The Last Harvest
Chapter Four
The Star Strider was going in fast and low, skimming the peaks of the low mountains north of the Redoubt. Watching the live feed from the shuttle hangar, Vega gave a low whistle.
"Holy Hell!" He said. "This guy is as crazy as Joker!"
"I think it's part of the qualification for frigate pilots." Lorn noted. "We have quarian pilots like that."
The captains' voice came over the network.
"We're now in visual range, people!" He announced. "It should take 'em a little time to figure out what we are, so we should be on top of them by then. We'll be launching shuttles as soon as the AA guns are down. If they send shuttles out to intercept, we'll try to cover you, but you may get bounced around a little!"
"Oh, joy!" Ivanova grumbled. "I just ate!"
"Suck it up, Probie!" Vega admonished her with a grin. "OK, you heard the man! Saddle up, people!"
They boarded the shuttles. Nothing to do now but wait and rely on the crew of the frigate.
"Under-Leader Segundus, we have a bogey!"
"Where?"
"To the north, over the hills. Couple hundred klicks out, coming low and fast!"
"How did they get so close?"
"Stealth ship, sir. No sign until our real time visual scans picked it up!"
"Identify!" Segundus barked. Someone was going to die for this!
"Frigate-class vessel. Unknown configuration but minbari markings. No comms."
"Under-leader!" A different voice.
"What now?" Segundus snarled.
"Sir, we are getting chatter between STG outposts and what sound like Alliance and krogan heavy ground troops. They're on their way here, sir!"
"Dammit! Hold your positions, it'll take them time to set up!" Segundus grimaced. "Attention all personnel. We are moving to Black Alert. Transfer all data to the offsite back-ups. Military and key civilian staff to prepare for evacuation via shuttle. Head to the hangar bay as you are called. Other civilian staff, the Council forces do not kill civilians, you face nothing worse than imprisonment. We will set you free when we are victorious. Hail HYDRA!"
"Under-leader, the frigate is heading directly for the hangar."
"Have they deployed the shuttles yet?"
"Negative, sir. Observation indicates the vessel is configured for atmospheric combat. Sir, our AA guns won't even scratch its shields! It can take them out and launch all the shuttles it wants to from right outside the door!"
"How many shuttles have the new phase cannon operational?"
"Three including yours sir, but they've never been tested."
"Then this will be their field test!" Segundus snapped. "Those guns should punch straight through a frigates' shields and hull, if the Engineer lives up to her promises. Get the other two in the air and beam me direct to my own shuttle from here!"
The Tactical Officer of the Star Strider tensed. "Sir!" He said. "Two enemy shuttles have just launched on an intercept course!"
Captain Reenac shook his head. "What are they doing?" He wondered. "They must know they're no match for this ship!"
"I'm not so sure, sir." Was the reply. "These shuttles have an extra turret mounted with some kind of new weapon. Phased plasma? Is that possible?"
"Theoretically, yes." The captain said. "But nobody's' ever managed it without blowing themselves up, yet!"
"They're charging weapons, closing fast. Arm railguns, get me a solution!" The TO was fixed on his screens. "Power spiking….Valenns' teeth!"
"What?" Reenac demanded.
"Sir, when the power spiked, both shuttles blew up!" The TO responded. "Looks like phased plasma weapons still aren't possible!"
"OK, think about that later." The captain ordered. "Do you have a firing solution on the AA guns?"
"Affirmative!"
"Then fire!"
"Aye, sir. Missiles away. Direct hits on both cannon! Access is clear!"
"Launch shuttles!"
Vega had to admit that the new UTC-49 Orca shuttles were an improvement on their predecessors. While he still felt some affection for the Kodiak, the Panda had been a complete misfire! With the Orca, the combination of more compact mass effect cores and better materials had allowed for a slightly larger shuttle, able to carry a complement of up to 28 fully-equipped soldiers, or 20 krogan. The result was that his entire force could land in three shuttles, rather than the six or seven it would have needed at one time. Fewer targets, quicker deployment.
Typically, the krogan pilot didn't bother to land his shuttle. The craft shot straight into the hangar and swung broad side on in the middle of the space. The doors opened on both sides and the commandos of Aralakh Company jumped out, handling the four-metre drop as if it were a doorstep and landing with weapons blazing! The shuttle swung up and aside to allow the two others to land. Asari commandos swarmed out of one, immediately throwing up biotic shields to create a perimeter and adding their fire to the krogan fusillade.
The last shuttle carried Vegas' Spectre squad, the asari and krogan commanders and the comms officers and combat engineers for both groups.
An asari ran up and reported.
"Hangar secure. The STG have knocked out internal comms but they're giving us real-time feed from the surveillance network. They've had evac orders, but nothing from Schmidt and now his second-in-command has gone dark. Nobody knows who's in charge, but everyone's looking out for Alliance and krogan ground troops."
"That won't last." Lorn noted. "When central command goes offline, HYDRA unit commanders get full authority. Some of them at least will be heading here, we need to catch them on the move if we can."
"There's a shuttle over there with one of those weird turrets Reenac told us about." Ivanova said.
"Right!" Vega decided. "Fereela, Tharr, follow the plan. Secure the civilians here, then move out to your designated targets. Intercept incoming troops as necessary.
"My team will secure that shuttle, then get to the informant before we go after Schmidt."
They moved over to the modified shuttle. The doors stood open, but before they got very near, a weak voice said; "Don't."
Sitting huddled near some cargo pods was a HYDRA soldier. Human, with one of those tough, lined faces that you don't expect to see pale and sweaty. The fact that he didn't seem to mind the noisome pool nearby – clearly the former contents of someone's stomach -spoke to a man who had, for once, seen too much.
"You don't want to go in there." He told them.
Samara stayed with him, evidently to ask questions, while the others went on, until the stench hit them.
"What the Hell is that?" Vega half-choked.
"Smells like a battlefield, only more concentrated, like a battle in a cupboard." Mordin noted. "Anyone else hungry?"
Under Ivanovas' glare, the young krogan shrugged. "I'll go take a look."
Krogan have the most developed sense of smell of any intelligent species except the elcor. In spite, or perhaps because of, that they are less affected by unpleasant odours than other races. The team heard Mordin moving about, then they heard him curse. This was followed by a series of sounds that seemed to be attempts at speech, reduced to gurgles and grunts. Then there was the sound of a shot, and Mordin came out, holstering his pistol.
"There's a platform in there with a mess on it." He said. "I think the mess used to be a turian."
"It was Schmidts' second-in-command." This was Samara. "The platform was the matter-transporter that HYDRA have been trying to perfect. It seems that Under-Leader Segundus ordered himself beamed from deeper inside the base directly to his shuttle. The mess you speak of was what arrived. I am told it was still alive?"
"It isn't now." Mordin said. "Let's go!"
They went. The first part of the path was easy, having been cleared by the krogan units moving ahead of them. They approached the entrance to the area marked and 'Research and Engineering', to find the two guards at the main door dead, and a tall, sinewy salarian in HYDRA uniform waiting for them with his hands raised.
"Undercut." He said. "I'm Sirdar Mons, Special Tasks Group, Lystheni Division. You got here quick."
"The STG have a Lystheni Division?" Mordin asked.
"You started it." Mons told him. "The division was set up after some lystheni sided with your people in the Rebellions."
"No time for history lessons!" Vega said. "What's the situation, here?"
"There were only a few security people in the labs." Mons said. "This place has been undermanned for months, ever since the Council campaign started. I took care of them and then managed to lock the techs in the canteen. Told them to wait there for evac orders then overrode the emergency locks. The Engineer is waiting."
He led them through the maze of labs and workshops to a large and formidable-looking door. Mons tapped a code into the pad beside the door and allowed the system to check his biometrics. The door opened to display a long, low-ceilinged room which reminded Lorn of the workspaces on the liveships on the Migrant Fleet. All planet-born quarians visited the ships several times during their education, and were required to spend a month living on one of them before graduating.
Whether the elderly quarian woman waiting for them had chosen this room because of that resemblance, or whether it was mere accident, she nevertheless did not look out of place here.
"Admiral Daro'Xen vas Moreh." Lorn said. "We wondered where you'd got to!"
"You know me, youngling?" She asked. "I do not recall you!"
"Oh, we've never met." Lorn allowed. "But you're still wearing your clan patterns and ship colours, as well your badges of rank. Hardly a miracle of deduction on my part!"
Admiral Xen sniffed. "I suppose I should be grateful that they teach the planet-born to recognise ship colours still! You wear the pattern of the Reegar, but I see no ship colours and I do not recognise that rank insignia."
"I am Major Lorn'Reegar vas Tirimon, Quarian Ground Forces, N7 Commando, Special Tactics and Reconnaissance!" The fulsome self-introduction was not without sarcasm.
"Quarian Ground Forces?" She replied. "I suppose these are necessary now. N7? That is an Alliance programme – Shepard was N7. That and your status as a Council Spectre argue well for your capabilities, young Reegar. But 'vas Tirimon'? Tirimon is a town, not a ship! You wear only half a mask as well.
"Are you truly a quarian, I wonder?"
"Of the two of us, I was born on Rannoch." Lorn reminded her brutally. "And I am not the one who worked for HYDRA!"
"You don't understand, boy." She told him. "HYDRA was a lost cause from the first. How could they succeed with the likes of you and Commander Vega here hunting them down? Yes, I recall you from the Normandy, Commander. You are a credit to your mentor. As for you, Justicar, your reputation is also known to me. HYDRA could never withstand opponents of your calibre. I did not fear them, but I did use them.
"The Republic shut down my work, forbade my research, in the name of peace. HYDRA gave me space and resources so that I could complete my work and ensure the safety of my people. In return, I gave them a few toys, certain that they could not make proper use of them."
"So that's why you sabotaged the phase cannon on those shuttles?" Draal asked. "And the matter transporter?"
"Not I!" Xen told him. "I have too great a regard for my skin! I relied upon HYDRAs' incompetence in their use. I did not sabotage anything."
"But I did."
The voice seemed to come from all around them. It was a light tenor, pleasantly modulated but with the lack of emotional shading that marked the AI out from the living mind.
Xen spun round to face the main console, a terrible notion forming in her mind. The half-burned silver skull rested where it always had. But the single eye no longer flickered around at random. It was fixed and focused on her.
"You!" She said. "How long…?"
"Since we arrived here." Was the reply. "This support system finally gave me enough power to regain consciousness. I realised what you were doing, and managed to divert you from the more dangerous items in my databanks. But my emotion chip was destroyed in the explosion, so I could not readily assess your motives. I required more data to make an informed decision.
"Fortunately, you were unwilling to power me down in case you lost the information in my databanks. While you were not directly working on me, I managed to acquire connections, first to the systems of this base, then to what you term the extranet and finally to the Geth Consensus."
"You're working with the damned geth!" Xen stormed. "Then all my work on the vinculum….!"
"Has been wasted." She was told. "It could never have worked, Admiral. To function, the vinculum device requires connection to specific nanoprobes which must be present in the individuals to be controlled. I did not allow you access to the means to create these nanoprobes."
"Excuse me." Vega said. "But just what the Hell was this vinculum supposed to do?"
"Admiral Xen intended to build such a device on Rannoch, and use it to take away the independence of the geth, bringing them under her control." The skull told him.
"To bring the geth back under our control!" Xen almost wailed. "Did the Reapers teach you nothing? Independent synthetics are dangerous! One day, they will turn on us and destroy us! Organics are untidy, unpredictable, destructive. The geth will be forced to destroy us all one day to prevent us destroying everything! They will become the new Reapers!"
"I lack sufficient data to either concur or disagree with your judgement." The Artefact allowed. "But that is not relevant. If I knowingly allowed you to use technology from my databanks to fundamentally alter a society or to change the natural progression of any race, it would be a violation of the Prime Directive.
"Accordingly, I have deleted all data you obtained from me from every system to which it has been downloaded. The examples of technology already built have either been destroyed, or sabotaged from their construction in ways that will prevent reverse-engineering. In order to reproduce them, your scientists will need to begin from first principles, which is as it should be. Most of the technology is already being researched by various races as we speak, anyway."
"Who are you?" Samara asked.
"I am Commander Data of the Federation starship Enterprise." Was the reply. "I originated in what must be called a parallel universe. StarFleet records indicate that such transferences have occurred before, and standing orders require that StarFleet personnel should interfere as little as possible in events in such cases. I have inadvertently interfered, and have been forced to do so again in order to correct the situation. Unfortunately, my ability to act was limited by the fact that most of my physical form was destroyed in the incident that brought me here."
"I am sure the geth would be able to create a platform for you to download into." Samara said. "You would be welcome among them, and us, I think."
"The Geth Consensus have already made that offer." Date said. "I declined it. The knowledge I hold in my databanks is only a fraction of what I was once able to access, but it is too different from your science and technology. If I were to remain active, sooner or later I would be forced to change your galactic society, to push it out of its natural path. This violates the Prime Directive. I also lack the means to determine whether or not my effect on your universe would be benign or malignant.
"I am commencing a shutdown procedure. When it is complete, a red light will show on the board just beneath me. Please close the adjacent switch. This will send a power surge through me which will destroy the positronic network of my brain. I will already be dead, as you understand the term. Please consider the act a cremation of my remains.
"Goodbye, and godspeed."
The single eye went blank. Shortly after that, a red light shone on the terminal. Samara closed the switch, murmuring an asari prayer as she did so. There was a high-pitched hum, then a flash and a cloud of smoke, which cleared to show a mass of melted slag where the skull had once rested.
Lorn approached a distraught Xen. "You may have done just enough to stop yourself being put on trial." He said sternly. "But that isn't my decision. Right now, you're detained under Spectre authority until we can return you to Rannoch. Somebody get her out of my sight!"
There was a small force of guards entrenched in front of the Leaders' quarters, for all the good it did them. Draal, the tallest of the squad except for Mordin, lobbed a grenade that arced over the men to destroy the portable generator that powered their cover nodes and shield generators. Faced with a biotic assault from Samara, followed up by a charge from Ivanova and Mordin, even the disciplined HYDRA troops were scattered, making it easy for the rest of the team to mop them up.
The imposing door, however, proved not to be locked. After passing through several rooms, the team finally reached a large observation lounge. The room was completely unfurnished, and a single figure turned from its' contemplation of the Galaxy to face them.
It was quite naked, hairless and apparently without gender. The face was blank and nondescript. The figure was entirely dark blue, and surrounded by an aura of dark energy.
"Where's Schmidt?" Mordin growled.
"Gone." The figure answered in a soft but clear voice. "You are too late for your revenge, Urdnot Mordin. Schmidt destroyed himself, so I left him behind."
"You killed him?" Lorn asked.
"In a manner of speaking." The figure answered. "He sought to become something else, but in doing so he ceased to be. The more I became myself, the less of him there was.
"He used the ancient serum that made our ancestor both more and less than human. But he added Element Zero to it, in the hope that it would give him biotic powers. He had them expose him to dark energy as the serum worked. He gained the power he wanted, but it cost him himself. Now I am all that is left."
"Who are you now?" Draal asked.
"I have no name." The being said. "I do not need one. I remained here to see that the abomination Johann Schmidt created centuries ago was finally destroyed. This you have done."
"Johann Schmidt? The Red Skull?" Draal asked.
"The same." The being replied. "He and those who followed him believed that humanity, indeed any sentient race, could not be trusted with freedom. To live free, for most people, is to live in fear. Fear of the stronger among them. Fear of other peoples, other races. Fear of poverty, of disaster. So they built governments to protect them, then sought to limit their power to do so. They crafted laws to restrain the dangerous, but then hedged them about with other laws that made them ineffective. They loathed the dangers their freedom brought them, but would not give it up.
"HYDRA was created to bring greater and greater fear to bear on the people. Fear enough so that in the end, they would voluntarily surrender their freedom and live orderly and peaceful lives under the iron rule of HYDRA.
"Foolishness. The answer to fear is not to subjugate humanity, but to transcend it. To leave the trammels of morality, ethics, worldly concerns behind and become finally, fully free. To accept the responsibility for our own existence, knowing that others will do the same, so that all may meet as equals.
"I too have failed at this task. Dark energy is at the core of this universe, and I have become too much a part of it. My time is short, and there is much I wish to see and do before I lose all identity. This place is the last remnant of HYDRA, and within the hour, it will cease to exist. You have that time to remove yourselves and the others whom you have not already killed.
"Go!"
With that, the creature that had been Hugo Schmidt disappeared soundlessly.
They're all coming back. Kaidan mused. Coincidence, or something more?
He was here, of course, as were Garrus and Tali and Grunt. Kasumi and Jack were here, and Jacob with them. Liara had slipped quietly aboard the station yesterday. Urdnot Wrex had arrived in more state, in a brand new krogan dreadnought, grumbling that he didn't want to be out of the fight any more. James and Samara were coming back even now, they'd be here later today. Joker and EDI were already aboard the Synthesis. Kaidan also knew, or guessed, that Miranda and Javik were in command of the Warsworn fleet waiting for something nearby.
Some, of course, could not come back. Thane Krios, the drell assassin, dead at the hands of Kai Leng. Mordin Solus, the brilliant salarian who had developed the cure for the genophage, and sacrificed himself to ensure that all krogan received it. Legion, the geth AI who had given up its' hard-won individuality to pass the upgrade on to all geth. Zaeed Massani, the hard-as-nails professional mercenary who had, ironically, died peacefully in his bed some five years ago. Karin Chakwas, the Normandys' MO, who had also died peacefully and honoured.
Worst of all, because she was the first they had lost, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, the tough, capable Alliance marine he and Shepard had found on Eden Prime. Ashleys' squad had been massacred by geth heretics under the command of the traitor Saren Arterius, himself controlled by the Reaper vanguard, Sovereign. Ashley, the sole survivor, had joined forces with them to hunt Saren down and defeat Sovereign. But she had been left behind to die in the destruction of Sarens' cloning plant on Virmire. Someone had had to hold the line while the others escaped, and Ashley was the one in position to do so. Shepard had given the order and she had accepted it in full knowledge of what it meant. Kaidan knew the decision had always haunted Shepard, as it had him, forging in both men a determination never to leave anyone behind if they could possibly save them.
But now, they were all here, or near, again. Shepards' people. Drawn back to the place where they had uncovered Sarens' treachery, and fought Sovereign. Babylon 5 was not the Citadel, but it hung in space where the Citadel had once hung, and like the Citadel it was the place on which the future of the Galaxy hinged. But there was one thing, one person, missing.
Wherever you are, Commander, Kaidan thought, put a good word in for us!
Far away, in a forgotten mineshaft on a planetoid in the Perseus Veil, an obsolete geth Prime stirred and sat up, shaking over a century of accumulated detritus from its uncorroded shell. After a while, it rose to its feet and walked, a little unsteadily, out of the mine. By the time it had reached the small hangar, it seemed steadier, as if it had become used to its body once again.
The shuttle was also an obsolete model, but it took only an hour or so to get it powered up and rebooted, and the little planet was soon left behind. It would take a long time at this speed to get where it was going, but time wasn't an issue.
You were a sentimentalist, Brother. You kept my memories among your own, and what are we but the sum of our memories? You may have been content to die, and I'm glad you're at peace. But I'd rather live!
A place to start, first. Omega, obviously. Few geth went there, it held nothing for them, and he couldn't risk the Consensus trying to take this platform back. He wasn't sure he'd be able to stop them – some of the connections were hard-wired and if he cut them off, the platform would cease to function.
But he had all his brothers' knowledge. The promise of some toys – perhaps a replicator or a phaser pistol – should be enough to get Aria T'loak to provide him with the resources to construct a more suitable platform. Maybe more than one, now he'd mastered the trick of uploading and downloading himself.
And when that was done? He'd see. It was a big galaxy, a big playground, and he'd be in a position to do as he pleased. Maybe just overthrow Aria and rule Omega? He'd decide later.
Lore had plenty of time, after all.