Mass Effect

The Hyper System

Shepard awoke to the sound of several high pitched beeps that woke him up, it wasn't the alarm clock that was making the sound it was coming from his Omni-tool. He got out of bed silently as not to disturb his wife, Tali.
Shepard left the bedroom and went into the hallway before answering in a quiet voice, "Hello, this is Shepard."
"Shepard," came a female voice, "it's Arcee, I don't suppose you and Joker have some time to check out a new FTL system my company's been working on?"
"Do you know what time it is?"
"Sorry, did I wake you? What time is it? Where you are?"
"Rannoch, and its still night outside," Shepard said "I suppose but couldn't you use any pilot to try out your new system?"
"I could," Arcee said, "but, Joker is one of if not the best pilot in the entire galaxy, besides Edi could be of some use to the project as well."
"I'm sure Joker would love to help you, but couldn't you just ask him yourself?" Shepard asked.
"Oh, come on Shepard, don't tell me you are not interested in a new form of faster than light travel?" Arcee said, "Besides I could always get you to try some new weapons as well."
"Well you got me there," Shepard said, "I'll ask Joker in the morning."
"Alright, can't wait to hear from you," Arcee said as the line cut out.
Shepard went back into the moonlit bedroom to return to sleeping with Tali but the second the door opened to his surprise stood Tali, her mask off, her arms crossed and looking crossed.
"Shepard, who was calling you at this hour?" she asked.
"Arcee," Shepard said, "she wants us to check out a new form of FTL."
"Oh," Tali said relaxing and calming down, and being a bit embarrassed about overreacting, "um, I hope you weren't going to leave me out of the loop?"
Shepard grabbed Tali and pulled her close to him, "Never," he said softly before kissing his wife.


Shepard, Tali, Joker and Edi walked through a doorway that opened up to reveal a pearl white room with computer consoles with scientists dressed in white robes with goggles over their eyes at each station. In the center of the room stood a woman about Shepard's age and height with straight, long red hair, in a white lab coat and a blue with gold trim pants and shirt.
"Shepard," the woman said as she turned to face them, "bout time you got here."
"Sorry for keeping you Arcee," Shepard replied, "but you did wake me up in the middle of the night when you contacted us."
"At any rate, take a look down there," Arcee said as Shepard and company walked over to view the Hangar.
In the Hangar was a single medium sized, triangular shaped ship looking only big enough to fit a small crew of four or five, and was matte grey in colour.
"That is the ship you will be flying Joker," Arcee continued.
"Wow, it's a nice ship," Joker said, "not as nice as the Normandy but still nice."
"Glad you like it," Arcee said sarcastically.
"So why did you decide to try to create a new form of FTL?" Tali asked.
"Well after the Reaper invasion, I began to wonder, could the galaxy have faired any better if we weren't limited to standard FTL travel, and also started to think that being limited to using only the Relays is fairly inefficient and a weakness especially if they were destroyed or if the Reapers guarded them better to prevent crafts from leaving or entering a system." Arcee explained, "So after the invasion I began to look up what some scientists were trying to achieve before we found the Relays and even after. I also looked to good old science fiction to gain any ideas of possible FTL travelling abilities."
"That is what led me to creating a generator that could be placed aboard nearly any ship, of nearly any size and be able to travel from one point of the galaxy to the other in mere hours or days." Arcee continued, "This system isn't quite as fast as using one of the Mass Relays, but after you put in your co-ordinates you can travel without the use of a Relay. Just have to watch out for suns, or other large space debris especially when entering the new system."
"Amazing," Tali said.
"I know, right," Arcee said excitedly, "I hope this works, if it does we might see some new ships soon that no longer require the Mass Relays, on the other hand if it fails, I'll be devastated."
"I'm sure it will work," Shepard said.
"I'm sure it will work too," Arcee said, "but that is not the thing I'm afraid of."
"What is worrying you then?" Tali asked.
"That no one will endorse a new form of FTL," Arcee said sadly, "not without some endorsement from someone that everyone respects. After all who wants to spend money to get a new form of FTL travel when we already have a functioning form of FTL travel."
"This is where it comes to the awkward part." Arcee said looking embarrassed, "If this new form of faster than light travel works, will you endorse the new system, Shepard?"
"Ah, so this is why you wanted me to come along," Shepard said.
"I know I should have told you why from the beginning, but I was afraid that if I said that you wouldn't want to be friends anymore, and feel like I was just using you for your hero status."
"Arcee, we've been friends for years, and you helped Tali get through the two years when I was dead," Shepard said with a smile on his face, "of course I'll endorse it, assuming it works of course."
"Oh it'll work, I know it will," Arcee said sounding as confident as before, "Thank you Shepard. Now let's go and complete the final trial of the new system, the Hyper system."

They were in the cockpit of the ship where there were five chairs, Joker sat at the front of ship where the control console was, Edi sat to his left and Arcee was at the station beside Edi's; Tali and Shepard sat opposite to Edi and Arcee.
"Right," Arcee said, "Joker be careful when exiting the hangar, the controls might feel a bit stiff, but are highly sensitive right now. We are traveling from this system to a system to a system only several light years away."
"Alright," Joker said as he brought the ship to life and the ship slowly moved forward floating in air.
"Remember this ship doesn't use any mass relay technology, so it should feel quite different to the Normandy."
"It does," Joker said as the ship left the hangar and went into space.
"Alright, now once you have lined up the ship to the direction that we are going, engage the Hyper Generator. Everyone else you know what you have to look out for during this test run."
"There we go," Joker said, "time to go Hyper."
There was a loud soothing hum as the Generator started, soon the stars that could be seen through the viewport started to stream backwards behind the ship and suddenly the ship suddenly accelerated, and some sort of blue energy cloud could be seen through the viewport.
"Everything is stable," Edi said.
"No abnormalities of any kind in any systems," Tali said, "current speed, just past light speed."
"Shields and hull armour are fine," Shepard said.
"Good, good," Arcee said, "let's hope the ship can maintain this."
A few hours later the blue cloud vanished as streams of white light started to shrink and become stars one again. Through the viewport they could see a space station just off the port bow.
"Arcee, we are reading you now," a voice said through the comm. system, "How was it?"
"It was completely successful," Arcee said, "after me and my team analyse the data I'll know if this will be a viable form of FTL travel to replace the Mass Relay system."
"Thank you all for your help," Arcee continued, "I'd love to know how it felt and what you guys think."
"It was incredible," Joker said.
"I hope this form of faster than light travel will become popular." Edi said.
"What are you going to call the drive that enables this form of FTL?" Tali asked.
"I don't know," Arcee said, "maybe I'll call it Hyperdrive," she said jokingly and laughed but everyone else just look at her with curiosity as to what is so funny.

Several hours later, back at the first station, Joker, Edi, Shepard and Tali were boarding the Normandy. "Shepard, Tali, wait," Arcee said after Joker and Edi were aboard the Normandy. "I want to thank you both for helping me with this experiment and to apologize for taking up your time."
"It's fine," Shepard said, "its always good to see you. Was there something you wanted?"
"Yes, actually," Arcee said looking embarrassed, "I hate to ask this of you after you helped me test the new form of FTL travel, and you'll be the first to know about the data I got."
"But this isn't about that," Arcee continued, "Tali, I would love it if I had you as an Head Engineer on a new project that my company is putting together."
"What is the project?" Tali asked.
"A new suit of armour," Arcee said, "you remember the Atlas that Cerberus used during the Reaper invasion. Well, it gave me an idea to create a faster and far more mobile one. I would love to have your help working on it."
"Arcee," Tali said with an apologetic tone, "I'd love to, but I'm an admiral for the Quarians. I'm not sure I'll have the time to…"
"I know," Arcee interrupted, "but you see the majority of the scientists on this project are Quarians and Geth. Shepard you would be welcome to come as well, I do need a head of security for the project."
Shepard and Tali looked at each other for a few moments, "how long is the project going to be?" Shepard asked
"A few years at most," Arcee said, "I can' think of anyone more capable of handling this than the two of you."
"Tali what do you think?" Shepard quietly asked Tali.
"It can't hurt, can it?" Tali said, "for the most part right now the Admirals are just having me visit the Citadel and play niceties with the Geth."
"Alright," Shepard said, "we agree."
"Thank you," Arcee yelled excitedly as she aggressively hugged both Shepard and Tali, "I'll send you an email telling you where the facility is within the week."
"We'll be looking forward to it," Shepard said as he and Tali boarded the Normandy and left the facility.