"We have fifteen minutes left before we have to direct the convoy of archaeological party transports to the point, Karin," Anderson said. "Captain Shepard will undoubtedly take a shuttle to the area and take part in the excavation. We plan that their duration until the expected results are obtained will not exceed one Earth day. Until then, I believe he will be able to provide you with any assistance he deems necessary."

"Yes, Commander," Shepard nodded. "May I be free?"

"Permission granted, Captain." Anderson nodded, watching as the first officer opened the cabin door for the frigate's doctor and followed Karin out, not wanting to walk next to her.

The visit of the local authorities to the camp did not go unnoticed for Dr. Warren. She received a written order from one of the officials to hand over the position of head of the archaeological party to Dr. Stashinsky, after which she was placed at the disposal of the director of the Archaeological Research Center at the local University. After completing the easy transfer procedure, Dr. Warren packed up and left the archaeologists' camp. Anyway, now her former colleagues had to change the location of the camp, and the deputies for economic and administrative affairs would be able to handle it. As always, Dr. Stashinsky reserved for himself only the general supreme leadership, intending to focus on his own scientific research and the most direct participation in the upcoming excavations.

As Dr. Warren sat in the passenger seat of the traveling flyer that arrived at the camp, she did not look back at the place where the large settlement of the archaeological expedition had recently been located. In her toolbox was a file with an official invitation to work in one of the scientific departments of Cerberus. We had to think about how to combine work at the Center and work in this organization. It was a good thing that it was a few hours flight to the location of the University — there would be time to think about everything in sufficient detail. Now it will be possible to leave Eden Prime and possibly return to Earth.

Ashley finally received the file with the order from the command of her division. The document stated that the platoon should remain in its original location "until further instructions are received." I had to inform the personnel about the contents of the order her received, and give out dozens of instructions so that people would not be idle and looking for adventures in the camp and beyond. Then, personally inspect the site previously occupied by the archaeologists' camp for... Yes, just to prevent all sorts of difficulties that might otherwise arise in the future.

Ashley already knew that the archaeological expedition that excavated the Lighthouse would now be led not by Dr. Warren, but by Dr. Stashinsky, and sincerely regretted that she would not be able to communicate with this intelligent and extremely passionate man in the near future. He was very different from Dr. Warren, in whom Ashley constantly felt some kind of "double bottom". Williams didn't want to think about this "day" all the time, and she couldn't: the commander of the Marine platoon had plenty of worries that were much more important than the problems associated with a certain civilian administrator from archeology.

Sit in the same place? It wasn't difficult for Ashley and her people. After the attack by the frenzied drones, of course, several Marines had to be handed over to the military medics, including the soldier who tried to shoot so accurately at the incoming frigate shuttle. The aesculapians were currently studying the health status of the new patients, but so far they categorically refused to explain anything, much less comment in any detail. Ashley understood that what the Eden doctors had to deal with was too new. Therefore, a quick solution to the problem should not be expected.

There was still no communication, either with the Alliance's central marine base on Eden or with nearby settlements. Noting to herself that in order to filter such a dense information flow, the frigate must have impressive capacities, Ashley went to the hospital where military doctors housed the "problematic" marines.

The visit to the wards, accompanied by aesculapians, took Sergeant Williams several hours. It was only upon returning to the camp that she learned that the Lighthouse had been loaded aboard the frigate. None of the Idens really seemed to have any information about the fate of this artifact.

After checking the posts and attending the daily drill and combat training classes, Ashley returned to her tent and, sitting down on a folding chair, was finally able to relax a little.

My thoughts returned to Kayden. Sergeant Williams took out her omny-tool and began to dig through the contents of her wearable databases, intending to find at least some additional information about Alenko. After reading all the texts that were available, Ashley turned off and folded the screen of her wrist device, thinking, looking at the canopy of the tent entrance.

The information was clearly incomplete. The fact that Kayden is a strong biotic — she had the opportunity to see this personally, but everything else... It began to seem to her that a significant part of the data about Alenko had been "cleaned up" in the wearable databases.

What is Kayden hiding? More precisely, it's not what he's hiding, but why she, Marine Sergeant Williams, is haunted by the thought that Kayden had some kind of situation in the past, and perhaps more than one, that significantly affected his future life and fate, but about which there is no information in general or in general military databases. Okay, if she wasn't interested in Kayden Alenko as a person, she wouldn't have thought to waste time looking for additional information about him. After all, she is a sergeant, commands a platoon of Marines, she has her own path in army life, and Kayden Alenko, of course, has his own. So neither she nor he needs to establish any additional relationships that go beyond the scope of army service protocol. Besides, he's a biotic, and she's not a biotic, and frankly, she's a little afraid of biotics. Of course, you can read about them calmly and safely in books, but you can see a real person up close, who with a wave of his hand can break through a thick stone wall.... It's annoying.

Therefore, Ashley subconsciously was in no hurry to let go of her feelings and emotions. Kayden, yes, she likes him as a person and as a man, and she knows that for sure. You can't call it love at first sight, you can't. What kind of love is there? Someone liked someone, yes, but consider it love right away?! No, there are no prerequisites for this yet. Marveling at her clerical thoughts about Kayden, Ashley turned off the drone, got up, and walked around the tent.

Chapter 17. The Azari and the Turian. Restoring the psychosphere

Entering the medical bay, Shepards walked over to the cot where the Turian was lying on his back. Chakwas handed him a reader's summary of the fortune. The senior assistant spent several minutes studying the short text, once again making sure how masterfully Karin is able to present medical "wilds" in a simple and understandable language for a layman:

"Does Naylus know?" The XO asked quietly.

"No. I didn't tell him anything. The medical bay is isolated. He has never left his cabin, the communication lines are blocked, and VI recently checked that the isolation is complete." Chakwas replied. "John, what are we going to do?" The two Spectr's of the Citadel Council on our ship are clearly overkill."

"It's more than enough, Karin." Shepard typed a short text on the reader and showed it to the doctor. "They know each other very well."

"Yeah. And if something happened, this young man would come to me to get his license and find out why I couldn't get his mentor out?"

"I'll explain it to him in a popular way, Karin," the XO objected. "And he will leave you alone quickly and for a long time. It will be enough for him to know that you, Doctor, are not a narrow specialist in psychology and psychiatry, as well as in the rehabilitation of the alien psychosphere. He's able to understand that in any case, in almost any condition," Shepard replied.

"I hope so, John. Let's go to her." She glanced at Asari, who was sprawled on her back on the next bed. "You were right to quickly splint the fractures and lubricate the wounds with several layers of panacelin medigel. I also wanted to thank you for her gentle transportation."

"Don't worry, Karin." Shepard took another reader, handed to him by the frigate's doctor, and began to study the texts of the diagram with tables. There was more information here: the Asari had suffered to a greater extent. "Karin, did you even manage to determine that he was the first to fall under programming and external control," a glance at the Turian, "and then she became the victim of this ship and its pilot?!" a glance at the Asari. "I take off my hat. Few teachers of the Medical Faculty of the En-Seven Academy could compete with you."

"I still feel powerless, John." Chakwas replied. "If I can still somehow cope with physiology and anatomy, then it's with the psyche after this... Here, my skills and knowledge with skills are clearly not enough. This is the first time I have encountered such a deep distortion of the psychosphere."

"All right, Karin." Shepard straightened up, regaining the "String" tuning, this time — not the combat one. "I'll need to spend up to five minutes on each of them, maybe not much more. I must say right away: I will remove only the deepest, most basic, important damage so that the Turian and Asari psychospheres can regenerate. In the future, the psychospheres of both will cope with the remaining problems themselves. And don't worry. There will be no shamanism here."

"I know, John." Chakwas moved away from the first mate. "I'll be right there. Get started."

Shepard glanced at the body of the elderly Asari lying on her back and concentrated on her face. In the human mind, basic data on the physiology and anatomy of the representatives of this race flashed on the already familiar "screen", and indicators were taken directly from the information field of the injured Asari.

The XO, restraining his understandable amazement and surprise, understood: A new part of his unusual newfound abilities became active. Some of the indicators immediately turned red, obediently unfolding into diagrams and tables indicating blockages in the psychosphere. After making sure that the identified blocks were unnatural, Shepard carefully began to scan their surroundings so as not to miss traps and hidden surprises.

The anchors reliably pointed to the ship's pilot and the ship itself. The double "anchor" hook guaranteed sufficient obedience and loyalty to the Asari, even if the prisoner of the Reaper somehow managed to harm either the cuttlefish or its control center.

After removing the main "blocks", Shepard went through the connections in both directions, carefully examining the surroundings, looking for "sleeping guards". Finally, having made sure that there were no surprises in the entire volume of the victim's body, Shepard began to carefully free the mind and essence of the Asari from all identified secondary and third-rate clues that provided direct control over the personality and body of the rescued.

The work did not take long, and exactly six minutes later, Shepard "emerged" from the mode of extreme concentration, finding relaxation in his body and allowing his brain to switch to normal mode.

"Karin, look at the stats. I'm done with her", Shepard said in a low voice, taking a few steps towards the Turian's bed and allowing the ship's doctor to come closer to the Asari's bed. "Keep her asleep as long as possible," the XO added. "This will allow her to self-recover. The rest is at your discretion."

"Okay, Shepard," the doctor turned on her monitoring instrument, checked the indicators taken by the automation of the Medical Bay before and after the manipulations of the senior assistant. "You've made my task much easier."

"I hope it helps her." Shepard bent over the Turian. "But here I have to work more deeply. Karin, tell the commander to request the archaeologists to delay the exit to the new area. I'll need an extra half hour. Plus the twenty minutes mentioned earlier."

"I'll do it, John." Karin stepped away from Azari, who was lying on her back on the hospital bed, returned to her desk and typed a short text on the laptop keyboard. "The commander has received your message, and he will pass it on to the head of the archaeological party. I think the scientists won't mind. I'm glad you can pay attention to both of them, Captain."

Shepard didn't pay much attention to the doctor's last words. He plunged back into scanning the Turian's psychosphere.

The requested half hour was the minimum required time. Spektr, who was the first to be directly programmed, had implants in his body that gave a truly monstrous cocktail of effects on his body and psyche. These implants had nothing in common with those that the captain of the special forces had already seen, so Shepard tried to reliably isolate them from affecting the main body and brain systems of an intelligent organic.

Cutting the interconnections was hard. The implants dotted almost the entire body of the Turian, creating a kind of skeleton that duplicated the natural backbone. I had to first focus on those that were as close as possible to the brain of the sleeping patient with medication, and after eliminating their influence, he slowly dealt with the rest, which were securely implanted in the limbs, torso and head of the Turian.

He knew that Chakwas was detecting positive changes with the help of sensitive devices, but he preferred not to react to this knowledge, disabling more and more new relationships.

Finally, the Turian's brain and spinal cord were completely freed from the influence of the implants. Disabling the wires that controlled the main systems and organs of the Turian's torso, Shepard scanned the patient's head, face and body, looking for hidden bookmarks. There weren't many of them. Repeated scanning revealed several more "guards" and traps.

Shepard knew that time, that half hour of reserve, was running out fast. This was always the case when he was completely devoted to his work. But it was impossible to stop now: any pause could activate a bookmark that was not noticed in time and destroy an important organ of the patient's body.

After freeing the Turian's torso from the influence of bookmarks and a multitude of alien implants, Shepard slid a "scanning" gaze over the powerful legs of the Spectr. Bookmarks and implants were also found here.

The Cuttlefish, led by a ruthless pilot, did everything so that the Turian could not put up the slightest resistance, and on occasion, could not even move either his upper or lower limbs. Turning off the interconnections and conduits with precisely dosed pulses, Shepard gradually approached the Turian's feet with his gaze. After disabling the last two "bookmarks", the captain scanned the body of the Spectr several times again and, finding no surprises, allowed himself to relax.