Nexus Effect

Ch.114

“So, they really can’t see us?” Penny asked Joker and EDI in a mixture of wariness and curiosity as the EDI drifted with impressive silent-running speed past the pirate ships patrolling the Ploitari system, getting tighter and more coordinated the closer they got to Zanethu, the second planet in the four-planet system.

“I’m dark to their scanners, Penny, don’t worry. Wow, so this is how Kasumi feels all the time?” EDI pondered as Joker guided her through a couple of patrolling gunboats. Those ships had both Blood Pack and Blue Suns colors. This place must be one of their new operation centers.

“Knowing they can’t see or hear me, but I’m right behind them? Yup!” Kasumi chirped from behind Penny, causing her to jump, but by the time she looked, Kasumi was already gone or possibly still there and she just couldn’t tell. Damn that woman!

“I like it. I’m glad you told me to go for stealth now instead of letting me test out my combat abilities, aunt Penny.” EDI said while Joker got her into a steady orbit around Zanethu. “Scanning…hm, so that’s why...there’s a crashed cargo frigate with an ID matching one the ESA Navy gave me on their MIA list; the MSV Estevanico. The pirates must’ve shut down it’s distress beacon. It’s also a fairly old ship, one with historical importance judging by the date it went MIA.”

“They must have converted the shipwreck into a base of operations on this otherwise uninhabited planet. EDI’s scans show Zanethu has a fairly breathable oxygen atmosphere and a comfortable gravity for most sapient species, but it’s too damn cold for comfort. Still, this place is ripe for terraforming and colonization. This could be a big payday, Commander.” Joker announced and Penny hummed in agreement. She was surprised that Zanethu hadn’t already been discovered considering the Ploitari system wasn’t too out of the way.

“That’s all well and good, but this is the last place Saren reported from before he went dark. These pirates are likely either the culprits or know who is responsible. Hopefully he’s still alive.” As her Spectre Mentor, Saren was fairly important to Penny. She looked up to him, she couldn’t imagine a bunch of no-account pirates could do him in. “Then there’s also the fact that he was here pursuing the former Dalatrass and her followers.”

“Weirder things have happened in my time, sis.” Urta commented from nearby, the Princess being one of the few members of her inner circle not training or otherwise occupied. She’d taken to morphing her fur color mocha and wore the same exact style of hardsuit to match Penny’s today to fuck with people and get them confused. Penny liked it, the ‘twin swap’ was something she thought was hilarious. “Ex-nobles and pirates tend to go hand-in-hand.”

“For a salarian, she’s really stupid.” Penny shook her head in agreement with the assessment her sister made. “That said, if she’s here, she’s got a lot between us and her. Is there anywhere near the wreck of the Estevanico we can land you, EDI?”

“Although I don’t think of myself as fat, I’m afraid the uneven grounds caused by the continuous snowfall and glaciers would make it unsafe for me to touch down. Thankfully, the Kodiak was replaced by an Ursa-Lesser; the variant with stealth systems in exchange for the normal unit’s armaments. Steve can get you down there safely.” EDI informed her and Penny nodded before she whirled to go and gear up while considering her team composition.

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

I’m so happy! Penny picked Yola and I along with Grunt for her first ground team this time around! She said it was because Yola and I have been out of the action for too long and Grunt was frothing at the mouth for a fight. “Nora, you’re shifting my armor.” Penny huffed in annoyance as she moved and locked the pauldron of her armored N7 suit after my latest powerful hug displaced it.

“She’s just glad she gets to shoot something again.” Grunt chuckled and I nodded happily. I may not enjoy going out of my way for war or stuff like that, but I’ve got the same fire in me to kick assholes in the taint that I’d learned to relish in the few battles I’ve been involved in.

“Um...mom? I, uh, didn’t account for something when you converted me…” EDI sheepishly said as we reached the hangar, where Steve Cortez was smiling as he hugged the side of the blue Kodiak, which was the Empire’s up-armored and improved variant of the Alliance Kodiak since out of all the military troop-transport shuttles they tested, the Kodiak was vaunted as the best design to adopt and adapt.

“What is it hon-?”

“Grandma!” I heard a young man’s voice echo from the Ursa before with a *Whirr-whoo-chi-che-chit!* it Transformed into a male cybertronian with Steve sitting on his shoulder. “Hey! So I’m the one taking you down?” He was much more traditional in appearance, like how Bumblebee looked in his ‘true’ alt.

“I...yes, but, you’re, how?!” I yelped in shock and confusion and he laughed heartily.

“I was in ma’s womb, y’know, this place, when you converted her. Whatever logic your Spark follows, I was given life too! That kinda-sorta makes both you and mom my parents, but I like to think of you as my gran since I’m sorta adopted via surrogacy or something?” The young male scrunched his brow in consideration before she shrugged. “Either way, I’m alive, Steve’s my best bro, I’m you’re stealth shuttle.” He transformed back into his shuttle form and opened the door. “Get in! Those pirates ain’t gonna shoot themselves!”

“What Nightfly said! Get in!” Cortez shouted as he eagerly entered my accidental grandson’s interior.

“To be fair, considering how many of our kids have an alt suitable for transportation, this isn’t weird.” Yola shrugged and casually climbed into her grand-nephew’s chassis, Grunt and Penny doing the same.

“Can I go one week without accidentally being responsible for creating life either directly or indirectly? Primus, you might as well have made me fucking Solus instead anyway.” I grumbled as I climbed aboard and sat my sexy blue-suited ass down in a seat before strapping in, making sure my helmet was secure too.

“Don’t worry gran, from what I’ve learned from observing, you seem to work miracles just by breathing.” Nightfly praised as Cortez piloted him out of the hangar when the drop-bay doors opened and Nightfly was now as optically and sensor-wise cloaked as his mother. “Alright Steve, get me down there. With my stealth suite, you don’t even have to leave the ground if you don’t want to.”

“Sounds good to me, save fuel and stress right?” Cortez replied to his copilot as he flew us down to the surface of Zanethu. “Hm, nearest LZs look a bit too hot.”

“I agree. That is a lot of activity out and about for a bunch of pirates.” Nightfly commented as they searched for a good landing zone. “There! It’s a bit of a walk, but I think we can set down there without our friends getting spotted too quickly.”

“I see it, taking us in.” Cortez replied and shortly he’d set us down. “Okay Commander, with Nightfly able to remain cloaked, I can stay here and be ready to dive in for an emergency pick-up much quicker than if I try to return to the EDI.”

“Much obliged Cortez, Nightfly. Okay people, we need to work our way into the base. A surgical strike to figure out what’s going on before we try to go in guns blazing is the best way to know where to aim the EDI’s firepower and troop deployments if it comes down to it.” Penny stated and I gulped in worry for my many children who may have to fight ruthless pirates today. Cybertronians or not, I’m worried!

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“So you’re the Goddess of Evil?” Visilia asked the sexy red demoness in a skintight hardsuit skeptically. She wouldn’t look out of place on a pre-unification Equus, but nowadays there were even people who got modded to look like the Lust Demons of old, so seeing a human look like a high-tier succubus of yore was both a throwback to the ancient Goddess of Dark and an oddity.

“Lucifer or Luci as I prefer. That’s me! Mother of Demons and the Root of all Evil. I just prefer the ‘lesser’ evils, the ones that make life interesting, y’know?” Luci chirped cheerfully as she shifted from foot to foot with a happy little bounce, her spaded tail flicking about.

“It’s true. She’s Jehovah’s sister. She’s essentially the essence of all conflict, which is what Evil is at its very core.” Slayer affirmed Luci’s claim and she nodded energetically.

“Cocoa thinks Discord is a kindred spirit to you.” Visilia snorted and Luci smiled.

“Such a delightful source of benign Evils. He’s half of why I don’t even need to do my work. Chaos is a result of Evil and promotes it even in tiny amounts. The irony that Evil causes Good things to happen too isn’t lost on Chaos however, so he’s a favorite of Joey’s too.” Luci said while looking off in the middle-distance before she blinked. “Oh, right. Anyway, I need you to kill my kids. All of them. Especially Asmodeus.”

“Any advice? Anyone we send against him would either end up dead or becomes enslaved to his whims. Not even the Doom Slayers were able to put up much of a fight against him.” Visilia said with a regretful look at Slayer, who grimaced and nodded unhappily.

“Hm? You haven’t figured-hm...I guess he would use Mammon as a buffer for that...he’s fond of using Geryon and Zariel when it comes to assaults...he even uses his daughter Glasya for...hm. Well, you’re on the right track at least. I still need Asmodeus, Mephistopheles, Belial, Baalzebul and Mammon to die for sure. They’re the only ones of my brats left alive and that needs to change.” Luci said with casual consideration, as if filicide was absolutely acceptable and normal.

“So would OG Slayer be in Hell?” Visilia asked hopefully as she took off her tiara to straighten her crimson mane with her fingers.

“Doomguy? No, he’s actually outside this multiverse. Joey and I just copied a ton of stuff for fun. We even made tweaks like how some Xenomorphs have mammalian sexual traits at random for no reason. So, anyway, it seems you can’t help me yet. If you have any questions about the Arch-Demons, feel free to ask. The sooner they die, the sooner Good and Evil can achieve a good balance.” Luci then turned on Slayer and cupped his groin with a salacious smirk. “Be seeing you~.” She then sauntered out of Visi’s office with everyone staring.

“If she wasn’t so likable, I’d have gutted her for doing that in my office.” Visilia huffed before turning her attention to Slayer. “Now, please, about my husbands and wives becoming celestial cybertronians?”

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“These are not just ex mercs turned to pirates…” Yola whispered into our short-range comms as we looked down on the camp nearest to the LZ we’d set down.

“Looks like the Dalatrass has been busy…” Penny muttered as we watched a few salarians perform maintenance on the M.E-Field generator that was keeping the snowfall and cold out of the camp. “Those are some of her loyalists according to the IDs my HUD pulled up.”

“This begs the question of what she was hoping to do here though. How does amassing a pirate fleet help her spite the krogans?” I asked in bewilderment and Grunt, well, grunted.

“She probably has the latest Genophage and just needs a small army to keep us away long enough to use the Shroud to dispense it. From what I heard, the samples she had her goons steal weren't just a way to limit our reproduction, but end it, potentially kill our species once and for all. Even with the Empire’s help, my people would lose entire generations in the span of a few hours.” Grunt grimly informed us as he calmly hunkered behind the glacier with us instead of charging in. Training did a good job of curbing his berserk tendencies.

“Oh, I want to blow her brains out.” I snarled, but Penny put a hand on my shoulder.

“We can’t just go in there and open fire. We need to find info on where she is. Do you think you can hack their systems from here?” Penny asked and my righteous fury abated in favor of her logical decision. Pirates were a simple bunch, if you cut off the head, the rest of the body would thrash wildly until it died or was devoured by other snakes. Getting to the Dalatrass would negate the need for a battalion of super-soldiers.

“On it already. You’re getting slow, sis.” Yola teased me and I glared at her before she shared her findings with me digitally. “Okay, it seems that the Dalatrass isn’t in charge, she’s only in charge of her own goons. The Blue Suns, Blood Pack and Eclipse have unified here into one massive pirate band in retaliation for being kicked out of Omega and made full-fledged criminals in both Citadel and Terminus space. They’re planning to invade Tuchanka, cripple the Krogan Protectorate, then with us reeling, double-back to Omega and invade there.”

“Garrus is not going to be happy to hear this…”

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“Garrus, I swear. If you fire my guns I am going to have you keelhauled!” EDI hissed as Garrus calibrated her railguns and Reaper Laser, only possible with her tonnage due to her gigantic Mass Effect Drive Core paired with her cruiser-class Argent Reactor. “I know you have a vendetta against them, but if you do this then we’ll possibly never find out what happened to Saren!”

“If you really believed that, you’d have turned away from that junker of a dreadnought. Besides, at this range, at the velocity the rounds would’ve obtained, with you cloaked; the best they could’ve hoped to consider is that some stray one in one trillion railgun shots just so happened to blast through their hull, detonate their Drive Core and then send it careening down to the planet on the opposite side from the Estevanico.” Garrus grimly intoned as he finished his calibrations.

“...Do it before I turn away.” EDI deadpanned and inwardly shuddered as her twin railguns fired. The two projectiles launched on an unerring intercept trajectory with the orbiting old batarian dreadnought, which suddenly obtained two gaping holes near the engines, but a bit further forward. The two holes suddenly tore the ship in half when the Drive Core detonated and the long spear-like ship began its descent to Zanethu. “By mom…”

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

I felt an odd tingle in my spine and Spark that sent shivers through me. “What the fuck was that?” I muttered to myself.

“If you’re looking to blame someone, Garrus just destroyed the enemy’s dreadnought.” We all nearly jumped out of our skins when Hunter telepathically communicated. When did he get here and how did he know I said anything? “A few moments after you arrived, Pillar’s with me and Jehovah pointed out the way.”

“Well, at least Heaven let you go.” I grumbled as I rubbed my visor, forgetting I was wearing it.

“Damn it, Garrus. He could’ve made things worse if the Dalatrass finds out that it was deliberate.” Penny hissed as she led us past the camps surrounding the Estevanico.

“I’m using my telepathy to fool them into thinking they scrapped that old hulk ahead of schedule. Fact is, it was going to be landed and converted into another base after the majority of the fleet returned from raiding. That said, it had a skeleton crew using an Alexa VI to manage most of it.” Damned pirates! How dare they use my invention for nefarious deeds?! “You’d better hurry up, the rest of the fleet will be back in several hours and we don’t want to be here when they arrive.” Hunter’s concern had me concerned. Just how many pirates have banded together?

“You heard the demon-killing god, we’re on a timetable.” Grunt huffed and began pushing Penny ahead faster with his free hand on her upper back. “C’mon Shepard, we don’t got much time.”

“I agree. Grunt, Penny, this will go much faster if you get inside us and we shrink down in our ship forms. Thanks to Dongoruas, we have a similar effect on our interior as EDI does.” Yola declared and Grunt ceased pushing Penny while Yola and I rapidly unzipped, stripped and stuffed our suits and helmets into our cleavages. The cold really doesn’t bother me much.

“Good thing we’re in a fairly big crevasse right now. I’ll go first.” I shrunk down before I transformed into my cuttleship form. I barely fit in the crevasse, especially as I stood up enough for my quim covers to pull open. “Am I taking just one of you or both of you?”

“Why not all of us? I don’t see a point in us splitting up.” Penny said and Yola blushed at realizing she didn’t need to get naked. “It’s okay Yola, I know you like having people inside you as much as other ship-type Cybertronians. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, just get suited back up while Nora takes us to our objective.”

“Enough yakking.” Grunt snipped before he approached and climbed up inside me without hesitation. Mm~ yes. I shivered when Penny and Yola soon followed. Mm~ I never get tired of feeling others inside of me, moving around. I purred when Penny took my pilot seat and I almost forgot to shrink down to the size of a beetle before she began flying me down the crevasse.

Penny flew me out of the crevasse, which ended near the Estevanico, giving us the opportunity to survey the shipwreck and find a way in. I was a good choice for this, since my dark navy blue hull blended in somewhat with the ice and snow as well as the sky. Yola with her maroon red hull would’ve stuck out like a sore thumb. “They’ve sealed this old junker up pretty good. I don’t see any easy way to just go in.” Penny commented after the second pass on the port side.

“Definitely not the pirate’s work. They tend to do what little they can and call it good when it comes to their bases. This must’ve all been at the direction of the Dalatrass. If we can’t just find a way in, we’ll make one. Sis has a laser that at her full size, is capable of glassing a planet, if slowly. She can easily bore a hole in the hull to get us through.” Yola suggested and Penny immediately began using my sensors to find a weak point in the hull.

“You’ve been awfully quiet, Nora. Something up?” Grunt asked me and I made a questioning hum. “Usually you’re more chatty.”

“No. I just haven’t had anything to add. You guys have been doing good directing me and coming up with ideas.” I said before my scanners picked up a huge corpse under the shipwreck-turned base being excavated. “Hm, what do you make of this, EDI?”

“Without more in-depth readings, I can’t be sure, but that is an unusually large formerly-living creature. It’s not Saren at least. It might be an indiginous creature the Dalatrass is having her people study.” EDI theorized before my focus returned to the current situation when Penny flew me purposefully towards a specific spot near where the cargo bay may have been.

“Warming up…” I intoned with caution as my monoeye began to shine brightly, tinting my vision red before I began cutting a circular hole slightly bigger than my current size in the metal. Not even a minute later, I’d grabbed the resulting disk of metal and floated into the enemy ship, then turned around and melted a few bits of the disk back to the hull so we could still use it if we had to, but it wouldn’t be obvious to anyone who might be coming through. “Okay...um...how are you getting out of me now that we’re in here?”

…

Doh!