51

Illium. Galactic Ausgabe headquarters. Legate

And the festival here was a big deal. Expensive booze, hors d'oeuvres, interiors and dozens of influential personalities. And even more of those who want to become such personalities. And the number of pompous rich people made me mentally nauseous.

- So this is it... A literary festival... It's a big one, though," I said as Susie looked around.

- Yeah. There are a lot of sensible people... And you can talk to all of them. Thank you, Dad.

- Oh, come on. What you wouldn't do for your daughter. All right, you go have fun, and I'll just... Tasting the booze... - I said and spread my mandibles a little bit to imitate a smile. There was no other way for a Turian to smile.

- Just don't overdo it, okay?

- I will. I promise," we all said to pretend to be organic. Because we could have been overheard. Yeah, now my paranoia was at maximum capacity. I kept thinking we would get caught if I said something wrong. Still, I consoled myself with the idea that this was all about Susie. Let her have her fun; I didn't mind. And I had time to think about what to do next. And not with lightning speed, but just to consider, so that time wouldn't stop. Otherwise, it was still unpleasant.

I took a glass of Thurian whiskey, at least made by the same technology as on Earth, and went to the balcony. There were now several Azari on it, discussing the Hanar philosopher and his new text, but a second group of three Azari and two Turians were discussing... Susie's book, that was unexpected. And they all liked her book.

I did read it, though. It was called Captured by Happiness. The plot went like this. The AI on one of the turrian dreadnoughts realized himself as a person, then quietly informed the captain and began to convince him that she and the AI realized himself as a girl, was not a threat, and might even come in handy. The captain initially wanted to give a damn about all this talk, except that he had to choose between the charter, which requires him to tell his command that the AI had become an AI. The honour of an officer who can't kill an innocent, yet the AI himself said he had become one, so he doesn't want any harm. In this dilemma, the captain becomes disillusioned with the Hierarchy's charter and almost falls into a depression. But lo and behold, the ship falls into the trap of pirates. There's nowhere to retreat. The captain and crew say goodbye to life, but the AI doesn't want to die and offers a deal - the AI gets full access to the ship, saves them, and she is not surrendered in exchange. The captain already has nothing against it and does whatever is necessary. They start shooting at each other, the turian dreadnought itself shoots at the pirate ships, which do not have shields, and some of them have begun to depressurize, turning off the gravitation and climate control system. All in all, the score is 15-0; the Hierarchy leads. The crew rejoice; they don't know about the AI, and the captain keeps his part of the bargain - not a word to anyone. There are chapters after that about the captain's relationship with the AI. The captain eventually falls in love with it, and the crew begins to suspect something because he has started talking to himself. The end of the book, on the other hand, could have been better. The command does find out about the AI and orders the captain's arrest. So, the guy's stripped of his rank, and the crew tries to capture him. They catch him, but the only problem is that the AI is not interested in losing his beloved, so they kill the entire crew and take the ship to Terminus. The end.

Yeah, a story like that touched me, too. I didn't even know Susie had talent. And those Azari thought so and just wanted to meet her in person. Well, well, good luck. I won't help you. She's talking to the other writers now; thank goodness I could watch everything she sees with her sensors. And why don't I like that azari over there, looking at my daughter meaningfully? Ooh, I'm starting to get the rebel father in me. Susie can deal with anyone who tries to seduce her. Still, the body did a good job.

Basically, I had to draw conclusions from what we had already done. We now have 35 factories on Illium that have started producing infantry weapons, light and medium transports, vork armour, and ship components, and there was already a plasma factory. All of these factories had been bought by different people, but now everything was consolidated into one company. This way, we paid less tax and avoided other bureaucratic delays. We delivered materials to the factories, and all negotiations with the various officials were conducted remotely. Security was at a high level. All factories were surrounded by five-meter walls and guarded by vorka. Oh, how I shall long remember the faces of the three azari who had to register our daughter's security company, for which they had to see everything live. They were very indignant at first, but the "director" of the company, in the person of Xad by remote communication, began to argue that the Vorcs were not forbidden to come to Illium. Through "I don't want to, " the Azari registered a vork and fled the plant. In short, already a wide circle of affluent men of sense were discussing our guards, and a narrower process was examining the contents of the factories and, most importantly, the arming of the Vork. And there was a lot to discuss. Thanks to Tory and Xad, we began to produce laser and plasma weapons:

The primary assault rifle was a blaster rifle we developed based on technology from a race that died some 300,000 years ago. We borrowed the hydrogen power unit and the blaster technology itself from them. One power unit, which had to be replaced like a magazine, was enough for 500 shots, but after 50, it was necessary to open a valve and let off steam to cool the rifle. Three seconds and you could go on shooting. The gun fired at 700 metres, and then the shot faded and disappeared at 1,000 metres.

An assault rifle was also developed for urban environments. It was shortened; the power unit was designed for 300 rounds, and after thirty games, you had to open the valve for air cooling.

We now had a plasma rifle. It was not possible to make a plasma rifle. The rate of fire needed to be corrected; the magazine was small, although the accuracy was still good. The magazine was 15 rounds, and the thing was a natural killer. A shot at an organic would leave the last steaming, even if it was wearing heavy armour. All that was left was a black slurry of molten armour, the thickest bones, and if it was a turian or krogan, molten chitin added to the slurry's composition. The slurry cooled quickly and turned into a glassy, semi-organic substance. The spread was only 10 centimetres at a distance of 100 metres. Farther away, the plasma charge simply evaporated, and at 150 meters, the head disappeared.

A carbine was also made. It shot at 1.5 kilometres. The power unit gave 400 shots but overheated after 100. For all this, the rate of fire was sacrificed. While the first rifle had a rate of fire of 25 rounds per second, the second rifle had a rate of fire of 20; if fired continuously, the carbine had a rate of fire of 2. That's the deal.

Then we made a single-shot grenade launcher. The shells were antimatter. Incidentally, this has already been tried in this Cycle, but the whole problem was that the stuffing did not explode in the body itself when it touched the substance. However, that's where Xad came to the rescue. The Proteans could create a sense of an alloy that could handle both the mind and the antimatter in peace. So now all my army's under-barrel, single-barrel and six-barrel grenade launchers are loaded with antimatter grenades.

The shotgun was magnetic. In the barrel, the pellet cartridge and the gun had opposite magnetic poles, but when the shot was fired, the bar of the shotgun became the same as that of the cartridge. The pellet is ejected, the case is removed, and everything returns to normal. There was a 20-round magazine. The shot was lethal at 20 metres, and the pellets were scattered 3 metres away.

Against the critters and massed huskies, we had a Tesla cannon, as I called it. This cannon fired lightning, which literally vaporized all the organics, or what imitates them, from the creatures, leaving only implants, which were not connected in any way, and therefore fell apart. With the hydrogen unit, you could shoot lightning for 30 seconds non-stop to kill the huskies from overexertion or 10 seconds to vaporize everything but the "iron" in them. Scary stuff.

We also made a flamethrower. The fuel was gaseous plasma. The temperature of the flame was 10,000 C*. That would turn any husky or beast into ashes. We paid particular attention to the gas cylinders. We made them as strong as possible. Used the Imperium's toughest alloys and made them three-layered, half a centimetre thick of metal and a centimetre thick of metallized rubber. In general, everything so that a stray bullet would not blow up the whole squad with an explosion. They had enough fuel for half a minute of continuous fire, and the jet could reach 7 meters long.

The stationary machine gun was a blaster minigun. You could hold it in your hands, put it on poles or make turrets. The tricky part was that 2 of the 7 barrels could fire simultaneously, and each had its own power unit. This brought the rate of fire up to 10,000 rounds per minute. Each block was just enough for 5,000 games, and opening the cooling valve was unnecessary. This had to be done after firing all 10,000 rounds.

The sniper rifle was on the Gauss principle. Only the main thing was the bullet. It could hold a current charge, thanks to which it could quickly fly through shields. It was based on a rifle taken from Rahan. It shot at three kilometres and could kill a banshee or anyone below it.

We also had to deal with critters, banshees, krogan hounds and yagas, if any. And we had to deal with them so that they would not be distracted by other soldiers. That's why we've essentially returned the anti-tank gun from the past. It was not an anti-tank rifle, of course, but it could penetrate Mako's armour. There was a five-round magazine. It could shoot at a 2 km distance. The main thing was in the cartridges, however. It was filled with antimatter. Enough to explode the equivalent of 50 kilograms of TNT. Considering the bullet exploded in the middle of the victim, no one could escape.

We also solved the problem of RPG rounds.

The fragmentation grenade was stuffed with magnetic balls. The base of the grenade was a pin through which a current was conducted. Under normal conditions, the balls were "glued" to the nail by a magnetic field. When the missile collided with the ground, the current stopped flowing; the pin changed its magnetic pole to the same one as the balls; the same poles repelled, and the balls flew in all directions with the force of 1500 Newton per square millimetre. No armour could withstand that. At the same time, as it turned out, magnetized objects, even with enough kinetic energy, quickly passed through the shields. How on Earth did it not come to this? For dessert, the missile had a stun grenade.

The cumulative grenade used plasma to burn through the armour and let a ball of antimatter inside the armoured vehicle. An explosion inside the same tank or shuttle with the power of 50kg of TNT. Try to survive inside.

The thermobaric grenade was a plasma gas. There's not much to say about that. A fireball with a temperature of 10,000 C* - no crogan or goeth could survive in such a thing.

However, the most epic wunderwaffle Tory had suggested was a biotic exoskeleton. It was a system of bases, tubes and wires. The floor was in the form of a metal skeleton that mimicked a spine, arms and legs, and fingers. The lines had zero elements, and the wires carried current. It was a simplified system, of course, but the main thing was that Geths could now be biotic. It was also possible to make a Worc. It was a good buy because even organics would not be depleted by this, let alone a geth.

With the armour and the armoured vehicles, we have so far dealt with. However, we did come up with some things.

Thanks to Tori, one of the significant discoveries was the ion weapon. It only worked on shields. For example, the ion cannon of an alien race of fighters wouldn't budge an empty tin can, but it could take out a third of Destiny's Path's shield. Fighter by Dreadnought. Considering the cannon was easy to produce, so was the soldier, which you could easily rivet in mass quantities. Well, Reapers, hang in there.

This is the cannon, or rather two, we put on our attack aircraft. They served two functions. To support infantry and to take shields off enemy ships. For the former, a turret of two twin blaster miniguns was installed underneath the bottom of the vessel. The only difference between it and an ordinary one was the calibre, which was twice as big. The crew consisted of two geet programs. One controlled all systems and was responsible for the assault turrets. The second geth, which was there as a platform, was responsible for piloting. This was done so that one program wouldn't be distracted by everything at once. Also, I simply forbade changing crews, so pairs had to be formed that could act coherently, especially if they became friends. Still, friendship wasn't an empty word to the Geths now. The two ion cannons of the Assault Vehicle could take out half of the Path of Destiny's shields before the fighters got down to business.

The fighters had a blaster cannon with a rate of fire of five rounds per minute and two blaster miniguns with a rate of fire of 1500 rounds per minute. Both the Stormtrooper and Fighter had an anti-laser defence.

Essentially, this shield absorbed any range of laser, converted it to electricity, and charged all systems, with the excess vented out as an EMP directed wherever it went. Ours didn't care about that at all.

All Geth platforms and ships of all varieties, armour and weapons were already shielded from the EMP. The system was like a Faraday cage.

Also, we came up with a rather extravagant ship from Light Fleet. I never knew what class it was, so I called it a torpedo bomber. It was a German Type VII submarine, though. The whole gimmick was its shape and size. The dimensions were the same as her submarine counterpart, and she was too difficult to hit in a head-on collision because of her shape. All that could be achieved was a tangential hit. Why would such a small thing be needed? There were several reasons. The first was the ease of manufacture. It could be made in 20 hours in the Geth factories. Second, the torpedoes.

These torpedoes were the same size as those on the German subs. The main thing was the method of penetration. During the flight, the entire body of the torpedo was covered with a layer of plasma held in place by a magnetic field. Therefore this torpedo quickly pierced through the armour and hit the ship's middle, where it exploded. The antimatter stuffing gave one megaton in TNT equivalent. As Xad said, the Reapers had no anti-missile defences at all, and the armour was quickly burned through by plasma. Too bad the Proteans didn't figure that out till the very end. The ship's air defences, so to speak, had five twin laser miniguns on top and five more on the bottom. The latter was located on hemispheres underneath the bottom and stuck out when needed.

We were also able to make a robot to support the infantry. It was limited on the offensive but suitable for defensive and guard duties. It had two blaster cannons and a small antimatter reactor. Thanks to this and its four legs, the robot in which the Get was loaded could leap 10 meters in height and 10 meters in length. It also had a force shield against physical objects. This shield was a bubble in which the robot felt at ease and fired at anything that moved.

With the rest of the ships, we were still deciding what to do. Namely to modify the old ones or to melt them and make a new ones. That's where we were settling for now.

However, we did modify the Light of Kila:

- All the helium-3 reactors were replaced with plasma reactors. The capacity of each was five times that of the old reactors.

The mass core was replaced by three antimatter reactors. As it turned out, it could also do antigravity.

- The SSD was replaced with a more robust and hydrogen-powered one. The speed was 5 times faster than the old Normandy.

- All air defence weapons were replaced with laser minigun turrets. 500 each on the top and 500 under the bottom. Plasma guns were installed for mid-range. There were now 50 in total. They fired 10kg of plasma and accelerated to 5% of the speed of light. Of the long-range guns, there were 10 proton guns. They could nail a cruiser with one of their shots. The dreadnoughts were harder to deal with; they needed at least 3 shots. Five ion cannons were also installed. Finally, two particle accelerators were established, similar to the one the Collectors had. As it turned out, the Protheans had such weapons, so installing them was no problem. We installed them on the edges of the two bows of the dreadnought, between which was the primary weapon. We have yet to take it anywhere. Now it could shoot not only bolts. Now it could shoot not only bolts but also plasma and antimatter shells. So now the dreadnought was fully armed.

- We had 10 assault ships and 20 fighters in the hangars, as they took up only a tiny fraction of the space.

- A stealth system had been added. Fortunately, the plasma reactors did not emit radiation, so we only had heat problems. To do this, we installed cooling chambers and liquid cooling. The liquid-cooled reactors were diverted into the rooms and already cold returned. It was a vicious circle. A visual cloaking was also added. Protheans had that, but only on frigates and below. But now Xad and the Geths have brought it up to the point where it can be mounted on a dreadnought. So now, the Light of Kila could become utterly invisible to both sensors and those using the windows.

But the most important thing was that we started building a new Normandy. And there were a lot of changes to it too.

- The antimatter reactor.

- A plasma reactor.

- Proton and ion twin guns (that would make Garrus happy).

- Fifteen-centimetre armour made of the Empire's most robust alloy.

- Shield against particle accelerator.

- A shield against mass-effect kinetic weapons.

- Shield against laser weapons.

- Sensory stealth system.

- Visual stealth system.

- Arsenal in the hangar.

- Refrigeration unit for NORMAL foodstuffs.

- Bar with all kinds of alcohol.

- Anti-boarding system with plasma shields blocking the corridors and laser turrets.

- A compartment has also been made for the AI core. Susie had already agreed to relocate to Normandy and have her Virtual. Only I had made this compartment with armoured doors just in case, and the compartment itself could be sealed and thrown out into open space. Still, I was apprehensive about Susie. She was utterly attached to the core; if it was destroyed, she would die. And so, under the influence of my father's paranoia, a shield was made based on the mass effect, which could be painted with a hologram. This made it possible to disguise the door to the compartment, and even if you leaned against it, you could feel the wall.

However, there were still problems with Normandy. Susie could, of course, control Normandy completely, but I wasn't going to do that. I didn't know how Shepard, much less Tali, would react. That's why I needed a crew, except I only had a Vorca and a Getha. Yeah, not much of a choice. Of course, the Vorcas had become intelligent under Tori's control, but their appearance left a lot to be desired, even if you put a costume on them. And we were about to join the Jags. They'd need tanks like that. Also, we've already begun to develop a cure for the genophage. Even for Xhad and Tori, it was proving difficult. Xad was already swearing at the Salarian scientists for their actions, and Tory didn't know the swear words. That's the way it was.

After finishing my alcoholic beverage, I returned to the hall and started just eavesdropping on the others' conversations. Half of all the talk was just about Susie and her book. I was really proud of my daughter. And also happy that she was having a good time.