Mythos Effect

Chapter 27: Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

"Bad news always comes in the dead of night."

That was the first thing Quentius thought of when he was woken up by the sound of his omni-tool pinging with the sound of a new message. The Primarch roused himself, blinking away sleep from his eyes, and tapped his omni-tool to bring up the message box. The warm orange hue of the interface lit up his face as he read the words.

_> Palaemon: Quentius, we have a problem. Meet me in my quarters now. _

The cold dread that seeped into the Primarch's body banished all traces of sleep. Quentius lurched out of bed and hastily dressed himself, trying to keep himself calm. But, deep down, he knew that Palaemon would only have called him up like this if things had gone wrong. Very, very wrong.

The Primarch quickly made his way through the halls of the Castrum, nodding to the odd night guard as he went. Quentius reached the entrance to Palaemon's quarters and knocked on the door, his hands clenched into nervous fists. After a few moments, the door slid open.

Palaemon was waiting for him inside. Right off the back, Quentius could see that he was deathly worried; his mandibles were clamped firmly shut and the talons of one hand were nervously tapping against the other.

"Quentius, you're here. Good," Palaemon greeted him, his voice heavy with nerves.

"Palaemon, what is it?" Quentius asked. "What's got you so rattled?"

"One of my contacts isn't responding," Palaemon said. "I've been trying to reach him all evening, but he's not answering. Not even so much as a text message."

Quentius took a moment to process this. While it certainly wasn't exactly good news, he didn't see how it warranted being called up at such an ungodly hour.

"Okay..." he mused aloud. "That's unfortunate, but is it really a cause for alarm? Maybe he's just asleep; it's not exactly the most reasonable time to be awake right now, never mind if he's on another world."

Palaemon shook his head. "No, this would be his normal working time. I tried at least a dozen times to get ahold of him, but I got nothing. It's like he's just... gone. Not a peep. And that scares the hell out me."

The creeping sense of foreboding that had been steadily building in Quentius since he had arrived in Palaemon's quarters now reached its zenith. "Why?" he asked.

Palaemon turned and looked him dead in the eye. "Because he's a member of the personnel on Menae."

And like that, the situation snapped into focus for Quentius. He could feel himself growing faint as the realization hit him like a charging Krogan. If Palaemon's contact on the moon was missing, that could only mean...

"Is there any reason he wouldn't be able to respond back?" he asked, more to keep himself calm than anything.

Palaemon went silent for a moment as he thought it over. "Maybe," he finally answered. "A lot of his work involves top secret projects, and the places he's stationed at don't allow any form of outside communication. He may be somewhere where his omni-tool simply won't connect."

"Think you can try again?" Quentius asked, daring to hope that this was all it was: a simple communication's blockage due to security protocols.

"Can't hurt to try," said Palaemon. He called up his omni-tool and tapped in a series of numbers. A soft chiming tone rang out from it, indicating that a call was going out. The tone continued to ring, but no one answered. Each second that passed made Quentius more and more agitated; with every unanswered ring, his hopes were slowly being crushed.

Then, just as the two Turians were about to give up, the line suddenly let out an electronic warble, signifying that the call had been answered. Palaemon practically sagged in relief and wasted no time in speaking.

"Ocarius, thank the Spirits!" he exclaimed. "I've been trying to reach you for hours now! Listen, I know it's probably not a good time, but—"

"No. Not Ocarius."

Palaemon abruptly stopped, his words dying in his throat as a voice spoke through the omni-tool. In all his life, Quentius had never heard a more hideous and abhorrent vocalization. The tone was harsh and raspy, a combination of a hiss and a guttural rumble with a wet, almost gelatinous undertone. It conjured up images of swarms of maggots crawling their way out of a rotten carcass, wriggling and writhing over each other, devouring whatever they could find. It was a voice that was not meant to be uttered by any mortal creature and just listening to it made Quentius feel like he was being doused in raw sewage.

Quentius and Palaemon stood completely still, staring at each other in silent horror. Palaemon was the first to break the silence.

"Who-who is this?" he demanded, though the trembling of his voice robbed it of its intended force.

The nameless thing only gave a peal of oily laughter in answer, as though the question was the most amusing joke it had ever heard. This managed to break through Palaemon's shock, and his face twisted with anger.

"Answer the question!" Palaemon barked. "Who the hell are you and what have you done with Ocarius?!"

"Ocariusssss?" The voice drew out the name into a sibilant hiss, the word coming out more like a wet exhalation of air. "Ahh, yesss.... he's deaaaad. They are all dead." There was another peal of that terrible laughter.

"All dead. All mine. Flesh, bone, blood and bile. My deliciiiious feast. And I have youuuuuu to thank for it. You and yoursss. I was trapped and bound, but they freed meeee. Freed meee and fed meeeeeee!"

The more Quentius listened to the voice speaking, the more nauseous he became. It was as if each individual word was writhing around in his brain, twisting and squirming like a swarm of necrotic worms. Though the words were Turian, they were delivered in an unnatural cadence, drawing out certain words and putting too much emphasis on syllables, like a crude imitation of what they should sound like.

No, Quentius realized. This wasn't mimicry. It was mockery.

He wasn't sure where this sudden understanding had come from, but he knew it was true. The thing speaking to them was deliberately twisting and butchering the Turian tongue in a foul parody of speech to show its disdain for them and everything they represented. It viewed them as being so far beneath its contempt that they didn't even deserve to have their language spoken properly.

"What the fuck are you?" Quentius managed to gasp. The thing on the other end gave a sound that sounded like a mix between a laugh and a retch.

"You want a naammme? My naaaame?" it replied. A horrid cackle emanated from the omni-tool. "No. No, no, no, no. You shall have no name. But you will know me. Know me and fear me. I see your world. Ssseee its lights. Its citiesss. I will have them aaaallll, and those that scurry within them. You and your kind shall be the firsst. I will feast on you all and make you one with me. Your bones will be my teeth. Your ssskin my tongues. And your flesh, your precious flesssh, will be my form. I claim you all. You are mine. Mine. MINE! MIIIIIINE!!"

Palaemon cut the link with a frantic swipe of his talon, plunging the room into merciful silence. He stared at the still-active omni-tool with horrified eyes, shaking with barely-restrained terror.

Quentius found himself unable to move. His entire body was frozen, paralyzed with fear. They were too late; whatever had been on the human ship was now free. If the thing that had been speaking to them was being truthful, then at the very least, it had overrun the facility it had been kept in. For all he knew, though, it might have taken over the whole moon. And now, it had its sights set on Palaven itself.

Palaemon finally closed his omni-tool and looked over at Quentius with eyes filled with despair. "Quentius," he said, his voice little more than a whimper. "What are we going to do?"

Quentius didn't answer. A thousand impulses surged through his mind like a lightning storm. He wanted to scream until his throat was raw. He wanted to fall to his knees and weep. He wanted to grab Palaemon and shake him, demanding that he tell him this was all just a bad dream and he would wake up at any moment. He wanted to run away to the furthest corners of the galaxy, beyond the reach of the thing on Menae. He even wanted to find a handgun and put a bullet through his skull, just to end this whole ordeal.

But instead, the legendary discipline of his people kicked in, smothering the tide of panic that threatened to overwhelm him. As terrifying and soul-rending as the experience was, Quentius forced himself to keep calm and think. As much as he wanted to deny it, the reality was that this was actually happening. There was no use in running away or praying that it would all go away. He had to do something, or else everyone and everything would be doomed.

"We need to alert Draxon and the rest of the Primarchs," Quentius finally said. "Call an emergency summit, and explain everything. We'll need every military asset we have to contain this."

"You think the others will believe us?" Palaemon asked, his composure slowly returning with a plan of action to focus on. "Saying that we have some kind of demonic monstrosity loose in our most secure black site isn't exactly a strong opening argument. You know Sparatus will waste no time in discrediting the whole thing."

"Anyone who doesn't believe us can go to Menae and see for themselves," Quentius growled. "I am long past the point of caring about politics and appearances. I'll punch Sparatus right in his smug face if I have to. Either they accept that this is happening or we're all fucked."

"And what happens after that?" Palaemon asked, spreading his hands in an imploring gesture. "If the Primarchs and the generals are willing to listen to us, how will we stop this thing?"

"I don't know," answered Quentius helplessly. "The best I can come up with is to blockade the moon and try to keep whatever that thing is trapped there until a better idea comes around."

But would that be enough? Quentius couldn't shake the feeling that simply blocking off Menae wasn't going to work. Did the thing actually need a ship to get off the moon, or was it capable of traveling through space unaided? And could a blockade actually contain it if it was the latter? He had a nasty suspicion that the answer was no.

Quentius snarled inwardly with frustration. There were just too many unknowns, so any plan they came up with would just be guesswork that in all likelihood would do nothing. And the consequences for failure were too terrible to contemplate.

Just then, the warning Cormac had given him rose to the forefront of his mind. The Turians had no hope of defeating whatever this thing was on their own. Only the humans had any knowledge about how to possibly deal with it. And in that instance, Quentius knew what had to be done.

He needed to contact the Federation and ask for help. If the Hierarchy was going to survive, they would need the humans' aid, and he needed to do it fast. There wasn't time to go through the proper channels and get the go ahead; he had to take action now.

But how? It wasn't like he could just go to them directly; crisis or not, they were still at war with the humans and he was too visible as a Primarch. He'd be caught and facing charges of high treason in a heartbeat. Sparatus would just love the chance to throw him in prison and lose the key. That would be the end of any chance at getting the humans' assistance.

It was obvious to Quentius that he would need a middleman to establish contact. Someone who could get the message across without being tied to him, at least long enough for the dire situation the Hierarchy was now facing to become fully apparent. Someone who wouldn't draw attention. Someone who already had a reason for making contact with the Federation. Quentius finally looked back at Palaemon, who had been waiting with nervous apprehension for him to say something more.

"Do you know anyone who can get in touch with the Migrant Fleet?"