Nexus Effect

Ch.10

“Oof...-you okay?” Marrow questioned in exhaustion as he pulled on his pants. I may have been a bit rough with him, but holy fuck did I need that~.

“Yes~!” I moaned from where I laid under the covers, rubbing my lower abdomen contentedly. He was quite voluminous, but he expressed he was purposely limiting his semen production so he didn’t risk hurting me. That said, the small paunch of my lower tummy caused by the condom of sealed semen was incredibly hot and fulfilling. It’ll be a weird experience pulling that thing out since it seals itself.

“Okay, because what I’m about to do might ruin the mood.” Marrow said before he put a bottle to his mouth. He began to salivate a glowing pink fluid into it and the lusty haze I was enjoying began to fade.

“Huh?” I blinked at the odd sight and sensation. Each gush of pink fluid from his lips made me feel more calm, more at ease. “What is that?”

“This is a cocktail of all the heady emotions floating around. I probably should’ve mentioned I’m a direct descendent of one of the Empire’s Goddesses. I have an ambient ‘Fuck Aura’, but it’s never been much of an issue since I’m hundreds of generations apart from her. It must’ve been amplified by Wrekrov’s charm of my ancestor’s wife and shared bearer of the Fertility Aspect.” Marrow admitted and I blinked before smirking at him.

“So that’s why you can get into practically anybody’s pants!” I stated with cheer at discovering Marrow’s secret. It isn’t just because he’s an absolute god in the sack, but because he has a literal aura that entices people beyond his cult of personality and personal reality distortion field.

“Hey, I use my own charms for that. I have about as much control over my aura as anything else I’ve got. At least, when I’m away from anything related to my ancestor or her wife.” Marrow then blinked and his cheeks turned greener. “Uh, I might have even been affecting everyone on the ship.”

“I highly doubt the others are about to intermingle. They’re too different from one another, both physically and personally.” I declared as I closed my eyes and rested my hands on my lower tummy. Gosh this feels awesome. “Just come back to bed and snuggle.”

“As nice as that sounds, I’m a bit too worried to relax now.” Marrow muttered uneasily as he scratched his abs. Mrr~ he may be lithe and athletic, but he has a nice four-pack of abs on that firm yet yielding green-blue chitinous stomach.

“That wasn’t a suggestion.” I quirked a brow at him and he sighed before climbing back under the covers and snuggling against me, which I returned. “Mm, so warm.” I kissed his throat and he purred before hugging me a bit more. Once settled, I activated Sleep Mode…

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“So my Goddess does exist! Hah! When I provide evidence, all those faithless fools will come crawling back to our matron of battle and breeding!” Wrekrov declared boisterously after Marrow announced his situation to the crew. He and I were both presentable and in our suits, Marrow having adopted a skin-tight hardsuit that apparently was modified to morph with his body.

“Yes. I can provide that proof after I return from Andromeda. Whenever that happens. Just know that Urta is both a firm yet loving Goddess. She is both kind yet cruel and is a perfect embodiment of the marriage of Fertility and War.

“I shall pray to her harder before every battle!” Wrekrov declared with his charm held up high.

“Well, this explains why I’ve been so pent-up since getting on board this ship.” Paretia muttered, likely only willing to share this since Marrow and I admitted to shagging.

“Hmph, I’m too old to consider relationships, but thanks for giving me back some of my youthful vigor.” Krarek idly commented, as if being blue-balled wasn’t a problem for him. Then again, he’s a however-old bachelor who lived a debaucherous life of piracy in the past, so maybe it isn’t. “We’re coming up on Omega. We’ll be dropping out of the FTL from Tassrah Relay in a few hours.”

“Great! I can check in with any Talon mercs there to let them know I’m still alive, but kicking around with another crew for the time being.” Paretia informed us as she left the bridge.

“I’m going to build and consecrate a shrine to Urta on the gunnery deck!” Wrekrov declared eagerly before he rushed out of the bridge.

“Uh...could you...not?” Marrow feebly protested before sighing in defeat. “Great. As if his charm alone wasn’t bad enough, now I might put out such a potent aura I might cause really unpleasant sexual tension.”

“Well, I am willing to help you with that.” I purred to my new boyfriend. Because hot damn, none of my old boyfriends have been able to rock my universe like he did last night and he was holding back! If he wasn’t already so cute, hnng~!

“It’s not me that will be having problems.” Marrow insisted with a gesture to Krarek who chuffed in amusement.

“Please. I find nothing attractive. At all. Why do you think my hauler hasn’t had any raunchy things happen in it? The most I feel is invigoration for non-sexual activities. I’m basically asexual.” Krarek declared, causing Marrow to gape at the Batarian like he just said something impossible.

“W-what? How is that possible?!” Marrow questioned and got in front of Krarek’s captain console. “You can’t tell me you’re not seeing someone that you find attractive!” Huh? Oh! He’s using the Asari mindfuck thingy again.

“All I see is a blue-skinned Batarian-like Asari. Not too pretty, not ugly, not too buxom or shapely either. I see a perfectly reasonable female able to do what she needs in life.” Krarek casually replied and Marrow looked like a fish with how gobsmacked he was. It was really silly.

“Marrow, asexuallity isn’t impossible, just very unlikely. Some people just don’t think like the vast majority of folks.” I rationalized to my new boyfriend, who clearly comes from a society where such a thing is pretty much unheard of.

“But he made lecherous jokes earlier!” Marrow pointed out desperately.

“They were socially acceptable crass comments given the context and the company kept. Just because I don’t think like that, doesn’t mean I don’t understand that other people do.” Krarek replied as he tapped away at the command console. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get this ship prepared to handle ambushes, remote hacking attempts, multiple inbound comm hails, the whole shebang. Omega isn’t a safe place.”

“Considering it’s basically the lawless and brutal counterpart to the Citadel, no shit.” I huffed and felt worried. I know how Omega was around the games, but this is...still no idea what year it is, but this is before Omega is ruled by a ruthless Asari crime queen who stomps on the throats of people who make too much noise.

“Can I expect there to be plenty of mechanical opponents who would see right past the Asari mental manipulation?” Marrow asked, clearly having decided to drop Krarek’s asexuallity.

“Ask Paretia. She’s from Omega apparently.” Krarek informed us and I shared a surprised look with Marrow. “Crooks gotta stick together, if you’re wondering why I know this before you do. I may be the manipulator, but Paretia is a leg-breaker. We know each other’s type easily enough.”

“Well then, I guess we’d better get briefed by the local. Call us back here in about 90 minutes so that Paretia can brief us on Omega before we leave FTL.” Marrow ordered our veteran scoundrel, who nodded in agreement as he continued to pluck away at the console.

Crotchety middle-aged dude. Just ask Alexa…

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“We are flying into a pirate den with the Queen of the Terminus system’s throne just close by. Also, that weird red relay that no one is able to get through. Omega Station itself is pretty safe if we pay fees, but the space around it, well lets just hope no one wants to test our guns.” Paretia summed up after nearly half an hour of laying down rules.

The rules themselves can be summed as such: No open assaults in populated areas. No cross-crew profiteering without agreement from all parties involved. Don’t fuck with Aria.

Simple, if you ignore the dozens of other unwritten rules. “So essentially don’t be alone without one of you three.” I commented while gesturing between myself and Marrow, who had physically taken the form of an Asari on top of the mindfuck thing. She insisted she is female currently and I was a bit confused on how to feel about that. She is pretty…

“You two would be snatched up by traffickers within moments. Go nowhere without Wrekrov at least.” Krarek urged as he watched the console. “Everyone to your stations. We’re coming out of FTL in 3 minutes and I don’t want to be caught with my pants down.”

“Right!” I said going to the weapons station and directly interfacing with it, seeing all the sensors for the guns. I can literally replace a whole gunnery crew~! Whoa. FTL is trippy! So bright! If I was organic I’d be blind now! It is pretty…

Do not stare too long, Unit Nexus. FTL is known to cause madness in organics.

‘But it’s so pretty...aw…’ My enjoyment of watching the bright blues, purples and reds of Eezo enabled FTL was ended when we left FTL to find ourselves at the outer edge of a massive asteroid field, which from my large range of visual sensors, might even be an asteroid belt around this system’s star. “I don’t see any ships nearby.”

“Radar’s clear.” Wrekrov called out from his own station.

“No communications.” Marrow announced and we all felt the palpable relief. “Okay, now comes the annoying part of actually getting to the place.”

“Nope. Got that handled.” Paretia cheerfully called back from the pilot seat before the White-Out began spinning and diving through openings between asteroids. She was indeed quite a good pilot to be able to handle this. Wasn’t there something about asteroid fields being a summary death sentence for most pilots? “There she is!”

“That isn’t Omega.” Krarek commented in confusion as Paretia began guiding us towards a small asteroid with a hangar bay open to space.

“No, it’s much safer. Marrow, I have a code labeled TalonTracker programmed in the system, ping that at the place up ahead.” Paretia called back to us and Marrow shrugged before she did so.

“Kshsshhshshst-Confirmed Talon Mercenary Paretia Drustumus. Clear for docking.” Came the monotone reply of a VI and Paretia promptly piloted our ship towards the place. It was surprisingly spacious to be able to handle a military frigate, but the fact that most of the space was full of single-person ships or gunboats told that this place wasn’t meant to hold more than two frigates at once.

“Okay, so where are we?” I asked curiously as Paretia set us down, effectively taking up maybe a full third of the space in the hangar. Geez, it’s like she just parked a Hummer in a space sized for a compact car...

“We’re in the Talon’s Nest. It’s a hidden secret base a bit away from Omega where we store our more valuable stuff or can escape to if things on Omega get too hot.” Paretia informed us as she hurried out of the bridge and the rest of us looked at each other with shrugs as we all donned our helmets to follow our pilot.

“But isn’t the base of operations on Omega?” Wrekov asked as the ramp lowered into the thankfully positive atmosphere of the shielded hanger.

“Yep, but this is where most of us stay when not on call or working. I’m neither, so I’m going to abuse the space and leave the White-Out somewhere safer to borrow one of the shuttles for us to use. If anything happens to one of those hunks of scrap, we can just steal another to get back here.” Paretia reasoned, which although quite mercenary-no, wait, even then it just makes all the more sense. My auto-turrets can’t stop scrappers from ripping things off the outer hull after all.

“Paretia! You sexy bitch! You’ve got a lot of gall to fucking take up all this space!” Cheerfully called out a male Turian in matching red and gold armor as he jogged up to us.

“Sistius! Good to see the siphoning job at the fuel depot didn’t dump you in the Void.” Paretia cheerfully greeted and even chest-bumped her fellow mercenary before they slugged each other’s armored shoulders. I don’t remember the Talons being this buddy-buddy in the games.

“Bah, it was a milk run and you know it. Why are you back though? Boss told us you were on an extended sabbatical after that job you pulled shoving the Eclipse’s collective thumbs up their own asses.” Sistius questioned and then looked at us with a curious tilt of his head. At least unlike Batarians I know that gesture is a genuine motion of curiosity.

“I was abducted by the Hegemony’s fake pirates and was probably going to end up some snobbish asshole’s bed warmer before these folks showed up and sprayed the insides of this nice ship with the former crew’s blood.” Paretia boasted, clearly not finding the fact that she’d been kidnapped to be a stain on her reputation.

“Fucking-really?! Shit! We thought Ekuna was a safe place too.” Sistius hissed and patted Paretia on the shoulder. “If you need someone to talk to…”

“I’m good. The Asari there is incredibly touchy-feely and the Quarian is silly enough to make a comedy routine of her own.” Paretia-hey! I’m not a total goob! Hmph! “So, what’s the news?”

“Aria is cracking down on the Bagra and the Blood Pack in Singard Cradle. The violence there has pushed people into the Valhallan Threshold. As for us, we’re just doing business as usual in bad old Omega.” Sistius replied with a considering hum. “Although, Umoln has been rather skittish around the Afterlife lately. I think the boss has been trying to broker a new deal with Aria.”

“I hope he knows what he’s doing. He may have been made the boss after Alia died in a skirmish with Eclipse, but he was always more of a numbers guy than a leader.” Paretia muttered uncomfortably and with concern.

“Hey Paretia, you didn’t eat any Levo did you? Thought you were allergic to that stuff.” Sistius suddenly asked and Paretia actually seemed embarrassed.

“That’s Tartisha, not me. I’ll be gassy at most.” Paretia told him with a growl, hinting that she didn’t appreciate him saying she stunk.

“Whew, well you lot all smell really ripe. Does that frigate not have sonic showers?” Sistius asked and I blinked at realizing I haven’t bathed since I awoke in my new reality. Ew~! I must stink! Especially since most of the time I’m contained in this Enviro-Suit. How has nobody complained until now?!

“No, it does, but remember how I mentioned they slaughtered the former crew? Maybe the whole place reeks of death and none of us can tell because we got noseblind to it.” Paretia replied with concern and the rest of us looked to each other.

“Hey, don’t look at me. The stench of death is practically perfume to Krogans.” Wrekrov declared with a shrug.

“I was wondering why everything tasted a bit metallic. The aroma clinging to the ship has tainted our senses.” Krarek huffed in disapproval.

“Stuff like that just doesn’t bother me.” Marrow declared neutrally, explaining why she was able to have sex with the stench everywhere.

“I’m in this suit. How would I know how something smells?” That said, I never really bothered testing my olfactory sensors. I’m not about to try it now.

“It would also explain why people were so eager to stay away from me while I cleared out my rented condo.” Paretia grumbled and sighed. “We’ll be borrowing the sonic showers and then take a shuttle to Omega. If you see Umoln before I do, let him know I’m cashing in all of my accumulated leave. This crew has been fun to run around with.”

“Just don’t forget to come back eventually.” Sistius patted her on the shoulder and then we parted ways, our group following Paretia.

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Sonic showers were interesting. They literally used sonic vibrations to shake off all detritus accumulated on something and then vacuumed up the filth at the bottom. Once we were all cleaned up, with Marrow and I sharing a stall to help hide the fact that a Quarian was able to strip down, we all returned to the hangar of the Talon’s Nest and were piling into a rusty shuttle that was smaller than the nice one in the small hanger on the White-Out.

“In this situation yet again.” Marrow teased me and I bounced on her lap to push the air out of her lungs. “Yeesh! Careful! I don’t have the equipment to enjoy that like this…”

“Then shut up and wrap your arms around me like a good seat.” I demanded playfully and she obediently wrapped her hands around my waist, which again made me all warm and tingly inside. I welcomed the feeling this time, aware it was my chassis’ way of simulating ‘butterflies’.

“Listen to the girl, she’s got you by the ovaries after all.” Wrekrov chuckled from his place in the back, which like Krarek’s in-atmosphere hauler, only had enough space for him to lay flat in. This wasn’t helped by the fact that Krarek had to share space with him in a seat this time since Paretia was the one with space-piloting skills.

“So is this Empire planning to colonize near here?” Krarek asked curiously as Paretia flew out of the Talon’s Nest and through the asteroid field.

“From what I gathered from the droid scouts, twenty potential planets have been mapped out near the Hades Nexus and six more are near the Armstrong Nebula. I don’t know which systems exactly, just that from where the Empire was looking at the edge of this Galaxy, those are the closest. We can only hope at least a couple have Relays to discover.” Marrow replied.

“Wait, so you’re settling down in the same region as the Perseus Veil?” I questioned, since the Relays in Hades and Armstrong were on the same arm of the galaxy as the Perseus Veil.

“It is the tail end of a Galactic Arm and much easier to settle then going through the gravity wells deeper into someplace like Omega. Our FTL has issues when encountering strong gravity wells, unlike what I’ve observed of Mass Effect FTL.” Marrow replied and I had to wonder just how eerie it was that Star Swirl contacted the Geth about the Empire before the Empire even knew the local astrology and political climate.

“That’s Vague.” Paretia stated as she wormed us between two smaller asteroids moments before they collided. I jumped, but everyone else was completely unphased by the near-death experience.

“You won’t be getting any more from me. FTL science is above my head and I’m just here to gather information. Though it seems that a criminal of the Empire has done a lot of that already.” Marrow said with a glare I could feel at the back of my hooded helmet. “Good thing too. I found someone rather incredible thanks to that monster.” Marrow rubbed my stomach and I leaned back into her, enjoying the feeling of her breasts compressing against my back despite her skintight hardsuit.

“Whatever, welcome to Omega.” Paretia announced as she swerved around a large asteroid to reveal a giant jellyfish-like structure that was entirely metallic, including the half of an asteroid the spires were emerging from.

So this is the dark counterpart to the Citadel. I hope I’m ready for this…