Despite its gravity and scale, the battle for the Citadel gradually subsided, leaving behind corpses, destroyed equipment, fires, and deserted streets. The Reaper forces could not take control of the capital of Space by force, and after that, it lost its meaning when the trap prepared by the USSR for decades snapped shut.
This could have been called a victory if not for the escalating scandal in diplomatic and power circles. The Reaper attack, instead of uniting the races, divided them completely, despite the efforts of the Citadel Council, some of whose members tried to smooth over the contradictions. Perhaps they would have succeeded, but the elites had been instilling a negative trigger towards the Union in ordinary sentient beings for too long, increasing the degree of rage and impatience in society.
While third-tier politicians and opinion puppets bombarded each other with claims, at the very top, on the Olympus of political life, things happened almost quietly. The same advisors were already using a completely different rhetoric, trying to understand the USSR's intentions and, most importantly, to secure protection. However, this did not prevent them from seeking an audience with the Primarch, not counting the advisor from the Hierarchy, who had already been given all instructions.
In the face of the approaching storm, everyone wanted to be friends with everyone, in the name of a war of all against all, while trying to grab a privileged position for themselves personally. The galaxy was rapidly converging on two centers, where the Citadel, despite its cultural symbol, was losing political significance. The diplomats of the Union, led by Comrade Sechenov, could only play their game, knowing that the game was already calculated several moves ahead, as long as they paid the price...
Tracer fire pierced the raised cloud of dust and ash. The petal of the Citadel shuddered again when another tentacle of the Sovereign descended upon the station's surface.
The Red Army soldiers paid no attention to this cataclysm, continuing to push back the snarling collectors. Clouds of drones judged the heretical Geth, showering them with fire from small-caliber guns or their own bodies packed with explosives.
Amidst the man-made chaos, multiplying it with their ferocity, the assault rats waged their battle, finally deploying heavy artillery on the ancient station. Flashes of flame from explosions and the glow of flamethrowers tore through the dust, saturating the air, permeated with blood and death, with the smell of fuel mixed with combustion products of explosives.
Below, beneath the surface levels, another war was taking place. In the narrow corridors with poor lighting, there were no battles of large units. Almost dueling battles reigned here, and blood flowed not from firearms, but by means of good old sharp steel and strong fists.
In the darkness, even with armor systems and heightened senses, it was useless to aim or give target designation. At a distance of ten meters, it no longer mattered what you held in your hand – a pistol or a knife. In the tangled technical shafts, a submachine gun or rifle only hindered the shooter, slowing them down. Therefore, in the communications, blood flowed as in ancient times…
A plasma sphere illuminated the side passage with a ragged light, hissing as it struck a bundle of wires secured to the wall with dusty staples. The insulation plastic sprayed in different directions, leaving a smoky trail. Miranda's nostrils were hit by the smell of burnt synthetics.
The scorched robot chassis, within which the living remnants of the disgraced academic sloshed, paid no attention to the molten splashes. Even when the next shot melted its outer shell, it felt nothing. The machine, tumbling absurdly, disappeared with surprising speed around the bend.
The girl had been pursuing the fugitive from the surface, preventing him from manipulating any equipment by destroying it with a dozen hits, and she was already quite angered by all these chases. Although outwardly she remained a snow queen, inside, a fire of rage flared with every passing second.
From her knee, she sent five more plasma spheres towards the traitor's vessel and, seeing no result on the robot's back, she rushed forward. The old mechanism, as if mocking her, did not allow her to close the distance, pushing somewhere deeper into the station.
Light suddenly burst from behind another turn, dispelling the gloom of the technical lighting, cutting into her eyes. Another cunning turn led into a hall that, judging by the hum, was one of the air conditioning units on the Citadel.
The air, filled with hundreds of aromas, dust, and small debris, made her cough from the naturally hoarse throat. A moment of pity for the abandoned helmet did not prevent the CERBERUS investigator from taking the blow of a steel paw on a polymer shield, erected more on an intuitive level.
"Now we can talk," the academic Lebedev said calmly in a synthesized voice, delivering another blow with his vessel.
The polymer protection again sprang back the machine's limb, only this time a thin film wrapped around the manipulator, releasing thin tendril-like whips. The substance, driven by Miranda's will, sought to immobilize the limb or break its mechanisms.
Lebedev reacted instantly. His brain, accustomed to operating with data streams, instantly found a solution.
The gorilla-like robot, inside which his brain tissue floated in preservative fluid, leaned on its free hand, spun itself around, and rammed its legs into the girl's stomach.
A hastily raised polymer barrier only reduced the force of the blow and protected her from damage. The received impulse sent Miranda into a short flight.
The polymer protected her from hitting the air conditioning system unit, serving as a damper, fulfilling the investigator's instinctive desire to protect herself.
"You simply cannot imagine how many complications your birth caused!" Lebedev said, attacking again.
Miranda summoned more polymer from her spatial storage, forming a semi-transparent, jelly-like whip, knocking the jumping robot off course.
The old mechanism, swept away by the lashing blow, crashed to the floor with a roar, awkwardly somersaulting over its head to be back on its feet, stumble, fall, and rush at the girl again.
The attempt to grab the machine telekinetically failed completely. The investigator, as usual, directed a stream of invisible energy, but something seemed to prevent her from squeezing the unyielding metal. The CERBERUS investigator had to twist, letting the heavy projectile pass over her, and even then the manipulators clicked dangerously close to her face.
"Tricks won't help you," the traitor stated, not even trying to defend himself from the electric discharge, which danced powerlessly on his shell. "This mechanism is far more perfect than pathetic flesh."
The robot tore through the cloud of refrigerant with its body, like ordinary fog. Frost did not hold well on the composite of its hull, and what formed from the air melted instantly. Miranda had to dodge again to avoid being broken like a doll.
She shifted herself telekinetically to the side, breaking the distance, while simultaneously firing from the hip. Plasma charges hit the robot, even heating its hull to red, but no more.
"Your creator only needed to isolate a stable version of the DNA of a mortal vessel for a digital goddess, but not to create such an abomination as you!" the former scientist tore a pipe from the cooling system.
The sharp, broken end flashed like a spearhead in the air, cutting into the polymer sphere raised by the girl. The film stretched and punctured, as if with a needle. A piece of pipe crunched into Miranda's thigh.
The armor's automation instantly injected all the necessary chemicals into the wearer's blood, and the investigator herself broke off the hollow rod with a movement of her hand, not extracting the piece stuck in the wound. Although she felt no pain, it did not mean that the skills acquired in first aid courses should be neglected.
Seeing his success, the academic changed tactics again, beginning to throw pipes at the agile target.
"Instead, he bred a chimera, mixing human genes with Asari and Quarian filth! How does it feel to know that you are an unnatural hybrid, grown by a scientist driven to madness in an attempt to bring back a long-dead sister? You were not in the future I calculated. Therefore, you had to be either killed or made minor. Ah, I should have done it myself, not relied on executors…"
Dodging once more, Miranda pulled a kinetic submachine gun from storage, instantly pressing the trigger. A burst of supersonic needles lashed at the traitor's vessel.
Composite fragments sprayed in different directions. With a dull thud and sparks, the needles pierced all layers of the shell, though they did not cause significant harm to the robot, only making its movements even more clumsy.
"But I needed a genetic key," Lebedev continued his confession. "Only with its help could I try to hack the algorithms of the main array of the 'Collective.' The original sample was exhausted, you weren't suitable. Therefore, I had to force him to create a perfect copy. Although he agreed himself! You are not her!"
The machine was knocked aside. A fragment of the split system, propelled by telekinesis, hit it like a truck, though it did not cause significant damage.
Grinding its servos, the robot picked up this lump of twisted metal and hurled it at Miranda. The woman slid to the side in a roll. The projectile, scattering debris, crashed to the floor of the machine room with a roar.
Deflecting most of the shrapnel with polymer whips, Miranda did not waste time reloading the SMG. Entangling the machine's legs with one of the whips, she pulled, knocking the robot over. The polymer quickly contracted, pulling the vessel closer.
Dodging a fist, the investigator entangled the manipulator with a whip from her left hand, fixing it. The substance quickly flowed into the joint between the hull plates, expanding and tearing the joint. She did the same with the other hand.
Gushing technical fluids from its stumps, the machine tried to kick her, but the polymer had already begun to work on them, literally sawing through the joints. Lifting the chassis on polymer threads, the girl opened the robot's chest cavity, exposing the brain in the flask…
"Perfect," Lebedev stated, activating a hidden mechanism.
Neuroconnectors dug into Miranda's flesh. Driven by bone drills, armor was no barrier to them. They did not notice it, like muscles and bones, connecting to the victim's nervous system.
"You said I was useless…" the girl rasped, overcoming almost unbearable pain.
"I lied," was his answer. "There's no need for an alien to tell the truth. Since you destroyed the device, you will serve as its replacement! I will connect to the 'Collective' and allow CHAR-les to be reborn…"
"I am human," Miranda interrupted him, activating the generators of her polymer gloves to full power, additionally powering them from the armor's reactor. A discharge, equal in strength to a lightning strike, pierced both of them, their screams echoing.
The flask with the brain instantly boiled and exploded, killing its contents, but the current continued to torment the investigator. However, the torture was short-lived. The armor's automation activated an emergency power source ejection…
Miranda fell to her side. Blood flowed from her wounds. Either steam or smoke rose from the armor. The smell of burnt flesh and preservative solution hung in the air.
The investigator tried to stand up, but this surge extinguished her consciousness completely, sending her into unconsciousness.
"You should see a doctor, Commander," the captain offered without much hope.
Shep, on whom only rags remained from his spacesuit, just shook his head stubbornly. Leaning his back against the wall of the tower, he hypnotized the body, covered in a plastic bag, waiting with apprehension for the plastic to twitch and the monster, once dead, to emerge from it.
"I can't believe that... it's over? So easily? How many did he kill, how long did we chase him, and he was killed by the one whose body he occupied. I don't even want to know what it's like to live as a prisoner in your own head and wait for the moment!"
He glanced at the panorama of the devastated Citadel. Smoke, the glow of fires, and the carcass of a defeated Reaper, slowly drifting over the ancient station. Realizing it was the end, the machine destroyed its computational core, just to avoid falling into the hands of the Motherland.
"Victory? Ha! Just the beginning! Now we have no visible markers, and the Reapers are not constrained by the rules they invented themselves. Total chaos and a struggle for survival have begun…"
Someone else's pain pierced his mind, instantly jolting him out of his melancholic mood and giving him a surge of energy. Listening to the flashes in the "Collective," he understood whose torment it was. "Miranda!" flashed in his head as he ran.
Love, in a world where everyone feels the emotions of others, is a dangerous endeavor, however beautiful. Lovers share everything equally, regardless of distance…
The steady sound of the metronome was calming, allowing him to sort out his thoughts. I still can't believe I managed to play out the whole combination after Lebedev's betrayal.
Leaning back in my chair, I looked at the cabin ceiling.
"If only I had known long ago what my desire would lead to... Maybe I would never have wanted to pave the way to the stars," I said into the void, feeling more than ever all the dirt, pain, and destruction that had to be brought to the galaxy for the sake of organic life's survival.
"What kind of Wizard am I? A scientist, a father, a politician, and just a tired person," I continued to ponder the price.
"You are the one thanks to whom hope became possible," a quiet female voice sounded in my head. "I understand how tired you are... It hurts me to watch you die, it hurts me to judge you, but it is my duty. You created me for this."
"You rarely talk to anyone..." I replied aloud, seeing a hologram of the collective mind projected in the corner of the cabin.
"Only when it's necessary," was the answer in the same sad, tired intonation. "In other situations, such a conversation would be like schizophrenia. I, in essence, am each of you."
The personification of the collective mind, our most powerful AI, was at this moment impossible to be lifeless. "Maybe you are a wizard too, if you managed to embody something like this in metal," a thought flashed out of place.
"I also think about the price," Motherland began to speak after a few minutes of silence. "You feel death, but you don't see your own memories and emotions at this moment. Knowing that you might not wake up afterward, that not everyone can be reborn, you don't fear it like before. It's illogical and logical. That's why we are afraid of the unknown."
"And I am afraid of the price for revealing this unknown," I formulated everything that was on my mind in a few words, although I could have simply formed a thought-image. "Did I make a mistake somewhere? Are we doing everything right?"
"As it turns out, even AIs make mistakes. How many times have I allowed and not stopped someone on the verge of fanaticism? Too soft for a judge, too harsh for a mother," the machine mind now indulged in philosophy. "The law is sometimes unfair, and judging by conscience is a path to anarchy. All that remains is to move forward and do better than before. You, Dmitry Sergeevich, should know this."
"That's why I'm moving forward, knowing that the price for inaction and cowardice will be greater, but also getting used to the fact that for survival, we have to play with sentient beings and manipulate alien races," I cannot.
"That is precisely why you were worthy of the chance to lead us to the stars, Comrade Sechenov. You have conscience and morality. Academic Lebedev, as it turned out, was devoid of this quality. That's who truly played with people, not with others'. We will not survive this storm at such a price. We will go another way, but before that, we will free them from prejudices and illusions…"