Mass Core 2: Crimson Horizon

Far away from the battle of the Citadel, an obscure and distant mass relay hummed to life. Algorithms engaged to connect its hyperspace channels to another set of relays in a distant galaxy, and a luminescent orange and blue ship appeared.

Inside, Starlight looked out at the world through the scanning equipment implanted in her body. This was the system where it had begun. It was calm and silent. There were no inhabited worlds, and the only sign of intelligent life at all was the debris of a turian listening post and a few crystal probes dropped on the various resource-poor planets that orbited the nameless central star.

Starlight’s crystal computer shifted in its housing, adjusting to its new location and reestablishing communication.

“Are you there?” asked Sunburst, his voice transmitting halfway across the universe but still coming in clearly.

“Yeah,” said Starlight. “I’m home. Earth is just one teleportation jump away.”

“Are you absolutely sure this is something you want to do? You can still turn back.”

“No, I can’t. I’m not going to reconsider.”

Sunburst sighed. “I suppose I didn’t expect anything less of you. Just please be careful. Regardless of what decision you end up making, I want to see you again. Even if it is only one more time.”

“Don’t worry. You will.” Of course, Starlight knew that she was lying. There was no guarantee of that.

“I have to go,” said Sunburst. “The Defense Fleet is being mobilized.”

“And I know how much you enjoy being mobilized.”

“I love you, Starlight.”

Starlight paused. It felt strange to hear anyone say that to her, and it was unexpected. Hearing it made her momentarily wish that she really had chosen to stay on the Imperium. “I love you too, Sunburst.”

The communication clicked out, and Starlight removed the crystal’s capacity for long-range communication. She instead integrated it into her own computational matrix to augment her internal guidance system.

“You look like you’re about to cry,” said Jack.

“I’m not. I don’t have tear ducts anymore.”

“What you’re thinking right now? You’re right.”

“Right? What are you talking about?”

“That you should have stayed. I’m not going to tell you what to do, Star, but I would have given anything for the chance you have right now. I didn’t have a choice, and the Reapers took everything.”

“I’m not going to lose.”

“Bullshit. You saw it. The life that neither of us got to live. You can’t tell me you don’t want that.”

“I do,” said Starlight. “Is that what you want me to say? I’m not going to lie to you, Jack. But you’re wrong. I never had that chance. Equestria took it from me. There never really was a choice.”

The conversation ended there as Starlight detected an incoming transmission. “Oh no,” she said.

“What?”

“The Citadel. It’s under attack.”

“Under attack- -what the hell would be dumb enough to attack the Citadel?”

“Who do you think?”

“But you said the device was on Earth- -”

“It is,” said Starlight, her eyes narrowing. “It’s a distraction.”

“A distraction? By attacking the Citadel? Star, you may not have noticed, but that place is a fortress- -it would take an all-out war to take it.”

“She doesn’t want to take it. The signal says ‘Reapers’. Her Reapers. Every ship in the galaxy is going to swarm to the Citadel.”

“Including the blockade around the Alliance.”

“Exactly. She’s cut her obstacles in half.”

“Or she could be pulling the asari fleet away from Thessia.”

“She isn’t. It’s earth. I’m sure of it.”

“How? How could you know that, Star?”

“I just do.” Starlight did not want to explain that a substantial source of her knowing was in fact from a dream- -in part because the idea that she had actually received a communication from Sunset Shimmer was too absurd to entertain.

“Okay. We’ll go with that. But should we do something about the Citadel?”

“No. I can’t be in two places at once. They’ll have to handle it themselves.”

“Starlight,” called a voice from somewhere else in the ship. It was Lyra. “I’m having some trouble with my equipment. Can you help me with this.”

“By ‘equipment’, does that mean your, you know, your ‘equipment’?”

“Just get down here.”

“Hold on,” said Starlight, both to her and to Jack. She shifted herself through the ship, reconstructing it around her as she moved relative to the projected hull without sacrificing her connection to the projected ship. Hallways and rooms reconfigured as she passed through until she reached the area where Lyra was standing over the container that held her various weapons.

“What’s the problem?” asked Starlight. “Because we’re running out of time.”

“It won’t take long. I was checking my weapons, and I found an inconsistency. Can you check the manifest?” She lifted a paper note with her magic.

Starlight frowned. “Seriously? You brought me down here for this? Do you have any idea the calculations I need to do to move- -”

“Trust me. I really need your help on this.”

“Fine,” said Starlight, taking the manifest. She looked at it, and quickly realized that it was not actually a list at all. Instead, it was a note.

“Next to the case, left side,” it read, “photonic dispersion invisibility spell. There’s something there.”

“I don’t know how you get your handwriting so neat, Lyra,” said Starlight. She did not look to where Lyra had suggested, at least not with her eyes. Her eyes remained on the note, pretending to read, while she directed her scanning systems at the corner of the room that the note mentioned. As Lyra had stated, there was indeed something there. To the naked eye, it would have been almost entirely invisible- -but Starlight was very clearly detecting something organic.

She immediately changed the parameters of the room. The tech projection that made up the wall of the room suddenly shifted, opening and folding outward around the mass, forming a cage. Starlight then immediately began to crush whatever it was.

“Ow! No! Too tight! TOO TIGHT!”

Starlight stopped squeezing. She recognized the voice. “Flurry Heart?”

The slight visual distortion in the tech cage shifted, and Flurry Heart materialized. She was wearing thick golden armor that seemed almost more ceremonial than practical, and she did not look happy.

“How dare you attack me!” she cried. “I could have you executed for this insult!”

“How dare you sneak onto my damn ship! How did you even get here?!”

“She must have hidden with my equipment,” said Lyra. “It’s the only thing here that’s actually solid.”

“And might I add that it REEKS in there.”

“Well, yeah. That’s the cosmoline.”

“Why are you here, Flurry Heart?” Starlight was not happy. The filly’s presence was just another headache added to an already tense situation.

“Because of YOU!” cried Flurry Heart, poking one of her hooves angrily through the tech-based bars of her extremely tight cage.

“Me? What the hell did I do?”

“You had sex with my husband!”

Lyra, who had not been terribly engaged in the conversation, suddenly was. “What?” she said.

“He’s not your husband! You’re eight- -”

“Yes he IS! I’m not a stupid kid! I’m going to marry him some day, and we’re going to have lots of pony babies, because that’s my royal duty! And by defiling my betrothed you have declared war on the entire Crystal Empire! I will- -eep!” She squeaked as Starlight opened the cage, causing her to tumble out onto the floor. The tech returned to the wall, and Flurry Heart stood up, shaking her oversized and now highly disheveled wings. “Not only that, but you cost me my military career! This insult will not go unchallenged! I demand a duel to the DEATH!”

“I’m not going to fight you. You’re a kid.”

“Further insult! A coward in addition to a lecher!”

“He didn’t even put it inside me!” cried Starlight way too loudly.

Flurry Heart suddenly looked very confused. “Inside you? What in Mother’s name are you talking about?”

“Wait,” said Lyra. “Kid, do you even know what sex is?”

“Well, no, I don’t know the specifics, exactly, but I know that only I can have it with Sunburst! In a minimum of ten years! Not you! He’s mine!”

“He doesn’t belong to anypony! And- -and I’m arguing with an eight year old. Lyra, deal with this. I’m going back to have another depressing philosophical discussion with Jack.”

“Wait, what? Oh no, you’re not leaving me to deal with this!”

“Why? You’re married, you know how to deal with kids.”

“I have an adult stepdaughter! I’m pretty sure you’ve met her! I don’t know how to deal with kids. Well…” she reached into the case in front of her and removed a large shotgun. Flurry Heart’s eyes widened immensely. “I guess I know one way…”

“You wouldn’t dare! I’m an adorable princess!”

“You’re also the daughter of a mare who was my sworn enemy for close to eighty years. So…”

“Well what am I supposed to do? I can’t teleport her that far without risking sending her to the wrong galaxy, and I’m not going back.”

“Then take her with us.”

“Are you insane? I’m not taking a child with us!”

“I’m not a child! I’m an alicorn! We age faster- -”

“Really? So you want to come with us to Earth, then? The most lethal planet in the Milk-Path galaxy, populated entirely by perverts and murderers? You’ve seen Jack, right? It’s pretty much a planet of her!”

“It’s not that bad,” said Lyra. “I’m sure Earth is like any other world. I mean, it’s the center of the galaxy’s most powerful empire. I’m kind of expecting it to be pretty great.”

“We’re not going sightseeing. We’re going into a battle. I’m not comfortable taking a child with me.”

“I’m not an ordinary child. Do you really think I’m anything like those immature little steeds, running around and playing pretend with each other? I’m an alicorn! A living god! I’ve conquered entire worlds! In simulation, of course, but they were VERY realistic simulations!”

“Starlight Glimmer,” said Armchair, his voice transmitting from a different part of the ship. “The outer rachni colonies…we can hear their song. She is here. There is not much time.”

“I don’t- -” Starlight released an exasperated groan. “You know what? Fine. Welcome to the crew, Flurry. You didn’t listen to any of Sunburst’s warnings, and now you’re about to learn why.”

“Excellent. I will require a center of command- -”

“Um, no. My ship. My command. You are lowest rank.”

“Lowest rank! I don’t- -”

“Not listening,” said Starlight, moving upward through the ceiling of the room, dragged by the implants on her back.

“You come back here! I demand to have an audience!”

“Excellent,” said Lyra, picking up the filly.

“Unhand me, peasant!”

“Nope. You wanted to help, you’re going to.”

“How?”

“Darien doesn’t take flying well. He needs something to hug. You seem adequately soft.”

“I am pretty soft,” admitted Flurry Heart.

“And heavy,” said Lyra. “Good. That will help prevent death by crushing.”

“What?”

“You’ll see. Come on.”

The teleportation went perfectly, and Starlight emerged into Alliance space on the outskirts of the Sol system. The space did not feel distinctly different from any space that she had previously occupied, but the significance was clear to her. She had never been to Sol, but she had heard stories about the Alliance. None of them portrayed it in a good light.

In accordance with her mission, she had altered the construction of her ship. It now consisted of a single large room.

“We’re here,” she said.

Beri looked up out the semi-transparent biotic plates that made up the floor and walls. “Alliance space…we’re not going to make it out of this, are we?”

“They can’t see us,” said Starlight. “They don’t even know we’re here. You’re overreacting.”

“Are we cloaked?” asked Lyra.

“No. Of course not. We don’t need to be. Their sensors are optimized to detect traditional mass cores, or high-mass ships. I don’t have either of those.”

“But what if they just look out a window?” asked Armchair.

“Do the math. Right now, this ship is less than fifteen meters long. Have you ever tried to see a thirty-foot object at two thousand kilometers? We’re like a speck of sand. Smaller, even. Human eyes just aren’t good enough to see us.”

“I still don’t like it,” said Jack. “This isn’t a good place.”

The room fell silent as they crossed the star system. It was not exceedingly complex, but Starlight was able to perceive its various structures and contents. The level of development was actually quite impressive. Nearly every planet was mined to depletion, and the upper atmospheres of the gas giants were dotted with satellites and innumerable megastructures. Several moons had also been heavily colonized, especially around the largest of the planets.

Then there were the ships. Avoiding them was simple in theory, but the sheer number made it almost impossible. Everywhere Starlight looked, the sky was filled with warships. Their size was highly variable, but some of them were truly massive battleships. They were massive, geometric, and almost always painted blue, and they gave of a haze of energy on Starlight’s scanners as they moved. She attributed this to the presence of multiple cascade-linked mass cores, a technology that even the salarians had barely managed to get past the experimental stage of development.

Starlight began to approach the most populous and developed planet in the system- -but then stopped. She reviewed her scanners and counted, and realized something was wrong.

“Jack,” she said. “Which planet is Earth? By number?”

“How should I know? I’ve only ever been to it once. I think my legs are probably still there.”

“Three,” said Darien, who had Flurry Heart in a deathgrip. “Earth is the third planet.”

“Oh,” said Starlight, pulling back from the fourth. She turned her attention to the third. “No way,” she said. “It can’t be.”

“It is,” confirmed Armchair.

The planet was not at all what Starlight had expected. Put simply, it was dead. There were signals coming from the surface, but virtually no ships in the vicinity. As Starlight got closer, she began to detect impacts on her projected hull. The planet was surrounded by a nearly impenetrable debris field- -and in orbit, Starlight saw an artificial spheroid structure.

“Damn,” said Jack. “They’ve still got the crucible here.”

“I don’t like this,” said Zedok, looking out through the window as the pieces of several ships drifted past. “Look at the color of it…”

“I can’t see,” said Starlight. “What color is it?”

“Gray and brown,” said Zedok. “This isn’t what a planet should look like.”

“It’s ugly,” squeaked Flurry Heart, managing to pull herself away from Darien slightly. “I don’t know why anypony would want to come here.”

“Well, you’re about to find out,” said Starlight. She engaged another teleport.

This time, the ship did not move. It dissipated as everybody aboard appeared on the planet below. The landing was somewhat rocky, but Starlight still materialized standing, her hooves digging into the rocky ground below.

The first thing she became aware of was just how cold it was. She had brought them relatively close to the equator, but the planet’s strong wind was still biting. Above her, the sky was dark and cloudy with a sickly haze. There was little light, and the air stank badly.

Starlight surveyed the landscape around her. Even without color vision, she could already tell that this planet had not even the slightest amount of green. All around her was a decaying city. The buildings were collapsing and broken, their façades crumbled and stained by toxic rain. The only thing that looked even partially maintained were the factories. The ruins of the city had been knocked down in places and replaced with enormous structures. Industry stood in what had once been a potentially beautiful residential city, belching smoke into the sky. The sound of the machines was almost as loud as the reeking wind as it twined through the long-dead trees that still clung to the cracked road.

“This explains a lot,” said Starlight.

“Star,” said Jack, looking out at the landscape. “You didn’t. Please, PLEASE tell me you didn’t…”

“Teleport us onto Earth? Of course. We’re safe here.”

“How is this possibly safer?!”

“We can’t get shot down here. And look.” Starlight gestured out at the land. “There isn’t anybody here.”

“I can’t blame them,” said Flurry Heart, pulling herself free from Darien’s grip. “This place is a dump.”

Jack looked at the smaller pony, and then at Starlight. “She shouldn’t be here.”

“I would leave her on the ship if I could, but that’s not going to work, is it?” said Starlight.

“Please. The most hazardous thing here is probably the scabies.”

“Scabies?” said Darien. “What are scabies? I don’t want whatever that is being. I don’t like this place. I want to go back on the ship.”

“Don’t worry,” said Zedok, patting his arm. “We’ll be fine. It’s just, you know, Earth.”

“Eh,” said Lyra. “I’ve seen worse.”

“That isn’t a Tuchanka joke, is it?”

They started walking. Starlight was not sure what she was looking for, if she was even looking for anything. There was no way that she would be able to find some ancient artifact in this place. She only knew that Sunset Shimmer would be coming here. More or less, she was not so much searching for Starswirl’s device as she was waiting for her opponent to arrive. Ironically, the best place to hide from the Alliance was on the surface of Earth.

As they walked, more of the city became visible to Starlight, and her mind began to piece together what must have happened. It was not simply abandoned. There were too many signs of battle: craters from artillery shells, hulks of broken war machines, and decaying barriers where soldiers had once held the line against a long-departed foe.

At one point, Starlight was even able to look out and see half of an enormous battleship, its front end crushed and broken where it impacted the city, leaving a long path of destruction as it had crashed.

“You were here,” she said at last, to Jack. “When this all happened.”

“Yeah,” said Jack. “I don’t know what Earth looked like before, but Shepard would sometimes tell me stories. It used to be pretty. But then the War came. The whole planet was a battlefield. It never recovered.”

“There’s nobody here,” said Lyra, looking around. “Luna damn it, it’s just so…quiet.”

“That’s a good thing,” said Beri, gripping an assault rifle tightly. “I’d rather not have to deal with humans right now.”

“You don’t get it,” said Lyra. “It’s not just humans. Nothing’s moving. Nothing’s alive. A planet shouldn’t look like this. Not ever. Something is wrong.”

As if to punctuate her statement, a slow warbling howl echoed out through the city.

“What was that?” said Flurry Heart, instinctively clinging close to Starlight. “Wolves?”

“No,” said Jack. “Varren.”

“Ah!” said Armchair. “Then this confirms that the ecosystem is at least marginally stable! Varren are largely carnivorous, and their presence indicates that they must be eating something!”

“That’s not good,” said Starlight, watching as the doglike amphibians slowly circled through the wreckage of the city, their fish-like eyes glaring at the group from a distance.

Then, suddenly, there was a sharp yelp of pain. All the varren all stopped. Their panting and warbling communication ceased immediately, and they fell silent. Each pointed its nose to the air, and all at once they started sprinting. Several appeared out of the buildings, dashing down the street with absolutely no regard for the aliens walking down it.

Flurry Heart cried out in surprise, but the varren showed no sign of attacking. Instead, they were fleeing, and doing so quite rapidly.

“Doggies,” said Darien, grabbing one and picking it up.

“They’re not dogs,” said Zedok. “And put that down! You don’t know where it’s been!”

Darien set the dog down, and Starlight turned her attention to where they had been running from. She did not see anything, or even hear anything. As far as she could tell, there was nothing there.

“We should follow them,” said Jack.

“No,” said Beri. “I don’t know it what universe that would be a good idea. To go where the highly predatory fish things are going? It is unwise. Deeply unwise.”

“It seems fine to me,” said Starlight. “They must have been spooked. Maybe something in the factories. Or maybe they just smelled an easier meal that way.”

The others seemed to realize that she was lying, but rather than accept the unpleasant truth they believed her. They continued on down the path, but only made it less than a hundred feet before Zedok became distracted by a dark and partially collapsed alleyway.

“Hey,” she said, stopping and staring down the alley. “Do you hear that?”

Starlight paused, and she did- -maybe. For a moment, she thought she heard something moving.

“Probably a rat,” said Jack. “Let’s keep moving.”

“That’s not a rat,” said Zedok, stepping into the edge of the alley. “I think I see something…”

She lifted her shotgun, activating the light on the end and immediately illuminating the “something” that her cybernetic eyes had seen. It was most definitely not a rat.

Instead, it was a pallid, thin creature with nearly gray skin and long greasy hair. Starlight quickly realized that it was human- -or almost so. The proportions were not quite right, and in the position it was sitting in- -facing away from them- -it was difficult to see properly.

“It’s a kid,” said Zedok, lowering her shotgun.

“Zed, DON’T go in there,” warned Jack.

“Why?” she said, approaching and using her light to illuminate the naked child. It appeared to be naked, and also extremely dirty. “We can’t just leave it here, not like this.”

The human suddenly stopped what he was doing, becoming aware of Zedok’s approach.

“Hey,” she said. “It’s okay. I’m not going to- -”

Her sentence stopped as it turned its head, and its two oversized blue eyes narrowed in her light to vertical slits. It became apparent what it had been doing: gnawing on the raw flesh of a severed varren head.

It only hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then it was moving. With a wild scream, it rushed toward Zedok. She did not have time to raise its gun, and it leapt onto her, sinking its sharp teeth into her neck.

“Oh FUCK!” she cried. “Get it off! GET IT OFF!”

Starlight took a step forward, only to be nearly knocked back as another pale figure leapt out of the shadows onto Beri, knocking her gun out of its way and pulling her pistol from her belt, disarming her. Starlight turned to see the street suddenly filled with the pale, blue-eyed creatures, all seeming to emerge from nowhere and all shrieking wildly as they charged the group.

“Goddamn it it’s an ambush!” cried Jack, slamming a biotic punch into the nearest of them. Its arm was instantly broken by the blow, but it hardly seemed to notice as it tried to claw its way toward her throat.

Several leapt on Starlight as well, apparently perceiving her as an easy target because of her height. She teleported the first one to somewhere else, and then struck out at the others with biotic energy. Two of them were struck, but a third dodged. They were amazingly fast and agile, and from the glimmer in their vertical-pupiled eyes, Starlight could tell that these were not simply animals. They were intelligent- -and they were quite clearly enjoying themselves.

Behind her, Beri fired several shots. With the humans clinging to her and her gun, they mostly went of randomly. One struck a human clear in the chest, a blow that should have killed it. Instead, it looked mildly confused, and then went back to trying to pull Flurry Heart away from Starlight.

“No!” cried Flurry Heart, striking at it with her own magic. She was not able to do any real damage, but did throw it back considerably. “I’m not cleared for groundfighting!”

“Duck!” said Starlight. Flurry Heart did, and Starlight projected a beam that cut several of the attackers in half. As their torsos fell, their comrades suddenly became distracted. Instead of attacking, they started grabbing at the screaming, struggling wounded and began tearing them apart, disemboweling and consuming them.

“Jack! I need a shockwave!”

“I’m on it!” Jack closed her arms around herself, and then with a scream forced a single biotic surge outward. The ground erupted with a minor earthquake, and several of the attacking humans were sent flying. As they did, though, more leapt down from the abandoned buildings above, grabbing Jack from behind.

“FUCK!” she cried. “It’s Pragia all over again!” She drew her old Spectre pistol and shot one of them in the head. It died promptly, giving her a chance to spin around and put a singularity into one of their chests. “Aim for the head! They won’t go down unless you hit them in the head!”

“Easy for you to say!” cried Beri, who was nearly being taken down by several clinging to her person. She struck out at them, but they reacted quickly, releasing her as she swung and dodging, only to reattach as they tried to disable her cybernetics.

Starlight targeted several of them and fired. Her bolt split, directing itself toward their heads and striking them. Some, though, actually managed to dodge. “Help Zedok!” she cried.

“I’m trying!” said Darien, who had mostly pulled the first of them away from Zedok’s neck. She was already covered in a large amount of violet fluid pouring from the wound, and Starlight could tell that the injury was severe.

“Hold on, I’m going to- -”

One of the creatures leapt toward Starlight suddenly. She projected a shield, but it suddenly jerked and stopped, as if it had been hit from behind. It looked down at its chest, confused, and then detonated in a cloud of red fluid and torn flesh.

This seemed to get the attention of the others- -and another three exploded. The others immediately stopped what they were doing and started scurrying on all fours into the shadows, leaping into maze-like alleyways or diving into open holes in the sewer system. Some managed to drag remnants of their dead associates with them, clearly with the intent of eating them.

“Who did that?” said Starlight, looking to Beri.

“I think it was him,” said Armchair, pointing.

Starlight looked down the street and saw a figure approaching slowly. It was bipedal, but it became immediately apparent that it was not human. As it came closer, Starlight saw that it was at least eight feet tall and far thinner than any human should be. At first she thought that it was wearing some kind of armor, but on closer inspection she saw that it simply did not have skin. Instead, its body was made of a pale and hard beige-colored substance. Its face- -or what it had for a face- -resembled a modeled version of a human skull, and an insignia of a gold shield had been painted on its chest.

In its right hand, the creature- -whatever it was- -was holding an enormous pistol, which it was in the process of reloading.

“Thank you,” called Starlight. “If you hadn’t shown up- -”

“Aliens,” it said, its mechanical voice booming out through the street. “You stand accused of trespass the sovereign soil of Earth. Verdict: guilty. Administering conviction.”

It leveled its gun, and Starlight barely managed to tackle Flurry Heart out of the way in time to dodge the bullet. It instead struck Beri behind her, erupting in a plume of orange sparks.

“No! My body, I- -” Beri promptly collapsed, and Starlight looked up to see the attacker moving. She had thought the naked, blue-eyed humans had moved quickly, but now she saw why they had been so afraid of this creature. Its sprinted across the gap between them with an almost impossible pace for its size, its narrow legs pumping to carry it over the broken ground.

“Goddamn it’s a synth!” cried Jack. “Shoot it! SHOOT IT!” She raised her hands and fired an entire sequence of biotic bolts. The synth was fast and agile enough to dodge several, and then to summon an complete suit of tech-armor as the final bolt struck it harmlessly.

“Don’t shoot!” said Darien, holding his hands up. “We surrender!”

“Like hell we surrender!” said Jack. She produced a shockwave again. The synth dodged, jumping an impossible height and clinging onto a nearby building. Once the shockwave dissipated, it leapt across the gap and over Starlight, attempting to flank them.

Starlight turned sharply, just as Armchair leapt onto the synth, grabbing it by the neck.

“Hold on,” said Starlight. “I’m going to overload it!”

“Starlight, don’t!” cried Jack. “If you do- -”

Starlight charged the numerous internal omnitool components that were implanted through her body and fired an overload beam at the synth’s chest. It connected, and she was momentarily connected to its internal systems. She began the process of feeding energy into them and overwhelming its processors- -when something suddenly went wrong.

This was an attack she had performed hundreds of times before, sometimes to entire starships, but she instantly realized that she had badly miscalculated. She had not fully understood what a synth was. With the overload, she had been expecting something similar to a VI. Instead, she found herself staring into a writhing mass of code that was exponentially more advanced. It went beyond AI; it was an actual sentient mind.

The mind reacted to her presence, quickly diverting critical subroutines out of her reach and squirming its way into her code. It was too fast- -and more than that, it was creative. Within a fraction of a millisecond it had hijacked Starlight’s code. She attempted to produce a firewall, but it was already too late. Her overload was reversed, feeding back into her implants.

She screamed as every system in her body suddenly faltered. Most of her artificial systems failed, including her eyes, and she collapsed. Her mind began to fade out of consciousness, and in the distance she heard more biotic blasts and the thud of weapons, followed by a scream of rage and defeat from Jack. Then Starlight’s mind shut down.