Looking around, I tracked the departing army of necrons and teleported to my hideout. Arrival time settings of all opened portals to this world was almost one time, so that all my recruits arrived to this universe about the same time. Moreover, my shadow clones were located near each of exit point, so right now I could observe the actions of all my allies.
Most importantly, my clone was located at a Collector's base in a system that could only be accessed via by Omega-4 relay. Now this relay was out of power, so John Sheppard had no way to visit the Collectors' base and blow it up. Meanwhile, the Reaper was directly connected to the computer of this base, so I was now aware of what the Reaper was doing, and what he was thinking.
All figurants took their places, and all I had to do was keep an eye on them without interfering.
The Necrons attacked in first wave. After a couple of days five Obelisks of Necrons flew to one of salarian’s planet Senokol. The Necrons did not have the technology of move quickly through space, but I had already given them information about the Mass Effect, and they appeared near a planet where there was a large deposit of Zero Element. In the past two days, they had only been able to get enough material for five engines. That should have been enough to clean out the first world.
When the Necrons appeared in orbit around the planet, they immediately opened fire on all the spaceships in their range. It was an ordinary peaceful planet in a safe area of space, so there were only a couple of spaceships, and only two shots from main weapon of Obelisks was enough.
After establishing domination in the air, the necrons’ advance detachment landed on the planet to assess the strength of the ground troops of the enemy. From the point of necrons, this group did not meet any resistance. To damage the private necron, the Salarians had to shoot him from the tank at point-blank range. However, necrons heavy tanks were completely invulnerable. It should be noted that in the presence of the Star God, all abilities of the necrons increased by ten times, so now they did not have problems with the lack of psi-energy.
The advance detachment of necrons quickly cleaned up all available on the planet spaceports, and then retreated. Then Obelisks started to disinfect planets with heavy emitters. This radiation killed all life, including even microbes in the thickness of rocks and at the bottom of the ocean trenches. The Necrons decided not to waste time on personal destruction of the salarians and put them on a par with fungi, plants and other unintelligent life forms.
The Eldars were the second to join the total annihilation marathon. In fact, they haven't even started fighting. They simply needed a planet with a suitable biosphere to restore their Craftworld to full operation. From there, they were going to replenish air, water, fertile land, and maybe some plants. So, the Azari’s planet Lucia was chosen for the role of the colonial world.
In the past, krogans rebelled on this planet, thus beginning their own destruction. Until now, this world had been considered as risky planet, so the Azari kept a fairly large fleet and ground force here. In addition, at this very moment huge fleet was assembled on the orbit of this planet to start raid against pirates in Terminus system. So, when the Eldar fleet appeared, there were more than a hundred spaceships of various classes in orbit, ready for combat.
The Eldars scouting fleet consisted of only ten light cruisers operated by vritras. Once out of the jump, they began scanning the ships in orbit and the planet. By this point, the whole world was already aware of the fate that befell to Senokol. Therefore, the Azari immediately declared a battle alert and tried to contact the potential enemy ships. But the Eldars paid no attention to these attempts of communication. For them, all inhabitants of this galaxy were ‘vile xenos’ which must be completely destroyed.
Having found out that the planet is suitable for colonization, the Eldars sent a message to the Craftworld, then began the attack of the Azari fleet. They of course tried to resist, but quickly found out that the maneuverability of the Eldars ships is hundred times faster compared to anything they had seen before. While the Asari dreadnoughts was pointing its gun at the enemy, the Eldars ship had time to fire a dozen shots, then jump to the next target.
Alas, the technology of this universe could not match the boundless psionic power of the Eldar. As a result, in just half an hour, the asari fleet lost all spaceships except of three dreadnoughts. These armored giants were so huge and massive that the Eldars light cruisers could not inflict significant damage on them. Realizing that they could not resist the enemy, the dreadnought captains decided to save their ships from destruction and fled, leaving the planet to be torn to pieces.
A couple of hours later, the Craftworld Yanden appeared in the far orbit of Lucia and began sending troops to clean up the planet. Only the vritras went into battle, since the living Eldars were too few in number, and now each of them was involved in the process of breeding or educating the younger generation.
The Azari’s ground forces were also unable to offer any decent resistance. The Eldars in the bodies of vritras, although on average weaker than their living kin in terms of psionics, remained incredibly powerful by the standards of the world of Mass Effect. Azari’s biotic power could not match the power of mass psionic strikes. And most importantly, no matter how the Azari tried to destroy their opponents, they immediately regenerated all inflicted damage.
Eldar quietly and systematically cleared the territory, destroying all 'vile xenos'. No one was able to hide in shelter, because psionics could easily detect alien minds. The Eldars took no prisoners, and if someone was stupid enough to surrender, they were shot on the spot without any regret. Thousands of years of fighting against daemons and tyranids have turned the Eldar into ruthless machines of death.
When clearing the planet, the Eldar were primarily concerned about preserving the environment. Therefore, most of the chemical plants and factories remained intact. If there was a chance that there were poisonous or toxic substances in a certain place, then the infantry would go there, which in some cases preferred to fight the enemy hand-to-hand, because this approach minimized the destruction of the environment.
Neither the Necrons nor the Eldar’s didn’t set up goal to disrupt the enemy's communications. Fate of the salarians planet could only be known by a few videos posted on the Internet, but Eldar’s attack to Azari’s planet were watched by whole world in TV on live. And such massacre multiplied the effect to the minds of ordinary people. The inhabitants of the galaxy quickly realized that they were faced with a force that they could not resist, no matter what heroic efforts they made.
Six hours after the beginning of the ground phase of the operation, the entire combat fleet of the Turians, the main peacekeepers of the galaxy, entered Lucia's orbit. Alas, the commander of this fleet did not consider it necessary to study the information transmitted through all news channels. Instead, he trusted the assessment of Azaries’ command, who wanted help at all costs. And the price was considerable much.
Instead of a dozen light cruisers, the Turians fleet faced thousands of heavy battleships, and most importantly with the Craftworld Yanden. This battle could be called the shortest in the history of the galaxy. The Eldars seers were able to predict the appearance of each enemy ship, so that they were destroyed by heavy artillery immediately after the exit of the jump. None of the ships of Turians fleet were even able to send messages about their fate. Only the observation stations on the planet, still on the defensive, were able to learn the fate of the fleet and transmit this information to their command.
While the galaxy in quiet horror observed 'The Massacre on Lucia', in the colony of Batarians on planet Arbat happened on the first glance inconspicuous, but very strange events. Among the indigenous population of the planet a religious cult of unknown origin began to spread with great speed.
To understand the paradox of the situation, it should be noted that the batarians never believed in any 'higher powers'. Even in the darkest ages of their history, when they still lived in caves on the planet Khar-Shan, the batarians did not believe in or worship gods or spirits. The very nature of this race was such that every batarian was an envious, evil bastard and an egoist who worshipped only himself. And all the centuries of 'enlightened life in galactic society' have not been able to change this fact.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
So, when the politicians on the Central planets heard about the spread of religious worship, they immediately realized that they were faced with some kind of technique of zombification or subjugation of consciousness. Immediately, the best spies and secret agents were sent to Arbat, who began to inquire what kind of cult it was, and by whom it was organized. But within a couple of days after landing on the planet, most spies either stopped communicating, or sent various religious sermons and divine revelations under the guise of reports.
The few intelligence agents who were able to convey meaningful information said they had encountered a cult called Unity. The cells of this organization did not have a common structure, and some even appeared on their own as a 'circle of interests'. All members of such cults discussed with each other the idea of uniting of all living beings in the single highest creation of divine nature.
A week later, it became clear that the situation was completely out of control. Almost the entire population of the planet has stopped working, stealing and fighting for power. Instead, citizens gathered in the streets or squares and discussed the Unity that was to begin in the near future.
Naturally, the government of the batarian civilization could not accept such a situation, and therefore declared martial law. The planet was declared a quarantine zone, and elite soldiers of the batarian army were landed in major cities. To the surprise of the military, no one offered them the slightest resistance. Even when their troops began to torture and shoot civilians in an attempt to establish 'law and order', the victims did not show any displeasure.
But this inexplicable apathy continued until the military decided to capture a few believers and take them to another planet. As if at the behest of God, as soon as such a threat was voiced, all the surrounding ‘peaceful citizens' suddenly attacked the relaxed military.
Batarians lived in a society where personal power was everything, and therefore, each of them had a personal weapon. All the civilians simultaneously pulled out their pistols and machine guns and started shooting the representatives of the armed forces. They did not take into account the losses, covered the enemy with mountains of corpses, but crushed any resistance and sabotaged all attempts to take prisoners or at least evacuate the troops.
At the moment when the bloody bacchanalia reached its climax, in a small town lost in the vast steppes, a hundred of the most loyal members of the Unity began conducting a secret ritual. In the gym of the local school, a huge pentagram in a circle was drawn with blood on the floor. Students of the school themselves approached the teachers and put their throats under the knife. When the drawing was complete, the hundred chosen stood in a circle, said the invocation prayer for the Supreme being, and then each of them cut their own throats.
Half an hour later, one of the already cold corpses twitched, rose to his feet and screeched, signaling the world about the appearance of the first necromorph in this galaxy.
Demon inside of the Blood Moon Marker when came to Arbat had discovered that the batarians did not have the slightest resistance to his mental influence. With incredible ease, the demon subdued the entire population of the planet, and then created the first necromorphs. Drugged cultists gladly accepted death at the hands, paws, and mandibles of the soulless creatures in which they themselves turned only a few minutes later. Many believers transported necromorphs on private transport to quickly deliver them to the most remote corners of the planet.
Within twenty-four hours, ninety percent of the world's population had become necromorphs, and their souls had been consumed by the Marker. After that, the demon began the procedure of convergence. All necromorphs merged into a single being, the center of which was the Marker. When a day later the battle fleet of batarians arrived to the orbit of planet, there was not a gram of organics left on its surface. Instead, the Bloody Moon was in orbit.
The fleet Admiral even thought that he had gone off course and arrived at the wrong star. He sent out several scout ships to study the strange planetoid, but a few minutes later he was horrified to see the moon extend its long, wet tentacles toward the ships. The tiny dots of the ships were swallowed up by the infinite mass of flesh, but none of them were harmed.
When, a few hours later, the Blood Moon went into the hyperspace jump, disappearing into the infinity of space, two hundred spaceships remained suspended in the orbit of the lifeless planet. Their entire crew was alive and well. The only deviation from the 'norm' could be considered only that each member of the crew passionately wanted only one thing - to create as many new Markers as possible, in order to bring the moment of final Unity of the galaxy closer. Within a few minutes, all these ships were scattered in different directions to carry the light of the 'true faith' to other worlds.
An army of hybrids of zerg and protos appeared in the orbit of the planet-garden, lost in the depths of space. Next to it there was not a single relay, so the planet was left untouched and covered with wild jungle. Only a small colony of renegade krogans created a settlement where they conducted experiments to breed krogans that were immune to genophage.
The hybrids had the fertility of the zerg, so Sarah Kerrigan and Zeratul decided to start their expansion with the development of the army. They founded a colony on the opposite side of the planet from the settlement of krogan and devoted all their forces to creating troops.
Alas, literally immediately hybrids faced a serious problem. There were no psi crystals in this universe that could store the required energy to develop hybrids. Therefore, the growth of new hybrids was quite slow. Fortunately for them, my clone immediately noticed this problem and then I decided to share some of my wisdom with my subordinates. I taught hybrids to the technique of 'sucking' energy from the Reaper's astral body. This method of extracting energy was completely invisible to the 'donor', as long as the energy consumption did not exceed a certain threshold. So, by keeping some safety techniques, hybrids could impunity use the enemy for their own development.
Then the hybrids began to breed exponentially, absorbing all available organic matter. Within four days, the entire planet had become one huge incubator, producing billions of combat units every hour. Krogans were used as a source of new genes. And in a sense, their experiments were successful, because the krogan hybrids were completely immune to the genophage.
The appearance of hybrids in this universe occurred completely unnoticed by all other civilizations. Using this advantage, as well as the ability to move without using a network of relays, they dispersed throughout the galaxy, assimilating all the worlds they encountered that did not have colonies of intelligent life forms. With their rate of reproduction, it was like a spreading plague that would soon engulf the entire world. I made it easier for Kerrigan by providing a database with the coordinates of all habitable planets, which I had brazenly stole from the Reaper.
While the barbaric destruction of the future crop was taking place, the Reaper was blissfully unaware. Wars between different civilizations were commonplace, so the destruction of a planet or two never affected his global plans. Of course, over time, he would pay attention to the emergence of new players, but the habit of thinking on the scale of thousands of years did not allow the Reaper to quickly respond to changes in the situation.
Of course, he had security protocols that allowed him to switch to accelerated processing mode, but to activate them, he had to get a signal from his informants - collectors. But the harsh truth of life was such that collector sent for exploration, did not have time to report anything about the enemy. My recruits destroyed all of them on the outskirts of galaxy, taking advantage of the huge technical superiority.
Most interesting of all, the Reaper was not even bothered by the appearance of orcs on one of his ships. In this world, the orcs have lost most of their psionic powers. So, their survival strategy on the ship was based on infecting its organic parts. In fact, orcs were intelligent mushrooms. The 'fruit body' which I threw into the portal released spores that spread throughout the ship, sprouted through the bulkheads, and gave rise to the first full-fledged orcs.
The ship's artificial intelligence detected the appearance of some 'infection', but the lack of a central core of personality, prevented it from taking adequate countermeasures. The AI only activated the standard disinfection protocols, which, alas, were completely powerless against the orcs. Where the usual organics die and became an appendage of the electronic components of the husk’s organism, the fungus of orcs didn't feel the least bit uncomfortable.
Pretty quickly, the orcs multiplied and got to the electronic components of the ship. Their genetic memory contained a lot of information about the creation of technical devices. And even if their psionic power was reduced, it was enough to hack into the ship's computer system and learn all the information in it.
And when leaders of the orcs learned out that somewhere in the depths of space there is a huge fleet of similar ships, my mental bookmark was triggered in their minds. Their very nature would not allow them to pass by such treasures. The ship they lived on had no working engines. So, the orcs developed a 'genius' plan to capture the Reaper fleet.
Of course, this plan was quite primitive. But the irony was that the Reaper was now dumber than the orcs. The green 'wreckers' sent a signal to the other ships about the beginning of the harvest, assigning captured ship as a point of collection of the fleet. The Reaper knew that the Citadel had been damaged during the previous cycle, so it was normal that the harvest fleet should arrive to the galaxy on its own, and not through a relay. About the destination point of the route... well, why not? After all, he 'himself' made this decision. Reaper's current intellect was no longer enough to distinguish his thoughts from the orc's virus program.
After the Reaper’s fleet of ten thousand ships arrived at their destination, the orcs sent them the following message. It was quite brief. It said that the current communication channels could be wiretapped, so the plan to 'clean up' the galaxy would be transferred to ships on solid storages. This had happened several times in the billions of years of the Reaper's life, so this procedure did not arouse suspicion. After all, it was just a standard protocol of action, selected from a long list of tactical blanks.