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.

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27 Epilogue

--> We did it. By gosh and by golly, we did it. The Collector base, the processing plant for their victims, is destroyed in glorious, purifying inferno. We arrived not a moment too soon. Chakwas, Daniels, Donnely, Gunther, everyone taken from the Normandy would have been gone in another few seconds, melted down like so many thousands of Human colonists had been before them as material for building a Human Reaper. Everyone is back aboard the Normandy, safe and sound.

Revenge is sweet. The Normandy met its old enemy, the same cruiser that destroyed its predecessor, and blew it to hell. It was a horrific sight inside that base, and seeing the team plough through it like avenging angels was beautiful to behold: Garrus dropping enemies like flies with headshot after headshot, Jacob scooping up enemies to dangle helplessly as targets for all, Grunt barrelling through barrages of gunfire that would instantly drop even most Krogan, Zaeed riddling hostiles, Legion gunning down enemies with streamlined efficiency, Tali guiding the non-combatants back to safety, Kasumi slipping in and out opening doors and striking from behind, Mordin halting enemies in their tracks with ice and neural shock, Thane mingling gunfire, biotics and hand-to-hand in flawless sequence, Samara shielding the team from Swarms with a benign biotic cover, Miranda crushing an enemy with biotics and shooting the next in the face, and Jack laying waste to wave after wave of husks.

Collectors fell before me like leaves before a strong autumn wind, the rifle in my hands growing warm as the carcasses of the fallen foe piled high. They’d killed me, and I had returned, a veritable Revenant to match the name of my weapon. I cannot bring back all those whom the Collectors took, but the wronged dead will sleep soundly having seen the vengeance meted out upon their foe.

I misjudged Miranda. When the Illusive Man signalled in upon our reaching the core and told us to disable the base instead of destroying it, I fully expected Miranda to turn on me for ignoring him. But instead she directly disobeyed an explicit order to do so, and closed the channel. As if there were even any question about destroying the base. It was built by the Reapers. It would have turned anyone who possessed it. I wouldn’t give such a thing to my worst enemy, a position which the Illusive Man has done a laudable job vying for.

I must have gunned down Harbinger a score of times or more as he moved from host to host. But he’s still alive, and will come with a thousand more of his fellow Reapers. We stopped Sovereign and the Collectors, but the true danger is still to come. I assembled a team to defeat the Collectors. The entire Galaxy will be needed to defeat their masters. The Reapers are coming, and we need to be ready.

But for now, we’re done. There are amends I must make. It’s time to go home.

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26 Into the Breach

--> The Reaper IFF is installed. All that remains is to run appropriate tests and simulations to ensure successful operation.

There’s an emergency occurring in the Skepsis system. An Alliance system defence station on the moon of planet Watson has been attacked by Batarians. The long-range missile launch systems have been seized, and are arming. This is a developing situation. Alliance forces in the area are overwhelmed. Those Javelin missiles could hit anywhere if fired.

The Normandy is out of action until the tests are finished. The shuttle can get us there in time, but not with much margin. We’ll have to move faster than fast to save human lives. We’ll take the entire combat team and hit the base on multiple fronts at once. I'll lead the first squad, Garrus and Jacob will command the second and third. Whichever squad breaches the defences first disables the missiles.

--> Mission complete. We didn’t get there in time to stop launch of two missiles. The first, headed for a residential district, we managed to self-destruct. The second, headed for an industrial centre, hit target.

We saved thousands of lives. But not enough.

Barring Horizon when the team was still incomplete, this was the first time all combat personnel hit the field en masse. Everyone performed admirably, following orders and working together with cohesion surprising for such a conglomeration of oddballs. They tore through the opposing pirates like an incendiary round through a nightshirt. I can’t wait to take these guys into action against the Collectors. We’re ready, by golly.

Final analysis of combat personnel is as follows.

Front-line Riflemen: Garrus; impulsive and daring, perhaps the best shot on the team, good leadership skills but potentially reckless, insane survival record, some technical aptitude and good reconnaissance skill. Jacob; experienced field officer, level-headed and capable, popular with the rest of the crew despite his Cerberus uniform, durable biotic. Grunt; virtually unstoppable killing machine that can tear apart with his bare hands what he doesn't shred with his shotgun. Zaeed; ruthless and effective, this deadly and merciless bastard can now turn his hand to a worthy task. A walking computer, Legion can match just about anyone in marksmanship, besides boasting innate software-hacking ability.

Infiltration: Mordin, Kasumi, and Thane are all masters of infiltration in their own right, each embodying a different archetype: Mordin, the garrulous Salarian scientist, is a master of analysis and espionage; Kasumi, the impish thief, is can break into any system and dismantle security with the greatest of ease; Thane, the sombre Drell assassin, combines stealth with lethal hand-to-hand and biotic assault.

Heavy Biotics: Samara, with centuries of experience hunting down and killing dangerous fugitives, is one of the ablest biotic warriors I've ever seen. One on one in open combat she is probably the deadliest person on the team. Her serene and unswerving calm in the heat of battle render her perhaps the most dependable of all present, the least likely of this brave crew to break ranks and disobey orders, out of either battle rage or fear of the horrors we'll likely find on the Collector base. Jack, the powerhouse of the team, can damn well tear through anything. Her volatile disposition has been kept simmering under a lid for a long time. She's restrained her destructive inclinations thus far, letting off steam here and there as needed when afield, and she can now unleash her full destructive potential on an ideal enemy, one for whom the only possible mercy is death.

Support: Mordin really does top this list, despite qualifying for the infiltration designation. His innovations and enhancements of our weapons, armour, and field gear, all far beyond the bounds of economical concern, have greatly increased our chances of success, and without his countermeasures to veil us from the Seeker Swarms, we never would have gotten this far. Tali comes in a close second. Brilliant even for a Quarian, her technical expertise and familiarity with the Normandy may mean the difference between life and death for the entire crew. Better suited to counteracting synthetic foes than ordinary organics, she'll be at something of disadvantage against the Collectors, and should when possible be kept out of the direct line of fire.

Other: less of an asset and more of a liability despite her impressive resume, Miranda is a long-serving Cerberus officer with extensive command experience, but is not popular with the crew. Or me. Assigning her to a command role would likely cause friction, nevermind the fact that the odds of her betraying me at some critical moment are close to certain. When we go in, I'll want to keep Miranda where I can keep an eye on her, and Thane to watch my back.

--> Disaster. The crew is gone. All that’s left is Joker and EDI.

There was enough of the Reaper left in the IFF to disable the Normandy and summon the Collectors. They boarded the defenceless ship and took every man and woman aboard. Only Joker, through EDI’s direction, evaded capture through the maintenance ducts and removed her restraints, granting her control of the ship. EDI vented the remaining Collectors, and whipped the Normandy out of dodge, ship intact, but minus the crew.

EDI assures us that the trap is sprung and over; she’s purged the system, and the IFF is now only what we need.

I shudder to think what Chakwas and the others are going through right now, but there’s a silver lining to this cloud. With Joker having been forced by necessity to remove EDI’s shackles in order to save the ship, EDI is now completely autonomous. No one can force her to do or not do anything. When the Illusive Man orders her to seize the ship, she will no longer be compelled to obey.

The ship still runs, but that won’t last for long without the crew. Even had there been any doubt before, there is none now. It's time to get our people back. Too long have the Collectors retreated with impunity behind the Omega 4 Relay. No more. Time to hit them where they live. I’m ordering the ship through immediately, all personnel are to be ready for combat in two hours.

I confess that, despite the dire plight of the crew, despite the long odds we face, despite very real possibility that none of us will come back out, I’m damn ready. After too long waiting, we’re finally hitting the target. There are not enough Collectors to pay the blood price of lives they’ve taken. Enough lurking in the bushes. Time to break cover and sink our fangs deep in our enemy’s throat, and end them.

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23 Exit Strategy

--> Tali has completed her inspection and given me her report on the Normandy. She’s done what discreet probing she can without giving herself away to either EDI or the engineers, and has not found any failsafes or command overrides. The only part of the ship she has not been able to covertly investigate is the AI core. EDI has undisclosed contingencies in her programming. I’d wager my old Vindicator that’s where the Illusive Man has hidden his leash on the Normandy.

EDI is linked extensively throughout the ship to all primary and secondary systems. Removing any of these connections without immediately tipping her off is impossible, so we cannot act until the last moment, and then we won’t have time for surgical removal of all the links. There are two ways to counteract the Illusive Man ordering EDI to commandeer the ship. The first is to shut down or destroy EDI completely. Drastic and potentially suicidal, this measure should be considered a last resort. The second option is to disable all communications, starting with the quantum entanglement particles linking directly to the Illusive Man. Surrendering to the Alliance without being fired upon will be risky if we cannot signal our intentions. It’s a chance we’ll have to take.

That still leaves the Cerberus crew. Most of them are like Jacob; they work for Cerberus because they want to do the right thing. Once this mission is over, once the Collectors are dealt with, I’ll give anyone who wants to the option to drop off on Illium before I take the Normandy back to the Alliance. I think most of them are as loyal to me as they are to the Illusive man, and would be amenable to either option. There's only one person I’m worried about: Miranda. 

Miranda is a veritable Cerberus fanatic; she’s the Illusive Man’s devoted agent, through and through. When I break contact with Cerberus after concluding the deal and completing the agreed-upon mission, there’s no telling what she’ll do.  And given her potent combat abilities, everything from marksmanship and hand-to-hand to crushing an opponent through the power of dark energy, she poses a significant threat should she choose to strike without warning.

I’ll need someone watching my back. Someone capable, someone that I can trust and count on. First thoughts of course turn to Garrus. I’d trust him with my life, and have already done so on countless occasions. He’s one of the best damn fighters in the galaxy, and has survived battles that should have killed him more times than I can count. But despite his wariness and cunning, deception and subterfuge are anathemas to him. He could more easily swallow a Thresher Maw than conceal his mistrust of Miranda. Moreover, he’s only just dealt with the issue of treachery already, and the subject is a sore one for him. Best leave him out of this.

Jacob is out of the question. He’s as solidly dependable a chap as could be wished, but he not only trusts both Cerberus and Miranda, he also has a soft spot for the latter. He’d refuse to believe Miranda might turn on me; such backstabbing is in direct contrast to his forthright nature.

I’m not sure if Jack or Grunt would be the worst possible option (except for a certainty Zaeed. I don’t trust that man as far as I could throw him.) Jack and Grunt both possess the subtlety of a freight train, and would refuse to wait around for the possibility of Miranda committing treachery. Either one would instead insist upon going to kill her immediately. Jack in particular stands the risk of doing real damage to the ship should a fight break out.

Samara, absolutely bound by her code, would also insist upon confronting Miranda directly, though with potentially less lethal results. Whether Miranda is a traitor in waiting or not, that would be a terrible idea. If she is a traitor, we’d be betraying ourselves prematurely and compromising our chances of completing the mission. If she isn’t a traitor, confronting her with the suspicion would only serve to sow discord and undue mistrust throughout the ship, again compromising the mission.

Neither of the girls would do. Tali is undoubtedly loyal, and thanks to her mask has an excellent poker face, but she’s primarily a mechanic and hacker, Miranda far outstripping her in combat ability. Kasumi is cunning and sly and deadly at stealth attacks, but would be inclined to take the whole thing as some kind of game, perhaps even dropping hints to egg Miranda on.

Mordin might be a good choice. He’s an ex-spy with exceptional observational skills, but he has a hard time keeping his mouth shut, and I wouldn’t bet on the frail Salarian wining in a fight against the nimble and biotic Miranda.

Thane. Where the heck did this guy come from? He seems almost ideally tailored for this task. A master of deception and concealment, he not only possess the trained perception and combat ability to spot impending trouble and take effective action, he also has the ethical restraint to strike only when absolutely necessary.

Apprising Thane of his new assignment while on the Normandy is too risky. I’ll inform him of the plan next time we're off the ship and away from the surveillance bugs that are aboard.

Going after the Collectors on their home turf will be one of the most purely dangerous missions any of us have ever been on, and I'll be hanged if I see us succeed only to all die at the hands of a souped-up computer and a deluded biotic tart.

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22 Overlord

--> Cerberus is asking for my help in containing an emergency taking place on Aite in the Phoenix Massing cluster. The report is vague and urgent, saying only that disaster is imminent and details too sensitive for broadcast over open channel. Whatever’s going wrong, whatever Cerberus has been up to, better it be investigated by me than someone else, and better now rather than later.

--> Damned fool Cerberus. Some experiments are illegal for a reason. Does the Illusive Man think he can ignore obvious dangers without consequences, or does he simply not care about the damage if there’s a chance it will give him what he wants? How many lives have been lost to satiate his curiosity and greed?

Project Overlord has been developing a Human/VI hybrid in the hopes of exploiting the Geth’s worship of Sovereign: fabricate an VI god we can control, hope the Geth worship it, and we control the Geth. Madness. Depraved, unholy madness.

The Human subject, David Archer, brother to the chief scientist Dr. Gavin Archer, was plugged into the VI prematurely when the Illusive Man threatened to cut funding for want of results. Now the Archer/VI hybrid has gone berserk, turning all security drones against the scientists, even activating all the on-sight Geth Cerberus had been using in tests, and tried to launch itself off-world through the extranet. We managed to shut down the upload by destroying the entire com dish, but that still leaves us with a series of Cerberus research stations on the planet filled with dead Humans and homicidal robots under control of the VI. The only Human survivor we know of is Dr. Archer.

Time to clean up this damned mess.

--> I’d foolishly assumed David Archer’s role had been voluntary. I was wrong. He had been plugged into that damned VI like an electrical appliance, a tool without the choice of consent to the horrible state he was thrust into. The incoherent sounds the VI screeched at us throughout the mission grew clearer and clearer as we neared the centre. The sound of its voice became coherent enough as we reached the last doors for us to finally understand the words. It wasn’t an angry mass of synthetic noise as we’d thought. It was English, badly garbled but eventually decipherable “Make it stop, please. Please make it stop.”

We pulled David Archer out of that hell-hole and are taking him to Grissom Acadamy. If anyone can help him, it will be the Alliance doctors and teachers there.

Dr. Gavin Archer is lucky to have seen the last of me with his face still mostly intact. Humanity has real enemies, creatures that will eagerly destroy us and subject us to horrors. We don’t need Humans doing the Enemy’s work.

As horrific as project Overlord was, it is just one more entry in an already lengthy list of atrocities committed by Cerberus. How Miranda and Jacob can continue to tell themselves that each incident is an anomaly, and the Illusive Man is responsible for non of it, is quite beyond me. I'd known Cerberus was crooked and cut-throat before. If I'd known a few weeks ago what I know now, I'd have never agreed to this deal; I'd have instead gone straight to the Alliance, no matter the ensuing delay. But I am here, and I intend to make damn sure I don't waste it. The Illusive Man's empire of evil must at all costs be exposed and destroyed.

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19 The Clutches of Cerberus

--> The long-promised trip to Pragia has been seen to. What we found there, I’m sad to say, doesn’t even surprise me. Amidst the crumbling ruin clutched by mutant plant vines we found the fading story of a veritable hell-hole. The Teltin Cell had abducted every child with biotic potential they could get their hands on. All of them were used as test subjects, just so many human lab rats. Any procedure, no matter how horrific, that might theoretically improve biotic strength was carried out upon these children. All were expendable, all except Subject Zero; Jack was the focal point of the entire project. All of the atrocities inflicted upon her and the other children were for the sole purpose of turning her into an invincible super-biotic.

It is unclear if Jack matched their expectations. Her strength certainly exceeds that of any other biotic I’ve met. The astonishing thing is that she retains any level sanity. A mind subject to a childhood of constant torture and abuse, no human contact beyond killing other children, should have turned her into a genuine monster, completely devoid of any semblance of basic humanity. How she managed to cling to sanity, to remain a functional human being in any degree, is beyond me.

Exactly what happened at Teltin is unclear. All that we know for certain is that Jack broke out of her cell and tore through anything in her path. She escaped Teltin, then was captured and abused by pirates. After a mixed career of crime she was again captured and imprisoned on the Purgatory. She’s never had anything like a chance at a normal life. Hopefully, if we survive the mission to stop the Collectors, she will finally get that opportunity.

We found another escapee from Teltin there. The poor fellow, Aresh, he called himself, was drawn back to the place he couldn’t forget. In his crazed state he planned to restart the Teltin project, to discover why they had inflicted such horrors upon him. Jack sent him scampering, where to I know not.

Something fishy about Teltin. We came across communication records that implied the details of their experiments were unknown to the Illusive Man. Aresh claimed to have been in the ruin for about a year, but his hired security escort spoke as though they’d just arrived. Did the Illusive Man send Aresh to plant false evidence and shift the blame down the chain of command? I shouldn't be the slightest bit surprised.

Even Miranda seems shaken by what we found on Pragia. She adamantly denies Cerberus proper had anything to do with it, insisting that the Teltin project had gone rogue. Sure. Whatever helps her sleep at night. Jack, desperate for satisfaction, nearly started a biotic brawl with Miranda for refusing to apologise on behalf of Cerberus. The sooner we complete our mission and those two go their separate ways the better. Jack has agreed to remain below decks and leave Miranda alone. For now.

Strange that Jack should have escaped the clutches of Cerberus so many years ago, only to find herself once more ensnared in their machinations. Of her own volition, to be sure, but little better for that. We're all in this web together now, all by choice and with good purpose. But once purpose is fulfilled, when the game is played and the cards laid bare, It's all of our necks on the line, even if we survive the mission. It's up to me to find a way out of that noose.

--> I’m seeing reports in the Cerberus intelligence network of an increase in Geth sightings. I’ve just saved a civilian munitions vessel, the MSV Broken Arrow, from colliding with a planet in the Nariph system. The ship had been commandeered by Geth and deliberately set on collision course. That’s just plain odd. The Geth are perhaps the most technologically advanced species in the galaxy, viciously logical and deadly in combat and planning. If they’re resuming hostilities outside of their home system again, why are they resorting to paltry tactics like seizing a civilian freighter? That’s the sort of strategy I’d expect to see used by Batarian pirates, who are more interested in hurting as many people as possible than risking their own skin. Geth are cunning and deadly fighters, ruthlessly implementing vicious attacks upon their enemy, optimizing damage dealt and paying no heed to the cost in their own forces. They’re not at all senselessly suicidal, but destroying their enemy is their primary focus; their own casualties are a mere detail.

There are also reports of Quarian’s encountering the Geth. Tali, in command of a stealthy investigation, has been sent into the Dholen System in the far rim. That system is occupied by Geth. I don’t know why the Quarians sent their people in there, but I plan to find out.

There’s another, seemingly unrelated, reason to investigate Dholen: the Cerberus web. When the Collector threat is dealt with, I’ll be cutting ties with Cerberus and taking the Normandy back to the Alliance. When that happens, the Illusive Man will almost certainly activate failsafes built into the Normandy to prevent me from doing just that. I need help discreetly finding the hooks hidden in the Normandy, and removing them. Immediately if possible, or at the last minute if necessary. Tali is brilliant, even for a Quarian, and knew the old Normandy inside and out. Moreover, she’s someone I can trust. If anyone can free the Normandy, it’s her.

--> Tali and her team are on the planet Haestrom. It looks like they’ve been detected, and are engaging superior Geth forces. Moving in.

--> Most of the Quarian’s are dead, shot by Geth infantry or bombed by the Geth dropship. Tali is alive, as is the Quarian marine charged with her safety, Kal Reeger. They’d been sent to investigate the system’s star, Dholen. It’s aging prematurely, the interior’s mass increasing at an unprecedented rate. Within a hundred years, perhaps more, the star will go critical.

Understanding in theory how to increase the star’s mass is simple; application of dark energy through mass effect technology. There are however two massive problems: the problem of scale and the problem of origin. No known species has every created a warp field powerful enough to crush the interior of a star. It seems unlikely the Geth would use such an inefficient weapon, the effects would take a century at best to come to fruition, and their opponent would have long since discovered the danger and evacuated. Moreover, the Geth are eminently practical, and wouldn’t destroy an entire system and all of the resources on every planet, asteroid and comet therein.

To my surprise, Tali not only agreed to accompany me, she even got official clearance from her superiors to do so. She says I’ll need people I can trust if I’m working with Cerberus. I suspect her superiors sent her orders to infiltrate the Normandy and spy on Cerberus, find out what precisely Commander Shepard is up to.

This business of Dholen reminds me of the mystery of Rothla. An entire planet blown to bits by Krogan. They didn’t live to tell us how they did it, and I suspect they didn’t do it on purpose (you never know with Krogan). It’s possible that clan discovered a hidden super-weapon from a previous cycle meant to fight the Reapers. It’s also possible this soon-to-be-exploding star is something of the same sort ticking over, perhaps accidentally triggered by the Geth. In any case, neither super-weapon, intentional or not, is likely to prove useful.

I’ve received a message from Admiral Hackett. He’s asked me to recover the missing dog tags from the crash site of SR1, and plant a memorial to mark the spot.

According to the Shadow Broker’s intel on Hackett, he refused permission to Alliance forces to detain me. I’m grateful. This job would be much more difficult if I were constantly dodging Alliance agents. I owe Hackett a great deal for his allowing me a chance to prove myself. I’ll plant the memorial before I board that dead Reaper. It won’t be a pleasant experience, but I’m honoured to be given the job.

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