Chapter 22: The end of a series
For the last ti Rick released a trailer for the ultimate season of Mass Effect. From his point of view, nothing much was happening in it. Just a bunch of stuff to keep the public wondering about things and hyping them with so snippets of fighting scenes.
One thing he did differently was the teasers for each crew mber. This ti he simply presented so arts from the artists that had worked on the propaganda during the war or simple street art. It was of course animated a bit to make it seem like it was new. The viewers gobbled it all up.
Ash’s artificial eye was finally done to perfection and Rick sent it to the navy with a personal note for her.
“Keep the eye patch around, ‘cause you’re really fucking sexy with it, Bombshell.”
With that done, everything was going well in his life. He had patched up things with Arianna and she had stopped holding herself back. She was more than ready to enter the fifth year of the Academy next year. She would be paired with Dorothea who was finishing her current course and wanted to start another. That brought him so relief as his daughter would be almost half the age of the youngest student in that year.
The company was doing extrely well. BLUE was revolutionary and was being adopted more and more from the masses. However the need of Eezo was annoying him as it was rare and difficult to mine. He wondered if creating another material releasing dark energy was possible. After all that was what was really needed for space travel, dark energy. If they could harness or produce it in a cheaper manner, they would have total control of the market.
His primary question regarding that particular subject was how could the Mass Relay have so much elent zero at their center and never run out of it? That baffled him. It was impossible to collect any eezo from them and studies of the relay when they got repaired didn’t give an answer.
‘It’s like eezo is popping right out of… existence.’
That thought triggered sothing in his mind and he imdiately called EDI and David that were still working on the possibility of making a ship its own Mass Relay.
“Hello, EDI. Hello, Rick.” David greeted them.
“Hello everyone.” greeted back the AI and so did Rick.
“I just had an eureka mont.”
“That must be serious if you’re calling us imdiately.” said EDI.
“Is the creation of the eezo from the Mass Relay, and the manufacturing of infinite dark energy serious enough?”
““We’re listening.””
“Where does the eezo at the center of the Relays co from? It’s always there and never ending, which is…”
“Not possible. It must co from sowhere.” The line of thought was finished by EDI.
“A subspace.”
“Probably. By studying my biotics I noticed the ‘growth’ for a lack of a better word, of my eezo nodules. If eezo was purely non-organic that would be impossible.” Rick explained.
“Are you saying that eezo has organic properties? Hmmm… That would explain why there is always so at the center of the Relays if the energy from the subspace transforms so particles into eezo and feeds them energy constantly…Despite how old the Relays are and how long they have been in use.”
“There would theoretically be an infinite amount of Eezo produced.” concluded David.
“So, can’t we not reproduced what we did with RED but to create eezo? Or, one step further, create dark energy already negatively polarized to reduce the mass of objects to nothing?”
“I’ll never understand where you got those ideas but…”
“It may be doable.”
“Would that help you in making a ship Mass relay?”
“Greatly. The problem so far was to have enough eezo and dark energy to sustain our own subspace corridor. The theory is sound and ready to be tested but practically the quantity of eezo necessary is too ludicrous for that to ever happen but now…”
“We may very well be able to do it.”
“Ti table?”
“Half a year?”
“We already have what’s needed for the creation of a subspace after working on the RED. What we need to work on is producing dark energy or eezo. The latter we already know the process and the numbers so it would not take long to recreate it in a subspace. The forr is more complicated.”
“That’s alright. I trust both of you to succeed.”
With that, the call ended and Rick had to do his best to calm down, his excitent being very high.
____________________________________________________________
After further thinking about it, visiting Aria with the children was put on hold, instead Rick contacted her to know if she wanted to visit them. She had refused but relented when he told her that Celeste would be near Oga. The children had been wary at first since the Pirate queen had such an imposing presence. They were not understanding how she could be their daddy’s mother and their grandmother. Rick had told them that they were too young to know but that one day they will be told. The only one who didn’t have a care in the world about Aria’s imposing deanor was, of course, Arianna. She rembered a bit of her grandmother when Celeste was first launched but what explained it the most was that she was every bit her father’s daughter. She talked to Aria, normally, asked questions about her, her work, her life and if she wanted to play a ga.
The asari’s poker face never broke but she looked intently at Arianna, then to Rick, then back to Arianna. She felt like she had made a jump more than twenty years into the past. While she didn’t play any gas with the children she told them stories of Oga. They were censored of course and so things were changed a bit for the children’s ears but they all were captivated by her tales. When she learned that Arianna, Adam and Sandra had begun to train their biotics she had been surprised that Rick would have put an implant on them so young.
“Yeah… about that…” her adoptive son spoke hesitantly.
“What?”
“They don’t need one?”
“... Of-freaking-course, they don’t need one. What did you co up with?”
“I was just born that way and they inherited it.”
“... Are you telling that you’re a natural biotic?” she asked dumbfounded.
“Pretty much…”
“...It’s always sothing with you… All your children will be biotic then… I don’t know if the Galaxy is ready.”
“I sure know my kids will be ready for the Galaxy and that’s all that matters.”
“You got that right.” she replied with a small hidden smile full of pride.
After dinner mother and son spent so ti alone to catch up as both have been busy doing their own thing. He talked about Celeste Academy and how he was poaching the best students right under everyone's noses and no one could do anything about it. He also talked about so of his current projects (not the ones with EDI and David) but the regular ones. He also asked her if she wanted to be in charge of his company store on Oga if she allowed one. She didn’t give him a concrete answer but promised she'd think about it before leaving Celeste to return to Oga.
Sumr break was far from over and Jennifer and Miranda went to their ho on Eden Pri for their annual vacation. Rick told Miranda that she could have two weeks instead of one if she took the children with them. Not mad enough to refuse the opportunity to have a longer break for work, Miranda accepted on the spot. Jane had been wroth with him for that unilateral decision until he told her that it was just Arianna, Adam and JJ so they could see the outside world and not just be confined on Celeste. Speaking of the school ship, Hilary water landed it in the Pacific Ocean and its international waters. The hundred or so students that were living full ti at the Academy were free to visit the paradise islands in the vicinity but in small groups of ten maximum and with a chaperone. Plenty of teachers had chosen to live fullti at the academy too and wanted to enjoy their vacation in a nice place just like the students.
He caught Kahlee before she left with Anderson and talked to her about the possibility of having so unused area repurposed for religious belief. That was sothing that had crossed his mind recently. With many people living all year round on Celeste, they didn’t have any way to connect with any deities they may have believed in and providing them with one was more or less important in Rick’s mind. Kahlee thought it was a good idea and that they would work on this together once she got back from her vacation.
With Kahlee away, Rick was more or less in charge. It was his school after all. He let Kahlee hold the reins of it because she was his sister and because he couldn’t be bothered. He did ask the Students where they wanted to go this sumr and they gave him multiple answers. In the end Celeste would stay a week at each destination. The next stop would be the Citadel followed by Sur’Kesh, Tuchanka (Rick had been surprised at this one) and Thessia and finally Palaven before going back to the Serpent Nebula and welcoming back all the students.
On the space station they had t Kaidan and his crew that were there for a short stop between missions. So additions to the team had been made though. The spectre had sohow succeeded in having his husband into his crew, Traynor was there too but also a forr Asari commando. How he got the last one, Rick didn’t know and while curious about it, didn’t particularly care. Jane and the children went to see Hannah while he went to the presidium. Mr. Bean’s shop had not been opened when he visited the year before and he was glad to see that it wasn’t the case anymore. Greeting the store owner, Rick partook in what he hated the most, small talk, before trying to find dresses to keep up with the demands of the won in his life. Because the presidium had been mostly spared when the Citadel was destroyed the entirety of the shop’s content had been spared to both Mr Bean and Rick’s joy. He spent an hour or two trying to find the eight dresses he’d been asking for. He only found three that were both appealing, pretty and to the size of the won they were destined for. For the others he found the models but not the right size and acknowledged that he would have to contact a tailor to have them made. It was bound to happen anyway as a dress for Dorothea’s proportions were impossible to begin with, human won of her size didn’t exist back a hundred or two hundred years ago.
Afterwards, Rick went to check his own store also located on the Presidium to see how it was doing. The long waiting line outside of it and a quick look inside told him all he wanted to know and he didn’t even stop for a mont. He went to the cafe Liara usually frequented and to his luck found her there. Giving his order to the counter he sat down in silence next to his asari bondmate and enjoyed the view.
“I’m surprised you didn’t go with Jane to see her mother.”
“She will always co last in the family. Far below my bondmate.” He replied as he took her hand in his.
“Really?”
“We’ve… reconciled and I admit that I love her but you’ve been in my life longer than she did, so to speak, so you get better preferential treatnt.”
“That makes both sad and happy.”
“There is also the fact that I’m not bonded to and not having sex with her and that counts for a lot.” he joked.
“You didn’t… ? Now, that’s interesting.”
“How so?”
“She looks like an older Jane and she’s, what is it humans would call her… A MIF?”
“MILF. With an ‘L’. It ans Mother I’d Like To Fuck. And no it’s not supposed to refer to your own mother but a woman who has given birth and is more mature physically. Which Jane is.”
“I see… Still, Tali and Jennifer aside, you tend to prefer older won, so I’m surprised that…”
“You don’t look older than Baby Blue.” he interjected.
“No. But Jane, Ashley, Miranda… Analysse. There have been far more older looking won than younger won in your life.”
“... True.”
“Now don’t change the subject more than that. Why not your mother?”
“...You’re mighty curious about it… Fine. I already have enough ladies to pay attention to and… I’m married now, twice over. I can’t really go and sleep with every sexy and pretty lady. It doesn’t sit right with . Especially since I don’t want to make more connections like the ones I already have.”
“Is that why you didn’t go after Ashley’s sisters? They’re all beautiful.”
“Yes. While I wouldn’t have minded before I got married as I expected all of you to find another partner… It’s different now. I… really don’t want more. Especially ones that may want children. Though with Ashley, who knows what will happen.”
“You already have enough.” joked Liara.
“Yes but… We’re a really tight family because we thought together so our family is nuclear. Any other won? They wouldn’t be really a part of it. I’d be a father to the children if they had so but… I would never really be in their lives as I’m already with the ones I have. Sandra is half the ti with us because of how close I am with Jennifer and Miranda but I don’t think it would be the sa with anyone else. Then there is the possibility of Tali deciding to have more than Leeha, Dorothea, you… I’m good honestly.”
“You say that but Hannah is part of the close family, if not through you, through Jane. She is the children’s grandmother. From your criterias she is checking all of them.”
“... You just want to fuck my own mother don’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Liara strongly denied this. Too strongly.
“HmmHmm. And you don’t want to roll under the sheet with her either, huh?”
“I do not.”
“You an, you don’t want to have sex with an older version of Jane, the only other person besides that you would have started a relationship for based on your feelings?”
“...”
“...”
“Alright! Maybe I want that a bit.” she finally confessed after feeling her bondmate’s intense gaze on her, despite his helt.
“I’ll ask Jane if she’s interested in a threeso with the two of us.”
“You don’t…”
“Have to, I know. But there is nothing wrong with spicing things up a bit. I’ll even let you have your way with her alone once she’s really into it.”
“... I have the best bondmate ever.” the asari whispered as she gave him a loving kiss.
“I disagree. I think I have the best bondmate ever. She’s smart, a bit shy and naive at tis, she can be pretty, cute, adorable, sexy and utterly beautiful. She’s a kick ass biotic but also very wise and a scary sex demon. I couldn’t ask for more.” he replied as he planted kisses along her neck.
“... Keep talking.”
“No. Or we’re going to be arrested for public indecency and banned from ever being custors of this cafe again. Because I swear I will not stop if I start ravaging you against this table.”
“You better be all mine tonight.”
“I will be.” he promised.
____________________________________________________________
Sumr break has done so good for everyone. The family had finally t Solana, Garrus’ sister and she was the total opposite of him. A total extravert and very outgoing. Calibrations? Never heard of it. Well, she wouldn’t have had she not been born in a military family in a military hierarchical species. She got along really well with Jane and both brothers simply wanted to drink themselves to death as their sisters were exchanging embarrassing stories about them. Unfortunately for them, the children were present and that was not an option. Solana was very happy to see her niece and nephew (not caring that Laura was human) again. Garrus and Chloe gave her a tour of Celeste and she fell in love with the place.
After their allotted ti on Palaven ended they left for the Serpent Nebula but not before Primarch Victus personally visited Jane and Rick to thank them for bringing back the few missing turian that Bahlak and his cohorts had enslaved and for putting a bullet in any turian pirates back on Ontarom.
Life went on as usual as the end of the year ca. This ti the graduation happened on Earth in the middle of the diterranean Sea. Donors were, as always, satisfied. Students and families had fun. Arianna had the best birthday ever in her opinion thanks to the special glasses her daddy had made for her. They didn’t correct eyesight but there was a scan integrated in them with a link to the galactic encyclopedia. Everyti she wanted to know what sothing was, it would display it in front of her eyes. She nearly choked Rick to death with how hard she hugged him with her small arms around his neck.
Finally, Christmas eve ca around and it was on a Saturday which, coincidentally, was the day of airing of the last two episodes of Mass Effect. Everyone waited impatiently to see how Jane had defeated the Reapers once and for all and in Rick’s opinion they wouldn’t be disappointed.
This last season has been split between what was happening with Jane and what was happening with Rick for obvious reasons and the public didn’t dislike it. Jane may have been the hero and main protagonist but beside attacking Cerberus’ headquarters everything important was happening on Rick’s sides. So episodes were focused on what was happening around the Galaxy, most notably Earth, Palaven and others howorld that even thought they had fallen were still fighting. It has been well received by the public too. Considering the occasion and the ti of the year, Hannah had been present on Celeste. She was after all an important part of what had happened. The rest of the crew was there too, even the one not working at the Academy, with the exception of Ashley.
The previous episode had ended with Jane and the crew gearing up for taking Cerberus’ HQ down and the organization once and for all. People’s reaction to Act!Rick killing Act!Kai Leng in two seconds had been priceless. At first a chain of ‘done with this shit’ s (the one with Act!Joker’s face) began but was quickly replaced by many celebratory gifs and s. Now that only Act!TIM was left, people were hanging at the edge of their seats for his death. They had been pretty disappointed when it was revealed that the man was not there but then shocked to see that the data on the catalyst had been erased. The crew’s reaction at that revelation has been one of defeat and the public sympathized.
The scene cut to Act!Rick barging in the council chambers and telling the council the station needed to be evacuated because it was the catalyst and what was going to happen. Everyone laughed at Act!Rick being lost at the fact that he didn’t need to kill a councilor to be heard and get things moving despite having his gun in hand and pointing it at Hannah.
“Oratrice_canique: I guess so habits die hard.”
“OctoDaddy: This one wonders if he would have gotten that free sundae.”
“°Rick
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