Cerberus is back, or what's left of them anyway. Should have let Aria choke him out Shep!
"Plant a demon seed, you raise a flower of fire."
U2
May 15th, 2187
Dr. Gavin Archer
Gavin Archer had a bad feeling. The shuttle, an older UT-37 Dzu-Teh, rattled obnoxiously each time the thrusters were applied. Its Mass Effect field wasn't the most stable and these old eezo reactors were noted for their poor shielding. In a firefight, the biggest danger to the crew was a radiation spill. Maximum FTL was an anemic one-hundred and fifty times light speed. Trips between systems took days, even weeks. It was for this reason that the UT-37's had been out of commission for over a decade. When one did occasional come across an old Dzu-Teh, it was exclusively in the civilian sector, or purchased on the cheap by some low-rent mercenary group. Gavin understood that the Alliance had taken heavy losses, still he was surprised that they had resorted to taking old craft out of mothballs.
The soldiers who surrounded him were silent. They were tall as Turians, yet built like Krogans. He categorized them as N6's, perhaps some special commando group assigned to Hackett. Now that the war was over and his work on the Crucible had proved valuable, he was hoping that he might get a reprieve from alliance command for his past crimes and affiliation with Cerberus. With the relays down, and the fleets stranded in Sol, the Alliance could ill afford to send good scientists to prison.
Gavin hoped he would be assigned to help rebuild Arcturus, or perhaps he would be stationed at Jump Zero. However, it was likely he would be thrown into the frenzy at the relays. He'd already heard nightmare stories from old acquaintances; crews scrambling to find pieces that had been blown clear, Salarians and Asari fighting over the best method to bring the quantum shields back online, and the damn Quarians who kept trying to pilfer parts for their journey home.
Dr. Archer was running all the possibilities through his head. It might take years to get a relay online. Just figuring out to re-engage the massive cores was a nightmare in engineering. If they did it wrong, made the wrong calculation, it might blow when coming back online. The resulting explosion would destroy the entire system, all the fleets, and Earth itself. It would be an ironic ending for the cycle that finally defeated the Reapers—extinction by Mass Relay.
The shuttle bumped onto a landing deck, the engines powered down, and one of the marines prodded him with the blunt end of a rifle. Gavin moved in the general direction that the soldier indicated. He was liking his position less and less. Something was definitely wrong. When the shuttle bay doors slid open and he stumbled out, his worst fear came to light. He was surrounded by white, gold, and black uniforms.
A Cerberus officer greeted him. Her eyes were cold. "Welcome aboard the Roraima, Dr. Archer, my name is Lt. Commander Nicholas. I will be conducting your re-orientation, but first, General Petrovsky would like to speak with you."
Gavin cast his eyes down in disbelief. "Petrovsky, but I thought he was in Alliance custody, I thought…"
Commander Nicholas grinned. "That Cerberus was destroyed? No, Dr. Archer, though the Illusive Man underestimated the Reapers and was subsequently indoctrinated, along with many other primary cells, there were other parts of our organization that survived. Did you not read the reports on Benning? We were attempting to thwart the Illusive Man's attempts to build his forces."
Gavin shook his head. "I read the reports. There was a rogue branch of Cerberus responsible for the slaughter of civilians."
Lt. Commander Nicholas sighed. "Unfortunate, but necessary. We saved them from a fate worse than death. The Illusive Man was integrating them, repurposing them into Reaper slaves. Had we not intervened, our indoctrinated primary cells would have had the forces necessary to take the Citadel during Udina's coup attempt and you and I would not be having this discussion."
"I am not going to cooperate with you," Gavin declared. "So you might as well shoot me now and be done with it."
Nicholas raised a gun to Gavin's face. He flinched, shut his eyes and waited for the end. It never came. One eye opened involuntarily. Morbid curiosity perhaps?
Lt. Commander Nicholas holstered her weapon. "Enticing proposition, maybe I'll take you up on it at a later date, but for now, orders are orders. The General wants to see you; this way."
She led Gavin through the corridors of the advanced cruiser. Two guards followed close behind with weapons at his back. He could not help but notice the… finer assets of the Lt. Commander from his current vantage point. The tight uniform she was wearing left little to the imagination. Nicholas brought to mind another Cerberus operative, one that accompanied Shepard onto Aite all those months ago, a Ms. Lawson if he recalled her name correctly. Gavin wondered if the Illusive Man had been growing beautiful, deadly women in some sort of tank in his base. Perhaps they were all clones or AI's?
The distinct lack of manpower on the ship was evident as they passed the crew quarters. Gavin estimated that the cruiser was likely running at half its crew compliment. There wouldn't be many Cerberus squads left alive. All the indoctrinated soldiers had died along with the husks and the rest of the Reaper's creatures. It was a shame, a waste of human potential.
A brief and distinctly silent trip up the elevator placed them on the bridge deck, and ultimately he was led to the captain's quarters, an elaborate suite guarded by two fearsome commandoes. He was searched thoroughly, roughed up a little, and promptly pushed through the door. Nicholas stuck the muzzle of her Talon pistol into his back and followed him into the room.
The light was low in the quarters. Spotless silver walls reflected a red-orange glow emanating from several strange devices. The Starboard wall was lined with aquariums, each a microscopic alien environment that housed a dangerous looking insect or reptile; presuming of course that such creatures could be classified as such. General Oleg Petrovsky was seated in a straight backed chair at what appeared to be a small conference table. An elaborate hardwood chessboard was the centerpiece. He appeared to be engaged in a game.
There was a pause before Petrovsky acknowledged him. "Do you play chess, Dr. Archer?" he asked.
"Only in passing," said Gavin.
"A pity," said Petrovsky. "It is a hobby of mine, an obsession in fact. I had hoped that a man with your mind might have an interest. Still, would you indulge me if I turn the conversation to chess for a few moments?"
Gavin shrugged. "Your audience, as they say, is captive."
Petrovsky smiled. "Oh, well played Dr. Archer, indeed, well played."
"Don't get too clever, or I'll shoot one of your legs off," warned Nicholas.
"Lt. Commander, would you mind leaving us alone?" asked Petrovsky.
"Sir, we don't know who he's been in contact with," said Nicholas.
General Petrovsky's expression became stern. "Michelle, please, I can handle myself. Wait outside the door, I'll call for you when we've finished our conversation."
Lt. Commander Nicholas obeyed the order and ushered herself out. Gavin was alone with the General, though it availed him little. Petrovsky was a trained soldier, and a fabled one at that. He was, once upon a time, a hero of the Alliance, a man who had defied the Turian military and fought them to a standstill, thereby gaining humanity its first measure of respect in the galaxy. His defection to Cerberus had been a blow to Alliance command, one that they tried to hide for some time.
"What do you want?" asked Gavin.
"Please," said Petrovsky. "First, chess. If I may ask, do you know how to set up a chess board to begin play?"
Gavin shrugged. "Yes, pawns up front, all others in the back row, rooks on the end, then knights, then bishops, king and queen in the middle, queen on her own color."
"Aha! Yes you are correct, of course," said Petrovsky. "As they say in latin, servat regina colorem. In algebraic, white queen on D1 and black queen on D8. And of course, the most important piece in chess is?"
"The king," said Gavin.
"Yes, yes, the king," said Petrovsky. "Though that is the curious thing now, isn't it? Because the king is quite weak and must be protected at all times. He is your vulnerability, your liability, whereas the queen is your strength: the most powerful piece on the board at any given time. She can strike from one end of the board or another, possessing all the powers of a rook and a bishop. Do you know why this is so relevant to our current position here in the galaxy?"
Gavin struggled to see the connection. "Because I am here as a prisoner, and you are in the position of power, because you're good at chess?"
Petrovsky sighed in disappointment. "No, Dr. Archer, do you take me for an egotistical maniac? I am not the Illusive Man. The answer to the question I proposed is this: we live because the Reapers, and even for that matter the Illusive Man, failed to understand that the most important piece in chess is the queen piece. They noticed her, but they did not account for her at all times. In the end, she was their undoing."
"Ok," said Gavin.
"Coincidental to that point, do you know the most famous move in the history of chess?" asked Petrovsky.
Frustrated, Gavin shook his head. "As I said, I only know chess in passing."
General Petrovsky barreled forward, heedless of Gavin's disinterest. "It is QG3, or, if you will, black queen to G3. It was a match between Frank Marshall and Stepan Levitsky in the early twentieth century. Levitsky, the white player, was in a good position with his king on G1 behind a wall of pawns, protected on his left flank by a rook, and his queen guarding the G2 pawn from across the board. Marshall seemingly moved his queen into a precarious situation where she was surrounded on all sides, able to be taken by two separate pawns or the white queen. However, if Levitsky were to make any move on the black queen, he would lose the game in two or three moves as Marshall had his black knight and rook covering all possibilities, likewise, if Levitsky did not move on the queen, say he moved his rook away, he would lose the game via QxH2."
Gavin's mind was a blank. "I see," he lied.
Petrovsky furrowed his forehead in apparent disdain. "My point is, that Marshall won the game by being aggressive with his queen, even offering her up as a sacrifice for victory."
"I see," said Gavin.
"No you do not," said Petrovsky. "In our situation, the Reapers were Levitsky, Hackett was Marshall, and Shepard was the queen. What happened was not unlike QG3. She made the ultimate sacrifice for the better of us all."
Gavin still failed to grasp where Petrovsky was going. He protested. "I'm a scientist, not a strategist, General."
Petrovsky smiled. "I know, and not just any scientist, but one with experience in communicating with a hybrid human-machine consciousness."
Gavin frowned. "I presume that is your opening. Will you explain to me what this is all about?"
"I just did," said Petrovsky. "Cerberus has need of your services again, Dr. Archer. I have a new project for you."
"Go fish," said Gavin. "You can kill me if you want, but I'll never work for Cerberus again."
Petrovsky sighed. "Please, Dr. Archer. I understand your hesitation. I also ran afoul of the Illusive Man in my final days. He abandoned our principals and became enslaved to the machines, nearly to the undoing of us all, but it is time to move past these grievances. Humanity has been weakened, Dr. Archer, even now forces are moving to subvert the whole human race to alien interests."
Gavin could not believe that Petrovsky was pulling the old party line out of retirement. Had he no shame? Did he really think that xenophobia was relevant, in a galaxy where all races had recently faced extinction and overcame it together?
"General Petrovsky, with all due respect, I am not interested in whatever noble cause you care to attach to Cerberus. I'll not be your puppet any longer," he said.
Petrovsky stood up from his seat, glaring at Gavin. "So be it," he said. "If you shall not help me, I must turn to your brother. David is his name, yes? I do believe he has some expertise in this area. I have agents ready to extract him even as we speak. In the meantime, I will have Lt. Commander Nicholas escort you to the airlock. Farewell, Dr. Archer."
"Wait!" shouted Gavin. "You leave David out of this, he's suffered enough."
Petrovsky rubbed his chin with his hand. "I quite agree with you, you see. This is why I summoned you in your brother's place. It was an act of generosity on my part, of mercy, and you rebuked it offhand."
Gavin gritted his teeth. Petrovsky had him all along. He could not turn his back on David. He could never let his brother fall back into the hands of Cerberus.
"I will do as you ask," he said.
Petrovsky moved a piece on his chess board and grinned wolfishly. "Queen to F2, check, and from here I expect my opponent to resign rather than engage in any further futility. I look forward to our future accomplishments together, Dr. Archer."
Gavin turned away from Petrovksy and accepted defeat, for now.
Up Next: Lt. Susan Rizzi, N7 Fury in "The Mouse and the Bear"
