Maarena T'neri stared listlessly at the screen, her eyes dropping while she cradled a streaming cup of bitter almna in her hands. The spicy and bitter taste along with the rush of energy from the drink kept her up while she stared the screen in front of her, sifting through the stream of data presented to her. The blue light of the screen cast long shadows in the relative darkness of her ship.
It was already late in the night or at least late in the night in the Thessian Academy of Science and Technology, the most prestigious university in Thessia,and she liked to keep her circadian cycle close to that of home. Still, she remains awake as the data from the recent gravitational wave survey in the area was... fascinating. There was nothing quite like it.
“Rena, go to sleep” Groaned out her research partner, Scipio the Turian. While many would think all Turians are martially inclined, not all Turians are built the same. Some are more curious and ask too many questions, a trait that many Turian higher ups wouldn't want in their armed forces. Scipio was the best partner she could ask for in this scientific trip and no not because he was eye candy and the fact that he could cook but because he kept reminding her when it was time to stop and because he was the best boyfriend an Asari could ask for; Could cook and gives the best back rubs.
“It's been 34 hours and you haven't had a wink of sleep” Maarena's colleague reminded her which made the Asari glance at the clock blinking innocently in the screen. It was already early in the morning... had time really passed that easily? Maybe it was time to sleep as her legs felt like leaden weights and everything felt like it was tilting but...
“Not sure if I could sleeping seeing the recent stream of data from out buoy. There's something weird going on in this Nebula...” She replied as she run the data on the statistic program on her omnitool, trying to see any significant results from the recent scan.
“Rena, you need to sleep. You're already... by the Patriarchs how many cups of this stuff have you been drinking!”
Maarena stared at the table besides her where her precious Almna making machine sat. Strewn all over it were used cups of the drink which Scipio was cleaning up. She flinched as Scipio turned on the lights. “Nooooo~! It burns” She hissed as the intense beam of light shone on her
She flailed uselessly as Scipio scanned him with his Omni tool. “Maarena you need to sleep. You're already hissing at the lights” called out with his lecturing tone of voice
“But the light, its angry” Mareena hissed as she buried her face on the desk, wanting the gentle embrace of the darkness. “Oh sweet mother of the night, I'll never leave you again” she whispered as she tried to reach out for another cup only for her hands to be swatted away by Scipio.
After dumping all that cup in the disposal bins, he then unplugged the machine from the ship. That would probably keep the Asari busy as the room was too bright for her to get up and re-plug it to the socket. “We've talked about this. The last time you stayed up this late you passed out and almost deleted all the data we've been gather so far.”
Taking the groan as a sign of her inevitable defeat, the Turian pressed on “Besides, its not like the data would go away. We can always come back to it when both of us are awake and lucid enough to process all of it”.
Taking a seat and placing it beside her colleague, he sat down beside her and gently rubbed the back of the Maiden who groaned out something unintelligible which he thinks was about rogue gravity waves and anomalies. Even if she was already a hundred years old, sometimes Scipio felt like he was the older one in the ship.
“I'll be just right back ok and don't drink anymore of the stuff, you've already drank enough to make a Krogan jittery” The Turian replied as he went off to fetch a blanket. He came back seeing his partner still, face down on the desk as she snored in her sleep. He chuckled as he draped her blanket over her. She's a nice girl, just too passionate at times.
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Running his hands across his fringes, he sighed as he sat beside her. The things he does for love... At first, he came to this small expedition is this cramped vessel just to get in her pants but the more they work together, the more he valued her presences. Oh sure the sex was great seeing as there was little source of entertainment all the way out here but he loved her more for her passion and quirkiness.
Turning towards the screen, he started looking at the data as well. It was weird... really weird. They first came here to study how organic materials form in nebula's but stayed as they gather data on these “rogue gravitational waves”. At first they thought it was just a large pocket of eezo missed by miners here in the nebula but soon found that the signal was simply too big for that.
Even going near the source of the waves they found nothing... literally nothing aside from the dust and cloud of the Nebula. Where there should be a planet size object floating around they came to a relatively empty patch of space. The strangeness just doesn't end there but it comes in regular interval. They checked and rechecked their equipment and found nothing anomalous, it was what they're looking at that was anomalous.
Drumming his talons on the desk, he cupped his chin and leaned against his arm while the data remains frustratingly the same in front of his eyes. What the hell was going on here? Every 24 hours, a wave occurs here spreading outward from a certain point
He was about to get up and make some breakfast when he felt something rock their ship. Another set of data wash across the screen. That shouldn't have happened... gravitational waves shouldn't be something you felt and he was sure it wasn't anything else because outside the window there isn't anything.
It happened once more and he could feel the ship lurch as if it was a naval ship caught by a wave. “No sexy time Scipio, need to sleep” Mareena whispered as she adjusted her position on the table.
“That wasn't me” Scipio replied as he walked towards the control room... before it happened. One moment the ship was just minding its business when space welled up before erupting, a gaping wound in the fabric forcefully upon reality.
The couples ship was tossed aside as exotic particles and strange lights flood the area, a wormhole in space and time opened from who knows where. What else could it be as their ships struggled as the tide of materials being spewed forth.
Scipio was tossed left and right as klaxons alarmed across he struggled to stay upright. He didn't have biotics to help him unlike Maarena who was instantly awake and was able to get to the control room. There she struggled against the variable gravitational and electromagnetic field which this anomaly produced. It was like their a small ship caught in the storm.
Scipio was able to claw his way to the control room just in time to see it rise from the depths. A pitch black planet rose from the portal, great forks of lightning arcing from the edge of its burning metallic surfaces. Scipio could only stare at what seems like eyes staring out towards them. Terrible burning eyes house in deep pockets of darkness. Their screams drowned out by everything as the planets terrible maw came into view.
They didn't knew if it was just delirium at this point but its smiled, its smiled with the large crack across its surface. Hundreds of blade like mountains jutting out from the crack while the malevolent red aurora's rippled across its surface.
“Get us out now!” Scipio shouted as adrenaline pumped in his veins, his focus upon the terrible planet along with the dread it inspired. Silence seem to reign as everything seemingly stopped as the planet passed through the portal. As terrible as this storm was, it soon passed as quickly as it came as the portal closed behind the planet.
“I can't! I can't maneuver the ship!” and that was the moment the planet seem to grew larger.
For a moment, Scipio and Maarena thought they heard laughter before they were ripped off their seat by a great and sudden acceleration. There last few moments of lucidity was filled by gleeful laughter before they passed out as they crashed against the wall of their accelerating ship.