Ethereal Effect. Chapter 19. (Patreon)

Interlude: Council of Eternals Member Histrion Mirtanis. Institute of Advanced Shipbuilding, Aetris Military Shipyards. Two Months After the Relay's Destruction.

Too many events of galactic significance had taken place over the past year. The activation of a mass relay in a foreign system. A war in space against the semi-organic vessels of some species of space bugs. The frantic transport of entire armies across the stars, which had completely disrupted the Dominion's interstellar shipping schedules. And finally, another war, ending with the destruction of an entire system. In a single year, we had encountered living aliens for the first time, entered an interstellar war, lost a frigate with its entire crew, acquired a protectorate with a population of ten billion, lost two hundred Blessed in underground assaults, and destroyed a mass relay together with the planet on which the rachni had established themselves. I had lived for almost eight hundred years, yet I could not remember a year this intense even during the civil war.

Now I stood in the observation gallery of the Institute of Advanced Shipbuilding, an elite research center located beside the Aetris military shipyards, the finest we had ever built. From here, I could see the docks where the hulls of new frigates were being assembled even now. They had been laid down immediately after news of first contact with the rachni, and the pace of construction had only increased since then. War demanded ships. A great many ships. And as the member of the Council of Eternals responsible for military production, it was my duty to ensure that those ships were completed on time.

It only seems easy to change the freight schedule between star systems. In reality, interstellar travel schedules, especially outside the relay network, are planned a year ahead, sometimes several. Young colonies require enormous quantities of advanced equipment that, for one reason or another, cannot yet be manufactured locally. Production of cores for spacecraft—whether interstellar vessels or ships intended solely for travel through the relay network—is currently concentrated exclusively in the laboratories of this institute.

Each new generation of ships requires ever more sophisticated industrial facilities, and we could not yet afford to scatter those facilities across a dozen colonies. It would take too long, cost too much, and be far too difficult.

And, to be honest, the reserves of ether in other systems had turned out to be extremely limited. Most extraction outside the capital system took place on colonized planets, in ground-based mines rather than orbital facilities. Processing complexes like the Core required immense quantities of expensive materials produced only on Aetris. More importantly, we had yet to discover any asteroids rich enough to make the construction of another such station profitable. The Core in the Aethra system remained unique. No second source of ether on that scale had been found anywhere in our sector.

Aetris was also the only world capable of producing precision machine tools—the same machines that contained dozens of tiny ether cores and without which proper industrial production could not be established in the colonies. Those tools were used to manufacture everything locally, from agricultural machinery to mining equipment. Without agricultural machines, the Aiterri would have to grow food with their bare hands, which would mean every colonist spending all their time merely feeding themselves, leaving no possibility of industrial development. Without mining equipment, ore could never be extracted in sufficient quantities for either construction or export. Without seagoing vessels, no proper fishing industry could be established on ocean worlds. It was difficult to imagine how much a single colony required before it began contributing to the Dominion instead of merely consuming the resources of the homeworld. And we had ten such colonies.

As for building spacecraft, that was another matter entirely. At present, only two systems apart from the capital had managed to establish proper shipyards.

The first and largest was in the Arakesh system, one of the systems where we had activated the relays ourselves. Two of our three existing cruisers had been built there, along with more than fifty Heavyweight-class cargo ships—six-hundred-meter container carriers designed to transport freight between systems connected by the relay network. Their original purpose had been simple: move goods between two systems. Now those same vessels were responsible for carrying most of our armies and their supplies into the Aroon system. Infantry and ammunition could hardly be transported aboard military frigates and cruisers.

The second shipyard orbited Eirena, our first colony. Over a century and a half, it had developed far enough to manufacture almost every major component required by the space industry. Not cores—those still had to be shipped from Aetris—but hulls, propulsion systems, life-support equipment, and shields. Eirena had become our second industrial center, and its importance grew with every passing decade.

And then there was the Dominion's primary shipyard, along with the entire institute responsible for designing every vessel in our fleet. It lay in the distant orbit of Aethra, where the star's gravitational field was weak enough not to interfere with experiments. It was the perfect location for the Institute of Advanced Shipbuilding. Every major breakthrough, from the Mirage to the newest frigates, had been born here.

I had come to the Dominion's main shipyard to receive the report on the rachni vessels we had managed to capture. Naturally, no one had brought the bugs into the Aiterri home system. That would have been madness. The research was conducted at an extrasolar station located one light-month from the capital world—far enough that nothing could reach Aetris in the event of a containment breach, yet close enough to maintain regular traffic. Samples of rachni weapons, which incidentally contained no biological components whatsoever, were thoroughly cleaned, subjected to multiple stages of decontamination, and only then delivered to the Institute of Advanced Shipbuilding.

A formal reception awaited me as I stepped out of the in-system shuttle. There was Vaelis Stark, head of the design division: a tall, stooped Blessed with a permanent squint that revealed both a keen mind and a complete lack of interest in anything unrelated to spacecraft. Talvis Corvus, director of the shipyard: broad and powerfully built, looking more like a factory foreman than an administrator. And Altair Mortek, chief of station security: trim, military in bearing, with a cold gaze that continued scanning the space around me even here, in the heart of our defenses. There was also a crowd of reporters who would later cover my visit on every news channel in the Dominion.

Militarist sentiment was clearly rising throughout society. As far as the Dominion's citizens were concerned, we had not stumbled into a war against a species that surpassed us in both ship numbers and technology. We had heroically saved another alien species from the brink of extinction. It was a heroic story, perfectly suited to propaganda. The news channels endlessly replayed footage of our battle at the Aroon relay, especially the moment when the rachni ships, unable to withstand our fire, began to retreat. The media hailed it as proof that the Dominion was superior to any threat and already predicted our eventual rule over the entire galaxy—as though the galaxy held not one hundred billion stars, but only the dozen and a half systems currently under our control.

The principal events took place over the course of a single day. A press conference before the reporters, where I once again delivered carefully rehearsed forecasts about the coming war and assured the public that the Dominion was prepared for any threat. Participation in a scientific congress devoted to the development of the space industry, where I listened to a dozen presentations on new alloys, improved ether cores, and promising propulsion systems. And, most interesting of all, the laying down of the first War God-class orbital defense station at our shipyards.

Strictly speaking, it was not even a station. It was a genuine three-kilometer warship built around a mass accelerator running the length of the hull. The weapon would launch twenty-kilogram tungsten projectiles at half a percent of the speed of light—an achievement that only ten years ago had seemed like theoretical fantasy. Each shot carried twenty-three terajoules of energy, the force of a tactical nuclear weapon concentrated into a single point. And the future War God would be capable of firing twenty such projectiles every second without interruption. Twenty nuclear strikes per second, against any target within range.

And that was not all. Since the vessel would have no Unified Core—and installing one on something of that size was physically impossible, as no crystal could survive the strain—the War God was to receive the most powerful gravitational drives ever constructed. The same kind abandoned on faster-than-light vessels because they were incompatible with the Core. But this ship had no Core. It would have only sublight power and maneuverability, making our defense vessel not merely the strongest ship in the Dominion, but one of the fastest. Beside it, the cruiser Enterprise would look like a tugboat beside a racing craft.

If the completed vessel proved as effective as its designers promised—and I had every reason to trust Vaelis Stark—then such defense stations would eventually appear in every key system of the Dominion. Not immediately. But within thirty or forty years, every major colony would be protected by a War God of its own.

Construction would take twenty years and consume staggering resources, perhaps the entire budget of a small colony. But a defense station in the capital system was essential, and this design offered maximum mobility, allowing it to protect not one planet, but every asset in the system at once. Orbital shipyards, research stations, mining complexes—everything currently defended only by frigates and cruisers would gain a shield no vessel known to us could breach.

The final stage of my visit was an inspection of the newest developments.

"Lord Mirtanis! The war with the rachni is the best thing that has ever happened to science!"

Vaelis Stark said it with such sincere enthusiasm that for a moment I forgot what he was talking about. He was talking about a war in which we had nearly lost an entire star system. Yet to Stark, it was "the best thing that had ever happened to science." I had known him too long to take offense. He was not heartless. He was obsessed. And obsession, as everyone knows, leaves no room for ordinary emotions.

"You have already reverse-engineered the alien technology?" I asked in surprise. "The first samples arrived only three months ago."

"Their resonant shields have indeed presented some difficulties," Stark said with a dismissive wave, "but within a month we will crack the batteries used in their personal shields. Of all their personal defensive technology, only the batteries interest us. Our shields were weaker by only thirty percent. With new power cells, that gap will disappear. We will be able to power our existing barriers with the same efficiency as the rachni while preserving every advantage of our own design."

He spoke rapidly, leaping from one thought to the next, and I could barely keep up.

"The shipboard shields have been more troublesome because we do not yet possess a single intact sample. We destroyed every vessel before we could capture one in sufficiently good condition, and what remained was little more than scrap metal. Without a working example, we can only guess how their systems function."

He spread his hands like a man denied the chance to take apart his favorite toy.

"But the most fascinating discovery is their shipboard weaponry! One hit from their cannon stripped a full five percent from our shields! Yes, each weapon aboard an enemy vessel fires only about once per minute, but that is not a limitation of the weapon itself. We built our own prototype using the same principles and powered it from a test reactor. We achieved six shots per minute! Six! And without any reduction in power!"

"I have presented all my conclusions in a written report on the state of the fleet." Stark handed me a data tablet. "But I recommend that every ship currently under construction be converted to the new generation of weapons. The change requires no extensive redesign, and existing vessels can be refitted within a few months."

"I have an important question, Vaelis." I looked up from the tablet. "Can we mount this weapon on the War God?"

Interlude: Kelan Arkeon. Head of House Arkeon. Arakesh System.

Being the head of a Great House was an enormous burden and a tremendous undertaking—especially when that House had attained Great status only a century ago by successfully transferring all its assets from a Middle House to a newly discovered world. Yes, developing a colony from nothing had been extraordinarily difficult. Yes, we were not the only Middle House to leave Aetris in search of a path to elevation. But my House Arkeon, founded after the war with the Demon, had overcome every trial and earned the honor of becoming Great. Not through military victories. Not through political intrigue. Through economics. Through what we had built here in the Arakesh system: an industrial center unmatched by any other colony.

Things improved dramatically when the Council of Eternals authorized the activation of two relays, one in our Arakesh system and another in the neighboring Nibus system. That changed everything. Transporting goods between the two planets no longer required expensive Caravan-class vessels, each voyage of which had cost a fortune. Now any ship capable of briefly reducing its mass to zero—and such ships were no longer difficult to design—could cross into the neighboring system in seconds. The days of reserving space aboard interstellar vessels years in advance and spending immense resources on every shipment were over.

With the addition of a second planet, the economic flows between Arakesh and Nibus fused into a single, extremely resilient structure. Arakesh supplied Nibus with modules for small orbital stations, which our shipyards had been assembling for twenty years. In exchange, Nibus provided us with vast quantities of inexpensive precision electronics, produced by several Great Houses that had settled there. Two worlds complementing one another like the halves of a single mechanism. And House Arkeon stood at the center of that mechanism, controlling its key transportation hubs and orbital infrastructure.

Then the relay on Eirena—the colony nearest the capital—was opened, and economic growth across every system connected to the relay network accelerated exponentially. And only two months ago, the Council declared the new Aroon system open to unrestricted travel. Ten billion new citizens of the Dominion. Ten billion consumers who needed everything from computers and communications equipment to advanced chemicals and reactors. And who would provide them with advanced goods? Naturally, the three systems that had already rushed to flood that immense new market with their products.

The planet Aroon was a true Klondike, ready to consume goods on an industrial scale. Yet even everything the existing merchant fleet could carry was catastrophically insufficient for the system's needs. Most Heavyweights, the vessels designed specifically for travel between relays, had been redirected to transport military and civilian cargo to the protectorate. The army needed ammunition, shields, spare parts, and food, and the Heavyweights carried those supplies instead of commercial freight.

And no one could provide new ships. Until recently, private construction of interstellar spacecraft remained prohibited. Mass cores of the necessary size and quality, produced only in the laboratories of Aetris, were simply unavailable on the open market and delivered exclusively to military and government shipyards. Until very recently, no one had even imagined a shipyard that was not state-owned. Space belonged to the Council, and the Houses made do with whatever they were permitted.

But the ban had recently been lifted. And a genuine race began.

Many had wondered why my House invested so heavily in constructing orbital shipyards around Arakesh. After all, even if the Council ever permitted private spacecraft production, no private enterprise could build anything comparable to a Heavyweight. And vessels of that kind were precisely what trade needed most. Until now, every cargo ship had been built at the same government yards that produced the newest cruisers and frigates. But once the war began, merchant-ship construction stopped completely. The Dominion needed new warships for the front. The interests of the Houses came last.

That created an enormous demand for relay-capable vessels—a demand House Arkeon hurried to satisfy.

Yes, our new ships carried a hundred times less cargo than a Heavyweight. But they were extraordinarily cheap. We cut costs everywhere we possibly could, all to produce as many vessels as possible. We installed weak ion drives so the propulsion system would occupy minimal space. Crew accommodations were reduced to the absolute minimum: three people, no more. We removed several other unnecessary systems and limited the ship's endurance to a month and a half. The result was an excellent one-hundred-and-fifty-meter vessel, the Atlas. Perfectly designed to pay for itself after three years of constant operation. After that, every ship would generate pure profit.

Need I mention that the waiting list for an Atlas already stretched five years? Five years, despite the fact that we laid down two ships every month. I was already considering expanding the shipyards, but there was a shortage of qualified personnel. Arakesh produced some of the finest engineers in the Dominion, yet even they could not meet demand. War devoured resources—but it also created opportunities. And House Arkeon intended to exploit those opportunities to the fullest.

Interlude: Security Chief Ernez Marlen. Interstellar Research Station.

"I demand access to the Cerebral Organism! Studying ordinary specimens will teach us nothing!"

Reinwald Nillen, the Dominion's foremost expert on the biology of the Gift, had been hounding me for hours with a persistence worthy of a better cause. He stood in the middle of my office with his fists clenched, and in his eyes burned the same fire I had seen in every great scientist—the fire of obsession, which recognized no obstacles.

"All the other creatures are merely controlled pawns! Without the central organism, the swarm is no more intelligent than a pack of dogs!" he continued, refusing to let me speak. "But the queen! The queen is the key to everything! If we understand how she controls the swarm, we could... we could..."

"We are forbidden from interacting with the subject in any way, Reinwald," I cut him off. "This is not some whim of mine. It is an order from the Inquisition. And if you have forgotten, they can kill both of us before we accomplish anything, once they begin their investigation."

"Why did they take control of this project in the first place?" the scientist exploded. "Their duties are entirely different. And theoretically, we cannot even defect to the rachni!"

"I do not know, Reinwald. But a Lord Inquisitor's ship will arrive here shortly. Research on the queen is permitted only under her supervision. I understand your interest—new applications of the Gift in an entire field of mind control unknown to us. But what is so urgent that you are practically throwing yourself at this queen? Are the dead bodies not enough for you?"

"That is precisely the problem, Ernez!" Reinwald leaned toward me, his voice trembling with excitement. "There is no ether in the bodies of dead queens! None in the bodies of ordinary specimens either! They are transmitting information by some means entirely unknown to us. I can feel it—this is the work of my life. I have to uncover how they communicate."

At that moment, my personal communicator rang. I answered it.

"Lord Marlen, an Inquisition vessel is approaching the station. Lady Inquisitor Emberlis Veil is aboard. They will dock within the next half hour. She ordered us to lower the shields and physically disconnect power from the defensive weapons. I took the liberty of issuing the order in your name."

"Thank you, Linna. You did the right thing," I replied, then looked at Reinwald. "Come on. We had better hurry before they start studying your beloved without you."

Forty minutes later, the Lady Inquisitor was walking through the most heavily secured section of the station—the queen's containment chamber. Several soldiers followed behind her, dragging captive Mortal Aiterri, lizardfolk, and even a pair of representatives of the newly encountered species, the Aroons. Reinwald and I exchanged a glance, but said nothing. The Inquisition seldom explained its methods, and those explanations were even less often pleasant.

"Lady Inquisitor, is this really necessary?" Reinwald asked, gesturing toward the prisoners while struggling to keep pace with her brisk stride.

"You will see soon enough, Professor," Emberlis Veil replied without looking back. "You will be the one working with the queen today."

We entered the observation room adjoining the containment chamber. The soldiers injected the prisoners with some substance—quick shots to the neck, one after another. They immediately collapsed, their bodies convulsing before falling still.

"This is a specialized paralytic agent," Inquisitor Veil explained, noticing my expression. "It induces a coma by targeting only certain regions of the brain. Expected death in Mortals occurs after twelve hours. In Aroons, after two. The lizardfolk may recover."

"But why..." Reinwald began, only for the Inquisitor to raise a hand and silence him.

"Wait, Doctor. Conclusions come after the queen's interrogation."

"But the rachni cannot speak," I blurted before I could stop myself. No one had time to answer.

The bodies of the Aiterri who had moments before been writhing on the floor jerked upright, as though invisible strings had yanked them to their feet. Their eyes were open, but there was nothing behind them—the pupils were dilated, their faces slack and entirely expressionless. They stood swaying, staring at a single point ahead. Then they spoke. It was one voice issuing from three throats, alien and resonant, layered with unnatural overtones.

"You interfere! You cannot hear our song! You are incapable of proper thought!"

I exchanged a glance with Reinwald. The professor stood pressed against the glass, his lips moving soundlessly. He was either praying or trying to memorize every word and every inflection. Inquisitor Veil, by contrast, displayed no emotion whatsoever. She regarded the reanimated bodies not as a unique first contact with an alien intelligence, but as a routine interrogation.

"Do you understand that you attacked an innocent species, and that without our intervention it would have vanished from the face of the galaxy?" she asked calmly, almost casually.

"No! All lies! Lies!" The queen's voice, passing through three dead bodies, rose into a shriek. "They are defective, imperfect, lesser than us! They cannot hear the beautiful song of the Great Mother! They will perish and become part of the swarm! You must hear the Great Mother's song!"

"Who is the Great Mother?" the Inquisitor asked, her voice hardening. "Where is she?"

"She came from the heavens! Her songs are beautiful! She convinced us to carry her song throughout the galaxy! Submit! Hear her! Free me, and I will sing the song for you!"

Inquisitor Veil smiled slowly. Very slowly. It was the same smile that had become legendary among the station's personnel—the kind that promised nothing good for anyone.

"We Aiterri have always considered ourselves children of the Great Mother," she said, her voice almost gentle. "We are prepared to release you and help the rachni carry the song across the galaxy. I am leaving for our capital immediately to deliver the joyful news to our rulers. Until then, remain a guest in our home, sister."

A chill ran through me. I knew the Lady Inquisitor well enough to understand that she meant not a single word of it. Yet the queen seemed to believe her. Or pretended to. It was difficult to judge from three motionless faces with empty eyes.

The Inquisitor signaled to her escorts, and they injected the subjects with another substance. The bodies collapsed again, this time without convulsions. They simply went limp, like puppets whose strings had been cut. The observation room became so quiet that I could hear my own heartbeat.

"Doctor Reinwald." Emberlis Veil turned toward the professor, and he straightened like a cadet before a senior officer. "More test subjects will be delivered to you this week. They are Mortals, so do not concern yourself. My ship carries a supply of the paralytic and its antidote. Your task is to learn absolutely everything about the queen: their biology, their planets, their abilities, their religion, this Great Mother of theirs. I want to know everything."

"Yes, Lady Inquisitor," Reinwald breathed, and that same fire returned to his eyes. "I... I will not fail you."

The Inquisitor turned to me. Her gaze was as cold and calm as the vacuum beyond the station's hull.

"Lord Marlen, the station is now under quarantine. Any transmission of information, and especially any physical samples, requires authorization from the Inquisition or the Council. Not one word spoken here is to leave this station. You are responsible for that with your head. Literally."

"Understood," I replied, trying to keep my voice steady. "It will be done."

She nodded and headed for the exit. The soldiers followed, leaving Reinwald and me alone with the three bodies on the floor and the queen beyond the wall. The professor was already bent over his tablet, writing with feverish speed, and I realized he would probably sleep no more than a few hours a night for the next several weeks. Perhaps that was precisely what would save us all.

Interlude: Dalatrass Meredin Garrus. Ten Years After the Beginning of the Galactic War.

Thirty years ago, while scouting a newly opened branch of the relay network, one of our vessels disappeared without a trace. Such things had happened before. Ships vanished because of increasingly frequent pirate attacks, rare equipment failures, and a dozen other causes, so no one attached much importance to it. In the scale of the Salarian Union, whose influence extended across fifteen hundred worlds, the loss of a single scout ship was insignificant.

Who could have imagined that this minor incident would become the death of the entire galactic community?

The first wave was monstrous. More than a hundred warships, each a match for one of our cruisers, entered the Asoges system through a recently activated relay and annihilated the small security garrison within hours. Four frigates and one light cruiser guarded the system, and they were destroyed before they could transmit a complete distress signal. Then thousands of landing vessels poured through the relay and descended upon a world inhabited by one hundred million salarians.

Those creatures did not wage war. They did not seize territory, demand surrender, or attempt negotiations. They simply landed and began killing. Every living thing they encountered was either destroyed or dragged into the depths of their vessels. Cities burned. The atmosphere filled with toxins released by the creatures' own biological processes. Beneath the surface, they excavated immense catacombs, transforming a flourishing world into a poisoned graveyard. Within six months, Asoges ceased to exist as an inhabited planet.

We tried to retake our world and rescue the civilians. At first, we even achieved some success. Our mighty fleet completely destroyed the hundred rachni vessels and made it possible to deploy ground forces. I personally advised the command at the time on the enemy's biology, and our confidence was justified. We knew their vulnerabilities. We developed tactics. We prepared our finest troops. The first landings succeeded: assault groups secured footholds, established bases, and advanced toward the cities in the hope of finding survivors.

But the reality of underground warfare was far worse than any forecast. No matter how many troops we landed, they died faster than we could bring in reinforcements. The rachni did not fight by our rules. They held no front line, defended no key positions, and attempted no open counterattacks. They buried themselves beneath the ground and built endless labyrinths of tunnels, where every meter cost dozens of lives. Our soldiers descended into those catacombs and did not return. Our tanks could not turn in the narrow passages. Our shields could not withstand the concentrated fire unleashed from ambush by the rachni combat forms.

We later attempted orbital bombardment, but the rachni burrowed far too deeply. So deeply that the bombardment became pointless. Kinetic penetrators buried themselves in the crust. Thermonuclear blasts failed to breach shielded hives. The devastation only made the planet even less habitable than the rachni already had.

Once we accepted that we could not tear the infestation out of our own world, we sought revenge. The decision was logical: if the colony could not be saved, the source of the threat had to be destroyed to prevent further spread. On the far side of the relay, we found a planet exactly like what our colony had become—a poisoned graveyard covered by a network of catacombs and hives. Fifty new warships waited in orbit, evidently preparing the next invasion wave. Reconnaissance also detected numerous facilities on the surface where more vessels were being constructed.

We acted without restraint. We destroyed every cursed rachni ship in orbit and bombarded the planet. Total sterilization. No limitations on the use of weapons. Even if rachni remained hidden in the planet's depths—and they certainly did—it would take them years to rebuild their infrastructure and become a threat again. Or so we believed.

Then we passed through the next relay and found the same sight. A hive world. An orbital fleet. Ships under construction. We destroyed it and moved on. Then farther. And farther still. Everywhere, fleets awaited us, ranging from a few dozen ships to several hundred, each vessel a match for our cruisers. Every system was a fortress. Every planet was an incubator. With each jump, our forces melted like snow beneath a burning sun, while the enemy seemed only to multiply.

Worse, we lost the initiative. At first, we had been the attackers. We chose the direction of each strike and dictated the pace of the campaign. Now the situation had reversed. There was no way to predict which frontier relay would activate next and disgorge an invasion force directly into the heart of one of our worlds. We dispersed our fleet across dozens of systems, trying to guard every potential point of entry, while the rachni struck wherever we were absent—or wherever we were too weak.

And the attacks did not remain confined to our borders. When an asari world was struck—one of their inner colonies, which they barely managed to save at the cost of almost the entire system defense fleet—the Citadel Council finally responded. They issued a formal protest. A protest! Against the Salarian Union, which had endured catastrophic losses for ten straight years, holding back the swarm alone while every other species pretended the problem did not exist. The asari accused us of provoking the rachni, claiming our offensive had enraged the hives and driven them to seek new targets, as though the rachni required provocation.

We lost ships, colonies, and millions of lives while our allies expressed concern. That, however, was standard Council policy: a problem did not exist until it knocked on your own door.

Then it did. When the number of attacks reached dozens and every species in Citadel space was affected—quarian fleets, asari colonies, even the batarian frontier—everyone finally understood the scale of the catastrophe. It did not happen all at once, nor because of some dramatic announcement. At some point, every government simply realized that the war was no longer taking place somewhere far away on distant borders.

The combined fleet of the Citadel—the finest asari and salarian vessels assembled into an armada unseen since the Council's founding—was losing to barely sentient insects. Not because our guns were weaker. Not because our tactics were inferior. Simply because there were more of them. For every ship we destroyed, two more arrived. For every hive we burned, three more remained undiscovered. We were not fighting a species. We were fighting an epidemic.

As the asari would say, may the Goddess save our souls.