Outside the window, the dark sky was alight with stars. Many of them were distant, and a great many of those impossibly so. Even the nearest sun was small, pale-green spot in the distance, a single pinprick only slightly larger and slightly brighter than the countless millions that surrounded it.

This seemingly endless span of material was almost as hostile as it was beautiful. Out there, there was no air, an at this distance from the system’s sun not even heat- -and only a thick window separated the heated interior of Listening Station 113 from the endless outside.

Close to this window, sitting in a folding, portable chair, a turian contemplated the world outside. There was not much else to do but to look out at space and the arrays of connected modules and parabolic receivers that made up the station. This was not, by far, a glamorous job, but it was a peaceful one.

“Lieutenant,” said a voice from behind him. The turian turned to see his subordinate approaching with a pair of cups in her hands.

“There we go,” said the lieutenant, sitting up from his chair. The other turian held out one of the cups, and the lieutenant took it. He inhaled the smell of it deeply, causing his subordinate to wince.

“I don’t know how you drink that stuff,” she said, pulling up a chair next to him.

“The tea of the greater lowland fern is admittedly an acquired taste,” said the lieutenant, sitting back down. “But it’s good for the skin. It keeps me looking so silvery and pretty.” He contemplated the pale but pungent liquid for a moment. “You didn’t forget the turian milk, did you?”

“You know how they make that stuff, right?”

“Of course. From turians.”

The subordinate snorted, nearly choking on her own beverage which was no doubt some synthetic sugary human-made dextro beverage. “No, of course not.”

“I know where milk comes from. I’m not an idiot, Aela.” He took a sip of the liquid, and decided that she had in fact added the correct amount of turian milk.

“So,” she said, leaning back, looking at the small landscape of artificially lit steel and titanium and the great infinite space beyond it. “Anything going on yet?”

“Does it ever? Of course not.” He took another sip. “Which is exactly what I like. Just listening to the hum of the recirculation system and sending premade reports every two days. This is the life.”

“It does not surprise me that you never got past lieutenant, then.”

“Why would I need to go higher? You, though. If you keep up with the tea, I see a future in the intelligence corps for you.”

“That’s why I came out- -”

An alarm suddenly went off. The lieutenant reacted with incredible speed, leaping out of his chair and racing to one of the panels on the edge of the room.

“What is it?” said Aela. For the first time in a long time, she suddenly felt nervous. She had never seen the lieutenant move quickly, and never seen such a serious look on his face.

“The mass relay has been activated.”

Aela’s eyes widened. “We’re not scheduled for a resupply until next months.”

“They’re not turian.”

Aela felt cold. “But this system is so far out it doesn’t even have a name! Who would be coming out this far?”

The lieutenant activated a holographic screen, displaying precise renderings of the long-range observation of System 113B7’s mass relay. As the two watched, several ships emerged from the hyperspace corridor, exiting the relay into the system.

In the academy, Aela had specialized in practical intelligence. She had trained with the intention of crewing more significant bases- -like those surrounding hostile Alliance space- -and as such, she had drilled herself endlessly on the different types of spacecraft that she might encounter. It was even a hobby for her.

These, though, were unlike anything she had ever seen. It was difficult to tell if they were even spacecraft at all. According to the tiny numbers that surrounded their images, they were approximately ten meters across at their widest point. They had no architecture that resembled anything close to a standard spacecraft, though; instead, they resembled masses of radial, crystalline spines protruding from uneven and asymmetrical cores.

At first, Aela wanted to dismiss them as some kind of bizarre rock formation- -until she saw them move. Several of them moved far faster than normal spacecraft, maneuvering at angles and speeds that should have been impossible. And they quickly established an unorthodox formation.

Aela took the auxiliary controls beside the lieutenant.

“I’m getting energy readings,” she said. “But there’s no sign of a mass-effect field.”

“Nothing moves that fast without a mass-effect field,” said the lieutenant, his voice deadly serious. “They must be masking it somehow.”

“I recommend immediate defensive protocols,” suggested Aela. “We have to take them down.”

“No,” said the lieutenant flatly. “Our orders were to watch for Reapers coming out of darkspace. Do those look like Reapers to you?”

“No. But they- -”

“Then we have no need to attack. They don’t seem to be threatening, so for now, we just watch them.”

Which is exactly what they did. Holding their breath as the crew of the listening post scrambled about on high alert, Aela and the lieutenant watched as more crystalline vessels appeared. They moved quickly, assembling various formations and moving throughout the star system, occasionally stopping near various planets. A few times, they even approached the listening post, and Aela felt her fingers approaching the controls of the defensive system. The unidentified objects did not seem to see it, though, or perhaps did not care. At only one point did their energy shift, as though they were scanning the post for a brief moment before moving on.

Then, as quickly as they came, their course set back toward the relay. As Aela watched them go, a kaxon suddenly went off. Aela turned around, not understanding what was happening, or why so many of the station’s proximity alarms were going off all at once.

“What now?” cried the lieutenant over the noise.

“We’re detecting a spatial disturbance five hundred kilometers off the starboard bow,” said Aela, quickly analyzing the anomaly. She grimaced, gritting her mandibles as she tried to reduce the bizarre readings she was receiving into something that made logical sense. It was almost impossible, though. She was trained to recognize the sometimes obscure and distorted readings from ships at ranges of several hundred lightyears- -she was not a physicist specializing in anomalies. “It’s interfering with all our equipment- -I can’t- -I can’t get a reading!”

“By the titans…” whispered the lieutenant. Aela looked up at him, and was about to yell at him despite his higher rank for just standing and staring out the window in a time of crisis. Then she turned toward the window- -and realized that there was no point in continuing.

The anomaly was visible. Not only visible, but enormous, a swirling vortex of ionization and condensing dark matter, like a hurricane tearing and penetrating space itself. Then, slowly, it resolved itself- -and something began to emerge.

Aela watched as the object pulled its way into space, and could barely manage to take her eyes away to look at her readings. “Reading…reading a ship,” she said in disbelief. “Diameter is…two hundred kilometers…”

“I’m sorry,” said the lieutenant. “I’m so sorry.”

Aela did not understand until she looked out the window one last time- -and saw that the hulking mass of material was headed straight toward them on a collision course. It did not slow, and it did not stop.

The last thing she knew was a sudden shift in the floor as the ship struck the listening post, and then a burst of noise and motion as it collapsed around her and her ears burst as the atmosphere depressurized. Within less than a second, the listening post was destroyed along with thirty six turian crewmembers.

In the darkness, a pony walked through the halls, her armored hooves clicking against the uneven and heterogeneous material of the floor. There was almost no light, save for the bioluminescence of the organic subsystems and the glow of several intense crystalline lights. The dimness did not matter to this pony, though; she had lived in darkness for so long that it had become meaningless in connotation. Even in a practical sense, it impacted her little; the mask she wore amplified what light there was more than enough.

Beside her, yet another of the endless horde of drones hulked by, a dead-eyed mass of clockwork and surgically reconnected flesh. It paused to look down at her, barely acknowledging her presence, and then clicked back on its way to deeper within is hive, its scythe-like legs clicking and scraping.

It was a disgusting abomination, but the pony ignored it and proceeded deeper into the ship until she reached a large room. Here, many drones were at work, their minds integrated by long cables into the subsystems of the curving walls and ceiling while others worked on repairing any damage that occurred from the rematerilization.

The front of the room consisted of an enormous window, and the pony paused to look out at the endless night’s sky of space. It was the first time she had seen stars for so long. Although she had dreamed of this moment for what felt like an eternity, it felt oddly hollow.

A large chair was connected to the deck near the window, and no drones approached it. The pony did, however, and addressed the woman who sat upon it.

“We have successfully reconstituted into realspace,” said the pony, her voice by default harsh and made even more so by the air filtration system in her mask. “We have currently stabilized. We’re back.”

The woman in the chair did not initially respond. She leaned back, her pale blue eyes staring out at the space through the crystal of the bridge window. For a moment, the pony thought that she might be asleep, or even dead- -except that Sunset Shimmer never slept, and at this point had come too far to ever be able to die.

“Xyuka,” she said to the pony beside her, not looking down. “I felt something impact against my hull.”

“We impacted some debris upon exit.”

“There were beings there.”

“There were. Not anymore, though.”

“But those crystals remain.”

Xyuka looked up, and the microoptics in her helmet narrowed. In the distance, she saw several crystal scoutcraft fleeing the sudden emergence after having briefly stopped to scan it.

“The fleet should be materializing momentarily,” explained Xyuka. “Once they arrive- -”

“Don’t bother.” Sunset’s eyes flashed toward the crystals. A barrage of yellow-colored magical beams shot out from one of the numerous frontal batteries. They transversed the light-second distance almost instantly, striking the crystals directly. On impact with the beams, the ships were completely vaporized- -save for one that managed to swerve suddenly at the last moment and only lose several of its stabilization spines.

“Interesting,” said Xyuka. “It appears more maneuverable than the others.”

“Interesting indeed,” said Sunset, more to herself than to her pony associate.

“It appears to be heading for that station,” said Xyuka. Her internal sensory subsystems opened as she examined the object, pulling apart the data of the scan down to a fundamental schematic. “It appears to be a small mass effect relay.”

Sunset slowly stood, and the drones all suddenly turned their dead eyes toward her. Xyuka did not share their fear, but stepped out of the way. With characteristic poise and patience, Sunset walked across the platform of the bridge, her expensive robes trailing behind her along with the heavy flexible tubes and conduits that were permanently linked to the extensive implants in her spine and skull.

When she reached the window, the last crystal ship had reached the relay and was in the process of aligning itself between the firing poles. Sunsent slowly raised her hand and placed it on the glass. At her will, the relay detonated in a plume of crimson-tinted orange magic. She watched for a moment as the relay’s rotor broke free and tore itself apart, and then lowered her hand, leaving a bloody handprint behind.

“It may have fired successfully,” suggested Xyuka. “I can backcalculate its location, if you want.”

“Don’t bother. One crystal vessel is inconsequential.” She turned toward Xyuka. “I’ve found our target, and I am setting course.”

“You should probably wait for the fleet.”

“I don’t need the fleet,” she said, slowly drifting back to her chair and returning to a seated position. She once again began to stare out the window. “You can work on bringing back your fleet, but I will not stop. Nor will I hesitate. Not after so long. I need that key, Xyuka.”

Xyuka just nodded, and then slowly began walking back to the shadows to continue her work. Sunset Shimmer looked out the window, staring into space. She knew that to Xyuka, she must have looked old and appeared dissociated from reality- -but that was only because even Xyuka did not fully understand the nature of a Core, or that Sunset's eyes had been blind for decades. Through her sensors, however, she saw everything- -and was focused on one very specific star in the farthest distance of space.

Then she closed her eyes, and the ship shuddered. Slowly, the Crimson Horizon turned toward its new target.