54
Hagalaz. Grey Throne. Legatus
- Tell me this... - I said, turning to Kherd. - Why the fuck did you torture her? - I was already in my old platform, which had finally had the brushes changed to five-toed and the eyebrow plates attached so that I could at least express some emotion.
- What else was I supposed to do? Just shouting into a microphone is not convincing; we tried that," said Kherd. We patted him up a bit, but after the fight with Xad, he didn't look too good. We got his head back, too, and now we're talking about the Turian girl who was tortured in solitary confinement so they could have a voice they could filter out and put pressure on me. We also told him everything so we wouldn't have to go back to it later.
- Yeah, that was pretty convincing, I'll give you that. Who is she, anyway?
- Solana Vakarian. She was taken on Illium. They took the first Turian they could find, drugged her, and brought her here. So, because I just decided to play with them, this dude tortured Garrus' sister? I hope he doesn't find out about this, or Garrus will kill me too. In the meantime, we already sent her to the nearest colony. She was being taken there by geths in Quarian suits. If anything, they'll be able to think of something, no problem with that.
- I see... So why the fuck are you interested in me anyway? - I asked the question that haunted me.
- Not me... The collectors. A few weeks ago, they found my hideout and said they'd turn me in if I didn't find you. Next thing you know, you're flying yourself to Illyum. You see, it's a long shot.
- I see. So the Grey Tron's been declassified?
- Yeah, that's all we need.
- Let's get all the equipment and move it to the Light of Kila. Let's get out of here before the Collectors find out about us," I suggested, and Kherd didn't argue. I wanted to punch him for Solana, but I held back. I couldn't kill him, nor could Xhasad, and I didn't know shit about dealing with information. I had no choice. We were now in control of both the GOR and the Grey Mediator. Of course, we could not give orders to the GOR, but we could read all their data and easily listen to all their communications.
****
Dreadnought Light of Kila
- Legate," Kherd suddenly called out. - 'May I have a word with you. Something is interesting here," Hmm, if the Grey Mediator says he's found something interesting, it's definitely something to see. A few minutes later, I was already in his office, where we'd stuffed all his equipment. Kherd, Xad, Girla and Tori as holograms and Susie as a turian were already there. She liked the platform, though I told her to stay used to it since she'd soon run Normandy. Which, by the way, is already a quarter done.
- So. What do you get, Kherd?
- I've just received intel from some agents on Earth.
- Earth? - I was surprised. - And what's so interesting there?
- There was a small earthquake on the outskirts of the city of Cairo recently, and on the screen, Kherd pointed to a spot not far from the Pyramids. - A hole had formed, and in it, they saw this," the pictures showed an incredible piece of metal sticking out of the hole's edge at a depth of seven metres. There was already scaffolding in the pit, and they had also tried to widen it with special machinery. Nearby, there was, in fact, a small town of makeshift huts, and many people were rummaging in the pit.
- What is it? - Susie asked.
- No one knows. However, they found out the composition of the material that this incomprehensible stuff is made of. It was the same metal that the Lord was made of.
- WHAT!? - Everyone in a friendly group exclaimed. Even Girla and Tory shouted the same question.
- Are you saying the Alliance found a dead Reaper on Earth? - I managed to speak after a little while.
- I don't know. The scans didn't turn up anything, so it's only a guess," Kherd replied.
- The Reaper isn't dead," Xhasd announced suddenly.
- What do you mean? - I didn't understand.
- Reapers have a unique energy field that allows them to hide from scanning. They would have spotted him under that sand if he was dead," Xad explained to my utmost consternation.
- That's not good. He'll start defending himself if they find the Reaper and he's alive.
- You mean indoctrination? - Susie was curious.
- Yes. While they're digging, he'll do it slowly to subdue them entirely and then hide again. Or some big shot will get there, and then there will be no shortage of problems. We'll have to intervene.
- How? - Kherd asked.
- Tory, you said you could kill Reapers by quantum-mechanical communication. You could use the Light of Kila as a communicator and kill it. The fact that the Reapers' technology will get to the Alliance doesn't make sense anymore; they will only have time to do something by the Harvest. But the fact that their leaders might fall under the Reapers' influence is too bad.
- Yes, I can," Tori's voice came through. - It is possible.
- 'Good. Then let's go to Earth," I ordered.
****
Solar System. Earth's orbit
Dreadnought Light of Kila.
Fortunately, the stealth system worked fine, and we passed through the repeater quietly. Sure enough, the Alliance picked up repeater activity and a small shuttle with no one in it. At all. Just a shredded turian, killed back on the Grey Tron, an empty logbook, a missing V.I. and an almost empty fuel tank. No cargo, no leads. Even the colonial tattoos had been erased from the Turian. Anyway, we were already in Earth orbit by the time Arcturus tried to contact the unidentified ship, then docked it, opened it up, and delivered it to the station. It was now midday in Cairo. We were standing over it and setting up communications with Tory.
- Everything is ready, Dad. We can begin," Susie said, and I turned to Tori.
- Start Tori, and... good luck.
- Thank you. After that, his hologram went off, and we started waiting.
****
10 minutes later. Same there.
- Legate. It's not the Reaper," Tori's hologram suddenly appeared and announced the news.
- What?" I was more surprised than confused.
- That's impossible," said Xadh confidently.
- The Reaper is called Nargul. He was made from the living creatures on my planet.
- You said he rebelled against the Reapers and was killed," I remembered.
- We learned that from the memory of the Reapers, we killed. We didn't see it in person. As it turned out, that was him.
- Who is he anyway? - Xad, who hadn't heard the story, asked.
- He is a Reaper who was built by recycling all the inhabitants of my planet. But he rebelled against them, and they killed him. However, they were wrong. He is alive and asking for help.
- What is it? - I asked briefly. A whole Reaper could be helpful to us. And not because of technology, just of firepower.
- His mass core needs to be restarted. Manually. To do that, we must go to a quarry in a place people call "the slums".
- Yeah. There's another quarry there. There's almost no security; they emphasise secrecy. They haven't even evacuated the population," added Kherd.
- 'I see. Anything else?
- Yeah. Its main reactor is shut down for lack of fuel. There's a backup reactor with energy, but it must also start up. Manually," Tory explained.
- Then it's settled. Me and the Geths land on Rilika in the slum, restart the core and backup reactor and fly away. Except one reactor won't be able to power it long enough. - I added, but Tory disagreed.
- No. But that's enough to make it reach a repeater, from which it can draw power. It will be enough to keep it functioning at total capacity.
- As I understand it, the repeater won't work after that. - I clarified.
- Yes. The Nargul itself would be a repeater," the Reaper was frightening me more and more. And more and more, I wanted to make him an ally.
****
Planet Earth. The outskirts of Cairo. Ashley Williams.
- This is just unbelievable... This... This is going to turn everything upside down... - said to himself, the scientist who sent the drones inside this obscure room.
Cayden and I had already been sent here as majors. Helping Alliance Intelligence when we were flying with Shepherd helped us out. And it was tough to do. Shepard was constantly finding bugs in her quarters, and they were the latest models, some the size of moths; their development was top secret, and Shepard found them constantly, no matter how I Cayden or hid them. A few times, she'd just shoot a gun at them, put all sorts of books in front of them, and once, she painted over one bug. Not to mention that she had a tradition of giving her computer to this Tali quarian for diagnostics, and she would find all the tracking programs and bugs in no time. But the hardest and, at the same time, the disgusting thing was that Shepard didn't trust people. At all! She spent hours talking to that krogan mercenary Rex, the Turian Garrus, the Quarian Tali, and with that matriarch Benezia's daughter, that Liara, she fucked almost every night. He was a bit of a sissy, but I didn't think it was terrible for her to be such a sissy, not that she didn't have a temper tantrum. Maybe that's why she was always in good spirits, though. When we first got to Rannoch and Terum, she was an absolute beast to the crew. She would always hold a grudge for any misconduct, though not without reason; she would have been like that herself. She went too far with the alcohol ban, though. But her distrust of people was fabulous. If she'd once told that crogan about her childhood and he'd listened to her, she was strictly on business terms with people, even me and Cayden, and would have gladly got rid of us if we hadn't been on Anderson's "special request". He and Hackett, whoever had influence over her, but they didn't abuse it. And while Hackett was understandable, I didn't understand why Anderson was essentially more than a coworker to her. I'd said that to Cayden once, and he'd suggested they were lovers, or at least had been and parted ways and remained friends. And that still bothered me because it explained a lot.
- Hey, are you okay? - Cayden approached me quietly, holding plain ice water in his hand. I'd never imagined that plain water could be so desirable. It was boiling in my armour, and I'd drunk all my water, so I had to keep drinking the water the archaeologists had. They were ordinary people, albeit with their own quirks. However, they always shared water because here we were in the same conditions - round slums, slanting glances of inhabitants, and Cairo itself is 5 km along the highway. Moreover, the pyramids were a kilometre from us, so the shadow did not reach us, though it was noon. All in all, it was a shame. But the nasty part was the symbolism because this was where Shepherd had grown up. Not only was it nasty that she'd grown up here, and her spirit seemed to haunt me, but I was beginning to sympathise with the traitor. Seeing the place she grew up in all her life before the service, I could understand why she was mistreated in the service, why she was so angry and nervous, and what she was talking about when she poured her heart out to the Quarian. I remember how she talked to the quarian and didn't even notice me. How can you even trust these non-humans as if she were your kin? It pissed me off at the time, and I wanted to tell her, but luckily I met Cayden before I met Shepard, so... I calmed down... In the shower... With him...
- Badly," I answered, though. - This heat is killing me. At least the archaeologists have water.
- Yeah, they stocked up on everything," Cayden replied while I greedily drank the water with the ice, I was about to chew on later. And I don't care about the pain in my teeth; the sun is killing me. - The pyramids, the sun... my travel agent should have mentioned the plus fifty.
- I understand your travel agent's name is Stephen Hackett. - I second the joke. That's what I seem to like about him - his supportiveness in this kind of shit.
- Yeah. I wish there was another one. By the way, did they at least explain to you why the hell we're here?
- Only that it takes a minimum force to fend off these bums. Still, this is Earth, not Eden Prime... - I answered his question when a call came in for the unit suddenly.
- Uh, ma'am, you can go outside now. The natives are begging for food again," came the voice of the private I'd assigned to the patrol in exchange for a drink and a word in front of his superiors from Cayden and me. He agreed though he cursed us for being lazy. I didn't blame him, but I couldn't help it. I had been vomiting and feeling dizzy, and once I fainted... I had my suspicions, but I couldn't confirm them.
- Shit... Okay, let's go," I told Cayden, and he came with me, wiping himself clean.
There were three filthy bums outside and our private, who tried to tell them all to fuck off, but still lacked the charisma.
- Look, it's none of your business; it's a secret facility," he said.
- We just want food, that's all," spouted one of the men who came up with his head all messed up.
- If you want food, go and buy some...
- What am I supposed to buy it for...
- It is none of my business. This food is not for you! - the private couldn't stand it. You feel more confident when you're wearing armour, holding a rifle, and up against three unarmed bums.
- What's going on here? - I asked, walking up to the private.
- Look, we don't need much; we just... - The bum started to talk when I interrupted him.
- Now you listen to me," I barked because I was getting sick of them. Or not them; I think I'm going to throw up again. I can't take it anymore! It was the third day in a row! - Turn around and walk away while I'm being nice. Now!
- But we...
- Are you deaf, or what!? Move it!
- Fuck you! - said the bum, who was talking to the private, and smacked me in the foot. - It's called the army.
- Right, now get over here!
- Ahh... - said the bum, not turning round to me, just waved.
- Here, come here! All three of them!
- Ash, stop," Cayden said quietly, grabbing my hand and preventing me from aiming my rifle at those bums. - No need to get your hands dirty with this shit. It's not worth it, and it'll piss off the grunt. You know Hackett, he wouldn't understand that. - Cayden was right. Hackett wouldn't forgive me if I pointed a gun at those bums. So I calmed down and relaxed.
- Yeah... You're right," I replied, as suddenly something fell in front of us, about five meters away, with a mighty rumble. We didn't understand what it was, but the safety was off. There was a cloud of dust and sand in that place. After a few more seconds, a figure emerged from there, walking towards us. It was a man, at least it looked like one, as it had two legs and a head. But a second later, it was not a man, but a GET!!!!
The next moment, when we realised who it was, he waved his hand and all three of us were caught by the singularity. Then I felt myself becoming a couple hundred kilos in weight, so falling onto the sand, I felt my organs go round and round. My eyes went black, I lay on my back, and immediately I felt a geth leg pressed against the ground. I turned my head and saw that the gun, which had somehow disengaged from the magnetic grip on my thigh, was lying at arm's length. I immediately reached for it, but immediately heard the geth's voice.
- Reach, grab, aim, shoot. You have four actions to do; I have one," and with those words, he pointed his strange-looking rifle at me with some kind of magazine at the bottom. It was a magazine; I remember seeing the old earthling weapons. Could it be that the Goths had such prehistoric weapons? Anyway, I did not tempt fate. Suddenly Cayden's scream was heard. He managed to scatter three geths with his biotics and even jump to his feet, but the geth holding me immediately jerked his arm and punched at Kayden. He wasn't expecting that, so he flew off a few metres and crashed into the wall of the housing unit that contained the generator. Cayden passed out, and I realised a BIOTIC geth was in front of me. How is that even possible!?
- Stand up. Hands behind your back," the goeth ordered, taking his foot off me. I stood up, and then he tied my hands and led me into the quarry, where the scientists were. Their shouts could already be heard there. The bound and unconscious Private Kaiden was also shown and carried there.
And there, all the scientists were already tied up and sitting on their knees. They woke Cayden up with a punch in the stomach and stacked all the weapons in one pile before completely breaking them, taking out the power sources. These, on the other hand, simply trampled them. Now escape was out of the question. Cayden was the only biotic, and there were many Geth biotics here. The only hope is to be contacted, and then one of two things: either they won't let us answer, and they'll get suspicious, or they'll let us answer, and I can send out a code phrase to signal that we're prisoners.
- Don't worry, we won't kill you," said the Get, who suddenly had FIVE fingers on his hand and some plates on his head that could probably move.
- Why? - I asked.
- We're not friends. We don't touch pregnant women.
It was like a bolt from the blue. It was true, though. DAMN, I.T.! How could you do that, huh? Oh, that's it; Hackett's gonna kill me for insubordination. And if Hackett won't yell at me because I'm pregnant, then Cayden's gonna get in trouble for both.
- WHAT?! - Cayden's freaking out was understandable to me. It was more than a little weird coming from a Gete, but I had no reason to doubt it because there was no reason to lie to them, and they had better scanners too. - Why didn't you tell me anything!? Why the hell did you come out in this heat?!
- I didn't know! - I made excuses. - I mean, I had my suspicions, but I thought it was the heat.
- You could have at least told me! - Cayden wouldn't let up.
- Hey, don't yell at her. It's her third week; no one will notice," the five-fingered goeth suddenly sided with me.
- Shut the hell up, toaster! - Cayden shouted.
- What!? What did you just yak!? Say that part again; you're sandbagging the auditory sensors! - The goeth stepped close to Cayden, its head plates constantly moving up and down and sideways, making it look like it was an eyebrow. The strangeness didn't end there. Not to mention his manner of speaking. And Cayden didn't say anything back, so the geth lost interest in him and went to inspect the quarry itself. Several goths had already gone inside the room the scientist was talking about. We have stumbled upon something that even the goths are interested in.
- Heh, not Eden Prime, then... Sun, pyramids and geths," Cayden joked again, though that wasn't the point.
- We always turn up when you're not expecting us, when you're not expecting us," the same goeth said. They have a sense of humour, too. And then I had hope again - my unic glowed, alerting me that someone was summoning me. Given that all the soldiers who had been sleeping in the enclosures inside the quarry at noon were already captive, and so were the scientists, that left only someone from outside. Geth took my unit, put it on and, pointing the gun at Kayden, calmly activated it.
- Major Ashley Williams," he said in MY voice.
- Leave it, Williams," Hackett's voice came through. Here's our chance. If this goeth answer not in my manner, but dryly and by regulations, then Hackett will suspect something, he has a hunch for that," How are you there?
- Do you answer by the book or not? - the Gete countered.
- I see. We've got a whole bunch of, uh, ahem, uh... The entire town's blacked out, so we're sitting here without air conditioning.
- Let me guess. It's like an oven, right?
- Bingo, Williams. Well, good luck out there, and try not to die. All the hospitals are full, so you'll have to wait in line. Ha-ha-ha... - and the connection went dead. Yeah, thanks, Hackett. I got to hand it to you; the Get was good on me. I completely underestimated him.
****
Sometime later. Same place.
After about 10, maybe 15 minutes, the geths who had gone to that unknown complex returned, and they all started to leave the quarry. So when only one goeth was rejected, he turned to us.
- I advise you to get out of here. He's taking off.
- Who's taking off? - one of the scientists asked, and instantly we felt a vibration. I knew at once - we hadn't found the complex; we'd found the ship. And now it was taking off. Geth left, and we all immediately got up and ran after them. There was no time to untie our hands. However, our feet were untied, so we dashed out of the quarry. The Geths had already disappeared as if they had not existed; even the ship was nowhere to be seen. We also saw all the soldiers who had been with us and who were being held in another room. No sooner had they spoken to me than a real earthquake started, and something began to come out from under the sand.
****
Dreadnought Light of Kila. Legate
I knew this Reaper was unique, but not to this extent. Its enormous claws began emerging beneath the sand after several thousand, maybe millions of years of sleeping under it. Its tail began to appear a dozen kilometres from where the quarry was. And as far as I could tell, they had found the entrance to its head. Slowly the powerful claws rested on the sand and began to lift the Reaper's vast and majestic carcass. Only now did I notice that both feet came out on either side of the Great Pyramids? And a few seconds later, its head, or rather the tiny end of it, split the Pyramid of Cheops from the inside. It did not collapse completely, but half crumbled and ended up in pieces on the sand. Then his head picked up the pyramids of Chephren and Mikerin, which on the steelhead of the monstrous metal creature simply rolled down and crumbled.
The Reaper himself didn't give a damn about the pyramids as he raised his carcass and head inexorably above the ground. And so, with his head 100 metres above the ground, he turned his gaze to Cairo. Everyone stared in horror at this monstrous and incomprehensibly sized creature, which stared at them with two red eyes that seemed saturated with rage. Unclear what kind. Just outrage at the insignificant humans. And so, it lowered itself, folded its vast claws at the sides of its hull, and began to take off. I could only imagine the power its five mass cores possessed. Slowly but steadily increasing in speed, it climbed upwards towards us. The Alliance tried to call for help and signal the fleet at Arcturus Station, but we were jamming communications. And then, ten minutes later, it went into open space and flew towards the Charon repeater. We followed him.
It took us five minutes to reach the repeater. We shut down the entire Alliance fleet, and now all the crews of the ships and station were looking at the ancient creature, which strongly resembled a lobster and which was beyond their understanding and even their imagination because even the superdreadnought of the Geths of which no one knows anything yet, was a small maggot compared to this Reaper. I could even see Anderson in the porthole of the station, looking at the Reaper with genuine fear and wonder. And the Reaper, for his part, frankly didn't give a damn about these people who couldn't understand what it was. He calmly flew up to the mass transmitter, grabbed the null core with his enormous claw, and began simply ripping it out of the ancient mechanism. It looked like it was fighting back and trying to hold on to something that could make it work, but the Reaper was relentless. In ten seconds of silent struggle, the Reaper ripped out the core and absorbed it. It just went into his claw, and the Reaper glowed from within. Intricate patterns ran through his hull, then they faded, and his host turned where the repeater had led. Its hull began to be enveloped in bluish waves like the ships entering the repeater for the jump. A strange lightning bolt went from it to the Light of Kila, which also surrounded our ship in waves, and after another 5 seconds, both of our ships went into a mass jump.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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