No access roads. No walking approaches. ONLY the monorail. A superbly defended fortress. Absolutely reliable. With a huge garrison of Krogan and Geth, and both were well armed. The automatic defense and the anti-ship missile defense system destroyed the very idea of taking this fortress by storm. It's only going to be bombed! Quick photos from orbit didn't even give us a close idea of the true picture and the depth of the ass we were in, because we have no way back: the Normandy had already left the system an hour ago and dumped at the assembly point.
"Tali." The Quarian woke up from her stupor. "Can you connect to their internal network from here?"
A golden instrumentron interface unfolded above the girl's graceful hand. It only took a couple of seconds for our technical genius to assess the situation.
"Yes, the repeater is powerful and the signal is stable. But they have a very serious defense system."
"Can you at least open the doors or windows for us without raising an alarm?"
"I can. Household protocols are not protected as much as combat protocols."
"Great." I rubbed my forehead. "Can you get a plan of this fortress?"
"I've already received it." our darling modestly announced, and a golden hologram unfolded over her a small hand.
"Where are Saren's private chambers?"
"Here." The hologram turned towards us like a huge smooth wall, and part of the far turret turned red.
"What, the whole tower?"
"Upper floors and access to the mooring area. Downstairs is a private laboratory." Tali replied immediately.
"That's how..."
I stared at the hologram intently, and the longer I looked at it, the clearer I understood... that we are incredibly lucky that Saren, it turns out, is a lover of solitude and ocean views.
"Are you able to open these windows?"
"Yes."
"Go-od..." I sprawled on the grass, looking up at the clear blue sky. "We are waiting until the evening. The staff is just leaving the labs for the apartment complex..."
Garrus put away his rifle and sat down next to him.
"Do you have an idea?"
"Yes... there is a hint of an idea. Tali, what's with the sensory array of this joy?"
The Quarian sighed.
"You won't like it."
"I love disgusting news..." I grimaced. "Come on, be happy..."
Well, she made us happy...
No, Saren is not fucking paranoid! He's just fucking sick in the head! Was he so influenced by Nazara, or did he pick up the paranoia of his entire race from birth by airborne droplets in a particularly concentrated form?
Almost everything was monitored around the complex! I mean, absolutely everything! It's easier to hack a ship's airlock with a toothpick than to break into this complex! A completely enclosed, self-sufficient fortress. Everything was checked, right down to the fluctuations of the magnetic background. I'm just in shock... No, I'm SHOCKED! If it hadn't been for a single moment, I would have curtailed the operation and tried to catch Arterius in some other way.
All over the fortress... The biological activity sensors were turned off due to the diverse and extremely curious Vermaire wildlife, which got into the habit of climbing into the complex, and in a couple of months they had been annoying the staff with constant alarms. The sensors were quickly turned off: Saren was once in the complex at the moment when a pack of small animals got behind the perimeter and set the whole fortress on its ears for almost a decade, until they were killed. After such a visual demonstration, Arterius, gritting his teeth, agreed to block the entire array of biological sensors.
Tali pulled out such details from the life of a closed town in the third hour, rummaging through the internal correspondence of the staff. Actually, a lot of interesting facts have surfaced, but we weren't particularly interested in them right now.
One thing became clear: the sentients were terrified of Saren Arterius and his ship. One thing became clear: the sentients were terrified of Saren Arterius and his ship. Especially his ship. The Lord was truly terrifying. And I was incredibly pleased, because no one ever entered his private chambers, no matter what. And geth's were forbidden to stay there by Saren himself.
When the sun touched the horizon, we were already sitting between huge boulders protruding from the ocean waters exactly opposite our favorite window beyond the boundaries of the sensory system coverage area and waiting for Tali to give the go-ahead. The plan to infiltrate this work of paranoid intelligence has been thought out and discussed from all sides for a long time. And it was as simple as a ruler: the absence of sensors tracking the movements of biological objects gave me room for imagination.
Truth... without armor and weapons, but what is the lack of weapons for a metamorph? The right thing... such little things! A metamorphic mentalist is a hell of a thing... Initially, we planned to enter the complex after dark, but Fate presented us with a completely unexpected gift: one of the windows turned out to be open! Someone had lowered the sturdy bulletproof glazing from the inside, and now he was sitting and staring at the setting sun. I wasn't going to miss this chance!
Due to the nature of the sensors, we had to abandon weapons and remove armor for everyone except Tali, who is absolutely dependent on her spacesuit. I had to abandon ALL weapons and armor! Only Garrus' visor was saved. And then, turned off, strapped to the waist of the Tali. The Quarian herself remained sitting on the rocks. I'll go after her on the second flight, when I catch that unexpected benefactor, so that he doesn't have time to escape.
So... Leaving the Quarian woman in complete shock, meditating over a pile of weapons and scattered armor, I stripped naked and dived into the ocean. Now... easy parameter correction. The body changed rapidly: the legs fused into a strong tail, and a membrane appeared between the fingers. A fucking mermaid... It's a laugh and a sin, but it's a long way to swim three kilometers to the walls.
Tali gasped faintly. The Turians watched with some mild interest, sitting on the rocks. The only clothes they wear are the short trousers of a sidekick.
"Are you ready?"
There were simultaneous nods in response. Relax. I won't let you drown anyway. I waited until they grabbed me by the shoulders and, pushing off sharply, drove forward, trying to ignore the waves of panic and the hands clenching too tightly on my shoulders. If I were human, they'd break all my bones! Turians, it turns out, can't swim at all! They're just drowning.
When I swam up to the foundation of the massive walls, both Turians calmed down a bit and stopped panicking. Leaving them clinging to the stone, I rebuilt my body again: my fingers got powerful claws, the tail disappeared without a trace, as well as the membranes. After examining the result, I easily climbed the wall, without any trouble digging my almost monomolecular claws into the poly concrete.
There was only one reasonable person in the room behind the open window. The Azari. I jumped over the windowsill without a sound, knocking out the blue-skinned beauty with a light mental blow. There was no need to bind her: the mental probe allowed her to fully control her body, and the victim, even while in creation, would not be able to blink without my permission.
I slipped easily into her mind. What do we have here? But we have... the wing is practically empty. The staff was already drowning in the living quarters, getting ready for bed, the Geth were simply not here, and this lady was delayed for a reason that was banal to the point of amazement: every evening, while Saren, who terrified her, was absent from the planet, she came to this window and just sat looking at the sun setting into the ocean. That's all. No other interest. Just sit and watch the beautiful sunset, let go of what happened during the day, of her fears and worries where no one would look for her and bother her.
I took a spool out of my spatial pocket, secured it by the window and threw down a cable with two zhumars at the end. An ordinary synthetic cable, without any technical gadgets. While the Turians were climbing, I jumped out of the window and swam after the nervous Quarian. I had to influence the girl mentally, plunging her into a deep sleep, otherwise this kicking body almost managed to drown me. This is despite the fact that I could breathe underwater! But I did it! She pinned him down and lifted him up, leaving a couple of very interesting long, deep scratches on the wall... When I almost lost my temper. By the time the sun was halfway below the horizon, the four of us were standing in front of a locked door.
Tali broke it open in three minutes, allowing us to enter a long gallery leading to Saren's private chambers. I removed the traces of mental influence, sat Asari on her favorite chair, allowing her body to take a familiar pose. The door slammed shut behind us, and the girl shuddered and woke up from her stupor, blinked, looked in surprise at the setting sun, sighed, propped her chin on her fist, and returned to watching, not at all surprised that she dozed off for a couple of minutes.
Just like that, and without any special trouble, we made our way to a perfectly protected fortress, taking advantage of an ordinary, unpredictable accident: a young asari just loved to watch the sunset and lowered the armored glazing at that time.
Chapter 29.2 Irene's conversation with Saren.
Three days. We've been sitting in this fortress for three fucking days now, not risking making our presence known, and even more so, keeping our heads down in Saren's private quarters. The first day passed dynamically: we searched every nook and cranny of this wing, poking curious faces into every door and drawer, ignoring only the terminal of communication with the Lord. But I flew into the Protean lighthouse at full gallop, earning a new batch of nightmares. Out of boredom, Tali hacked everything that could be easily hacked, and for the past day we have been reading the correspondence of the fortress staff with interest and watching the reality show "Fortress Life" through numerous cameras.
Nihlus discovered a small arsenal, and we were able to acquire weapons... but not with armor. Saren wasn't holding her at all. I had to settle for natural armor, making something like a replica of the light Illithiri armor out of chitin and cobwebs. You can't really walk around naked, can you? Tali then studied the cuirass for a long time, trying to figure out how a spider web could grow from chitin... How-how... just like it all grew on me instead of skin! It's completely natural and very comfortable!
The tedious wait ended in the middle of the fourth day, when we were already mad with boredom and army rations. Apart from this highly nutritious stuff, there was nothing to eat!
"Rin! Nihlus, Garrus!"
The excited voice of the Quarian made us explode and fly into a large hall located at the back of the private wing, which we adapted for housing.
"What happened?"
"Saren has arrived!" Tali brought up a broadcast from one of the cameras she had hacked.
A small Turian corvette was landing at the inner spaceport of the settlement. One of those that the Council distributes free of charge to its Spectr.
"Is there a lord?"
"Not visible."
"I wonder where this ancient creature is? Well, it doesn't matter. Tali, keep an eye on Arterius."
Everything was already thought out and prepared two days ago. There was no point in twitching. We sat and patiently watched our victim, tracking all her movements around the complex. Saren ran around the fortress until the evening, busy with some business. Five hours later, Nazara showed up, he would not be remembered by nightfall, and hovered over the fortress, but at least he did not descend, and Saren went to his room. No, it's not like that. He immediately went to the communication terminal with the ancient creature.
I felt his mind when the Turian entered the gallery. And almost instantly, the presence of the Lord. The Reaper was felt so clearly and clearly that it left no doubt about the direct and immediate effect on his puppet. I didn't even try to get closer, studying them from a distance. I was just looking at the general background, measuring the Reaper's strength and ability for sophisticated work.
What he saw was terrifying. The Lord is incredibly strong! You can't kill him by sheer force. Generally. Not at all! But! Great power has its downside. Nazara absolutely could not operate with thin cords! He just didn't notice them and didn't see them. All that jewelry charm in Benezia's mind was not created by him! This is an expanded ready-made matrix! It was a kind of template that caused the discrepancy between the complexity of the impact and the task that surprised me. The Reaper simply deployed a program created by someone, rather than doing it himself. And with that, I will destroy it. You can't attack something that you just can't see!
Saren walked into the communications room, and I easily slid along the wall, stopping at the open door. The conversation with the Overlord passed me by: I was hacking into the Turian's brain, trying not to get caught by the Reaper. Only thin feelers, only an imperceptible impact, on the verge of a shade of meaning.
I didn't notice.
Now it's time to shift the layer of memories a little, pull out the image of Benezia, redirect concern for the unfulfilled task to her. Anxiety leads to a desire to find out the reason for silence or failure, and this desire has already provoked the adoption of a completely logical decision: to fly to Noveria and check the progress of the work yourself. Who knows what could have happened? It's worth checking in person. That's what Saren told the Reaper. The logic of the action did not raise objections, and the ancient monster agreed. Now, one more impact. Is the Reaper huge? Huge. Recognizable? Absolutely! Is it unique? Of course! I don't even need to be told anything. Saren knows this very well himself. It's enough just to "highlight" the necessary concepts a little, building a logical chain from them: a huge unique recognizable ship — unnecessary attention — problems — solution: fly on an ordinary ship, sending such a noticeable Reaper far away. The beauty of it is that Nazara perfectly saw these thoughts arise in his subordinate's head, but he did not see WHAT provoked them. He couldn't notice my touch. But I saw the result. It is quite natural and understandable. Logical. And he... I agreed... having gone somewhere on his reaper business before receiving the puppet's summons.
The sound of the Lord taking off has never been so pleasant to me! Nazara, this ancient, insanely ancient creature... Get off the planet!
