40

Dreadnought Light of Kila

- 'Fifty per cent charge,' the pilot reported, and I was already in the hangar with my army.

And with the help of Rilik and ten shuttles, we'll be able to surface 570 Geth platforms with the dreadnought. It's been modified, by the way. It now has a helium-3 reactor instead of a combustion engine. We could do this thanks to the blueprints of an Azari that Tori raised.

The race went extinct about three hundred thousand years ago, but they were clever. The funny thing was, their home system didn't have element zero at all. They couldn't find any forerunner depots, either. But there were 14 planets in their approach, seven gas giants. And their planet was a satellite of such a giant, which was as big as three Jupiter. Before they got out of their system, they started mining helium-3. It was like shit, so there was a lot of technology on it. Eventually, they got to the point where they began fuelling cars with it. And then they were found by those who had the mass effect. They were glad to have JDB and other stuff, but they didn't want to give up the whole branch of technologies and wreck fucking jobs. They even made some weapons based on helium-3, but that azari now rests because even clones have to eat, sleep and everything else. Anyway, now our jeep can drive at 300 km/h, and on a full tank with such speed, it may go five years. All in all, Vin.

Also, they found a thousand good ones of this kind of ammunition in this jeep. But not for assault rifles or machine guns, but for a rapid-fire light cannon. The bullets exploded with a force of 500 grams of TNT, so they could safely be considered explosive. Each cartridge weighed only 500 grams, but the volatile content was only 50 grams. Oh, this drill's dusky genius. Anyway, the day before we flew to Vermeir, we assembled the cannon from improvised materials. It was a mighty thing, which we reckoned would tear a crogan's leg/arm/head off, depending on where it hit. We put it on the jeep's roof, just in the place of a machine gun.

All in all, also wine. But I managed to arm an army, too. Or rather, to protect them. A quarter of them wore heavy Quarian armour, half wore medium-sized armour, and the rest were Primes. I got myself a medium as well. It wasn't restrictive, and the protection was good. I was a little nervous, though. The Masters of War would start shooting us with biotics, a bunch of clone crogans would go into the melee, and there were bound to be surprising in the form of something shielded from the EMP. So take some extra protection that might save your life.

- Seventy per cent charge," the pilot reported again. Everyone was loaded. I was sitting in the jeep and had to operate the machine gun; the stormtrooper was driving, the jeep was in Rilik, the frigate was in the dreadnought, and he was getting ready to fire. I didn't understand why I was so worried. It was as if I could sense that something would go wrong. Something was bound to come out, and we would have a hard time. All right, well, as they say, "Problems are solved as they come." That's how we'll proceed.

- One hundred per cent charge," the pilot informed me.

- Fire," I briefly commanded.

****

With a power of 70 terawatts, a pale blue beam shot out of the dreadnought's cannon and into the complex. After passing through the atmosphere, the beam flew for a few more seconds before crashing into the ground. A short and bright white flash followed, and out of this came a wave in all directions in an even circle. Only thirty seconds later, the wave dissipated, and there was silence on the planet. The birds stopped singing, even the light wind died down, and only the waves, which did not care about what was happening, told the inhabitants that they were still alive. After a few more minutes, the birds began to sing again, the crabs started to crack their claws and feet again, and the wind began to blow in the faces of the planet's visitors again. Everything was back to normal.

****

- That's it. Let's go," I said, and the dreadnought hangar opened. Rilik flew out first, followed by the shuttles. For five minutes, we flew to a small clearing that was by the sea and was, in fact, a beach. From it, there was a gorge running to the compound and blocked off by five gates. Saren seemed to know where the enemies would land, so the defences were well lined up. Except he wasn't expecting an EMP. The pilot said there were no more Geth-eretic signals, the whole complex was de-energised, and the Krogan... The krogan began to die one by one, and then signatures appeared to replace them that the pilot didn't know. I could not understand what that meant, but we had to keep going.

Within an hour, we had set up our camp. A hundred platforms were left to guard the shuttles and Rilik while the rest, including me, went to the complex. I didn't dare to land directly there. There must be something there that could kill us. So now I rode in the jeep, controlling the hand cannon while the others walked on foot, watching the rocks.

Here we reached the first gate. They were crossed quickly, simply by blasting away. The only people at the roadblock were Geths, all deactivated. It made me feel uncomfortable. A simple EMP killed them in the blink of an eye. I didn't halt the platforms; I killed them. The EMP burned out all the circuits faster than the programs could escape, killing them. That's it; Game Over. And it really kicked in. After all, the same weapon could kill me, too. As it turns out, all the races in the Galaxy have no protection against the EMP. It wasn't even used as a weapon in any way. And that's exactly what would help the Quarians. One powerful blow to cut off all the Geths, that's all. Even they don't have any EMP protection. How is that possible? The mass effect can only happen with electricity. Turn it off, at least for an hour, and you can overload many people; if it lasts longer, then you can capture planets. But no, they never thought of that here. Not even in the Alliance. There's only one way to put it: "Stupid." There's no other way to put it.

Two more block posts were passed the same way - blown up, and off we went. There was nothing on the rocks, but that's what scared me. It couldn't be that simple. There was no way I could destroy Saren's entire army in one shot. It's impossible!!!

Damn, there's something wrong with me. I never thought a geth had a gut that said something was wrong here. I should have thought of everything in seconds, but it's already been twenty minutes. Twenty slow minutes, during which I had already strained all my processors from thinking so much for the delights of light thinking. An ordinary man would go mad from such silence, a trained soldier would simply shrink his balls, but he would go on. But me... I was thinking at unbelievable speed, and my paranoia had reached a point where even the concentration of microorganisms in the air seemed too low, then too high. The two concepts change 355,780 times in five seconds when you have scanned the gun 35 times, and a part appears to have shifted by 0.000045 mm. That was just too much.

- STOP! - I ordered, and the whole group immediately stopped. The reactor on the jeep shut down, and I began to look around and wonder what was wrong. And no mistake. Looking out over the rocks, I noticed some movement. The scanners showed nothing, but I felt it was a humanoid. I could hear footsteps, the crackling of leaves from my feet, the moving of branches... The wind doesn't do that. I started aiming my cannon at this "something" when suddenly a black figure flew at me from the cliff. In three milliseconds, I realised that the enemy had two arms, two legs and a head, but I didn't know its race, and I couldn't see it, as the sun was behind the figure, so I could only see a black silhouette. After another 10 milliseconds and I opened fire. The gun started firing, and three times, I hit the figure. It screamed with rage, glowing with biotics, but luckily it fell in front of the jeep, not on top of it. I kept firing at the creature; there was no other word for it, but its biotic barrier surprisingly held. The creature jumped from side to side like a frog but kept falling from the shots from my cannon at its back. But when it landed a third time, it launched a biotic at us. So powerful, in fact, that the jeep flew did a somersault and slammed its wheels into a rock, then rolled over and fell back onto its wheels. At the same time, the whole squad began to fire everything they had at the creature, but the barrier held. How that was possible, I just didn't know. I tried to get a good look at the creature, but a flying biotic strike forced me to take cover in the jeep again. And from there, I emerged with the Gauss rifle I'd picked up on Rahan. It was difficult to aim at the creature, but I fired as soon as the power charge reached 100%. The bullet immediately broke the sound barrier and pierced the creature's body. I must have hit something vital as it fell and froze after a few jerks. I mentally took a breather, so to speak, and climbed out of the jeep. We had lost three Primes and 10 Stormtroopers. The Programs had managed to "evacuate", and I was mentally glad to have survived. As I approached the creature, I was simply speechless. It was a strange creature with long legs like a Salarian, its arms had three outstretched fingers and were even longer than its legs, and they reached down to its feet. The body also had boobs, but that was not what was necessary. The creature's head and face were of the Azari, but this race's tentacles were elongated and covered the back of the head. And that second head, judging by the shape and the eyes, belonged to a Salarian. I knew all at once. A hybrid. So much for non-canon.

- Take one Prime and two Stormtroopers and deliver this... creature to the Light of Kila. We've got to study it. The rest of you, go ahead. And keep your eyes on the rocks. I don't want any more ambushes," everyone confirmed they understood the order, so I got into the jeep, and we moved on. We did not, however, get very far.

Our group came to the fourth gate, defended by... cannibals. Yes, those particular battarian huskies with glowing eyes and mouths, a cannon instead of a right arm and bubbles on their backs. So much for the crew of a Battarian dreadnought. And where they came from, I just don't understand. They'd all be dead, 100 per cent, unless... Unless they were raised after the EMP. That hypothesis was the most plausible. I started shooting everyone I saw on the move. One shot was enough to make a cannibal explode. Then another exploded, then another. Except these things were clever and knew how to use cover. While the three Primes poured and poured fire on the post, stormtroopers with shotguns went to mop up the post. The cannibals may have been good fighters, but they couldn't handle the Geths in the narrow corridors. In three minutes, the position was overrun and cleared. The door opened, and we drove on. Another, a fifth post, was also successfully removed by us of cannibals.

Reinforcements of as many of the creatures had not had time to come up, so they tried to confront us at full strength in the open terrain sandwiched between two cliffs. The cannon was quietly tearing the creatures to pieces. Their bombardment was not successful. I was in the vanguard in a Jeep, the Primes and Stormtroopers in heavy armour, and none of them could penetrate the cannibals' shields. And so, the last cannibal exploded, and we drove on, as suddenly, at the top of the cliff, I saw a flash, and in the following moments, my armour glass shattered, and I immediately jumped into the jeep. How is that even possible. That shot pierced the shield of the Quarian medium armour, knocking it completely off, shattering the two centimetres of armour, and only my personal, Gethian guard saved me from imminent death from a hit to the head. With a bit of analysis of what had happened, I recognised the shot's trajectory and the shooter's intended location.

As I peered out just a little, I noticed a flash, and Prime, standing in front of me and trying to shoot the shooter, was left headless. And it was Prime! I don't know what kind of rifle it was, but Garrus would sell his soul for one of those. Pulling out an RPG, I fired at this sniper's position. The high-explosive rocket flew into the rock and hit the sniper. The stone cracked, and the enemy flew down. But suddenly, four such snipers started pouring fire on us. Three Stormtroopers and Prime fell immediately, while the others began running heavy fire on the snipers' positions. I put down the grenade launcher and took up the cannon.

The first sniper was just blown in half. Two others suffered the same fate; the last one had his body torn apart, leaving only legs and arms. The fight was short but palpable. Five obscure gunmen nailed three more Primes and ten Stormtroopers. I got out of the car and went to the body of the sniper I had killed first. And as I approached him, I was struck again by the Reapers' imagination. Skinny legs, pelvis, no abdomen or any other organs. From the pelvis came a spine with a body of ribs and a ribcage, the power source. One arm was replaced with a rifle, and the fingers were lengthened on the other. Also, one eye had been replaced by a particular implant, but the other was no longer real. However, even from one view, I knew it was a Salarian. It looked like they were the ones in Kirrahe's squad. That corpse, too, I ordered to be taken to the Light of Kila, and the rest of the team went forward.

As they say, the sixth post was overcome in the same breath. We hardly paid any attention to it. But the seventh post provided another surprise. I expected to see all sorts of people there: war masters, krogan clones, Saren. But krogan huskies... Yeah, that's what you wouldn't dream of visiting. They were all uglier than a coot after a drink, had a heavy jar like a rifle, and one could only wonder where they got it from. Fortunately, these very crogans were lined up in a line in front of the roadblock. The roadblock itself was occupied by cannibals.

The Salarian snipers were, thankfully, absent. As I approached at the proper distance, I opened fire with my cannon. One shot removed their biotic barrier, and the other ripped their heads off. By the time the crogans figured out what was happening, I managed to take out three out of thirty. They came at us in a whole line. Two of my Primes with three-barreled miniguns started pouring fire on the huskies, and then all the heavily armed joined in. The Krogan ran at us, and we shot back. The krogan did not fall willingly, so even without arms, they came at us just to waste ammunition on them and not to be distracted by those who ran at us with guns and had already started firing. Those shots were a killer. Our attackers were saved by the heavy suit of the Quarians, but they were killed by the third shot. Their claims were torn apart by the dark energy of the zero elements. Soon, however, Krogan were finished. They never made it to the melee. We would have been nailed. And then the heavyweights went on the attack in a single line. The cannibal guns didn't do them much damage, and when their shields did come off, most of the Geths, the Batterarian Huskies were all but gone, and what was left of them was useless. Their weapons could not penetrate the Primes' armour or the heavy suit of the Quarians. The cannibals were dead two minutes after the Geths had entered the outpost. Then we blew the door open, a few Geths took the most intact krogan corpses, and we moved on. Saren's compound was on the way.