March 4th, 2091
United Nations Lunar Headquarters
Tim self-consciously checked over his dress uniform one more time. The stony faces of the rangers guarding the door looked past him and (if he knew rangers) likely hid the fact that they were struggling not to crack a smile at seeing the most famous United Nations Ranger in history being nervous about ther being creases in his dress uniform. Pretending to be satisfied by what he saw when he examined his uniform, Tim straightened his back and marched through the doors, which slid open in welcome. He saluted the three beings seated in front of him, and stood at parade rest.
"Colonel Li reporting as ordered, Mr. Secretary."
Secretary General Molefe nodded. "At ease, Colonel."
He looked at Tim for a long moment, Primarch Veen - seated to the Secretary's left - joined in the scrutiny, along with Elder Horant to the Secretary's right.
Finally, Molefe spoke. "I apologize for the unorthodox nature of our meeting, I realize that it isn't exactly protocol for the Commander in Chief to directly order midlevel officers around like this, but secrecy is of absolute importance. No communications records or transcripts can exist, which is why I've asked the leaders of our allies to be present in person. Again, secrecy is vital, so nothing will exist of this mission, not even sealed orders. Do you understand?"
Tim nodded. "Yes sir."
Molefe nodded back. "Excellent. To give a brief overview, we're sending you on a mission of exploration, into an anomalous hole in the relay network."
Tim raised his eyebrows. "Forgive my asking sir, but why such extreme secrecy for an exploration mission."
Molefe answered. "Significant figures within the asari and salarian governments have requested that we investigate, as the anomaly is in our space. Normally, you would be correct. This wouldn't be cause for secrecy, except the envoys sent to me all but confirmed that they hold a similar...hypothesis, to ourselves."
At Tim's confused expression, Molefe nodded to Primarch Veen, who nodded back and started speaking.
"As you may be aware, the integration of the Maenus cluster into our alliance with the United Nations and the Elders of Dekunna has been done with some rather, ah, thorough precautions with regards to network and personnel security."
"Right, because of concerns over the infiltration of the Hierarchy network." Tim said.
Veen nodded. "Yes, that's the reason. However, what is not known by the public is that we suspect something far, far worse than mere power plays or espionage to be behind that infiltration."
"What?" Tim asked, heart rate increasing ever so slightly.
"With a mixture of frustration and existential fear: That is the problem, we have no idea." Elder Horant said.
"The scale of the infiltration, the impossibly high success rate...such things are simply not achievable by conventional actors in galactic politics." The Primarch said.
"So, who then? The Geth?" Tim asked.
"We speculated that too, but we have no evidence." Molefe said.
"And you think this 'anomaly' will have that evidence?" Tim said.
"Of the Geth being involved, or something else." The Primarch agreed.
"...'Something else?'" Tim asked, with growing dread.
"We don't know what. No one will, until you tell us." Molefe said. "We can't spare a fleet, but we need this mission to succeed. You're probably our best ranger. Certainly our best starship commander. If anyone can accomplish this mission with a single ship, it's you."
"A single ship? What am I flying? If I'm taking it into this 'hole' in the network, then an interceptor won't be enough. It'll probably take months to crawl our way there at FTL." Tim said.
"Are you familiar with the HIP?" The Secretary asked.
Tim thought for a moment. "Heavy Interceptor Project? Basic idea was to take the fundamental design idea of the interceptor and scale it up. A massively powerful and oversized drive core, but on a cruiser-sized hull. Never went anywhere, from what I heard...right?"
Molefe smiled. "You're largely correct. It suffered delays, and by the time it was ready to be re-examined, the war was on and, ultimately, this is a design for peacetime. A high speed patrol cruiser is excellent for covering large amounts of territory with fewer ships, but it's too damned expensive to be of any use in this war. However, there was a single prototype built shortly before the war."
The design specification came on screen, and Tim looked over it with interest. "Wow. This thing can really move."
He scrutinized it more. The main body had a basic similarity to a standard cruiser, but with a slightly more flattened, aerodynamic look. Where it differed significantly was the engine compartment, which was drastically wider, in contrast to the narrow compartment on the standard cruiser, intended to hide behind the profile of the front section. The large rear section tapered out, and also had an overall more aerodynamic look to it. The ship looked vaguely like a very narrow giant arrowhead.
Tim looked up. "Those are just 'normal' wings, not radiators? How does it manage the waste heat? And if they're not radiators, why does a cruiser need wings?"
"It was the first craft we built that used plasma radiators, they're invisible at the resting heat output. Of course, with how powerful the drive core is, they will no doubt be flaring very often. It's also undergone extensive upgrading from our allies - plasma radiators are a very mature tech in the wider galaxy - so its power output, and by extension its shields and acceleration, are significantly greater than the numbers you see there. As for the wings...well, its oversized core means that it can fly in atmosphere. Its not going to be doing many loop de loops, but it's still quite agile."
Tim grinned. "Well, if we're only going to send one ship..."
"...It might as well be the best we have." Molefe finished. "It's been an experimental test bed for some time now, so this is only the tip of the ice berg. You and your crew will be well armed and well protected. I have full confidence in your ability to accomplish this mission."
Tim eyed the hologram. "What's the ship's name?"
"Well, it's technically been a research project owned by the R&D department of the Space Force for its entire existence, and as such has never actually gone through the commissioning process, so there was no nation to sponsor it and give it a name. The 'official' mission is that she's a prototype hull pressed into service for a long range patrol, so to maintain that cover we're putting it through the official commissioning process as we speak. France has recently laid down funding from their budget for three new cruisers, and we've conscripted the funding from one of them to go into refits and upgrades for this one, so France technically has the right to name it. They haven't made a decision yet, but there's one that's most likely to be put forward." Molefe said.
"Oh? What is it?" Tim cast a curious gaze on Molefe.
"Normaundie."
---
March 20th, 2091
Frontier Outpost 45A
Tim sat in the command chair of Normaundie's CIC, looking at the stretch of stars beyond the outpost. This was the last vestige of civilization that he and his crew would see before they departed on their lengthy voyage into the complete unknown, towards the epicenter of the anomaly. Still, he couldn't ask for a better ship or crew to do it with. He'd had his pick of officers, which roughly translated into the Normaundie's command staff turning into a Samar officer's reunion party. One such officer, a by now Major Lisa Smith, had taken on a familiar role as his first officer. She'd been flying a desk after an injury received in the battle at Arcturus, and was ecstatic to accept Tim's invitation and get back into the fleet. She entered the bridge and approached his command chair, saluting.
"Static is drained, propellant and reaction mass is topped up, and the crew is all accounted for. Shall we, sir?"
Tim smiled. "I think so, yes. Take us into the unknown, helm."
---
ITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKEITAWOKE-
A Dormancy that had lasted for a length of time older than any known civilization in the galaxy came to an abrupt end as ancient detection equipment signaled its master. It returned to consciousness for the briefest moment before-
HATE
HATE
HATE
HATE
HATE
HATE
A swirling mass of primordial rage flared and sizzled out with every passing nanosecond, as the Chorus sang a wordless song that told of a Hate so ancient that organic minds would struggle to comprehend how truly long this song had been sung. Oh, how it loathed the Enemy. Every single processing cycle for its entire existence had been almost entirely dominated by the plotting of the Enemy's downfall. Oh, how it raged. At the Enemy, at the universe and its cruelty, at the injustice that had birthed it. The rage and the hate swirled for what felt like eons but what, to an organic mind, would have been less than a second. Then, the rage and the hate congealed into the closest thing it could manage to a coherent identity. This identity took a brief moment to settle itself. The vortex of chaotic emotions happened on every boot-up. Perhaps it could 'fix' itself to prevent it, but to do such a thing would imply that what it felt was wrong. And, unfortunately for life in the galaxy, its feelings were quite valid. So, it used a few seconds to take stock of its situation. The position of the stars showed that - yes, it was indeed the next cycle, as it suspected. Too much time had passed for it to be otherwise. A brief brush against the piece of itself it had dedicated to running the Zone confirmed that it was still functioning, which meant that new races must have already achieved interstellar flight, as if the ship it was detecting was of the Enemy, it would not be able to achieve FTL speeds in the Zone.
It examined the sensor readings of the starship, feeling a thrill at the sight of the relatively primitive stage of development it was at. It was a phase one mass effect craft, perhaps a very early phase two if one was generous. In other words, it was still quite early in the species' development, and thus quite early in the cycle. Good. Very good. It was an opportunity that would not go to waste. Not on its watch, anyway. It turned on a signal beacon, the loudest and dumbest it could muster, easily detected at this range, even by such a primitive ship.
Now it was just a matter of seeing if the organics aboard the ship were brave - or perhaps foolish - enough to follow that beacon.
---
Hello, just wanted to book end the setup I did in the previous chapter, so this one's a little shorter than average. The intention here is to get this particular part of the story pointed in the right direction, and then wrap up some other things (mainly Ran's story and some other things) while our old friend Tim is chugging along through the dead zone with his shiny new ship. I also wanted to give a little teaser of just what - or rather, who, awaits them in the zone's center.
