Heading to Eden Prime.
Battle with the Reaper
The soothing hum of the core touched the ears of Captain Shepard, who stood at the observation porthole in the small lounge.
The frigate Normandy, to which Alliance staff officers had ordered him to report a few days ago, was cutting through the blackness of space.
Shepard had been trying for several minutes to understand why he disliked literally everything happening around him.
These people moving like somnambulists, exchanging some antiquated readers, dressed in identical uniforms and trying to maintain subordination.
These conversations over a poorly protected channel — between humanity’s ambassador to the Citadel, Udina, and the frigate’s captain, Anderson.
These desperate, and most importantly, numerous and constant attempts to pass off wishful thinking as reality.
This growing doom in the face of an unknown future, which was painted as some kind of, but long-lasting.
The captain of the marine detachment…
There are twelve military police bruisers here!
Twelve.
Bruisers.
He, the captain, has only two relatively sane people in his direct command: Corporal Jenkins and Lieutenant Alenko.
That’s it!
No one else was given, filling all the free slots with policemen.
All of them.
With policemen.
Who have no idea what they were supposed to guard on the long flight.
Two bruisers — at the radio room.
One each — at each of the two entrances to the main ship’s staircase.
Two bruisers — at the main airlock.
They thought to put two at the main battery.
Two — shoved near the Medbay.
What is there, in the Medbay, for two military police sergeants to guard?
Who are two.
Two ranks higher than regular army ranks?!
Who are sergeants only by their stripes, while first lieutenants stand at attention before them, barely breathing?!
Two military police bruisers were placed at the captain’s cabin.
The first after God on this particular frigate of the Systems Alliance Navy.
And he, the commander of the marine detachment, was given under his direct command a lieutenant-biotic, whose only program that worked properly, thanks to constant migraines, was “Serving the Alliance, sir!” And — the half-trained Corporal Jenkins, whose teenage maximalism hadn’t worn off.
And, as it now seemed to Shepard, had no intention of wearing off.
Both “personnel…” Belonged to those inhabitants of Alliance military bases from whom even a squad leader would run faster than at the monthly sixty-kilometer cross-country run with full gear and an order to survive under the threat of an orbital strike.
No one wanted to take responsibility for the bearer of the “L-2” the lieutenant with migraines, who could easily fly off the handle and glow brighter and more terrifyingly than a portable lamp for operational shipboard disinfection.
And even more so — for the boy, through whose Alliance corporal’s uniform the short pants with suspenders clearly showed through.
Not even with a shirt in a frivolous check pattern.
With short sleeves, that one.
Shepard was slowly, like rising floodwater, turning feral.
He, a graduate of the special academy, who had fought tooth and nail for the highest-value insignia, the “N-Seven,” was ordered to take command of the marine detachment of a ship that couldn’t be a warship by definition.
Before Shepard’s mind’s eye, the blueprints of the Normandy slid by.
Such a dirty trick from the turians…
He couldn’t have expected it in principle.
For such a successfully conducted operation of hoodwinking…
He couldn’t allow himself another word right now…
Of hoodwinking the Alliance higher-ups who held power and influence…
Every sentient organic from the Psychological Warfare Directorate of the Turian Hierarchy deserved the Star of Earth.
At least.
Anything less wasn’t even worth bothering with.
A frigate equipped with a cloaking system that became worthless if the enemy had ancient but high-quality optical observation instruments and scanners on board their ship.
And harmful, if any of the frigate’s opponents had simple, familiar portholes in the sides of their ships.
To swaddle humanity’s space armed forces like that.
Swaddle them — with the dry, abrasive lines of the Treaty, “squeezed out” through months of haggling.
A half-frigate, half-destroyer, half-dreadnought, half-battleship, half-monitor.
Gifts from the developed races to the neighbor who had suddenly “sprouted” the bluish haze of the active zone of the forbidden mass relay.
Very peculiar “gifts.” More like Trojan gifts.
Shepard felt the air around him, standing in the small lounge, thickening, becoming more viscous with every second.
Somewhere on the far fringes of his consciousness, an inner — perhaps even his own personal — voice was howling that what was happening to him now was utterly inhuman.
That such a state, such behavior — was not for a human, not for an officer, not for an N-Seven.
Somewhere on the far fringes…
Shepard paid no attention to those howls.
Where is the frigate going?
Eden Prime?
Why?
To test the pseudo-invisibility system?
Why test it in such a far-off place?
Take the frigate to Luna and test it all you want.
Every sentient with enough wits and the necessary equipment will clearly see the frigate desperately trying to become invisible.
And none of those outside observers will even curl their lips in a smirk.
Because that’s how it must be.
And who needs it — no need to know.
Live, exist, breathe through both nostrils, and — don’t make a fuss.
Shepard’s gaze slid over the sparkling scatterings of stars beyond the thick glass of the observation porthole.
Two days remained until arrival at the destination.
Two days.
And he, the commander of the marine detachment and first mate, already had the fingers of both hands cramping.
Cramping so badly that he almost howled aloud from the pain.
Because he knew.
He knew that before the war with the synthetics, there remained these two pitiful human twenty-four-hour days.
He knew what the polished gentlemen in admirals’ uniforms were afraid to believe.
Imagining themselves to be tough strategists — and capable of reliably fainting from a suddenly failing holoprojector in their living room.
He knew what could provide an instant stroke with a heart attack “in one package” for any of the admirals’ wives, for whom fifteen-centimeter heels on dress model shoes had become more familiar than standard army boots.
He knew what was a death sentence for most inhabitants of all human colonies.
Planets built with great difficulty on worlds barely developed and barely legally secured for Earth, and therefore — for humanity.
He knew what was a burial shroud for thousands of eighteen-year-old youths who had put on the uniform of the Systems Alliance Navy.
Not much younger than Jenkins.
They — will burn in those “tin cans.” Proudly called shuttles, fighters, frigates, cruisers, dreadnoughts.
They — will burn in the cramped cockpits of artillery systems, posts, and ship compartments.
They — will burn in drop pods.
They.
They.
They.
Burn and die, trying not even to survive.
To manage to understand, to realize…
If not to accept…
To accept the Fact.
The fact of the collision.
The fact of the collision with Machine Intelligence.
For which.
Any.
Sentient organic — is only an enemy.
Only an adversary.
Only an opponent subject to physical destruction.
In the head of the feral commander of the marine detachment, one thought pounded.
It pounded like a bell toll.
Not that fire-alarm, frantic one.
But the one that scrapes down your spine like a grater.
One thought: “We.
Were.
Not.
Taught.
To.
Fight.
Machines.”
And from that thought emanated…
Bitterness emanated.
One that twisted all the facial muscles into a terrible grimace.
A grimace foretelling rage.
The rage of a cornered sentient being.
One resolved to cast off the mask of Civilization.
And — to show the enemy another.
A second mask.
The mask of the Beast.
The fingers of both of Shepard’s hands clenched into hundredweight fists.
Capable right now of reliably stopping a sumo wrestler frozen at the starting line.
Two wrestlers.
Three.
Five.
Stopping them dead.
In a fraction of a second.
“N-Seven.” The best.
Super-soldiers.
“At any time.
In any place.
Any task.
To accomplish.
Precisely.
Fully.
On time.
And no.
Other.
Way.”
Shepard felt his shoulders silently straighten under his uniform jacket.
His muscles tense.
His shoulder blades try to come together, clamping his spine in a vice.
His neck stiffen, straightening into strict vertical ninety degrees.
His chin take the position of a bulldozer blade, promising nothing good to whatever ended up before it.
His facial muscles relax just barely, allowing his jaws to leave a few millimeters of free space between his teeth.
A few.
Millimeters.
The heels of his boots came together with a click.
The toes of his shoes habitually assumed the regulation position.
His legs straightened fully, raising his torso to maximum height.
His stomach habitually tensed, his chest expanded, giving his lungs the chance to draw in a bit more air.
His arms fell along his body, catching the conditional “lines” of the side seams and becoming one with them.
Far in the corner of his consciousness, a beacon blinked, flashing only one code: “Not human.” “Not human.” “Not human.” And Shepard, standing ramrod straight before the observation porthole, was in no hurry.
He was in no hurry to enter into exhausting, unnecessary, harmful debates with that beacon.
He knew.
He knew one thing: “To.
Defeat.
A.
Machine.
You.
Must.
Give.
Everything.
In the shortest time.”
If any of the Normandovtsy had seen John Shepard now, twenty-eight years old, an orphan who had joined the Alliance right after his eighteenth birthday…
He would have been astonished.
So much did the figure standing before the lounge porthole, open across the entire wall, not resemble the former commander of the frigate’s marine detachment.
It emanated the force of a hurricane and the power of a mudslide, the irresistibility of a storm and the tomb-like darkness of a crypt.
And the most terrifying thing emanated from the captain’s face, motionless and frozen like a shaman’s mask.
The whites of the man’s eyes glowed, sparkling with thousands of sparks.
And his pupils, in their blackness and bottomlessness, easily left the eyes of asari and drell behind.
Before the force emanating from his eyes and spreading for several meters, it was impossible to stand one’s ground.
One could only obey.
With maximum precision, speed, and completeness.
Right now, the captain’s face had no need to part its tightly pressed lips.
Words weren’t required.
A turn of John’s head in those minutes was already capable of crumbling the walls of a sea container standing far below, in the frigate’s hold, into dust.
And if a movement of his eyes were added to the turn of his head…
The container would simply cease to exist as a material body.
Instantly.
With any contents.
With all its contents.
It was precisely into that container that they planned to seal what the frigate Normandy had set out to Eden Prime for.
A screen flashed and unfolded in Shepard’s consciousness.
Ship status.
Armament status.
Crew status.
Course and range.
Ship location — in the space of the Milky Way and — in this star system.
An avalanche of data.
The captain stood motionless, absorbing it, processing it, sorting it.
Ten percent, you say?!
Twenty?!
Thirty?!
Forty percent of brain power, you say, works in an average sentient human?!
And eighty — don’t you want?!
And a hundred?!
And the multiplicity?!
He, the commander of the marine detachment.
An “N-Seven.” A Navy captain.
Some polished colonel from the division headquarters had handed him not an order on a form-reader in due form, but a scribble.
A reader with three lines of text.
A specimen of bureaucratic detachment from real life.
To assume the post of first.
Mate.
Of the.
Captain.
Of the frigate Normandy.
That colonel.
Didn’t even understand himself.
What he had handed over.
In what form.
And with what consequences.
Such disregard for the rules of formatting command orders is permissible only during wartime.
And since this disregard was permitted.
That means the war is already underway.
And he, John Shepard, is not just serving in the Systems Alliance Navy.
He.
Is.
At.
War.
“Corporal Jenkins, report to the port-side lounge.
To Captain Shepard,” the lips of the marine detachment commander spat out, parting slightly.
His head didn’t turn.
Only his lips moved.
And that part of the human body that was supposed to form a voice command subject to instant execution.
The speaker didn’t let him down.
The microphone activated in time.
The system, obeying its automation, picked up the sound vibrations, cleaned them of interference, and transmitted them to the translator circuits.
And that one — dropped them to the transmitter.
Quickly, like that.
Almost instantly.
For a human.
Not for a machine.
With his inner eye on the screen of his consciousness, Shepard saw Jenkins freeze, having been amiably chatting with the frigate’s doctor, Major Karin Chakwas.
Saw him suddenly straighten up, fall sharply silent, cutting off his speech mid-word, adjust his beret, and give a military salute to the senior medical officer of the ship.
Turn crisply to the right and, past the police sergeant who hadn’t even changed his relaxed stance, march up the staircase leading to the living deck.
The steps of Jenkins, who was deliberately stamping his feet, approached, almost breaking into a run as he neared his destination.
Finally, the corporal froze on the threshold of the lounge.
“Corporal Jenkins, sir!
Reporting as ordered, sir!” the arrival rapped out.
And only then realized that something in the lounge had changed very much.
And the center of that change was standing right in front of him.
Captain John Shepard.
Commander of the frigate’s marine detachment.
His direct commander.
Shepard didn’t even turn around, didn’t change his stance, didn’t deign to respond to the report of the junior-ranking man.
“Where were you born, Cor-poral?” the officer’s lips spat out.
“On Eden Prime, sir!
The frigate is heading there, sir!” Jenkins didn’t even try to step outside the requirements of the regulations and directly ask what had happened and what was the reason for the summons.
“Feel like fighting, Cor-poral?” There was a threat in Shepard’s voice.
Jenkins caught it.
“Yes, sir!
We’ve been in space for two weeks now, sir!
And I’m attached to the marines, sir!
I’m not a flyboy, sir!” Jenkins was desperately trying to understand what this captain wanted from him.
He already knew that Captain John Shepard, appointed to the post of first mate of the Normandy’s commander, was a hero of Akuze, that he was a survivor, that he was an “N-Seven.”
He now knew a lot about Shepard.
What those senior in rank and position had allowed him to learn.
But now, before him stood a different Shepard.
Jenkins had never seen the marine detachment commander like this.
And right now he was ready to pray to God, and not just to one single God — to all conceivable and inconceivable Gods.
To pray that he would never have to see this again.
“Attached?!
That’s exactly how you put it, Cor-poral.
Attached.
But I, your commander, need you to be not just attached.
But to be a marine.
What task was assigned to you by your previous commander?” Shepard’s voice carried notes that gave Jenkins no chance to delay his report.
“To report aboard the marine frigate Cape Town, sir!
At fifteen thirty, three weeks ago, sir!
At the disposal of Lieutenant Welland, sir!”
“And why do I, the commander of the marine detachment of the frigate Normandy, find you on board another ship a week after the Cape Town set out on its cruise, Cor-poral?”
While Shepard was drawing this out, it seemed to Jenkins more than once that right now, this very second, the captain would turn around, and that would be the last thing Richard would ever see in his life:
“I was late, sir!”
“Late?!
You, a corporal of the marine forces of the Systems Alliance Navy?!
Late?!” There was no note of surprise or astonishment in Shepard’s voice — his tone was even and crisp.
“Yes, sir!” Jenkins positively didn’t know what else he should answer to the question the officer had asked.
The semi-darkness of the lounge was beginning to genuinely frighten the corporal.
The blackness of space, barely lit by the stars, brought on a terrible melancholy.
“The main motto of the planetary marine forces of Earth.
Quickly.
Clearly.
Separately,” Shepard ordered.
“At any time!
In any place!
Any task!
To accomplish!
Precisely!
Fully!
On time!
And no!
Other!
Way!” With each word, literally shouted out, Jenkins felt something happening to him.
Somewhere the bravado was receding, somewhere the boasting was hiding, somewhere the lightness and carefree perception had vanished.
The corporal saw that Shepard wasn’t turning around, wasn’t reacting in any way to the words so familiar to him.
“Now you, Cor-poral.
Will go to the hold and work there for the two hours left before dinner.
With all due diligence.
The rapid weapons handling complex.
Exe-cute,” the captain spat out, without changing his posture.
“Aye, sir!” Jenkins “on autopilot” did an “about face.” And — swiftly “swept” out of the lounge.
Shepard didn’t turn around, knowing that Jenkins, as he ran off, had even forgotten to close the lounge door.
He knew what would happen to the corporal during those two hours of working at the limit of his current capabilities.
He would become different.
And he would stay alive.
If with Jenkins everything was simple, then with Lieutenant Alenko…
Everything was much more complicated.
Kaidan was a biotic, burdened with artificial profile implants.
Not a very successful model.
The “L-2.” Consisting of several interconnected parts.
Kaidan flatly refused to change these biotic implants for a more advanced model — the “L-3.”
And now Shepard, standing in his former pose at the porthole window, was examining Lieutenant Alenko’s implant on the screen of his consciousness.
A standard model, now already outdated, without any “bells and whistles.” It caused Kaidan, as the bearer of this model, terrible migraines.
Lines of recommendations for suppressing migraines — the main sign of implant-host incompatibility — arranged themselves in a separate “field” in the captain-special forces officer’s consciousness.
Right next to a clear and detailed image of the implant.
Shepard read through those lines, turning the implant this way and that in his mind.
Right now, he wasn’t thinking about why this screen had surfaced in his consciousness, why he, a marine, an N7, had suddenly been supplied by unknown forces with such detailed and complete information about this implant and its bearer.
Before, such data had been available only to the most highly specialized medics and techs.
If it was necessary, then it was necessary — and now this information was available to him.
For making a decision.
Shepard felt he had calmed down a little, the sharpness of his sensations had dulled somewhat, that taut, string-like tension in his body and soul was gone.
A string?
Why not.
Maybe, if that state suddenly returned, he could call it the String.
It was human nature, and now, as it turned out, not only human, to immediately “slap a label” on things.
Often — to avoid getting lost in the abundance of information about the surrounding world.
And right now, the first mate felt that from a recent moment onward, he would always have plenty of that information.
Much more than the average, development-level sentient organic.
That was what had changed in him.
And if he had changed so significantly… Then the world around him had changed no less significantly for him.
Simply because the Edge had drawn near not only to him, a Terran, a human, a special forces officer.
It had drawn near to all sentient organics.
And if now, having received such significant capabilities, he was still unable to help all the other sentient organics — then they themselves would have to strain to survive.
And some sentient organics he could very well help significantly himself.
And first and foremost — the members of the crew and team of the prototype frigate the Normandy.
He knew that Lieutenant Alenko felt someone’s gaze on him, but couldn’t determine who it belonged to.
Besides him, formally the second pilot, and the professional first pilot sitting next to him — Lieutenant Jeff Moreau — there were no other humans in the frigate’s helm.
Of the non-humans on board the ship, there was only the turian Spectre, Nihlus Kryik.
But he hadn’t appeared in the cockpit in the last few hours.
Right now, Shepard wasn’t interested in where that bird-faced one was.
He didn’t want to use either standard-issue or new capabilities for that.