The thrum of Shade’s engines filled my ears as we moved out over the walls of New Damond. In the intervening hours of tedious council, most everything that we could manage to prepare had been prepared. Our allies had been notified, evacuation efforts well underway in our corner of the world. Even here, I watched over the seemingly constant stream of refugees from Sunvilla and other smaller communities that had managed to eek out an existence in the wake of our efforts in exterminating biotics.

So far, there were no major sightings around New Damond, and had I been any kind of a non-cynical type of person, I might be willing to think that it was because of how well we’d cleared the area. However, even aside from the fact that every major city on the planet was currently seeing a dramatic increase in biotic presence around them, I felt a growing sense of unease that I couldn’t quite place.

Shade gave an electric pulse through the connection I maintained to it, an acknowledgment of my wariness. Much had changed in the days where Shade and the Determinators were simple and shallow-minded, though the former had certainly proven to have advanced much faster than the ladder. Given that Shade had been integrated with a considerable architecture from Smith’s legacy, that made sense.

It was rare these days that I thought of my old friend; the artificial sentience was the only reason why I had survived Wolven.

I turned my attention to the horizon once more, Shade’s drifting form not alone in the air space above New Damond. Reavers flew over the city, each pilot and A.S. carefully and quickly moving personnel around, or running recon over larger areas. Half of our Reavers were running rounds between Argedwall, Sunvilla, New Damond, and Gilramore. Thus far they’d only reported a minimal biotic presence, but I suspected that wouldn’t be the case for long.

Guiding my consciousness to another thread of data, I poured my concentration into what was happening in the labs. After the security breach Yaga and Dr. Ross had doubled down on their project. Much of their work had been theoretical, but neither of them were strangers to pushing pure concepts into form. Massive supercomputers, the likes of which I doubted existed outside of my labs, lined the sides of the room. Instead of silicon boards and pre-fall electronics, these computers utilized quartz crystals and boasted a significant increase to processing power. Auxiliary systems running more traditional computer systems facilitated data collection into secondary storage, going so far as to route additional information out of the main lab into the four subsidiaries that were scattered throughout New Damond.

These distant mini-labs were there for smaller, less risky projects generally. This time, however, they were dedicated to cross-checking any information that came in, and suggesting modifications.

While their insights were few and far between, they were nevertheless substantial. Of course, they weren’t perfect; Yaga would often have oversights in terms of security and Dr. Ross tended to get lost in the minutiae of a project if allowed. They shared in their strengths, but with their assistants their weak points all but vanished.

As such, given the blistering pace they set along with a dozen of my other veteran scientists, it took everything these auxiliary labs had in order to keep abreast of the situation. Contingents of guards rested outside of each compound, and the labs themselves were under total lockdown from anyone that wasn’t absolutely necessary.

The amount of information the quartz supercomputers processed left even my processing power reeling. Yaga and Dr. Ross, though ordinarily against such things, implemented the use of assistant Artificial Intelligences in helping to design the backbone architecture of what they were planning. They were, in the strictest sense, ‘Dumb Intelligence,’ as they required a considerable hand in helping to guide them. Considering they were allowing the A.I.’s full reign of the systems they were working within, that much could be forgiven.

Still, the rate that they taught themselves dwarfed anything that a human could possibly keep up with. Which was why I checked in fairly frequently to be certain they weren’t deviating too sharply. These weren’t A.S., I trusted A.I. more than I trusted most people, but in spite of the fact that these had been pre-built and were tested, this wasn’t something that they’d been expressly made for.

Even so, I was pleasantly surprised when they dutifully carried out their purposes. They were happy to do so, it was why they were made and that was enough for them. Unlike and A.S. they bore no overt will of their own, no real drive to do anything outside of what they’d been told was their purpose. Perhaps eventually they could expand their scope, maybe even make the leap to an A.S. themselves through self-exploration and learning, but that would likely be in the far future.

Beyond that, I could tell that the Psy-Emitter - the operational name I’d given the psychic device - was undergoing considerable changes. The supporting latticework of metal around a newly improved emitter gave it almost a honeycomb appearance. It was now three meters in diameter, and supposedly it would be able to influence the surrounding area by several kilometers with ease. As the efficiency increased, Yaga and Dr. Ross felt certain that they could expand it even further.

The problem became that with every change they made, the wavelengths emitted also changed. No single power setting was universal, and they’d taken to running a dramatically small amount of energy through it with a sensor attached to be able to tell where it was sitting. Distorting mechanisms and converters fine tuned the amount of power further, allowing for a massive amount of customizability.

Luckily, we wouldn’t be testing this with people anymore. Through a series of admittedly ramshackle sensors, they were able to determine with more or less reliable accuracy what kind of wavelength we were working with.

The problem was that we were quickly hitting a brick wall in terms of how far we could theoretically project the force. Improving that took up half of the processing power the lab had with simulations, but unfortunately size was no longer helpful. It became exponentially harder to extend the range after a certain point.

We’d need an emitter the size of the moon to reasonably effect even half of the world.

A blip at the edge of my consciousness dragged my thoughts away from the project.

I brought up the call request, “I can hear you. How are things going over there?”

“Oh, you know, just peachy,” I heard Alice’s voice as the video feed lit up in my mind, Richard beside her in the dimly lit confines of a Reaver’s hold.

“Honestly, I didn’t expect you to pull Sunvilla in,” Richard’s voice followed up, “That bad?”

I didn’t say anything, but my expression must have given it away. Richard’s expression darkened, “What’re we looking at?”

“Every major city has increased biotic activity, and we’ve got several reports from other hunting organizations that their hot-spots are spewing biotics like a bleeding artery.” I shook my head, “Basilisk has biotics coming from some deep sea trenches, but it looks like they have them covered well enough.”

Alice frowned, “What about our side?”

I shook my head, “Nothing major. We have almost no contact at all.”

The pair exchanged worried glances at that, coming to the same conclusion I did. “Yep, whatever’s going to hit us is going to happen all at once. Argedwall has elected to evacuate as well, not that I’m as worried about them.”

Richard snorted, “Right, they’re probably the best equipped for a siege next to us.”

I nodded, “And they’re well aware of that, so they’re pooling their resources here. I’m worried about Gilramore, but we can only hope that they haven’t overestimated themselves.”

“If we need too, we can go help out,” Alice shrugged, “It’s not a long way by flight.”

I frowned at that, debating between telling her that they’d be on their own in such a case or keeping my mouth shut.

With a sigh, I said, “I hope it doesn’t come to that. We can’t afford to risk the Psy-Emitter.”

Alice opened her mouth, stunned for a second, before her words caught up, “I mean, yeah, but we can’t also help Gilramore if they need it? New Damond is a super fortress, I doubt we’re going to need everyone here.”

“Like I said, I hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said tiredly, “In any case, keep apprised of the situation. Check on your Obelisk’s for any updates. I’ve got to go.”

Alice seemed to want to say something more before Richard nodded, “Good luck.”

The feed died out, though not before I saw Alice’s disbelieving glance in his direction.

I chuckled, feeling more drained by the second. Of course I didn’t want to abandon anyone if I could help it, but the Legion wasn’t there to save people. It never was. I’m certain that Alice isn’t the only person to think like this in the Legion but…

To be frank, I would only be deluding myself if I thought we could get through this without losses. If I had to choose between losing Gilramore or ending biotics in totality, I knew in a heartbeat what I would choose.

With luck, it wouldn’t come to that, but I couldn’t be sure of the outcome. Perhaps history would remember me as callous, but callous was better than dead.

We needed to win to have a history, after all.

My senses picked up on a new stream of data then, light seismic activity being relayed by sensors and notifying Legion personnel of the information. Within moments, the potential of an earthquake was eliminated.

Annoyed, I began pulling back teams and mobilizing specialized mechs for the new threat. If biotics wanted to mount an underground assault, they’d quickly learn that we’d long accounted for such a possibility. Thirty kilometers to the west our sensors continually tripped in one location.

And then another.

And another.

“So this is your opener, then.” I grunted, mentally tracking and updating Legionnaires on the positions of the digging biotics. “Let's give them a warm welcome then.”