King's Endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 100 Duffer's fluff

Little fluffy clouds

In Peacemaker's War Room, Garrus examined the new information from the reconnaissance tracks through the fluff.

"We've pretty much covered it all, sir. Nothing."

The primarch's holographic image stared at the same image, which was repeated in his own bank and bell on the Citadel. Another image, that of Hackett, looked on.

"It beggars belief the enemy has not trapped and mined this cloud to kingdom come."

"We've been thinking about that, sir. Czernykh and me."

"And?"

"Tarquin – that's our AI – pointed something out, Primarch."

"You named him after my son?"

"We think you should meet, at some point. Sir."

"…Very well. Continue."

"This fluff wasn't even in the stellar neighborhood till four million years ago. Proper motion's wrong."

"So?"

"So the singularity's been here two billion years, Primarch. Reapers can't mine and trap every damn scrap of cloud that floats past, they'd run out of material too fast."

In the belly of the beast

The core of a Reaper intelligence comprised a series of layered intelligences representing contributions from the highest-level ascended races over more than a billion years of evolution punctuated by extinction. There was no central processing unit, as such. Smart surfaces, forming part of the skin of each critical Reaper component, were logic components of Reaper 'brains' in the same way that retinas are of human neural tissue – and organized in microstructures of a similar scale.

Such "metamaterials" guide indoctrination of any unprotected brain remaining motionless, and too close, for too long, to sentient Reaper parts. However, infalling (and outgoing) rays are a prime hazard of 'life' near the event horizon of a black hole. Cosmic and gamma rays would destroy indoctrination logic gates, absent shielding - which shut logic down. And that in turn shut down indoctrination maintenance of on-board slaves, which itself required mitigation.

So Reapers near the horizon were long-lived, but by the standards of their kind inefficient and rather stupid, like a new recruit waking at 4am for drill. By now, though, the response and reconnaissance group had gradually pulled out of the singularity ergosphere. They were no longer so badly afflicted.

Someone's knocking at the door

"I still think sleeping Reapers would have left an observation post here," remarked the Primarch.

Hackett spoke up: "Well I don't think one would do them any good."

"Why not?"

"If it uses comm buoys to communicate, those are dead like anything else using a mass relay."

"I see. Sentries would still be blissfully unaware."

"Exactly. Besides, they're too late. After Shepard obliterated the Collector base around the black hole, Lawson had a brainwave. Cerberus was never able to implement it, but we can. Mikhailovich sent them a present. Should be arriving about now."

Pushing the bellybutton

Through blind luck the duty Reaper was one of those in the shadow of the singularity when the Red Flash struck. The capital Reaper had a plan to cope, of a sort, as the duty emergency responder; and a sudden collapse of QEC communication was serious, but not quite unprecedented. Response parameters were clear; wake the frozen ones.

By now some of its skin processing units could be brought on-line. It had not yet, however, attempted to poll its neighboring Reapers. For one thing, that was not its job, and for some time it wasn't thinking straight. Besides, the responding Reaper didn't even know something had hit them. Those in a position to be aware of it, were dead – actually, still dying to an outside observer. Given the nature of space-time at the horizon, they always would be.

There had been twenty-thousand odd capital reapers representing all the ascended races since the Catalyst first gave its orders. Less a few hundred true deaths from some unusually advanced cycles, duty Reaper still believed all these could continue their eternal rest, till the event horizon met the cosmic horizon.

As Hackett suspected, it did not know only eight thousand were left, most of them clustered on the lee side of the event horizon, and close to it. So far as the duty responder was concerned, there was no question of waking any, yet; it should be sufficient to wake a battlegroup destroyer frozen not in time, but in hydrogen ice, within the orbiting artificial planet.

But there was a problem. Only a handful of the quick-reaction forces on the black hole's satellite base were responding at all – incoherently; they seemed stupid.

On due consideration it woke a neighboring horizon destroyer. A slaughtership would also be woken, to provide artificial troops for ground truth. Just what prompted the degraded or lost QEC signals was not yet determined, but clearly, this cycle had got completely out of hand. Its message to the neighbors was simple: Wake. Join me.

Girl, interrupted

If this was a stealth frigate, thought the N7 Commandant, the pilot sure as hell hadn't got the message. Breaking God knew how many rules, there was a double sonic boom as it transected the atmosphere above Rio. If it wasn't for one tiny little problem, he'd have lost no time in having the pilot interned. That problem was the emergency message on his private terminal, coupled with the personal omni-tool communication from the Admiral of the Fleet, no less.

"Saber Three?! Councillor, just what if I may ask –"

A Saber alert over-rode every nitpicking regulation, so that didn't shock the commandant. Not being a complete fool, he had complied with the terms of the order, including bringing Commander Ashley Williams up to the jump pad, then asking for clarification – but was disappointed:

" – You may not. And if you could, I would not be at liberty to tell you…"

What really got under his nose was the flat requirement to release a student from the N7 program to operations, with immediate effect. He had intended protesting that in the strongest possible terms. The unceremonious arrival of a Council frigate with Sparatus, no less, descending the ramp was significantly dampening his ardor.

"… Nonetheless, Commandant, thank you for the rapid response. Commander Williams, the Alliance High Command requests and requires your immediate attendance."

"Pegasus. Council business then," observed Ashley.

"Military operations, though. I regret that this vessel is not an Alliance ship, but the Admirals requested Council co-operation, ours is the fastest available and suitable ship, and you are a Spectre. We are complying. Are you ready for immediate departure?

"Yes, Councilor. May I ask what awaits us at Arcturus?"

"We're not going there. You are to report to Boris Mikhailovich; your squadron, to Archangel, Nemesis, then Dis. Ashley, the Admiralty says the Nest is live."

"Holy Mary, mother of God."

The commandant, not understanding any of this, broke in:

"Councilor, for ICA records, may I ask what has required withdrawing this N7 candidate from her course?"

"No."

Boy, interrupted

No real-time QEC response existed from the Catalyst on the planet, either.

It was not that the pairs were broken; they still seemed active; but the only response from the controlling intelligence was glacially slow. As though it were running only on hardware down near the black hole event horizon's reference frame. That would mean all the real-time Reaper population was non-functional. Impossible.

So the attention of the emerging Reaper was not on raising the still life at the event horizon, but on querying the Catalyst interface at the Citadel. Which was just as slow.

But one could tell it had been moved. Now that was unprecedented.

We are the hollow

Meanwhile, Rasa was making her way to N-16 via Peacemaker's DD flotilla. The crew bunks were if possible even more cramped than those on an SR-2 frigate, but she was struck by the uniformly high enthusiasm and commitment of the small-boat crews.

With Tarquin's assistance she eventually managed contact with Jana, in Kilimanjaro.

"Any progress?"

"I'm in the med bay, reading Maelon's latest report. For the first time, he seems to think removal of the Salarian bridgework should come next."

"But then Trevor and Lisa will be frothing-at-the-mouth pro-Reaper!"

"Exactly. But he wants to persuade a Reaper to reverse them. From that he would find the pre-image – I mean, he'd work out the detail of the transformation."

"He's dreaming. There's no way a Reaper is going to spend weeks reversing them just 'cos we rock up and ask them nicely."

"True. We'd die. But I have in mind something else which could work. Suppose Shepard rocks up. He wants them not to reverse Trevor or Lisa, but for the indoctrination algorithm, and suppose further that he doesn't ask them nicely?"

"Oooh. But different Reapers might have different indoctrination algorithms."

"That's why we have to remove the bridgework. Let the Reapers see them."

"Maybe we do it to just one? And keep them banged up in klink?"

"Doing both would be more revealing. There's a problem, though."

"Yeah. When Shepard's finished, Reapers will be extinct. It could take decades to understand what they were doing, just from analysis of Reaper corpses."

"I know. But your friends are a pilot program for all the other indoctrinated."

"We'd have to sneak them inside a Reaper, somehow. I just can't see it."

"I suspect we'll have to freeze Trevor and Lisa until they're ready. You speak to Shepard. I've blotted my copybook with him. Get Chambers on side."

Combined Arms

Out of the black North Cape and Peacemaker emerged the following morning with instructions for the garrison commander on N-18.

Garrus strolled up to the Krogan in as nonchalant a manner as he could muster.

"Hey, fancy-face, what have you brought us to the arse-end of the cosmos for?"

"Now, now, Wrex, that would be Tuchanka, and the T-chain's got a ways to go yet."

"Funny bird. I've got the Void Devils powered up, also five fighter groups of Tridents, and the commander of bloody Artimec wing breathing down my neck."

"That's because there's word we can expect Oculus harassment units. We also have to wake up every damned jawan and Chinese infantryman from their iceboxes, along with their missile batteries and artillery."

"That's a million troops!"

"Also, break out your babies from their tanks, this is about to get serious. We think."

"Finally! Do I get to dance on a Reaper's grave?"

"Wait for Javik. He isn't here yet. He's coming with Williams, on T'Soni's ship."

"Liara has a ship? And I see you have a ship. Why don't I have a ship?"

"I believe Hackett was heard to mutter something to Shepard's mom about finesse being a pre-requisite. I'm sure we could loan you a second-hand dreadnought."

Reconnaissance

Paranoia still reigned. The flotilla Admiral therefore dispersed the heavies of his fleet to several light-minutes out from N-16, in particular the dreadnoughts and carrier battle groups with their cruisers. Heavies were too weak to fight and too fat to run, but from there could battle stragglers, or loop through the dark to finish the second full-sized crucible.

Remaining smaller troop and frigate units were dispersed to the fringes from N-16. These could at least run down the relay chains, if not hide. So, at N-16-A through F there squatted squadrons of DDs led by a single non-stealth command frigate. Unlike the heavies, these conduit-capable ships were dozens and in one case hundreds of light years from the N-16 relay; but like the heavies, they could return to N-16 within minutes, even seconds – to bite in the rear any Collectors following a fleeing flotilla.

Provided, that is, the N-16 relay were powered up at all.

It wasn't.

It wouldn't be, till either Vakarian or Czernykh requested it. There was no word from them, not yet.

Till then, N-16 was the cork in the genie's bottle.

Jonah's smart bullet

Emerging from the fluff, both frigates were fully stealthed. Nicolaev cursed quietly, adding: "Hell, this part of space is as black as the inside of a Reaper asshole."

Czernykh nodded. His pilot was expressing himself a little strongly, but there were very few stars visible, and some of those were nebulae millions of light years away. Peacemaker's AI, Tarquin, came on TBS: this was a quite civilized machine, not so easily resorting to profanity:

"You can just about see the end of the Orion arm poking out the fluff, behind us."

Co-pilot's HUD lit with ship diagnostics, all blue. The Admiral's aide had rejoined them as the ship AI's mobile unit (not before time). The Admiral himself remained behind on Kilimanjaro, now re-armed as a dreadnought with a mini-crucible paired with a conduit relay – never fired, even for testing. Czernykh hoped fervently it never would be. It was supposed to be broadly directional, but the impact on ship systems might well be horrendous.

Eva spoke up: "Commander, we could engage FTL and proceed to the black hole."

On the other hand, for his own ship things were looking up. While Eva assisted the Admiral on Arcturus, North Cape's computer had reverted to the literal and limited understanding of a VI. Not that this was altogether bad: Eva's absence obliged crew to brush up on manual procedures – but there must be something to the notion that true AIs had an indivisible quantum focus. It was good to have Eva back.

"Anything on passive scans? Can we get a HUD display of the black hole's position, at least?"

Eva didn't even have to twitch. On the cockpit dash a lightly tinted glassine sheet extended up and a threat map sprang to life against the black, including a grey quivering dot representing the black hole's gravity wave source.

Garrus' voice came over TBS:

"Scans negative. Follow us…" – and Peacemaker flickered out of view.

"Good. Nicolaev, engage if you please."

…

"Coming up on dropping out of warp – What the hell?"

"Relax, Bogdan Pavlovich." He looked over at his co-pilot, now – oddly – dressed up in her green silks. He liked it. So did the rest of the crew. In work hours? Unusual.

"That was another shock wave? Did we just pass a third ship in warp?"

"Not a ship, no. These interceptions were foreseen and planned for."

"You didn't answer the question." There was a brief silence.

"The Admiral says, you need to know. That was a solid shot impactor, which will arrive –" Both frigates abruptly exited FTL warp; "– moments after we do."

Next chapter: #101, "Contact"

Monday, September 7, 2015