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.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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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42 Defectors and Crime Syndicates

--> It’s easy to forget that not all of the combat-ready forces of the galaxy are government-sanctioned fleets and armies. Besides local militias and makeshift civilian resistance, there are also the criminal elements, from local gangs to galaxy-class mercenary bands. The Blue Suns, Eclipse, and Bloodpack are the three most powerful and well organized of these disreputable brigands. They have thus far taken but little part in the Reaper war, beyond of course avoiding the Reaper invasion front and taking advantage of whatever resources become exposed. If they could be recruited, it would add a welcome boost to our combat-ready forces in this everywhere and everything against the Reapers.

There are two difficulties with such a plan. The first is getting them to cooperate with our command structure. The second is getting them to work together without tearing each other’s throats out. They are, after all, criminals, and have fought each other perhaps even more than the authorities.

As fortune would have it, the second difficulty seems to be clearing itself up already.
Prior to expulsion by Cerberus from her seat of power on the pretentiously named waste bin of Omega, Aria T’Loak was the biggest crime boss on that station, the centre of criminal enterprises in the whole of the Terminus Systems. Despite her sour disposition, Aria was an unusually pragmatic crime boss, providing what little security and stability Omega had. She’s currently trying to unite the Blue Suns, Bloodpack, and Eclipse under her rule. She's smart enough to realise that it’s in her interest to help combat the Reaper threat, and that she has the means to rally these disparate factions into a joint force for that purpose; and her own personal power of course.

Under any other circumstances, helping a crime lord amass more power would be a capital offence, but we need more guns on the ground, and Aria’s coalition presents an opportunity to take advantage of a resource that would otherwise be very difficult to utilize. I am officially requesting permission from Alliance Command to proceed with perhaps the most unorthodox mission ever undertaken by an Alliance officer.

--> Orders received. I am authorized to solidify Aria's control of the Terminus gangs, and ordered to take all reasonable measures to obtain Aria's cooperation against the Reapers.

As part of our deal with T’Bitch, I will help her retake Omega and its stores of Ezo. The Cerberus occupation force there is commanded by Oleg Petrovsky, one of the Illusive Man’s top military strategists. He should prove a tough nut to crack. Aria has made it clear she cannot operate with my combat team. She named no names, but it seems perfectly obvious the individual in question is Garrus. Archangel united the merc bands once before in a group effort to kill him. Bringing my best friend along would in this particular case be inadvisable.

I’m leaving the Normandy under Ashley’s command: her orders are to continue running standard interference against Reaper occupation forces. Williams knows the ship and crew, and should have little difficulty keeping the Normandy intact and her crew alive.

I can't say I'm looking forward to seeing Omega again. Aria's company is also something I'd hoped to avoid. It's no accident such a waspish and unprincipled individual feels at home on that filthy rock.

--> Aria's coalition has breached the Cerberus defence fleet and engaged the entrenched enemy in a street-to-street, door-to-door fight through the dark and dirty streets of Omega, the garish and neon lights of shady vendors illuminating a gruelling and savage fight between mutated soldiers and murderous hoodlums. The run-of-the-mill gang warfare of Omega has merely been replaced by an augmented and intensified variant, one where the usual factions have been united by the intrusion of a new adversary, the jack-booted control of Cerberus domination.

We've got our first foothold, now it's time to make our next move. Cerberus has blocked off most of the avenues of advance with energy barriers. Aria's engineers are trying to find a way to bypass control directly, but with little success. There are, however, chinks in the armour. A small team can bypass the barriers through maintenance routes without attracting attention. Aria's ensuring all teams are ready to assault the moment the shields go down.

--> I've received an encrypted transmission from Ashley. She's caught wind of some Cerberus defectors on the run in the Minos Wasteland, and is taking the Normandy in to investigate. Apparently she found it necessary to correct Javik's assumption that the goal is to kill the defectors.

She also relayed a surprising update from Hackett. The Crucible is being built far faster than I'd anticipated; Alliance engineers have through herculean effort completed perhaps fifty percent of the known work. Once decoded, the plans are easily translated for seamless construction. But even at this late hour, we still don’t know how it will utilize the massive power it stores. The means for its application, the Catalyst, is still a complete mystery.

Despite being our single most well-informed expert on Protheans, never in all of her work did Liara find anything regarding the Catalyst, and neither her extensive network of intelligence nor any government and their official archives hold a solid lead on what it might be. Javik is himself a Prothean soldier, and doesn't know squat; not surprising as this Catalyst was obviously a tremendous military secret of the Protheans. They apparently safeguarded this secret very well. So well perhaps, we may never discover it.

What an incredible irony. We've discovered and are well on our way to completing the designs for this Prothean super-weapon, only to have the same security of knowledge that preserved the plans for our time prevent us from finding the last and crucial component. Could such success be achieved only to be thwarted by one final, obstinate, detail? God send that our fate will not prove so fickle.

--> Aria and I have made contact with an old friend of hers. Nyreen Kandros, ex Turian military, it seems she and Aria have a history. Apparently they parted ways when their incompatibilities grew more clear than infatuation. In Aria's sneering words, Kandros “practically oozes virtue.” It's hard to see how this upright Turian soldier found anything compelling in Aria. I personally find our Asari confederate to be a pain in the neck.

Kandros is running an underground network of militants in opposition to the Cerberus occupation. They call themselves the Talons. She's agreed to coordinate with our assault, on the condition that we ensure the safety of civilians. It seems she not only commandeered this local gang she now commands, she's whipped them into shape to resemble a regular militia, uniformed and orderly. The ranks all seem to bear a strong loyalty for their leader. They speak of her with genuine regard, and salute with more than token spirit as she passes by. I admit I'm impressed Kandros successfully transformed what had been an ordinary gang of lowlifes into a disciplined and conscientious defence force that prioritizes safety of civilians over their own lives.

All forces are set. Petrovsky's defences are waiting for us. He thinks this is a game of chess. He's about to find out that his enemies don't play chess. They play dirty.

This is going to be bloody.

--> Operation complete. Omega is under Aria’s control. The Cerberus forces there have been driven out, Petrovsky taken prisoner. Aria had wanted to kill him, and I’d have had no objection, but she let him live long enough to surrender. Given that he’d ordered his men to stand down and formally asked for quarter, I could not in good conscience stand by while Aria strangled him. Aria and I nearly came to blows when I demanded she desist. But the matter is resolved, and Aria will be sending Omega’s considerable supply of Ezo to the Alliance, in addition to fielding her forces alongside the Alliance soldiers in combat.

Kandros is dead. She sacrificed herself to save civilians from Cerberus monsters. It appears Cerberus is not content merely to modify their soldiers using Reaper methods, they’ve begun going the whole hog and manufacturing monsters of their own design from the bodies of prisoners. It is becoming more and more obvious that, whatever the Illusive Man’s original intentions were, Cerberus is irredeemable. Everything the Reapers are doing, Cerberus is doing, only slower.

With Kandros gone, it's unclear what will happen to her followers. The Talons will almost certainly fall under Aria's command. Whether they will maintain their own structure and discipline without their leader remains to be seen. Omega needs Kandros. One hopes her example, her spirit, will not be forgotten. I've sent a report to the Turian military, with a recommendation for Kandros' posthumous exoneration and commendation.

I now take my leave of Aria, and Omega. Normandy awaits!

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