Author's Note: Work exploded on me, so this chapter got less review than usual. If you spot typos, or other errors, please let me know and I'll fix them up. In other news, this story now has more than a hundred favorites and more than a hundred and seventy-five follows. That's pretty awesome, especially given that I haven't generally shown any fiction I wrote to anyone who wasn't in my immediate family.
I should also point out that some of the dialogue here is from, or adapted from the X-Com Temple mission. I don't own X-Com, alas, any more than I own Mass Effect.
Review Responses: Thank you to everyone who reviewed to comment on how they anticipated this chapter or enjoyed the last chapter.
There was one comment that the fifth admiral was in overall command of the Migrant Fleet when the Fleet needed to act as a single unit. That's a good explanation, though I don't recall it from canon. I think it's probably correct. But, since we don't have any relevant history, the explanation for that admiral's absence in this story is that the Migrant Fleet's government evolved in the intervening hundred and seventy five years between X-Com and Mass Effect 1, adding this fifth admiral.
There was also a lengthy and very helpful review by Qinlongfei which raised some excellent points, which I responded to with a PM, as otherwise it would have eaten too much of the chapter. Thanks Qinlongfei!
"No one invited you on this jaunt, General," Colonel Wallace 'Nuke' Reilly snapped. The massive X-Com officer hefted the heavy plasma weapon one-handed as the rest of his squad advanced into cover down the hallway, covering the handful of Quarian engineers and the two Humans whose eyes didn't ever focus on you when they were talking to you. Of course, their eyes didn't quite focus on anything anymore. Unlike the X-Com squad in their top-of-the-line gear, who were focused on everyone.
It was impossible to tell where on that spectrum the squad of Quarian marines escorting them fell as they still wore the full, face-concealing, helmets of their ilk, but they probably were keeping an eye on the twitchy man and the equally twitchy woman, more to ensure they didn't interfere with the engineers who were their main focus than out of any concern regarding what might happen to the psionics.
"I invited myself, just like everyone else on that Skyranger, Colonel. In response to your Commander's request for support," General Peter Van Doorn snapped right back at him. The body armor he was wearing was very definitely not standard issue, but was rather a gift from Yofi and the other lab geeks and was heavily modified experimental armor, based on the prototypes their lab had been producing when this battle arrived.
He hadn't wanted her to come up to the ship, but she hadn't wanted him to go up either, so it seemed they were stuck with one another, again.
Always.
He hoped.
Though the fact that she was wearing scavenged Human body armor didn't exactly encourage hopeful thoughts. If they could have swapped armor, he would have, regardless of her objections, but armor designed to fit his trim physique would not fit her…less than streamlined profile.
Still, this assignment at least pulled them off the slaughtering line, even if it did that in order to send them right over it. All his troops were dead, they'd been one of the first groups up and most of them didn't have any of the new wargear, leaving them massively out-equipped as well as outnumbered, though not outclassed. They'd fought well to the end. He couldn't just abandon the last survivor, even if he hadn't been socially involved with her.
Before they could continue their debate over whether or not General Van Doorn was allowed to tag along with Yofi and the rest, both of the psionics twitched as if they'd been struck in the head with a clenched fist. They'd been uncoordinated and twitchy the entire time they'd been on the ship, but this was extreme, even for them and drew the attention of the squabbling soldiers. Yofi continued her examination of the alien technology, unperturbed by the twitchy psionics as she'd worked with far worse.
Codex: Mental Illness in the Migrant Fleet, Unlocked.
"You heard that too?" the psionics asked each other, in the tone of one who knows the answer, but asks the question so that another may hear the answer.
They both nodded, simultaneously.
"Well, that's not creepy at all," Yofi muttered to herself, then looked back at the display she was attempting, futilely to access.
Nuke did not believe in restraining his curiosity. Or his volume.
The psionics exchanged an inscrutable look and decided on a sacrifice wordlessly, or at least soundlessly. One spoke, "They know we're here," before the Colonel could explode, she continued, "One of them communicated with us. It said 'You hear our voice, New Ones, now listen well…Long have we watched and waited. So many promising subjects, so many failed efforts. But you have evaded too many of the tests we laid for you…sought help, rather than overcome challenges on your own. You must possess a enduring physical form, paired with an equally adept mental capacity to aid in our ascension and ascend in turn. There is still time to follow the path we have laid out. Come and see the consequences of failure, then join us, follow us, as you must."
"Well, that's not creepy at all," Yofi muttered.
"But," about halfway through their speech, the Colonel had given a single that shifted the attention, and aim, of his squad inward, "you aren't feeling, mind-controlled at all?"
They looked at each other again. "How would we know?" their designated spokeswoman asked.
"Do you feel like shooting any of us?" General Van Doorn asked bluntly.
"No more than usual. And as far as we can tell, neither of us is under their control, but they were definitely able to target the two of us and knew we are psionics."
Nuke hesitated, these were two top tier psionics, who'd been on a dozen deployments with X-Com, even if they weren't really part of the unit (as the Commander had managed to get widespread announcements about the indicators of psionic abilities and tested those with the strongest indicators, bringing in dozens of civilians), but even so he was hesitant to ask. General Van Doorn, who had never seen his men turn on one another under the control of an alien monster, had no such hesitation. "Could you control someone who was as far away as they are?"
"And how far away is that, love?" Yofi asked, voice warm and teasing.
Both psionics flushed somewhat at the close-range backlash of that emotion (as the Quarian didn't have a Mind Shield yet), and the woman broke in before Peter could respond. "We don't know, but we couldn't do that without a line-of-sight," she hesitated, then continued, "but I wouldn't have thought you could communicate like that without line-of-sight either. We're still just dipping our toes in the water's edge here, psionically speaking."
The man shot her a glare and she snorted and smacked him in the shoulder. "That was a fucking terrible pun," she added out loud when it was clear the non-psionics were confused by her behavior.
One of the Quarians approached the Colonel and they had a hushed conversation, then he nodded as he received orders from the Commander through the marine and said in his best 'damn-the-torpedoes' tone, "We go on. Inform me at once of any further communications from, or actions, by the enemy."
There was a general noise which indicated assent, as the sharp discipline of some of the X-Com soldiers contrasted strongly with the generally fairly casual obedience of the Quarian marines and engineers and the almost nonexistent discipline of the civilian psionics.
They advanced slowly, a Quarian infiltrator on point, backed up by the X-Com squad (accompanied by a single Quarian to act as radio operator) in their shield-enhanced armor, then the civilians, with the rest of the Quarians acting as rearguard. They were far ahead of their own lines now and were occasionally running into stragglers from groups of X-Rays already engaged or entire units heading for the slowly-expanding front. They destroyed the former and diverted around the later.
They came to a one of the doorways of energy the Ethereals loved so much. As there was no way to slip through it, the infiltrator holstered his shotgun and pulled a sniper rifle from his back and retreated to join the X-Com team's sniper, Captain Min "Longbow" Liu at the rear of the group. The assault team burst in and gunned down a Sectoid commander and a pair of escorting Sectoids, while the creatures futilely sent bursts of psionic energy at the Mind Shield-protected soldiers.
The rest of the team piled into the room and the psionics jerked, breaking their slide for cover and sending them both sprawling on the ground. The Quarian rearguard pulled them into cover and this time it was the man who spoke the Ethereal's words. "The New Ones face the earliest efforts of the Ethereal Ones, the first…failure. Though possessed of a certain brilliance, they are marred by their cowardice and frailty which made them cruel…and ultimately useless. To fix their nature, we changed them and in so doing made them less, made them cloned tools. This will be your fate if you do not follow the path and succeed where the others have failed."
The Colonel ignored them, focusing his eyes on the room, which was a large open space, split into three pathways, with a central elevated one and the flanking ones lower down, but connected by ramps, or those bizarre anti-grav elevators the Ethereals used in the place of stairs (another simple technology which seemed to have passed the aliens by). They were right in front of the elevated central path, with ramps down to the two lower routes on either side, and had taken cover by the guard-rail which prevented a fall into the lower levels of the ship as there was no floor for at least half a dozen levels.
The very moment the psionic stopped speaking, a pair of Cyberdiscs and a trio of Drones slid out of hidden compartments atop the heavy arches which connected the various paths, giving them a height advantage, but a complete absence of cover. The Colonel dropped his heavy plasma rifle and ripped the blaster launcher from his back and landed a HEAT round amongst one of the two clusters of enemies, ripping apart a Cyberdisc and a drone. The other Drone in that group was on the other side of the Cyberdisc from the impact and survived, shielded by the body of its companion.
The other Cyberdisc blossomed from its disc form into its attack form and hurled a grenade before going down under a fusillade of fire from the rest of the team. Major Masud "Breaker" Bin Momen, dropped the Scimitar shotgun he'd taken from a dead Quarian when his alloy cannon ran out of ammunition and hurled himself atop the grenade before it went off, hoping that the heavy armor he wore as the squad's assault trooper would let him survive it. It did not. Captain Raimonda "Doc" Murmokaite was still trying to save him when the next attack came.
The pair of Sectoids who hadn't joined their commander in a futile assault now joined the surviving Drones in attacking. The attack met with complete failure. Though the Drones' laser punched easily through everyone's shields, they were too low power to do much more than sting, even through the unmodified armor of the Quarian marines. If they'd focused on the suited, but unarmored engineers, or on the barely armored, and unsuited Yofi, they'd have had better luck, but they naturally focused on the higher threat troopers and marines, thereby accomplishing exactly nothing before their death or destruction.
"More," the psionics groaned from their cover. Now they were speaking in synch. Despite Yofi's whispered comment, it was extremely creepy. "Another attempt, this one inspired. Two subjects, each with a glaring weakness—brought together in the hopes of a symbiotic strength. And yet this newfound power left them devoid of higher thought. Lacking in comprehension. Another…useless effort and a warning for you, New Ones, of the consequences of relying on technology to cover your weakness, rather than expose it and grow stronger thereby. This is a warning the death of the New One's kin should convey as well."
A snapped command got the rookies who made up the bulk of the X-Com force under his command moving, despite the dead officer, a sight they'd never seen before. X-Com mythology said that officers didn't die, anyone who made it to that rank was too tough to die. It wasn't true, but it had helped stiffen the rookies' spines, now obedience would have to do. It did, in the absence of any enemies. Then it was time for the real work.
Nuke pulled Doc off the corpse that had been Breaker and rested his hands on her shoulders, staring into her eyes for a time. Eventually she nodded to him and moved away a little jerkily to check and make sure no one else was injured. She was an officer of X-Com and didn't need orders to hold, regardless of what else happened.
"This whole place is lined with tunnels and trap doors," one of the engineers said in the strained, but respectful silence. "If they want to kill us, we're going to be in trouble. I can drop sensor packages on each door I detect, which'll give us some warning based on vibrations that something's moving in them, but they're hardened against sensors and they're very well built."
"Then how did you detect them?" Yofi asked, actually curious, despite the circumstances.
The engineer jerked a thumb at one of the other Quarians, who explained, "The mass is wrong, for if they were solid."
"And how do you know that?"
The Quarian looked down, hands rubbing together shamefacedly, biotic power flickered around her fingers, "Sorry, I tried for a pull on those creatures, but…I tripped and discharged it into the wall. It felt like I was trying to pull a shuttle craft, not an asteroid."
"You're a biotic?" one of the Quarian marines asked.
"Yes, but I've seen that look before, don't even think it!" the biotic answered, leaving the Humans in the group confused as both Quarians were wearing full suits which concealed their faces as thoroughly as the rest of their bodies, she most definitively could not have seen any look.
"I'm no Asari commando, or cabal, okay?" she snapped, "You want to know what my job is…was until the Admiral decided to crash my home into an alien death machine?" she didn't bother to wait for a response, "I was the safety and zero-gee movement teacher for the littles on the Levsheppa. In my spare time, I coached the zero-gee dance team. The most dangerous thing I did before today was help out on a few rescue and recovery operations when the teams needed something heavy moved at an awkward angle and they couldn't just turn off the gravity. Look, if you want someone to pull a kid back to the hull when he turns off his mag boots to go diving into the void, or throw a dancer across a compartment, or even lift a beam off some poor trapped miner, then I'm your girl, but I swear to the Ancestors, if I hear you yell 'drop a singularity across that corridor,' like this is an episode of Blue Justice, then I will block the corridor with your crushed corpse, okay?"
Codex: Blue Justice, Unlocked.
The Colonel called them strictly to order, ignored the crazy lady talking about space magic, dragged the psionics back to their feet and powered his way forward. The next chamber opened, same as the last, except for the five Floaters resting on the exhaust of their jetpacks. As before, the psionics staggered and spoke as they were pulled into cover.
"The New Ones face a great foe, and an equally great disappointment. When their organic form failed to evolve, it was given the strength of a machine, creating this…merciless, fearless, killer…a fate worse than death. The fate of the New Ones if they do not turn from the seductive technology of these Outsiders and return to the path of destiny, of ascension, of purpose."
Sniper rounds instantly downed two of the Floaters. The other three began a strafing run, only to collide in a tangle of limbs when the biotic managed to land a throw on their lead. Bursts from the marines and troopers took them down before they could disentangle themselves.
"Audio—heading up there!" the engineer shouted, jumping to his feet and pointing to an almost invisible hatch. Even as one of the rookies tackled him to the ground and covered him with her body, the hatch was sliding open to let a trio of Chryssalids charge forth. The incredibly fast and flexible aliens would have been a nightmare if they'd made it out into the open, but with the warning, the assault team was able to focus fire on the hatch and cut them to pieces before they could get loose.
The psionics spoke again, in unison, which just got creepier. "A curious endeavor. The search for the Gift in the most…unsavory of beings. They were little more than insects when their uplift began and in their failure became the most dangerous of predators…incapable of direction or understanding, they were deemed fit only to breed and die. The Ethereal Ones desire so much more from you. As we did from them."
Colonel Reilly grabbed the Quarian marine who was acting as intermediary and politely, if loudly, requested permission to ditch the spooks, because they were acting crazy. The Commander, through the Quarian, denied permission, saying that the assault on the command center would do no good if they couldn't take control. Psionics would be needed for that, as would engineers. He had support moving towards them. If the psionics turned on them, they could be eliminated and a second group would arrive after the control room was cleared of whatever influence was affecting the psionics, but all other groups were a significant distance away.
Muscles jumped in the Colonel's jaw (and probably elsewhere, but given his massive body armor, it was impossible to tell). "You heard the man, we advance. Marines, you got the point, they're throwing their slaves at us one at a time, so its Thin Men, Mutons, Sectopods, or Outsiders next, I'm betting on Thin Men, so be ready."
The marine sergeant flicked a glance at the interlocutor who just shrugged. No new orders had come in and the Commander was still broadcasting with the authority of Semmi'Zorah, who'd been given authority to negotiate with the Humans by the Conclave. With their ship, the Qwib-Qwib, destroyed and the Admiral dead, they would follow orders, even if they didn't much like being ordered about by a brash Human.
The moment the door opened, the psionics spoke again, "Long was our search…betrayed by the weakness of the New Ones, their unwillingness to grow and the interference of Outsiders. There is still time to return to the path, but your options grow ever narrower."
The marines' obedience was rewarded by facing down only a trio of Thin Men, which fell easily to automatic fire from a dozen Quarians. The Thin Men were at a horrific disadvantage against the shielded, suited, and immune to their poison, Quarian marines and didn't manage to accomplish anything.
"A valiant effort…a being of intelligence and exceptional loyalty, easily adapted to serve our needs. They were unable to embrace the Gift. The Gift you embrace, while failing to follow the path."
The Colonel reordered his troops, moving his heaviest assault troopers into position. Whatever was left, it would take concerted fire to take down. They burst through all at once, Quarians smoothly moving in behind the heavily armored X-Com troopers, dropping grenades and drones in amongst the cluster of Mutons that awaited them. That broke up their charge and left them easy pickings for the X-Com troopers.
"Now…the New Ones confront a greater threat—a rare strength, found in an easily controlled breed. And yet, they are incapable of brilliance, of independence…serving only to fight and die, as did those who came before them. You are meant for greater things. You cannot turn your back on them and us," the psionics chorused, somehow audible despite the shouts, shots and explosions as the soldiers dealt with the Mutons.
Well, except for the Berserker, who shrugged off the grenade to the face, ran through a drone, shouldered aside the rookie who was trying to empty her shotgun into the mad X-Ray's face and slammed both hand-blades into the gut of the Quarian sergeant. A sideways rip and he cut the poor man in half with a proud bellow.
The Berserker was cut down as his mighty hands were beating out his triumph on his chest, splattering the surroundings in the blood and viscera of the dead Quarian. The psionics approached and looked down at the shattered body. This time no one dove forward to pull them into cover and shield them from any harm. Not when they heard the words they were speaking.
"Weakness in their blood, in their bone, in their spirit, in their mind. Only their degenerate technology lets them stand and walk and live. They do not embrace the Gift and so are doomed to death, or servitude if their form is capable of adaptation to serve the Ethereal Ones, or the New Ones. See their fate and learn from it. Follow the path."
The Colonel now understood how the biotic could have said she knew that look, despite the marines masks and suits, because he knew the look all of the Quarians were wearing. His own soldiers were wearing it too and he struggled to keep it off his own face, struggled to keep discipline and not bludgeon the psionics, spokespeople for their cruel, mocking enemy to the ground. For a moment he was frozen as the nearest Quarian stepped forward, but General Van Doorn spoke up, "That's what they say, is it? My goodness, they're suddenly chatty now that we're on their doorstep, gun in hand. Let's see what they say when we kick down that door, shall we?"
The rest of the civilians joined them a moment later, not having heard the conversation and the mood was broken.
"Forward," the Colonel yelled, reordering his troops, sparing Peter a grateful nod. The General returned it, but remained still as Yofi had joined him and was fussing over some dent in her masterwork, his armor.
"Sectopods, Outsiders and Ethereals left. Think that's really it, Colonel, or is there gonna be some sorta big boss waiting for us behind the last door? I figure it's some sorta giant brain thing," Longbow said, ostentatiously reloading her massive sniper rifle.
Nuke shrugged at his sniper, used to her…unusual and occasionally inappropriate sense of humor.
Doc was less sanguine about the whole thing, probably because she was on her third attempt to pop a rookie's shoulder back into its socket after she'd been knocked flat by a charging Berserker, or possibly because her armor was still covered in Breaker's blood. Either way, she made a sharp comment about how this wasn't a video game and made an equally sharp movement, finally forcing the bone back into its proper place. She managed to finish the comment before the trooper screamed and tried to pass out, only to be prevented by a sharp slap to the jaw.
"Really? Because it sorta seems like a video game, what with the fact that they aren't rushing us all at once, but are doing this piecemeal bullshit. And not just right now. Would X-Com even exist if they'd just dropped this baby over DC?"
There was an awkward silence as everyone considered that, but Yofi interrupted it casually. "Yeah, yeah, we've all been listening. They had a corridor they wanted you to follow, but you didn't. Whatever it is they want, they aren't getting it, so can we get on with it?" She'd finished with Peter's armor and was getting bored.
"Forward," Nuke ordered, breaking up the conversation.
They approached the door, bunching up as they prepared to breach. "Weltor'Xol Vas'Qwib-Qwib," the Quarian woman standing behind him said in his ear.
"What?"
"That was his name. My sergeant's. If you care."
The next door opened, before he could respond and the psionics spoke, "Artificial warriors…created to supplement the limitations of the many failures. Crafted with a singular purpose…it ultimately contributes little to our cause. Still there is hope, if only the New Ones will walk the path."
"WALKERS!" one of the marines yelled as everyone scattered into cover in the face of the two Sectopods stationed on the nearby paths. The automatic weapons fire from the Quarians didn't do much, except distract them and buy time for the engineers to advance and drown one of the Sectopods in half-a-dozen incinerates. The other took Nuke's last rocket to the face and went down, while preparing to swamp the entrance in cluster bombs.
"Movement, behind us!" the engineer yelled as two Muton Elites crawled out of the tunnels, hefting their heavy plasma weapons and hosed down the Quarian engineers who were behind the main line, bunched up in the doorway, while their fellows still faced the shattered husks of the Sectopods. Lacking the shield modifications of their more experienced fellows, the engineers were cooked alive by their own melting armor, their situation not helped by the fact that they'd just released their own balls of superheated energy. Only Yofi survived, having advanced nearer the General than the rest, letting her retreat behind the soldiers.
The psionics survived as well, because they were even further back, still resting behind cover as the slaughter occurred. The biotic was the only one to get a chance to do more than scream and her throw impacted the Muton Elite's head, snapping his neck, but it knocked his corpse back against the wall, keeping it vertical as a dead finger held down the trigger and automatic plasma fire superheated the air until the weapon finally ran dry. His accuracy was nothing to write home about, but it was enough to hit the shields of the engineers and continue the heat transfer. The other Muton had to reload as well and took a sniper round to the skull from the Quarian infiltrator. Too late to save his fellows, but as fast as he could manage. A plasma round from Longbow hit the other Muton's corpse a moment after it stopped firing, but before it slumped to the ground.
An inferno of melted metal and burning flesh filled the doorway between the two groups, separating them. Inevitably, the psionics began to speak. "Behold, New Ones, the consequences of relying on technology and Outsiders. Technology can always be overcome by technology, strength by strength, only from the Gift does true unity, true superiority grow. Follow the path and you will ascend along with us, time runs short."
The infiltrator glanced at the sniper, "Probably best the other marines weren't around to hear that," he muttered.
"Probably," Longbow agreed after a moment. "Any idea how we get through that?" she added, nodding towards the inferno.
"Rest here until that cools down and reinforcements catch up? Preferably with some sort of leash for these two?"
"And some replacement engineers for the whole, taking over the ship thing?" Longbow added.
"That would be nice."
"Somehow I doubt that's the path the Nuke's going to take."
"Nuke?"
"Colonel Reilly, it's a nickname."
The translator puzzled over that, then spoke at some length in the infiltrator's ear.
"Ah, like Dagger."
"Sorry, who?"
"The ironically nicknamed sergeant who got stabbed back there."
"Ah. Oh," she realized something embarrassing. "Sorry, what was your name?"
"Lop'Hand Vas'Qwib-Qwib. I'd offer you my hand, but, well, you know how it is."
They were back to back as they spoke, watching the walls for more surprises. Before Lop could respond, a comm signal commanded them to take cover, away from the inferno. A quick movement and a word brought Longbow with him into cover with the psionics, much though he wanted to be away from them. A moment after he signaled they were in cover, a massive explosion filled the entrance as Yofi dropped a cryo blast atop the burning wreckage. The impact of the super-cooled subatomic particles on the superheated air and metal was extraordinarily violent, shattering the walls of the ship and even produced a minor hull breach, though it was sealed with expanding foam before the chambers could decompress.
The four who'd remained behind were able to pick their way through the no longer superheated entrance, though they had to be careful as even armored boots were in danger from the ruins of the deck. The psionics basically had to be carried as they were barely even present any longer.
"There's only Outsiders left and we should be able to handle them well enough while still holding back a larger rear-guard," Nuke argued.
"We won't have any warning of future sneak attacks through the tunnels, Milor's dead, after all," Peter argued.
"I've got the same program, he shared it with all of us," Yofi jerked a head at the surviving Quarians, "even if most of us aren't exactly trained to use it. But I can manage well enough and most of the sensors he dropped survived."
"Still, detail a squad to guard her and the psionics. We need them alive, if we're going to complete our mission here," Colonel Reilly ordered the senior surviving Quarian marine. She nodded and gave orders, leaving half her surviving troops behind as the rest joined the dozen X-Com troopers remaining as they prepared to breach the next room.
The moment they entered, diving into cover, the psionics spoke. This time Lop made sure their words were broadcast to the other Quarians, "The New Ones continue to stray from the path, this is their last chance to turn back."
This chamber was larger than the others, but it maintained the multi-level theme of the others, but the central path was blocked out by rising tiers of metal, leaving only the two ramps, one to the left and one to the right to move upwards. Also unlike the others, the enemy didn't attack the moment they burst into the room. Instead they were faced with a climb towards a platform they couldn't see anything on. They scattered into taller cover which would protect them, even from fire from the elevated position.
The psionics and Yofi joined them as Colonel Reilly sent Longbow and Lop forward, both sliding from cover to cover, activating tactical cloaks whenever they weren't in cover and made their way up the ramps to get eyes on the platform. The whole time both of them wished for the drones with tactical cloaks installed which R&D was promising were possible with Elerium power cells and eezo cores. The first time they, separately passed an Ethereal in stasis, they reacted identically, and amusingly. Fortunately, no one was able to see that, as they were cloaked.
Finally they reached the top level and simultaneously reported in to their respective commanders, informing them that there were a trio of Ethereals, each standing on a raised dias, with a quartet of Muton Elites standing between the ramps and the diases, all awaiting the approach of the team, which was a bit disturbing. One of the Ethereals was a head taller than the others. Behind the tallest Ethereal, there was a massive device, which appeared to be glowing purple, gathering behind the tallest Ethereal.
"Behold the greatest failure, the Ethereal Ones. We who failed to ascend as we should have. We who were cast out. We who were doomed to feed on the Gift of lesser beings…as we sought to uplift them…to prepare them…for what lies ahead. Time runs short, we both must ascend, soon. You cannot abandon the path. You cannot abandon us, or we both face a fate far worse than mere death. Join us, New Ones."
The psionics' words were muffled by the fact that each of them was dogpiled by marines and rookies when they spoke, as the soldiers were trying not to announce their presence and loudly echoing the thoughts of one of the enemy would not help with that. Colonel Reilly discussed how to handle that force with the senior surviving Quarian (whose name he still didn't know, though he did know the dead sergeant's name, he wasn't a fast learner).
Experience said that anything new wasn't going to be easy to kill, so he gave the agreed upon order and the scouts moved into position targeting the two normal Ethereals. Lop closed to point-blank range silently, shotgun falling into his hands, while Longbow retreated to a corner that let her get a bead on the Ethereal's skull while still being mostly sheltered from the Mutons. When they signaled they were in position, Nuke was about to order the assault, the psionics spoke again, though quietly as the soldiers had ended their dogpile, but each psionic was being held by a husky rookie.
"Come to us, New Ones. We will save you from those who would doom you by their weakness and folly. Join us and we will ascend together, escaping the coming doom," the psionics said, muscles jerking, then they froze.
"Mind control?" the Quarian asked, twitching slightly and glancing at her comrades.
"I don't think so. They'd be fighting harder. I've seen that," Doc put in.
The woman pulled slightly, head turning towards Colonel Reilly, she did not speak, but her eyes focused and her movements were deliberate. A nod from Nuke and the rookie released her, stepping back and clear out of reach. The woman stepped forward and reached towards a grenade hanging from the harness over Reilly's armor. He didn't stop her.
General Van Doorn did, hand snapping out to catch hers. She shot him a sharp look, but he didn't release her. The other psionic had also stopped struggling, but did not move with purpose. He did not move at all, but merely hung loose and limp in the hands of the rookie, death in his eyes. "Let her go, General," Reilly ordered.
"Are you insane? You're giving her a grenade?"
"Yes. I know that look and it's not mind control. Just get out of the way, General."
General Van Doorn looked around for support and found a distinct lack of it from anyone except Yofi, who still hadn't managed to find a weapon (though she had at least upgraded her omni-tool). "Don't touch it until we're clear," he ordered her, lifting the plasma pistol he'd taken from a Thin Man back at the start of the battle and covering the woman as he and Yofi retreated behind other cover.
The others scattered as well, obedient to Colonel Reilly's words, but unwilling to risk their lives on the psionic's control. Finally he nodded and she took one grenade, then a second from his armor and walked slowly up the right ramp, hands and grenades held behind her back. The Muton Elites parted for her and she walked directly to the tallest Ethereal and it stepped forward, extending a long-fingered hand towards her as she came to him, obedient to his command. Two of the Mutons saw the grenades behind her back even as she pulled the pins out. They reacted, but too later.
"We are not your slaves-" she said before the explosion swept her away, knocking the closing Elites to the ground and sending the towering Ethereal back against its dais with bone breaking force.
The other psionic's head lowered, his voice barely audible, as he finished his partner's thought. "Nor ever shall be."
"CHARGE!" Nuke ordered.
"Fire," the Quarian commander ordered.
Longbow and Lop had fired the moment the grenades went off and both normal-sized Ethereals were down, missing chunks of their heads. Lop was down as well, he'd gotten off two shots, but the unexpected explosion had injured the infiltrator badly, especially as he'd closed to point blank range to use his shotgun on the monsters. The Elites hesitated. Lop was down, they couldn't see Longbow, but they could see the charging soldiers and, with no other instructions, moved to attack.
One tried to toss a grenade, but went down to Longbow's fire from behind and the other three were simply too outnumbered to do more than waste a handful of shots on their shields and get shot to pieces attempting to charge in past the shields. Longbow slid forward to check on Lop. He was dead. She wasn't surprised, two grenades, modified with alien and Quarian tech at that range would kill anyone. It was, therefore, somewhat surprising when the Ethereal who'd taken two grenades to the face grabbed her from behind.
The surviving psionic's voice was acid pain and bloodied triumph, but mostly it was loud, "This is not your path! Not your purpose! You need our guidance to hone this power…without us you have no hope of ascension in time. Death is better than what comes. You have rejected every effort to save you, but still we give you a gift, New One. We give all of you a gift. Death."
The Ethereal lifted Longbow easily in four long fingered hands, one holding each limb and pulled, ripping the woman apart and showering everyone in the area in viscera and blood. The artifact behind him pulsed an ugly purple and the room began to melt, three rookies and four marines were in the area which he hit with his power. The former lacked the experience to properly evade, the later trusted to their shields to buy them time.
Codex: ?-NO FILE FOUND—ERROR.
They didn't even have time to scream before the psionic forces ripped them apart. It was like the alien had opened a rift to hell.
Horrific.
Impossible.
The survivors' concentrated fire ripped him apart in turn, before he could do it again, but that didn't undo any of his action.
"Death," the psionic repeated desperately, as Yofi dragged him up the ramp, screaming a warning about the sensors they'd left behind. Massive forces were inbound. They needed to resolve this fast, or they were, in fact, dead. Especially as the giant glowing artifact was pulsing in a fashion which was disturbingly like power building to a point of no return.
The survivors took up position to defend them, assuming the position held by the Muton Elites and Ethereals so recently, though they had the sense to use the daises as cover, not as platforms. All they had to do was hold. It was the civilians' turn to think and it was their responsibility to solve this. The soldiers just had to shoot anything which tried to interfere. Easy. It was easy. And they certainly weren't trying to convince themselves of that because half their number were dead, or anything.
Yofi ignored the blinking, terrifying artifact, in favor of door control. The psionic was almost catatonic. A slap to the fact took care of that, mostly. For the moment. "Connect to their system and find some way to jam those hatches shut. There must be a way to lock them in place, if only to prevent them from opening accidentally during acceleration," she pulled the psionic to a bank of controls in the back of the room.
"I don't know how to do any of that! I was a paralegal, all right? You want me to file some legal documents, or smash someone with my mind, fine I can do that, but I don't know how to use any of this," he waved a hand at the consoles, flashing alien symbols at him.
"I know. I do," Yofi said.
"What the fuck are you—" the psionic began, then stopped as she caught his gloved hand in her bare one and pulled the glove off, then lifted it to her head.
"Like I said, I know. We don't have time for me to talk you through this, so let's do it the rough way, eh, telepath?" Her teeth were sharper than a Human's, but the edge in her smile was all her own.
"You don't know what you're offering."
"I think I do, boy."
"What you're suggesting isn't even possible."
"Like melting people isn't possible? We've barely scratched the surface of what can be done. Do it now, classify it later."
"I…if I do what you're suggesting, I don't know if I'll be able to get it all back in there. Or, any of it back in there. Diana was the brave one, the smart one, she might have been able to, but I…"
"The blood of thousands already stains this deck. If we don't do this, that will become millions. Get on with it, lad, you're wasting time." A handful of shots taking down an early arriving Chryssalid drove her point home and he nodded and stole her mind.
XXXXX
There were no words, there was information. There was knowledge. There was power. There was too much space and no boundaries between her self and the universe. She started to dissolve, spreading throughout everything. It would be nice to say that seeing the battles, allies and enemies, the war, all that brought her self back to herself. It was not. It was an attack. For in addition to everything else, there were also others in the system. Ethereals and Outsiders filled it and found an intruder, striking at her, but she was not some fragment of a mind and she knew systems. The Ethereals used the system making commands of the Outsiders, for the Outsiders were the system.
And she was in the system as well. The orders she gave were harsh things, protecting herself with the Outsiders, spreading her attention far, too far. She saw terrible things, Quarians broken beneath boot and claw, Humans burnt to ash, ships shattered by blasts of fusion power, Skyrangers falling to scout craft, which burned in turn, engines destroyed by missiles leaving it to fall helplessly into the atmosphere. And she saw her own body, crumpling from the grip of the psionic, mind emptied of everything that would have kept her body alive.
She saw Peter see her fall, saw him break, saw him turn back to the enemy and hold the line.
Distracted, an Ethereal three levels down and half a mile away drove a spike of power into her brain and she felt a year of her childhood vanish, torn from her mind like a finger torn from her body. In fury she overloaded a nearby console, the sparks would set the Ethereal's robes on fire, when they reached them. Yofi laughted at that thought, as she laughed at the lack of proper safe-guards in their so-powerful-enemy's systems. They relied on the Outsiders to manage such things, the Outsiders she suborned with more precise commands.
Still, she could not win for long, even now she could feel the Ethereals mustering. There were shockingly few of them, maybe a hundred scattered throughout the ship, but that was still more than enough to kill her.
If she was alone.
She was not.
Every identified psionic was on this ship and it was packed with engineers. But she couldn't communicate with them. The computer didn't have any sort of intercom system, or radio communication, they appeared to rely entirely on computer-to-computer text communication or psionic communication/commands. She lacked the capacity for the latter and the former wasn't feasible as the system lacked any capability to even display Quarian or Human characters.
Then she remembered the threat they'd broadcast. It wasn't useful for communicating within the ship, but she could broadcast to the planet and then the Commander could get that message back to the ship. Then it was just a matter of them helping. All that thought passed in the instant before the sparking, exploding console had actually reached the Ethereal's cloak. Time was not passing right. Her body had not yet hit the ground. The communication was so difficult, it required her to slow down the words, even as the Ethereals clawed at her mind. By locking herself into only the radio system she managed it. After all, they didn't care about that system, they'd only build it to bully Humanity into obedience.
With that done, she turned her attention to the forces attacking her comrades (her former comrades?) and the paths they followed. She'd been wrong about the locks, but it was possible to slow the enemy advance by crashing the anti-grav chutes they relied upon to go up and down levels. That was easy enough. That would buy them time. But the tunnels were full of X-Rays, coming up from other levels, without need for anti-grav.
Discovering that the tunnels were usually venting systems for the sublight engines was wonderful. The external engines were mostly fried, but it was possible to activate the internal power supplies and vent used coolant through them, down to the recycling centers, flooding the X-Rays down through the system. As the hatches were designed to open into the tunnels, the pressure of the coolant held them shut. A quick flush of the system was all she could manage, but it was enough to relieve the pressure on Peter and his fellows, at least for a while.
It was then that she realized what the giant flashing artifact was. More importantly, she recognized what it was trying to do. And her ability to help the fighters vanished, along with her ability to do anything besides block the ship from collapsing its jump drive into a momentary black hole which would consume the planet, the Migrant Fleet and everything else for a light second in every direction.
It already had the power it need. All she could do was deny it the permission to act, again and again and again as the Ethereals tried to override her, tried to slash her defenseless mind to ribbons. And they succeeded. But only in the latter.
XXXXX
Wallace Stevens was the first psionic to respond, to the Commander's orders. He wasn't a strong psionic, but he was fast enough to identify where on the ship the Ethereals were communicating from and get out before they could destroy more than his memories of high school, which, frankly, he was happy to lose.
A moment later he shared that information with the Commander, through the Quarians who guarded him. Targets were prioritized for locations which were close to the battle-lines and strikes were called in on those areas which were close to the hull and didn't have still-active weapons in place. The vast majority of the scout ships had been destroyed and the hull was being cleansed, but with the weapons in recessed, hidden ports, it wasn't uncommon for observers to think it was clear only to have a hidden weapon appear and burn down a fighter with a blast from a plasma point-defense weapon, or vaporize a chunk of a ship with a fusion weapon.
Platoons of Quarian marines on the hull were harder for the built in defenses to handle, so Floaters and suited Mutons were trying to hold them back, but neither group had much experience with such combat and they had a rough time holding back the tide of marines pouring from the Fleet, though the marines were still fighting as small groups, coordinated only by the Commander and the staff of officers he was borrowing to assist him as the battle's scope continued to grow.
More psionics poured into the computer system, working as teams to target Ethereals who were further inside the ship. It was a hard thing, because they were generally far more powerful and experienced than the psionics, but they were outnumbered and they didn't work as teams. Moreover, they were trying to direct a battle, as well as defend themselves from mental and physical attack. They failed. One by one they fell, minds destroyed, bodies broken and with each one, the X-Rays' actions grew more simple, but more determined as they reacted to fewer and fewer commands.
But the largest changes didn't occur until the last of the Ethereals fell. It had disconnected itself from the computers which ran the ship and instead focused on commanding the troops, sending massive waves of troops against single locations, prompting horribly bloody battles. But the Ethereal didn't move after disconnecting, so a combined team of X-Com troopers and Quarian infiltrators slid into place and took the Ethereal out with a handful of shots from a sniper rifle.
It would be nice to say that the X-Rays simply surrendered, or collapsed without their masters. Instead everything went absolutely insane. They turned on one another, charged into fire, committed suicide, ran away, did everything and anything that ran through their, under-used minds.
What that didn't include was coordinated attacks on the expanding perimeter of the boarders. Nor did it include any sort of coordinated defense to attacks from that perimeter. There were thousands of casualties still to occur, but the battle was won. It was the aftermath that was left.
XXXXX
"She wasn't in her right mind. She wasn't in her mind at all!" Bradford argued.
"It doesn't matter," Semmi said. "The ship chose its captain by the voice of an ancestor. There are thousands dead and a Liveship basically destroyed. I know you lost more people and a city, but this buys us all time to figure out some sort of longer term solution, how to handle the survivors and how to actually control that damn ship."
"Has the Patrol Fleet found anything new?" the Commander asked, changing the subject.
"No. With the capital ship captured and other vessels destroyed, it appears we've defeated the enemy. The Patrol Fleet will continue trying to backtrace to see if they have any planets or other bases. It'll just be a best guess though, based on the fact that they seem to have been travelling in straight lines, but we can't be sure of that. Anything new out of the captured ship?"
"No. Ms. Seha has fully…dissipated. Some of our surviving psionics have managed to access the system, but whatever coordinate system they use to describe where they've been, it doesn't track with any of our systems."
"But no sign of other ships?" Semmi pushed.
"Not as far as we can tell, but the Ethereals don't think like us," the Commander concluded.
"True enough."
"I hate to drag us back to the topic at hand, but the fact that his dying crazy lover said his name as she was dying doesn't make Peter Van Doorn qualified to operate a ship capable of destroying the planet. He's not even X-Com!"
"He's Human and he's okay to the Quarians, so we're sticking with him," the Commander said, with more honesty than was entirely wise in front of the Quarian representative.
"Is there anything else X-Com needs from me or mine? If not, I've got to get to work. Disaster relief is going well, but literally everyone wants to talk treaties and tech transfer and colonies and future profit…"
"The future. The bodies aren't even cold yet, but everyone's looking to profit," the Commander said, a bit bitterly.
"Well, for that and the magic recipe for Meld and Elerium," Semmi agreed with him, without bitterness. "That will shape our future just as much as any treaties, or choices made by General Van Doorn."
"True enough."
Bradford frowned, then driven either by shame at his words or mere curiosity, he asked, "What about Ms. Seha's body? It's still alive, right?"
"It was still breathing, but her crew took care of that and took the body for recycling," Semmi said, as if it were the most natural thing in the word.
Both Humans flinched a bit at that, beginning to truly realize the depth of the challenges facing them as they moved into a world, into a universe at peace, but far larger than they'd thought.
XXXXX
Codex: Mental Illness in the Migrant Fleet:
The treatment of the mentally ill in the Migrant Fleet is based on two competing impulses. First, the lack of any room for marginal people and second, the need for every available person to work. This resulted in competing incentives. Before birth, significant effort and resources are invested identifying all genetic illnesses and making sure none are passed on and aborting any fetuses with such illnesses. After birth, but before they leave for their Pilgrimage there's more margin for undetectable issues, with a great deal of care being available to those unfortunates as they are mere children, to be protected.
However, regardless of the degree of impairment caused by the illness, they are still required to go on their Pilgrimage. This permits the Fleet to rid itself of those who cannot carry their own weight without resorting to euthanasia. For those who return, a great deal of effort goes into working with them, because there's no margin to waste skilled crew.
Codex: Blue Justice:
One of the more popular exports of Thessia's generally fairly bland entertainment industry, Blue Justice was created to compete with the more violent and exotic entertainment industries based on Ilium, which had come to dominate the Thessian market. Intended to use some of the same techniques for more valuable ends, Blue Justice, was supposed to be a historic biopic of a Thessian Justicar, Selar T'kani during the Krogan Rebellions.
The first four episodes indeed followed that formula, though with somewhat more violence that most entertainment produced on Thessia (indeed, the Selar's graphic, on-screen execution of a murderer provoked more than four thousand complaints to the Thessian Bureau of Standards and Decency).
The introduction of acclaimed character actress Mopalli T'Mon as the matriarch pirate turned privateer and the justicar's main rival took the show quickly away from anything resembling historical accuracy and straight into the debates over intra-Asari relationships. Urdnot Brick, intended to be Selar's love interest instead found himself relegated to a secondary role as the thuggish and brutal Warlord Batan. The show is most famous for being the first to show intra-Asari intimate relations on screen in the modern age and for its wildly expensive fight scenes, which rely heavily on Mopalli's commando experience and Brick's durability to be feasible.
Author's Note: The psionics here react a bit more to the Uber Ethereal's communication because, powerful though they are, none of them have been in a Gollop Chamber and they aren't up to the caliber of the Volunteer.
Whoops, I just realized in my earlier discussion of how Mass Effect treats plasma, I left out the most on point example, incinerate. It does decent, if halved damage to shielded foes and continues to do damage after shields fail. I choose to view that as a game mechanic to handle the heat and burns which might come from such an impact, and its shield damage is a result of artificially increasing the projectile's mass, which the Ethereals probably could do, but didn't bother with, as they didn't understand mass effect shielding works.
Next time: Next time, we jump ahead about a century and do an info dump. And some explosions, because there are always explosions.
As always, reviews/comments are always welcome.