The morning was simply excellent for Councilor Tevos. The matron managed to get a good night's sleep in her apartments, rather than snatching brief moments of sleep on the sofa in the lounge of her office. After such "adventures," her knees usually started to ache by morning, although, being an envoy, she could sleep even standing during flights.
So the asari was in a good mood, which only intensified after a light breakfast consisting of thinly sliced sour fruits and a glass of juice, slightly salted with sea water to emphasize the sweetness of the berries.
Therefore, Tevos did not immediately reject the request for a meeting with the quarian delegation, although she knew perfectly well what the nomads wanted from her. Moreover, weighing all the "pros" and "cons," she instructed her secretary to arrange this meeting. A benevolent image needs to be maintained periodically.
"Sometimes I even pity them. What are they hoping for? After all that arrogance, to expect a helping hand from us? Extremely naive, a less wise person would say. I will say that this is a gesture of desperation. If they offered something worthwhile, which we wouldn't get anyway, I would be the first to announce my desire to meet... and not with envoys, but directly with their admirals, anticipating the desire of the matriarchs," the councilor mused detachedly.
Thus freeing up a couple of hours of her personal time, Tevos summoned the cosmetologists, deciding to take care of herself. What could she do, she was no longer a maiden who only needed to sprinkle herself with water to become fresh again.
The matron perfectly understood the importance of "packaging" in her case, so she closely monitored herself and her clothing, skillfully choosing jewelry. One can be an excellent conversationalist, but be thrown out for an untidy or offensive appearance. Besides, she had not yet achieved the influence of the matriarchs, and therefore had not gotten rid of this convention. A matriarch remains a matriarch, even if dressed in rags!
"Still, how relaxing this is..." the high-ranking asari moaned from the touch of beauty specialists, who filed, scrubbed, bleached, steamed, wiped, and did much more, which a turian would equate to torture. She lazily browsed the stock quotes with a selection of news gathered by her team into a convenient compilation. Finding nothing new, she completely surrendered to the process, finally becoming languid from the massage...
"Madam Tevos!!! Catastrophe!!!" losing her heels, the secretary burst into her apartments, barely having been let in by the guards. So fast and decisive was the assistant's stride that the sleepy haze instantly lifted from the councilor.
With one glance, she sent the masseuse away, Tevos, ignoring her nakedness, took the tablet from the secretary's hands, perfectly understanding that an asari raised in the best traditions would not cause such a fuss for nothing.
"This is no longer a catastrophe or a nightmare..." the first thought that crossed the councilor's mind as she looked at the unfolding broadcast, where someone unknown was judging (!) a batarian magnate-slave owner (!!!) by the laws of the Citadel (!!). The trial was logically ending. Tevos didn't even flinch when the firing squad simply shot the prominent politician of the Hegemony like the last worca, her eyes scanning the meticulously prepared, carefully and pedantically gathered evidence attached to the video.
"With such a body of evidence, he would have been lynched by his own people," was the councilor's second thought, who, while acknowledging the work done by someone unknown, felt irritated by the mere thought of a lynching disguised as Citadel law. However, she understood that in court, the batarian magnate would have gotten away with only a symbolic fine, buying his life and freedom in the back rooms.
"There was no need to doubt..." Tevos concluded, her trained gaze sliding over the viewers' comments, the number of which had already exceeded ten billion. "Complete solidarity. Even the Matriarch Council would have had to try hard to convince the public otherwise. Some facts even SPECTRES couldn't find, which is telling. I'm not sure even GOR knows such details. And this leads to the question: who is the new player?"
The asari ran her finger, switching to the next broadcast.
"This will definitely please the turians," she commented with a mental sigh at the unfolding battle scene. Even to her inexperienced eye, the fleet of the unknown player was simply grinding the Hegemony's forces to dust. "It will be difficult for the Primarch to intervene... on our side. They are knights, but the batarians have gone too far beyond the acceptable. If we don't intervene, the Hierarchy will even join the rout, and this cannot be allowed."
"A brief summary," the matron said, handing the tablet back and only now putting on a robe, heading for the exit. She needed to convene a council, and there was no time for outfits now. Five minutes had already been lost analyzing the situation. She needed to get up to speed quickly.
"An unknown community attacked the Hegemony's space five hours ago, but it only became known fifteen minutes ago," the secretary began to answer clearly, typing a command for the councilor to prepare clothes when they arrived at the Presidium. "Such a late... disclosure of facts is due to communication system failures throughout the galaxy. The Hegemony is almost completely cut off from us, which has led to problems in the Extranet. The traffic cannot be processed by communication buoys in time. All known relays leading there either do not work, or work, but traveling through them is equivalent to suicide with an almost guaranteed chance."
"The stock market will crash. If it hasn't already..." the councilor made a note in her memory, settling into the flyer.
"I dared to issue a number of orders in your name to intercept certain securities," the secretary seemed to read her thoughts. "According to analysts' conclusions, the union does not intend to annex the batarian worlds. They announced that they will return the slaves to their home worlds and deprive the Hegemony of the opportunity to continue multiplying pain, as they declare. Judging by the video materials and the comments of the Hegemony's residents themselves, the invaders are destroying all industry and have announced a driven hunt for everyone associated with slavery, without touching ordinary residents, acting demonstratively within the framework of our legislation."
"This absolutely cannot be allowed. The Hegemony was too convenient an instrument... Not only will its economy collapse without slaves, dragging many companies from our space, but also, if all the rebels return to the Republic... There will be a massacre. The Matriarchs will not tolerate encroachments on their power. The murder of dissenters will leave a stain on our impeccable reputation. I don't believe I'll have to do this, but I will have to make every effort to save the Hegemony," Tevos concluded to herself, feeling the flyer land.
She fluttered out of the transport, heading with a determined gait, as only asari who know their worth can, straight into the council building. Once inside the guarded corridors of the holy of holies of the civilized galaxy, the councilor was surrounded by her retinue. Tevos, hidden by the crowd, threw off her robe, raising her hands, allowing her assistants to put on her dress. The red fabric with white inserts was as heavy as armor. Stylists quickly selected jewelry while makeup artists applied makeup on the go, finishing in three minutes.
"We'll have to rebuild this place. Too much quarian," she thought fleetingly, grimacing once again at the overly pompous entourage.
Before the council hall, another information tablet was placed in her hands with an analytical report already loaded, and the asari shock troops opened the doors, having first ensured there were no threats to the VIP. The councilor entered the room fully armed and with a customary condescending smile.
In the hall, there was only Councilor Keloch, and even then, only in holographic form. The salarian had left three weeks ago at the will of his clan's dalatress to receive further instructions and to procreate.
"He's more agitated than usual. That's good. Apparently, the summons distracted him from his conversation with the dalatress," Tevos noted to herself, uttering a greeting:
"Greetings, Councilor Keloch," she greeted the red-pigmented salarian, emphasizing protocol.
"Greetings, most honorable Tevos," the nervous councilor blurted out in one word, a tongue-twister, twitching her hands as if trying to catch something, trying to hide it by straightening the folds of her baggy robe. "Most honorable Viridia is delayed."
The last remark was spoken by the salarian at a normal speed, only muttering slightly under his breath, finally regaining his composure.
"This is uncharacteristic for her. Perhaps the Primarch contacted her to give additional instructions?" the councilor suggested, although she knew the answer to her question perfectly well.
"Perhaps," Councilor Keloch blurted out too quickly again, distracted by the fact that a perfumed bomb flew into the hall, starting to make claims in an insolent tone from the very entrance, while rustling her skirts towards the councilors.
Tevos mentally winced, greeting the envoy from the Hegemony with the name Ja'Shira, which was too characteristic of her.
"A very apt name. Resonant with aristocracy. Like everything Batarian, an idea with a royal scope, executed like a drunken pirate," the councilor thought, suppressing her schadenfreude, recalling how arrogantly the ambassador had received her four days ago, speaking through clenched teeth and making dramatic pauses out of place.
After that conversation, the Asari had spent two hours washing off the overly persistent perfume of the Batarian lady, and for another two hours, her head ached from the combination of the heavy scent of expensive perfume and a body that hadn't been washed in a long time. Characteristically, she hadn't felt any sympathy for her husband then. The councilor really disliked henpecked men.
Before the ambassador could launch into her second round of accusations, shrieking so loudly that her voluminous body, barely contained by a corset, vibrated and almost burst out of its too-tight prison due to sweat, the last of their colleagues entered the hall to the relief of both councilors, almost with a marching step.
Viridia walked ostentatiously, unhurriedly. Her attire, a black uniform without insignia, adorned with an impressive array of medals, jingled mockingly with every step. Upon seeing the Steel Hand, who had instilled terror in all the Hegemony's corsairs for twenty years, Ja'Shira fell silent, glaring at the toned, athletic figure with a look of hatred.
Indifference tinged with schadenfreude was her answer, skillfully hidden in her ironic eyes. The Palaven native openly enjoyed the moment, and Tevos couldn't blame her. "For all their outward savagery and harshness, they always know what they're doing. Even their tattoos are a tribute not only to tradition. Thanks to them, they are very difficult to read," the Asari thought, struggling to decipher her colleague's mood from her gestures.
After waiting for the last councilor to take her seat, the matron, as the senior member, declared:
"Let's begin," understanding that there was a lot of painstaking, tedious work ahead, which was very necessary for her homeland...
***
"Spirits... What's going on here?!" Ferrion mentally questioned himself for the umpteenth time. Cover his back? As it turned out, his companion was quite the comedian.
They were making their way through the basement levels from one slave holding area to another, and along the way, the human was barbarically committing violence, exceeding even what a legionary who had seen the horrors of pirate captivity could endure.
The humanoid rarely used ranged weapons, relying on his fists and paranormal abilities that resembled genuine sorcery, before which a biotic's abilities looked like theatrical tricks. Being a biotic himself, the Turian understood the vast gulf separating his capabilities from his companion's skills.
Even if the "Singularity" was somewhat more powerful, the variety of his arsenal and the way the human used it made him simultaneously envious and horrified by his escort's sick imagination. The human didn't shed blood or walk over corpses... He simply bathed in rivers of blood and entrails, killing, maiming, and simultaneously playing on their psyche as if he were not a living being but a synthetic!
The humanoid was excellent at playing on their psyche. Some bandits shot themselves upon seeing a demonstration of his companion's skills, provided they managed to bring the barrel to their temple... Most often, they didn't succeed, becoming a bloody pulp, lazily dripping down the walls and ceiling, splattering everyone present with their still twitching flesh in agony.
One could say there were few pirates and guards. Usually, they attacked them one by one, rarely two. Only an ambush of fifty guards met the same fate.
Ferrion managed to fire only once from his pistol, finishing off a pirate torn in half so he wouldn't suffer, as it was all over. The human had wrought devastation that a rare Asari matriarch could not replicate. They could easily repeat one of the demonstrated feats, but comprehensively...
"Barbarism," the Turian said with disgust, wiping the spray of someone's brains and blood from his face, which he had only just noticed.
"No. The enemy is dead. Innocents were not harmed. Others will see and think. And do we need to?" Plutonium reasoned, and the legionary admitted some correctness in his words.
"If they can, why can't they be treated the same way?"
The human had improved his speech significantly during their journey. In all aspects, he was a strange sentient being to Ferrion, but his logic was undeniable. With just one phrase, he made the legionary doubt. If the pirates had known that retribution would be like this, would they have dared to be cruel?
"I don't get any pleasure from this. I feel all their pain. Fear. Horror. Despair. I'm moving on. It's the job. So that this doesn't happen at home. If I get dirty, fewer other dirty hands will." After a minute of silence and another corpse, the human said.
"You feel it?" the legionary didn't understand.
"I feel you too. Weakness. How the shackles rubbed. Misunderstanding. Weaker than your comrades," the last word was not fully understood by Ferrion, as it was spoken in a language unknown to him, but he grasped the essence.
"Much weaker. Like a whisper."
"How haven't you gone mad..."
"Duty," the human shrugged.
"I don't get pleasure. If I start... I hope they won't spare bullets for me. They'll manage to leave some. I fight monsters. There's no other way. It would be hypocritical. The truth is bitter and terrible."
For a while, they continued in silence. Ferrion pondered what he had heard, replaying the thought in his head for several minutes before asking:
"And is this truth necessary?" he asked, surprised at himself.
"Scared?" the human asked him, and he was ready to swear that he was smiling under his mirrored helmet.
"Hypocrisy is even scarier. For that, they paid with blood. Innocent blood. To understand. They swore not to allow it. It's wrong when a child pays with their life. A terrible price for everyone's lives. Such things cannot be forgotten. Scarier than the most horrific death."
"Agreed. It's wrong, but the method..."
"Perhaps life itself is wrong. That doesn't mean seeking death. If you find a better way... The entire USSR will say thank you," Plutonium replied.
"We didn't find one. There was no other way. Either death, or this. Even worse than death. A terrible price for freedom in a terrible world. You don't even know what horrors you don't see... Think about why your Protheans died out. And I'll tell you... they were wiped out. I don't want that for my country. I have to be cruel."
"Wiped out?" Ferrion asked with a voice full of skepticism.
"We believe they ascended to a new stage of development."
"Slaughtered," Plutonium cut him off.
"Like dozens of other civilizations. And the Protheans weren't saints either. Just as intelligent as us. I can tell you this as a descendant of their experiment. It's hard not to believe when you've found a laboratory with mummified remains yourself..."
The human had almost gotten rid of his accent, so his last words sounded more sinister. The Turian shivered as if from the cold, looking at the history of the galaxy and his people, in particular, in a new light. Lost too deep in thought, which was unacceptable in a combat situation, he didn't notice how his interlocutor tensed up, flinching at the change in his voice's timbre when he spoke again:
"We have problems," the human said in a growling tone, full of rage and fury, which itself exuded a threat.
"Fucking pies... these assholes had a brilliant idea to use prisoners as human shields. And the faggots came up with nothing better than to shield themselves with children."
Ferrion didn't understand half of the curses ("Pies"? What is that anyway?), but judging by how the air around Plutonium began to tremble, filling with static, everything became clear anyway.
"Where and what's the plan?" he asked businesslike, checking the remaining ammunition in his weapon. Even though the human was frightening, and simultaneously washing his brain, the legionary was tired of being just a shadow and a puppet, with whom a soul-baring, almost monologue was being conducted.
"We're closest to all groups. Hold on..." Plutonium swiftly grabbed him across the body, easily throwing him over his shoulder, and took off with such speed that for the Turian's perception, reality blurred into a single spot. The legionary almost dropped his pistol from surprise.
"So, these scraps are around the corner," the human said, placing the legionary down like a figurine by the corner. From the sudden stop, Ferrion was disoriented for a moment, but the reflexes drilled into him during training quickly took over.
Shaking his head, chasing away the sparks, the legionary cautiously extended the barrel of his weapon, polished to a mirror shine, under the human's interested and understanding gaze. Seeing the reflection, the Turian immediately put his pistol away, cursing profanely.
"Besides pirates, there are two broken Geth Primes and a Juggernaut, but the latter is not certain," he explained, seeing Plutonium's incomprehension.
"Synthetics. Reprogrammed. Armored and with powerful shields. Tanks on legs."
While the legionary himself had dealt with reprogrammed Juggernauts, he had only heard of Primes. Too rare technology – not affordable for every riffraff.
"Shit," the human stated too calmly.
"But it changes nothing for us. Skaven are in position. The rest will be here in two minutes. There wouldn't be problems if it weren't for the proximity of groundwater. Here..."
Plutonium made a pass with his hand towards the floor. As if from his sleeve, with a slight flash, an assault rifle with a curved magazine (all the weapons lacked the elegance familiar to the Turian) and a khaki-colored body armor with a red star fell softly onto the concrete.
"I'm going first. You cover. Those crawling from the walls and ceiling are our own," the human added, under the legionary's bewildered gaze, pulling a belt with pouches from a bluish flash, on which grenades were clearly visible.
"I'm going..."
"Madman! Utter lunatic!!!" the Hierarchy fighter thought, hastily putting on the armor and slinging the weapon over his shoulder, not having time to see Plutonium slip around the corner. Gunfire from his weapon (clearly plasma) and the crackle of electricity could already be heard from there.
Putting on his helmet and tightening the slightly constricting chin strap, he heard a familiar click and hiss of sealing with surprise. Internally shuddering in anticipation of a bullet, the legionary stepped after the human, raising the assault rifle, which only seemed crude and uncomfortable. Firing a few shots without looking, the Turian rushed forward.
The wooden stock hit his shoulder painfully, but the assault rifle felt like an extension of his hands. The barrel only twitched slightly upward and to the side, but the legionary's hands automatically corrected its position.
With a hiss, three bullets burst from the barrel, igniting with reactive sparks. Fired at random, they surprisingly accurately knocked down one Batarian guard and blew off the visor of another, detonating upon impact.
"They're even homing!" it flashed in Ferrion's mind as he rolled behind a crate. The return fire passed millimeters from him, embedding itself in the cover.
As soon as he managed to hide behind the cover, the left wall of the storage room seemed to explode, but the debris was drawn into the opened passage. A moment later, something clumsy, clanking, and sparkling with red lens-eyes flew out from there...
It was a rodent, clearly in heavy armor, which looked like the product of junk technology and a ballroom genius, standing a good four meters tall. Behind its back, on a backpack that rumbled like an ancient fossil fuel engine, a red banner with a golden hammer and sickle was attached.
Scanning with bloody gas mask lenses, from under which the rodent's white fur peeked through, its gaze stopped at one of the Primes. Spark. Storm...
"For the Motherland!!!" the interweaving of flesh and crude mechanics shouted, causing the white chest plates, adorned with a red star, to tremble. Its mechanical paws more comfortably gripped a giant matte-black axe, combined with something heavy-range, from which the chains that bound the weapon to it severed the head of a distracted pirate.
The Turian shuddered as this behemoth raised a weapon larger than himself. The last thing he managed to make out was that something was written on the axe handle in red paint...
Puffing with its reactive engines, the creature lunged forward, clumsily but irresistibly. A black armored fist sent the Prime flying.
In a new burst of flame, accompanied by the howl of engines, the rodent attacked the synthetic, chopping at it with its axe. The kinetic field protected the machine from damage, and it responded with all its might, only its opponent didn't care.
It was being fired upon from a dozen barrels. Armor fell off in chunks. Hydraulic fluid, mixed with blood, splashed out, but it gave itself over to the fight, raining more and more blows upon the synthetic.
The roar of the axe, biting into the Prime's armor, merged with the screech of overloaded shields and the roar of the engine on the rat's back...
"What the fuck!!!" shrieked a Batarian whose leg had been crushed by this cyborg just by stepping on it. Ferrion couldn't believe it, but he sympathized with this outcast, feeling his left eye twitching under his polarized visor.
A gray horde poured from the opened passage, bristling with bayonets and firing on the run, interspersed with buzzing small drones.
With a crackle, the ceiling opened, and more rodents slid down on cables. They landed softly like a gray carpet on the children whom the bandits and mercenaries had forgotten. Plutonium lowered a protective sphere, nodding to the gray rodents, and plunged into the fight...
In an instant, he was at the Juggernaut. The two-handed sword, which had inexplicably appeared in his hands, glowing with red flashes, struck the synthetic's kinetic field so hard that it fell to one knee.
The human's weapon disintegrated into links connected by a chain, lashing from left to right, freeing his left hand, from which a stream of viscous liquid poured...
Shaking his head for the umpteenth time, the legionary ran out from behind cover, rushing towards the children, shooting at the enemy on the run.
The rodents covered them with their bodies. Some gray warriors held full-height assault shields, firing shotguns from behind them. Shots occasionally pierced the gray blanket, knocking out puffs of blood from the defenders, but they made no sound.
Seeing that one of the Primes was aiming at the hostages, and realizing that the defenders' bodies would not stop it, the Turian threw a grenade at it. The explosion knocked the machine's aim off, but did not damage it.
"I don't believe what I'm doing!" Ferrion thought, shouting at the top of his lungs, trying to drown out the cannonade of battle:
"After me!!!" he tried to attract the attention of the rodents, who were still emerging from the breach in the wall, setting an example himself by running at the reprogrammed Geth.
Jumping onto an overturned shelf, he leaped onto the synthetic, landing on its nape. Pressing his assault rifle to its head, the legionary held down the trigger. The bullets bounced off the powerful kinetic field uselessly, but they served their purpose, diverting the mechanism's attention to a new target.
The Geth didn't bother and simply pulled Ferrion off by the leg, throwing him aside. Flying about ten meters, the Turian crashed into the wall with such force that his vision darkened. Falling to the floor, he saw the rodents surrounding the mechanism and bombarding it with grenades, deliberately exposing themselves to gunfire.
"Psychos..." the legionary thought tiredly, feeling his strength rapidly draining. Captivity and poor nutrition were taking their toll.
Suddenly, another human appeared next to him, who, taking him by the hand, yanked him to his feet, patting him on the helmet. Grimacing from the ringing in his ears and not hearing what was said to him, feeling only the vibration, Ferrion staggered back into the fight with unsteady steps, confidently pressing the weapon's stock to himself...