirety of shardspace and listening for the echo back, right?" Erica asked. She was biting her tongue as she stared blankly at the horizon, a bit of her shoulder length black hair worrying between her fingers, her mind focused on the task at hand.

"Pretty much," I agreed. "Jane is tiny compared to normal shards and Bonded, so the imprint she leaves on shardspace isn't large enough to search for directly. When you're trying to zero in on her, you have to look for the ripples instead of the source."

"Because the ripples are larger than her signal, and they propagate further…" Erica bit down harder, hissing as she inadvertently drew blood. "Dammit, Mom told me I needed to stop biting my tongue!"

"Madison was right, as usual." I patted my girl's shoulder and sat down on a grassy rock, with a sigh. "Erica, we may have to split up soon. We're getting close to the time Lisa thinks Jane might start to move. If you head back to Sol -"

"Not yet," Erica shook her head. "I get the principle now, Mom. I can't do this on my own yet. And I don't trust myself to police the Eye if I'm going to have to lean on it to support me when searching for Jane."

I grimaced. Fortuna's shard was…We really needed a better way of policing that damn thing. It was too useful in a worst-case scenario to kill outright and it had saved us from several hostile Instances but…It was getting to be more trouble than it was worth. I still wasn't entirely convinced I could kill it without its consent too which was another problem. A problem for another day. "Okay. We still have another week or so before I think you need to head back. Keep watching what I do, listen to how I sort out our own ripples from the pond in order to find any anomalies lurking underneath our echoes."

"Okay Mom." Erica let go of her hair and reached over to grasp my hand squeezing lightly. "Mom…we're going to find her."

"Of course we are," I said, grinning back and returning the reassurance.

[Taylor] I finished searching this batch of Instances. Are you certain that you hit everything in the last grouping before swapping?

I thought so, QA. Did we miss something? Do you think we need to start from the top?

We're diminished. We haven't been diminished in a very long time and we are not used to our lowered senses yet. Two weeks is not long enough. Many of the excess shards we took with us are combat related, not sensory related. I thought I had recalibrated our detection methods to account for the differences, but, [Taylor] review Memory Node 562. I caught an echo from [Belial]'s wake in one of them. But I almost missed it. If something as big as [Belial] nearly slipped through the scan…

I pointed my consciousness towards the part of myself that QA had directed me to and looked over the larger data she'd stored away.

"Oh, fuck."

"Mom?"

Swallowing my pride, I turned to face Erica as I stood up. "It's been too long since I left Sol. The theory is correct, but my internal calibration to center in on anomalies was wrong. It was too wide of a pattern recognition for a planet-wide ping. I was centered for something closer to the size of Earth itself, not this world with its different mass."

Erica's eyes widened momentarily, before her face set in stone. "So we just have to recalibrate and start over. Is QA able to adjust?"

"I am," QA said, stepping out of the ether next to her. "I should have realized the error beforehand. I was an individual before I was a Hub. This would be embarrassing if it wasn't so important. Erica, when you form your own Hub, remember not to make this same mistake."

"When I'm forming my own Hub, we'll have solved the hybrids' problem," she murmured quietly enough I obviously intended to overhear. I winced at her next whisper. "Or it'll be scrapped entirely." Erica wasn't exactly wrong…the hybrids were a unique step, but humanity needed to evolve. We couldn't stay static.

"Let's stop wasting time and start over. I get the idea, so now, this should go a lot faster," Erica stated.

I squared my shoulders; there would be time to argue about our species path later. If it would be even worth it. What was the point in grooming her to take on an entire Hub if she thought the exact same as me anyway? "QA, check in with Missy. Give her an update, try not to worry her. Also see if Lung and the Dragonites have caught up with Belial yet. Erica and I will start over. I'll work in reverse from where you stopped to make sure that the adjustments are correct and that they fit the new simulations."

"I'll pull your attention if I think there's anything that's immediately relevant for full awareness."

My other half was gone from this reality as quickly as she had appeared, leaving Erica and I alone.

"Ready to get back to work?"

"Break's over, Mom. Let's find my sister."

\/\/\/\/

The Citadel

It was only through his many, many years of political work that Valern was able to avoid cursing - and more likely screaming in panic - as his operative delivered the latest news from their agents near Sol.

"This has to be wrong. It's not possible. It's completely impossible." His protests were weak, even to his own ears. It wasn't that long ago that a clone of the Human Goddess had been walking the very corridors around him.

And yet…that wasn't remotely the same thing as what was being reported now.

"I assure you, Councilor, the details have been verified." Captain Kirrahe was an excellent agent. His work was impeccable and has been for years. If he said something was true, it was true. "I sent one of my men to Omega to speak with my contacts there as well. Aria has left the station and not returned since her trip to Sol. She is coordinating Omega's fleet from there at this time."

"This is too much." Valern stood and started pacing back and forth across his office. "How is this even possible? She can't leave Sol! We were assured -"

"Actually, Sir, we were never assured of such a situation. It was implied, but never stated. I have the relevant documents. No one ever explicitly said the Goddess Hebert was locked to Sol. They have actually been extremely careful when responding to such inquiries to never state any official response to either argument in the past." He breathed out, giving a slight shake of his head. "It was quite clever, making us assume they were hiding a weakness instead of a strength."

"Have you informed the Union yet?"

Kirrahe scoffed. "Councilor, we both know how that will turn out. I am not a fool. I am loyal, but I have no desire to see my men ordered to their deaths as short-sighted idiots attempt to use this window to insert operatives."

Valern glared at the man, his pacing coming to a halt. "Could it work? There would never be a better time than now."

"Sir. Goddess Hebert has ruled over that system for nearly two centuries. She is not an Asari, but neither is she a fool. If you order us in, I'll go. But I'll die. She'll have left contingencies. We already know she left a regent in her place. The same regent who single-handedly annihilated the Turian fleet. That was before she was elevated to her new role. Don't order me, or my men, into Sol…Sir. It would be a waste of good operatives."

He took in a deep breath then continued on, "Don't contact the Union until you have the full Council backing you. If you value STG lives at all, respect the intelligence of the humans. They are not like the Krogan. We cannot implant a surgical team. They are more vulnerable than they were ten days prior. That does mean we are in a position to take advantage. There is no tactical reason to push a line in that sand." He paused, gathering himself. "I would hold such a line, as would all my men, but we would all die. And I cannot recommend making an enemy out of the Humans, we wouldn't win that fight."

"You have no faith in our operators," Valern hissed.

"You are incorrect, Councilor. I have every faith in my compatriots," he shrugged. "I am just realistic. Humanity plays by different rules than the rest of the galaxy; they play by different laws of physics. We could hurt them; potentially. Unconventional tactics and eezo bombs are being investigated. But we cannot infiltrate them. Our normal operating methods do not work in Sol. Whole new paradigms need to be developed for that system. It would be rather exciting if most of the simulations did not end with the majority of the operatives dead by the end of any particular mission."

Valern clasped his hands behind his back and turned away, shaking his head. "I know. I wish you were incorrect. I wish I hadn't read those same reports. I need to speak with my colleagues. I'll contact you once we have a path forward."

"Understood, Sir."

By the time Kirrahe was gone, Valern had already called an emergency meeting. Sparatus and Tevos arrived quickly enough that Valern was nearly certain they had already been informed by their own intelligence works of Goddess Hebert's departure. It should tweak his professional pride. Instead it just cemented the cold pit of dread in his stomach.

Sparatus was the first to speak, and the most blunt, as usual. "Let's not beat around the bush. The human Goddess can move between systems contrary to all prior knowledge. What are we intending to tell our governments? We must be unified in our advice regarding this situation."

"I agree, unity is paramount here," Tevos stated. "I caution against taking any action. In fact, I would say it would be for the best to pretend we never noticed this fact. Then we can use it against them should the need arise at a later date."

"Utterly ignore such a deliberate movement? Have you gone insane, Tevos?" Sparatus asked. "To begin with, they would never believe we failed to notice it. Further, none of our governments would take that recommendation to heart. We need a better plan."

Valern nodded. "I've been informed by the STG that attempting to insert intelligence agents would be unwise. Apparently Goddess Hebert has left a regent in her stead, elevated to her prior position as overseer of Sol: Emissary Victoria from my reports."

Sparatus winced, his mandibles flaring. "Well that is disturbing…to an unnerving degree. I need to inform my government to prepare all our fleets for an attack."

"Wait, what?" Tevos whirled. "That is an extreme overreaction and -"

"I'm not talking about the humans," Sparatus cut her off.

"Then what are you talking about?" Valern asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Neither of you have realized yet? Truly?" Sparatus glanced between them, shaking his head while letting out a resigned sigh.

"The Goddess' youngest and second eldest daughters start running around the galaxy in search of something; something we've barely been able to ascribe to rumor." He held up a hand ticking off fingers. "A few weeks later the youngest goes missing. At the same time Thresher Live starts airing reruns and there are scattered reports of Clan Urdnot on the move. The Goddess herself leaves Sol, entrenching herself in a new system and declaring it off-limits to all others who approach. Her warrior successor remains in Sol, hand firmly on the reins of the majority of the conglomerated power."

Valern put the pieces together and gasped. "No…"

"They are preparing for war. The first moves have already played out and Hebert is trying to recover her daughter from a surprise attack. She's left her system protected. She's recruited the Krogan; whether as an honor guard, an additional defense of Sol, or as a hunter-killer revenge squad remains to be seen. The fact is -"

"That the humans are in the opening stages of war." Valern's mouth was suddenly too dry. "What could they possibly be fighting that has something like Hebert scared?"

"As certain as I am that I don't want to know the answer to that question, anything that concerns a star-killing creature from the depths of nightmares…that is something we all need to pay attention to," Sparatus stated, his mandibles flaring.

"I…do not think the Goddess is scared…" Tevos murmured, hand on her chin. "If she was scared, she would have stayed in Sol. Or possibly called for us, her allies and dispersed believers. No, she is…furious." Tevos looked up, meeting each of their eyes as she continued, this time at a normal volume, "We're all aware that Emissary Jane is a different sort of being than the other Emissaries. None prior were quite as flexible, or nearly as young. Previously we had assumed she could still be resurrected with minimal issue. Perhaps we were wrong. Perhaps it takes more…direct intervention."

"Even so, in war there are losses," Valern said. "What is one life compared to an entire system?"

"The Goddess has always favored Emissary Jane since she came into existence. The only other with such favor is Emissary Erica. We had wondered…" Tevos trailed off, shaking her head. "It doesn't matter. Mark the system she has declared her own as a no-fly zone. I'll reach out to see if she requires immediate assistance with the recovery effort. Sparatus, I agree, we should all advise our respective governments to shift towards a war footing. I'll reach out to Aria, see if she can provide any details on the threat we're facing."

"I'll contact the humans in Sol directly then," Sparatus stated. "Emissary Victoria responds better to turians. Perhaps we can get a straight answer."

"I'll investigate the krogan. If we can track Urdnot's movements, we might get a lead on where their enemy is."

"Let us agree to meet again in three days with news," Tevos said. All three assented and split to initiate their objectives.

Valern sank into his chair, allowing himself a moment of frustration and terror, the quakes shaking his entire body.

"Something that can worry Sol itself…What chance do the rest of us have?"

\/\/\/\/

Erica

"Are you okay, 'Rica? You haven't had bags under your eyes for…two decades? Three?" Aunt Missy asked, a frown on her face as she peered at Erica.

"I'm fine, Missy. Just tired. I wouldn't have stopped, but I was starting to make stupid mistakes and Mom insisted I come back to rest for a few minutes." Erica yawned, shaking her head and cracking her neck. "I can't say she's wrong. I just…"

"Hate not being involved for even a moment. I get it. Trust me, I get it." Erica caught a glimpse of the scowl just before Missy turned away to look out the window of the Intrepid. "I've tried to keep up with Taylor. I thought maybe I could help you two while she was here. Maybe Horizon and I could use the extra processing power to short our normal limits, but it hasn't worked. We can only peek at Instances, we can't search. If Jane's moved anywhere away from the Reaper corpse, we'd miss her."

"Missy…"

Whatever Erica had been about to say was lost to time - thankfully, since she had no idea how she was supposed to reassure her aunt - as an alarm sounded on the panel to the side. Missy leaned over, flipping a switch. "What's going on, Miranda?"

"It's Garrus actually," the turian's voice came through the speaker. Erica blinked, focusing on the instrument closer. So this was her sister's new boyfriend. His voice was cute. She hadn't had much time to say anything to him yet. Enola had only arrived back in the system a few days ago. Hell, Erica hadn't even fully met Jane's crew in the three weeks she'd been here. She'd been so busy with Mom…

"Enola's mother has apparently made me the system's security officer. I'm not quite certain how this came about, but there you have it. Anyway, you're the ranking officer currently present, Ma'am, and we have a ship inbound." Garrus paused and the console display lit up, a red dot slowly approaching the blue shell surrounding Jartar. "I've warned them they are approaching the exclusion zone, but have received no reply. I'm requesting preemptive warning shot authority. I'm also requesting preemptive lethal force authority."

Missy's gaze unfocused, the lights on the console dimmed for an instant when it rebooted, there were two red dots next to each other. Erica blinked. Frowning, she reached out to Beacon and sent a pulse to Horizon.

Did you update the system scans?

They were inaccurate. There were two spatial signatures. The sensory systems have been adjusted to accommodate for similar attempts at masking in the future. Will [Beacon] distribute the updated datasets to the [Network] upon return? The improvement is minimal, but effective.

Of course. Thanks, [Horizon].

"Garrus, permission is denied," Missy stated. She stood and crossed her arms as she looked out the window.

"Ma'am, I -"

"No, you don't understand; I'll take care of it."

"Oh. Well in that case, happy hunting."

Erica stood as well, moving next to Missy. "It's hard to tell whose ships those are. Is the IFF sending out any information?"

"I don't particularly care," Missy stated, voice completely blank. Her tone sent a shiver down Erica's spine. She reached to the side, her hand bending through space and grabbing a microphone off of the console, pulling it towards her.

"Aunt Missy?"

"Hush, 'Rica. Got work to do." Missy keyed the microphone and started talking, "Unknown vessels, you are approaching a no-fly region around Jartar. Change course and turn around immediately or face the consequences."

There was quiet for a few moments, before a crackle sounded and the communicator spat out, "We do not recognize the MEA authority over this region. Jartar is a free world and we will fly where we want, when we want, however we -"

The transmission abruptly cut off as Missy clenched her hand, never lifting her eyes from the surrounding space. Erica, having glanced at the display, saw one of red dots vanish just as it crossed the blue line, the second one went flying backwards nearly 500 kilometers in an instant.

Missy keyed her microphone again as Erica's blood ran cold. "Unidentified ship number two. You are now pointed away from the exclusion zone. Don't bother trying to recover the bodies of your compatriots. Their ship is the size of a basketball now; there's nothing to recover. You were warned. Jartar is under our jurisdiction until we have completed our recovery efforts. Leave, and make sure whatever fool commander ordered you to test us doesn't send anyone else."

The red dot jetted away from the planet as fast as it was able, Missy replacing the microphone back in its cradle as it headed out of the system.

The communicator crackled once again. "Ma'am, remind me never to get you angry. I'll check on the calibrations to make sure we don't miss any others that might have been hiding in the outskirts."

Erica shuddered as Missy kept staring out the window.

"Go ahead and ask, 'Rica," Missy murmured.

"You didn't even give them a chance," Erica whispered. "We're so much stronger than they are…Don't we owe it to them to give them a chance?"

"But we did. Garrus gave them a chance. I gave them a chance. They had a chance when we declared this area off-limits, and again when the Council backed it up with their own decree last week. Four chances to turn around, yet they kept coming."

Missy turned just enough that Erica was able to finally glimpse her face clearly again. It was a mask of rage…and regret.

And just like that, Erica's concerns slipped to the side. There was a reason that Missy had been the one chosen to be Jane's bodyguard. "It's not your fault Janie got lost, Missy," Erica murmured, laying a hand on her aunt's bicep and squeezing.

"Yeah. It is."

\/\/\/\/

Jane
Current Active subsystems: Innovation, Perpetuity, Intuition, Durability

"Okay Wilson, it's been a month. I can't keep talking to you and pretending like I'm not going slowly insane. You're a damn rock. You don't even have makeshift hair like the volleyball." I narrowed my eyes at my granite companion. Its grin didn't change. That was a good thing. I was liable to jump and start screaming if that thing so much as twitched.

"The ship is as viable as I can make it. It's been…mostly ready to fly for five days now."

Wilson remained attentive.

"If I keep staying here they could find me. They probably would. Definitely. They would. Mother has definitely taught Erica how to search the myriad worlds by now and Erica is a quick learner."

The shadows grew longer but my rock didn't stir.

"It's not like Mother herself can come out here, so I have to go to her. Just to be sure. Better to be safe."

I glanced towards my ship. It looked like a cobbled together piece of junk. My tinkertech drive should get it into orbit. I couldn't rely on there being a Mass Relay, but if I could get it to orbit at least, I could pull it into shardspace and probably try skipping along underneath reality that way. It wasn't even really a dimension, more a thin bubble dividing dimensions. It was normally used for communication, but I could…shift the ship's mass, folding it in along with myself, so that I could bypass causality in either dimension and move faster than light.

Probably. The theory was good. We'd never actually tried it, since it would play absolute hell with local physics. This world would likely not survive it.

"Fuck this world anyway, it's creepy and dead. I don't even care if I permanently mess up physics in this Instance!"

"Well that's incredibly irresponsible of my supposedly 'Most Mature and Responsible' baby sister."

Every muscle in my body froze. I didn't even breathe thanks to Perpetuity.

"Cat got your tongue, sis?"

So slowly, I could actually hear my muscles creak, I turned my head. Erica was standing behind me, no more than five feet away.

Without moving from my rooted position, I reached out.

…[Erica]? [Beacon]?

Hey [Jane]. You're a hard girl to find. Did you lose weight? She replied, smiling.

I cried out, leaping across the distance between us, my arms closing around my older sister's chest, my head buried in the crook of her neck, sobbing as I squeezed her as tight as I could and wrapped my legs around her waist.

"Oof!" Erica stumbled back, but didn't fall. She patted my side as best she could, her arms trapped by my embrace. "Missed you too, Janie. Looks like we found you just in time. I'm glad QA realized her search parameters were set wrong. We would have totally blown right past you."

"It's - so - quiet - here!" I blubbered.

"I know. I know." She finally succeeded in getting me untangled from around her and was able to pull me into a proper hug. "Shh, it's okay, sis. Here, open yourself up, I brought three extra shards with me, in addition to Beacon, so it'll be a mini Network until I can get Mom's attention. She and QA had to pull together to take care of a bit of an issue in a nearby Instance. Apparently the Reaper wasn't even remotely dead in that one and it took umbrage to us poking around for a few minutes."

"What?" I asked, pulling back and wiping at my eyes, trying not to sniffle. There was something she said that was important, but I had completely missed it. There was a Network! There was noise again! There were minds brushing against my own and whispering welcome, and comfort, and apologies, and asking how I had held up and…I never wanted to leave the Network again. How had I lasted this long?! I hadn't even realized how much everything ached until the hole was filled again! There was a part of me that had been torn in half, but I was whole now.

"I'm pretty sure they're taking out their frustrations on the thing. I wanted to help, but I'm not exactly combat oriented and that's almost all Mom can do at the moment, beyond search of course. So I jumped ahead." Erica smiled warmly at me. "Good thing too. You never would have gotten off the ground in that thing!"

I shook my head, trying and failing to grin back at her and shrug. I probably missed nonchalant by a mile. "It would have worked. Probably." Then the rest of what she said caught up to me and my eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. "MOTHER is here?"

"Yup. They lopped off a hefty chunk of themselves, grabbed the core, and promptly flew over here to rescue you, sis. Don't we just have the best parents?"

I could only gape.

"And before you ask, Vicky is the central Hub while Mom is here. Goddess forbid something like this happens in the future though, I can find you on my own now. I figured out how Mom does it. It's still a bitch and a half though. Don't get lost again, Janie. This is hard."

"I…I…Mom is here?"

"Of course I am," Mother said, stepping through a shimmer in space, Mom right beside her. I started crying again as I ran to both of them, QA and Taylor both wrapping me in their arms. It didn't matter that they were - for all intents and purposes - the same person. They still separated enough of their minds most of the time, enough that they were different to me when it counted.

"It's okay, baby, it's okay, we're here." Mother ran her hand through my black hair as I buried my head in her chest, sobbing.

Mom rolled her eyes and smirked, running her knuckles along my spine. "For a tiny shard, you are quite a troublesome little one. Not that we'd have it any other way."

"All of the kids gave us trouble at one point or another."

"All of your kids, Taylor."

"Mom," I whined.

"Hey, my kids never tried to blow up a planet, which we can't say about yours," Mother countered.

Erica snorted. "Mom, Anne exists."

Both of my parents laughed. "Okay, Erica, point to you. Alright everyone, let's get back home so we can…Does that rock have a face?"

"Its name is Wilson," I murmured. I pulled back and looked up at Mother with big, wide eyes.

She did not disappoint. "I never should have let you watch Castaway."

Mom chuckled. "You humans and your anthropomorphizing of everything. Hell, look at me! I used to be a giant space crystal and you managed to turn into a -" she shuddered for dramatic effect, "part human abomination!" I sniffled, wiping my eyes and trying not say anything to spoil the moment. Then Mom looked at my ship and snorted. "Hey, Jane, you weren't actually planning to try to fly that thing back to Earth were you? What a piece of junk!"

"She'll make point five past lightspeed. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, mom!"

"You made a lot of…'special' modifications, eh?"

Erica pointed at the engine, rolling her eyes. "You people and your old pop culture. Look at that engine! That monstrosity is liable to blow a crater a mile wide just getting to orbit!"

I groaned, looking over at her. "Who cares! There's nothing here! It's a completely dead world. I was lucky to find scraps of anything in the ruins. There's nothing organic left at all on this planet. I would've starved if I hadn't swapped in Perpetuity. I swear, I've been starting to think the creepy ass moon is made of fucking meat. That's how weird this whole planet is! I'm happy I made a ship that didn't fall apart when I turned it on. That's a success. Now can we leave and go home? And then someone can explain how you managed to leave Sol. And leave Aunt Vicky in charge?!"

Mother had her head tilted back, staring at the moon, Mom had stopped laughing at my rocket and joined her in her contemplation of the celestial body.

"Uh, guys, hello?"

"Erica? Have you pinged the moon?" Mother asked.

My sister frowned and glanced up. "No. Should I?"

"Don't," Mom stated. "Fuck, it's this Instance again! It wasn't just Sol. This whole universe is haunted. What the hell are those things and how have we never encountered them before?"

Mother shook her head. "One problem at a time, QA. We'll deal with moons made entirely of dead bodies after we deal with sentient starships that eat their crew and work with rogue Space Whales. This Instance is hereby closed off until further notice. No one in or out. This Instance is officially cursed."

"Wait, what?" Erica and I asked in unison. "Made of what?!"

"Jane if you ever randomly jump again and you look up and see a moon that looks meaty? Jump somewhere else. A planet made of lava is nicer than this Instance. Anything you need to grab before we go? Is Wilson coming?"

"God no, I'd never live it down." I couldn't take my eyes off the moon. In a way, it was nice to know I hadn't been going insane. It was also terrifying. A shiver ran through me that had nothing to do with the temperature. "Please let's leave before the moon tries to fucking eat me."

"No argument here," Erica muttered. "I thought you were exaggerating when you said this Instance was haunted. I withdraw my complaints about you eating the sun back home."

"Told you, honey. QA, follow my wake, Jane, hang on. We're going home."

"Home."

I clung to Mother as she ran her hand through my curls. The world dropped away around us as we slipped sideways. Unlike before I wasn't scared.

This time, I had my parents with me.