"We doubted the geth had come beyond the Veil," Captain Anderson said, after reviewing the Galaxy Map's final data processed by several of the frigate's VIs. "I suppose now it's your turn to act, Shepard."
"Yes, sir!" the executive officer said. "I propose we deal with those two sentient organics aboard the 'shrimp' first. The quick reaction team under Lieutenant Alenko… I propose, Commander, that they go to the archaeologists' camp and take the Prothean Beacon aboard the shuttle. On an external hardpoint," the XO уточнил. "We managed to prevent the activation of the geth landing force… Now it's clear that the geth subordinated to the Reaper truly had the evacuation of the Prothean Beacon onto the shrimp as part of their mission. After loading the artifact aboard, it would have taken off immediately. Whether it would have started firing on the planet or not is another question. Answering it точно… now is hardly possible. And hardly necessary."
"You think the geth… are indoctrinated?" Anderson asked.
"They're machines, sir. And a machine will always come to an agreement with a machine quickly. Almost instantly," the XO said. "By human standards, of course. And Sovereign made its deal." Shepard gave several short orders over the earpiece audio channel. "Lieutenant Alenko, sir, has departed for the camp on the first shuttle. With him are three MPs who are on duty today. I'm taking five MPs and Corporal Jenkins. By shuttle we'll reach the breach most convenient for our purposes, and through it we'll enter the ship. The recent scan data clearly indicates the ship is hollow."
"Go, Shepard," Anderson said.
"Now the shuttles finally came in handy," the frigate captain thought. "We've got two by standard loadout. Plus one Mako. That may come in handy too."
The captain saluted and stepped away.
A few minutes later the shuttle was already carrying him toward the defeated ship of an unknown race.
"Approaching, sir!" the driver reported. This time Shepard didn't take Steve—the shuttle's standard pilot—citing that the mission ahead was extremely dangerous and it would be better if the pilot seat were taken by an MP. Steve understood correctly. He didn't object, yielding the chair to one of the MPs and staying aboard the frigate. "It's a monster. And we punched a good hole in it! Good thing not just one. We've got choices." He eased the shuttle broadside toward the jagged facets of the alien's outer armor. "Done, sir. Opening the cabin." With a keystroke, he unlocked and raised the shuttle's side door. "Wait for you here, sir?"
"Yes," the XO confirmed. "Just keep the craft away from the sharp edges. The scraping was barely audible, but it was there. No need to worsen the damage. That's extra work for the techs," Shepard said, rising and habitually racking the bolt of his assault rifle. "Take one of the isolation containers," he ordered his companions. "Seal helmets. Switch suits to автономный mode. Weapons at constant readiness. No gawking—watch your sectors and stay alert. And listen. To your own senses and impressions too."
With that, he jumped first onto the scaly plates of the inner hull lining of the "cuttlefish's" guts.
"We go in and take the central control block first. We need to shut this monster down for good. Clear?" the captain turned his head left so he could see almost everyone in the group.
His answer was silent, cautious nods. The Normandy personnel were looking around, getting used to the alien's insides.
The XO was troubled by only one feeling: he knew the alien would soon come to and be able to resist. The time remaining before the Reaper's defenses reactivated was running out.
There was no desire to ask how much time remained until it came back on—there was only the need to act fast and effectively. Start thinking "how long until zero?" and you die. Or at the very least fail the mission.
At last, ahead, a glowing armored sphere "manifested."
With a quick gesture ordering his companions to halt, Shepard stepped closer to the sphere alone.
He studied its surface as far as the cone of dim light from his helmet lamp—set to a quarter power—allowed. He ran gloved fingers along the seams between the petals.
He paused, palm still pressed to the rim.
And with a sharp motion, he slid one of the petals aside, forcing the others to fold like a fan.
In the bluish-green glow beneath the petals, a transparent sphere was revealed, held perfectly centered inside the now-opened armored cocoon.
Reaching in, Shepard yanked the sphere out of the holding field and felt the tension inside the ship dissolve.
"Jenkins. Container. Now," Shepard ordered in clipped tones without looking back, waiting for the corporal to hand him an open isolation box.
He placed the sphere inside, locked the inner case, keyed in one code. He locked the outer case, keyed in a second code.
"Is it… dead?" Jenkins asked quietly. "Did we do it? Put that monster down?"
"The ship is dead. And its pilot…" Shepard looked at the container. Jenkins caught the look and followed it. "Alive." The XO swept his gaze over the companions shaken by what had happened. "Now we find the two sentient organics. I assume the strike caught them at the ship's 'central station.' Move, move—follow me," Shepard ordered. "We'll have to carry both out by hand, colleagues. So we move as fast as possible. We didn't bring stretchers. Not even the simplest fabric ones," the XO noted. "Doesn't matter. We'll carry them. On ourselves—but we'll carry them," he said, and as he spoke he was already moving at a near run along the winding path through torn-away ship components toward the bio-activity beacons blinking clearly on his helmet display. "Move, move—no stops!" Even though the pilot had been removed from the core of the ship's control system, Shepard was not inclined to believe there wasn't an аварийная control system somewhere in the Reaper's depths—one that would, of course, operate полностью autonomously.
They had to hurry. Because the condition of the two sentient organics was worsening. Not fast—but it was worsening. And they still had to get back to the breach and climb aboard the shuttle. And all of that was time they might not have…
After climbing several ramps and ladders of different sizes and scrambling up a side wall that had become a "floor," the landing group entered the "central station" compartment of the "shrimp."
Directly beneath a work chair buckled upward on its mount lay a turian, "cinched" into heavy combat armor.
Not far from him, like a broken mannequin, lay an elderly asari in black-and-white clothing with a strange headpiece—shifted aside, exposing a wide wound on her forehead.
The med-monitor indicator on the XO's helmet display showed the turian was in good shape but unconscious in deep shock. But the asari… Shepard understood she clearly hadn't made it into the other chair—now hanging on the "side" wall—so she'd taken multiple injuries.
With sparse, precise gestures, the XO ordered two MPs to cover the entrances to the central station, while he and Jenkins crouched over the asari.
"Nine hundred and fifty years… by standard reckoning. Galactic standard. I can't believe it…" the corporal whispered when the first identification data—pulled from the asari by the suit's automation—came through to his omni-tool.
Meanwhile, Shepard was generously applying panacelin to the most serious injuries flagged by the autodoc on his helmet med-diagnostic display.
"She's nine times older than any of us!" the corporal added.
"Get used to it, Richard. This is part of our job now," the N7 officer said. He pulled a splint kit from his assault pack and with a few exact motions stabilized the asari's left forearm and right shin—adding another layer of panacelin to the wounds there. "All right, this is done." He turned and stepped to the turian. "Now this is harder." The XO activated his omni-tool and showed the ID chip data on its larger screen to his companions.
"Spectre?" Three MPs couldn't hold back the surprised exclamation at the same time.
Shepard nodded, agreeing with their conclusion.
"Tough bastard," the senior MP said. "Though if the diagnostic's right, he's almost eighty percent implants. He barely got hurt. But I'd…"
"Inject him, Orest," Shepard finished the thought. "We have to haul him to the shuttle. He'll be safer that way. Don't need him twitching on the way. We still have to hand him over to Chakwas. Along with his companion."
"I'll carry him, sir." The MP injected the turian with a full dose of immobilizer.
"Good, Orest." Shepard made sure the MP would be helped by his colleagues, then turned to Jenkins. "Richard, you remember the route?"
"Yes, sir," the corporal watched as a short MP carried a two-meter turian with almost no visible effort toward the exit from the "central station." "I remember, sir," he corrected himself, catching the group commander's questioning look. "I'll go first, sir. I'll lead us out, sir."
"Move, Jenkins." Shepard watched the corporal go, then stepped to the asari and lifted her in his arms. "Forward. I'm behind you," he told the remaining MPs.
The way back was predictably difficult. In especially cluttered spots, they had to pass the limp bodies hand to hand several times.
Shepard watched the helmet indicator for biological forms, shimmering bluish. There were no other living beings inside the ship. And there were no corpses either.
The ship, deprived of its controlling link, was mute and quiet. That silence made the MPs and the captain uneasy.
The shuttle driver brought the craft up to the edge of the breach. The asari and the turian were laid on their backs on two benches formed from transformed seats.
The MPs, Jenkins, and Shepard stood the whole way back to the frigate.
In the Normandy's hangar, Major Chakwas met them. She climbed into the cabin, scanned both patients with her medical omni-tool, and nodded to Shepard.
"Good. They'll be able to pull through, John. Bring them to me in the med bay." As she said it, she exchanged an understanding look with Jenkins and the MPs.
Richard, Shepard noticed, no longer looked like an all-powerful "hero," but he was commendably calm and collected.
Chakwas, Shepard also noted, liked that mood in the corporal.
"Yes, ma'am." Shepard nodded and lifted the asari again.
He stepped down onto the hangar deck plates first. Behind him the senior MP carried the turian.
A few minutes later both casualties were placed on med beds in Chakwas's domain. With a look, the medical major ordered everyone—including Shepard—out of the med bay.
"Permission to go, sir?" the senior MP and Jenkins approached Shepard as soon as the captain left last.
"Go. Rest. Thank you, everyone," the XO exchanged handshakes with the MPs and the corporal.
The first mission involving boarding an utterly unfamiliar ship had, of course, rattled all participants, so the handshakes helped take the edge off.
"Yes, sir." Saluting the senior officer, the corporal and MPs headed for the barracks.
Shepard knew they now had more than enough to talk about.
As he left, Jenkins set the container with the controlling "chip" at the captain's feet.
Placing the container in the frigate's isolating vault, Shepard keyed in five lock codes and slammed the thick safe door shut. Captain Anderson approached silently.
"Its heart?" the commander asked.
"More," Shepard answered after a pause. "Mind. Pilot. Core," he said, staring at the smooth surface of the vault cover and thinking about what—or who—was behind it. "I never would have believed it, sir. But… it's clearly not alone on that ship. I wanted to say it acts as a single being, a single mind… but in truth there are… billions of minds in there. To lock that inside such a massive hull and send it to war. Across distances so unimaginable for a human. How soulless do you have to be?!…"
"Can we… understand… what they—the ones who built the hull of this Reaper…" Anderson indicated the vault door with his eyes, "…looked like?"
"We can, Commander," Shepard answered after thinking. "But we're hardly ready for that right now."
"While you were in there, I ordered the crew to cordon off the shrimp's crash site and close it to colonists. A fence has been erected and a perimeter established. Barbed wire. All necessary equipment. We also shielded off the geth dropship crash site and the places where individual geth fell. All of it is now part of the overall security zone," the ship's commander уточнил. "The locals… accepted our requirement to establish a 'restricted area' regime with understanding, Captain," Anderson said. "Especially since that shrimp is clearly visible from quite a distance. There won't be any 'I just want to look' problems. As soon as you extracted the 'chip,' long-range comms from the planet came back, but from the moment you boarded the shrimp I ordered that we 'close' the region and not send information about what happened from the frigate to the Alliance yet. On my order, EW placed Eden Prime under an 'information blockade.' Traffic filtration has begun. Several more people were added to the EW post specialists—there was too much work for the usual headcount."
Anderson fell silent for several dozen seconds.
"To say the colonists and the planetary administration are in shock would be an understatement. They aren't even making any of the usual—and therefore predictable—claims about destroyed or damaged infrastructure and crops. It's as if they understood what that shrimp could have… become for them. I also ordered that all pieces of the geth landers and their ships be collected and that access be closed to the reserve landing pad where everything has been hauled by now. Chief Engineer Adams has already been there and says he's never seen machines this perfect—machines that managed to develop independently on the basis of AI. Networked AI."
"Artificial intelligence?" Shepard's attentive gaze touched the frigate commander's eyes.
"Yes," Anderson confirmed. "A fully developed artificial intelligence, Captain. I don't understand the details myself of how that can be, but the frigate's engineering team is unanimous. I prefer to trust my people and their judgment, Captain," Anderson said. "Looks like we have a third problem now. If we count that monster as the first, and those two in the med bay as the second, then the geth… could easily count as a third problem."
"Report from Alenko?" the XO asked.
"There was one, Captain," Anderson confirmed. "A few minutes ago I sent a cargo shuttle there. Soon it will be back in the ship's hangar. Then we'll take the Beacon off the external mount and load it into a container. I think, if necessary, we can load the Beacon into a container outside the ship as well—we have the conditions and the capability for that. So we can choose what's best. We won't rush. The archaeologists are happy those 'walkers' didn't reach them. 'Walkers' is what they dubbed those geth landers. Alenko handled it superbly. And it seems he found a party there."
Anderson relaxed a little, then paused.
"The commander of the marine squad assigned by the Alliance Navy to guard the archaeologists. A Sergeant Ashley Williams. Alenko himself is happy and glad the migraines don't torment him anymore. He can think soberly twenty-four hours a day. Though… next to Sergeant Williams, talking about his thinking being sober…" Anderson smirked. "Youth…"
"I think Corporal Jenkins can be granted short-term leave until our departure, Commander," Shepard said, leaving the final decision to the frigate commander. "He's got his mother, father, and sister here."
"Let's not let anyone leave the ship for now, Captain," Anderson said calmly and quietly. "And I'm guessing something is seriously bothering you again."