Chapter 50: As The World Falls Down

The Junction entrance to Zakera Ward is dead ahead. So is a battalion of geth. They spawn from the relay as Dakan and I approach. Synthetics fan out into combat formation. Dakan pulls me with him into an elevated row of sculpted hedge lining the bottom of Presidium Commons. Waxy leaves and sharp branches scrape my bare arms and legs.

"Gah," I say as the pokey hedge conceals us.

Dakan shushes me and prunes a spy hole in the growth. C-Sec forces engage the geth troops. Rounds streak through the air.

"Great," I whisper. "Now what?"

"Now." In the crowded space, Dakan collapses his assault rifle and latches it to his back. Another rifle appears in his hands. Dakan folds it out to its full shape. "We back up the men and women in blue. I need more room. Clear away more of these branches."

I set down my pistol. Twigs snap in my hands. Branches tear away from the thick stem of the hedge Dakan and I huddle under. When I complete my chore he has space to finish his weapon's set up. The barrel of his rifle extends out and out and out and two legs kick stand off the body. Dakan lays along the sniper rifle's length, slots the elongated muzzle through the opening he carved in the hedge and puts an eye to the sight. Hunched over and on my knees next to the turian, I mentally urge him to take a shot. He's taking forever to line it up.

Now, now, now!

A million shots I would have shot pass by.

"Dakan."

"If you're so hot for a kill, get to work with that pistol. Every round helps."

The round he fires explodes from the end of the barrel. One of the big synthetics, one of the ones with shoulder rockets, takes a knee.

"One more ought to do it," Dakan says and fires again after a brief pause. The colossus tips like a redwood onto its front and blows in a mist of milky coolant and skin slicing swarf. I stick to the smaller geth with the majority of C-Sec's forces barricaded at the Zakera Junction's entrance. For the giant machines, C-Sec has their own snipers who disable their rockets and bring them down before they storm the line. Tense moments lodge my heart in my throat, but we hold our own until an amphibious geth, and its companions, traces our position.

The bedlam ahead, teams of zig-zagging machines all firing with greater speed and precision than an organic is capable, demands all of mine and Dakan's attention. Our engagement techniques meld together. We become an efficient team. A single, precise shot from the sniper rifle incapacitates standard geth models and slow the giant versions. I follow Dakan's powerful blasts with short bursts of weaker shots. Dakan suggests the brief volleys to prevent the constant risk of overheat. Feeding off how well we work together, we jump from target to target unaware of the geth scampering down to us from the upper levels of the Commons.

An immense weight crashes between us, drives us apart. The ambush destroys a large part of the hedge along with Dakan's sniper rifle. I tuck my pistol to my chest and curl around it as displaced twigs and leaves rain down on me. When I unwind, I find Dakan pinned by one of the sinuous geth that attacked Zenna and I in the ducts. He kicks and tears and snaps at the creature poised atop his chest, can't dislodge the machine whose strange chatter lifts the fine hairs on the back of my neck. The geth slaps a spidery hand on Dakan's face, muffling the turian's shouts. A geth has done this before. Outside my holding cell. To a blonde C-Sec officer.

Heat spreads over my face and suffuses my limbs. The pistol's metal angles bite the tender skin of my palms when I squeeze. My bones vibrate as my heart cop knocks against my ribcage. A feral howl wails from my open mouth. I spring and cling to the synthetic's back. With my weight bearing down on it, it can't leap away and attack from a different angle.

I latch onto one of the petal shaped metal sheets that form the geth's head and pull back. Its serpentine neck straightens. The short barrel of my pistol wedges between two of the plates. I fire and fire. Coolant geysers from the machine's damaged head. Its electronic chattering grows shrill. It releases Dakan's head and flings me off its back and into the prickly hedge. I'm rocking up when it flies at me and attempts to pin me like it did Dakan. The wounds I've dealt it throws off its precision. One of my hands gets shackled to the ground. The geth's other arm flails like it can't control its limb. Its head flops with its erratic motion. I do the exact opposite of what anyone, I think, would expect.

I embrace the geth, pull it down by the wires looping like tangles of intestine from its mangled neck, lock my legs around its slender torso. I jam my pistol to its face bulb. The glass housed light explodes when I squeeze the trigger. I don't stop squeezing. All Dakan's advice about short bursts of fire flies my mind. This thing tried to take Dakan from me. Anyone and anything taking from me I will not suffer to live. Until this machine lies in pieces, I won't stop.

The pistol's overheat alarm blares and already I gather dark energy to me. The geth, possibly comprehending its destruction, gains loose control of its arms. The hand that pins mine to the ground covers my face. The pistol I misuse jams. Protective systems preventing catastrophic damage to the weapon lock its firing mechanism. I toss the gun aside as the geth begins closing its fist around my skull. The part of me that's afraid is obliterated by the me that's bound to survival, by the me that conquers all enemies of my destiny.

If I'm dead I can't be rich and famous.

Both of my hands are free and empty. I thrust them onto the geth's chest. My body is a conduit, my arms jumper cables, my hands conductive clamps. Energy charging my core shimmers down my limbs. I pump more power into the machine than its circuits can handle, but its grip tightens.

Let go, I think. You're already dead.

Before, I believed my physical strength limited how often and for how long I could use my biotics. For a brief instant I see this isn't so. Energy is limitless, boundless. I am depleted when I release it and replenished when I call for it. My power has only the bounds I grant and right now I have none. I pour all I have into the machine. It stiffens and topples and then I'm atop it, shocking it over and over like a living defibrillator.

"Neve!"

A voice pierces the intoxicating hum of my power. I snarl and ignore it and tear at my enemy.

"Neve, stop!"

The hands that land on my shoulders pull. I round on this new challenger. I capture his neck.

"Neve, please."

The biotics I gather in my empty palm sing for release. I meet this enemy's eyes.

Bright amber shards slice away the ties binding me to fury. I punch my energy ripe hand into the air and release, release, release without harming the turian who holds me. As the power within ebbs and my strength wanes, I'm lifted. Wind ruffles my hair and the remnants of my thin gown, cools my overheated skin. Dakan runs, carrying me with him. A bloom of heat and the sound of an explosion come from behind us. I'm dimly aware that this is the geth I destroyed.

How did I do that? I wonder.

A moment ago, I grasped a fundamental truth, an idea that gave me endless strength. It's gone. I'm left bewildered by my actions.

A shadow passes over us. Dakan comes to a halt behind a structure buttress supporting a consumer complex adjacent to the Junction entrance. I'm set down. I fling my arms around Dakan's neck, bury my face in his cracked chest plate.

"It was going to kill you." Dry sobs obstruct my throat. My words come strangled. Talons rake through my tangled hair.

"But you saved me," Dakan says and is good enough not to mention I almost killed him after I did the saving. A gentle nudge puts space between us. Dakan untwines my arms from his neck. "We're not through this yet."

Beyond the structure buttress is the charred rubble of the hedge we fled. Three more amphibious geth crawl from the Commons and, finding no organics left among the foliage, leap into the midst of combat at C-Sec's barricade, then onto the Junction entrance's upper arch. Organic troops direct fire overhead and pick off the spry machines. They lob the heaviest munitions at the giant geth and at the standard infantry which replenishes from the relay monument whenever C-Sec beats back a significant portion. Dakan signals an officer on lookout. The other turian behind the barricade waves back and directs a couple of the offensive team to his aid.

"They'll provide suppressing fire so we can get to the barricade."

The landscape teems with heat seeking, hostile geth. The barricade lies an unfathomable distance across territory littered with the remains of felled machines and air disturbed with thousands of flash-fast projectiles. I droop against the structure buttress and shake my head, mouth open.

"Dakan, I don't think I can—"

The detective grasps my arm. "You took care of that." With his un-holstered assault rifle, he gestures at the burned out hedge. "I'll take care of this." He ushers me behind him. "Stay close. We'll make it."

Performing some complex finger acrobatics, Dakan signals his intent to the C-Sec soldiers committed to our well being. Head swiveling towards me, the detective nods for my readiness. I swallow, nod back, and we're away.

The tile is hard and cold against my bare soles. My feet pound the ground as I keep up with Dakan's incredible pace. The inverse bend of the turian's legs gives him raptor-like speed. He's slowed for my benefit, but I lag behind. The officers behind the barricade engage the geth, forcing the smaller infantry behind cover. Snipers occupy the two colossus left. Dakan fires while we run, mowing down the smaller troops that escape the officers that back us up. Overloading my pistol is a mistake I regret. I sieve dark energy from the air, housing it in my core. It should be enough for a small shield or a few blasts if we need them. Five more feet and we'll be behind the safety of the barricade. Then Dakan throws out an arm, backing us towards the buttressed tier wall.

"Above you," Dakan shouts to the officers and points his rifle at the Junction's archway where another amphibious, previously cloaked, geth perches, ready to spring on the C-Sec troops below. The volley of rounds the detective sends at the machine knocks it from the wall. It lands damaged and flailing behind the line. The officers nearest to it converge on the machine in a chaotic storm of motion. The concentrated frenzy disrupts the structured formation the C-Sec troops maintain. A panicked salarian slings his backup rifle over his shoulder in a wild arc. His weapon strikes a fellow officer, a bald human man with a grenade in fist, in the back of his head. Instead of pitching the grenade into a charge of geth, he flings the explosive our way.

"Get back!" Dakan shoves me into the wall. He looms, moving to shield me with his body.

"No!" Dakan's armor and energy shield won't stand against a detonation like that at close range.

I slip passed the turian. The energy I stored rumbles in my gut. I shunt a small amount up my outstretched arm. A dense, brilliant sphere ejects from my palm that induces an extreme pins-and-needles sensation over my entire hand. My aim is shitty, but the display I release is wide enough to make up for my deficient accuracy. The sphere connects with the incoming grenade, blows it into the structure buttress farthest from us, the one closest to the Junction barricade. There's a mass exodus of C-Sec officers from the front line. They retreat into the shelter of Zakera Ward and take cover. Dakan holds an arm around my shoulders, rounding over me like he meant to before I dodged his first attempt. I press my face to his chest plate, shielding my eyes from the blast when the grenade explodes.

A crack of close thunder eclipses all sound and a wave of concussive force shoves Dakan into me. The thunder continues long after it should have dissipated. It sounds like stone, or versaplast, splitting. I peer over the oval dome protecting Dakan's un-plated neck. Half of the barricade is gone. Black marks streak the structure buttress where the grenade landed. One mark is darker than the others. A jagged crack moves up the length of the buttress, separating it from the complex. The supporting wing crumbles and with it a large part of the combat weakened upper tiers. Chunks of stone and versaplast drop from the consumer complex. Debris falls like comets, cratering the ground in a trail that intercepts Dakan and I's position. The building collapses. We can't outrun the fallout. That doesn't mean I can't do something about it.

Charging both my arms depletes the rest of my stored energy. I place my hand on Dakan's chest. The turian flies backward when I drive a slug of biotics into his torso. He lands on his back, out of the avalanche's range. When the buttress gives way and the tiers above crumble, I'm the only one beneath it. I cover my head with my other charged arm. The energy snaps into a shell shaped membrane. Skull sized rocks bounce off the biotic dome. The constant pounding drives me to my knees. Half of a balcony spears the ground not six inches from where I kneel. The impact bounces me onto my ass. I shriek, maintaining the shield as a growing shadow darkens the ground I occupy.

Shutting my eyes tight, I pour all I've got into the destabilizing shield sheltering me. Stone, versaplast, sheets and bars of metal come down all around me. A gigantic boulder crashes and crushes my leg. I wail and grasp my thigh, breaking up my shield. I tug and tug from the stone, from the warm, wet pain cocooning the portion of the limb smashed by the rock. Rubble piles up. Since nothing protects my head, a shard of stone strikes the top of my skull and I collapse on the ruins that pin me to the ground. I'm buried, sealed in darkness.

Before I pass out, I think, I saved him. At least I saved him.