Lieutenant Alenko.
The archaeologists’ camp on Eden Prime.
Meeting with Ashley Williams
The shuttle driver silently nodded to the lieutenant approaching the vehicle.
Kaidan understood: not every Normandovets was used to the fact that the biotic officer was no longer pursued by the most severe migraines almost every day.
Having boarded the little ship, Alenko gestured for the three police officers accompanying him to take their seats in the cabin.
He sat in a chair, buckled up, and nodded to the driver who had looked out of the cockpit.
A few minutes — and the vehicle left the hangar, setting a course for the location of the archaeological expedition camp, which had dug up the Prothean Beacon.
“You know, we could have been flying to the camp right now to retrieve the beacon.
In completely different circumstances,” one of the police officers said, addressing no one in particular.
“We could have,” another police officer agreed with his colleague’s opinion.
“It’s just that we’re flying to the archaeologists’ camp now in truly completely different circumstances.
I’m afraid the Reaper’s fall and our fight with that ‘shrimp’ were very clearly visible from there.”
“And noticeable,” the third police officer chimed in.
“In the most various senses.”
“Lieutenant,” the driver’s voice cut through Alenko’s speaker.
“On the audio exchange frequency scanner — activity from the archaeologists’ camp.
Looks like…
no, definitely…
Someone indoctrinated has appeared there.
And, it seems, not just one.
We’ll fly closer — we’ll find out more precisely, sir.”
“Let me listen.” Alenko tore himself away from studying the files “laid out” on the omni-tool screen.
“Good.
I hear it.
Yes, there are several humans there who have been subjected to indoctrination.
But, judging by what I’ve heard, the indoctrinated are behaving quite calmly so far.”
“Camp ahead, Lieutenant,” the driver reported.
Alenko rose from his seat and walked to the cabin’s side door.
The shuttle was performing a traditional “box pattern,” choosing a landing spot.
“Damn, they fired at us from an assault rifle,” the driver managed to deflect the vehicle to the side quickly, and the charge trail passed to the left.
“A burst.
That’s clearly not an accident.”
“If this is indoctrination…” one of the police officers said quietly.
“We won’t land the vehicle.
We’re deploying, colleagues!
From five meters,” Alenko clarified, manually, without using the automatics, half-opening the cabin door and, crouching behind the door panel, assessing the flight altitude.
“A little lower.
There, good,” he told the driver when there was just over five meters to the ground.
“Jump!” He turned to the police officers who had approached the door, looked at the driver.
“Take the vehicle to the camp perimeter.
Don’t fly inside yet,” the lieutenant looked into the cockpit opening, noted that the driver could see the speaker in the mirror.
“Yes, sir,” the driver waited until the lightened vehicle gave a barely perceptible final shudder: the biotic lieutenant had jumped last.
And, pressing the cabin door close key, took the shuttle away from the camp’s limits.
“We jumped a bit far from the camp center,” one of the police officers noted, brushing off his knees and adjusting his rifle grip.
“Alliance recon drones.
Two hundred meters.
At three o’clock,” another police officer reported, carefully watching the surroundings of the deployed group.
“They’re behaving strangely…”
“They’ve…
been reprogrammed, Lieutenant.” The third police officer barely managed to jump behind a boulder, dodging a combat laser beam.
“Destroy them?!”
“Yes.” Alenko, hidden behind another boulder, crouched and, raising his rifle, caught the approaching drone in his sights.
Three charges — and the robot scattered into small pieces.
The police officers destroyed several more approaching drones with single shots.
“Clear for now.
Scanners and locators are clear,” one of the police officers said, ducking and carefully looking around for new flying “troublemakers.” “I don’t understand,” he lowered his gaze, reviewed the recordings from the omni-tool’s objective situation control block.
“So the drones were patrolling here.
But they didn’t…
go into the camp?”
“Indoctrinated in the camp, the shuttle shot at with a rifle, now these reprogrammed drones,” another police officer summed up.
“Something’s very wrong here.”
“And what could be right here?!
We, by the way, caught this huge ship already on the planet.
Good thing the geth weren’t allowed far from the ‘shrimp,'” said the third police officer.
“And it seems to me these drones are herding the camp like guards — a prisoner.
Neither the archaeologists nor the marines can leave the perimeter, and…”
“Very interesting.
Can’t they just shoot those drones down?” the second police officer asked, looking at his restless colleague.
“How is that to be understood?
Have the marines stopped being warriors?”
“Well…
under certain conditions…” the third police officer hesitated, not knowing how to formulate and express his thought more precisely, and most importantly — more safely.
“The conditions are clear.
Difficult,” Alenko said abruptly, straightening up.
“Traffic from the planet is being filtered by the frigate’s forces, we managed to do that.
Though achieving absolute silence from Eden Prime is difficult, and we can’t count on the planet’s complete voicelessness.
So — we’ll find out the situation in the camp.” He took a step out from behind the boulder.
“And as for the ‘certain conditions’ we’ll learn to fight in real conditions.
Not on a training ground.
As the duty group, we must be ready for battle.”
“And the battle is just beginning,” the first police officer noted, listening.
“They’re shooting.”
“And the shooting is going on along the camp perimeter,” one of the police officers clarified, bringing his rifle to the ready.
“It looks like the soldiers assigned to guard the archaeologists’ platoon decided to deal with the berserk drones that got a little too comfortable in their role as jailers.” Alenko reloaded his rifle and listened.
“Let’s go.
We’ll help the nearest shooters.
Then we’ll handle our own mission.
We won’t use the shuttle,” the officer clarified.
A few minutes later, Alenko’s group was helping two marines fight off a pair of recon drones that were spitting tiny laser beams.
“Sergeant Williams, sir, Two Hundred Twelfth Platoon, Marines,” the woman introduced herself, clad in medium armor.
“Go help the others, Tom.” She gestured for the second marine to leave.
He hurried off and disappeared among the bushes.
Somewhere in the distance, single shots rang out — the standoff between the drones and the marines continued.
“You really saved our skins,” she said, saluting as she spotted the lieutenant’s insignia on Alenko’s suit.
“Are you the senior officer of the arriving group, sir?”
“Yes.” Kaidan returned the salute.
“Lieutenant Alenko, ground team from the frigate Normandy.
Are you in command of this platoon?”
“Yes, sir.” Ashley nodded.
“But we have… complications… the likes of which we’ve never… encountered before, sir.”
“Report.” Kaidan waited while Sergeant Williams pulled up the screen on her omni-tool.
After hearing her report, he thought for a moment.
“We have our orders, Sergeant.
Retrieve the beacon.
And assess the situation.
So — let’s move.”
Surrounded by the police officers, the sergeant and the lieutenant moved closer to the camp.
“Right here, on this spot, is where we found the beacon,” Ashley said, pointing to a circle of churned-up earth.
“The archaeologists… worked for several days.
My platoon was assigned for security.
So we didn’t get into the details, mostly we just held the perimeter of the dig site.
And out there… you can’t see much.
And understand even less.
Archaeologists are a tight-lipped bunch.”
Listening to a story that barely met the standards usually expected of a military report, Alenko understood that the woman was frightened.
It was hard to expect a marine sergeant to be prepared for what had happened in the archaeologists’ camp over the past few hours.
The sudden insubordination of the security, surveillance, and recon drones, the indoctrination of the archaeologists and marines — all of this was just a small part of a single problem that now had to be solved.
“So… was it your ship… that took down that ‘prawn’?” Sergeant Williams finally asked the question that had been bothering her, as Alenko understood, when they reached the first prefab hut.
“Yes.” Kaidan nodded in confirmation.
“Had to,” he said, not going into details now.
He surveyed the surroundings with growing interest.
“These crates…”
“We don’t understand, sir,” the sergeant replied.
“The VI locks refused to obey even service commands.
These failures ‘blanketed’ the camp in a few minutes, and we’ve already had to just break the locks multiple times.
Still do.” Ashley leaned down, entered some combination of digits and letters on a glowing virtual keyboard, pressed the ‘enter’ sensor, but there was no response — the lock remained closed.
“See, I’m entering the correct command-level password, but the VI refuses to open.”
“Reprogramming,” one of the police officers said quietly.
Ashley heard him.
Straightened up.
Turned to the officer.
Saw his sergeant’s stripes and police chevron.
“Is… that even possible, Sergeant?” she asked, looking him straight in the face.
He hesitated, then gave a short nod.
The other two police officers continued silently examining the camp’s surroundings, occasionally noting something on the keypads of their wrist-mounted omni-tools.
Kaidan decided it was time to step in:
“That ‘prawn,’ as we figured out pretty quickly, is capable of a lot,” Alenko said quietly, not addressing anyone in particular.
“We have no contact with the military bases or the authorities on Eden Prime,” Ashley said.
“We’re cut off here.
Is that… also?!”
“No.” Kaidan shook his head, causing an expression of genuine astonishment on the marine sergeant’s face.
“That was done by the frigate’s electronic warfare division.
The whole planet is silent now.
We’ve severely restricted traffic from Eden, filtering and checking it.
If we let the old, full format through, too many gawkers would come to Eden Prime.
And we don’t need that right now.
The crash of a ship like that ‘prawn’ onto the planet, the firefight with it — those are too ambiguous facts.” He paused, lowering his voice to a near whisper.
“Sergeant, this isn’t for the press or for chatter in the break room.
Not yet.” He paused again.
“We’re on the verge of a major war with ships like these — half-synthetic and at the same time half-organic.
That was a Reaper.” Alenko fell silent, keeping his gaze fixed on the figure and face of the marine platoon commander.
“But… the Reapers are a legend,” Ashley said quietly.
“Consider, Sergeant, that you’ve seen a legend in the flesh.
And you’ve seen that it’s not only real but very much alive,” Alenko replied.
“So it’s… not destroyed?
It’s still…” Ashley grew agitated.
“I don’t know.” Kaidan tried to keep his voice steady.
“That’s above my pay grade.
The frigate’s command will decide.
Where is the Beacon?”
“The archaeologists moved it not long ago… closer to the center of the camp,” Ashley said, pointing a hand in the direction.
“They didn’t even have time to put it in a container.
No special guard was posted around the new storage site.
Then it started… I don’t know how to describe it briefly.”
“Indoctrination,” said one of the police officers who had been listening to the two commanders’ conversation.
“Indo… what?” Ashley snapped, looking at the police sergeant with an indignant, questioning gaze.
“Do you know more than we do?”
“We do,” Kaidan confirmed.
“For example, we know that there may well be, and most likely are, quite a few indoctrinated people in your camp, Sergeant Williams.
Among the scientists, and among the marines too,” the lieutenant added.
“You mean… what happened when your shuttle was approaching the camp…” Ashley’s voice lost even a hint of command volume and clarity.
“But we… We’re not…”
“We’re ‘not’ either, Sergeant,” Kaidan replied.
“What’s that muttering?” He listened.
“Who’s stationed in that hut?”
“That’s the workspace of Doctor Warren.
And her assistant, Manuel.” Ashley turned toward the prefab’s entrance door.
“Manuel… That’s his voice.
That muttering again.
He’s been at it for a long time — too long, if you ask me.
Repeating the same thing.
It’s… getting on everyone’s nerves.
The civilians… and the marines.”
“Doctor Ilsa Warren?” Alenko clarified, opening his wrist-mounted omni-tool.
“Yes… She’s the scientist, the director of the Prothean Beacon excavation,” Ashley confirmed.
“I’m very glad that, thanks to your intervention, we’re in relative safety,” a woman said, emerging from the neighboring prefab.
Having seen her official, current portrait on his omni-tool screen, Alenko immediately recognized her as Warren.
“Lieutenant Alenko?”
“Yes.
You…” the officer inquired about the reason the head of the archaeological team had suddenly ended up in a different hut instead of her own workspace.
“I hid,” Ilse stated hastily.
“I was afraid those drones, which have completely, as I’m now certain, gone beyond any control… would start shooting at people who took shelter in the village itself…”
“They weren’t letting anyone out of the perimeter?” one of the police officers asked.
“Yes,” Warren nodded, confirming the visitor’s words.
“Exactly that.
We constantly need to do things outside the camp, and then this… The drones refused to obey direct orders.
And they started… shooting at people who repeatedly tried to leave the camp.
In the end, we were under blockade… work ground to a halt… What am I saying, ground to a halt, it practically stopped!” Ilse nearly shouted.
“And then the marines went crazy too… started shooting.
At least not to kill, but just… as a warning, I guess… We had to take shelter in the huts, it was the only way to escape that senseless shooting.
And its consequences, by the way.
We…” Warren was clearly very agitated.
“We didn’t know that people… would keep going crazy.
My assistant, Manuel, he… didn’t escape that fate either…”
“Well, well…” said one of the police officers, approaching the hut’s door.
“He’s muttering again…”
“He…” Doctor Warren hurried to try and steer the conversation to more acceptable ground, “is a brilliant scientist, but right now, apparently in part because many of the marines started shooting at almost everyone in the camp… he’s in a half-mad state.
But when he has moments of clarity… he’s a successful and very productive scientist.
I generally believe it’s correct to say that genius and madness are just two sides of the same coin.”
“Perhaps…” The police officer standing by the hut door listened.
“He’s shouting, not just talking.
He claims, among other things, that the beacon is the heart of evil, and humanity’s time is over.
You can hear it clearly.
Every word.
Doesn’t sound much like muttering, Lieutenant.”
“What was it you called it… indoctrinated…” Doctor Warren said.
“We call it something simpler: addled.
He’s… afraid to come out.
Sits on a chair, rocks back and forth, and really does — sometimes mutter, sometimes shout.
Several dozen minutes have passed, and he still… won’t calm down.
And it seems to me his condition is only getting worse.” Warren took a few steps forward and stopped in front of the hut’s door, turning to the police officers, Alenko, and Williams.
“Are you… going in?!
You need… to be sure.”
“Open the door.” Alenko, having made his decision, holstered his assault rifle on his suit’s back mount and stepped toward the hut.
“Open it, Doctor.”
“Maybe… don’t?” The head of the archaeological team’s voice betrayed either uncertainty or a plea.
“He’s… not himself.”
“Open the door, Doctor,” Alenko repeated.
A pistol appeared in the lieutenant’s hand.
At the same moment, pistols appeared in the hands of all three police officers.
“Open it!” the officer repeated.
Warren entered the code.
The door obediently slid aside.
Holding his pistol at the ready, Alenko carefully and quickly stepped over the threshold.
Two police officers followed the lieutenant into the hut.
The third remained outside, positioning himself to keep the head of the archaeological expedition in his field of view.
“I hear the whisper again.
I hear the whisper again.
The whisper.
The whisper.
The whisper.
They… are talking to me.
They… say that humanity’s time… is coming to an end.
There’s very little… Very little time left for humans.
And — not just for humans!” The middle-aged man sitting on a stool in a standard scientific jumpsuit, complete with all the proper arm-strap patches, paid no attention to those who had entered.
“The Beacon is evil!
It must be given away.
Must be given away!
Must be given away!!!
Aaaaaah!!!!!” The madman lifted his head and looked at the police officers standing by the door, but there was not a glimmer of sanity in his gaze.
“You… you’ve come to make sure that humanity’s time has come to an end?!” he cried out.
“Then know that it truly has come to an end!!!
And — not just humanity’s time!
The time of all races!
All!
All!
All!” The man, shouting at the top of his lungs, suddenly doubled over, collapsed from the stool onto his knees, his arms hanging limply, his palms awkwardly touching the floor, his head dropping sharply.
“A-a-a-l-l-l,” he either growled or howled, then soon fell silent.
“Our medic is going to have an interesting patient,” said one of the police officers standing next to Alenko.
“No,” said the lieutenant.
“We’re not going to involve our medic in this.
There are plenty of other doctors here.
Let them handle him.
Soon there might be a lot of these… ‘special’ ones… We’re leaving.
For now, he’s not dangerous.
And I don’t see anything dangerous for him around here.” Kaidan surveyed the interior.
“Yeah, nothing dangerous here.
And he doesn’t seem violent.” The lieutenant stepped out, closing the door behind him.
“Convinced?” Doctor Warren asked as the officer approached Ashley.
“Yes,” Kaidan nodded.
“Looks like he’ll be in this ‘twilight’ state for a long time.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Lieutenant.” Warren put as much venom into her reply as she could muster.
“You seemed interested in the Beacon.”
“I was,” Alenko confirmed.
“And I still am.
Lead the way.” He didn’t put his pistol away.
“And, Doctor, no funny business!” the officer warned.
“Funny business, indeed… under these circumstances,” Warren muttered quietly but angrily, stepping away from the hut and onto the path.
“Let’s go.”
“Lieutenant,” one of the police officers overtook the officer and pointed the barrel of his pistol at three men walking quickly toward the forest, dressed like ordinary Earth farmers.
“Those three… definitely aren’t part of the archaeological team’s personnel.”
“Doctor Warren.” Kaidan, without taking his eyes off the departing men, turned to the head of the archaeological team.
“Yours?”
“No,” the researcher-administrator shook her head, not hiding her irritation.
“Locals.
They hang around here all the time.
They think we can pull Prothean artifacts out of the ground by the bagful.
But we had only one order: the Beacon.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t have given us a marine platoon for security.
Usually we… work without soldiers in our immediate or distant surroundings…” She gave Williams a displeased look.
The latter tried to remain calm and neutral.
“Then we’ll stop them,” Kaidan decided.
“Catch up and detain them.” He gestured for one police officer to stay nearby, while the other two ran after the departing ‘farmers.’
The men quickened their pace even more, heading for the camp’s border, but the Normandy’s shuttle appeared from behind the hill.