-4.5
SSV Vimy Ridge SR-4, Anadius system, Horsehead Nebula
Present, Sun, Jan 20, 2188
-4.5
Alarms screamed and an auxiliary engineering systems repeater display degenerated into a jumble of corrupted data as its parent feed overloaded.
"Is 'the plan' to shake Vimy apart?" Kaidan asked through gritted teeth, his fingers digging into the armrests of the commander's chair. A vibration was resonating through the ship so loud that it was bouncing Kaidan's guts into knots- unless it was just nerves clenching up him from one end to the other- and it was beginning to drown out the shrieking alarm claxons.
Devost looked up at him, gripping the central console's rail and widening his stance a bit more for stability. "Just short of that, Sir," he replied tensely. "Where are we Singh?"
The science officer looked back from his flickering station and caught his breath. "Fifty-seven Reapers on scans, still pouring through. They're moving to intercept the Puritan fleet, but-"
"But we can't take much more of this!" Barry shouted. Kaidan could almost swear he'd have heard the man from Engineering even if the intercom had been down. Which it might soon be, at the rate things were going. Vimy Ridge felt like she was rattling herself apart at the seams. According to Nivelle it was due to minute computational errors as, moment-to-moment, latency in the ad hoc connections between the QEC and engineering systems meant the Vimy was forced to absorb excess EM energy coming from the Normandy via the relay corridor. Energy usually compensated for by full-fledged relays by imposing 'drift' to account for variances between a transitioning ship or fleet's reported mass-energy and its actual values.
Absorbing energy that was now overloading the drive's capacitors, throwing feedback into other systems, overwhelming the inertial dampers, and threatening with destruction the frigate at the receiving-and-dissipating end of the connection.
It wasn't pretty and it couldn't last much longer, but for the first time in a year and a half, there was a working pair of mass relays in the Milky Way.
"I never thought I'd say this seriously but this lag might be the death of us!" Traynor said, wide-eyed.
"I hate lag!" Singh chimed in.
"Structural integrity verging on failure," Nivelle Offensive announced through its platform near the digital crew ops station.
"Okay, that's it, that'll have to do!" Devost shouted over the rising groan of the hull. "Sam, tell Normandy to shut it down! Engineering, prep to detach the conduit drive!"
"Aye aye! Explosive bolts are primed!" Barry reported over the comms.
"Aye!" Sam replied, tapping at her keyboard. A moment later she nodded at the text reply she received and breathed a sigh of relief as the shuddering of the deck reduced slightly. "Normandy acknowledging, they're disengaging the conduit. EDI says they need a moment to reconfigure for their own transition."
"Major, Captain-" Sampat stressed from the science station, "that's helped, the energy feedback's stopped, but the drive is dumping its capacitors into our static sink fast! We're still looking at a catastrophic internal discharge if we don't lose the drive."
"Shit," Devost cursed, "looks like the Vimy won't be flying home under her own power." He shook his head, resigning himself to the idea the first ship he'd ever commanded might have to be carried back to Earth, or worse, left here, but there was no time to be sentimental. "Engineering, you get that?" he asked.
"Yes Sir, and I hate to say but... I concur. We've gotta' drop the fork." The lights were still flickering and several systems appeared compromised beyond recovery, but the shaking had certainly leveled out. It was a deceptive comfort, though, considering that a discharge of the static electric sink into the ship's volume could flash-fry them all in an instant.
"Do what you've gotta' do, Chief," Jonas said. He turned back to Kaidan and let out an anxious breath. "That's the bulk of our job done, Sir. Now it's up to the tin squids to do the heavy lifting. And now that opsec is moot... orders?"
"So that's the top secret 'salvage,' huh?" Kaidan said, looking at the flickering holographic display of the Reaper armada- now sixty-four in all- as they converged on the Puritan fleet.
"Surprise," Sam replied, smiling sheepishly. "You understand now why we had to insulate you from the details, I hope?"
"It's probably best that I didn't know even if it couldn't have tipped off the Puritans," Kaidan admitted. The idea of Shepard ushering those monstrosities back into the galaxy from wherever they'd gone still made his skin crawl. Were these ones all that was left?
"Severing the conduit drive now," Lieutenant Commander Barry announced from Engineering. Everyone held their breath with anticipation as a series of loud pings popped through the hull from charges mounted below them, on the thick pylon from which was slung the mass relay-like appendage of the conduit drive.
They continued holding it as an alarm began chirping from the secondary Engineering console.
"Explosive bolts nineteen and twenty have failed!" Nivelle reported. "Power grid linkages remain intact."
"Shit!" Barry snapped. "It might have been an electrical discharge or acoustic disruption, but that means we're still strapped to a time bomb!"
Devost smacked his palm on the console and glowered with frustration. Towed, left behind... or worse. He looked at Kaidan, now back in full command, for instructions. Alenko quickly ran through the situation in his head. They'd done 'the bulk of their job'... and with the conduit drive still stubbornly attached and pushing their static sink ever-closer to the edge, it was increasingly clear what he had to do.
The fighting was the job of the Reapers now.
Kaidan thumbed the intercom button, opening a channel across the ship. "All hands to your evacuation stations," he ordered. "Abandon ship. Program escape vehicles to dock with Cronos."
As everyone reluctantly started heading for the escape pods and shuttle bays, Kaidan noticed Nivelle's platform crossing the CIC to the engineering console. "You too, Nivelle, transfer to the geth server for evacuation," he instructed. Offensive shook its head.
"Negative," it protested, "we mean to attempt to preserve Vimy Ridge."
Kaidan looked around at the crimson-hued CIC as smoke began to curl up the walls from burned out electronics toward the ceiling and his crew filed out. His priority was the safety of his crew- he'd board the bridge's escape pod once the rest of them were away- but if he could save the ship, too...
"What do you have in mind?" he asked, rising from his seat.
-X
Outside, the Reaper capital ships and destroyers descended upon the Puritan flotilla, resulting in pandemonium.
Twenty-one of the aliens' carrier ships had crossed the wormhole's threshold in pursuit of the retreating Council fleet and the leading group of eight had launched their compliment of fighters when the Reapers began pouring through the improvised mass relay corridor. Three more had been mid-transition, between the mothership-station's equilateral arms, and had slammed on the brakes, rotating their bulk to try and block the event horizon at the appearance of the Reaper ships. Those on the other side seemed to be pulling back.
The deployed fighter swarms were scattering chaotically, breaking off their track toward the Milky Way vessels and fleeing for their carriers. Those same carriers were the first to meet the Reaper vanguard, which on their final approaches spread open their five forward arms like the fingers of great, menacing hands and curled their tips around the circumferences of their targets, drawing taut against the domed dorsal surfaces. The sight make Kaidan think of squids clutching at clams. The returning fighters scattered as though flown by panicking pilots- apparently the idea of Reaper indoctrination flowing through their telepresence interfaces really was that terrifying to their operators- and began racing for the gaps between the mothership's edge and the carriers alongside. Which was utterly irrational, since the beings controlling the fighters were actually aboard the grappled carriers. But plugged in as they were, their instincts were to escape.
Seven of the Puritan ships were clamped on to by Reaper capital ships, the rest of the ancient machines fanning out to engage the others, when Normandy arrived. In a flash, the frigate burst out of a Reaper-doped conduit drive jump, the colossal bulk of the final addition to the Reaper armada- the prothean Remnant- attached via a twisted knot of bio-mechanical 'veins' extruding from its ventral hull. The pair looked like a shining black sea creature with its tiny, misshapen cuckoo of an offspring still attached by a tenuous umbilical cord.
As they arrived at Anadeus, the Prothean uncoupled its wriggling metal tentacles and the vessel lunged forward, leaving Normandy to survey the scene.
"I'll be damned," Adams blurted via the Engineering intercom, "it worked!"
"The engineering journals will all be clamoring for a paper, I'm sure," Hadrian commented, leaning forward onto the edge of his chair. "First things first, though. What have we got?"
Joker was quickest on the draw. "Hold your applause," he said from the cockpit, "we're eighteen thousand meters from the Vimy. Puritan C&C is ninety-seven thousand clicks dead ahead, with all the excitement in between."
"Reapers have engaged eight Puritan carriers and are moving to intercept the rest. Council ships are on the other side of Cronos Station and are coming about to begin bombardment of the Puritan command centre. The enemy appears to be in some disarray," EDI reported.
"Good. And the Vimy Ridge?"
"She's a bit worse for wear," Nymandra replied, sounding concerned. "I'm seeing power fluctuations and her escape pods and shuttles are launching."
"Nivelle Offensive reports that separation of the Vimy Ridge conduit drive failed," Delegate added, in communication with its counterpart on the Normandy's sister-ship. "Vimy Ridge in danger of static sink discharge due to capacitor feedback from the drive."
"Patch me in to Kaidan's escape pod."
Nymandra tapped rapidly away at her comms station a moment, then her brow furrowed and she looked at the geth platform to her left.
"Commander... the major isn't logged as debarking," she said anxiously.
"Alenko-Major remains aboard pending the outcome of an effort by Nivelle Offensive to preserve Vimy Ridge," Delegate explained.
"Goddammit," Hade muttered. "Then put me through to him." Nymandra nodded as the battle unfolded in the holographic tank before them. Reapers were now making contact with the ships at the middle of the scattering Puritan column and those ships, with their interceptors still docked, apparently opted for fight over flight. Their hundreds of fighters studding their dorsal surfaces all opened fire at once on their respective attackers, taking on the appearance of showerheads spraying streams of amber light into the 'palms' of the metallic black 'hands' reaching for them, casting scintillating, Reaper-shaped umbras into space behind them. The fire that struck the Reapers evoked their shimmering red shields, and seemed to slick off them for the moment. Conspicuously, the Reapers held their own weapons. For the moment.
"You messed up my ship a little bit, hon'," Kaidan drolled as the Zephyrcomms link established between the twin frigates.
"So why are you still aboard her, hon'?" Shepard demanded, though his relief at hearing his husband's voice made it difficult to sound too angry.
"Nivelle had an idea about saving her. Don't worry, I practically have one foot in the cockpit escape pod, ready to bail if I have to."
Anticipating the commander's request, Nymandra shifted the main holo projection from the thick of the Reaper/Puritan brawl to zoom in on the Vimy Ridge, now surrounded by the clashing behemoths. Sure enough, a massive geth 'colossus'-type platform was crawling out of the starboard hangar bay door and making its way toward the under-slung conduit drive nacelle.
"A little manual radical dislocation, huh?" Hadrian asked.
"I told you having a couple of the big ones on-board would come in handy sooner or later," Kaidan joked. "Speaking of- a little overboard with the souvenirs, don't you think?"
"I'd have brought more but... you're really close to that escape pod, right?"
"I promise."
The geth heavy platform crept to the pylon that attached the drive to the Vimy's belly and, anchoring itself astride the failed explosive bolts, opened fire with its siege cannon. The plasma weapon blasted through the metal skin and melted the internal connections, cutting the miniature mass relay free of the ship.
"It looks like that did it!" Hadrian exclaimed, clenching his fist triumphantly. "How's your power grid now?"
"Stabilizing," Kaidan sighed. "Give me a minute to be sure, but I might be able to recall the-"
The colossus began to push the drive off into space, away from the frigate, when a high-voltage arc of electricity flashed out of an exposed power conduit, struck the quadrupedal geth platform, and bounced to the conduit drive. There was a flash, a blue fireball, and an expanding wave of force as the mass effect engine's capacitors reached supercriticality and vapourized.
"Kaidan!" Shepard cried, jumping to his feet.
"Ugghh," Alenko groaned after a moment, "I'm fine, just a little shaken up. What the hell-"
The comm cut out as Vimy Ridge's Zephyrcomms transceiver failed. But he was fine- he said he was fine. Hade fixed Nymandra in a laser-like gaze.
"What happened!?" he demanded.
"It looks like the insulation around their grounding mast was compromised and it discharged their static sink into the conduit drive, destroying it. Her silaris armour took the brunt of the blast, her hull is mostly intact... but propulsion appears offline. She's ballistic."
"Shepard-Commander, before loss of Zephyrray comms, we pinged the Vimy Ridge virtual crew for a diagnostic," Delegate added. "Their static sink is purged but electrical overloads have disabled several systems, including the deployment protocols of the remaining escape pod and the geth server. Those still aboard will be unable to evacuate."
In space, approximately half the fighters attached to the forward Puritan echelon finally rallied and began buzzing around the titanic bulk of the Reapers latched on to their motherships, firing frantically at the joints of the Reapers' legs. Meanwhile, the 'spotlight' of interceptor fire from the middle-of-the-pack carriers was growing brighter and golden as the command station steadily increased the power input to their parent vessels and, in turn, to the fighters. Nine more Reapers were also maneuvering to grapple with the last nine carriers, which were twisting in space to try and evade the behemoths' preferred grip.
There was a flash as a 'knuckle' on one of the grappling Reaper's arms succumbed to the hail of fire pouring into its belly and was blasted through. But still they held their fire. Shepard had told them before the jump that he wanted to give the Puritans one last chance to back down and swear peace to save their lives. He wasn't bloodthirsty.
"Plot her trajectory! Joker, bring us alongside! And EDI, tell Cortez to prep the shuttle, I'm going over there to get him!" Hadrian ordered.
"Commander... the Vimy Ridge... the explosion set her on a collision course with the Puritan command and control vessel. Impact in three minutes, twenty-seven seconds," EDI reported. "Insufficient time to mount a rescue before contact."
"Dammit!" Hadrian pounded his fist on his thigh and surveyed the holographic battle map as it zoomed out to display the area. "I'm still going over there for him. EDI, it's time to exploit our back door- get on the entangler comm we captured from the drone and tell them I want to talk to General Translation Failure, first telepresence wing. Right now. Patch him through to me as soon as you have him."
"Yes, Shepard," EDI acknowledged.
"And for fuck's sake, if it isn't already obvious to them that Vimy's adrift in the line of fire, tell our fleet to hold off on their barrage of the mothership!" Hadrian set off at a run through the port hatch and down the connecting hallway toward the hangar. Fifteen seconds... Vimy would collide with the Puritan base in less than three minutes. Hadrian's only consolation was the knowledge that the SR-2, even with its inferior construction, had survived a higher velocity crash onto the Collector base. Vimy Ridge could endure the impact ahead of her. She had to. This was the closest he'd been to his husband in months. The SR-4 had to hold up.
When he reached the hangar, Cortez was just firing up the Kodiak's engines. Moore, Herman, Jack, and a pair of geth platforms operated by 'Hunter' and 'Tech Support' were piling aboard, weapons in-hand, ready to back him up.
"Ready to go fetch your hubby, Sir," Dan said, offering up Shepard's particle beam rifle that he'd retrieved from the armoury. Hadrian nodded, grateful.
"Commander, I have the Puritan general," EDI announced. "It does not appear pleased that I've infiltrated their network."
There was a pause as she routed the feed from the captured drone's quantum entangler datalink through the internal comms.
"Commander Shepard..." the Puritan's electronic translated voice grumbled, "first you advocated... for the deviant paradigm that has... gripped the Mother Space. Now you have... aligned... with the Defilers. Your derangement is... incomprehensible!"
Hadrian snapped his rifle into its magnetic brace and sat down.
"Comprehend this, Failure: your campaign here is done. The Reap- the Remnants of those past civilizations, they've committed to defending ours. As-is. Which means you can leave, or I can ask them to open fire and wipe you out. Your choice."
"No," the Puritan replied. "We are aware of your... mate's presence... aboard the vessel... on an impact trajectory... with our [translation failure]. You have a convention... called 'taking hostage.' Our campaign will proceed... unopposed. We will... not relent. The abomination must be... corrected."
Hadrian narrowed his eyes, though he had no enemy to fix them on, feeling for a moment very un-Buddhist. He looked to his side and across the shuttle's cabin at his squad, as fine as any he'd ever served with, confident in their ability to help him achieve his mission. He banged on the bulkhead between him and Cortez, signaling the pilot to proceed, and felt the inertial dampers kick in as the Kodiak launched forward and out the hangar bay door, speeding toward the SR-4.
"Wrong fucking answer," he sneered. "EDI- carte blanche. And tell the Prothean... tear these bastards up."
"Yes, Commander." The comm link cut off as EDI began exploiting the entangler's full bandwidth to start an aggressive hack and try to sow as much chaos in the enemy network as possible, simultaneously relaying Hadrian's instruction to the Reapers via the spare Zephyrray transponder they'd installed aboard the lead ship. Once they were on course to rendezvous with Vimy Ridge Shepard re-located to the cockpit and took the seat beside Steve. In the space before them the scene shifted.
The Reapers grappling the Puritan carriers, given the go-ahead, suddenly opened up with their main guns. Their unattached companions weaving their way around the unusually close-quarters battleground joined in, firing a flurry of short, controlled bursts into the nearest targets between the legs of their grappling cohorts, or blasting at the opposite side of their hulls.
It was most obvious with the enemy ships that had launched their fighters- blazing red lances of molten ferrofluid slammed into their dorsal surfaces, blooming into glittering clouds as they had when Normandy had fired on them. But the capital-type Reaper dreadnoughts had far greater reserves of energy, deeper reservoirs of the liquid ammunition, and longer axes of magnetic acceleration than the frigate. And half of their ships were under attack simultaneously, spreading their central powerplant's output thinner and thinner. The Reapers' tight beams of fiery destruction blazed down non-stop, and the shields beneath them seemed to tighten in around the impact points... then attenuate... and then fail.
Metal bubbled and vapourized, and fonts of the carriers' aquatic inner volumes started hemorrhaging out into space, spraying across the bodies of the Reapers before dissipating. Seconds later the Reaper weapons punched clear through, and began cutting swaths outward, mauling the alien vessels' cores. The associated fighters- their pilots dying in the carnage- flew off on uncontrolled vectors, some crashing into their motherships, some exploding against the attacking Reaper's shields, and some careening into eternity.
Those carriers with their fighters still embarked continued firing their wall of weapons, but voids in those brilliant pillars of light started to flicker and go dark as the same grim fate befell them. The destruction wasn't as obvious until the Reaper weapons exploded out the ventral surfaces, however. But one by one, the Puritan ships were being eviscerated.
'Too bad they can't share with us how they're feeling,' Hadrian thought snidely. But they seemed content to exist outside any realm of compassion. He was content to let them reap what they'd sown.
Hadrian's stomach felt like it flipped in his gut as, in the distance ahead, the Vimy Ridge impacted the surface of the Puritan C&C. She struck the curved, fighter-studded surface at enough of an angle- thankfully- to deflect obliquely, plowing through the forest of interceptor craft for approximately a hundred meters before grinding to a stop at the end of a trough.
"She's down," Cortez remarked tensely. He reached out his right hand and tried to give Shepard a reassuring squeeze on the wrist. "We're just thirty seconds out. It's a massacre out there, they're beaten. Don't worry. We'll have him back soon."
But the Puritans weren't out of spite yet.
A ring of docked fighters ten meters out from the Vimy crash site began firing their weapons into space, forming a column of fire extending upward from the massive vessel's hull. Then, to Shepard's despair, they adjusted their aim. Suddenly the lines of fire converged and overlapped a hundred meters above the SR-4, enclosing it in a tall cone of fire. And the next concentric ring of interceptors joined in. And the next. A kaleidoscopic wave of continuous barrage expanding out into space, quickly filling the sky before them. Under any other circumstances it might have been beautiful.
"FUCK!" Cortez snapped, and stabbed at the shuttle's helm controls, breaking right. The widening field of Puritan fire chased them off-course and onto an oblique path away from the station. In the co-pilot's lateral and rear sensor imaging displays, Shepard saw the whole disc of the station's dorsal hull disappear behind an opaque curtain of light flowing like water droplets from a gardener's watering can. "There's no way we can get through that, Commander," Steve winced.
Then things went from bad to worse.
The roiling edge of the wormhole event horizon flickered momentarily, and then began to advance... and shrink. The articulated mast arms were moving to close the gateway, creating the appearance that the station was sinking into a hole and pulling space shut behind it.
They were withdrawing. With Kaidan.
"Oh no you don't," Shepard sneered. "EDI! Put me through to the prothean Remnant, double-time!"
EDI didn't even waste time with an acknowledgment, and a second later the subdued terror horn blast of the Reaper announced that it was on the channel.
"We are victorious," the accented chorus of voices said, "the enemy retreats."
"We aren't yet!" Hadrian snapped. "The Vimy Ridge has crashed on the surface of their base and my-"
He stopped himself. Would 'husband' even mean anything to them? Or would he waste precious seconds trying to explain it? Would they understand 'precious cargo?' 'Its contents are dear to me?' This had to be basic. Framed in terms that a racial gestalt consciousness housed in a body of metal and circuitry that just days earlier had been bent on suicide could understand.
"My reason for living is aboard that ship," he said. "They're trying to reap it from me."
His heart pounded in his chest as he hoped the Reaper- once his mortal enemy- would understand, and give a damn.
"We understand," it said.
A second later, the huge inky bulk of the prothean Reaper hurtled past them, flanked by all twenty-one of the smaller destroyer-type ships. They plunged into the searing light blazing up from its surface, soaking up the barrage and eroding, but buying time for the capital Reaper to ride their aggregate shadow and close the gap. At the last moment it splayed its tentacles wide and brought the tips of its 'fingers' crashing into the Puritan station's domed hull as close to the edges as it could reach. The arms flexed, absorbing the momentum of the gargantuan body behind it, keeping its superstructure from slamming down in the space between and crushing the Vimy Ridge.
The interceptors' fire shone up through the gaps between those appendages and rolled up over the Reaper's belly like oil, causing its shields to crackle and sputter erratically. But then the Reaper struck back. It began drawing the tips of its tentacles harshly over the station's surface, crushing and shearing away scores of fighters as it clawed deep gouges across the hull and opening voids in the wall of fire.
The docked fighters' fire re-directed, focusing on the Prothean's center of mass, clearing much of the sky above the station. But Vimy Ridge was still shrouded behind rapid-fire energy blasts.
"Precision is problematic," came the Prothean's rumbling voice, "but prepare to act- we will create an insertion corridor."
It raised one of its huge legs again and stomped- as precisely as it could- flattening a cluster of fighters a mere twelve meters from the Vimy's starboard side airlock, and then dragged the tip outward to the dome's edge, creating a landing strip almost to the frigate's door.
In response, the carrier blocking the nearest third of the wormhole aperture started launching its fighters, while the other two tilted in place and opened fire with their docked fleets on the Reaper's dorsal hull. The combined barrage, coupled with twenty-four fewer 'mouths to feed' from their central powerplant, began to overwhelm the Reaper's defenses. Sporadic failures in its shields led to isolated explosions on its hull.
"There's our opening," Shepard said, looking anxiously over at Cortez. "We might not have much time."
"Yeah, 'Prothy' doesn't look like he can take much of that," Steve whispered in awe at the sight.
Shepard craned his neck to address the team in the rear compartment. "There's still a few fighters between us and our objective and we can't fly over them, so we're going to have to hoof it across," he explained. "And we won't have radios once we're off the shuttle, so keep line-of-sight and hand signal contact." Everyone already had their helmets on, anticipating possible environmental breaches aboard the SR-4, and responded with thumbs-up.
The communications panel lit up, indicating an incoming signal on another channel, as the shuttle swung around to approach through the leveled strip. Shepard tapped the console.
"Commander Shepard- Commander Gallagher. Been monitoring the situation, Sir, and I've got most of the Vimy Ridge ground team aboard. Care for a little backup?"
"Someone forget their wallet?" Shepard smirked. "I'd appreciate it, Commander. Follow us in."
"Commander," EDI chimed in, "at the current rate of collapse, the Puritans' wormhole will be closed in two point four minutes. I'm not certain you have enough time to-" she hesitated, then came back sounding genuinely astonished. "Wait... Oh my."
As the Puritan base swung back into the forward view, Shepard saw what had given the AI pause. Five more Reaper capital ships, battle-scarred but having defeated their targets, roared past, coming to the aid of their nominal leader.
Two of them accelerated ahead of the other three and slammed the entirety of their bulk into the pair of carriers occupying the more distant corners of the triangular formation at full speed. The targets folded under the impact, their ventral hulls cracked open, and the charging Reapers tumbled limply through the other side of the ensuing fireballs, their metallic skins shredded and peeled back. The lights dotting their surfaces began flickering erratically.
The two Reapers trailing behind the kamikazes threaded their respective needles, passing between the station's edge and the chaotic distorted space of the wormhole's threshold. They braked and twisted as they made it to the other side, and wedged their bodies into the space between the superstructure behind the 'mushroom cap' and the folding arms, bracing their tentacles against the ventral hull.
The final incoming flew into place between the nearest carrier and the prothean Reaper, grappling the enemy ship and laying in with its main guns. Or rather one of them- its twin was apparently disabled by the Reaper's previous target. It was enough to avert the launch of any more interceptors toward the shuttles, and those already deployed spun around and started buzzing the mothership's assailant.
"Holy shit, they're holding the elevator door for us!" Cortez laughed, incredulous.
"They still have plenty of ships on the other side that are bound to try and get them out of there. Don't dawdle," Hadrian replied. "Everybody get ready!"