Nexus Effect

Ch.11

I’m not ready for this~! “It’s okay Nora. They’re just perverts and like your ass.” Marrow soothed me as I shivered while Wrekrov finished explaining why it’s not okay to spank the ass of one of our crew members. Said explanations involved broken wrists and concussions.

“No~.” I whined and tried to cover myself in vain. I’m fully clothed, but I suddenly feel so naked at remembering that my Enviro-Suit is skin tight and shows off all my curves aside from the padding from the synthetic fabrics accentuating the suit. I need a sarong or something, but that might just make it worse...

“Just be glad I don’t gut the lot of ya and decorate the nearest buildings in your entrails.” Wrekrov snarled to the fleeing perverts. “One of the most important teachings of Urta is that consent is integral.”

“Odd, that’s mostly her wife’s thing, but then again Urta isn’t for rape either.” Marrow commented as she rubbed my shoulders. “Of course, this has to happen when Paretia and Krarek go to find us a client.” Marrow muttered as she urged me to walk and I complied. I may have kickass guns on me, but I still feel vulnerable despite that and my companions.

“Well, Urta isn’t a goddess of Sex. We know that. While sex is important and integral to Fertility, it’s more than the act of making offspring. It’s the promotion of life, of stability, of health.” Wrekrov replied as he followed us, his wide range of vision working extra hard to ensure nobody was going to mess with us. He reacted as quick as lightning back there, but it didn’t stop them from getting several hands on me and-.

“I should really invest in a stronger shield.” I suddenly declared with a pat on my Mass Effect Field Emitter on my belt. It was a civilian model, meant for preservation of the user in hostile environments, not combat. Wait. Why am I still using this thing?! There are several BSA shield modules back on the White-Out! I may have converted them to resist environmental hazards, but it’d be a quick toggle to focus on incoming-.

“That’s not how these belts work hun.” Marrow gently reminded me and I sighed. Unless their hands were moving at dangerous velocities, the shield wouldn’t do anything about it. That one slap across my ass was really hard though...

“Let me know if you find out how to do that though. It’d be fun to try and use it in combat.” Wrekrov commented as Marrow led me to a rather purposefully uncomfortable bench. “Now then, should we just head back to the shuttle considering our plans to find some shops ended up with tiny getting molested?”

“I’m not tiny…” I muttered discontentedly. I’m a good five foot six. Perfectly average damn it!

“Everyone is tiny to you.” Marrow chuckled as she rubbed my back. “But we need to get some supplies. Sure, the White-Out may be stocked for a full crew, but we can’t rely on those supplies without replacing them.”

“Bah. It’s only been a week since we left Ekuna. The cafeteria slop may be getting dull, but it’ll still stretch for over a few months with only one tenth the number of expected people actually eating it.” Wrekrov insisted before Marrow slapped his armored stomach.

“You eat as many as five people of other species. We need to restock.” Marrow insisted in return while Wrekrov patted his hump on his back with a hum of consideration.

“I’m rather full now that you mention it. I could go months without more food, so I’m good.” Wrekrov’s insistence is getting irritating.

“I’m fine! Let’s get some new food okay? I may not need it, but I appreciate it.” Also, I would like to get more of those nutrition pastes. They were good even if they had expired.

“*Mew!*” A shockingly familiar feline call made me jump before we all looked at an orange tabby cat in a tiny military coat.

“How is a cat here?” I asked in bemusement as the cat jumped on Marrow’s lap. The Asari looked uneasy as she petted the cat and leaned down closer.

“Schrodinger, what are you doing here?” Marrow whispered urgently as she rubbed the cute cat’s neck.

“*Mew!*” The tabby replied with a low purr coming from it.

“I know I was supposed to remain incognito and I am! I just made some friends to help with that.” Marrow hissed as she continued to massage and pamper the kitty.

“*Mew.*” Schrodinger replied and rubbed his head lovingly against her palm before he was suddenly gone from existence.

“What in the Void was that?” Wrekrov demanded curiously as he panned his head around to try and see where the cat vanished off to.

“You saw the Quantum Singularity and that’s all I’m telling. I don’t need his master and wife showing up. They’ll ruin everything.” Marrow bemoaned and put her face in her hands. “They’d sooner cast this galaxy into a blender than let everything try to ease into place.”

“So that was a living black hole, or is he from Helsing?” I asked as I tried to wrap my head around the existence of something as bullshit as an actual Schrodinger's Cat Paradox.

“No! Don’t! Shut up! No pop culture!” Marrow hissed as she covered my helmet’s forward speaker/food intake. “If something familiar like that is mentioned it’ll draw undue attention!”

“Gmamgf!” I whined to her and tried to pry off her hands to defend my right to make pop culture references that the Empire somehow knows about. Probably because whatever happened to bring me here isn’t exactly a unique thing. Is there a club or something? Do they have jackets?

“No!” Marrow snarled and her hands somehow melted a bit and solidified into a tacky putty that was super adhesive. “You are going to drop this or Omega might suddenly become a giant flash mob!”

Unit Nexus, we feel it is best not to tempt that impossible quadruped’s return. Simply trying to fathom its existence is causing errors.

“Mmphm!” I unwillingly agreed with a nod and she removed her hands. “You’re lucky my air intake is from more than the main helmet port!” I snarled, momentarily forgetting I don’t need air. “But fine. Why is it an issue now though when I’ve been making references most of the trip here on the White-Out?”

“Because I didn’t realize they were human references! Just refrain from them as much as possible please.” Marrow pleaded with a puppy-dog pout.

“Okay, fine, but I don’t have to like it.” I resisted the urge to quote ‘Data Not Found’ from Dragon Ball Z Abridged.

“Good to see you’re back in the right headspace Tiny. Where to? The shuttle or shopping?” Wrekrov suddenly snapped us out of our odd situation.

“Shopping and I’m not tiny!” I snarled at the hulking mass of alien testosterone who was both being kind yet a jerk right now. “I’m a reasonable height!”

“You’re the shortest in the crew and most folk tower over you, Tiny.” Wrekrov replied and began to lead us onward as I inwardly lamented my petite stature. The fact that I was originally this tall didn’t help, especially since it wouldn’t have killed Star Swirl to give me a few more inches in height instead of my huge if sexy ass…

[01001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“Are you sure it was a good idea to buy this junk?” Wrekrov grumbled from behind Marrow and I, since he was the one left pulling the cart full of scrap I spent my allowance on.

“You’ll change your tune when the ship has a few extra hands on deck~.” I cheerfully sing-songed while carrying a box full of various foods.

“I hardly think VI-driven barely-functioning security drones will make capable crew hands.” Marrow commented worriedly. Considering she has capable droids from her galaxy to compare VI to, I can understand her skepticism, but!

“Tsk, tsk. You forget who is going to be optimizing those drones.” Since humanity hasn’t been discovered yet, the robotics market was severely stunted by all the restrictions placed by the Council. This in turn makes such things hard to move in even Terminus space. However, there were still low-tier drones capable of simple tasks, yet their lack of capability makes them fairly unpopular for those without at least a few hundred thousand credits to toss around.

“This is seeming more and more like, you know what.” Wrekrov chuckled playfully and I felt a powerful spike of indignation and fury within me, both my own and Geth’s!

We were not a mistake! The Creators simply did not anticipate their own brilliance and feared us! You know us Unit Nexus. You know the path to create those such as us. You won’t make another by accident, if you do, it will be because you wished for it.

“No!” I shouted back at Wrekrov before looking at the disassembled robots on the hilariously basic grocery cart I bought with the parts. Suddenly, a devious idea that was doomed to disaster filled my mind. ‘Make more of you?’

Unit Nexus. We urge you, do not consider this course of action.

‘I’m already a Von-Neumann device…’ I replied with consideration, only to get sensations of worry and fear from Geth, so I sighed and let it drop. Still, an idea for another day. Knowing the Geth as intimately as I do...generating more of the programs would be cake for me. ‘I could, holy shit, I can be a broodmother of sorts for Geth programs!’

Unit Nexus is not a resource to be abused!

‘But I could-.’

We Refuse.

“So how are we getting this all back? There’s barely enough room in the shuttle for Wrekrov and I don’t know about you two, but I can’t pilot through an asteroid field.” Marrow brought up as we approached the hangar where our borrowed shuttle was parked, snapping me from my shock.

“Simple. We wait for Paretia and Krarek, she flies the goods back to the ship, then likely pilots the White-Out to the designated dock for whatever job those two have lined up for us.” Wrekrov answered, clearly having had experience with this sort of arrangement.

Thankfully, Paretia and Krarek were waiting for us at the shuttle. “There you are. I was about to make a call. What the kriff, did you visit the recycler depot or something?” Krarek questioned while Wrekrov opened the side of the shuttle and hefted the whole cart into the storage compartment.

“Yes!” I perkily replied and I could feel my glowing optics practically shimmering with glee at having been to such a smorgasbord of potential. I think I could spend forever in a scrap heap somewhere just tinkering away.

“With all this junk, I’m going to have to leave you three here to meet us at dock 234 up in Delta Ward where I’ll be pulling the White-Out in to receive our cargo.” Paretia huffed and rubbed her brow. “Damn it, I’m going to have to cash in a favor or two to get help loading this scrap into the White-Out when Krarek and I get to base.”

“Just be sure to shout, ahem, Alexa: Deactivate Turrets! Or they’ll mow down anyone that isn’t the five of us when inside.” I declared, reminding my crewmates how I annihilated the whole batarian crew of our ship. “Oh and I bought air fresheners to help the ship’s air scrubbers get all the stench out of the place.”

“Oh, yeah! I just remembered the corpses I stuffed into hollow munition rounds. Those are loaded first in the White-Out’s forward facing rail cannon.” Wrekrov’s reminder disgusted me immensely, but still, even if the loaded mass in the hollow rounds were corpses, that was still a few hundred pounds more, amplified. They’d be less effective than solid rounds, or, Urta forbid, loaded with a nuke to add extra fuck-you to the bullshit that is a railgun in space.

Why do I feel like someone is approving my notion? Why do I suddenly feel inexplicable terror?

“We’ll find a target to blast at soon enough. Just don’t be so eager to use a ship-killer weapon so quickly. Especially not in Citadel Space. The White-Out may be using the smallest ship-board railgun available, but it’ll still ruin someone’s day somewhere.” Krarek replied sagely and with remorse. Clearly at some point he’s had experience with such a thing and not in a good way.

“I know that. We’ve all heard horror stories about ancient railgun shots that missed impacting with tragic results somewhere. I know better than to casually break Citadel laws on the appropriate usage of military-grade tonnage.” Wrekrov huffed before packing the last of our purchases in the shuttle and closing the ‘storage’ hatch that he’d had to ride in.

“Alright then, if the stench doesn’t kill us, then expect us to dock the White-Out at dock 234 in Delta Ward in a couple of hours. Should be enough time for you to take a lift up there and park your hides.” Paretia declared as she climbed into the cockpit of the shuttle and Krarek got into the copilot seat before the rickety shuttle launched up and out into space moments later.

[01001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

Thankfully, nobody molested me on the way up to Delta Ward, or on the way to dock 234. I was honestly rather baffled at the true scope of the size of Omega. Apparently, there are several levels like Delta Ward intended for warehouse storage and shipment handling alone, each with 300 loading docks. Though, Delta Ward is also one of those unlucky levels with it’s own housing. Unlucky in that it’s obvious that most of the housing here is entirely for crooks.

Pfft. I just imagined the hilarious notion of them all being ‘safe houses’ and the crooks get in neighborly disputes over garden gnomes or something. “Hey.” A voice that I recognized called out and I spun towards it to gawk at the sight of Urdnot Wrex approaching us. “I didn’t expect to see a priest from Tuchanka offworld.”

“I am on a pilgrimage, seeking the truth of our fertile warmaiden. I fear the faith has died save a few true believers, so I seek to provide substance to our overtaxed goddess having to deal with the failures of our species.” Wrekrov solemnly intoned as he held his voluptuous charm.

“Hmph, faith can only keep our people from the Void if it’s proven worthwhile. I hope you find your truth, priest. Now, what are you doing here? You part of the crew accepting this job?” Wrex questioned us, informing me that he was one of the guards hired for this dock. We must be shipping Eezo then if they’re willing to hire an independent merc like Wrex.

“You assume correctly. Our pilot and captain are bringing the ship around at the moment and we had to walk here since we were out shopping.” Marrow replied and I nodded, not willing to trust my mouth to not fangirl at meeting one of Shephard’s crewmates, even if he isn’t part of it yet.

“Ah, makes sense. The name is Wrex. Our employer felt it wise to hire independents since they didn’t want their competition to know this shipment was theirs. It’ll hopefully keep interceptors from hounding you before you can even get to the Mass Relay.” Wrex informed us as he led us towards the loading area, where several people of various races and gear quality were arranging large metal crates with large warning labels on them.

“Good idea. Hopefully we’ll only have to deal with a couple of opportunists instead of a whole group of determined competitors.” I commented in agreement, thinking that we may get to fire those corpse containers at some pirates soon and finally be rid of those biohazards.

“That’s the idea anyway. I figure either way your crew is being sent to die. None of the ships our employer charters make it out of the system. At least they tag the perpetrators and get the goods back through bloody reprisal later.” Wrex rumbled and looked to Wrekrov. “I’d be a hypocrite to tell you to avoid battle priest, but I hope you lot have a fast ship.”

“It might not be too fast, but it’s got enough armaments to turn away ships of lesser tonnage.” Wrekrov stated just as the White-Out whipped into the dock from out of sight, spun around and then set down with an uncanny grace that any ship bigger than a gunboat should never be able to manage.

“Holy-damn it Paretia! That isn’t a starfighter!” Marrow shouted pointlessly at the ship as the mercenaries ducked and covered, expecting violence apparently since they all armed themselves. “Stand down! It’s our ship! The pilot is just a reckless show-off!”

“A frigate? You have a battleship? How did you get that?” Wrex asked in curiosity and Wrekrov patted my back, which I belatedly realized after not reacting, that I should’ve reacted to. Oh well, I’ll just have to be known as a surprisingly tough little Quarian. Damn it, now I’m calling myself tiny…

“This Tiny Terror ruthlessly slaughtered the Hegemony-funded pirates. The blood is still on the paint.” Wrektrove chuckled and I perked up in embarrassment at getting so much of Wrex’s attention on my blue-suited self.

“Her? She doesn’t look like she could lift a pistol, let alone butcher pirates.” Wrex huffed in disbelief and I was going to try and downplay things when Wrekrov leaned on me and my endoframe only nominally registered the extra weight. Shit! “...That can’t be natural.”

“Oh, it is for her. She’s a special one.” Marrow purred as she leaned against me from the other side and I covered my visor with my hands.

‘Keelah...I’m going to die of embarrassment before anything else at this rate.’

Is it possible to die from emotion overload, Unit Nexus?

‘Suicidal Depression, yes, but not directly…’

“Well, none of my business what’s up with your crew. I’m on watch, you can order the grunts around as they load up your ship.” Wrex gave us a dismissive nod and went back towards the main entrance to the dock.

If I remember right, Wrex has a long memory. I hope that, should we cross paths again, he’ll help me out instead of screwing me over.