Liara
Dekuuna offered a rich harvest.
The once-endless plain of grass now presented only Creep, stretching in all directions as far as the eye and mind could see. The trees now grew bulbous and scaly chitin in place of their bark. And, most fortunate of all, the zerg here grew both massive and squat beneath the crushing 4 gs of gravity. Liara herself did not feel it, as she maintained a biotic field to keep almost weightless … but the hunter killers here had no such luxury. The glorious hunter killers, whose slithering passage left deep furrows in the soil.
Despite their might, these zerg remained as mindless as the rest. Even the dekuunalisks, despite their propensity for speech, proved to be empty of much beyond rage and appetite beneath the ranting. Liara reached out for their minds and claimed them as easily as a zergling's before filing them beneath a rachni queen for closer coordination.
Once, her numbers could only have swelled so far, limited as she was without Cerebrates of her own. Now, the hum of the Swarm entwined with the songs of the rachni, creating a rich melody that would shake the galaxy's foundations. There is no limit to what we can do now. And there is no limit to what we must do.
The last of the dekuunalisk herds entered the maws of her three freshly-grown leviathans. Over the hills and far away, the rachni's own ships, forged from Dekuuna's metals and borne of blueprints carried by countless Rachni Queens, started their engines, each carrying a payload of brood warriors. Zerg or rachni? It was all Liara could do to keep herself from giggling. Yes!
The Torrasque was never far from her side. It was to be her sword and her shield, from now until its final death, which may never come. Liara had already set aside a cavern for it, deep inside her own Leviathan. If it fell, it would gestate there. And it will be a hard death. Its scales felt lumpy and thick beneath her own fingers, grown over from countless battle scars. Thessia did not suffer the weak any longer.
"Two planets claimed," said Abathur. "Good. Queen of Ruins can select either for central hive."
"The Reapers are coming for these worlds," replied Liara, shutting her eyes and feeling out into the dark. Already, the stars around them were going out. They're coming … "They are already on Thessia. Heshtok. And now Tuchanka." And Duran … he's coming as well. For some reason, Liara shivered at the thought of his face and his message. He could have saved me at Eden Prime. He didn't. Then he wanted me to follow him. And now I know why. It didn't feel quite like Sovereign – she didn't feel the dull hate and growing despair she felt back then. But it did feel personal. Sickening, somehow. The idea that this creature was, somewhere out there, looking for her specifically made it all … disgusting.
"Zerg Swarm done running," said Abathur, and Liara sent a surge of assent in his direction. "Good. What is next move?"
"Heshtok."
"Vorcha genetics malleable. After asari, most precious addition to the Swarm. Approve." There was a time Liara would have lashed out at Abathur for that kind of insensitive remark. But these days, Liara understood him well enough that malice did not enter it. And frankly, he was right. We are remarkable, aren't we? Something about having a coterie of witches felt oddly reassuring. She looked forward to facing down the enemy with her sisters. "Swarm will meet oldest enemy in battle?"
"Yes." Liara felt for Heshtok, so distant. Darkest shadows crawled on its surface. "One of Daggoth's ugliest battles was fought there. Once the Overmind died, he recalled it almost fondly."
"Vorcha only respect strength witnessed firsthand. Must root out individual tribes to complete victory. Slow going. Few resources to consume. Vorcha grew on waste of world." Abathur paused. "Original plans. Feros. Ilos. Parnack."
"I still want the Thorian," said Liara, remembering that creature all too vividly, "and to see if the other end of that backdoor relay is still open. But there's no time." The Reapers swept through the Exclusion Zone far too quickly to allow. Liara had to pick up what pieces she could and get a move on. "As for Parnack..." Liara reached out. Something frigid and hungry reached back. Liara retreated before it could get a grip. "…The Tal'Darim are there."
"Tal'Darim. Need essence." Abathur seemed to drool at the thought … figuratively, that was. He was always drooling in actuality. "How long on Heshtok?"
"We will not be remaining on Heshtok for any longer than we have to. It will not take long for the reinforcements to arrive." Liara reached out to her Queen, her first Queen, the one who had birthed all the others. "My darling, are you ready?" The Queen gave a low trill in response. She, too, had been wronged by the Reapers through their sour note. Her own broods were still few in number, but they were ready to fight. We will provide the numbers. They will provide the coordination.
The unthinkable now came to pass on Dekuuna. Not one zerg remained on its surface. The Reapers would arrive to find the planet barren of the life they sought to cleanse. One day, perhaps, the elcor who had been forced to abandon their homes might return there and rebuild. My gift to them. Perhaps Thessia will one day experience a similar fate, once the Reapers leave.
Liara, eyes shut, gave her people the nod. The rachni burst into song. Seven leviathans rose into the air. And for the first time in centuries, rachni vessels took to the stars.
"Bound for relay?" queried Abathur, watching Liara with what might have been his equivalent of respect lurking in his eyes.
"We cannot use the relay system any longer. The Reapers are everywhere." Liara heaved a deep breath. Proof of concept time. "The Overmind once flung Daggoth to the far side of the galaxy to begin his conquest of Citadel space."
"Remember. Better times."
"Yes," agreed Liara hesitantly. "It could not replicate that feat easily, but It sent Daggoth a sizable distance, even on a FTL scale. My proposed move is far closer, comparatively."
"Queen will attempt warp?" Abathur tilted its head, the drool now pooling into a different crevice in the leviathan, creating two little puddles. "Considerable energy required. Robust psionic matrices necessary."
"Can you feel it, Abathur?" asked Liara, staring at her Weaver-of-Genes with burning eyes. "With the rachni propagating my control, can you feel the energy?"
"Can feel. Not sure if enough."
"Has to be." Liara shrugged. "We have no right to exist if it does not."
"If does, will become most feared force in galaxy." Abathur bobbed his head, either in thought or anxiety. If he can feel anxiety. "Have not had such mobility since Overmind."
"Indeed. But it remains to be seen." If this fails, the strain could kill me. But she had done all she could. Thessia and Dekuuna had been harvested down to the last larva. Her hive clusters filled to bursting, her leviathans swollen with eager troops. But if it does not work, or if we cannot even take Heshtok, then we do not deserve to fight this war. We … I have a role to fulfill. The Queen of Ruins.
It is time to bring some ruination.
Liara planted her heels and wings firmly into the leviathan. She reached for the Void, that place between places where distance ceased to matter. Cold. Feels so cold, here. She could feel the numbness creeping into the tips of her wings, then up her arms. Her knees began to shake. Even as her queens sang all the louder, even as her zerg beat their wings and roared to the heavens, it was not enough. Not close to enough. The Overmind had millennia to perfect its craft and master the warp. Everything was just too … heavy. Wait.
Blue light coursed through Liara's arms, sending the shock of cold back to the hell whence it came. The light surged through the leviathan, coating it in an azure glow. Liara cried out, sending the command to the rest of her Swarm. All zerg who had ever tasted Element Zero understood. They planted claw and scythe to the floor and spread their own glow through the ground they walked on.
The pressure in Liara's mind subsided, the numbness replaced by a sense of raw power. Each moment, the leviathans lightened, going from the combined mass of multiple dreadnoughts, to the Destiny Ascension, to a single dreadnought, to a heavy cruiser, down down down…
In the space above Dekuuna, in the outer reaches of the planet's blasted atmosphere, the emptiness of space shimmered and tore. Purple light shone from the inside of the enormous portal. For the first time in much too long, overlords, guardians, and leviathans stared down a warp rift.
"How?" croaked Abathur, looking down at the kneeling queen, long fingers twisting and plucking at each other in confusion and agitation.
"We call it the Mass Effect, Abathur," said Liara, voice echoing with the power she now channeled. "Best remember it."
"Combination of biotics and psionics." Abathur snorted in approval. "Worthy of Overmind."
The leviathans surged forward. Liara laughed in triumph as the first beast reached the edges of the portal and distorted, their head and limbs stretching out as the great rift sucked them in. Another leviathan followed, weighing less than a dinner plate. Then another. Then Liara, her laughter reaching a crescendo, felt the ground beneath her lurch once. The blue glow faded. We've been pulled through. She felt the rachni vessels and other leviathans fall in behind her. Here. Heshtok.
As her ships snapped into existence just outside the orbit of the galaxy's largest cesspit, Liara became distinctly reminded of the time she had walked in on two colleagues of hers at a dig tacitly pocketing some shattered remnants of prothean pottery. Still go for a lot on the market, last I checked. She remembered the sudden guilty silence as she entered the room, the lingering stare, followed by the explosion as she tore into them (well, politely and calmly, like mother would have wanted, but still.)
Liara could feel that same sensation as she looked down on the Reapers who assaulted Heshtok. She stared down at them. They stared back, not quite believing what they saw. And now, here comes the explosion.
"T'soni is here."
"The Zerg Swarm…"
"Abominations. We must preserve."
The Reapers began to rise from the planet's surface like so many leeches who had had enough fill. Liara's Swarm moved to meet them.
It needs to be a combined assault. Their smaller Reapers we can take on the ground, which should also up the chances of survival of our Leviathans. They won't let us run rampant on Heshtok … and if we do, we can set up spore cannons.
"Prepare to unleash all sacs," ordered Liara. "Loose formation. Engage the larger targets first." Liara turned to Abathur, then actually stepped up to him, closer than she could ever remember getting. "Make sure my spawning pool is ready. I … I think the psi matrix is strong enough. If I fall, I should be able to come back."
"Unless slain by Dark Templar." Abathur's words came out so blunt that Liara almost laughed. "Irritating defect. Need Nerazim essence to counteract."
"I don't think their essence would grant us an immunity, Abathur," replied Liara gently.
"Must try."
Liara smiled at the servile abomination before sending a signal to her leviathan. On the slick purple wall to her left, a sphincter opened immediately. A small part of Liara, a small, dying part, cringed in revulsion. The rest of her readied for combat, an electric buzz running through her entire frame. She vaulted inside the sphincter, which shut behind her with a squelch.
For a moment, all was dark. Then, everything shifted hard, making Liara's heart sing. She was falling, no flying, her sac screaming through the upper atmosphere of Heshtok, its exterior smoking from the raw friction. All around her, her broods came barreling down in their hundreds and their thousands and their millions, some shielded by barriers, some not. Lasers cut through some – the desperate efforts of a panicked Reaper's point defense – but there were simply too many. Like so many races had discovered to their dismay during the Great War, no amount of preparation could fully keep out the Swarm. Here we come.
The sac's impact with the fetid earth jolted Liara hard. Yet no sooner had the sac stilled in the fresh hole it had made, its rear opened, letting the smog-choked light of Heshtok enter Liara's sac. She leapt from it, blue and purple energy rippling through her wings and arms. A Reaper Destroyer stared her down, the red firing chamber contracting as if it were a pupil.
"T'soni!" The Reaper let rip a roar that made the air ripple from the bass.
Liara dived from the air as the Reaper fired, its beam cutting a fresh smoking valley in its wake. More pods fell from the sky as the ship fired, bursting in the rotten Heshtok earth like rotten fruit from a tree. Yet the Destroyer stayed focused on the one threat, the true threat. Liara heaved in a deep breath and charged, her body suffused with biotics. She hit the Reaper dead in the firing chamber, wing first.
The Destroyer buckled at the impact, and Liara clung to the great machine as it faltered, one of its four legs actually losing its footing and making it stumble. She reared back one of her free fists and let the biotic warp build inside it. The Reaper's firing chamber, larger than Liara herself, shifted, looking up just in time to see its unwelcome passenger's fist smash into it.
The Reaper screamed in a bone-crushing bass, making Liara grit her teeth as her entire carapace vibrated. The Reaper, slowly, like a skyscraper, trembled and then fell, Liara with it, clinging on in a mix of fear, disbelief, and exhilaration. It lay there, Liara standing atop it, its legs moving feebly as it tried to regain its bearings. Liara now raised a biotic empowered foot. Before bringing it down, she looked up, smiling. Zerg converged in all directions, bearing directly for the fallen titan.
Liara brought her foot down hard, feeling something crack beneath her heel. With a smile, she leapt into the air again, just in time to see the first of her ultralisks and zerglings get to work with talon and scythe. The Destroyer groaned, its legs twitching as her warriors set to work, like so many insects setting on a corpse. Did you see that, Sovereign, from whatever cold hell you inhabit? This was just the first of many.
Liara set to earth. Her Witches surrounded her, heads tilted, mandibles clicking questioningly. A single rachni also bounded up to her, its song thick with anticipation.
"Let me get my bearings. I need to see how the orbital battle fares." Liara knelt down and listened, letting the low roar of battle in the back of her mind come to the forefront. Daggoth had the luxury of being a giant brain, and hence unfit for combat. I do not. Strategy and battle must come hand in hand.
Great gouts of blood pouring from a leviathan, freshly cut by a Reaper's beam. Mutalisks melted by point defense systems, unable to get close enough to deliver their wurms. Guardians destroyed in orbit, trying to slip in with the sacs. A trio of Reaper Dreadnoughts hold the orbit. One leviathan already dead. They cannot get within range. But the Reapers do not want to leave the planet's atmosphere.
"We need the spore cannons," declared Liara, opening her eyes and looking to her troops. She broadcast her thoughts out, out, out, to the whole planet. "Take out the destroyers. Aim for the firing chamber if you can reach it. Cut their legs from under them if you cannot." The ground shook as a particularly massive sac hit the soil. A huge shadow reared from it, blotting out the sun from Liara's perspective. She smiled.
"Grow the spore cannons," she commanded, and the Witches moved to protect the drones as they set about readying the hive clusters. Her Torrasque cantered over to her, head lowering and scythes sweeping aside in a bow. She climbed atop the Torrasque and readied herself.
"Queen!" came a shout. "Our queen, our queen!"
Vorcha looked down from a mound of earth above them. They stared down with red eyes, first at Liara, then at the now-still corpse of the Reaper, its body crawling with zerg. "As he promised! Queen came! Queen is here!"
"Rally your forces, vorcha," called out Liara, trying to contain her surprise. "The Swarm will claim its own."
"Live for the Swarm!" screamed the vorcha back, vanishing over the lip of the mound's edge as they hastened to comply. As Liara reached out around her once again, she realized that, through the cacophony of her own brood, fighting and dying, she could feel countless eyes looking back. Not quite subservient, but still … excited. Happy to see her, even if they resisted her tugging at them, trying to take full control.
Not yet, they thought back. Keng must know. Keng must tell us!
Liara had little time to dwell on such things. The Torrasque hungered to wet its blade on Reaper abominations, and Liara was only too happy to oblige. In the distance, horns sounded. Beneath the horns, the roar of Reaper heavy infantry.
"Defend the hive clusters!" Creep already covered much of Heshtok, and now Liara covered it in fresh hatcheries. Hatcheries which would soon be hives. The Reapers, already incensed, must have viewed this fresh outrage as truly unforgivable. In the eye of Liara's mind, she could see the four-legged Destroyers converging in all directions on the fresh organs, each with hate and destruction on their minds.
Liara bid her warriors charge. The Torrasque gave a throaty roar and drew up alongside the dekuunalisks, each of them bellowing their own monotone war cry.
"Threatening gurgle: The Queen of Ruins has claimed this planet. And she will have it."
"Booming proclamation: Live for the Swarm. Die by the Swarm."
"Vicious snarl: We are in the ground beneath your feet, in the skies above. You cannot escape us."
The dekuunalisks let their six appendages snap from their backs. Liara followed suit, her spines readying inside her wings, feeling like so many splinters she had to pull. She released them with relish, sending toxin-coated death hundreds of meters into the air.
Spines fell like arrows amid the Reaper's converted marines. They shattered barrier and rent armor, making some stumble and others fall. And still both sides charged towards one another, fearless at the behest of their leadership, one seeking to liberate, the other to purge. Liara could see newer creatures, large and possessing turian heads, amidst the converted terran infantry. Good. Our ultralisks will have someone to wrestle with. Liara let her wings fall back to her side as the distance closed. Both sides met in a scream of carapace and chrome.
Liara sliced downwards and out with her wings, decapitating some nameless batarian abomination which groaned as it fell. She sent up a singularity, catching luckless converted infantry in its swell. They floated up and out, helpless as her hydralisks feathered them.
Her ultralisks met the turian abominations as promised, scythe locking with their single great mechanical claw. Liara's Torrasque effortlessly smashed his own opponent's claw aside and drove forward with its head, smashing their foe into the ground. A single slice of the Kaiser blades ended any further resistance.
A Reaper Destroyer landed with a thud a few hundred feet away. It lit up the earth with its beam, sending zerglings and vorcha alike ablaze, vaporizing all in its wake. Its barriers flickered as every dekuunalisk in the area began flinging their spines at the ship as one, bellowing monotone insults all the while. Meanwhile, up above, a handful of guardians came to an ominous still just above the destroyer. The firing chamber. Aim there!
The guardians belched, and green spores flew from their mouths. The Reaper Destroyer screamed as its barriers finally gave out, just in time for the mother of all bugs to start splattering on its windscreen. It re-aimed, looking high. The rachni and ultralisks knew this was their time.
They came in close as the Destroyer swept through the helpless guardians, whose final defiant volleys made the Reaper groan in pain. It looked down too late to see Liara, wings flashing alongside her Torrasque's blades.
Wingtip and blade alike sliced through the bottom of the Reaper's clawed leg, scattering wires and severing servos as they cut through. As they passed through, the Reaper's stump came down with a thud, and it struggled to maintain balance on its three legs. From above, the mutalisks came screaming in, tongues wagging at the fact their foe no longer had full range of motion on its single gun. The glave wurms flew out, aimed straight for the joints, bouncing inside the Reaper with gusto while the rachni began their frenzied climb up the Reaper's remaining legs.
"Queen of Ruins!" screamed the vorcha as she returned to the melee. "The Queen, the Queen is here!"
Fires lit across the planet. Vorcha surged from their nests, sensing the long-promised turn of the tide. They joined ranks with the zerglings and banelings and charged the enemy head on, keeping them back from the hydralisks and dekuunalisks who set on the enemy with quill and claw.
The trio of Reaper ships remained hovering in orbit, unsure of how to proceed. Their Destroyers below, perfect for eliminating enemy armor and basic infantry, were too ungainly to contend with a foe that attacked from land, earth, and sky simultaneously. Liara dared each Destroyer to attack her and fell on them hard when they did. All the while, the hive clusters grew, the vorcha carrying in fresh resources for the drones to use. The first spore cannons were laid down, their membranes swelling and pulsing. The Reaper Dreadnoughts began to descend, making Liara's heart race.
Her leviathans edged forward from where they waited beyond the planet's atmosphere, maws dripping with saliva and blood. One Reaper turned back towards the leviathans, tendrils extending. A flash of light announced the severing of one of her leviathan's fins. But they kept charging, the rachni ships and scourge darting around them.
The tens of thousands of kilometers closed to mere thousands. The leviathans spat forth their acid and readied their tendrils, but the Reaper kept firing, parting flesh, sinew, and bone with each fresh blast. One leviathan screamed its last as the beams finally cut through the spine and several arteries, its limbs twitching as life and control fled. Then Liara's leviathan closed the distance to the critical hundreds of kilometers. Its own tendrils flashed out, its biotics activating. The Reaper shuddered in place but nevertheless drifted forward, yanked hundreds of kilometers and into the waiting maws of three leviathans.
Tentacles pierced hull. Jaws gripped the guns. A leviathans gripped the Reaper at either end as the third held it in place with its biotics. They pulled. With a scream that made Liara's spine tingle, the Reaper came apart in a small explosion of metal and fluid, its severed halves drifting apart slowly in the stellar breeze.
The two remaining Reapers held steady in high orbit, their beams sweeping fresh hive clusters with flame and fury. It was too late, though. Much too late. The Reapers, for all their power, were restricted by sight lines in a way that Liara's "primitive" forces were not.
The true danger of the spore cannon came not from its payload. No, it came from its ability to be fired in an arc. Liara opened her eyes and looked to her hive cluster. The vorcha around her roared in triumph as the membrane burst and a spore cannon sprung forth, glistening green payload ready. It pointed to the heavens.
"Commence barrage."
Across the planet, regardless of the curvature of the earth, the spore cannons fired. The globs of acid flew in their deadly arcs. The Reapers, both bearing directly for Liara, halted. Their point defense systems surged into action, zapping each glob as it approached. Liara watched with a grin on her face as each single glob became several super-heated globs that slammed into the Reaper's barriers and began eating into the armor. Meanwhile, her leviathans descended.
They want so desperately to kill me. But they were out of range, out of time, and they had not the means. As they struggled onward against the barrage of acid, they realized the leviathans had entered the atmosphere. The Reapers turned upwards, guns blazing.
Liara winced as her first leviathan got caught by the twin beams of the Reaper's blasts. Three quick bursts and the entire beast fell in two steaming pieces, its innards spilling thousands of feet to the ground below. Her four remaining leviathans reached out with their tendrils, Liara's own beast pulsing with biotics.
This time the Reapers fought as they were dragged in, their guns digging under the leviathans as they were pressed against them, burning the carapace at point blank range. Despite their grip, another leviathan died, a smoking hole burned through its head. But the survivors held on, tentacles rearing back. A Reaper screamed as its main gun came ripped free, only to be silenced as the acid finally ate through the armor, exposing the core for the killing stroke.
The final Reaper's entire spine glowed as it unleashed one final blast from its mounted cannon. One more leviathan groaned and released its grip as the beam shot straight into its mouth and through the length of its body. It fell to earth like a stone. But that did not stop Liara's leviathan biting down hard down the length of its body and shaking viciously. Parts flew free from the Reaper – chunks of its leg guns, main armor, its insides – until at long last, it flew apart in all directions, scattering its ruin across hundreds of miles of Heshtok.
Then, as the machine carcass crashed to the earth and finally came to a steaming rest, Liara breathed. The test. I have passed the first test.
Daggoth would have been proud.
Around Liara, without her willing it, the vorch knelt as one, heads bowed. But not to her. She turned.
"Queen of Ruins." Sharp black teeth and a crooked smile. Horns atop a bright red carapace, thick with scarring. A vorcha, massive, almost seven feet tall, thick claws at its hands and feet. He towered over Liara … and then he bowed low. "I am Keng of Heshtok. Leader of Vorcha Swarm. Waited, have we. Waited long for the Daggoth to return."
"Daggoth is-"
"Dead." Keng nodded vigorously. "Yes, yes. Overmind, too. We weep. The galaxy weeps. Our greatest minds slain before the enemy could be met." He gave her a piercing glance. "But Queen of Ruins remains. She fights."
"She wins."
Keng's grin grew wider. "Yes. Victory."
"We will have to find some way to counter their dreadnought's reach," Liara said, looking upward. "That was not an equivalent exchange. And we caught them by surprise." She looked back down to Keng. "We adapt. Are you ready to join the Swarm?"
"Our people waited." Keng nodded. "Yes. We are patient. We join willingly. Immortality you gave us, and claws to dig, and carapaces to shield. We will repay our debt to the Daggoth and the Overmind, and find new place in galaxy. Not as vermin, scurrying at krogans' feet." Keng smacked a clawed fist into his other hand. "Now as warriors of Swarm. Saviors of galaxy, as the Daggoth wished it." Keng gave Liara a sideways glance. "Much to tell Queen, has we."
"And I will listen, provided you listen." Keng nodded, intent. "Instruct your people – they belong to me, now."
"Yes, yes, endlessly, yes."
"We are to leave the planet in forty-eight hours, galactic standard."
"Long has Heshtok been home … but never pleasant home. Take us somewhere nice, yes?"
"And prepare to make landfall in Tuchanka. Expect Reaper presence." Liara almost smiled as Keng's face fell.
"Not so nice. Cold place, broken. The Foolish Ones dwell there, now."
"Foolish ones?" asked Liara.
Keng gave Liara a humorless grin this time.
"Infested krogan. Viscerators. They will not bow to you, oh Queen of Ruins."
Liara stared at the wasted landscape around her, consisting entirely of newly-thriving hive clusters and the broken bodies of Reapers that they grew atop of.
"They will soon learn to. Pack your things."
Next Chapter: Zeratul