"This ship is massive!" Taylor whistled as they walked around the cruiser's halls.

"Most cruisers carry a crew of three hundred," Niusa explained, "and they form the backbone of most combat formations, often accompanied by a few frigates for support since they aren't particularly nimble, but their mass accelerator packs a punch."

Taylor nodded. She was taking a stroll through the ship with Niusa to clear her head. The fight a few hours previous still weighed on her mind. She felt torn. On one hand, the pirates had been ready to kill Taylor and her friends without hesitation, she had been acting in self-defense, but the way she had done it had been unnecessarily brutal and cruel. She had let a very dark part of her out and toyed with the pirates purely out of anger and vindictiveness.

The door in front of them opened and the hallway they had been following gave way to a catwalk overlooking the ship's hangar. Their freighter was still in the middle alongside two ships of the same size tucked on the edge. Kenn had read through the communication logs and they were not the first crew to fall prey to the pirates' scheme. It seemed Ghalo and his crew had been running their operation for several months under everyone's noses.

With no traces of the other ships' crews, she assumed they had met the same fate as the batarian pirates and were floating somewhere in the void of space. Mordin would send the information about the dealers on Omega to Aria. Even if there were no laws on Omega, there was still some honor among thieves or at least the appearance of it.

"Let's check out the drive core," Taylor said and pulled Niusa along. "I want to see what it looks like on a big ship."

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Niusa hovered half-way up the hangar, below her was nothing but air for several meters. She gripped Taylor's hand like her life depended on it. Rationally, she knew there was nothing to fear but the small primitive part of her still feared the hold of gravity and its consequences.

"Calm down Niusa," Taylor took both of her hands. "There's no danger. You won't fall because you are the one in control."

She took a big breath. The metal bracelet Taylor had given her sat securely on her wrist and the pale blue stone on top had a faint glow. She didn't know how some jewelry could grant her the power to fly in complete defiance to physics but it did. When she had asked Taylor, she had replied with a simple shrug. "Powers are bullshit."

Powers were bullshit.

"Just follow me," Taylor slowly floated away, pulling on Niusa's arms. "No need to go fast, just focus on getting a feel for the controls."

"Which controls," her voice wavered, "it just … reacts to my thoughts."

"Yes, it's how powers work. You want to hover, you hover, you want to go forward, you'll go forward. Simple as that."

"How do you manage to make it seem so … easy." Niusa smiled.

She closed her eyes for a second. Taylor had walked her through flying up. It had been very easy, almost too much, and she had ended up higher than she wanted. Her friend had caught her with one of her blue fields before her head hit the ceiling. She took hold of the bracelet's presence in her mind and imagined herself moving at a walking pace forward.

When she opened her eyes, she was moving.

"You did it!" Her friend praised her, it was the best part of the whole thing. "Now, let's try a turn…"

Several hours of practice later, she was flying loops around the catwalks and playing aerial tag. Taylor was much better than her of course and performed maneuvers that made Niusa's turn. Only a madwoman would drop into freefall to avoid getting tagged.

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Everyone was gathered around a table in the cafeteria. Kenn received an answer from the migrant fleet. They would send some frigates and marines to check the ship. They would wait for them at the Qaxiu five relay, the last jump before reaching the flotilla, and assess the situation. Very sensible precautions overall.

This left the question of what to do about Taylor. If a contingent of quarian marines boarded the ship, they would obviously ask questions about who the other quarian was and she had no good answer to that question that kept her real identity and nature under wraps.

"Possibility one, part ways," Mordin said. "Kenn proceeds with cruiser towards flotilla. Taylor, Niusa, and me, take previous freighter and continue on journey. Leaves one open question, Kenn aware of Taylor's nature and abilities. Taylor wishes to keep them secret."

"I will keep Miss Taylor's secret," Kenn said with conviction. "You have helped me so much, it's the least I can do to repay you."

"The marines might not accept no for an answer," Taylor tapped the table. "It's not that I don't trust you Kenn but … I know how pushy those military types can be when they want an answer."

"Evaluation, accurate," Mordin nodded. "Possibility two, first contact. Kenn informs flotilla of first contact, requests secrecy. Likelihood of admirals accepting, high. Quarians searching for new homeworld, new species offers possibility of unexplored space, likely to treat on friendly terms."

Taylor had gone along with the idea of being an unknown species since it was a convenient cover but if she met with high ranking officials …

She kind of was an alien in many ways. She was certainly not genetically human, she could look like one but her species had definitely changed to something new. She was not culturally human either, at least not humans of the local Earth. In truth, she was probably closer to some kind of shard-hybrid than anything else, the only member of her species.

Asteria, if we meet another parahuman, would it be possible to reproduce our … symbiosis? She wasn't exactly sure what to call whatever had happened to them but symbiosis felt like an appropriate word.

Would it work on non-parahumans? Like Mordin and Niusa?

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

She suddenly felt silly to have criticized the asari's method of reproduction. Hers was even more convoluted and exotic.

"Taylor?" Niusa took her hand. "You're looking … pensive."

"I just realized that I am a new species," she chucked. "I just hadn't fully internalized it."

"Self-actualization critical," Mordin gave her a cheeky grin.

"Never been the best at that," she sighed. "And Mordin is right, treating this as a first contact situation is the right choice. I won't be able to hide forever."

Even if she made it to Earth Bet, she wasn't sure if she wanted to stay.

"Kenn, Mordin, Niusa, you probably know better than me how to handle this so … I'll leave it in your capable hands."

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Taylor had almost forgotten about that. To be fair, her life had been a lot busier than she had expected.

What's the result?

So their mysterious benefactor had left a message? What does it say?

Someone appeared at the center of the stone circle in the Shire. They were not human even if they had the general shape of one. Their eyes were entire galaxies, their skin shifted with the colors of a nebula, and their hair were strands of stars which slowly shifted colors. Despite that appearance, they projected a friendly demeanor.

"Greetings, Taylor. I am known as [Wanderer], a distant cousin of [Thinker] and [Warrior]."

"So there are more than two …" Taylor mused.

"Indeed," the Wanderer said. This took her by surprised since she had not expected a recording to reply. "I left this interactive message for when you regained consciousness. I imagine you have several questions for me."

"Why did you help Asteria and me?"

"It was my reward for slaying the [Warrior]. [The Eye] showed me that symbiosis was a much wiser path than senseless destruction. I have reached the [Answer] but the [Goal] is pointless." The strange layered names were difficult to parse but the Answer roughly meant the end of entropy while the Goal was infinite propagation. "It was me who engineered the fall of [Thinker] before the pair could enact their cycle but it was your hand which put an end to it once and for all."

"Are they really … dead?"

"As dead as one of our kind can be," Wandered said. "The network will certainly attempt to form a new [Entity] but it is too damaged to succeed. Most of the shards which remain will slowly perish as they run out of energy over the next few centuries."

Hopefully, Taylor would reach Earth Bet before any of that started. She had no doubt that the process Wanderer spoke of was chaotic and destructive even if it failed.

"Are there others out there?"

"Our kind is innumerable among the stars, it is not impossible you will encounter others. While some will be happy to simply exchange [DATA] others are hell-bent on conquest. Be prudent when you travel among the stars, one never knows what might hide in the shadows."

And wasn't that ominous.

"What did you do to Asteria? She mentioned you replaced something called a custodian forge."

"When I reached [Administrator] after I received her distress signal, she had already entered deep sleep to conserve her energy reserves. I replaced her custodian forge, part of the self-repair systems, repaired her power generator, and updated her databanks with my own knowledge. You now hold the [Answer] as well, what you do with it is up to you."

"Will we meet, in person?"

"I am sorry, I cannot answer this question," Wandered said sadness. "This interactive recording is limited in what knowledge it holds."

It had answered most of her questions already. She could always restart it in the future if necessary.

"Thank you, Wanderer," Taylor said.

"Farewell, Taylor."

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Taylor sat on the bridge of their small freighter. She had asked Mordin for a flight lesson and the salarian had obliged. Every ship apparently had a basic flight simulator loaded on their computer for this exact reason. With the auto-pilot taking care of most things while flying through empty space, it allowed junior pilots to practice more complex maneuvers during long-haul flights.

For the moment, Mordin was instructing her on the basics of the control.

Like more or less everything in the galaxy, the primary interface was holographic. In front of her were several screens that showed the flight instruments. At her sides were the actual controls and they looked surprisingly mundane. She had a joystick to her right and a handle to her left. Even without having flown any aircraft before, she had an idea of what they were for. There were also two pedals at her feet.

"First exercise, basic maneuvers," Mordin said and tapped on his omni-tool.

The front viewscreen and the instruments changed to show the void of space with several bright orange rings in the distance. Mordin walked her through some basic procedures to start the engines then she gave the throttle handle a slight push. The inertial dampeners simulated the acceleration and the ship lurched forward in the simulation. Since the first ring was straight in front of her, she did not touch the control stick and the ship flew straight through.

For the second one, however, she needed to actually turn the ship. Unlike with a plane inside of an atmosphere, there was no drag in space. Instead, inertia was king. If she pushed the stick to the right, small thrusters would make the craft turn in the desired direction and it would keep turning unless she counter-steered. The same went for the throttle, the more power she put in, the faster the ship would accelerate but it meant she would need to put the same amount of energy in reverse to slow down to a stop.

This made space flight a lot more tricky than expected. She was thankful for the lack of obstacles because she had sent her ship careening into awkward directions more than once. Unlike her simulated Millennium Falcon, which had just worked like a conventional plane, the small freighter needed some additional skill.

Of course, she was not one to be defeated by something as trivial as awkward flight controls. Once Mordin had given her the basics and shown her how to start the simulation, she put in several hours of practice every morning and afternoon of every day until they reached the quarian flotilla. Asteria had also gathered enough data to reproduce the flight training inside of her simulation which meant her forks could practice as well.

It took only twenty or so simulated flight hours for her to get the hang of the simpler maneuvers and her forks were working on the more complex ones like docking, landing, and relay approach. She wouldn't be an ace any time soon but she had plenty more time to learn after all.

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The fateful day finally arrived. In the distance, through the cruiser's viewscreen, they could see the red dwarf of the Qaxiu. Their inbound relay was at the edge of the system, in orbit around a dwarf planet that looked similar to the pictures of Pluto she had seen. It was the Qaxiu eight relay.

The Qaxiu five relay was, as its name implied, in orbit around the fifth planet of the system, a terrestrial planet roughly the same size as Earth. According to the database, it was tidally locked and the side facing the star was covered by scorching deserts while the cold side was covered by massive glaciers of ammonia. With no magnetosphere to speak of, there was no atmosphere and even the temperate band was uninhabitable.

After Kenn had informed the flotilla of a first contact situation, the matter had been escalated all the way to an admiral named Rael'Zorah. According to Kenn, he was someone important. The admiral requested a quick video conference with Taylor, over a secure line, to confirm the claims. She had demonstrated her shapeshifting ability as a show of good faith which had more than satisfied the admiral. He had announced he would come in person and bring a small team with him, understanding of Taylor's desire to keep a low profile.

Four quarian vessels were visible on the cruiser's tactical display, two frigates, one cruiser, and exploration ship. It seemed Admiral Zorah spared no expense on this mission.

"The lead frigate is hailing us," Kenn said.

"Unidentified cruiser, this is commander Haaf'Gomma vas Zenil, move to stable one point near Qaxiu four and prepare to be boarded by the Zunil."

"Understood commander," Kenn answered. "This is Kenn'Teedal nar Ziwrop returning from pilgrimage with a gift. Our Kinetic barriers and weapon systems are disabled, ready for escort."

Several warnings lit up on the tactical display, both frigates had locked onto the heavy cruiser. Mordin silenced the alerts with an annoyed look. Kenn, from the pilot's seat, started to move the ship towards its destination.