Anderson watches as the XO works at the consoles and screens of the Star Map. Yes, the main space here is occupied by a virtual screen, which usually displays all navigation information in three dimensions, but there are plenty of screens and remotes in the "frame". Some are hidden, some are half-hidden. Only those who are currently being worked with and those whose information is important are open. The rest have been extinguished, put into standby mode, or deactivated altogether.

"The ship is on course. Takeoff and departure are completed" The chief pilot of the frigate Moro reported on the audio channel of the commander's speaker. The speakerphone duplicated the report — the information is publicly available, so isolation was not required.

"Accepted,"— Anderson replied, habitually raising his eyes to the ceiling for a few seconds — the sensors of video cameras and the "heads" of microphone complexes were traditionally located there. — "Shepard, you're free to go."

"Yes, sir," the captain nodded and stepped off the pedestal.

All. Now, for the next few hours, he really isn't involved in something urgent and mandatory. He should have walked around the ship himself, but... for several minutes he had been feeling a sense of danger.

No, the ship or the crew were not in danger — there were no such signs. None of them were known to him, at least theoretically.

He was in danger himself. Not from the crew members, no. From the inside. And it was annoying. Having now decided to circumnavigate the ship alone, Shepard strenuously recalled whether there was a room on this small-sized reconnaissance frigate that would not be occupied by one of the crew members now and in the very near future.

Memory helpfully prompted and the coordinates of the small Salon, and the captain decided: if he gets worse, he will not go to the Medical Bay, but will try to reach this room with a panoramic porthole.

So far, the commander of the ship has not given the command to close all the portholes without exception with armored tires, so it is quite possible that the porthole is also open there. It was a big porthole, if he remembered correctly. Probably, because of the presence of a "window to space", this room was called a salon.

Moving from post to post, from compartment to compartment, exchanging short, strictly businesslike phrases with crew members, Shepard always tried to keep in mind the route to this cabin.

When he came out of the engineering bay, the feeling of danger was gone. There is an understanding that it may come back later. In a few days. Maybe earlier.

* * *

It's back. Exactly a few days later at the same time. Shepard had been feeling the threat of his return all these days. And when it hit... He tried to move to this salon as quickly as possible. I stood for a few minutes, resting from the overload caused by the fear of not being able to make it.

The feelings and sensations were too new, this state was too new. He couldn't find any analogues to them in his memory, no matter how hard he tried. Probably, several pages of text could have been filled with a description of this "cocktail", but in those minutes when he was flattened in a locked salon, he was clearly not up to making detailed descriptions.

Fortunately, according to the daily schedule, he had "free hours" that he could spend the way he wanted. Within the acceptable limits, of course, but...

These few days... It was a good thing that there was no need for a military reconnaissance ship to rush headlong along the route to the exit point in the area of operations. Shepard consistently, no longer in a survey, but in depth and in detail, got acquainted with the ship and the crew. He did not like to consider himself a know-it-all and found many supporters of this position among those who taught him at the Academy.

A new ship, a new crew required work, required study. They demanded attention. So, all this had to be given and provided. This is what John Shepard was doing for several days before he was "covered".

It was difficult to describe all the feelings he had experienced during those few hours. I also had to think about the fact that this is an echo of Akusa. Most likely, it was. Shepard couldn't remember anything else in his life that was as complex and ambiguous, maybe even completely misunderstood by himself as it should be. Yes, when he felt like he was "covered" and walked slowly towards this salon, he already felt that his teammates were looking at him with concern and bewilderment. Not all of them, some of them. They look at him with concern, but they believe that he can handle it.

For some reason, it seemed to Shepard then that Chakwas would not be able to determine exactly and completely what was happening to him then. It was also good that he did not lose consciousness, did not experience particularly severe physical weakness, but the fact that he was noticeably deaf for several minutes ... or maybe for several tens of minutes — it was. It was definitely there. And there was an external inhibition, too.

It took him a long time to get out of this lethargy, this deafness. He went out slowly. And what was the hurry if he was still alone in this salon? The "free hours" are not over yet. The door to the salon is closed. No one bothers him. The chief mate needs to retire to a room other than his cabin-no questions asked, the cabin is empty, and there's not even much furniture there. So the Normans did not bother him. Somehow they understood. And how — Hes don't even want to specify — every intelligent being, as you know, has its own understanding. Own, personal. Few people remember this constantly and clearly, but they should....

It took Shepard a long time to realize what he had gained in those few hours. He rinsed it out then in those lonely hours a little. And, as he realized, he would obviously not be able to learn how to use everything he had gained right away. You'll have to learn it gradually, maybe even situationally. Did he know then what he had received? No. I didn't know, but I had to use some of this newfound potential very soon. As it turned out, in order to overcome the annoying abnormality of the situation with the ship, crew and mission.

And then he became deaf and half-blind, with great difficulty standing on his feet and feeling how he was twisting. He's twitching inside. Not only physically, but also mentally, and spiritually. Transforms, complements, and changes. He was able to track some things, but not others, because there were not enough human resources and capabilities for everything that happened to him at that time. Normal human resources and capabilities. The usual, standard ones. It wasn't until hours later, but days later, that he realized that next to these resources, he now had completely inhuman, and according to some signs, extragalactic ones. And then, in those moments, he just really wanted to remain the same person, and, as it turned out, he succeeded.

Chapter 5. the transformation of Jenkins and Alenko.

The soothing hum of the cannon touched the ears of Captain Shepard, who was standing at the porthole in the observation cabin. The frigate Normandy, which the Alliance staff had ordered him to report to a few days ago in a tone that brooked no objections, cut through the blackness of space.

Shepard had been trying for several minutes to figure out why he didn't like literally everything that was happening around him. These people who moved like somnambulists, exchanging some kind of antediluvian readers, dressed in the same uniform and trying to maintain subordination. These conversations are over a poorly protected channel between Udina, the ambassador of humanity to the Citadel, and Anderson, the captain of the frigate. These desperate and, most importantly, numerous and constant attempts to wishful thinking. This increasing doom in the face of an unknown future, which was imagined to be at least somehow long-lasting. Captain of the landing crew...

There are twelve heads of military police here! Twelve. Foreheads. He, the captain, had only two relatively sane men under his direct command: Corporal Jenkins and Lieutenant Alenko. That's it! They didn't give anyone else, having filled all the available places with policemen. All. The policemen. Who didn't know what they had to guard on a long-range flight. Two foreheads are at the radio room. One at each of the two entrances to the main ship stairs. There are two foreheads at the main airlock. They thought of putting two of them at the main battery, and they put two of them in the medical bay. There are two military policemen with the rank of sergeants in the medical bay, which is two. Are there ranks two levels higher than in a regular army?! Those who are sergeants only by stripes, and in front of them the first lieutenants stand — without breathing and at attention. Two military police foreheads were placed near the captain's cabin. The first after God on this single frigate of the Alliance of Systems MSF.

And he, the commander of the landing crew, was given direct command of a biotic lieutenant, who had only one program working properly from constant migraines — "I serve the Alliance, sir!" and a half-educated Corporal Jenkins, whose teenage maximalism had not worn off and, as it seemed to Shepard now, did not want to wear off at all.

Both "cadres" ... belonged to the category of inhabitants of the Alliance's military bases, from which even the squad leader ran faster than the monthly sixty-kilometer cross with full training and with the order to survive the threat of an orbital strike. No one wanted to take responsibility for the bearer of the el-2, the migraine lieutenant, who easily went off the rails and glowed brighter and scarier than the portable lamp of the ship's operational disinfection, and even more so for the boy, whose short trousers on the straps clearly showed through the Alliance corporal's uniform. Even without a frivolous checkered shirt. With short sleeves, which.

Shepard was going wild, slowly, like rising water in high water. He, a graduate of the special academy, who had fought to snatch the highest-ranking n-Seven badge, was ordered to take command of the amphibious crew of a ship that could not be a warship by definition.

In Shepard's mind's eye, the blueprints of the Normandy slid by. Such a sneak attack from the Turians... He couldn't have expected it in principle. For such a successful deception operation... he couldn't even afford another word right now.... By fooling the Alliance members who had power and influence... Every intelligent organic from the Turian Hierarchy's Psychological Warfare Directorate was worthy of an Earth Star. No less. It wasn't even worth trading for less.

A frigate on which a camouflage system was installed, which became useless if the enemy had ancient but high-quality optical surveillance devices and scanners on board his ship. And harmful if any of the opponents of the frigate had simple and familiar portholes in the sides of their ships.

This is how to wrap the cosmic armed forces of mankind with dry sandpaper lines of an Agreement, "squeezed out" in months-long negotiations. Under-frigate, under-destroyer, under-dreadnought, under-battleship, under-monitor. Gifts from advanced races to a neighbor who suddenly "spat out" the bluish fog of the forbidden repeater core. Very peculiar "gifts". More like the Danaean gifts.

Shepard felt the air thicken around him as he stood in the empty small cabin by the observation window, becoming more viscous by the second. Somewhere on the far fringes of his consciousness, an inner, perhaps even his own personal, voice screamed that what was happening to him now was absolutely not human. What kind of condition, such behavior is not for a person, not for an officer, not for an n-seven. Somewhere on the far outskirts...

Shepard ignored the screams. Where is the frigate going? Eden Prime? What for? Check out the pseudo-invisibility system? Why check it so far away? Take the frigate to the moon and check as much as you want. Anyone with enough intelligence and the necessary equipment will clearly see the frigate, desperately trying to become invisible. And none of these bystanders will even curl their lips in a grin. But because it's necessary. And who needs to know doesn't need to know. Live, exist, sniff in two holes and — don't mess around.

Shepard's gaze slid over the sparkling scattering of stars behind the thick glass of the observation window. There were two days left before arriving at the destination. Two days. And he, the commander of the landing crew and the XO, already had cramps in the fingers of both hands. It hurt so much that he almost howled out loud from the pain. Because he knew.

He knew that before the war with synthetics, these two miserable human twenty-four-hour days remained. He knew what the sleek uncles in admiral's uniforms were afraid to believe, who imagined themselves to be cool strategists and were guaranteed to faint because of a suddenly failed holoprojector in their living room. He knew what could provide an instant stroke with a heart attack "in one case" for any of the admirals, for whom the fifteen-centimeter heels of uniform model shoes had become more familiar than standard army boots. He knew what was a death sentence for eighty percent of the population of all human colonies, painstakingly built on planets that had somehow been developed and somehow legally secured to Earth, and therefore to humanity. He knew what was a funeral shroud for thousands of eighteen-year-olds who wore the uniform of the Alliance of Systems MSF. Not much more junior than Jenkins. They're going to burn in these cans. Proudly called boats, fighters, frigates, cruisers, dreadnoughts. They need to burn in the cramped cabins of artillery systems, posts and compartments of ships. They need to burn in landing pods. Them. Them. Them. Burning and dying, not even trying to survive. To have time to understand, to realize... If you don't accept it... Accept The Fact. The fact of the collision. The fact of a collision with a Machine Mind. For whom. Any. An intelligent organic is only an enemy. Only the enemy. Only an opponent that is subject to physical destruction.

One thought was beating in the head of the brutal commander of the landing crew. It sounded like a bell. Not the fire-fighting ones. And the one that makes my back ache like a grater. One thought: "We Were. Not. Taught. To fight. With. Robots." And the thought was... There was bitterness. Twisting all the facial muscles into a terrible grimace. A grimace that foreshadowed rage. A cornered intelligent being is furious. Who decided to throw off the mask of Civilization and reveal another to the enemy. The second mask. The mask of the Beast.

The fingers of both Shepard's hands clenched into heavy fists. Those who are now guaranteed to stop a sumo wrestler who is frozen at a low start. Two wrestlers. Three. Five of them. Stop them dead. In a split second. "n-Seven". The best. Super fighters. "At any time. Anywhere. Any task. To perform. Exactly. Completely. On time. And nothing. Otherwise."