Elysium orbit - SSV Thermopylae

Anderson was ashen. "My… God."

The main holographic projector in the combat information center was displaying what was left of the planetary defense grid. Elysium was a veritable paradise, but settlement had been slow — its proximity to both Citadel and Hegemony space had scared off many a potential colonist. Facilities had been built for berthing and servicing the large garrison fleet once expected to be stationed there, but the place was so obvious a target that the Batarians and other pirates had simply skipped it; thus, as time had went by, ships tasked to Elysium had had to be allocated elsewhere until none remained, replaced instead by a veritable bulwark of orbital defense stations.

And apparently they had dodged the bullet one too many times.

"What kind of thing can punch holes like those?" Shepard was equally pale. "Those stations have meters of armor! Not to mention the shields…"

"Something just did, regardless," the CO said gravely. "Stella, any success?"

"Negative," the AI reported. "Usual channels are nonresponsive. I'm trying alternative communication methods."

"Keep at it. How long before we are within gate range?"

"Nine minutes, seven seconds."

"Shepard, put together a recon team and get ready. If we can't establish communications with neither Illyria nor the Watchpoint we'll have to go in ourselves."

"Got it, skipper. Tracer?"

"Aye, luv. Stella, you have the wheel."

"I have the wheel," the AI echoed.

"Get our fighters out there. I want to know where the enemy is."

The standard fighter complement for a destroyer like the Thermopylae consisted of sixty strike craft that could easily be reconfigured for space superiority or close air support duties just by swapping out a few modules. Right now, the priority was to know what was out there, so they quickly spread out.

As they combed the surrounding space while their mothership unsuccessfully tried to establish contact with the surface, icons started to pop up on the ladar feed. "All the comm buoys accounted for, sir. All destroyed."

"Someone took their time to isolate this place well and good," Shepard mumbled.

"And succeeded," Anderson agreed darkly.

Stella informed, "Colonel, we're in position over Illyria. I'm not one to hazard guesses, but I reckon our assistance is needed on the surface."

The holographic projector changed into a feed from the main settlement, and both Anderson and Shepard instantly recognized the outlines of those figures long before the image sharpened enough for them to tell apart details. They were strikingly familiar ones, figures that brought them back both twenty years.

In machinegun succession Shepard ordered, "Stella, retask two thirds of our fighters to close air support. Get the hardsuits and Bulwarks ready for deployment. I want everyone from teams 1 through 4 on the ready room at once."

"Understood."

She turned to Anderson then: "I can handle the planetside part of this situation, but we don't know where they're coming from."

The commanding officer of the Thermopylae nodded in agreement. "I'll keep that other end covered and reach out to Arcturus if they don't know already. You get down there." He left the rest unsaid: And be careful.

Always, skipper. "Yes sir."

Aaliyah and Lena left the bridge together. Alarms rang in the corridors, yellow lights spinning everywhere, both humans and omnics running down the passageways. Still that was not enough to block Tracer's voice:

"Why would the Turians mount such a brazen and open attack on a backwater colony such as this?"

Shepard shook her head. "They surely have a motive. We'll know soon."

To their concern —but not to their surprise— they discovered that gating down to the Watchpoint installation was not an option, so Aaliyah mustered her men on the hangar and laid out what little information they had of the situation planetside — Illyria and their base there were being besieged by Turian forces, and that was all they knew.

There was only some mild shock, as evinced by Westmoreland's: "Holy shit, ma'am."

"Okay, now that you got that out of your system, let's get down to business, people," Shepard said forcefully. "There's a colony under attack down there. You don't need me to tell you what to do."

"Don't worry, ma'am," Lumiscant answered, rough as usual. "We'll remind those bluebloods why they didn't want to mess around after Pokhara."

"Good. I expected no less."

The twenty men and women were to Shepard something akin to family. As Overwatch and the N7 program had fused into Starwatch, Aaliyah had used all of her newfound connections and prestige to get each of her old troopers a chance at earning a commission in the new agency. Not all of them had made the cut —Zarya, as Morrison's successor, had proven to be as every bit as uncompromising and demanding a boss as the old soldier had been—, but some had, and they had followed her commander around as she had climbed the ranks. They had grown under the tutelage of the Overwatch elite — and as they had gotten to know those legends, they had also grown protective of them.

The first few times Aaliyah had led men on missions, she had feared that some of them would not return. Occasionally it happened. Such had been the fiasco on the Moon when they had stumbled upon Reaper. But her old CO aboard the London had once told her that a typical motto of many rescue services on Earth —and Starwatch had many purposes and roles, but its essential mission boiled down to protecting humans and omnics, wherever they were— was something along those lines: You have to go out. You don't have to come back.

Those words had become second nature, and faded into her memory as she evolved from a recruit wet behind the ears to a seasoned marine, and thence to a semi-legendary commander only shadowed by those now seated around her: Genji Shimada, Anika Ziegler, Layali Amari.

But now, as the dropships hurtled towards the besieged colony, zealously escorted by Stella's fighters, those were the words that had jumped to mind, intermixed with the remembrance of the fighting in the bowels of the godforsaken rock where she had witnessed first-hand the surgical efficiency of the Turian fireteams.

Be mindful of your thoughts, Aaliyah, she cautioned herself. A wandering mind often finds itself in dark places. She felt tempted to ask if there were news about what was going on on Illyria, but that was her anxiety speaking.

She caught sight of Martinsson's blue eyes. Both women exchanged glances and read each other's emotions: the shieldbearer nodded her agreement almost imperceptibly.

"Colonel, we have an incoming transmission from Watchpoint: Elysium," Stella warned.

"Put it on the speaker," Shepard ordered.

An imperious voice rang on everyone's earbuds: "Incoming Alliance forces, this is major general Aleksandra Zaryanova on Watchpoint: Elysium. Our base is under heavy attack from Turian invaders. Disregard the assault on Illyria and proceed to relieve us immediately. Acknowledge at once."

Olivera, Martinsson, Aliyev and the rest of Shepard's team exchanged looks.

"Zarya, this is colonel Shepard. We copy your order to proceed to the Watchpoint. We're on our way. ETA… 11 minutes."

"Understood. Be advised, enemy aircraft are active nearby. Estimate squadron strength. Stay sharp. Out."

"Thanks for the heads-up. Out."

The same concern was on everyone's minds: a civilian colony is under attack, and yet we are ordered to go and assist a fellow Starwatch force? By Zarya herself, no less?

She must have a damned good reason to give that order, Shepard's eyes replied. Whether that damned good reason was the thing the Turians were after, they would know soon enough as well.

"Vulture flight, we're picking up multiple unknown contacts inbound on your position," Stella alerted her, confirming Zarya's warning.

"Unknown?"

"Their profile does not match any known craft."

The… object… depicted by the bulkhead screen was, effectively, radically different from anything they knew. It was a near-spherical flier, three apertures on its hull around a blood-red iris-like crystal, a pair of rectangular wings protruding from a rudimentary-looking armature enveloping the main body.

Kimo Lemetti, the Finn sniper that had fought next to her on the cargo bays of the London over the skies of Pokhara, summarized everyone's reaction: "What have the Turians been up to?"

"I hope we don't get to learn in detail on the next few minutes," Shepard replied roughly.

"Brace for evasive maneuvers," Stella warned in her eerily calm voice.

On the flight deck, Tracer relinquished control of the Montauk to the AI, and strapped herself securely to the pilot seat before donning a face-obscuring helmet — and interfacing with one of the drone fighters.

Strangely enough, beneath the layers of fabric of her suit, she felt goosebumps racing all over her skin. She had almost forgotten the sensation.

It was a warning signal, but she smiled thinly.

"Alright, blokes. Let's play."

Outside the hull, a third of the escorting drone fighters clustered protectively around the two dropships, while the rest surged forward to meet the incoming enemy. Tracer steered her commandeered fighter port, not wanting to be on the receiving end of the initial barrage, then after interrogating the incoming enemy for range, she selected a piece of light air-to-air ordnance —no point on using up the heaviest weapons right away— and fired away. In this case, it was a hybrid munition, something halfway between a guided missile and a railgun slug; she did not expect it to inflict heavy damage on the enemy, it was more of a test of their barriers than anything else.

The attack was a solid hit, and the slug turned into incandescent vapor, but it came as no surprise when the enemy emerged through no worse for the wear. Lena noted this and the slugthrower went tight; Stella also noted this and the drones under her control did not repeat the exercise—

Then the attackers opened up, and the sky turned crimson with lancing beams. Three of the five drones comprising the vanguard received direct hits and exploded. The other two dodged and weaved around, then, as they came within range in turn, fired their guns, scoring solid kills. The fighting devolved almost immediately into a swirling melee, but there were more of the spherical attackers than Stella had drones to counter them—

—and this enemy was completely impervious to one of the mainstay weapons of the Alliance:

"Command, enemy craft is immune to jamming and electronic warfare."

"Jolly good, Stella!" Tracer snarled on the flight deck, straining to maneuver behind the tail of one of the enemy craft while keeping track of the friendlies and enemies all around her and the craft she had to protect. Long gone were the days of using HOTAS controls; the current approach was to use sensor arrays embedded on the helmet to map signals from the brain itself to the controls and weapons, granting a degree of responsiveness the fighter pilots of yore had dreamed of.

And it was no secret that Tracer was the best fighter pilot there was. The enemy aircraft were faster, tougher and better armed than her drone, but the same could not be said about the quality of those flying them — and that was before taking into account her ability to slow down time. For a split-second, the enemy craft filled her gunsights—

—and Tracer could make a split-second last into an eternity. Which was not necessary this time around. A brief burst of cannon fire and the enemy flier was blotted from the sky.

But there was only one Tracer.

As the third spheroidal fighter plummeted towards the ground leaving a thick trail of smoke in its wake, the remainder started to shift their targets to gang up on this troublesome drone — though not to the point of letting the other craft prey on them. Still, that took some pressure off Stella and some omnics that had also commandeered fighters to assist—

—but eventually Lena realized the enemy simply was not going to let go, so after blowing a fifth enemy to bits she took a sharp turn away from the furball, hoping to draw some of the attackers away from the dropships—

—and it was a mistake. As one, her pursuers disengaged and turned around to once again join the melee. "Shite! Get me another fighter!"

"Transferring you. Please stand by." And then again she felt goosebumps, but for a different reason: "Alert. Enemy reinforcements inbound."

"Bloody hell, where are they coming from?! Shepard, we can delay them, but there's no way we can defeat another wave!"

On the passenger deck, Aaliyah brought up a feed from the Thermopylae on her omni-tool, assessed her options, and without hesitation keyed her mic: "Zarya, this is Shepard, do you copy? We are under heavy attack by enemy aircraft, we cannot, repeat, cannot reach your position. Heading for alternate one. Is there any chance for you to bring a gate online, over!"

"Copy your negative," came the Russian's heavily accented voice. "We are currently running on auxiliary power so we cannot comply with your request, though some of our engineers here are working on that. In the meantime I advise you proceed to the local barracks and try to secure the tram station. You should be able to make your way here without hassle then."

"Roger that," she agreed, more calmly than she felt. The Montauk was heavily shielded and armored, but she could hear Tracer cursing profusely on the flight deck as she wrestled with the enemy fighters and she harbored no illusions about what would happen if the enemy reinforcements caught up with them.

"Maintain radio contact, and make haste. We are counting on you. Zarya out."

"Well, isn't that a vote of confidence," Aaliyah commented. She scanned the feed: apparently the assault on Illyria was little more than a diversionary strike, for the anti-aircraft batteries —pristine, deployed and alert— would have been reduced to cinders otherwise, and the colonial defense force was apparently well entrenched on the barracks, despite the raiders' attempts to dislodge or encircle them. "Stella, proceed to the barracks on Illyria!"

"Yes, Shepard."

Impatiently she turned to the map again. She felt the impulse to order her quartet of airborne troopers to stand by for immediate deployment the moment they were within the envelope of the friendly AA, but that would only get them killed by the fighters Stella, Tracer and her omnic crew were struggling to hold at bay.

And for now the air battle was stalemated, despite the numerical and qualitative superiority of the enemy, but the second wave of spherical attackers inched ever closer and Shepard could not bring herself to stop looking at the feed from the Thermopylae — then she realized what she was doing and, with a vile oath, she put her omni-tool down. It was out of her hands. Everything she could do now was to trust Stella, Tracer and her omnic fellows. When we make it out of here I'll buy them a… damn, what do you buy an omnic? Mineral oil?

And then an urgent call turned her blood to ice: "Vulture 2 is hit! Vulture 2 is hit!"

"Move us in front of them to shield them!" Shepard ordered on the spot, then she demanded, "Vulture 2, damage report!"

"We got a hull breach and a coolant leak!" the pilot replied in a rush. "Whatever they got, it punched straight through our shields—our engineers are getting the leak under control, but another hit like that and we're toast!"

"Roger that," she growled. "Casualties?"

"We're all good, thank God for that."

"Stella, how long before we are within AA range?"

"Two minutes, thirteen seconds."

These are going to be the two longest fucking minutes of my life, she groaned, and suppressed a shiver as her mind completed the thought: Supposing I get to live that long. Only a scant half a dozen fighters were all that stood between them and annihilation, and the enemy outnumbered them two to one — without counting the second wave of attackers, now barely six minutes away. The Thermopylae could not descend into the atmosphere to provide assistance. Tracer was doing a stellar job, but she was walking a very tight and slippery rope — just one misstep…

Then the idea flashed in her mind like a lightning bolt: "Everyone clear out the boarding ramp! Release the clamps holding the Bulwarks into place!" Then she turned to Brulirea and Lumiscant: "You think you can create a basket for them?"

The omnics stared at her, without understanding: "You want to toss them into the air?"

"Look at those guns!" Shepard yelled in exasperation. "They got more firepower than the rest of us combined! We need them pointed at those fuckers out there!"

Lumiscant nodded. "It won't hold for long, ma'am."

"I know. I'm sorry for them, but we can get them other frames. We don't have that luxury."

"No you don't," Brulirea accepted.

With dread driving her to work faster, Shepard followed the omnics' directions to help them fashion cages tethered to hardlight generators around the bulky forms of the Bulwark frames. "Ready! Clear the ramp!"

One of the Bulwarks turned its head to face her and beeped. It was a familiar sound.

It was strange that the omnic did not use a vocal processor to speak as usual, but Shepard was too stressed and worked up to think about that in detail. Still she felt guilty. "Sorry," she whispered. "I wish there was another way."

Then her heart skipped two beats when a voice rang on her earbuds, one she had last heard two decades back at Numbani:

"Don't worry. I'll get you down there."

Before she could say anything, the four Bulwarks slid out of the Montauk.

Shepard turned her head around. Anika Ziegler was standing, alone, at the edge of the ramp. They stared at each other.

Then Mercy's daughter turned away.

A cheer rose from the colonial troopers when the Montauks slowed down, made their final approach and softly released their Bulwarks and hardsuits, to complete their landing a scant fifteen seconds later under the protective umbrella of the anti-aircraft batteries. By then, the war machines were already moving, each of the four hardsuits paired with one of the huge siege omnics to screen it from enemy fire.

The Starwatch soldiers raced out of the dropships, splitting into fire teams to secure the landing zone and assist their heavy units — except for Shepard and Lena. The latter was leaning on the former as they walked painstakingly towards the fortified barracks compound.

"I'm colonel Aaliyah Shepard! Where's your commanding officer?"

"Here, ma'am!" A man rushed towards her. At once her onboard AI scanned the man's armor and printed on her HUD: lieutenant Léon Kerkerian. She could not see his face behind his helmet, but it was evident that he had recognized Tracer because he stood there in stunned surprise for a moment, but he quickly recovered: "Medic!" he yelled, then moved to assist Lena.

"I'm… I'm okay, thank you," she protested.

"No, Lena, you're not. See that she gets a little rest. We all owe her our lives."

The corpsman quickly took charge of the situation. "Absolutely, ma'am. We owe her our lives, too." The news spread like wildfire around the barracks. Shepard heard the voices: Tracer is here. But those close to her noticed that the Overwatch legend was overwhelmed with exhaustion. By unspoken agreement, the men, women and omnics there kept their distance, knowing that the best way to show their gratitude would be to let her rest.

"Now bring me up to speed. What the hell happened here?"

Kerkerian gestured skywards. "Well, ma'am, I take it that you already know what happened to the orbital defenses. Our comm buoys started blanking out on us at first. Then we lost the stations. We had already dug in for an attack, but…" The man shook his head. "Ne sais pas. I didn't think we would resist this long. I suppose we're still alive because the Watchpoint has taken the brunt of the assault." A sigh. "Still, they haven't made it any easier. Our defenses have held, but they've been probing us all the time for weaknesses ever since this started."

"Have you been in contact with Zaryanova?"

A nod. "We were, until last night, when we had to evacuate the tram station. Our land lines run through the tram tunnel. I wouldn't bet on the Turians not finding them. Even so we tried to report only as necessary. She's got her hands full, she does."

"I know. I have orders to relieve her ASAP. She's instructed us to retake the station and fight our way through." She took a deep breath. "You still got sensor feeds?"

"Some. They've been working really hard to keep us in the dark. If omnics weren't on our side…" Something in Kerkerian's voice told Shepard that this man, like many others, had not trusted synthetics until he had been forced to put his life on their hands.

She decided that it was none of her business. Not now, in any case. "Show me."

Like most military bases, the barracks was set on elevated ground, surrounded by an open field without any kind of structure or foliage that could serve as cover — for all purposes, a kill zone. The Turians had deployed some form of hardsuits of their own, given the half-dozen charred hulks that dotted the terrain around the base, but that was all they had to punch through, and it was clearly not enough.

But the good news ended right there and then. To get to the tram station, they had to cross that same no man's land, and then they had to fight their way through an urban area of tall buildings with balconies and hanging catwalks a smart commander could turn into a nightmare with careful placement of only a few snipers and some fireteams. The Turians had both, and theirs were a class act. She had seen them first hand.

Her first plan would have been to get a sense of what the enemy was up to before deploying hardsuits and airborne troopers. But not only she did not have any air support to speak of, barring a request for an orbital strike —something she would only do in the most desperate of situations, for an old joke with a grain of wisdom to it stated that if you were not willing to shell your own position you were not willing to win—: the enemy owned the skies and had very nearly shot them down, and while they were focused on the Watchpoint at the moment, she did not doubt that if she raised enough of a hell they would come back to ruin her day.

But that was her mission: raise enough of a hell to take some pressure off Zarya.

She clenched her jaw and fists. "Amari, Park and Ziegler, meet me on the barracks ASAP."

Fittingly, Layali Amari was slim, olive-skinned, oval-faced, black-eyed, and had a wedjat tattoo under an eye, but those looks were all she had in common with Ana and Pharah: as combat injuries had piled up, she had been forced to completely replace her organic body for a prosthetic one. Unlike her progenitor and grandmother, she was neither affable nor warm. Unlike her friend and colleague Anika Ziegler, Layali had been unfortunate enough to be a youngster when her mother had died. The pain had caused her to withdraw into herself and become maniacally focused into her training as a way to handle her grief; initially distinguishing herself because of her natural talent, she had gone on to recreate the jumpjet infantry specialty: she could snipe like the best of them —and she actually seemed to enjoy it, as much as it could be said that she enjoyed anything—, but she had really made a name for herself as a line breaker. In close quarters, Layali was a nightmare.

Park Jung Hoon was one of the most recent products of Starwatch. He had no lineage to back his name, no sponsors had helped him along. He had earned his way into a frontline hardsuit out of brute competence. But the now retired Hana Song had admired his skills, and that commendation had been the starting point for an uninterrupted string of successes on the field. He was completely bald, with piercing emerald green eyes studying everything through the slits he had for eyelids.

The slim youth and the cold airborne trooper were accustomed to working together, and Shepard had grown used to relying on them when the situation called for serious measures. Such was the situation now as she laid it out before them:

"I don't like it one bit," she manifested, "but Zarya has much bigger problems than we do. I don't have to tell you what we have to do about it."

"So you want us to cover you from above." Layali's comment was flat.

"And you fear that will call their air support down on us." Park completed Amari's idea.

"The whole colony is well within range of the anti-aircraft batteries here, but I don't like to rely on them. We haven't put them to the test against the enemy fliers. And besides, a single orbital strike is everything it would take to blow them to bits."

"Excusez-moi," Kerkerian raised a hand, feeling way out of his depth, but also convinced he had a legitimate point, "but if the enemy could do that, why haven't they done that already?"

"I don't know," Shepard answered uneasily. "I'm dead certain the attack on the colony was only a diversion. I mean, most of their strength is focused on the Watchpoint."

"Which begs a question," Tracer pointed out as she walked in: "Why? What are they after?"

Shepard rolled her eyes but said nothing. Lena could be insufferably stubborn, but considering how melancholic she had been in recent times, in this one case it was actually a good thing.

"I can't answer that," Kerkerian admitted. "There had been some unusual traffic coming and going out of the Watchpoint recently, but what was it about, I don't know."

After a brief silence, Layali stated dryly: "You don't need our advice, ma'am. You've already made up your mind."

Shepard and Ziegler exchanged a glance, then she looked at Tracer. The colonial lieutenant noticed the looks and got a glimpse of the weight on the colonel's mind:

"Ma'am, you've already saved our lives by coming," the man said quietly. "If we are needed, we will go. Besides, this is my home, Turians be damned."

Aaliyah bowed her head, closed her eyes, and committed herself. "We depart in ten minutes. Leave behind just enough men to secure the installation. Everyone else is coming with us."

Credits and thanks:

- As it has been the usual for a while now, BrokenLifeCycle contributed priceless ideas and played the Devil's advocate when necessary.
- Aaliyah's self-admonition to keep her thoughts on a leash was lifted from Imperium Thought for the Day. I don't know if it's 40k canon.
- Maxim #20 of The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries from Schlock Mercenary was quoted here.