49 The End of the Reapers

--> The fleets are amassed, all forces assembled; the assault to reclaim Earth is about to begin. The entrenched Reapers await, an impenetrable hedge of diverse abominations over-arched by an impassable blockade of Reaper destroyers and dreadnoughts. Were this the sum of matters, the prospect would be more than grim. But we have friends on the ground. The resistance, led by Admiral Anderson, gives us some hope of success.

We need to open the arms of the Citadel and move the Crucible in range to dock with it. The obstacles are tremendous. The fortified station is sealed and surrounded by the entire Reaper fleet, rendering any direct boarding attempt a useless gesture; even the Normandy can’t get us past that dense blockade. The only means of entry is through a trans-orbit beam from the Citadel to Earth. The Reapers are using it to transport Human prisoners, living and dead, from London to the Citadel for processing. Landing anywhere near the beam is impossible: the airspace for miles is covered by HADES defence cannons. Our only means of accessing the Beam will be with a ground assault, landing the troops beyond effective range of the densest concentration of AA guns. The danger zone for landing ships is too broad to avoid completely; our soldiers would be wading through the English channel to reach London, and we’d still have taken fire while landing. None of the options are good. Our only hope is a compromise of danger.

While the primary fleet, designated Sword, engages the Reapers, a small flight of shuttles will attempt to land on the outskirts of London. Our vanguard force will make a combined strike in unison with Anderson's resistance forces, and eliminate local AA guns in the vicinity. Once the airspace there is clear, the full extent of our combined ground forces, designated Hammer, will land, link up with the resistance, and push for the Beam. It will be a race against time, carving our way through the entrenched enemy positions to get to the Beam and board the Citadel before our fleets are destroyed. Once we’re aboard, we’ll not only have to find the arm controls and open the station, we’ll also have to neutralize whatever block it was that the Council put in place to separate the Citadel from control of the Relay Network. Once the Citadel is online, Shield fleet will escort the Crucible into range. We connect the two, and fire it up.

It’s a long shot. The Crucible will be the Reapers’ primary target, suffering heavy attack the moment it shows its nose. Numerous though our fleets are, we cannot guarantee the Crucible’s safety in direct contest with the Reapers. Beyond weakening the Reapers as much as possible and drawing their fire to the immediate threat of our attacking ships, our best hope for protecting the Crucible will be achieving enough success in the ground assault to draw their ships away from the battle in space. We’ll be fighting at a disadvantage in London with minimal air support at best, and we can guarantee the Reapers hitting hard once we get close to the beam.

And so it comes down to this. Our only hope for defeating the Reapers lies in one final, desperate battle. So be it. No more halfway measures, no more running. The game has changed. We take the fight to the Reapers with everything we have. And so the stag turns at bay and rends the wolves. Let them feel our wrath.

--> We’re ground-side. Hammer has landed, but despite the hole we opened in the aerial defences, our landing craft took heavy casualties: only fifty percent of infantry forces are accounted for. The fleets are engaging, the infantry forming up. Anderson is mustering the officers and making final preparations for the assault. We have a few minutes before we start our push for the Beam.

It is midnight here in London. Black clouds roil above, reflecting the discharge of artillery; the wrecked and shattered buildings are shaken by the rumble of explosions; and all is overcast by the pale and baleful light of the distant Beam. “A land of deepest night, of utter darkness and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.”

The team might be forgiven some trepidation at the prospect of the battle before us, but I see no fear in their eyes. Instead, every face is lit with resolve, even grim satisfaction. Despite the danger and chaos, there is peace in our ranks. This is what we've planned for, trained for, fought for, and in some cases, died for.

This is it. After all of the fighting, all of the dying, hardship, and sacrifice to oppose the Reapers, in this cycle and the countless that came before, it all comes down to this. This is the culmination of everything we’ve done, everything we’ve fought for. Our own efforts would have been for nought without the Protheans before us. They laid the groundwork for the advantages we hold. They gave us the means to defeat Sovereign, and the weapons we made from his corpse. They were the last in a long tale of defiant who tried and failed to finish the Crucible, each passing on, hidden in some discreet corner, this ultimate hope for a final end to the Cycle.

Everything we’ve accomplished, every battle we’ve fought, every sacrifice that’s ever been made in the struggle against the Reapers is consummated in this moment. Despite the long odds, we have a chance. We’ve come closer than any civilization before us to defeating the Reapers. None after us will have another chance such as this: failure is not an option. We stop the Reapers, here, today, not merely for the sake of the living or the lives of the lost, but for the sake of every sentient being born in the future. We will save the living; we will exact vengeance on behalf of those who fell before us, and we will grant future civilizations freedom from the fate of the past. Though it cost all our lives, we will prevail. One way or another, the Cycle ends today. We come to destroy the Reapers, at any cost: no halfways, no excuses. Every man and woman in this battle knows the score, and have come to battle knowing most of them will never return. They’ve already made their sacrifice, and face the Reapers with the fearlessness of those with nothing to lose. We face the Reapers today with a force such as they’ve never seen before: Human, Turian, Krogan, Asari, Salarian, Quarian, even Rachni and Geth, an entire galaxy mobilized and united against them in one massive force of retribution, a long overdue host of vengeance for the countless innocents slain across an unnumbered series of bloody harvests.

And should the ultimate price be paid, should all our lives be spent in the destruction of the Reapers, it will not have been in vain. Though it cost every drop of mortal blood that flows through the veins of the defiant, the Reapers’ end has come. It is long overdue.

Should this be my last entry, let the record show the highest commendation for my crew. Many credit me with this chance, but I could never have done it without the brave men and women who have helped me through the rough path we tread. Nihlus, whose initiative gave me the authority to track down Saren. Tali, who provided the information to prove his guilt. Liara, without whom the warning of the Beacons would have been useless. Kaidan, who laid down his life for the rest of us. Miranda, who brought me back from the dead. Mordin, whose sacrifice gave us the alliance with the Krogan. Legion, without whom the Geth would have been lost. Garrus, whose calibrations preserved the Normandy on countless occasions. Ashley, who with James saved the Crucible plans from Cerberus. There's not a one of us that hasn't owed our life at least once to Dr. Chakawas. And Anderson, our captain who first sent us to destroy Sovereign, and has now given us this foothold on Earth, our last grip on the cliff of doom. All of them have saved my life on countless occasions, and ensured the success of missions critical to where we now stand. It has been my privilege and honour to have served with these friends, the dearest and truest that any soldier ever had.

With so many vital threads woven together, the loss of any one of which would have meant ruin for all, I cannot believe that our success is a product of mere chance. Having been preserved on so many occasions when chance would have dictated failure, we stand where no other race in history has stood: against all odds, we have been granted this one chance to destroy the Reapers. We must not, we will not, fail. May He that guides us still watch over us all.

Perhaps it may be, against all odds, that I survive this last and greatest trial. If so, I may live a life of one with my beloved Ash. But if only she survives, the new life born of her will live safe and free.

Whatever happens, this vow I make: the Sun will rise over the ashes of dead Reapers.

But our time is up, the moment of reckoning is at hand. Every gun is loaded, every heart steeled, every mind focused. The time has come. Death to the Reapers. Life, hope, and peace to those who survive. They will see a future free from fear.

So fill to us the parting glass, and drink a health whatever befalls.

And though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for You are with me.

This is Commander Shepard signing off.

---

TRANSMISSION FROM COMMANDER SHEPARD:

"ADMIRAL, I'VE GOT IT. ….ONE MORE MIRACLE. GET THE FLEET OUT OF HERE.

 

VICTORY IN THREE, TWO, ONE, DESTRUC…"

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

48 The Death of the Hell Hound

--> Horizon in sight. Sporadic heat signatures are occurring at the Sanctuary complex; definite sign of disaster, and almost certainly of combat. Whatever's going on down there, it's happening ground zero on a massive refugee housing center, and civilian casualties are all but guaranteed. The sooner we can contain the situation the better. We'll go in low and see who's killing who, then participate as appropriate.

--> I had thought Cerberus had done its worst, that nothing could exceed the depths to which they had already stooped. I was wrong.

Cerberus had been running the refugee centre on Horizon as a gilded web to ensnare the displaced. What was by all outward appearance a refuge from privation and danger was nothing less than a death camp. No, it was worse. They only killed some of the subjects. The refugees were taken and transformed into Husks. The Illusive Man had contracted Henry Lawson, Miranda’s father, to run this facility as a means to produce and to study Reaper forces and discover the means to control them, with the ultimate intent of controlling the Reapers themselves.

I can’t believe it. I’d once thought the Illusive Man crooked and ruthless, then deluded and a tool, but I never would have thought any Human could have concocted such a twisted and diabolical scheme as this, let alone on an industrial scale. To subject thousands of fellow Humans to the same horrific and agonizing end that they would have suffered at the hands of the Reapers is unthinkable. Is every last Cerberus soldier, engineer, and desk-worker so thoroughly corrupted that this butchery committed en masse under their watch meant nothing to them?

If Cerberus personnel are all Indoctrinated, the Indoctrination is of a quality of derangement, not control. The fighting we found was the last of a bloody contest between Cerberus and a Reaper strike force, clearly sent to destroy the research base and all the information within it. I don't know if it is actually possible for Cerberus to have discovered a means to control Reapers, but it's clear the Reapers themselves are taking no chances. It seems Cerberus put up a tough fight; we walked over innumerable bodies, Cerberus and Reaper troops alike lying dead throughout the length of that cursed facility. The deceptively white and orderly walls and floors marked with dark blood, and the smell of death everywhere. Not a single civilian refugee survived that massacre.

I don’t know how many innocents were lead to the slaughter. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, it makes no difference. Cerberus, which prided itself on being a force for the defence of Humanity, used the Reapers’ own methods on the very people they were meant to protect. My mind refused to comprehend the extent of the horror. But then how could it? How could any mind fathom the unimaginable pain and terror that facility turned out in its gruesome work? But this is only an example in stark contrast. On Earth alone there are millions of souls suffering the same fate at the hands of the Reapers. Sanctuary was but a single facility. The Reapers have made a hundred more.

Leng had left before we arrived, taking with him the completed research data; Lawson he left to the Reapers. My team and I carved our way through the last Cerberus and Reaper forces left in the base, and found Lawson in a stand-off with Miranda, her sister Oriana held by their father as a human shield.

Hostage rescue training takes no prisoners. Mr. Lawson will not have opportunity to stand trial for his deeds. A higher Judge than the Alliance could provide will decide his ultimate sentence. Neither Oriana nor Miranda need fear him any more.

Miranda did us a favour and tagged Leng with a tracer before he bugged out. We have our destination: the Illusive Man’s centre of operations is in the Anadius system. Alliance Command will be pleased to hear this. After having for so long been a menace to Humanity, and the entire galaxy, the centre of the Cerberus web has at last been found.

--> Alliance Command responds. Fifth Fleet is dispatched to Anadius; the Normandy will have the full weight of the Alliance Navy backing her. No halfway measures. Hackett's orders are to seize the data and destroy Cerberus.

It's been a long time coming.

--> Anadius System locked down. The net has been drawn. There is no escape. Cerberus defence fleet moving to engage. Let's remind them what it means to be Alliance.

--> Damn the Illusive Man. Damn him to hell and back again. Our mission, as a mission, is a success; Cerberus is defeated, their main fleet and central base destroyed; we have the Prothean data, but all too late.

The Catalyst, the last piece for the Crucible, is the Citadel. We should have known all along. The two massive stations combined have the power to destroy the Reapers with their own tools. The Citadel controls the Relay Network, and the Crucible serves as a colossal spark plug and guidance system to jump-start and overcharge of the Relays to target the Reapers. The Crucible turns the Reaper's own creation against them.

Had we known this before, we could have taken the now completed Crucible to the Citadel, established the link, and fired it up. The war would have been over, the Reapers caught broadsided and destroyed by their own tools. But that cannot be. The Reapers have taken the Citadel; the Illusive Man learned of the nature of the Catalyst from the Prothean VI, and told the Reapers. Now the last piece of the puzzle is in their grasp. They’ve taken the Citadel to Earth and sealed it shut, surrounding it with every ship they have. What could have been a bloodless victory for us will instead be a desperate struggle, a grim contest of strength against a foe whose power eclipses ours even as a river surpasses a stream. We cannot win through strength alone.

Kai Leng is dead, and with him most of Cerberus, but the Illusive Man himself remains elusive. The nest has been incinerated, but the chief rat is still at large. He'd already left for the Citadel before we ensnared his fleet. He will not escape again.

There are still some diverse fragments of Cerberus scattered throughout the Galaxy, but as an organization, they’re history. With Cerberus dealt with, we can turn our full attention to the Reapers.

--> The word has been spread, the time has come. The final engagement of this war commences at Earth in forty-eight hours. Every fleet has responded, every course set. 

Operation Skyfall has begun.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

47 The Fall of Thessia

--> A priority message from the Citadel. The Asari Councillor has asked to meet me in private, saying she has information too sensitive for transmission, even over an encrypted channel.

The Asari have thus far been spared the horrors of a direct invasion, but Reapers are amassing on their borders with the obvious intent of a full-scale assault. There's no question about whether the Asari can repel the enemy. The only question is how long can they withstand the onslaught before their defences buckle. The Asari have some of the deadliest commandos in existence, and their ships are possibly the most advanced of any fleet in the galaxy, but neither their nature nor their military structure are suited to drawn-out fights of grinding attrition.

While the Asari did indeed send scientists to assist in the construction of the Crucible, and promised us their fleets to defend it when launched, they have volunteered surprisingly little in the way of professional advice in the field where their expertise is unparalleled, that being the knowledge of Prothean history and technology. This secretive transmission from the Asari Councilor could mean that their reticence is at last shaken. Pity it took the prospect of imminent destruction.

We’ve nearly completed the Crucible, and lack only the Catalyst. If the Asari know something, we need it now. Our fleets won’t last forever. Garrus tells me he just advised the Primarch to cease all offensive operations, to preserve Turian fleets for the deployment of the Crucible. If we hope to win this war, it needs to be done sooner rather than later.

Citadel in sight. Shore leave denied. Whatever the Asari Councillor has to say, I don't want any delay in acting on it. Things are coming to a head, the dice are all in the air. We can't afford any mistakes.

--> The Asari have an artefact long hidden on their planet, known only to a few scientists and high-ranking government officials. It’s been a source of information for Asari advancements for centuries. With luck, it can provide us with a lead on the Crucible.

The Asari have many virtues, but at a time such as this, I would they were endowed with a nature less meditative and more spontaneous. This could be the key to everything, and they’ve kept silent about it until the Reapers are breathing down their necks. We need to move fast.

I've ordered the ship to Thessia, flank speed. The invasion of Thessia could begin at any moment. Pray we arrive there before the Reapers do.

--> Thessia is under attack. Their defence fleet is still engaging, but it won’t last for long. Reaper forces have already breached orbital defences and touched down on multiple points, their heaviest concentration being the Asari capital. That's the location of our artefact, in the Asari temple of Athame. Asari forces hold the position for now, but their casualties are mounting. I’ve ordered the Normandy to run what interference it can for the Asari fleet. Deploying in the shuttle.

--> We failed. We lost. The data is gone. Asari defences, weakened by Reaper attack, had nothing left to respond with when gunships attacked the temple; Cerberus forces led by Kai Leng had slipped through the crumbling perimeter. My team pinned down by heavy fire, Leng took the contents of the artefact, a Prothean VI, and left.

We were so close to the key; we had it in our grasp, and it is snatched away. I stood helplessly watching as Lang’s gunship flew away, taking with it our hopes of victory while Reapers crushed the beautiful Asari underfoot. Thessia, the heart of the most advanced and beautiful race in the Galaxy, now a broken flower, crushed under the tread of the unstoppable demons.

Poor Liara is crushed. She nearly came to blows with Javik for scoffing at the defeat of the Asari. Her composure recovered, she's buried herself in her data consoles, helping orchestrate the retreat and provide what evacuations lie within our power to effect. There is little I can do for her, and little she or I can do for her people. Never before, not even at Vancouver, have I felt so keenly the futility of my own puny strength against the awful might of these juggernauts of death.

Cerberus has done it. They’ve achieved the impossible, making themselves a subject of priority exceeding even the Reapers themselves. For months, we’ve fought Cerberus over our shoulder, fending of their attacks while focusing on the Reapers. That changes now. Cerberus stole the knowledge of the Catalyst, and it’s time to take it back. The Illusive Man has given me cause for anger before, but now, he has made me desperate. He might not be glad that he did.

EDI and Specialist Traynor tracked Lang’s shuttle, and charted its projected course through the Thessia Relay. It stops in the Ierra system. Ierra, home to the planet Horizon, the location of a widely-publicized sanctuary for refugees. All transmissions from that area are blocked. I have a bad feeling about this.

There is a definite alteration in the mood of the crew. With the list of allies growing ever stronger, with the Crucible so near completion, I believe all had begun to hope that victory was near, that no more worlds would perish. Or at the least, there had been hope that Thessia, the flower of the milky way, would be spared. Now suppressed hope is replaced by grim countenance and foreboding silence.

If Thessia cannot be protected, it will be avenged. The Reapers will pay for all their sins in due course; but first, Cerberus. When I see the steely glint in Ashley's eyes, the ominous precision with which Garrus readies his weapon, the unusually sinister glower of the last Prothean, and the grave composure of Liara, I see the quiet before the storm.

I almost feel sorry for Cerberus.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

46 The Battle of Rannoch

--> Tali keeps trying to apologize to me for the Invasion of Rannoch. Clearly she feels partially responsible for this disaster, and wants some other solution. I'm sorry, but at this point I don't see any possible solution other to finish what has been started. I'd held some small hope that the destruction of the Geth flagship and the cessation of its broadcast might release the Geth from Reaper control, but alas, such was not the case. Unless some unexpected good fortune befalls, unless we find some hidden way of erasing in entirety the claws of Reaper Indoctrination from the collective software of the Geth species, the only recourse is their complete and absolute destruction. I'm sorry it's come to this, but I see no other way. I don't want to seem unkind, but if Tali wants to somehow prevent or mitigate this tragedy, the time for that was when the Admiralty voted. It is now too late. The Geth must be exterminated.

--> Legion's covert strike is a success. That's one Geth server neutralized, the attached fighter squadrons disabled. The plan was to wipe all infected Geth from the server, effectively killing every locally housed program. But upon completion, Legion revealed that he’d managed to instead liberate a number of the programs from Reaper control, recruited them to our mutual cause against the domination of the Reapers, and downloaded them into Geth Prime platforms. The poor fellow seemed worried that I might mind. Why on Earth would I mind? He’d saved members of his own kind that voluntarily joined the just cause. I can’t imagine why I should object.

I’ve fought Geth Primes, and they are formidable opponents, to say the least. An entire platoon of them constitute a force nearly unstoppable on the battlefield. Facing the extinction of the Geth as a species, I’m glad Legion managed to save at least some of his fellows.

Despite having read the Alliance files detailing my past Cerberus affiliation, including the destruction of the Geth Heretics, Ashley was astonished to find that Legion was an ally, one already proven in battle against the Collectors. It seems my superiors saw fit to remove that little detail about a friendly Geth allying itself with us.

She’s not said much on the subject, but Ashley seems disturbed as I had been to discover that Geth are not merely super-smart killer robots. She and I had killed hundreds of them without knowing the worth of their life or the weight of their death. Both of us would do it again without hesitation, but the revelation is nonetheless disquieting. I found her drunk last night, something I’ve never seen before.

Legion has located the Reaper base, but Koris and his crew are still unaccounted for on the planet. Without Koris, his ships are in disarray, and in no condition to attack. There’s little chance that he’s still alive on the enemy-infested planet, but we have to try.

--> We have Koris, but were unable to save his crew. Thankfully the Admiral escaped with only minor injuries, and has resumed his command. Despite being a controversial Geth sympathizer who vocally opposed this invasion, he is nevertheless loved by his people. In the short term he is desperately needed to rally and orchestrate the civilian fleet. In the long term, when the Reaper War is won, I will personally see to it that Gerrel is brought to justice, and Koris' leadership will be needed more than ever. In the absence of both Koris and Gerrel, the tacit rule of the Quarians would almost certainly fall to that sadist Xen. I am determined to do all that lies within my power to ensure that does not happen.

--> We have the location of the Geth base. All Admirals are on deck, the Quarian fleet has tightened its proverbial belt and is ready to resume the offensive. I don’t like aiding the aggressor in this fight, but I have no choice.

--> We’d been wrong. It wasn’t a Reaper base directing the Geth; it was an actual Reaper. This is the fourth time I’ve been underfoot of one these towering metal behemoths of destruction and hate. By rights I should be dead.

The Reaper, powerful though it was, proved no match for a combined precision strike from the Normandy and the entire Quarian fleet. That great hunk of metal and malice is now no more than a pretentious heap of scrap. And best of all, its destruction freed the Geth.

Immediately following the demise of the Reaper, Legion declared the possibility that he could re-upload the desirable portion of Reaper code to the Geth, granting them the same devastating software upgrades as when under direct Reaper control, but with free will.

It was a near thing for the Quarians. But supported by Admirals Tali and Koris, I managed to appeal to the Quarians and convince them to stand down. The Geth never wanted this war, and attacking now would only get the entire Quarian fleet destroyed. I’m amazed that it worked. There must have been more unspoken opposition to the war among the Quarians than I had thought, else the stand-down order would never have worked.

Legion did more than grant the Geth enhancements, he spent himself in the process to complete their development, granting to all Geth what he alone had hitherto possessed: true self identity, independent of the Geth Consensus. The Geth are no longer merely self-aware, they are each and every one of them an individual. A person.

Even more than that, Legion was the great contradiction: the Synthetic that made peace with Organics. The Reapers run this sick experiment of theirs, this endless cycle of analysis and harvest, based on the belief that we must be controlled because we cannot coexist; they are wrong. Legion proved that. Legion may have given his life, but his example will live forever as proof of the one thing the Reapers fear most, the thing that not only threatens their forces, but undercuts their entire philosophy: the fact that we, the inhabitants of this galaxy, need not be enemies. Where there exists mutual goodwill, peace can be made.

And peace has indeed been made. The Geth have opened their arms to their erstwhile enemies, and have offered to share the planet Rannoch, their mutual homeworld, with the Quarians. Both sides will send their forces to aid us against the Reapers, but for the time being a discreet distance will be kept between Geth and Quarian combat units. No need to push the limits of the still-delicate armistice that has been achieved.

Tali has once again taken her place aboard the Normandy. She admits that she’s better at hacking than ordering ships, and wants to see this war through aboard the Normandy, the ship whose name she bears. Once her people labelled her with the name Tali’zorah Vas Normandy as an insult. Now the name of Normandy stands in the minds of the Quarians as the ship that helped them recover their home.

And without killing an entire race in the process.

Perhaps it is all for naught. When this war is decided, will Geth and Quarians alike lie in the communal grave of unnumbered billions destroyed by the Reapers? It may be.

But my hope is better.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

45 Quarian Invasion

--> The Quarians have so far been completely uninvolved in the Reaper War; they hold no planets for the Reapers to attack, and have made no move to offer us aid. The Quarians do not have so many dreadnoughts as the Turians, and their ships are typically second-class compared to the Citadel or Alliance vessels, but they nevertheless have the largest fleet in the Galaxy, and every vessel they possess is armed to some extent.

We need more ships of every purpose. We’ve lost a great deal of ground to the Reapers, and supply points are becoming fewer and farther between; an unarmed freighter could easily be worth a heavy combat vessel whose role it replaces in logistical support.

--> Quarian command has agreed to a meeting. The message was terse, even rigidly formal. Our intelligence has indicated for some time that Quarian ships have been preparing for something massive. I'd assumed that was war preparations against the Reapers, but given their continued absence on the scene of galactic conflict I'm beginning to have doubts. Those Quarians had better not be doing what I think they're doing.

--> Yep. I was right. The Quarian Admiralty have agreed to help in the Reaper War, but they need my help with a wee little problem first: namely that they’re currently locked into a death match against the Geth in a fight the QUARIANS started. Led by Admiral Gerrel, they’ve launched an attack against the Geth in an attempt to reclaim their homeworld.

We’re at war with the Reapers in a struggle that will determine the fate of the Galaxy, and the Quarians think now is a good time to pick a fight with a neutral party? Launching an assault upon Rannoch is a clear violation of their agreement with the Citadel Council to avoid provoking the Geth. I have a hunch that’s precisely the reason for their choice of timing. Launch an attack when all is well and the Council will interfere. But if the rest of the Galaxy is otherwise occupied…

The Quarians’ initial strikes were met with success, but the balance of power quickly changed in favour of the Geth. They’re now being coordinated by a Reaper signal broadcast from their lead dreadnought. Had the Reapers been in contact with the Geth for long, we would have certainly felt Geth presence in the War before now. It seems obvious the Geth resorted to extreme measures when attacked by the Quarians. Even if they entered into some deal with the Reapers willingly, it is highly unlikely they can withdraw again so easily. In the meantime they have the Quarian fleet pinned and are tearing them apart.

The Normandy’s stealth capabilities should enable us to board the dreadnought. We’ll find the source of the Reaper signal, disable it, and allow the Quarians to pull out and regroup.

Little Tali is an Admiral. Officially. In actuality, she's still just a kid, a kid shoved for political reasons into her late father's command position, a position she is not equipped to fill. She confided privately that she did not and does not support the Quarian re-invasion of Rannoch, but that she must support the ruling of the other Admirals to maintain morale.

Of the five Quarian admirals, only Koris, commander of the Civilian Fleet, vocally opposes the invasion. Raan, commander of the Patrol Fleet, is a kind-hearted albeit soft-headed old woman who would be better suited to managing relief efforts than making strategic decisions. Xen, commander of the research fleet, is a cold-blooded scientist who is keen to dissect the first Geth she can get her hands on. Gerrel, a robust and domineering old soldier in command of the Heavy Fleet, overruled Koris through sheer force of will to lead the Quarians upon this ill-judged venture.

Raan and Tali were probably the deciding balance in the vote to attack the Geth. Had Koris won both their support, as he ought to have had little difficulty in doing, Gerrel's rash initiative would never have taken flight and dropped this unwelcome mess on our collective heads. Xen is a lost cause, and I don't expect unflinching conviction from either Tali or Raan in this controversial matter, but Koris could and ought to have done better.

--> In case there had been any question of whether Gerrel is a blasted fool, he ordered all ships to open fire on the dreadnought the moment it was disabled; while my team and I were still on board. One should not assume the worst of an ally, but it is not entirely impossible he saw opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: the source of the Reaper control, and the Citadel representative who might interfere with his invasion plans. Even worse, he fired on one of his own: Tali was accompanying my team aboard the dreadnought when the Quarian fleet opened fire. Her desperate attempt to countermand Gerrel's order was indicative of just how much authority Gerrel wields. Raan too attempted to call off the attack, and quailed before the reprimand of her purported equal.

I'm well aware of the fact that effective military leadership cannot be achieved by committee, that there must be a clear and undisputed authority to decide quickly and without delay, but it is becoming painfully clear that the Quarian leadership is being ruled by a man whose desperation to redress disaster in the wake of his own failure borders on monomaniacism.

For now, the Reaper signal is offline, the weakened Geth have disengaged, and the opposing fleets have pulled back to recoup their losses. Koris' ship went down in a suicide run against a Geth planetary defence cannon on Rannoch, and the remaining admirals show not the slightest inclination to dismiss or even overrule Gerrel's determination to prepare for another assault. The battle will resume. The Quarians will not take this opportunity to withdraw. At this point it's too late for that anyway. With the entire Geth network under Reaper control, they now pose a threat that must be eliminated, and fast.

We met an old friend aboard the Geth dreadnought. Legion. The Reapers were using him as an interface to broadcast their control throughout the Geth network. His restraints removed, he helped us disable the ship and evacuate in a Geth fighter when the Quarians opened fire. Despite being the medium for their control, Legion is apparently the only Geth not now subject to the Reapers’ will. As much as I trust Legion, I’d not have taken his word for his sustained autonomy had he not proven himself friend through action when he had ample opportunity to turn on us. But I am still mystified why he alone is singularly immune to Reaper control. He can only tell me that it is because he is different, more advanced. Subjugation of synthetics would naturally function differently from Indoctrination of organics, so I suppose it is possible a preprepared program intended for the purpose could prove ineffective against a singular individual that failed to conform to expected specifications. There’s no doubt Legion is exceptional among Geth, taking it upon himself to independently seek a means to stop the Geth Heretics, then ally with organics to destroy the Collectors.

Needless to say, the Quarian Admirals are alarmed by the sight of our new ally. Xen expressed a keen desire to dissect Legion. I asked her what she was waiting for, he’s standing right there, and told Legion to avoid breaking the furniture. Unfortunately, neither one seemed to appreciate the joke. Legion seemed simply confused, and Xen left in a huff. She is not welcome on my ship.

Legion tells us that, despite disabling the Reaper signal on the dreadnought, the Geth are still not free of the Reapers. There’s a Reaper base established on the planet, and within a short space of time the Geth will have another means of transmission in place; they will then be once again deadly enough to easily destroy the Quarians. The location of the base is unknown. The Normandy, with Legion’s guidance, will begin immediate search for the target.

In the meantime, Legion has drawn our attention to a Geth server, linked to a significant number of Geth fighters, vulnerable enough for a covert strike. If bombed, the Geth inside the server will simply transfer to another site as soon as the attack hits. The server will have to be disabled, quickly and quietly.

We also have reports that several escape pods from Admiral Koris' ship made it to the surface. Search and rescue is urgently needed in hostile terrain, and the prospect is out of the question for the unstealthy Quarian fleet.

Outraged by the treachery of Gerrel, Garrus has suggested that we invoke Spectre authority and place him under arrest. Javik offered instead to remove him from the equation permanently. I've forbidden both courses of action. Gerrel is indeed guilty of treachery and moreover responsible for this entire predicament, but like it or not, he's also the man we need to fix it. He's the only Quarian Admiral equipped with solid military experience, and this is an irrevocably military matter. Without him, the remaining Admirals would assuredly flounder.

We have urgent matters to attend to. Gerrel can stand trial after this is all over, Geth and Reapers alike. Ashley's muttered comment about pistols at dawn will have to wait.

Should the Quarians withdraw altogether from the conflict at hand, or worse be defeated by the Reaper-enhanced Geth, we would be bringing back from the Far Rim, not urgently-needed reinforcements for the Alliance, but instead a new fleet for the Reapers.

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44 Leviathan

--> The orb in Bryson's office is secure, the building under lockdown. We still don’t know much about Indoctrination, but we have by this point determined how to block its effects through jamming. We’ve shielded the artefact, and C-Sec has established a perimeter around the building; we cannot afford to have this thing tampered with until we can figure out more about it.

Given that Hadley was fine one moment and dominated the next, was the only person in the room to be affected, and the personnel at the Mahavid mine suddenly regaining their senses upon destruction of the resident artefact there, Leviathan’s indoctrination is significantly different from Reaper Indoctrination. While Reaper Indoctrination is gradual, permanent, and irreparable, this other method was sudden and temporary, a sharp suspension of the subject’s will rather than rewriting its mind. Reapers and their artefacts emit an ambient signal of control without cessation until thoroughly destroyed. These strange orbs, on the other hand, imply a more selective approach, either that they themselves can choose when to activate and for what purpose, or that they are more or less merely doorways, doorways that something or someone else on the other side can open.

Our next best lead is in the Pylos Nebula; Dr. Bryson has a daughter, Ann, searching in the Zaherin system. According to a recently transmitted message, she may have found another such artefact on Namakli.

--> We have Ann Bryson, but the rest of her team was killed by Reapers; it seems they too were after the artefact, trying to activate it to trace Leviathan.

They may have succeeded.

We don’t know if Leviathan is a rogue Reaper or something similar, or exactly how powerful it is. What we do know is that we need allies, and Leviathan, if found, could become a very powerful ally. We need to find it before the Reapers do. Summon bigger fish. With the Reapers hot on this thing’s tail, we have no choice. I hope this doesn’t end badly. But in the end, even if it weren’t for the Reaper war, this creature is precisely the sort of thing the Alliance would be bound to investigate. If there’s a predator out there, hitherto undiscovered, lurking somewhere in the gloom, we need to know what it is, where it’s hiding, and what it’s intentions are.

Our best means of tracking the Leviathan to its lair seems to be the same method used by the Reapers. We have the artefact on the Citadel shielded. If we unlock it and Leviathan reaches through, we should be able to trace the signal. It’s a dangerous plan, but Ann has volunteered as bait. She’s already felt the control of the artefact she dug up on Namakli, and is likely to be the easiest subject. She wants the creature responsible for her father’s death found, no matter the cost to herself.

So be it. We’ll get what we need then shut it off. Unlike the miners which felt only minor behavioural modification, Hadley was used as a direct mouthpiece by Leviathan, and is still in the hospital. This could prove fatal for Ann, but the choice is hers.

--> Done. We have a trace in Sigurd’s Cradle, but will have to narrow it down through search pattern. Ann is shaken, but unharmed. She says that she thinks Leviathan is angry at being found. That comes as no surprise. Let’s hope it’s willing to negotiate.

--> We’ve followed Leviathan’s signature to the planet 2181 Despoina in the Tophet system. It appears to be underwater. Splendid.

--> We found Leviathan.

The shuttle was struck, and crashed-landed by mixture of luck and our pilot's skill on the hull of a derelict freighter, floating in interminable confinement upon a vast, grey ocean of heaving waves and sullen skies. This freighter, a human prospecting ship, had been disabled in the same way as our Kodiak: an EMP weapon, the source of which lay hidden deep beneath the surface, down in the dark where Leviathan lurked. Our quarry was old and cunning, and had ensured that, should it ever be discovered, the ones who found it would never escape to tell the tale.

And so it was for the crew of that unfortunate vessel: their corpses lay in slow decay before more of those sinister orbs, the Artefact of Leviathan. They'd sought to find food and water on neighbouring wrecks, and brought back nothing but this: the cold, baleful stare of an alien mind, watching them slowly perish, alone on this desolate and lifeless ocean. No gulls, no scavenger of any kind, had touched their remains. They died utterly alone, but for the lurking creature that lay silent in the deep beneath.

And down we must needs go, to find home. Neither the crippled shuttle nor the orbiting Normandy, should it descend, could hope to escape this trap. Our only means of return was to follow the snare to its source; the Lair of Leviathan.

Reapers had followed us. Their scouts closed in round us as we prepped for descent. A single diving suit, salvaged from the wreck, was made ready. Alone I entered the suit, and alone I took the plunge, leaving behind the light of day, down, down, and ever further down, until at last I stood alone on the ocean floor, and searched for Leviathan, with no guide beyond the light of the suit, and the certainty that Leviathan would be found in the deepest crevice of that watery void, dark, and soundless.

The rock bed shook when it rose from the deep chasm where it lay. The Leviathan.

It’s not a Reaper, it is in fact something far older; it is the original of which the Reapers are but imitation. Leviathan ruled the Galaxy in their time. The lesser races, meaning people like us, were their slaves, slaves ruled by the voice of Leviathan in their minds, and by that same means Leviathan spoke in my mind. I've heard and seen the thoughts of others in my own mind before, and though this strange conversation with the Leviathan comes nowhere near the horror of the Beacons, it was nonetheless an ordeal I wish never again to relive.

Long before the first Cycle, races across the Galaxy created artificial intelligence, and were invariably destroyed by their own creation. Leviathan, in its arrogance, created an intelligence of its own to solve the problem. Leviathan gave the Intelligence wide powers and resources, and it created servants to search the Galaxy for information that would provide it a solution.

But the Intelligence found no solution to the pattern of rise and fall, civilization and destruction, so instead chose to streamline the process, and created the Cycles for maximum efficiency of rise and fall, ensuring that future species would follow predetermined paths. The Galaxy was turned into a colossal science experiment, the Intelligence its master, and the Reapers its servants. The Leviathan were the first to be harvested. The Reapers had thought to render their predecessors extinct, but Leviathan survived, hidden in dark corners of the Galaxy. They are alive. They have been watching, and waiting, for the Reapers to find their solution. For uncounted millennia they have lurked in the shadows. Until today.

Obstinate and imperious, the Leviathan initially refused to heed my words, saying that the Cycle could not be broken, that it was pointless for them to become involved and reveal the location of the last of their species to the Reapers. I pointed out to them that the Reapers had found their hiding place, that they could remain secret no longer, that this cycle was different from previous cycles: we’d thwarted the Reapers’ first attempt three years ago, and were now fighting a drawn-out war with better odds than any previous civilization.

After a show of hesitation, Leviathan agreed to help, destroying the Reaper that had pursued us to their planet. They will not directly expose themselves to danger in open war, but they have provided us with a great many of their artefacts. These covertly deployed behind enemy lines could turn vast numbers of Reaper forces against each other when crucial.

The suit's systems were failing, and oxygen had been long lost when I reached the surface. The next clear memory I have after concluding parley with the Leviathan is the anxious faces of Ashley and Garrus bent over me, the shuddering rumble of the Kodiak's engines whirring as we left that grim sea behind.

Garrus has made jokes about me having already died once and it not sticking. That dive very nearly did the trick. Ashley suggested, with all due respect, that it should have been her who went down, citing Alliance protocols forbidding unnecessary risk of senior officers.

Out of the question. Never in a million years would I consent to send Ashley into that black and cold depth alone.

I’ll not pretend I’m entirely pleased with the result of this search. The Leviathan dominated the Galaxy once before, uncounted millennia ago, and may well attempt to do so again. Such an attempt may not occur for centuries; Leviathan has proven itself nothing if not patient.

Ashley has taken a philosophical view of the matter. She says that in the end, the origin of the Reapers is mere detail, irrelevant to our purpose. The Reapers were and are monsters that seek to defile the Galaxy, and therefore must be destroyed.

Despite the risks, one definite advantage has been gained. We have definitively and categorically proven that, despite their patently absurd claims, the Reapers are not infinite. The Galaxy has found the Origin of the Reapers, and is thus given new determination to provide them an end.

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43 Task Force Aurora

--> Priority message from Admiral Hackett. I am to report to a Dr. Bryson on the Citadel and render him all possible assistance, details classified. This sounds important.

Joker says we spend so much time running back to the Citadel we should save fuel and just “sit-a-there”. I say he needs to stop making eyes at EDI; it's not healthy, this growing fascination of his with his robot copilot.

--> Ashley's time has been well spent during my absence, bagging quite a prize in the Minos Wasteland. The Cerberus defectors have been successfully rescued. Top scientists, they deserted en mass with their families when they realised their members were disappearing like clockwork as they completed their given assignments. While initially thinking they’d given Cerberus a clean slip, they'd soon found themselves trapped on the planet Gellix, surrounded, grounded, and out-gunned. The Illusive Man would have killed every single one of them rather than see them escape.

Jacob, who had remained with Cerberus when I left for the Alliance, was leading what little defence the scientists could put up against their pursuers, and had already taken a bullet by the time the Ashley and the Normandy showed up. Nevertheless the operation was a success: Jacob and almost all of his compatriots got out of there alive. Their expertise will be quite welcome in our construction of the Crucible.

Jacob has chosen to remain with the Cerberus scientists rather than rejoin the Normandy. Specifically, he’s offered his services to Alliance leadership as advisor on Cerberus strategy and tactics. For my part, I trust Jacob's sincerity, and have officially vouched for him. The man doesn’t have a deceitful bone in his body, and having been finally convinced of the Illusive Man’s true nature, Jacob can be counted upon to fight against his erstwhile superior with all earnestness.

There is, however, the possibility of spies hidden amongst the scientists. They’ll help build the crucible, but they’ll be kept under discreet observation. I hate to seem suspicious of people who, in all likelihood, sought merely to save their own lives, but Cerberus has a solidly established habit of sleeper agents wrecking sudden havoc. Udina was not the only traitor on the Citadel.

One such “mole” was the Volus Ambassador. Political discretion forbids I make this story publicly known. Din Korlack had already begun to have doubts about his ties with Cerberus by the time they attacked the Citadel. After that, they used blackmail to gain information through him on classified Turian shipping. He then cut ties with Cerberus, but not before certain Turian officers put a bounty on his head. I pulled his little tail out of the fire, and he told me of an attack Cerberus is planning on the Turian shipyards at their colony on Aphis. When Cerberus arrives there, they’ll find a warm welcome. Korlack will remain on the Citadel for the time being, where C-Sec can keep an eye on him.

It irritates me no end. The bloody Reaper invasion is underway, Earth is under occupation and being harvested, and not only am I not fighting on Earth, I’m spending as much time fighting Cerberus as Reapers. Cerberus was supposed to be an underhanded force for Humanity, and instead they’re doing their level best to ensure our downfall. So the Illusive Man wants to control the Reapers; but does that hair-brained scheme of his require the destruction of the forces that oppose the Reapers? I’m becoming more and more convinced that the likelihood of, if not Cerberus, at least the Illusive Man being to some extent Indoctrinated, is very high. It would have to be a subtle measure of the affliction, enough to twist his mind without rendering him senseless. Maintaining such a delicate balance on such an intrinsically insidious and slippery slope as Indoctrination must require a very cautious measure of controlled exposure.

I've consulted Alliance Intelligence. We still do not have the location for the Cerberus central HQ. Over the course of this conflict, all Cerberus personnel that have been seized have either committed suicide, been too thoroughly reeducated to be of any use, or simply not known anything crucial. I mined Cerberus for all the data I could get my hands on during the Collector Crisis, and even that had failed to reveal the centre of the spider's web. Comprised of isolated Cells, each of which operates independently of the others, the whole network is specifically designed to thwart discovery. All Alliance assets, combat, intel, and logistics, are strained to the limit; we simply don't have the margin to track down Cerberus at this time. The Illusive Man remains, in a word, elusive.

When it all goes down, it won't be enough to destroy the Reapers; we have to walk through that fire with enough strength remaining to ensure that Cerberus is not left dominant. It would never do to slay the dragon only to be ruled by the jackal.

Citadel is in sight, docking clearance granted. Time to find Bryson. Crew has shore-leave for two hours.

--> Bryson is dead, shot by his assistant almost as soon as we walked into his office, as though it were our arrival that prompted the action. The shooter, Bryson’s assistant, is named Hadley. His dossier checks out clean. Had there been any suspicion of his being a security compromise, he’d have never been assigned to Bryson’s team, Task Force Aurora. After the event he claimed that he had no memory of shooting his superior, then collapsed after delivering an odd message: “Turn back. The darkness can’t be breached.” He’s now comatose in a Citadel hospital under C-Sec watch.

Task Force Aurora was assigned to investigate all unexplained phenomena, past and present, that could lead to information on the Reapers. Bryson had begun following leads on what had caused the death of a Reaper found by the Batarians. This Reaper corpse, the Leviathan of Dis, as the Batarians called it, had been their downfall. Their people studying it had become Indoctrinated, and betrayed them to the Reapers. Bryson believed that the true Leviathan was not the dead Reaper, but the thing that had killed it. Unlike the Reaper corpse I acquired the IFF from to reach the Collector base, which had been killed by a defunct mass accelerator of enormous scale, the means of this other Reaper’s death is unaccounted for, and conspicuous by absence. Bryson’s investigation indicates that the cause of death was mobile: no possible remains of a weapon powerful enough were to be found anywhere near Dis. Moreover, the nature of the damage done to the Reaper was unique. It had been crushed.

That is a sobering thought. There’s something out there in the depths of space, something we know nothing about, that has the power to crush a Reaper.  To say that is unprecedented is an understatement of the highest degree.

Using a search pattern founded on alleged deep-space creature sightings crossed with Reaper hunting patterns – they are evidently searching for Leviathan too – Bryson’s field teams are searching the Aysur system for clues. We’re heading there now.

Garrus voiced the concern that finding this thing may very well necessitate its destruction. Despite the fact that it killed a Reaper, we have no guarantee of its disposition, or even its intelligence: it could be sentient, or it could be a more-or-less vegetative creature that destroys everything it catches. We only know that it's dangerous. Whatever the case, we need to know where it is, and more importantly, what it is.

--> Dr. Garnaue, Bryson’s foremost field searcher, is dead. The station he was on is ostensibly a mining operation, but was instead researching everything from the digestive properties of Varren to varieties of carnivorous flora to the evolutionary implications of Human biotics.

Every person aboard that station was in a half-daze, as though the bulk of their brain function had been suspended, or diverted. We found an artefact in the mines; a dark orb with an inner glow, but it was immediately destroyed by one of the resident personnel. Immediately thereafter, everyone on the station stood up and looked about them as though they had been asleep. They’re ten years behind times. They are now in Alliance custody for psychological evaluation and security. It appears the artefact we almost got our hands on was the means for what more or less equates to a form of indoctrination, different from standard Reaper Indoctrination in that once the source was destroyed, the effects were immediately terminated, and the subjects recovered their minds. The control was an active imposition of will, not a complete rewriting of the subject.

There was another such artefact in Bryson’s office. We have an object with undefined powers of Indoctrination right in the heart of the Citadel.

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