[Book Four] Chapter 7: New Energy

Chapter 7: New Energy

“How is the public’s response?” Jane asked as she drove the skycar towards the penthouse.
“Better than expected.” answered Rick. “The crew as a whole made a very good impression. The consensus is that they found us more approachable than before when we were just names or figures on ads.”
“Can’t believe that worked.” Ashley said.
“They saw us less as symbols and more as living beings just like them. They related to us because we did what they do, laugh, get angry, get scared…” Dorothea explained.
“Did you have to show that video?” inquired the redhead with a bit of bite.
“Did you have to show those pictures?”
“Alright, you got a point.”
“What surprised me is you involving Arianna.” he said reproachfully.
“I didn’t!”
“You kinda did, Jane.” winced Ashley. “I mean, showing a picture of her? I thought you were going a bit too far.”
“It’s not that bad, it was just a picture. Right?” she asked, beginning to doubt her actions. “I mean, she just asked and I just…”
“Wanted to show off your greatest achievement because you’re a proud mom. I get it but please, don’t do that again.”
“I… Okay.” replied a subdued Jane.
“She is a hit though.” Dorthea said. “She stole the hearts of many people.”
“Of course, she did. She’s my baby girl. Still I’ll upgrade the security around the building, just in case. Who knows what deranged maniac had set their eyes on her.”
“Aren’t you going a bit too far?”
“I’m never going too far for my children’s safety, Jane. Once she's old enough I'll put a tracker under her skin.”
“Isn’t it a bit much?” asked Ashley.
“With how much people are talking about her, not really.”
“How much, Thea?”
“A good third of the messages on the chat are about her. The most recurrent conversation is who’s her father.”
“A third?!” exclaimed Jane.
“More than three hundred million people, Jane. I’m definitely upgrading security.”
“Please do! Damn it! I didn’t think that…”
“What’s done is done. Let’s just go home, dealing with so many people, completely exhausting me out and I want to see my daughter.”
“Mom is bringing Arianna back a bit later. Hackett is probably holding her up with Anderson about what we did and your announcement. She’s sleeping over by the way.”
“Great.”
“Don’t be like that. Aren’t you reconnecting with her?” said Ashley.
“Not really in the mood for that right now.”
“Well tough shit.”

____________________________________________________________

In less than a month, Rick forwarded the entire dossier about his school project to the people concerned. That meant, the four councilors and the head of every species leader.

They had some time to study everything so Rick wasn’t worried by the lack of positive answers.
During that month many things happened. Garrus got mixed news about his family. His father perished fighting the reapers but his sister was alive. After saying goodbye and talking about some projects she wanted to work on, Tali left for Rannoch. She had a house to build and people to take care of after all. Miranda was doing a good job finding good talent either for the company or as a teacher for the school. Mordin had been interested in both and it was decided that he would be the head of the science division. He refused, not willing to do administrative work but to leave a mark in history by teaching the next generation as he was in the last decade of his life and wanted to share his knowledge. Rick gave him the challenge of curing the Ardat-Yakshi gene and the salarian accepted it with gusto.
Hilary had accepted Rick’s offer and he was teaching her every day from 8am to 3pm, leaving her a lot of free time while Rick jungled between his tech projects, being a husband/ boyfriend and more importantly a father. The classes he taught Hilary were tailored for her. At first it was a bit difficult since he didn’t know her and didn’t know how she thought and how she learned but after a week he had everything perfectly planned out and it was smooth sailing for her.
The only black spot has been the Salarian refusing to pay the royalties for the use of his tech. A talk with Jane, who contacted Major Kirahe from the STG and three days later, Dalatrass Kurosa was paying what her people owed. The threat of the STG supporting someone else, the very public lawsuit she would be subjected to and the threat of Aria T’Loak’s ‘cleaner’ coming to pay her a visit made the Dalatrass open her wallet very fast. The Alliance didn’t even think about not paying and the turian simply did without arguing about it. Rick suspected that Primarch Victus played a role in that.

What threw him out of the loop was Miranda and Jennifer asking him to father Miranda’s child. Orianna had readily agreed to assist her big sister and after searching for a sperm donor, settled on him. To both their surprise he didn’t immediately agree instead thinking about it. When he explained that he was afraid of having too many children left and right and not having the time for them, they sympathized. After all he already had Arianna to take care of and another child in the making with Ashley who wanted two more after that. Dorothea was still a possibility though not in the short term and so was Liara. Jane and Ashley had to convince him to go with it.

His wedding plan with Ash had to be postponed as she didn’t want to marry while pregnant. Wisely, Rick kept his mouth shut and didn’t say that it was one of the reasons why he wanted to wait six months before trying for a baby. That didn’t stop the Williams sisters from coming over to the penthouse and planning the wedding. Despite what she had said, no more escapage happened between Rick and Sarah as he put his feet down. Laughing about sleeping with Ashley’s sisters was fine but actually doing it was an idea that had turned uncomfortable for him now that some of his relationships had evolved into the very serious category. He already had enough serious sexual partners and so little time to share with them that having more just didn’t appeal to him.

____________________________________________________________

Time passed some more, too quickly for everyone’s taste. Arianna was growing up fast and her first birthday was celebrated in a small gathering with really close family. It involved anyone living in the penthouse, Hannah, Kahlee and Anderson and finally Jennifer and Miranda. Everyone wanted to spoil the birthday girl rotten but Jane and Rick had warned anyone against it. They didn’t want her to grow up entitled or materialistic so she mainly got new clothes and a set of puzzle blocks. She particularly liked the latter.
Jane helped Arianna put the shaped blocks to the appropriate shaped holes by showing her what to do. The little redhead showed that she may look like her mother and grandmother but she was every bit her father’s girl by simply putting every block through the same hole. Something possible because the game was badly designed and her toothy proud smile she had while looking at Jane after doing that was priceless, so was her mother’s face which displayed complete shock at being outsmarted.

“Yeah, she’s definitely your daughter.” Jennifer said between laughs.
“Finding her own way and outsmarting everyone while doing it. There’s no doubt about it.” commented Miranda.
“Nooooo…” Jane lamented picking up her daughter. “Don’t be as smart as Daddy, okay? One of him is enough for me to handle as it is, two would be too much for Mommy. Please?”

Everyone laughed at that good naturedly. The last gift was perhaps the most popular one to Arianna: a plushy of the Normandy SR-2. When she saw it, she lifted her arms and wanted it immediately. With stars in her eyes she kept repeating ‘Mandy’ loudly until she got it into her tiny hands, shocking everyone. Her first word had not been ‘Mommy’ or ‘Daddy’ but ‘Mandy’ for ‘Normandy’. 

“How did she know?” Jane asked in disbelief.
“I don’t know…  She was too young the first time I brought her in it and still was too young when we visited Omega.” an equally disbelieving Rick answered his sister.
“EDI, you’re not responsible for it, are you?”
“I am not, Jane. I never even said the name in her presence.”
“Where did you get a plushy of the ship in the first place?” Anderson asked.
“Oh? I made it myself.” EDI answered. “It took some time but I’m rather satisfied with the result.”
“That’s some serious talent you have there.” Kahlee commented looking at Arianna hugging the ship to death and quite pleased with it.

Afterwards the celebration quieted down a bit, people talked about everything and nothing and one point of interest was babies’ names for Ashley’s. A few days earlier they had found out that she was having a boy which had been a surprise for her as women from her mother’s side only had daughters. She was quite glad about it though. When asked what they expected for their own, Miranda and Jennifer answered that they didn’t really care if it was a boy or a girl. The ravenette was already showing a nice baby bump and constantly had her hand on it. When Hannah learned that Rick had been the sperm donor, like a shark smelling blood in the water, she was on Miranda in an instant.

“Mom, leave Miranda alone. You’re not going to be its grandmother.”
“It’s alright.” Jennifer said.
“Neither Jen nor I have parents and it is her grandchild…”
“You’re just going with it because that means you have a free babysitter at your disposal.” said Rick
“Yeah.” was Jennifer’s shameless answer.
“So many grandchildren! Rick, I want at least ten!”
“What do you take me for? A bull?” he said, making everyone laugh.
“Considering how many women you’re currently involved with, yes.” replied Hannah.
“That’s not… I don’t…”
“Give it up, it’s true.” Liara said amusedly from the side. “And you only have yourself to blame.”
“You were all supposed to move on…”
“And instead we moved in.” joked Dorothea with impeccable timing.
“Let that be a lesson to you, you can’t predict everything.” Jane said as she took his arm in hers and hugged him from the side.
“And that’s why a more traditional relationship is better.” chided Kahlee.
“Hey!”
“I’m kidding! I sure am not complaining about having more nieces and nephews.”
“For now. I don’t know how long you will last when you have ten of them to take care of.”
“I’ll just hand them off to David if they become too much trouble.”
“What?!” exclaimed the man in fear to everyone’s hilarity.

____________________________________________________________


A year after he had woken up from his coma, Rick was the proud father of two children. Little Adam Luke Williams was born shouting out of his lungs a February night and no one would ever forget it with how loud he has been. Rick joked that he got that from his mother, which was not entirely untrue. The engaged couple went for a genome therapy, as most of Ashley's genes, like her hair and eye color were dominant and Rick’s recessive genes. They wanted their son to be a mix of both of them so they opted for Adam to have his father’s eyes or rather Ashley did because she loved them a lot and found her brown eyes too plain. The boy had taken a lighter skin complexion than her mother but it was fairly obvious that he was of hispanic origin. Rick simply didn’t care, he had a son and that was enough for him.
The man had been worried about how his daughter would react to suddenly being a big sister, wondering if she would take it well. It turned out that those worries were unfounded when after being curious and observing Adam at first, she simply giggled and wanted to spend time with him. She wasn’t about to share her Normandy plushy anytime soon if ever though. She may have liked that new brother but not that much.

The entirety of the Williams clan was over the moon and didn’t hesitate to show up often at the penthouse. So much that Rick finally decided to give them two apartments in the building. Things became a bit complicated when Hannah got involved. Adam was her grandson too and she wanted to spend time with him. The problem was that officially she was not related to him and if the truth was revealed that she was Rick’s mother, that could spell trouble for him and Jane and maybe even fracture the family with the Shepard on one side and the Williams on the other. Hannah didn’t make things better, not caring one bit and doing whatever she wanted. That change in character from the stern and mostly by the book woman that she always knew her mother to be was something that Jane was still trying to come to terms with.

In the end Ashley, Jane and Rick decided to tell Ashley’s sisters first one at a time. Abby was the first to know as she was the closest to Ash and had no problem with it. She did joked that by having the blood of three different Alliance heroes in his veins, Adam may very well be the next savior of the Galaxy. Lyn didn’t care and Rick didn’t know if it was because she was such a fan of him that in her eyes he could do no wrong or because she was completely smitten with Arianna and that she was so perfect that her creation couldn’t have been sinful. Sarah was taken aback at first but after Ashley shared the circumstances of how Jane and Rick fell in love to begin with and seeing how they interacted with each other, she was okay with it for the most part. She now understood why Hannah came to visit Rick early in the morning or late at night when he was sleeping during his convalescence at the clinic.

The three sisters were very family oriented, they were Williams after all, and promised their support to Hannah. To everyone’s surprise, it wasn’t necessary as Maria turned out to be the most accepting of them all.

“So what?” she said to the group.
“Mom… That means...” Ashley began tentatively.
“That the Commander and your fiance are siblings. What about it?”
“Half siblings.” Rick corrected but was ignored.
“You’re not…”
“Disgusted? Not really. Incest is frown upon in the first place because of the birth defect of the children of such an union. Not a problem with genome therapy.
“... That’s such a scientific view from such a religious person.” Rick said.
“I’m religious, not stupid.” she replied with a frown. “I’m not following the bible to the letter, after all it was written by men at a time when women’s only purpose was making children. I do follow the precepts of loving your neighbor and being kind and respectful towards others but I’m not a zealot or a fanatic. Also don’t think that I didn’t know about Arianna being your daughter. You have the same eyes and you’re living with her and her mother.”
“You knew?!” exclaimed Ashley.
“As I said, I’m not stupid.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because it was obvious you were in the know, had no problem with it and because you looked happy. You’re your own woman, have been for years now, and if that’s the life you chose then, it’s the life you chose. I have no say in it anymore.”
“And if you had?” Rick inquired.
“I wouldn’t have let you approach my daughter closer than the distance to the moon from here.” replied Maria with a murdering glare. “Making my daughter happy doesn’t make me like you automatically.”
“Mom!”
“I do admit that your man has some good qualities, I just wished he had fewer glaring flaws.”
“... Huh. You’re the best mother in law out of the two so far. Granted, the competition is rather easy.”
“Anyway, why doesn’t Adam have your name?”
“Oh! That?”
“That was my choice, mom, so don’t blame him.”
“Whether he has my name or not doesn’t matter to me, he’s my son regardless. Just like my mom has a different name than mine and yet I’m still her son.”
“Well, obviously or you wouldn’t be able to be with the Commander.”
“I was talking about my adoptive mother.”

Maria raised a brow quizzically and so did her daughters. Ashley explained what Rick was talking about and his relationship with the Pirate Queen of Omega. That was information that shocked the Williams family and lowered their respects towards Hannah who so far was seen as a good person.

“To be fair, she’s been trying to be a better mother for years. She understands her wrongdoings and does her very best to fix as much as possible the damage she caused and she's been an irreproachable grandmother.” defended Jane.

“So far she’s succeeding. Very slowly but surely.” Ashley said.
“Yes, she’s not getting shot at anymore.” joked the redhead and Rick just shrugged when the Williams looked at him in shock.

In the end everything was resolved in a good manner. The conversation took a turn when Jane asked what they were all doing now. Maria was living off her late husband’s pension that had been increased after Anderson, Hackett and Hannah reviewed his career, at Rick’s askance, and saw how much he had been screwed over by the higher up. The man should have been a captain by the time he died but was denied promotion after promotion because he was Williams. Of course Maria didn’t know any of the backstage shenanigans, especially Rick’s involvement. To occupy herself she was still volunteering and helping people in need.

Abby, now that c-sec was technically gone, quit for good and had found a full time job as Miranda’s assistant. With the woman’s pregnancy going along and the amount of work Rick was giving her, she needed help. Abby’s desk job experience at c-sec proved to be sufficient and after being tested by Miranda, got hired. She was still dating on and off a human c-sec officer she had met when she worked there but didn’t believe that it would go anywhere, the man not being really interested in settling down.

Lyn had found her calling by training recruits in hand to hand combat. An alliance officer had seen her put down three guys in a bar fight and had been impressed. The woman had offered Lyn a drink and began asking questions about her martial arts prowess. By the end of the night, she had promised to speak to her superiors about her for a potential job offer. A week later and the deal was done. The pay wasn’t anything great but it was decent. Her love life was nonexistent and all the women in the room knew why. She was having the biggest crush ever on Rick who was completely oblivious of it, seeing her behavior as the one of a fan, which she was. 

Nothing had changed much for Sarah since the last time the group had that conversation. She was still working with and being mentored by Dr. Michel as the university she was attending was still not rebuilt and the faculty had no plan for the students but online classes. In a few hours with Dr. Michel she learned more than a day online, that was why she didn't bother with class and simply was present for the exams. She still wasn’t back into the dating pool and didn’t seem interested. Ashley confessed to Rick that Sarah was too busy working and studying to think about relationships, she did ask her big sister for another go at Rick however.

The three sisters were competing with each other for the title of favorite aunt, like Ashley had foreseen. However Adam was only a few months old and didn’t care, way more interested in being with his mother more than anyone, including his father. That was fine with Rick, who could barely stand for long how loud his son was. He loved him as much as he loved Arianna but taking care of him was draining his energy thrice as fast and giving an almost constant headache. Rick however, soldiered on. What kind of parent would he be if he wasn’t ready to go through anything for his children? He had secretly promised himself when Analysse was pregnant with Samara that no matter what, he’ll be there for his children and to support them even if they weren’t as he hoped them to be. One thing he dreaded however was Adam teething and he desperately tried to think of a way to avoid that or at least to avoid the screams and cries. The best idea he had currently was to put his son in a modified stasis pod that would allow him to age. So, so far he pretty much had nothing but his patience.

Jane and Ashley had talked a lot about their respective roles towards the other’s child or children. What they wanted for them in life was one of the major points of the conversations. Not for long as both just wanted their child happy and healthy, though Ashley wished that they would enlist and a religious education. Afterwards they talked about the way to raise them, the dos, the don’ts, the type of punishment when they did something wrong. Both were in agreement on that subject too, which was not a surprise as both came from military families and were in the military themselves. The problem came from Rick who found them too strict. The punishments in case of bad behavior were too much cut and dry for him and prefer the lesson approach. Talk about what they did wrong, why it was wrong and how to do better. It was important for him that the children understood why they were punished and not just accept the punishment without learning anything. He argued that by making them learn like that they would be properly independent as adults and perhaps avoid the teenage rebellion. He also advocated for a bit of a hands off approach. Not just teach the kids but let them explore and experience themselves under their watchful eyes.

It took some examples to illustrate what he was talking about and both Jane and Ashley agreed. They had thought at first that Rick would okay anything they wanted and learn on their own but it turned out to be wrong.

“Look, I’ve been raised in the ‘do what you’re told and don’t ask questions’ way and the ‘do whatever you want, you’re on your own.’ way. Both methods are wrong and I will not raise my children like that. I don’t want them to be mindless drones nor do I want them to be unruly, not caring about consequences or others. I will not let you raise them like that, and I’ll fight you if I have to.”

The fact that he made the pros and cons of both methods had weighed heavily on her agreement.

With both mothers in agreement about most things they settled on the original problem. Both would be the other’s children's aunts and would hold as much authority as the other. They would have to regularly talk about things to be on the same page to not agree and disagree to something the other disagreed or agreed beforehand.
With that settled the last point of contention was addressed: Who was sleeping with Rick on each day. They went fast as they simply decided to all sleep on the same bed. If love making was desired with just Rick and one of them then Ashley’s room would be used for that. So far that had never happened but they all knew that one day it will.

On the business side of things the construction of the school had begun at the beginning of the year. Rick didn’t wait for the council to finally vote on his project and used his money to start. He had worked hard with EDI on designing a school and after many tries settled on a star shaped form. Its center would be for general classes but be used for the dormitories, cafeteria and of course staff’s offices. The branch would be for each great field of study. Tech science, Organic science, Art, Business and finally Social.
There were more fields of study of course but they divided them in five categories. For example, Archeology didn’t fit, Tech or Organic science, nor Business and Art but it was about history and history was part of Social.
Of course some fields overlapped but it was alright, the divide was more for organization and security more than anything.

The hardest and most important part of the design to come up with was making the school able to fly into space and land on planets. That implied an enormous amount of energy. The size of the eezo core needed for that was gigantic and the quantity of eezo even more. Even if they had the money just for the fuel, which they didn’t, it wasn’t a viable solution in the long run. A bit stumped, they visited David Archer to ask him to help. The young genius listened to their problem and thought about it for a few minutes before giving them a possible solution. He had been theorizing the possibility of harnessing the energy of the big bang or at the very least recreate it on a small scale. From there EDI and David began to talk about possibilities and calculus that went above Rick’s knowledge. He had been surprised to see the young genius speaking normally but from what Kahlee had told him had worked hard at it as he wanted to connect with others. He was still struggling sometimes but it wasn’t really a bother.

“The only thing I understood is that you’re thinking that it’s possible to create an artificial subspace in which you could detonate a small big bang and use that energy as fuel. Basically the big bang in a small bottle?”
“It’s more complicated than that …”
“Yes.” EDI answered in one word going straight to the point.
“We’re talking about the big bang here. How would you recreate one, Wouldn’t it be dangerous? Can the energy be truly harnessed? And won’t the energy produced be too much to be stocked and controlled?”
“Yes and no. It all depends on what you use.”
“We’re not really talking about recreating the big bang but about the process. David believes that by focusing all the energy of atoms in a single tiny point, we could make it explode releasing untold amounts of energy.”
“But the big bang created matter, wouldn’t that create matter too and be problematic? Wait… it all depends on the atoms used, is that it? By using a stable but very light atom in small quantities the energy produced would be more reasonable? Like helium?”
“You’re correct. The big bang was so powerful because of the already infinite and massive energies conversing in a single point. In our case, we don’t need that much energy by far. It wouldn’t even be a centillionth of the Big Bang power but it would definitely be way more than sufficient for what you want to do.” David explained.
“There are two problems so far. One, succeeding in making the explosion happen, two, create the artificial subspace to make it happen and contain the explosion.” said EDI
“The latter is not that difficult. Anytime a ship uses a Mass Relay it enters a form of subspace. So do you when you do a biotic charge when you fight.”
“So that’s why it’s possible to phase through matter.” noted Rick in understanding. “But it’s not completely separated from our space. Otherwise idiots charging through walls wouldn’t become sterile and die in the long term.”
“Yes but that’s because any armor is not resistant enough to protect your body. When Jane used the conduit she was in a Mako that phased through the arms of the Citadel. The team didn’t suffer any damage at all, neither did the Mako.” replied EDI.
“We just have to find out a material that could contain that subspace.”
“Hmmm… Do we really need to? Can’t we use mass effect fields to create that subspace but also contain it? Like a tampon zone that separates our space from the subspace?” Rick wondered aloud, making David’s eyes grow big.
“That’s… possible, yes. In theory it should work.”
“But we still have an energy problem. Containing that much energy that way will need an enormous quantity of energy too. Enough that it isn’t viable either. In the end we wouldn’t have advanced much from our original problem.” reminded the AI
“But we already have more than enough energy!” contradicted Rick.
“I don’t understand.”
“If we can siphon the energy from that subspace, couldn’t we use it to power up the mass effect field too? Sure there would be a need for an initial containment with energy from our own space but once the energy is contained we could use it instead. It wouldn’t be as costly, no?”
“That’s certainly doable. In theory.”
“David, how long would it take to check that?”
“I don’t know… Three months? And that’s just for the numbers for the container. For the explosion itself… I don’t know but I believe I’m not far off, I’ve been working on it for two years. The problem is testing it. If the explosion is not contained it could destroy at least half a solar system.”
“That makes me think... What happens, when there is no more energy?” Rick inquired.
“Theoretically the subspace should collapse on itself. Since there is no more energy there is no danger.” answered EDI.
“Good, I like where we are going. Do you think you could help David while on Mission for the Alliance?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t mind working on the container while David finishes with the explosion’s calculation. We will save time.”
“Perfect. I’ll write a report about it for Miranda. If you need anything or need to report, you can contact her.”

David and EDI nodded and the visit stopped there. Leaving the former to his work, the latter went back home with Rick.