Mass Effect: Reaper Dreams

QG3 (Chess with Petrovsky)

"Plant a demon seed, you raise a flower of fire."

U2

May 15th, 2187

Dr. Gavin Archer

Gavin Archer had a bad feeling. The shuttle, an older UT-37 Dzu-Teh, rattled obnoxiously each time the thrusters were applied. Its Mass Effect field wasn't the most stable and these old eezo reactors were noted for their poor shielding. In a firefight, the biggest danger to the crew was a radiation spill. Maximum FTL was an anemic one-hundred and fifty times light speed. Trips between systems took days, even weeks. It was for this reason that the UT-37's had been out of commission for over a decade. When one did occasional come across an old Dzu-Teh, it was exclusively in the civilian sector, or purchased on the cheap by some low-rent mercenary group. Gavin understood that the Alliance had taken heavy losses, still he was surprised that they had resorted to taking old craft out of mothballs.

The soldiers who surrounded him were silent. They were tall as Turians, yet built like Krogans. He categorized them as N6's, perhaps some special commando group assigned to Hackett. Now that the war was over and his work on the Crucible had proved valuable, he was hoping that he might get a reprieve from alliance command for his past crimes and affiliation with Cerberus. With the relays down, and the fleets stranded in Sol, the Alliance could ill afford to send good scientists to prison.

Gavin hoped he would be assigned to help rebuild Arcturus, or perhaps he would be stationed at Jump Zero. However, it was likely he would be thrown into the frenzy at the relays. He'd already heard nightmare stories from old acquaintances; crews scrambling to find pieces that had been blown clear, Salarians and Asari fighting over the best method to bring the quantum shields back online, and the damn Quarians who kept trying to pilfer parts for their journey home.

Dr. Archer was running all the possibilities through his head. It might take years to get a relay online. Just figuring out to re-engage the massive cores was a nightmare in engineering. If they did it wrong, made the wrong calculation, it might blow when coming back online. The resulting explosion would destroy the entire system, all the fleets, and Earth itself. It would be an ironic ending for the cycle that finally defeated the Reapers—extinction by Mass Relay.

The shuttle bumped onto a landing deck, the engines powered down, and one of the marines prodded him with the blunt end of a rifle. Gavin moved in the general direction that the soldier indicated. He was liking his position less and less. Something was definitely wrong. When the shuttle bay doors slid open and he stumbled out, his worst fear came to light. He was surrounded by white, gold, and black uniforms.

A Cerberus officer greeted him. Her eyes were cold. "Welcome aboard the Roraima, Dr. Archer, my name is Lt. Commander Nicholas. I will be conducting your re-orientation, but first, General Petrovsky would like to speak with you."

Gavin cast his eyes down in disbelief. "Petrovsky, but I thought he was in Alliance custody, I thought..."

Commander Nicholas grinned. "That Cerberus was destroyed? No, Dr. Archer, though the Illusive Man underestimated the Reapers and was subsequently indoctrinated, along with many other primary cells, there were other parts of our organization that survived. Did you not read the reports on Benning? We were attempting to thwart the Illusive Man's attempts to build his forces."

Gavin shook his head. "I read the reports. There was a rogue branch of Cerberus responsible for the slaughter of civilians."

Lt. Commander Nicholas sighed. "Unfortunate, but necessary. We saved them from a fate worse than death. The Illusive Man was integrating them, repurposing them into Reaper slaves. Had we not intervened, our indoctrinated primary cells would have had the forces necessary to take the Citadel during Udina's coup attempt and you and I would not be having this discussion."