Rebirth The Mass Effect is old

"To the attention of users! There is contamination in the cleaning chamber. Entry to the camera is not recommended."

Garrus shook his head, glaring at the pink hologram with distaste.

"How to get rid of pollution?"

"The camera is equipped with an emergency system that supplies plasma at a temperature of 5,000 degrees Kelvin. It is able to eliminate any possible contamination." VI explained, and relief flashed through Nihlus' emotions.

"How do I activate the system?"

"The control of the emergency system is located at the security post next to the cleaning chamber." Mira explained. Pause, blink of the hologram, and... "To the attention of users! The emergency system is out of order."

I heard Nihlus gritting his teeth. Garrus gave a muffled, rumbling laugh. Rex shook his head.

"Like. Her. Fix it?" The slowly beastly Turian asked clearly.

"There was a hardware failure in the system management." Mira replied, and Nihlus flared up with anger. "Repairs are possible on site using standard omny-tool tools."

"At least something good." The Krogan growled.

"We don't have time!" Nihlus growled. "Lift the ban and open the doors!"

"Acknowledged, Spectr. Protection is disabled. Your safety does not fall under my jurisdiction."

"The session is over!"

Mira obediently went out. Nihlus rubbed his comb, slowly calming down.

"This is not an emergency security system, but a system of "get a minor repair team"! Specter grumbled."

"Sometimes it seems to me that VI won't let us on the monorail until we fix this fucking complex and do a general cleaning." I added. "Tali, look at the map where this cleaning chamber is."

"The entrance is opposite through the technical room of the VI core." the Quarian replied after a short delay.

"We're going back."

On the way back, a Rahni soldier fell out of the ventilation on us, but was knocked into the wall with a generous kick from Rex and shot with a shotgun. Judging by the simmering discontent, the Krogan still hadn't let off steam. It's not enough for him, damn it! Nihlus walked to my right, glancing with displeasure at my singed face. Garrus walked between Ashley and Kayden, wincing painfully from the bullet holes in his shoulder, which was hastily regenerating under the influence of panacelin. Bad. Garrus is the only sniper in the squad. I'm not up to his level, and I never will be. Nihlus has never been a sniper. Rex... Rex is a Stormtrooper, and that says it all. Ashley is with sniper rifles on "you", preferring a shotgun and an assault rifle. Liara and Kayden are biotics. Tali is only good with a pistol and explosives.

"Here?" Nihlus pointed the muzzle at the door.

Tali nodded.

A short straight corridor led us to another elevator, which took us down a level. Another short corridor of the same type led to the desired cleaning chamber and checkpoint. Where we found two corpses of Salarians and a crowd of Rachni behind glass.

"Tali, turn on the cleaning."

The beep of an instrumentron, the girl's finger touched a pair of buttons, and a fiery hell opened up behind the glass, blinding us for a moment. The bugs burned up instantly.

"Cool..." Kayden glanced suspiciously at the terminal. "Maybe it's worth disabling this cleaning. Somehow..."

"Don't you want to share Rachni's fate?" I smiled knowingly. "It's a sound idea. Tali, block those flamethrowers out of harm's way. And then, who knows how they can be shortened."

Tali's fingers fluttered over the keyboard.

"Ready!"

"Are the doors unlocked?"

"Yes."

Despite the confidence in the Quarian's voice, we passed through this red-hot vestibule with caution and VERY quickly! It's a creepy feeling... Like in a crematorium... from inside the furnace. We greeted the icy, frozen corridor with a collective sigh of relief and stomped to the monorail platform. VI didn't bother us anymore, and thank all the gods! We've had enough of minor repairs in combat conditions!

A pot-bellied monorail trailer was waiting for us on the platform, which was slowly being swept away by snow, silence and no problems. Of all the control levers in the car, there was only one small terminal with one single function: to run a pre-programmed program and send the trailer along a single route. The fighters settled comfortably on the wide benches, and Nihlus started the train. The lock on the door turned red, the monorail moved smoothly and raced through the blizzard to the final station, the risk laboratory "Cleft".

Chapter 20: The Crevasse Station

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.