Chapter 68. Fling a Light Into The Future
28. January 2415 AD, Citadel, Embassy Area, HSA Embassy
"Given the circumstances, I understand that you want to be cautious," Captain Anderson said as he stood in Ambassador Udina's office, evidently having heard the news already. How the Spectre had managed to do that despite being ordered to stay within the embassy grounds? He could only guess he still had friends in the right places of this building. "But every minute we spend with talking about what we're going to do instead of actually doing something, Saren's getting closer to Ilos. You saw the helmet-cam footage. You know what the reapers want to do to us. If Saren finds this Conduit, those words become a reality," the soldier explained before leaning against the chair he had refused to sit on when barging into his office a few minutes ago. "Commander Shepard's sitting on the most-advanced frigate in the galaxy. If we give her the coordinates right now, she might just stop Saren before it's too late."
"So everyone keeps telling me," Udina replied. "If we do this and that and send Shepard here and there, she'll stop him and save us all," he sighed before rubbing his brow and meeting the eye of the first human Spectre. Considering he was just a soldier, the man was doing an admirable job at hiding the rage Udina knew his words were creating right now. "I think it's time we face the reality of our situation," he added.
"And what might that be?"
"Commander Shepard is evidently not up for the task," Udina said, watching the soldier' face. Still no obvious sign of anger. Impressive. "She had an entire invasion force at her back, she had Saren pushed into a corner in his main base," he sighed, "and Saren still managed to beat her, kill an entire team of asari commandos and escape the biggest council task force assembled in the last decades." He saw Anderson's features narrow in anger.
"Are you seriously going to blame Shepard for all this?"
"That's not what I said."
He realized that he was in no position to judge the N7. He had never been a fighter. It was the reason why he was a diplomat and not a soldier. He used words, not weapons, to further the HSA's agenda on the playing field of galactic politics. Therefor he obviously lacked the expertise to judge if Shepard had committed a critical mistake, simply lacked the skills needed to stop a rogue Spectre or had only been the victim of bad luck. But despite his lack of expertise, he could still recognize the results, or rather lack thereof. In politics, a lack of results usually led to a change in leadership. Why should war be any different?
"Then what are you saying?"
Udina let out another sigh, this one much longer. It was necessary to convince him to jump over his shadow. Looking back, he probably should've done this from the beginning and not wait for the universe to throw his error of grounding Anderson back at his face by somehow having the man deduce what was going on by himself.
"Tell me, how long have you known Saren?"
"Nineteen years," Anderson replied. "But I just asked you a question. Are you blaming the comman-"
"Nineteen years," Udina repeated, cutting the man off. "Nineteen long years of working side by side with him. Watching his every move, learning from his experiences-"
"I fail to see the point you're trying to make, Udina," the soldier said quickly.
"Because you keep interrupting me before I can make it," there it was, the subtle change in Anderson's face that meant he was now ready to listen. "The coordinates the doctor gave us lead into the Pangea Expanse. If you use the right relays, it's just a few hours away from the Citadel," he spoke as a press on his tablet darkened the room and produced a map of the galaxy, highlighting the region in an orange light that clashed with the dark-blue projection. "Since Saren won't be bold enough to use the major relay connections and risk running into ships of the Patrol Fleet, he'll probably jump over secondary Terminus Relays. That will take time. This means you will have just enough time to collect Doctor T'Soni and meet up with Commander Shepard and the Normandy before they leave the Horsehead Nebula at Noveria and hit the primary junction."
"You want me to join her?"
"That is what I just said. Didn't you listen?"
"I listened. But I don't get it. First you ground me the moment we get back from Eden Prime, now you suddenly want me to help Shepard. What changed?"
"Other than blind desperation?" he said in a dark tone. "You asked me if I blamed Shepard for Virmire," Udina explained. "I don't. At least not her personally. I'm blaming the people who decided that her first mission as a Spectre should be chasing her most decorated colleague. That includes me," with that, 'listening' turned to 'realisation'. "I can't change that I considered your connection to Saren a liability. Truthfully, if it wasn't for the recent revelations it produced about this indoctrination phenomenon, I still wouldn't be sure if I could trust you," he paused for a moment, hoping he wouldn't come to regret this. "But like you said, I saw the video. I heard what that thing said to Shepard and saw what it did to Saren. Knowing what I know now, I won't let any personal or professional animosity between us get in the way of making the sensible decision. Get Doctor T'Soni. I'll arrange for your transportation and sort things out with the Council."
"Understood," the man nodded.
"Well? What are you waiting for?" Udina said when he didn't immediately dart out of the door. "Go," that served to get the soldier into motion. He turned on his heal and went for the exit of the office but not before stopping in the doorway and turning towards him.
"You won't regret this, Udina," Anderson offered. Then the Spectre left him alone in his office. Now he was free to drop the confident facade. He had just given Anderson an order without the knowledge and approval of either Arcturus or the Council. As far as the longevity of his career was concerned, he was regretting it already. However his career wouldn't matter much longer when everyone died at the hands of an enigmatic, genocidal machines.
Ten Minutes Later, HSASV Normandy
Over two thousand dead between the allied forces.
Twice as many injured.
Six turian frigates lost with all hands in an instant, an HSA cruiser damaged to the point where it had to be abandoned and even more ships damaged in the fight. One member of her team in critical condition and enroute to the closest human colony for further treatment, another missing an arm, the remaining two just as frustrated as her. Saren Arterius still alive and on the run. The reapers' plans were still in full motion.
That was the balance of their invasion of Virmire, which for all intends and purposes painted the operation as a complete failure, in which she had played a major roll.
After scrolling through the brief medical scan taken of Alenko before he had been transported to an emergency surgeon on the closest medical transport, she put down the tablet, rubbed the side of her head and looked around the otherwise empty mess hall. A phasic round fired from a Carnifex, a handgun designed to kill a krogan with one shot, had bypassed both his shields and his barriers, shattered the armor plating of his hardsuit and caused traumatic damage to his ribcage, his lung and the surrounding tissue, causing major blood loss in the process and also carrying fragments of his armor, the thing supposed to protect him from this kind of attack, dangerously close to his spine to the point where the surgeons hadn't risked removing them yet. Thirty years ago, this would've almost certainly led to life-long injuries, if he had even survived long enough to be treated in the first place. It was only thanks to the advances made in medicine in the wake of humanity's first contact with the Council that, his odds of surviving were even right now.
All because she couldn't beat Saren the one time she had chosen the terms they were fighting on. And to top it all of, it had all been for nothing. Alenko was fighting death while the turian was gone again, having dropped off the face of the galaxy in spectacular fashion all over again, free to unleash the reapers on trillions of innocent people.
"I wasn't aware the HSA had cut our budget to the point where we had to save power by turning off the lights," a woman's voice said. As she looked up, Emily recognized Doctor Chakwas despite the darkness of the mess hall, holding what looked like a cup of coffee.
"I've been in the navy for thirty-six years, Commander. I've served on seven ships in that time and I've seen the look on your face on dozens of officers more times than I could count," she explained before setting the cup down in front of the N7. Emily smiled thankfully. "I know you see it differently, but this isn't your fault," she said, pausing for a moment while Emily took a sip of the beverage. After being stuck in a cave with the ASOC officer for the better part of five hours, it had taken the engineers very long to actually find a way to get the two of them out safely, it was refreshing, despite its inherent bitterness. "It wasn't some tactical mishap or wrong call on your part that hurt Lieutenant Alenko, it was Saren and Saren alone. Nothing you could've done would've kept him from shooting the lieutenant."
"If he hadn't been better than me, I could've taken Saren down before he ever got the chance to get to Kaidan. That definitely would've kept him from shooting him."
"Saren wasn't better than you, Commander," considering the way he had gone through them and the commandos, it certainly felt like it. "And he certainly wasn't a person anymore either. I saw the recording. What you fought down there wasn't the rogue Spectre you signed up to fight. It was a monster. No one could've faced that and done better than you."
"Which just means that he isn't just better than mean but also better than everyone else and that I stand even less of a chance against him," she pointed out with a sigh before thinking back to the moment before being pulled out of the way of a deadly hail of glass by her quick thinking short-time comrade. "And it's not just him that I have to worry about either," Emily explained, feeling like someone had cranked the Normandy's artificial gravity up five-fold all of the sudden. "You saw what Sovereign did. How am I supposed to stop something like that? He blew through those turian ships like they were paper. With that kind of power at his back, I'll need a miracle to stop Saren from finding the Conduit and bringing back the reapers."
"Can I give you a piece of advice, Commander?" Chakwas said after a moment of looking at her.
"Can't hurt, can it?"
"I think that depends on how you choose to take it," the doctor said, causing Shepard to raise an eyebrow. Now she was curious.
"Shoot."
"If you try to carry everything by yourself, you'll eventually break your back. It's just a matter of time. And trust me, no one can fight with a broken back. Not even an N7 turned Spectre."
"Okay," Shepard nodded. "Sorry but how is that supposed to apply to Sovereign?" She knew how to work under pressure. If she hadn't been an expert before, she certainly had become one in the last month.
"It's not supposed to apply to Sovereign. It's supposed to apply to you," she looked at the woman in confusion. Chakwas however merely sat down across from her and went on. "From the moment Lieutenant Alenko carried you out of the shuttle and dropped you on my med-bay table after the mission on Eden Prime, you made yourself carry the weight of the world. Stopping Saren, becoming the second human Spectre and stepping into Anderson's shoes, saving the Councilor's daughter, decoding the prothean vision, then chasing after the Councilor and finally having to be the one who confronts Saren. You put all of that on your shoulders in the believe that you're the only one who has to carry that responsibility," Chakwas looked at her, sighed, realized that she still wasn't following and went on. "What I'm trying to say is that it's not just you who has to stop Saren or worry about coming up with a way to defeat Sovereign. Just look back. You're not alone in this fight. Me and our crew, Anderson and the Council, Blackwatch, everyone that fought on Virmire, even the two specialists you met on Noveria," she listed, prompting Emily to remember the faces of all the people who had risked their lives alongside her ever since Eden Prime. "We're all in this with you, ready to take a bit of the weight, ready to help you find a way we can defeat Sovereign and stop Saren before it's too late," the emphasis on the 'we' wasn't lost to the N7. "And the only thing stopping you from realizing that is yourself."
She looked at the mug in her hand, then at the tablet and then at Chakwas. Then she considered the words and, strangely enough felt lighter than before.
"Thanks Doc," she said in reply.
"There is no need to thank me, Commander. As the medical officer of this ship, it is my duty to ensure the well-being of all of its soldiers. Physical and psychological," Chakwas offered before getting up. "And for the record?" she said with a chuckle. "After we've stopped Saren, there's still a bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy hidden in my office. Since it'd be a shame to go through all the trouble of getting it aboard just to drink it alone, you're welcome to join me in celebrating."
After ignoring the fact that her fellow commander had somehow smuggled alcohol on a warship, Shepard smiled.
"I'll take you up on that offer."
"Good. Now if you'd excuse me-"
"Commander," Joker's voice sounded through the intercom just as Chakwas had been about to leave. Was it just her or did he sound distinctively less relaxed than usual?
"What is it, Joker?"
"You've got an urgent message. You better get to the comm room," he explained. "It's from Captain Anderson."
Emily was on her feet and on the way to the elevator in an instant.
Meanwhile, HSASV Ain Jalut
"The vanguard of our destruction?" Hackett repeated, a hand covering his mouth in a thinking motion. Judging by his expression, he was just as confused as Haugen himself.
"Yes, Sir," the ASOC officer said while standing in the middle of the comms room and looking at the hologram of the officer.
After being rescued from the room he had been trapped in alongside Commander Shepard, Haugen had returned to the Ain Jalut and immediately been 'asked' to hand over the data chip of his helmet camera to an HSAIS officer, who subsequently had vanished alongside his equipment. Then he had briefly checked on his team before being called for a chat with Hackett. While it had originally been intended to serve as a briefing on the way they'd progress with Balak, it had quickly turned into a debrief of Virmire. "That's what that thing said to Shepard," he added after finishing his narration of the event. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that?"
"I'm afraid not," the admiral said after several seconds of silence. Haugen frowned in response. With other high-ranking officers, he would've believed that they were lying to him. But Hackett? For some reason Haugen trusted him to tell the truth despite how unlikely it was that someone as high in the chain of command as him didn't know something like this. "It sounds strange, I give you that. But are you sure it wasn't just Arterius who was trying to distract you? I mean judging by those cuts, he nearly killed the two of you with nothing but glass."
He looked at the dozen or so superficial, medigel-covered cuts on his arms where small glass shards had hit the gaps of his armor and then rolled his shoulders, still feeling the numbing sensation from the medigel in his muscles. While the admiral couldn't see it, the rest of him looked not so different from his arms. Neck, shoulders, collar bones, everything that the light plates of his modular ASOC armor didn't cover so that he could be more nimble and less noisy when moving had been cut up when he had pulled the Spectre, who had behaved very strangely, down with him to avoid being caught by a hail of glass. While they were mostly just superficial cuts, a few, namely the ones on his neck, had gotten quite close to being dangerous.
"I'm sure it was more than that, Sir," he nodded.
"Then I'm sorry that I can't give you an explanation, son," Hackett sighed. "But that's the way the military works. We only know what our superiors want us to know. That goes for you just as much as it does for me," the admiral said before he put his hands behind his back. "Can I assume this won't distract you from your original mission?"
"Of course not, Sir. Stopping Balak is my main priority. Shepard can handle Arterius and whatever that thing was. They wouldn't have made her Spectre if she couldn't."
"Good. Back to the reason I actually called you then," Hackett nodded. "Just like expected, the trail we were following before I sent you to Virmire went cold. We sent a probe to the planet Balak's guy told us about. It was already abandoned," the admiral said. "But that doesn't mean Balak's gone."
"It doesn't?"
"While you were on Virmire, HSAIS put the batarian you captured through the grinder. Drugged him up pretty badly apparently," those were their usual methods, "turns out it wasn't a coincidence that you ran into AN-493X of all placed. They picked that rock for a reason. It was a trial run to see if their engines work on a rock of that size. Don't ask me how the hell they got the idea to do it or why there's even a data bank for that kind of thing or how the batarians got their hands on that info," the admiral explained, "but there are only two other asteroids with the same dimension as AN-493X in the entirety of settled HSA space. One's in the Asgard system. AN-57X," his fist clenched at that. His wife and relatives lived on Terra Nova. While it had already been personal before because of Mindoir, killing Balak had just turned into a matter of protecting his family. "and the other one's a mining base in the Euler System. That's the same system as Benning, just a couple of jumps away form the Fringe."
"So it's either the first colony we ever founded or some rural world," he figured.
If this was about causing the most damage, he'd know what he would pick. Terra Nova was a symbol and home to over two billion people. As far as lucrative targets went, the only planets where Balak could hit them nearly as hard as there short of Earth were Horizon and Arcadia, which thanks to the way mass relays worked were inaccessible without going through the Arcturus junction and somehow slipping through the tightest security network in the entirety of human space. So purely from that point of view, Terra Nova was the obvious, most accessible target if one was going for a high body count and blow to morale. Or it would've been if not for the fact that it was guarded by well over a hundred warships, housed the second-biggest stockpile of planet-based nuclear missiles in the HSA with enough payload to blow apart a small moon and was surrounded by an orbital defense grid only rivaled by Arcturus and Earth.
"I don't think I have to tell you what Balak is more likely to pick. He's looking for revenge, not failure."
"Which is why he'll go for Benning," he said.
"Exactly. Compared to Terra Nova it's basically defenseless. The closest naval assets are two days away. That's more than long enough to crash a mining base down on a planet. And adding to that, even if the Colonial Watch tried, they couldn't stop an asteroid. They don't have the equipment to launch an orbital assault." Haugen nodded. Why would they? They were an army planetary defense force. Their battlefield ended at the edge of the atmosphere where the navy picked up for them.
The he realized something, which Hackett had probably already considered and had a reason to not do.
"Question, Sir," he said.
"Go ahead, Captain."
"Why don't we just shore up the defenses of the mining base? If we inform the colonial watch, they can use the base's freighters, send an infantry company and some anti-air guns up, dig in and wait for the batarians to show up. When they do, they smoke their shuttles before they ever landed and call it aday."
Hackett stayed silent for a moment. Like Haugen had expected, there was a valid reason to not pick the simple solution.
"Off the record, I agree with you. As far as I'm concerned, we evacuate the civilians on the mining site and shoot the bastard down before he ever steps of his ship," he paused after the clarification. After what sounded like the hint of a sigh, the admiral went on. "But the people who give me my orders see it a little different than that," the people who ordered around someone like Hackett? That could only be Arcturus top-brass like Chancellor Goyle, the admiral of the navy or the likes of them. "Deserter or not, Balak is still a high-ranking officer and political figure of a hostile nation. If he or any of his officers show up during the op, capturing them is a chance we can't pass up on."
"And risk two and a half million lives along the way?"
"In the eyes of Arcturus, the lives aren't at risk. If we conceal your squad on the mining base and you successfully take down his boarding party and capture Balak, he won't get a chance to enact his plan to begin with. Same goes for any other officer and their forces. One way or another, they have faith that you won't even let them get close to Benning."
"And if we do? What happens then?"
"A QRF will jump into the system and bomb the asteroid. It's just a piece of rock so orbital bombardment won't violate any council law."
"But still kill everyone on the base including me and my men," he figured before crossing his arms. "Sounds like a bad op, Sir."
"Like I said, Captain. I agree with you. But I take orders just as much as you do. This is the hand we got dealt. Now it's up to us to make the best out of it. Understood?"
"Crystal, Sir."
"Good. I'll forward an order to the Ain Jalut and get you a blanco cheque on manpower and equipment when we're done here. Since Arcturus wants him so badly, I don't see a reason why you can't have everything you need to capture Balak." Solid point. "You'll leave immediately so you'll have more than enough time to turn the base into the kind of trap-filled nightmare your team needs it to be to get the job done," that already sounded like a much better plan. A blanco cheque? Hackett was quickly climbing the list of 'best officers to serve under'. "Do you have any questions, Captain?" Haugen nodded. With those stakes, he'd ask what was on his mind, even if the most likely answer was 'we don't know that yet'. "Then go ahead," Hackett said.
"Do we even know how many men Balak has?"
"We don't," there it was. "Getting intel from Hegemony space is basically impossible right now. It's a complete dark zone, too dangerous to get in and out, even for our best operatives. Maybe only a couple dozen guys went with Balak and you took down a good portion of his forces already. Maybe half the External Forces followed him, threw batarian space into a civil war while they were at it and you'll be up against a wave of the best soldiers the Hegemony has to offer."
"That's a huge margin," he said. "Sure, they're isolationists. But is our intel on them really that bad?" Considering the HSAIS liaison officers tended to think they were better than the army personal they worked with, he had to admit that it was kind of satisfying to know that the intelligence service wasn't as good as it pretended to be. Or rather it would have been if not for the lives at stake.
"It's basically non-existent," Hackett replied. "If you ask me, that's probably one of the reasons why Arcturus is so insistent on you capturing Balak or another one of his officers."
"I take it you don't know anything about his forces either then? I mean it's a mining station. So Balak obviously won't bring any tanks to take it. But what about mercenaries? Krogan? Other biotics? Or a pack of varren?" While they probably sounded out of place, the problem with varren was that those nasty beasts could locate ASOC soldiers while they were camouflaged. He had personally experienced that on Mindoir during the second time batarians had invaded the colony.
The admiral only shook his head in reply.
"Be ready for everything," he offered. "Any more questions?"
"No, Sir. But I've already got a first request," Hauge said, a plan already forming in his mind. If he had a blanco cheque on manpower, he knew exactly who he was going to order. "The way I see, my chances of capturing Balak are going to increase with every ASOC operative I have. The more invisible operators there are, the quicker you get dead batarians and a captured Balak. Simple math," while he wasn't sure if he had imagined it or not, but he could swear that there had been a smirk on the admiral's face for the fraction of a second.
"Understood. Consider it done, Captain," the admiral nodded, his face stoic again. "Hackett out."
With that the hologram vanished and was replaced by what looked like a hologram of the mining place.
Now it was time for the ASOC officer to smirk.
Sure, he couldn't kill Balak like he had hoped to. But looking at the schematics, he knew that he could create personal hell for the batarian, forcing him to watch his men get picked off one by one by an invisible foe. Ka'hairal Balak might've been familiar with the terror he had inspired in the poor souls he had enslaved back on Mindoir and the power he had held over them. But Haugen would use this base to put the fear of god into the batarian slaver and teach him just what it meant to be powerless and scared.
And he was going to enjoy every second of it.
2156 CE, Some Place Else
He had failed. His desire to stop the Harbinger had played right into its hands and the actions he had taken to prevent a galactic cataclysm were now going to be those that enabled it.
That knowledge was all Saren was left with right now.
He didn't know where he was, he didn't know what he was doing or how long it had been like this. He only knew that he was no longer the one in charge.
Before Virmire, everything he had done had been his own actions. Sure, he had been driven by the suggestions of Sovereign's insidious whispers, but no matter how he looked at it, he had been in control of his body. He had killed those who were trying to stop him and he had pathed the way of the return of the reapers, loyally serving the presence that had lingered in the back of his mind along the way.
But now? Now was different. Sovereign, angered by his failure on Virmire and his near-death, had locked Saren out. Or rather locked him in. His body was a puppet and he was a prisoner trapped inside. While there was the added side-effect of his thoughts being his own again for the first time since he had walked into the reaper's trap five months ago, he was well aware that everything that was happening around him wasn't real. It was all an illusion, a prison located inside his mind, handcrafted by Sovereign to be inescapable and to keep him from trying to take back control and interfere with the machine's plans.
Or at least that was the explanation he had come up with for the nightmare he was stuck in. It was an endless jungle that he recognized as a twisted memory of Kruljaven, one of the planets his Blackwatch training had taken place on. Unlike the real place, this version of Kruljaven was covered in a dark mist, locked in perpetual rain and haunted by the ghosts of the people he had killed. Every time he rose up and tried to escape the prison to take back his body and put an end to this madness, the mists started to swirl up and the dead started to stalk their prey, him. He had tried to escape. But no matter what he did, in the end he got caught, died and awoke in the same jungle clearing he had woken up in a few hours ago after dying yet again. How often that had happened up to now and how often he had already gone to the excruciating pain he suffered whenever the ghosts inevitably caught up with him? In all honesty, he had lost count by now. He was far too focused on getting out of this prison to keep track of how long he was already stuck in it.
As he grinded the small rock along the edge of a larger stone to sharpen in a vain attempt to at least give himself the illusion of being able to hurt his hunters, the turian Spectre peaked up at a sound in the distance. Compared to the heavy rain, it was a faint noise. But it was there nonetheless. Someone was walking through the wet undersoil of the jungle, crushing leaves and sticks while heading for the mud-covered riverbed of the water stream he seemed to hit every time, no matter which direction he walked in from the clearing. After quickly inspecting the rock and finding that it was still as dull as the moment he had picked it up, he decided that blunt force would have to do against whichever ghost had found him first this time. Sure, every attempt to fight them up to now had only ended in his death and a subsequent rough awakening in yet another jungle clearing, but maybe this time would be different.
"Come on out, you bare-faced traitor!" a familiar voice called. So it was Darius. He seemed to be one of the more frequent ghosts that caught up to Saren. The turian Spectre chalked it up to guilt induced by the fact that he had killed the Blackwatch soldier early on, before Sovereign had managed to erase most of his personality. "Don't you remember?" he called while Saren stayed low in the muddy river-bed, hoping to get the jump on him. "A hunter knows when his time has come! So please. Do both of us a favour and stop fighting already!" he declared as Saren rose just high enough to locate the source of the noise. Just like before, there was only mist at first but then, after squinting and focusing on the figure slowly emerging from the dark, thick cloud, he could see the soldier. While he was wearing the clean grey dress uniform he had worn on the day of their graduation, most of his face was a bloody mess of blue gore and shattered grey plates, courtesy of the day Saren had put a Carnifex round into the back of his head before killing the rest of his team.
He slid back down and contemplated for a second. If there was any advantage to this mind-prison, it was that he had all the time in the world. In here seconds felt like minutes and minutes like hours.
A hunter knew when his time had come.
That was one of the tenets of Blackwatch, one of the core philosophies the legion installed into every last one of its recruits. It urged them to consider their mortality and face the possibility of dying in the line of duty.
Dying.
He felt his mandibles press against his jaw. While he wasn't under any illusion that he was going to live to see the end of this and knew that he had started to walk on the path to death from the moment he had boarded the Budapest and true to the tenet, it was still strange to think that his time was coming.
He shook his head to clear the thought.
Unlike the hollow mockery of words Sovereign forced Darius to scream at him, the meaning behind the tenet wasn't about surrendering or giving in to one's death. It was supposed to teach Blackwatch soldiers to fully commit to a cause and recognize when their mission required them to lay down their lives for the greater good. The actions he had taken at the behest of Sovereign had been horrendous and, if uninterrupted, would lead to death and destruction on an impossible scale. Since Sovereign had invaded his mind and now also taken over his body, there'd be no redemption or return for him. He'd go down in history as a rogue Spectre and servant of the reapers, be branded as a traitor to the Hierarchy and the Council and be shamed and cursed until the day the last turian drew their last breath. However no amount of shame or dishonor he'd suffer could mean that he was free from his responsibility to fix his mistake and finish his new mission, disrupt Sovereign's plans one more time by taking control of himself just long enough to put a Carnifex to his head and pull the trigger to rob the reaper of his most powerful weapon, him.
He drew in another breath, hearing Darius get closer. He had found him, there was no doubt in his mind. And since he had done this often enough to know that this was the point of no return, Saren decided that this loop wouldn't end with him trying to evade the ghosts but rather end with him demonstrating to Sovereign how turians who weren't trying to escape a mind prison would die. On their feet, staring their enemy in the face.
"I'm here Darius!" he roared, catching the attention of the ghost.
"Finally," the other turian shouted despite the fact that his upper jaw was gone and only a fraction of one of his mandibles remained attached to the bloody remains of his face. He sprinted from the edge of the jungle, hit the riverbed and leapt at Saren like a varren hungry for prey.
Despite his best efforts to dodge, he managed to hit the Spectre and both turians fell to the ground, rolling in the water, which now had been replaced by a dark-blue stream of blood. Before he could even think about using the rock, Darius' swung his hand and with one swipe of his impossibly sharp talon cut off the hand holding the blunt stone. Then he pushed Saren's head down into the river. While the talons dug into his flesh, the blood flooded down his throat, invading his lungs and drowning him. Although he had already gotten over the fear of permanently dying in this mind prison, by now it was beyond clear that it was impossible to do so, Saren couldn't fight the survival instinct of his imaginary body. As he desperately tried to pry open Darius' grip with his one good hand, he felt the by now familiar blackness creep into the edge of his vision. Death was coming for him. Again. His remaining hand shot up in one last ditch effort to give himself some more time, only to be pressed down by the weight of another turian. Darius' team was here. He had started to wonder when they'd show up. They usually didn't trail this far behind him.
What had kept them? He didn't know and couldn't be bothered to think about it either at this point.
First he felt his strength slipping, then the sensation of suffocating was replaced by a peaceful nothingness. It was over. At least for the seconds it'd take him to return to the misty jungle. Once the moment he was in passed, it'd start all over again. But just because he was growing frustrated by this loop didn't mean that he was free from his duty to escape this prison or anywhere close to breaking the way Sovereign wanted him to break. No. On the contrary. Every time he failed to escape, he got back up and tried again the same way he had gotten back up when the instructors had told him to roll down the hill again and climb it one more time. He had good reason to do so too.
He had to find a way out and he had to weaken Sovereign for the rest of the pack. The reapers had to be stopped. If it took his life to do that, he'd gladly pay that prize. Compared to the galaxy a rogue Spectre's death was insignificant.
As he felt the rain drizzle down on his skin, marking the return of sensation and the start of yet another hunt, Saren opened his eyes and returned to the surreal reality of his prison. Next he took a deep, unobstructed breath and set his eyes into a jungle that only existed in his own mind, one purpose clear in his mind.
He'd preserve the light. Even at the cost of death.
09:21 Local Time, 29. January 2415 AD, Pangea Expanse, HSASV Normandy
After receiving the message that Captain Anderson would link up with the Normandy alongside Liara, Joker had flown them to their destination at a breakneck speed, pushing the frigate to its limits every moment they hadn't spent with picking up the Spectre and the archeologist. Judging by the rings under his eyes and the empty mugs of coffee stacked on the equally empty co-pilots seat, this record-time journey had taken a lot out of the pilot.
"And our third scan," he said, drawing out the last word while wiping his hands through the air and producing the results, "also shows us nothing. No signs of geth activity, no anti-matter surges, no abnormally large genocide machines," he listed before jawning. "Just a bunch of ruins and a bunch of nothings."
"Nothings?" Anderson asked after he had joined her and what remained of her team on the bridge. Although he had insisted on being able to fight and assured her that his hand would 'grow back in no time', the N7 had decided that Wrex, while all to eager to kill Saren after their last encounter, wouldn't join them for this mission. It was simply too much of a liability. The same could be said about Liara. Anderson had warned her that despite her evident recovery from the trauma of the mindmeld, the trauma of seeing her mother die was still present and that he in turn considered her a liability. Since it was a sound assessment, she had agreed with him.
Hence, unless something changed, it was just her, Williams, Garrus and Anderson.
"See these structures here?" Joker retorted, producing a nod from the older Spectre. "Their readings indicate prothean origin."
"And the nothings?"
"Are nothings," the pilot said with a shrug. "Our scanners can't make sense of them or anything in their vicinity. There's something there, obviously. Otherwise we would see ground like we do around here," he said before pointing to the visible spots of soil somewhere else. "But what they are? I'm afraid you're gonna have to get down there and take look for yourself, Sir."
Down there.
She looked out of the window of the bridge and towards the plane they were orbiting. Other than the bright shine where the system's sun shone against its atmosphere, the planet looked rather bleak. While it had a breathable atmosphere, its surface looked like it was covered in rust and, according to the probe Joker had launched, was ravaged by large wildfires that burned in the few areas where vegetation hadn't died off completely.
Was this really where the Conduit was located?
"Any ideas?" Emily asked the asari, who despite not joining them on the ground had joined them on the bridge.
"There's a thousand things that can irritate scanners," she replied, surprisingly unexcited considering the words 'prothean origin' had just been spoken. "But since the Conduit is supposed to be a backdoor to the Citadel, I think it's a good place to start. After all, the scans didn't show any other anomalies." Considering the way she had begged her to come along to Feros, Emily was surprised to not hear her say the same when talking about a massive, uncharted prothean site. She really wasn't herself right now, was she?
"Then I say we start there. It looks large enough for a Mako drop, doesn't it?"
"Aye, Sir," Joker nodded. "But do you really think you'll need a Mako down there?"
"It's a huge area and time isn't on our side. I'd prefer if we wouldn't have to walk through all of it," Anderson said before looking at her. "If you're okay with it, that is, Commander."
"I agree," Shepard nodded. She had offered to return his command when he had arrived on the Normandy, the older Spectre had told her that it was still her mission. He had simply come to share his expertise in regards to Saren.
"Copy that. One Mako drop coming in," Joker offered before rubbing his eyes and starting to move the frigate.
"Alright. Let's get to the hangar," Emily ordered, causing her squad to leave. When they were gone she turned to the pilot. "And Joker?"
"Yes, Ma'am?"
"Go to bed and let your co-pilot do his job once in a while. It's just a Mako drop."
"Aye, Ma'am."
Fifteen Minutes Later, 29. January 2415 AD, Ilos
"We really should've brought Liara," Garrus muttered as they stepped out of the Mako, surrounded by the structures the scanners couldn't make sense off and standing in front of a large, onyx-black bunker door that looked like it hadn't been opened in a thousand years. While her team fanned out, she looked around. They were surrounded by stone-grey ruins. Besides the large towers and thick bunkers, the thin angular walls, pillars and arches that looked as though they had been added to create small maze-like paths in between the different structures stood out to her. While they were overgrown by dark-blue roots and covered in rust-colored dust, the bits of material that did stand out perfectly reflected the light of Ilos' sun off each other, dousing the entire area, even the dirt-brown soil, dark-blue plants and the black bunker door, in a warm orange.
"I mean where do we even start?" he added as Emily felt a tingle in the back of her head. She couldn't say why but before she knew it, she was walking towards the bunker door as if it had called out to her ever so slightly, being drawn by what felt like a gut feeling. When she reached it, she put her hand against the center of the onyx-black metal and, much to her surprise, found it warm to the touch, which was very strange considering her gauntlets were isolated to temperature.
Before she could think about that, an electric sensation rushed through her spine, along her arm and all the way to the palm of her hand, causing fine green lights to appear on the bunker door. They expanded from the center in a pattern reminiscent of the markings she had seen on the beacon, prothean writing, before slowly turning into something she could read, namely 'access granted'. The N7 recoiled, lost focus of the now golden writing and stumbled into Williams who had already caught up to her. Before she could catch another glance at the writing, the bunker doors pulled open, shaking off roots and dust that had stayed in place for thousands of years in the process.
"How'd you do that, Ma'am?" the marine asked.
Looking at her palm and thinking back to Therum where something similar had happened with the device that had trapped Liara, Emily merely shook her head.
"I've got no idea," she said before the floor lit up in a warm blue. "You're seeing this too, right Gunny?" she asked while the path of lights continued to go deeper and deeper into the bunker until they hit a large clearing up ahead, illuminating it and showcasing that despite its onyx black gate, a lot of the structure itself was made off the same stone-grey material as the ruins around them.
"I do," the marine said. "Are you sure you're alright?"
Alright. Time to get her head straight.
Think.
The beacon and the Cipher.
Yes. That was the likely explanation.
"Yes, I'm fine," she said before nodding towards the opened door. "I think someone's trying to show us the way."
"You want to follow it? Could be a trap," Anderson replied.
As she felt the same sensation that had pulled her to the door call for her to go forward, she looked at the blue signs and took a cautious step. In response they started to turn green.
"It doesn't look like a trap," she said.
"That's the point of a trap," Garrus pointed, the flanging of his voice echoing down the bunker.
After deciding that she would trust her feeling, Emily took another step and yet another, slowly but surely walking deeper into the bunker, her Valkyrie at the ready despite the ease she felt. After she had cleared the first ten meters or so, a low whine came from the ceiling and the lights flickered. She looked at the floor.
'Attempting to restore power', it read in bright gold. She looked behind her. Judging by the clear lack of interest, she was the only one who could read it. It just had to be Cipher messing with her head. It was supposed to translate things, no?
"How far down do you think this goes?" Williams wondered as they passed a bridge and what remained of a statue. Whoever it depicted would've looked humanoid if not for the fact that he had tentacles where his mouth should be.
"Looks deep," Anderson replied before shining the flashlight on his Phaeston down and revealing several broad, stone-grey bridges large enough to fit several cars next to each other below them. She took a look herself. It was a steep drop.
"Want to go back and bring the Mako?"
"No. They look brittle," Anderson offered. "We can't risk it."
It was only when they stopped talking that Shepard noticed that the echoing of their voices was gone. After walking in silence for another minute, they hit the clearing. Unlike the rest of the bunker, it wasn't lit up by blue light but instead illuminated by the large open ceiling. Like everything else on this planet, the walls leading upwards were covered in dark-blue roots and loads of red dust.
"Looks like it could be a cargo-bay or some kind of landing zone," Garrus said before looking down at the split-up roots that lay the floor and the fresh imprints they had left in the dust. "I think you opened that door too, Shepard," he added before Shepard looked at the still closed door up ahead. Unlike the blue, green and golden floor lights, the light that flooded from the diagonal slit that separated the onyx steel was bright red. Unlike before, she hesitated when she felt the draw again, looking at the floor for guidance.
This time around the lights didn't translate to anything.
Great.
She had a prothean Cipher in her head but the one time she needed it to do something, it didn't seem to work. After sharing a look with Anderson, the N7 took a breath, stepped forward and was about to touch the door when it started to rumble and, after the slit had flashed green, began to move downwards.
It wasn't a door.
It was an elevator.
After it closed behind them, they had luckily all been standing close enough, their descend began.
"Told you. A trap," Garrus muttered as the platform they were standing on was moved down and forward at the same time, transporting them into the unknown.
"It's not a trap," Emily replied seemingly instinctual before the rumbling stopped and the elevator doors opened to reveal a platform that extended outward some twenty meters. It was overlooked by large rows of black, clearly prothean obelisks. Some portions of their walls were opened and grey oval-shaped objects that still shone in a faint blue light and looked like caskets expended from them. Additionally it was flanked by much larger pale plants with leaves that shared their color with the dark-blue roots of earlier. As she looked up ahead, she saw a small, disrupted sphere dance at the end of the platform. It was orange, white and black and although it reminded her off the reaper's hologram from Virmire, she couldn't shake the feeling that this was something else.
Something almost familiar.
An electric sensation ran through her spine up to her head and suddenly she registered a flash of green from within her helmet, reflecting off her visor.
There was only one source it could come from.
Her eyes.
What the-
"You are not prothean. But you are not machine either. This eventuality was one of many that was anticipated. This is why we sent out warning through the beacons, entrusted the Ciphers to those that would survive the harvest," a calm, synthetic voice said, it's voice echoing off the tall walls surrounding them.
"Looks like a damaged VI," Anderson observed.
"I do not sense the taint of indoctrination upon any of you. Perhaps there is still hope."
"It's just speaking gibberish though," Williams answered Anderson.
"You're not understanding what it's saying?" Shepard said after turning to look at them.
"You are?" Garrus retorted.
"Yes," Shepard said before looking back at the hologram.
"While I have been monitoring your communications since you arrived at this facility, there hasn't been enough time to translate my output into a format your companions can comprehend." that explained the lack of echo. It had tried to get a better sound profile. Wait. How did she know that? "Hence only you can understand me. For now. My name is Vigil. I am an advanced non-organic analysis system with personality imprints from Ksad Isha, chief overseer of the Ilos research facility," it finished, introducing itself. "You are safe here, for the moment. But that is likely to change. Soon, nowhere will be safe."
"Why'd you bring me here?" Shepard asked.
"You must break a cycle that has continued for millions of years," he was talking about the same cycle Sovereign had talked about. He had to be. "Time is short, the other has already trespassed on these grounds to continue it," wait. The other? Was he talking about Saren? Before she could ask, the hologram went on, making a very sound point in the process. "But to stop it, you must understand or you will make the same mistakes we did. The Citadel is the heart of your civilization and the seat of your government. As it was with us and with every cycle that came before us." It took her a moment to realise but when she did, her face fell flat. Every other civilization before the protheans? She thought back to Councilor Benezia's death and it all clicked right as Vigil said that it wasn't a trap. The protheans hadn't built the Citadel.
The reapers had.
"-the station is an enormous mass relay," and going from that, the reapers had probably also built the mass relays, "-one that links to dark space, the empty void beyond the galaxy's horizon. When it is activated, the reapers will pour through. And all you know will be destroyed."
"The harvest," she figured.
"Precisely," Vigil replied. "That was our fate. Our leaders were dead before we even realized we were under attack. In one moment, we were at the height of our power. In the next their slaves on the Citadel, the ones that maintain the station for them, answered their hail and sprang into action," she blinked. Was he talking about the keepers? "The reapers seized control of the Citadel and through it, the mass relays. In an instant, our empire was crippled. Each system was isolated, cut off from the others. Easy prey for the Reaper fleets. Over the next decades they systematically obliterated our people. World by world, system by system, they methodically wiped us out, using the data we had stored on the Citadel to hunt us to extinction."
"The perfect trap," she muttered.
"What's it saying Commander?" Anderson interrupted.
"It's telling me how the reapers won," she replied quickly before Vigil continued.
"Some worlds were utterly destroyed, others conquered, their populations enslaved. They became sleeper agents, taking refuge on other worlds only to betray them to the machines. Thus, within a few centuries, the reapers had killed or enslaved every prothean in the galaxy. They were relentless, brutal and absolutely thorough. When they were done, our worlds were stripped bare, harvested by their slaves. Everything of value, all recources, all technology, was taken. Then they withdrew to dark space, certain that all advanced organic life and the traces of their invasion had been wiped out.
"But not this place," she realized.
"But not this place," Vigil confirmed.
"Why?"
"By chance, all records of this facility were destroyed during the attack on the Citadel. Hence Ilos was spared as the empire fell. From there on out, we severed all communication with the outside and our facility went dark. The personal retreated underground into these archives and entered cryogenic stasis to conserve resources. I was programmed to monitor the facility and wake the staff when the danger had passed. But years passed. Decades, centuries, the reapers persisted. And my energy reserves were dwindling. I was forced to take drastic action. We had to remain undiscovered. I disabled life support. First support staff, then security, then scientists. Eventually only the pods of the top scientists remained alive and even they were in danger of failing when the reapers finally retreated back through the Citadel relay."
She looked at the walls and the caskets again. All of these had been stasis pods?
There were hundreds of closed ports and only a dozen or so that had been opened. Had he killed all the others? She shook her head. She hadn't come here to judge the actions of an alien VI that had gotten stuck in a scenario she couldn't even begin to imagine.
"What were you doing here?"
"Before the reapers attacked, we protheans were on the cusp of unlocking the mysteries behind mass relay technology. Even before their invasion, our researchers managed to create a small-scale relay. On that linked directly to the Citadel."
"The Conduit." Saren's backdoor was an actual mass relay.
"Precisely. The Conduit. It is the only reason any hope remains. When the researches awoke, they realized our empire was doomed. There were only a few individuals left, far too few to sustain a viable population. Yet they vowed to find some way to stop the reapers from returning. A way to break the cycle forever. And they knew that the keepers were the key. Before each invasion, a signal is sent through the station, compelling the keepers to activate the Citadel Relay," damn it. He really was talking about the keepers. Another thought struck her. Just how many of those things were on the Citadel? Also weren't they made by the Citadel itself? "After decades of feverish study, the scientists discovered a way to alter this signal. Using the Conduit, they gained access to the Citadel and made the modifications, sacrificing their lives to starvation in the process. But your presence here proves that it was not in vain. The keepers no longer answer the reapers call, the vanguard's hold over them was broken. The reapers remain trapped in dark space."
"Unless someone removes this modification and sends the signal again."
"Correct."
So this was what Saren wanted on the Citadel.
"Is there a way we can stop this?"
"There's a data file in my console. Take a copy when you go. When you reach the Citadel's master control unit, upload it to the station. It will corrupt the Citadel's security protocols and give you temporary control over the station. It might stop any attempt to remove the modification."
"Did that thing just say main control unit?" Anderson asked.
"You understood that?"
"Bits and pieces have slipping through now and again but it just turned clear. At least for me," Williams informed her before both Garrus and Anderson nodded.
"I continued working on a translation as we spoke. It seems that it has been completed," Vigil said in return before shrinking ever so slightly.
"Where's that master control unit supposed to be? I never heard of it," Anderson replied.
"Go through the Conduit. Follow the other," he said quickly.
"Wait. What other? Are you talking about Saren?" the Spectre asked.
"He will le- you to your destinati-" Vigil stuttered, before starting to become even more disrupted than before. "My power is drained. This conversation has emptied my last energy reserves. I will provide whatever information I can and guide you to the Conduit. The one you call Saren has not reached the Conduit. Not yet. There is still hope if you hur-" in an instant, the hologram in front of her vanished and another path of blue lights lit up. She looked at her squad and back to the the terminal that had been behind the VI. It had turned off. The power was gone and with it so was Vigil. She looked at the stasis pods and realized something. The reapers had eradicated the protheans but the protheans had flung a light into the future before fading away, giving them a fighting chance.
She nodded towards Anderson, interfaced with the data terminal and started to follow the lights.
Codex: Keepers
Although officially regarded as one of the intelligent species native to Council Space, the keepers, who are believed to have been bio-engineered by the creators of the Citadel for the sole purpose of maintaining the Citadel, lack the usual signs of sapience. While they use technology believed to be fabricated in the deep, inaccessible layers of the Citadel, what little is known about them, studies have been made nearly impossible by their tendency to use acid to self-destruct whenever interacted with, suggests that their work on the station is based of pure instinct and not learned behavior.
While first encountered in a state of dormancy by the asari in 500 BCE, the state of the Citadel upon their arrival suggests that the keepers have, in one way or another, been living on and actively working to maintain the station since its unknown date of construction.
While the disappearance of orphans living close to the Citadel's network of tunnels and bold independent explorers of said tunnels have in the past been linked to the Keepers and their 'protein vats', structures spread all over the Citadel that are used to feed the keepers, it should be noticed that the keepers are usually docile and harmless, ignoring everything in favour of their task.
This, combined with their unknown origin, tendency to self-destruct upon contact and role as the sole beings capable of accessing and understanding all parts of the Citadel have led to speculations regarding the nature of their connection with the Citadel. On the one hand, their roll as caretakers is evident by their every day tasks. On the other hand, it has been suggested that the creators of the keepers, who are believed but not confirmed to be the protheans, designed these beings to keep parts of the Citadel away from public eye by removing the need and making it exceedingly difficult to venture deep into the station. Hence there has been the suggestion that the keepers not only maintain the station but also exist to guard its biggest secret, what lies inside its inaccessible core.
A/N:
So. We've started Ilos and thus hit the endgame for Saren's arc.
Speaking off, this is the way I decided to include Saren in the chapters leading up to Mass Effect 1's end. As Virmire outlined, he's too far gone and, piggy-backing off the fact that Sovereign in the game high-jacks his body, I decided that in SV, he'll do that a little earlier to give SV-Saren one last story arc and to make shit even sadder in the end. I know it's probably weird to have 'dream-sequences' in a story that, up to now, has always been told rather straight-forward, but hey. I'll see what I can do with it.
Moving on, I decided to do Ilos differently in that I excluded any fight scenes up until Vigil showed up and instead played on the whole 'the cipher and beacon did something to Shepard'-narrative I started way in the beginning with Therum. I was kind of going for 'reclaimer'-vibes from Halo, but with the exception that this isn't about what species you are but about whether or not you 'inherited' a cipher, which shepard got from the Thorian.
Other than that, I've go tnothing.
For the record, we're at 585 reviews, 908 favorites and 993 follows.
As things go, I think we'll take another two chapters before the whole Sovereign arc is resolved completely.
I know, compared to Virmire this seems short, but honestly? I didn't feel like stretching things out too much anymore. Hurts the pace of the story, at least in my opinion.
Alright. Chapter's long enough as it is.
See you around next time.
