I don't own the Mass Effect.
Operation: Dante's Inferno
Imperfect Glass
Miranda Lawson
"Miranda, how are the ships?"
"Intact." I replied as Shepard cut in on the command override, my eyes remaining fixed on the closed tunnels ahead. We'd utilized demolition charges to shut them, but EVA had reported motion behind five. It wouldn't be long before they used their own devices or biotics to blast them back open. "There have only been probing attacks so far, nothing major. The wounded remain alive and are comfortable."
"Good." She exhaled, revealing some of her own exhaustion as she spoke. "Any rescued civilians?"
I licked my lips, glancing back at the ship behind us. "Seventeen... they aren't in good shape, but we have them aboard."
Which was an understatement, but the truth would only upset her further. The children had been understandably traumatized, and the Blades and Vasir's people had not been in any mood to be gentle when they hauled them to safety. That they'd needed biotics to safely corral them had not helped either. Several of the children had been sedated before they'd even arrived, while the others had been nearly catatonic in fear.
There was a long pause before Shepard replied, "Just seventeen?"
"The Blades have been far harder pressed by flanking groups." I shook my head, though she couldn't see it. "They haven't exactly had time to search the pods, free them, and then risk their biotics to send them back."
"Understood. We're about to hit the secondary hangar, be prepared to relocate the ships and all teams."
"Understood." I acknowledged. "We will be prepared."
The line had hardly clicked off before Arturo's helmet shifted in my direction, his voice dry, "We'll have to be quick about that. What's the plan?"
"Exactly what we thought it would be." I replied, already shifting to the main channel. "The advance teams are moving on the next hangar. All teams to execute stage one."
A chorus of microphone clicks came from the various mercenary squads holding the gates in the main tunnel, while the Alliance crew defending their own ship acknowledged the order verbally and began to rush to get back inside the North Cape. They would be departing first, making a recon run of the shipyards to ensure no Collector vessels were mobile, then returning to pick up the shuttles even now attaching nuclear bombs to a few select areas of the station's exterior.
The Normandy would remain in place until Shepard gave the go ahead, upon which I would order stage two. Those three Blades squads closer to the new hangar would advance downwards to reinforce them, while those closer to us would fall back and board the ship. Once everyone was present, we would make the very short journey to our next defensive position.
"T'Donna," I continued, "Any signs of movement in the lower section?"
"Yeah." The giant Asari replied, "EDI is reporting the same crap down here. Motion, energy signatures, but they haven't blown anything out yet. Fuckers are probably getting set up to come at all us at once."
I grimaced, entirely agreeing with that assessment. "Your recommendation?"
She was silent for a few long seconds, then exhaled, "I think we need to call the gate teams back. If they get hit at the same time we do we might lose all of them."
My finger tapped on my rifle in a repeating rhythm as I considered that, "If they bring in something that can disable the Normandy, that leaves us with no avenue to reach the next hangar."
"We lose this ship and I don't like our odds even if they hold the gates." T'Donna stated bluntly, but there was an undercurrent of emotion to it. She, unlike so many of the other Blades, still seemed to have something resembling a normal sense of morality. "Getting the crew down would be a pain in the fucking ass if we're under fire, even before you account for those kids you had us pick up. We'd have to leave them behind to have any real chance... and I like that idea about as much as you do."
The notion made me flinch on reflex, a tight breath forcing itself out of my lungs, "... very well. Send the signal to your people; gates one through three are to progressively retreat back to this position. Gates four and five are to advance in the same fashion."
Her tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth, then she exited the channel to give said orders.
I contemplated our deployment as she did so, noting the gaps appearing as the marines and crew of the North Cape continued to retreat within their ship. My team was now the only group on the second level of walkways overlooking the main hangar, with myself, EVA, and three of T'Laria's Nightblades holding the area nearest to the ship's upper airlock. Arturo and Church each lead four more of my people, constituting the bulk of what experienced combat agents my Cerberus could gather. Arturo's was about twenty meters to my left, with Church another forty beyond that, giving us a good degree of protection on this side.
Below, T'Donna and EDI commanded nearly two dozen crew members and agents, along with the three assassin-maidens to protect them from Seekers, but their numbers were paltry against the sheer size of the hangar. The giant Asari had been sensible enough to realize that; she hadn't even bothered to try. Instead the... for lack of a better word, green soldiers and crew had been placed into two circular lines of defense around the lowered ramp with EDI on the front lines and T'Donna commanding from the rear.
The men and women down there had fought before, but only in the smaller skirmishes that had accompanied my break with Harper. This would be combat on another level entirely, and I was entirely unsure as to how many of them would be able to hold up. The same question could be asked of the Nightblades. Kean's people had been training them in the typical Asari arts of war; sedition, seduction, misdirection, sabotage, and assassination. They were deadly enough in a fight, to be sure, but their standard orders when confronted with open battle was to flee as fast as their legs and biotics could carry them.
My continuing musings and concerns were interrupted when the North Cape's engines rumbled to life, the stealth frigate kicking up dust and debris as it lifted off. It began to drift backwards towards open space almost at once, clearing enough room that the Normandy would be able to likewise depart once we had everyone.
Unfortunately, just as I was about to give the orders to accelerate the withdrawal and proceed to stage two, the Collectors elected to act.
Explosions rocked the hangar even before the ship had glided more than a few meters towards the exit, nearly every tunnel that we had sealed blasting open nearly simultaneously. I, and nearly everyone else, opened fire immediately, bullet scything out to impact the first wave of husks that came sprinting out of the dust and smoke. We seemed to be facing the brunt of the initial rush, given that there were two tunnels in front of us compared to just one in front of the others.
Which was, naturally, the same moment that Tela Vasir came in on the priority channel. "Lawson, how fast can you get your ship here to strafe these bastards for us?"
Ignoring the call entirely, I flung a hand forwards, dark energy rushing from my implant in response. The throw came in high and at an angle, shoving one Husk roughly into the legs of those beside it. It had enough momentum to cause a massive pile up as the creatures fell all over one another creating a nearly immobile mass of enemies struggling to right themselves.
"Miranda?" Shepard, this time. "Respond."
I gritted my teeth as I pulled hard on my rifle's trigger, ignoring the dangerously rising heat as I tried to kill as many of the husks as I could before the real enemy arrived. "Occupied!"
Cutting the line as my weapon overheated, I was about to start snapping orders when the Asari around me proved themselves to be sensible enough to copy me. More throws whipped out at harsh angles, driving the Husks down and back, creating a new mess that saw EVA hurl a pair of grenades. That finished them off entirely just in time for the actual danger to arrive, the towering forms of Collector combat drones rushing in harsh sprints.
We'd cleared the area around each of the tunnels of debris, leaving them with no real cover and the creatures new it. Perhaps half took to the air while the others opened fire with unnerving accuracy as they attempted to rush us.
"Focus high!" I snapped as I evaluated the oncoming wave, my hands automatically changing the heat sink in my weapon. Five were airborne, and four were on the ground, too many to easily deal with in both categories... but those approaching on the ground could be dealt with more easily than those that looked to be aiming to land behind us.
Two harriers and three heavy pistols began to bark in sequence as we fired at the airborne creatures, all of us aiming at their wings rather than their protected bodies. A trio quickly seemed to stagger in the air, while a fourth tumbled down to the ground entirely. The concentrated fire coming from the surface team pushed us back in turn, forcing us all to duck as barriers and technical panels shattered underneath their firepower.
One of the maidens, she'd introduced herself as Ula, risked her skull to check the situation. She ducked almost instantly, pulled a grenade free from her belt, hesitated, then tossed it over as she shouted, "Wave push!"
I understood her plan in a moment of clarity, and joined my own power to their own as the three flared their biotics, sending a broad wave of biotic power towards the incoming Collectors. It wouldn't have done much of anything to them directly, the power too diffuse to even get through their kinetic barriers... but it carried her grenade, and those the Collectors had thrown at us, directly at them at a high rate of speed.
The dull crack of a fragmentation grenade was joined by a higher pitched sizzling sound, and it was my turn to rise in time to see two almost perfect spheres of golden light fading away to reveal the twitching remains of three attacks. I didn't have time to look for the fourth, given that the surviving quartet who had been in the air landed in the wake of the explosion all around us.
One came at me directly, its weapon missing, a clawed hand slapping aside my own as the other snapped for my throat. Borrowing some of Shepard's athletic style, I accepted the momentum, twisting as I kept a hold of my rifle and letting its punch deflect off of my shoulder pad. Reversing my motion, I slammed the butt of the weapon into its armored gut, driving the insectoid thing back. A whistling shriek of rage emanated from it as it planted its feet and tried to shift direction to come at me from the left, but as fast as it was it was not faster than the upgrades my father's scientists had given me.
Using my gun as a club, I struck it hard in a shoulder to send it off balance, then dropped low and swept its gangly legs out from beneath it. A three round burst into its right eye socket executed it before its body even hit the ground, leaving me free to look around as our little portion of the battle seemed to end.
One Nightblade was down, the other two standing protectively over her limp frame, their characteristic blades blazing with sizzling dark energy. EVA had lost her left arm but was largely intact beyond that, checking the Collectors status via neat headshots with her pistol. A glance to the left confirmed that the battles on our flank had likewise slowed to a near stop, but the torrent of gunfire below was as loud as ever.
At least the North Cape had gotten out, freeing us of that concern.
"Status?" I asked, nodding towards the downed Asari. "That is Aishi?"
"Dead." Ula reported, "One landed behind her while she was dealing with another, broke her neck."
I grimaced, "EVA, get her body inside and then seal the airlock. You two, with me, we're going down. T'Donna! We're en route to support, sitrep!"
"Shit!" Came the prompt and expected reply. "They hit us from both sides, harder on the left! Can you sweep around the ass of the ship and flank them!?"
"Confirmed!" I answered, "Arturo, Jesse, wounded to the ship, everyone else to the ground!"
Both confirmed in good order, and I soon had four men and women rushing after us as I lead the way towards the 'ramp' the Asari had thrown together out of debris. Less pleasant were the three people limping and staggering towards the forward airlock, carrying three more utterly limp forms with them. From the scorched and blackened nature of their armor, it had been the grenades that had killed them.
Dammit. I should have spread out the biotics rather than concentrating them. My section may have taken the brunt of the attack, but it had left the other teams fare more vulnerable.
There wasn't time for further self-recrimination as my boots hit the hangar's surface, the two Asari easily keeping pace as we rushed past the ship's engines and landing struts. What little we could see of the fight nearer to the ramp was confused and obfuscated by both debris and the Normandy itself, leaving us with no real feel for the situation beyond T'Donna's cursing and orders as she redressed the defensive line.
We got a better look as we moved around the wreckage that had once been the balcony on this side of the cavernous room. Our hosts had blown out three tunnels on the ground level, and another four up high. A steady carpet of dead husks on the ground told us that the defenders had initially been facing them directly, likely far closer, but had pulled back towards the ship's ramp and bow fairly quickly.
At the far end of the ruin, using it partially as cover of their own, were three Collectors shepherding the unsteady form of a Scion. The top heavy creature twisted as it fired; dark energy exploding out to detonate somewhere in the distance, its escorts promptly rising to lay down covering fire as it recharged.
"That's not good." Ula murmured beside me, quickly sliding back, "How do we take it down?"
"What grenades do you have left?" I asked.
"Two stunners and a wire." She replied, nodding towards her partner. "Juni's got a frag and an incendiary."
I exhaled as our other teams caught up to us, quickly taking knees and trying to catch their breath as quickly as they could. "Slow roll a stunner and then the wire, I'll bounce them on arrival. Soon as they're down, we take their position. Jesse, your team is covering the tunnels. Arturo, our left flank."
Her helmet bobbed agreeably, quickly followed by the others. I took a few precious seconds to tell T'Donna that we were about to make our move, primarily to give my people a tiny but necessary break, and was told in turn that they had solidified their defenses around the ramp but that the sooner we acted the better given that the gate teams were reporting enemies moving on them even as they headed back to reinforce us.
Twenty seconds later we were set and acting, two grenades innocuously rolling along the ground, propelled by tiny bursts of biotic energy. Hitting such small targets from range was anything but simple, taking nearly all of my focus as I gently flicked my fingers forwards, sending tiny motes of blue light out to enact my will. The stunner was struck first, bouncing up exactly as desired to detonate right in the center of the formation.
Our enemies were still reeling when the razor-wire grenade arrived. The results of its activation were... messy.
The Scion was, more or less, flayed alive; various body parts simply sliding off of in utterly disgusting splatters of gore. The Collectors fared better, their barriers protecting them from the filaments emitting from the spinning disc, at least until the Scion's eezo laced weapon detonated in a blue flash of light.
The blast flung its escorts away, and served as our signal to rush forwards.
Arturo and his team quickly took the lead, executing the downed creatures with sharp bursts as they ran past, leaving myself and the two Asari to take up the positions they had once occupied. It took an honest effort to not pay attention to what I was now standing in, and about to kneel in, and I wasn't entirely sure how the less enhanced individuals around me coped.
Regardless, the situation we had inserted ourselves in proved to be chaotic.
T'Donna had contracted her defense into a tight right around the base of the lowered ramp, men and women stubbornly firing from behind carefully positioned debris. Their accuracy and fire discipline was decidedly poor, but the three Nightblades were bolstering their protection by keeping any grenades away, while T'Donna and Gardner were both manning tripod mounting Spitfires in the hangar proper. The two weapons were letting out steady roaring bursts as they focused on the center and the far right, keeping the opponents fairly well pinned down on that side.
Which was why she'd asked us to flank them on this side. Sensible.
The next several minutes were an exercise in routine, insomuch as any life or death struggle could be defined as routine. Our enemies, sensibly intelligent themselves, considered the new situation and elected to enact a partial withdrawal. Pulling back from the center and area directly around the ramp, they fell back to the areas on the far side of the hangar. Many vanished back into the opened tunnels, a few flew up to the balcony I had helped defend not a few minutes ago, while the remainder settled in to start up a suppressing barrage.
We assisted their retreat via grenades and biotics, my teams eventually moving to take the place of T'Donna's people. The less experienced crew quickly began to grab their wounded and dead, there was far too many of both categories, pulling them within the safety of the ship.
That left the situation in an awkward form of a standoff for nearly ten minutes, with everyone obviously waiting for reinforcements. Thankfully, for once, ours arrived first; three gate teams emerging from the main tunnel at speed, racing for the Normandy.
"Cover them!" I snapped, "Grenades!"
What pitifully few such devices we had left promptly sailed out, my biotics and others assisting their flight. The explosions, bursts of napalm, and flashes of light disrupted the Collectors firing line sufficiently to let our allies make the short sprint. A quick count as they came on showed that all of the Blades remained alive, or at least, those who hadn't fallen in the initial attacks had stayed alive through the act of defending them.
"Onto the ship!" I shouted as sixteen mercenaries pounded past, a few slowing enough to help provide more covering fire as my own teams began to quickly backpedal. "Moreau!
Rather than reply verbally, the pilot simply thrummed the idling engines up to power, the vessel already moving before the ramp had begun to raise.
"Time to arrival?" I asked, watching as those who were still healthy enough to fight quickly began to grab for water and food.
"Five minutes." He replied cockily, "Six or seven if Shep wrecked the place."
Speaking of, I quickly shifted the channel, "Shepard, we've cleared the main hangar and are en route to the secondary. We took losses defending the ship but are still combat effective. What is your status?"
Rather than the Spectre, Kean's crisp voice answered me. "Shepard, Williams, and Vasir are already moving on to the core, they want to keep them off balance. My lancer teams and I are holding the hangar for you."
"Confirm?" I asked, frowning inside my helmet. "That was not the plan."
He grunted and his voice lowered slightly, "Grunt and Bourdin are dead, and Zorah is heavily sedated. She wants this over with."
"Ah." I exhaled, "In that case I am going to have the North Cape remain outside of the hangar, only having one ship present will accelerate our ability to depart."
Another quiet sound of agreement, "We're setup at the far end, the place is mostly intact. How many effectives will you have?"
I glanced around the hangar. Of the twenty plus crew that T'Donna had begun the fight with, perhaps a dozen were upright but I wasn't precisely eager to put them back into the fray. They would be far better used remaining within the hangar to provide covering fire from a safer distance. That left myself, the five remaining Nightblades, and the four remaining members of my experienced team. Of the Blade gate teams, four of the sixteen had revealed themselves to be walking wounded, and one Asari was flat on her back; biotic exhaustion evidently catching up to her.
"Ten of mine, eleven of yours." I answered, "Plus a firing line from the ship itself."
Kean clicked his mic in reply before cutting the line, likely already plotting out were he would position us when we arrived... which informed me that he expected an assault. Likely an immediate one.
"They're going to come at us with everything." I blinked and glanced to my left to see T'Donna towering over me, having evidently approached while I was speaking with her boss. "Anyone not after Shepard will be trying to cripple or blow this ship apart."
"Agreed." I murmured. "How many biotics do you wish to defend this room?"
Her helmet shifted as she considered it, finally answering, "The Khar'shan team, if you can spare them."
My left hand waved towards where four panting Asari were trying to get electrolytes into their bodies, guzzling energy drinks and water in equal measure. "Their yours. Keep the remainder of the crew back as best you can until we're down the ramp, then set them up as you see fit to cover us."
T'Donna nodded, turning and limping away before starting to call out orders, preparing everyone for the next... and hopefully final round.
Next up is Dante's Inferno: V
And the fight continues. We're two chapters from the end of this particular operation, the next one will be Cieran covering the defense of the hangar and updates from Shepard and Vasir as they make their way into the base's core. After him we'll have one last chapter from a seperate pov, and then we'll be onto the epilogues.
Please read and review, criticism is welcome, flames not so much, as usual. Reviews are my lifeblood as a writer.. every-time my email goes off with a review it makes me want to write more, so please take the time to leave one. Guests can leave them as well, and it only takes a minute, so please. Even if it's as simple as "I enjoyed it, please continue."
Thanks, Kat
Review Responses:
BJ Hanssen; That was the close runner up, and it was how I had it in my head for a while, but it just didn't quite stick for some reason.
