Nexus Effect

Ch.40

“I appreciate being allowed to leave the Normandy, Commander.” Kaidan said as the current ground team sat in the Kodiak while Lopez piloted them down.

“Sorry to have left you off of the active roster so much.” Commander Shepard apologized to her SiC as she looked over Ashley and Yola. She decided to rotate her crew for this one. She didn’t want people to feel like they were being ignored. Liara was on the next rotation, along with Tali and Nora. At least that was her plan, she’d adjust her team as the situation called for it.

“I’m just surprised the Commander didn’t bring all of her girlfriends.” Ashley playfully smirked at Yola, who sighed as Shepard breathed out of her nose in the amusement that her new relationship with three quarians was basically known to everyone immediately.

“I’m surprised you’re okay with it.” Kaidan commented and Ashley sighed.

“I’m not a hopeless bigot. I have strong trust issues when it comes to non-humans, yes, but they’re still people. Hell, I know if I found a turian guy who wasn’t full of himself to the point of idiocy, I’d probably give him a shot.” Ashley shrugged, then looked at Yola. “Although, quarians do look fairly human and don’t have those creepy glossy quad-eyes like batarians.”

“Heads up: quarian males have cocks the size of an average human’s forearm.” Yola informed the Gunnery Chief who gawked at Yola. “No lie. I can show you pictures.”

“No thanks. Just thinking of that has me scared. I thought only the Imperials had dicks so stupidly huge.” Ashley muttered and looked at her forearm in bemusement, likely wondering how anything humanoid can either have or take something that huge.

Penny wasn’t going to bother mentioning that the past couple of days gave her the chance to feel that, even if not completely. She wasn’t that elastic...yet. “As much as I don’t dislike such conversation, please maintain professionalism for the sake of the men on board.” Shepard declared in defense of the green-looking Kaidan and Lopez up in the pilot seat.

“We’re at the entrance and I see an Imperial at the dock.” Lopez called back to them.

“What is an Imperial doing here?” Kadian asked before they landed and the door opened. They were greeted by a leopard woman whose humanoid body ended at the hips where the head of a normal cat would meet with the body of said cat, if said cat had four forelegs. She didn’t have huge breasts like most Imperial females, which was certainly odd. She stood only a head taller than everyone in the group at nearly 7 feet and wore a hardsuit that fully covered her body.

“This is weird.” Ashley whispered to Kaidan as they disembarked and looked over the truly alien woman, whose piercing golden eyes with their feral slits did the same to them.

“Sorry Commander, their colony was the only one giving us permission to land. Zhu’s Hope is ignoring us and it has the only dock big enough for the Normandy to land in Atmo. It's why we had to use the shuttle.” Lopez said over the comms.

“I know, I was the one to talk to Joker about this.” The Commander said as she approached the exotic woman who waited patiently for them to approach.

“Hello, I’m Kut Faraday and I wish to welcome you to Darling Point.” The weird alien told them. “You’re all very shocked to see my appearance. Yes, this is how my species naturally looks and we tend to prefer not to have large busts unless we’re in the business of pleasure or brood-bearing. We're pragmatic people. Mostly. Don’t think all Cat-Kut share the same views.”

Okay...that was a rather pre-prepared response.

“So you’re named Kut?” Ashley asked in confusion. Why be named the same as your species?

“Oh, goodness no! Kut is just part of how we greet.” The feline alien told us. “I’m Faraday, we don’t really use last names.”

“That’ll get confusing fast.” Yola commented and Faraday laughed jovially.

“Only for those not Cat-Kut. We’re a social species and identify each other mostly by scent, names are something we’ve had to adopt for interaction with other species. We used to just refer to ourselves as Kut.” Faraday cheekily informed us before frowning. “But enough about cultural exchange, those machines have lain waste to Zue’s Hope. We could see the blaster-fire from here. The other settlements have shut themselves down for security.”

“Has anyone gone to check on them?” Commander Shepard asked.

“No, but we know better than to just shut ourselves from the outside even if we’re staying put. The last Droid Wars, they taught us nothing can stop the tide if you don’t fight back. Hiding won’t save us.” Faraday grimly intoned and Shepard noted the number of other alien felines on rooftops with blasters aimed at them.

“How many Imperials are on this planet? We didn’t even know you were here.” Kaidan asked while clearly taking note of all the potential attackers.

“Only us. The rest are sponsored by Exogeni, controlled by them and only under the ESA in title alone. We’re independent from them and sponsored by the Imperial Terraforming Initiative.” Faraday explained and gestured for the people aiming at us to stand down with a flick of her long sinuous tail. It wasn’t until she moved that Shepard fully noted she had two extra forelegs. They were a short distance behind the front pair and seemed to add a lot of stability to her body.

“Certainly you have plenty of planets in Andromeda to work with, why are you expanding here anyway? Have you actually overpopulated your whole galaxy?” Shepard asked worriedly and Faraday snorted.

“Not a chance. Even if the Empire does last another ten thousand years, we won’t be able to populate every world. We spread here because the Milky Way and Andromeda are closer now than they’ve ever been and ever will be again. We’re establishing systems to-.” Faraday froze and put her left hand to her ear which twitched around the audio device there. “Sorry, I’m not allowed to say more on that.” The way her ears and tail wilted was adorable and conveyed her genuine disappointment at not being allowed to talk shop.

“Understood. Now, is there a way to reach Zue’s Hope from here?” Shepard asked their friendly host who bit her lower lip with her sharp teeth and looked unsure. “If it’s dangerous; don’t worry. We’re experienced combatants.”

“It’s not so much that it’s dangerous as it is...unknown. There is an underground highway underneath the surface that was once a functioning transit system. You can follow the tunnels to the tower of Zue’s Hope, but I can’t tell you what could be down there.” Faraday forewarned and the ground team looked at each other before nodding.

“If it’s all the same, I think we need to take our chances. We need to get to Zue’s Hope and find out what’s going on there. The droids wouldn’t have attacked for no reason.” Shepard rationalized and Faraday nodded before her tail began rapidly moving, making shapes. Shortly, another Cat-Kut leaped down from a nearby building with the grace of a cat and approached. This one looked like a tiger and was much more heavily armored than Faraday.

“This is Kut Martra. She’ll take you to the lift and escort you to the tunnels we had managed to map out before retreating to the tower when the attack happened.” Faraday turned to Martra and they mewled to each other, the interaction was utterly precious and Penny wanted to snuggle the fluffy aliens! She wants one on her crew! “She’ll guide you, but if she cannot return I’ve given her permission to follow you wherever you go.” Yay!

“I won’t let harm come to her!” Penny Inoue Shepard, closet cat aficionado, chirped with sparkles in her eyes and Martra blinked her green eyes in bemusement.

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“Will she still hover?” Adams asked me in awe as I displayed the up-armored Hammerhead. I’d utilized the armor, thrusters, LMG, railgun, etc, to upgrade the Hammerhead into a brutal high-mobility war machine. She was already powerful, but now she’s a beast! “Christ Nora, you’ve got more engineering gumption than I’ve seen in my whole career.”

“I know. I’m incredible. Praise me more.” I hammed cheerfully as Dee and Daw high-threed and then gave their pet pyjak they named Grease paired low-threes.

“I would, but this design is too expensive to mass-produce.” Adams bemoaned sadly and I wilted. I had expected that, since over-engineering was often a custom thing, not something the result of an assembly line. “That said, that doesn’t mean we can’t scrap any Makos we’d made in anticipation of them replacing the Grizzly entirely and improve as many Hammerheads as possible. Better all that junk get used immediately instead of outright recycled.”

“Well, here’s the blueprints to her. Have fun arranging that.” I transferred the blueprint on my omni to Adams’ omni.

“Thank you.” Adams said with a smile as he started looking it over. Then he looked at the extra parts. “So what are you going to use those for?”

“I was thinking of a scout vehicle.”

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“This way.” Martra said with her contralto voice as she led the squad through the ancient Prothean tunnels. Even though she was fully armored in a hardsuit with armor panels made for her species, the Cat-Kut’s long tiger tail was left free and writhed sinuously as she stalked ahead of them.

“Commander, it’s rude to stare.” Kaidan chided quietly and Shepard jumped a bit.

“Huh?” Shepard was distracted by the writhing tail and the surprisingly well-shaped butt under it.

“Gosh Commander, I knew you were a xenophile, but you just met the woman and her species.” Ashley muttered in disapproval, likely borne of professionalism rather than bigotry.

“I’m not-!” Penny’s protest was interrupted by her girlfriend booping her helmet.

“ Penny. You’re ogling her so hard I’m surprised she can’t feel your eyeballs on her ass.” Yola said with amusement in her tone and Penny was overcome with embarrassment.

“I can smell your arousal Commander. I can also hear you all. Are you enjoying the show?” Martra chuffed and paused to wiggle her rear at them and Shepard facepalmed. “Well, perhaps later. We have work to do. It’s about time someone helped our fellow settlers.” Martra rumbled with a deep tigric growl before she continued to lead them.

“I’m guessing you didn’t like hunkering down?” Shepard questioned after she was done sweeping her embarrassment under a rug and stomping on it.

“No. Droid assault or not, they are our neighbors. We should’ve scrambled to aid them. Instead, all of us, not a single neighboring settlement, bothered to even send scouts!” Martra snarled, a felline yowl accompanying it.

“Why didn’t yours?” Shepard asked.

“Personnel issue. We were only established two years ago and have a small population. Many of us are more worried about the nursery right now.” Martra admitted as they neared an intersection of tunnels. “This is where I managed to map the tunnels to. This tunnel here goes in the direction of Zue’s Hope. Now, since we got here smoothly, this is the part where I’m supposed to head back. Fuck that. I want to help, so do you mind if I come along?”

“Not at all!” Penny chirped and Kaidan gently elbowed her. “I mean, sure. We could use all the help we can get.” Commander Shepard amended slightly.

“Good, because I was coming whether you wanted me to or not.” Martra declared and began to lead them down the tunnel she’d indicated and Penny’s brain had fallen into the gutter again at her phrasing. Even more as the Kut primed a massive fuck-off blaster that glowed a deep green.

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“So.” Garrus intoned nearby and I rolled out from under the chassis frame I was putting together while Dee and Daw sorted out the parts for the engine. “You and the Commander, huh?”

“Well, it just sorta happened. Turns out she’s a hoplophile, I’m basically a living weapon, she loves huge boobs apparently. I just tick off multiple boxes on her fetish list. The emotional aspect comes along with it because we’re both not just looking for some fun.” I said up at the turian sharpshooter who hummed and crossed his arms.

“Well damn. I was hoping at least one of you ladies weren’t just teasing me for the fun of it.” Garrus’ words reminded me of the ongoing gag Yola, Tali and I had going with him.

“Oh. Sorry, it was all in good fun for Yola and I, but I can’t speak for Tali. She was a total virgin when we met.” The irony is I think she’s getting more action now than the majority of the Migrant Fleet since her immune system is already strong enough she’s not getting the sniffles from indulging in deepthroating.

Then Tali snuck up on Garrus and hugged him around the waist to both our surprise. “Sorry Garrus. If it’s okay, I’d be happy to talk about calibrations with you.”

“C-calibrations you say? Do tell, what about-?” Garrus was already going on about calibrations while Tali tugged him away and I saw her wink at me through her visor. Aw, thanks babe for sparing me the awkward situation. Hopefully you like him as much as you did in the games.

“He’s weird.” Daw commented as HK approached from the armory with a gun-blaster-bowcaster thing in his hands. Holy shit, when Penny sees that she might just soak her panties.

“Agreement: Yes he is. Compensating Statement: However, he does have good taste in weaponry and is able to somehow calibrate firing vectors beyond projected parameters.” HK vigorously shook the weapon in his hand, did some tugs on certain pieces, then nodded. “Pleased Statement: Construction is firm, body of weapon is rock-solid.”

“What’s that?” I asked with concern. HK-47 is infamous for having been able to assassinate people who rightly have no business being able to be assassinated. I was okay with him being allowed to maintain the weapons of the crew, but aside from his given word he wasn’t going to kill anyone on the ship, there was nothing stopping him.

“Explanation: A weapon for the scout vehicle you are making.” HK gestured to it and I recognized that it was basically a custom high-power artillery-grade bowcaster hybridized with a modern sniper rifle so that instead of needing quarrels, it fires the same sand-grain sized projectile, but added plasma and extra kick from further propulsion instead of just using Mass Effect.

“Geez HK, the Nomad is meant to be an exploration and scout vehicle, not a miniature anti-armor vehicle. Either way, I appreciate it, but how much tabana gas do we have available?” Without tabana gas, the traditional blaster technology had no means to harness plasma, leaving them just as useless as a traditional slug-thrower with no bullets.

“Answer: If all of the tabana cartridges were used exclusively for the Heavy Bowcaster, it would have roughly 200 shots before needing to obtain more tabana gas.” HK replied and I gawked. Only 200? One of those cheap standardized blasters can get roughly 500-1000 shots out of a single cartridge. Sure, those shots wouldn’t have much more oomph than a large caliber gun, but still!

“I’ll, uh, make sure that we don’t forget the limited shots we have with that thing.” Tabana gas isn’t even a commonly available resource here yet. Of course there are more than plenty of gas giants to harvest it from, but that technology isn’t locally available yet.

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“Damn this universe and it’s slug-throwers! How do those Marines withstand this sort of thing?!” Martra yowled as she ducked under a spray of bullets, the hulking female feline forced to take up most of the cover and the squad using her as extended cover since her armor was rated for heavy blaster fire. That said, it wasn’t rated for the exotic bullets of the Milky Way and she was feeling the impacts.

“I thought this place was under attack by droids!” Shepard hissed as the citizens shot at them! The moment they reached the top of the tower that Zue’s Hope was on and got off the express elevator that went straight down from the top, the citizens had seemed to be safe, no droids in sight. Then the instant they looked at Martra, they opened fire!

“It was! No bodies or broken droids though, so-ow! Something is up here! They may have even betrayed-ow! Exogeni!” Martra hissed and clutched her blaster rifle tightly. “But they’re settlers, should we even-ow! Fire back?!”

“If I report this, the Alliance will come for them and put them down as an insurrection. I’d prefer if we got to the bottom of this with as few deaths as possible! Let’s go back down the elevator and try to find another way into the tower!” Shepard declared and they ran back to the elevator, Marta acting as a physical shield while Kaidan projected his biotic one to keep her from suffering injury. Once in the elevator, it descended rapidly and the squad breathed a sigh of relief. At least until the elevator jerked to a sudden halt and stopped before opening a different door than the tunnel access.

“Hey, this is a garage.” Ashley observed as they left the elevator and found the garage was full of B1 droids and the horrible monstrosity known as a Mako that seemed to be one of the unfortunate few to be sent out before mass production. Said droids sprang to life and took aim, so the squad ran for cover, Martra doing so behind the Mako, which was big enough to cover her. “I thought the elevator only went from the tunnels to the top!”

“So did I! The one on our tower doesn’t have other doors in the shaft!” Martra replied as she blasted the droids who tried to strafe around her cover while Kaidan threw a grenade and Shepard used a biotic wave to knock over several other droids. The skirmish ended quickly and the squad reassembled to check each other over for injury.

“So is everyone alright? Good, because I’m afraid we’re going to have to appropriate that Mako. I can’t believe the ESA built and shipped so many of the things before they could be properly tried and tested.” Shepard bemoaned as they approached the blaster-burnt expensive piece of junk.

“Good thinking Commander, that sign says bridge access and I remember seeing another tower connected by one to Zue’s Hope.” Ashley pointed out and the crew piled in.

Save Martra.

“Um...where do I sit?” The enormous cat-taur asked with a visible blush through her fur, somehow. The squad realized she wouldn’t be able to even get into the cramped vehicle. “I could...ride on top?”

Penny Inoue Shepard sighed deeply out her nose. Fuck she hated the damned Mako.