The monorail slowly rolled up to the platform, smoothly slowed down and stopped, swaying slightly. The small train station was deathly silent. Snowflakes were slowly whirling, swept by the wind through the broken glass, frost stung my cheeks and chilled my throat when I inhaled, an explosion stain darkened against the wall, a spent thermoclip lay by the benches. That's all. No sign of any survivors. The far door leading inside the station glowed with a green indicator light on the panel.

The snow creaked faintly under his armored soles as Garrus stopped nearby, warily scanning the deserted train station over the muzzle of his rifle.

"Clear."

I closed my eyes, starting the scan. In confined spaces, I was able to sense sentients within a radius of about three hundred to five hundred meters, but now that was enough.

"There are reasonable people nearby. A lot. About two dozen. Maybe three." Meeting the green eyes, I added: * The matriarch is nearby. I feel the presence of an extremely powerful biotic and a strong passive mentalist. I guess that's how Queen Rachni feels. Both are no more than half a kilometer away.*

Nihlus nodded silently, making it clear that he understood me. They looked at me a little strangely, but no one argued. Hiding the gift of mentalism won't be relevant after meeting Benezia: I won't be able to interfere with her mind unnoticeably, and I won't try. It's time to start getting the fighters used to my oddities.

We crossed the station quickly. The automatic doors obediently swung open as we approached, admitting us into a short corridor of the already familiar appearance, which ended with locked doors.

"Tali."

The Quarian tapped the omny-tool panel and frowned.

"Forcibly blocked."

"Can you open it?"

"Yes, now."

The girl took a surprisingly long time — a minute and a half, but with a soft beep, the indicator changed color to green, and the doors swung open, taking us into a small square room... It was almost completely blocked in half by a homemade barricade made of welded crates, from behind which unfriendly men in armor looked at us.

"Are there any living ones?" Nihlus asked softly.

"Don't shoot!" A thunderous voice stopped the fighters, who had already raised their weapons. "Who are you?"

"The spectr of the Council and its squad." Nihlus replied dryly, however, without sticking his head out from behind the door.

"How did you get here?" Nihlus flared with annoyance. What kind of stupid question is that? How-how...

"We arrived by monorail!"

"The monorail is disabled." the captain answered reasonably.

"Well, we've turned it on!" The Turian growled, slowly growing furious. "Along with the reactor, ground lines of communication and the Mira!"

"Come out and show yourself."

Nihlus slowly entered the room. Glancing at the soldiers behind the barricade, the colleague nodded slightly, indicating that everything was in order, and lowered the rifle muzzle to the floor, however, without switching the weapon to a non-combat position.

"Lower your weapon." a human fighter in light gray armor came out from behind the barricade. "Captain Ventralis." he introduced himself, slightly bowing his head in greeting.

"The spectr of Nihlus Krayk."

"What business brought you to the *Crevasse*?"

"Citadel affairs." My colleague replied not very politely.

"We were not informed about the arrival of the Spectr."

"I arrived AFTER the Vershina-15 complex lost contact." cut off the Nihlus. "It is quite logical that you were not informed about our arrival!"

Ventralis grimaced, glaring at the tall Turian. Yes, Noveria is outside the jurisdiction of the Citadel Council, yes, the Spectres' powers are not so comprehensive here, but... there is always this "but". The Special Tactical Intelligence Corps is not an organization that is worth getting into trouble with at all. Even outside the Citadel's Space... Especially being outside the Citadel Space! The SPECTR has long arms, and its employees have long memories... and few people would dare to blame a SPECTR operative for an unnecessary, uninteresting corpse. This particular Spectr was in a state of barely controlled rage, which was perfectly visible. Wisely, the captain decided not to seek unnecessary adventures and not to provoke conflict from scratch.

"We are ready to cooperate with the SPECTR operatives." Ventralis replied peaceably. "But do you understand that the company's secrets must remain secrets?"

And it was necessary for Rahni to stumble into the room at that very moment, breaking through the somehow welded grate! Nihlus spun around at the noise, raised his rifle, and fired a long burst of antipersonnel bullets into the red Rachni soldier who had not had time to stand up. The creature was literally torn to pieces! Rex's shotgun rattled, rifles rattled. Three rachni died before they could get back on their paws. The soldiers behind the barricade did not fire a single shot.

Nihlus, smiling wryly, which is quite a painted Turian face... It looked like a specific clan tattoo, very reminiscent of a whitish skull... it was creepy, I changed the thermoclip and asked mockingly:

"These secrets? NO, I HAVEN'T SEEN IT! AND HE DIDN'T EVEN RECOGNIZE rahni!"

Ventralis closed his eyes wearily, ran an armored palm over his face, which was haggard with fatigue, and looked resignedly at the brazenly laughing Rex and Garrus, at my pleased face, and at Liara's embarrassed muzzle... He sighed... and he just gave up on us.

"Who are you such an ulcer at, colleague?" I asked with a grin, watching with interest as the captain's face fell.

"My beloved mentor!" Nihlus growled, flaring with rage and pent-up pain. "Captain Ventralis! We are not interested in the secrets of your company, as long as they remain secrets and do not run around the complex in large packs, devouring your subordinates and interfering with my work. Since you've taken the Rachni out and allowed them to leave the risk lab, please clean up after yourself. Otherwise, I have to report it... To bring the incident to the Building and initiate an investigation into the articles "Breeding dangerous creatures" and "Experiments on an intelligent species". You have a decade. After this time, a SPECTR ship will arrive on Noveria and conduct a sweep of the territory to prevent the spread of a species dangerous to the galactic community. Have I explained the situation clearly?"

"Quite." Ventralis replied dryly.

"Fine. Information about the incident has already been sent to the Corpus." SPECTR was pleased with his. "It doesn't matter if they get my confirmation or not. The cleanup ship will arrive anyway."

Captain fat understood perfectly well: getting rid of the unexpectedly drawn Spectr is not only useless, but also simply dangerous. If the Special Corps can still close its eyes to messing with rachni, then they will definitely not forgive the murder of the Spectrum and will shake out their whole soul.

"What are you interested in?"

"The matriarch of Benezia." Nihlus answered laconically.

"Lady Benezia left before the attack began and has not contacted us yet." Ventralis reported, clearly hinting that the Asari in question could have already glued the flippers together.

"Oh, don't worry." Nihlus bared his teeth unpleasantly. "The matriarch is alive and well."

"I can't give you full access to all of the Crevasse's risk labs." the captain reported honestly. "Just one. Find out where you need a pass, and I'll give it to you."

Nihlus chuckled and nodded, clearly understanding exactly what the captain had said to him. As they say, your problems don't bother us! If you find a place to move it, I'll skip it. If you make a mistake, that's your problem. Is he taking such petty revenge for his ruined nerves or for his trampled pride?

"Come on in. Ask people around. Maybe someone can tell me where Lady Benezia is right now."

The soldiers stood aside to let us through the barricade. Tired humans, Turians, and Salarians watched us go with heavy and indifferent stares. They've had a hard time here, but... but they didn't make me feel sorry or want to help. They knew where they were going to serve. They knew what to expect and what situations they were hired for. However, as practice has shown, they were not ready for what they were hired for. As always, when the next creation of geniuses escapes from genetics or chimerology. The little animals turned out to be much more dangerous and smarter than expected, the fighters were scared and not ready to attack the spiky-toothy-clawed creature, and as a result — another branch of a техногенного or magical nightmare. In my memory, there was only one exception, when the soldiers guarding the laboratory of a truly brilliant magician of life, a chimerologist, were able to quickly grind ALL the rubbish that he had done into a bloody mess. With huge losses. But they could. And then they didn't even let all this joy rise in the form of undead. True professionals. However, then my incarnation lasted only a year, and ended in the very laboratory when I volunteered to initiate the ritual of the collapse of the complex. What's it to me? I'll get over it in another world. I completed my task: the breakthrough of the creatures did not go into the world, so... I can keep going, because I have no desire to live in that reality.

Do I want to live in THIS reality? Yes! I want to! There are people here whom I would like to see around. There are those I want to save. There's only one thing left: to do what I came into this world to do. Change the logical outcome. None of the three *canonical* solutions to the problem suits me. We need to come up with something... something else. And I had an idea HOW to do it and WHAT it would take. And Matriarch Benezia is the first but important part of my plan.

Inside, there was a tart despondency and senseless anger, a light halo of despair and hopelessness. Tired faces with a stamp of despair. Reasonable people sitting indifferently on chairs, staring blindly into eternity. Angry and annoyed fighters. The frightened scientists. It's a lovely cocktail! A life-affirming atmosphere of intelligent people who are ready to fight for their lives! The courage and thirst for life is just splashing over the edge! Especially those two over there, huddled in a corner.

"Disgusting." Garrus muttered dully, glancing contemptuously at the figures of the local luminaries of science.

Nihlus winced painfully. As a side effect of the strengthened shield and my intervention, which structured and strengthened the defense mechanisms of the mind, multiplied by the slowly activating biotics, the Turian began to show weak empathy. He was perfectly aware of this cocktail of feelings and emotions. They were too intense to pass by his attention.

"Do you like it?"

Garrus glanced at me and shrugged.

"How can you bring yourself to such a state?" The Turian disgustedly pointed to the huddled Salarian, who was staring at us in fright and emitting mental animal terror and bright bursts of panic at every suspicious noise in the ventilation.

"Fear of death." I shrugged my shoulders. "He clings to his life too much. So much so that the instinct of self-preservation overrides the desire to protect this very life, and panic is common sense. Typical "дичь"."

"If he's so afraid, why doesn't he try to defend himself?" for a representative of a warlike people, such a thought was wild and could not fit into his head.

"Such people should not be given weapons in their hands." Nihlus shook his head. "An unpredictable alarmist is dangerous."

A Krogan flashed by with disgust. Ashley was gushing with pity. The scientific people clearly disliked Kayden for some reason of their own, but he sympathized with the fighters. Tali and Liara were surprisingly amicably ignoring those around them: the former simply didn't care, while the latter was completely absorbed in thoughts of her mother.

"It's worth taking a break while we run through the station and find out the local news. Tali." The Quarian looked at me.

"Elkor is trampling over there. See if this salesman has something interesting. If you find something like that, let me know."

The girl nodded and immediately went to a light gray massive creature dressed in... um... a purple-gray blanket, trousers and an interesting hat with rings.

"Liara, Kayden, Ashley, Garrus. If you want, you can settle down and take a break. Nihlus?"

"I don't like being here." The spectr shuddered all over.

Garrus shook his head.

"I'm not tired enough to look at... this."

"Kayden, you should take a nap." Rummaging through my hip box for show, I took out a tiny pill from my old stocks from my spatial pocket. "Take. It will relieve migraines for about seven hours."

Biotic did not argue. He just took off his armored glove, carefully picked up a tiny green ball from my palm and silently swallowed it. Garrus handed him a canteen of water.

"Sit still for ten minutes until it takes effect."

Kayden nodded.

"Rex?"

"I'll keep an eye on them." The Krogan nodded understandingly, with clear amusement in his eyes.

"Can I walk around and talk to the survivors?" Ashley asked.

"I don't mind."

Leaving Kayden and Liara in charge of Rex, Nihlus and I left with Garrus. Ashley ran away almost as soon as she got my permission.

Only half an hour was enough for us. The situation in the complex was, frankly, not as bad as we might have thought, looking at the faces of the survivors. All the problems were there, but the monorail was disconnected, which made the chance of falling out of the *Crevasse* vanishingly small.

What an irony... To survive during the breakthrough of dangerous semi-intelligent predators, and to have no way out of the station's trap only because, due to idiotic safety protocols, the reactor in the main complex was shut down, the power supply was cut off, communications were physically disconnected, and the ONLY transport connecting the station embedded in the glacier to the outside world was stopped. And, most cynically, it is impossible to include all this wealth from the *Chasm* — it is not provided for in the design! Needless to say, our sudden appearance gave us a well-founded hope for survival? At least for those who were sensible and could connect the unexpected appearance of a group of unknown sentients with the disabled monorail. One of these quick-witted people turned out to be the cunning Volus Khan Olar, who turned to us with a sacramental question:

"Are you here to find out something about THEM?"

Nihlus and Garrus exchanged glances and stared at the pot-bellied creature in unison. The Turians treated the Volus with a certain amount of sympathy and patronage, which, in principle, is not surprising: the Volus have long been part of the Turian Hierarchy and are perceived by the militant people at the level of the younger harmless, but extremely useful relatives.

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