Rebirth The Mass Effect is old

Anderson sounded the alert, and I left to prepare for the landing. The recipient's memory was fully assimilated, I was more or less familiar with weapons, and therefore the preparation did not take much time. Already standing in the airlock, I approached the Turian and said softly,:

"Naylus, may I ask for... in some way... a promise."

SPEKTR gasped at the question and blinked in surprise. He was the only one who heard my words: the Turians' hearing is very sharp, and he easily heard my almost silent whisper. He hesitated for a few moments, but curiosity overcame his doubts, and the man answered just as quietly.:

"You can."

"Naylus. Swear to me that you will NOT turn your back on an armed reasonable. The green eyes widened in surprise. Especially if you know this reasonable person perfectly well and trust him infinitely." My cold voice and gaze made him flinch.

"Do you know something?"

"Intuition." — a hard look of green eyes in response.

"She is very tender and sensitive to those who live in war. Mine is RARELY wrong. And I smell betrayal and your stupid death."

The Turian blinked. I liked the hard, staring look. The man thought about it. He didn't brush it off, but took it into consideration, glaring at me suspiciously. And finally, a slow response.

Naylus swore without a trace of irony.

"Naylus." The man tilted his head questioningly. "If you die, I'll kill you."

A low rumbling laugh, and the SPECTR moved away to the descending ramp.

I'm sorry, Jenkins. I'm afraid you won't survive the first Geth drone attack. Naylus's life is more important to me than yours.

Chapter 2: Eden Prime: Losses

The crimson colors of the sunset flooded the silent world with blood. The sun was slowly sinking below the horizon, blinding sensitive eyes, and it smelled acutely of smoke and burning. The tall building was filled with heavy smoke from the fire. The trees rustled softly, the dry soil creaked under the soles. A heavy, oppressive picture. Alenko shivered.

"It smells of smoke and death." — the fighter's quiet hoarse voice sounded... organically in the atmosphere of a world drowning in sunset.

I nodded silently, lowering my visor. The sniper rifle clicked softly, coming into firing position. I don't like rushing headlong into the unknown. I may remember the canon, but my knowledge has already been blurred by time, and I cannot guarantee its absolute accuracy. Embodied reality is not a game. Minor changes that do not affect the key chain of events are quite normal and may cost me my life. I'm not Shepard. I am outside the rules of this world. I will die, and another hero will come in my place and lead this universe along the beaten path.

"Let's go."

The fighters followed me, looking warily around, only Alenko muttered softly: "Damn!", plunging into a murky greenish slush.

We found the first bodies on a rock very close to the landing point: black, burnt to slag, they lay losing their greasy ashes in the gusts of wind. Alenko swallowed.

"What happened here?"

"We'll find out soon enough." catching the fighter's gaze, I dryly retorted: "Stop being hysterical! It's like seeing a corpse for the first time!"

The guy looked down and shut up, and I slowly walked forward. A little further on, there are more bodies scattered along the road. The same burnt ones, crumbling into pieces of ashes and more smoldering coals.

A barely audible whistling sound made me abruptly raise my clenched fist. The soldiers froze, listening to the whistling of the wind. Was it just my imagination? It shouldn't be...There are three Geth drones out there somewhere. I pointed my fingers at my eyes and waved my hand. Jenkins nodded and cautiously stepped out onto the road, peering intently at the bushes and trees.

The drones appeared unexpectedly, emerging from behind a large rock. A short burst of blue pulses, and Jenkins collapsed onto the road with a muffled wheeze, Alenko stood up with a jerk, clinging to the stone.

The sniper rifle jerked in my hands, and the drone crashed to the ground, sparking and smoking. The subtle beep of reloading, catching the next one in the sights, firing. Alenko took off the last one.

Damn it! Three flying things and immediately — a corpse on the ground! That's how you could put yourself up like that? Lowering my weapon, I cautiously approached the fighter's body. Is dead. The shots penetrated the flimsy shield instantly, ripping through the light armor.

A confused Alenko stopped nearby.

"Jenkins..."

"Is dead. Inattention leads to such results." bending down, she closed the wide-open eyes of the dead man. "Be careful. After completing the mission, his body will be taken to the ship."

Alenko nodded curtly, frowning at me. What did you expect, I'll be hysterical and upset? So it would be worth learning the psychological profile of your commander! Irene was anything but a compassionate idiot. Jenkins, somewhere in the depths of my callous soul, was still a pity. A self-confident, enthusiastic young guy. I remember him bragging to Dr. Chakwas. Unfortunately, such people are the first to die. Stepping over the body, I moved forward, moving from stone to stone. These drones are not the only ones here.

The connection clicked softly and Naylus's muffled voice reported:

"Shepard, there are several burnt-out buildings and a lo-ot of corpses." a purring voice stretched out this "a lot", giving me an estimate of the scale of the disaster. "I'll try to scout out the situation and meet you at the excavation site."

"Don't you remember what you said before we landed?" I asked quietly.

A short pause and a muffled reply:

"I remember."

"Don't disappoint me, Naylus. I don't want to find your body. Jenkins is enough for me."

"Died?"

"Yes. Try not to add to the number of our losses."

The connection is gone. Alenko looked at me strangely, but, thank all the gods of this world, he did not comment in any way.

"Be careful! These drones are clearly not the only ones here!"

The man shuddered, tightened his grip on the rifle and slowly walked forward. I stood a little to the side, peering into the rustling foliage, at the massive tree trunks, at the boulders. The drones attacked twice more, but now, knowing what to expect, they were easily killed. Only Kayden had taken a couple of shots in the shoulder, and now, hissing obscenities, he was treating his wounds with panacelin, trying not to meet my eyes. Shame on the parasite!

Shots rang out ahead. Kayden jumped up and grabbed his weapon.

"Take your time. Finish the dressing. I'll check it out."

The fighter nodded and went back to work, and I climbed up a small hill and peered through the scope, peering into a rather vast little valley stretching along steep hills to the excavation site, whose lamps dispersed the sunset twilight with bright arrows of white light.

Gunshots and the already familiar whistle of drones sounded closer, a woman in gray-steel armor jumped out from behind the rocks, slipped, caught a shot in the back, absorbed by the bluish film of the shield. Ashley Williams. A short thrust of the butt into the shoulder, the drone somersaulted in the air and crashed to the ground. Ashley rolled head over heels behind a rock, removing the last one and catching another shot. There were no storyline geths, but there was a body on the spike, and more than one, fortunately, it was still fresh, and you didn't have to wait for huskies from here for another couple of hours.

While I was chatting with Ashley, Kayden stamped with a guilty face, and I confronted the fighter with the fact that this lady was coming with us. The guy didn't mind. A little further behind the piles of boulders and rock fragments, the excavation site and the Geth scurrying through it were beautifully illuminated by numerous searchlights. At this distance, even the powerful optics of the rifle made it impossible to examine the synthetics in more detail, but, reasonably thinking that I could easily examine their corpses in all the details, I squeezed the trigger. The Geth, hiding behind a rock, tumbled from the impact of a heavy bullet and sank to the ground. The creatures got nervous, scattering into hiding, and I shot them steadily and methodically, preventing them from leaning out and approaching the range of fire, fortunately, the Geth did not carry sniper weapons.

Funny, they really have a light bulb on their head! And it's so convenient to aim at it! Kayden's attempts to rush into battle were cut short by a short mat and Ashley's hand, which pulled him behind cover. Shots slammed into the stone, where his evil head had been a moment ago, knocking out fountains of stone chips.

"Alenko!" I looked up from the optics and shook my head reproachfully.

The man cringed guiltily.

"Check it out. They could have hidden." Ashley and Alenko turned to the right, skirting a wide stone disk in an arc, hiding behind huge boulders. Shots rang out, and the geth screamed thinly. I must have really missed someone.

"Clear." Ashley's back.

I put the rifle away and came out of hiding. The ancient ruins spread out before me in all their glory... It sounds like it... In fact, I saw only a shallow excavation with an excavated massive double disc of yellowish stone and a pair of collapsed columns, whose purpose will remain lost in the darkness of history. The lighthouse, tellingly, is missing.

"As I understand it, the lighthouse was here?" I nodded at the playground.

Ashley nodded.

"Yes. Apparently it has already been rescheduled."

"Who! Ours or the Geth?"

"It's hard to say." The woman shrugged her shoulders. "Let's check out the research camp and maybe find out more."

"Do you think anyone survived?" I asked, folding the cooled weapons.

Ashley shrugged her shoulders.

"Maybe they survived if they hid. The camp is over there."

The woman waved her hand, pointing to the hill at the base of which the lighthouse was found.

The connection clicked.

"Plans are changing, Shepard," Nayllus voice sounded strained. "There is a small spaceport here. I'll check it out. I'll be waiting there."

I didn't answer, but searched the neighborhood. An Avenger rifle was found in one of the drawers. A slightly more powerful model than my Lancer. After critically examining the weapon, I threw the service stuff into the rattled drawer and hung the Avenger on my back. Alenko blinked, and Ashley just chuckled, but said nothing, only approval flashed in her gray eyes.

I didn't find anything else interesting. The tripods I already knew with the bodies of people strung on spikes stood in disarray along the ruins, but the rebuilding process had just begun and was not visible from the outside, although I could see the limbs of the definitely dead people twitching slightly.

"To string on a stake ... Instead of shooting him... Shouldn't that make sense?" Ashley whispered, looking away.

"They intimidate as." Kayden muttered.

He kicked over the Geth corpse, and I shook my head.

"These are synthetics, Kayden. They act from the point of view of logic. It makes some kind of sense. Rational. We just don't know him."

Geth stared up at the bloody skies with his eyepiece extinguished. A massive humanoid creature with an elongated metal head, light black armor covering the sternum, shoulders, partially legs, three-fingered hands resembling Turian ones. Geth's flesh was dark, almost black, as if twisted from tourniquets and pseudo-muscles, faintly glowing with bluish lights, which slowly but surely went out.

"An interesting creature." I stood up abruptly. "Let's check out the research camp. And try not to expose yourself."

The fighters nodded.

A well-trodden path led to the camp, winding along the very edge of a steep rocky hill. It's wide enough to walk comfortably, but not wide enough for even a small military vehicle to pass through. The path wound between hefty boulders, hiding the town ahead.

Unlike the game world, the camp turned out to be quite large: about a dozen modular buildings, a small warehouse, and a flyer area, now littered with bodies and bristling with a palisade of Geth stakes. Some of the train houses were smoking greasy smoke, in some places the flames of a dying fire were still visible, charred bodies of humans and Geth lay on the ground in the craters of the explosions. A small military truck was burning down peacefully at the edge of the road to the spaceport.

A soft rustle sounded in the silence. Kayden flinched and spun around.

"Fuck! What is it?"

I turned around, peeking out from behind the stone. As I watched, the spikes folded, retracting into the support, and the body, which had previously hung limply on the stake, convulsively moved.

"It's a husk!" Ashley whispered, raising the shotgun.

I confess, I was shamefully confused! This creature looked like a dead zombie raised by a half-educated necromancer! The shrunken skin split, exposing bluish muscles intertwined with strange growths, blue lights of implants and metal parts glittered through the altered flesh, glowing eyepieces instead of eyes. It's creepy!

"That's the answer."

"He's still alive!"

"Kayden! Turn on your brain and open your eyes! Where did you see a Human there?!" I couldn't resist cursing. "Look at what they look like! SHOOT!"

The short-lived battle with the Huskies has put the last points in the situation on Eden Prime. Now even the stubborn Alenko did not ask stupid questions, looking at the bodies hanging on pins. His attempt to shoot them was stopped by a short phrase:

"They're already dead, Kayden. It's useless to shoot until the transformation is over."

The man lowered his head, nodded briefly. Ashley wasted no time searching the remaining houses.

"Captain! The security system is enabled here!"

The fighter waved her hand, pointing to one of the surviving modular buildings.

Pick the lock. The woman nodded, bent over the lock plate, and I noticed the golden sheen of the instrument. The lock gave up quickly, with a slightly muffled squeak. The doors opened.

"Captain, there are survivors!"

"What?" I blinked in surprise. I'd happily forgotten about that.

Two scientists, a man and a woman, huddled fearfully in a dark room. People sincerely thanked us, glancing fearfully at the street, which was slowly being flooded by the coming darkness. It will be dark soon.

"I know you! You're Dr. Warren!" Ashley roused herself. "You led the research!"

The woman nodded. Tall, thin, with short dark red hair, she was perfectly in control of herself, unlike the hysterically terrified man huddled against the wall.

"What happened to the lighthouse?" I asked.

"He was transferred to the spaceport yesterday. We stayed behind to help break up the camp."