"... Not yet it isn't. Countermand that order!" Tali stood firm on the bridge, set forward, livid, quivering. "You're falling, Tanda! This is temptation! We have the force! We can win! You know the histories of your own galaxy! The Rakghoul plague was cleared! Exterminated! Planets were won back from it!"

The bridge was a dreadful tomb. None of the human officers wanted to register the order, either. It emboldened Tali, and she continued. "The various national governments will resist... Earth—humanity—will fight a guerrilla war as long as it can. We can save them... not all of them, but we can save them." She twisted her hands in her gloves. "We have to believe we can beat the Reapers."

"I do think we can beat the Reapers, Tali. There's a thousand of them sitting pretty and hapless with their screens down and claws buried in the soil of the homeworld of my race. I might just be able to save this galaxy if I knock them all out."

"... We can't just... kill the planet, Tanda! That... there's got to be a better way..."

"If there was a fleet this big at Arcturus, my plan was to blow up the system relay—then we could hyper out while they couldn't escape in time. That still kills Earth. We were too damned slow."

"They... you can't. You can't! This is what the dark side wants. It... there's got to be some better way, some... way to get them to fight us somewhere we want them to."

Tanda was silent. She rested her gloved hands on the rail. "An Imperial officer acts according to duty."

"This feels wrong. You can't just live in duty... there's billions of people down there!"

"Billions of husks... Tali, a thousand Reapers, if they all lift off... We've analyzed their weapons, the ray shields turn them into a joke, even the cruisers will stand sustained fire from a Reaper now due to the spreading, sure. But we're still two hundred against a thousand."

"Tanda, they're fighting down there! Who's going to fight for us if we just... show up and glass worlds!? We've got to have some hope of beating this, of rebuilding, of winning! Humanity won't come back from that!"

"...And if I hesitate now, will this sixty-five million year old terror ultimately come to my home galaxy and land on Coruscant with her hundred trillion? What do you mean humanity won't come back from this?"

"Look at what losing Rannoch did to us..." She said it quieter, twisting her hands. "Hesitate because it's the right thing to do. The force will find a way for us to save Earth."

Tanda exhaled in an explosive puff of air, disappearing into her suit filters, and heaved over. Tali caught her, and for once in public the Imperials seemed more relieved than ashamed at the display of affection by their commander. Leaning into Tali, she gathered her breath and her wits. "Countermand that, Commander Scolus. Fleet orders, stand by to shape course. Our exit point from hyperspace will be at the outer edge of the Mercury mass shadow—that is the First Planet of Sol. All ships prepare for general engagement."

The open comms channel came back on; EDI, as calm as ever, with no indication for whether or not she had heard the exchange. "Captain Shepard is aboard. Admiral Anderson has remained on Earth to attempt to coordinate resistance to the Reaper attack. Localized resistance appears to be strengthening, and uncoordinated evacuations off-world have begun."

"We'll be arriving outside of the Mercury mass shadow in eighty minutes, EDI," Tanda answered, finding the strength to stand on her own again. "Tali... Bring up a simulation of Sol, please."

"Solar surface conditions, most recent data."

"Understood. We should be lifting from Mars by the time you... alert, Cerberus stealth frigate signatures detected," EDI answered ominously.

"...Make decisions based on the objective of securing Jedi Tasiele and Doctor T'Soni safely. Hopefully Cerberus is there to help. Thunderflare Actual out." The connection dropped... and they came streaking in.

"A pretty boring sun, but... None of you people have ray shields natively." She became more active, the grip of the doldrums leaving. She brought up the information on Jupiter. "A much more interesting score—yes, her Crore limit is—interesting. We'll hold course for Mercury, I don't want to waste time and, who knows, depending on the circumstances I'll pull it off twice."

At the last jump recalculation to go to Mercury instead of Terra was completed, Tanda ordered the hyperdrive fighters to proceed independently. She finished the revised briefing of their wing commanders. "You are to hit them in the atmosphere to make them attack us. Exhaust your missiles, torpedoes and bombs while they're on the ground with their main guns masked, then microjump into the inner system. The Empire expects every sapient to execute their duty." With that, the QEQs started to launch.

Back in realspace, Tali went about her duties, but quietly interfaced with the holonet transmitter via her omnitool as she did. She loved Tanda, she could feel the good win out in her, however narrowly. But it was so hard to trust her as she flirted with the Dark Side, and her Imperials cared more about obedience to orders than morality. Still, this was Earth. Their Motherworld. It was the one subject that might have brought about a revolt to Tanda's authority if she had pressed it.

Tali wanted to put the risk to bed once and for all. She started sending her own message to Captain Turla and the Bombard.

-

As they pulled away from Earth, Atarah Shepard watched the planet recede in stunned, grim silence. After all of her efforts, after all that they had done, all of humanity's efforts had been unavailing. Every fleet, even the one her mother had served in, had crumpled like cardboard. Likely she had no mother anymore. But so did plenty of others.

Her heart, burning and aching with the need to help others, plunged all the more. She had her duty, her orders. She was to recover Liara from Mars. SR-2 made haste away from Earth. Behind them, flailing, civilian ships rose from the service from every spaceport that had not been destroyed... The ones in orbit that had simply been bypassed by the Reapers rushing to enter the atmosphere, burning steadily away from Earth, as well.

They were not alone. Destroyers, the smaller 160-meter Reapers, were coming after them now. Cries of desolation and panicked begging for help, imagining there was still an Earth fleet, echoed. Joker and her new comms Specialist Samantha Traynor both looked horrible, close to retching.

"EDI... Is there anything we can do?" Shepard's eyes flicked toward the chess-piece.

"No, there is not, Shepard. But the Imperials can."

"Not in time, EDI!"

"Direct your attention to Grid Point Zero-Eight-One." EDI focused the display.

"There is an anomaly here, completely powered down. Based on the radiation scans from earlier in the combat, it is an Imperial warship, or several. And the Destroyers are approaching turbolaser range within fifteen seconds."

The onrushing, fleeing Earth ships continued to make time as best as they could away from Earth and the Moon. The Reaper Destroyers kept accelerating. They opened fire, beams stuttering across space. Screams and channels dissolving into static tore through their open comms channels as ships began to explode and were torn in two by the incredible firepower.

A wave of green and orange bolts ripped end to end from the anomaly. A moment later, her shields came up and white-blue pinpoints of ion engines lit off.

Shepard clenched and pumped her fist. "Bombard!"

The first of the line of Reaper Destroyers didn't even have time to start evading. Two, then three! Ion cannon arced across their lengths and heavy turbolaser bolts slammed into protrusions of the hull, destroying them in turn. Bombard, shields up and engines lit, swung about and drove headlong at full speed toward the Reapers, her guns arcing like green lightning through the darkness of space, going off one after another in an indefatigable drumbeat of fire.

Alongside her the Rintonne's Flame and the Carrack-class Itarla, the other two ships with Class I hyperdrives, accelerated into combat, shielded toBombard's port beam and striking at the leading edge of the Destroyer force as it curved to engage them. The heavy turbolasers on the Itarla quickly scored their own kill, and the Bayonet-class ship at her side was not far from the success. The smaller Reapers fell like swatted flies to the concentration of Imperial firepower, no matter how greater they outnumbered the little taskgroup.

The open comms lines were filled with cheers, now. The desperate refugees watched in hope as every minute that Bombard sent the Reaper force tumbling back onto Earth brought them closer to lining up their own FTL escapes, or aiming for one of the outer colonies if they didn't have FTL on their ship. And Bombard was winning. There were hundreds of Reaper Destroyers in the force that she was fighting, but dozens had already been destroyed.

Now it was point-blank, but the VSD-II covered her smaller compatriots and stood the barrage of fire. The beams on the Destroyers were simply not big enough to seriously discomfit the Imperial ships. The Reapers had already begun to retreat, and now the retreat accelerated into a rout. Bombard kept coming on, straight toward Earth.

The Destroyers were running, but even against a sluggish VSD-II, they weren't able to run fast enough. They kept dying, hammered apart, by sustained pursuing turbolaser fire, the optimal arc for the Bombard. Sweeping down into orbit of Earth, fires burning around the globe from Reaper strikes on the dark side where they approached, the intermittent brilliant flare of another Reaper as the turbolasers converged on it and sent it tumbling into pieces marked the battle in the sky.

Then the four squadrons of QEQs in the group went active. The moment he had seen that the Reapers were descending onto Earth at his arrival, too late for him to intervene, he had sent them on a high sublight drift toward the planet, and now they powered up and plunged into the atmosphere. The Reapers on the ground were virtually helpless against this kind of attack, and projectile warheads, unlike massed turbolaser fire, presented no threat to the atmosphere.

Suddenly Bombard's ion cannon shifted fire into the atmosphere of Earth. They lanced down and struck unprotected Reaper dreadnoughts landed on the surface. Their systems crackling out of control, the Reaper fighters trying to claw their way skyward to engage... Too late. A dive straight into a gravity well was a matter of bare minutes for an Imperial starfighter. Proton bombs flying and then proton torpedoes and concussion missiles homing, the QEQs struck. Each one selected a single Reaper and dived on it, aiming its guided weapons for one of the legs while the proton bombs bracketed it in a salvo moments later.

Racing through the defensive fire of the Reapers, suddenly the Dreadnoughts were no longer an imposing, dominating presence. They were massive, fragilely supported towers waiting to fall. The QEQs made their attack runs, the beams of the Reapers unable to bear on them as they dived from above. With screaming ion engines, they pulled back out, cannon silent, and let their bombs and missiles do the talking for them.

And over wrecked and embattled cities, Reaper dreadnoughts lost their legs in the flare of the proton explosions, and toppled and fell while their hulls arced with ion cannon fire. Above them, Bombard's turbolasers finished off the Destroyers, and the Reapers had no choice. Sufficiently vulnerable to the greater Imperial technology as they were on the ground that single starfighters posed a serious threat, they simply had to get skyborne again.

As the starfighters burned skyward after their attack patterns were completed, Reaper dreadnought after Reaper dreadnought began to take off from the surface of the Earth, granting countless regions a momentary reprieve as they rushed to engage the Victory. Bombard was waiting for them with her two smaller compatriots, and the first of the Reaper dreadnoughts to clear the atmosphere was bracketed by their unrelenting fire. Systems dazed by the ion cannon effect, hammered by turbolasers it could not shield against, it at once began a death plunge back toward the surface of the Earth, and with no further ado the Bombard shifted her fire, the action now general as the Reapers desperately flung themselves skyward, reoriented to bring their beams to bear, and closed with the great Imperial Star Destroyer, firing as they came.

Turla had turned the situation to his advantage in every way he could. He had peeled the Destroyers off from the Dreadnoughts and wrecked a huge force of them. He had forced the Dreadnoughts to fight him coming up from the gravity well. He had gotten his starfighters in position to attack them unprotected on the surface from a state of total surprise wherein the Reaper Oculi were unable to intercept them. Now he was directing his little squadron's fire down onto the Reapers as they clawed out of the atmosphere, and in doing so was leveraging the maximum disproportionate damage that his command could provide.

But as she watched from afar on SR-2, Shepard knew it couldn't last. Reapers were coming up from other areas of the planet now, concentrating aroundBombard from her flanks. The little group was about to be overwhelmed. She sucked in her breath... "EDI, they can't win."

"I know, Shepard. But their actions have caused an enormous disruption to the Reaper operational plan, and Bombard is buying time. I don't know what the end point of Captain Turla's orders are, but his operational strategy does not seem suicidal."

Shepard tore her eyes away. She would be bringing Normandy to stand alongside Bombard, but she had her own different orders in the first place. "ETA to Mars?"

-

...Meanwhile, on Mars... Tasiele had been staying close to Liara. She was uncertain of the woman's mission, and Liara was profoundly standoffish these days, but Tasiele considered it an opportunity to practice her respect for others.

Certainly Liara was, to her credit, a wonderful archaeologist, working through the Prothean ruins with care and rigour. Tasiele delegated the supply runs, cooking and cleaning to herself. It was no different than many camps she had made before, and she could feel that Liara appreciated her silence.

Tasiele was waiting with dinner when she returned. She could tell something was up, with the faint nervous energy the Asari exuded as she nipped in to the food.

"We've only been here two weeks, but... I think we've found something. I don't know what it is, but..." She tapped her omnitool as she ate to bring up the holo of what she'd found. "It's only in the secure databases so far, but I made a... copy."

"That copy will now become one of the more sought after things in the galaxy," Tasiele muttered as she looked, then closed her eyes and took a breath. "We must be cautious, and make sure it is disseminated properly and securely. I do not think you have a piece of information more valuable."

"I think I agree with you. Whatever it was, Cerberus has been wanting to stop me from finding this—or acquire it themselves. I do not think that a coincidence."

"I think that means that we should accept that we have found enough for now, and make preparations to leave. I have a bad feeling about remaining any longer, I confess, and from a Jedi that... Does usually mean something."

"There could be a lot more critical information here, Tasiele. We've gotten along well, and I need to..." She trailed off and stared at her companion in worry, for it was at that moment when Tasiele felt a lot of death at once, as the Reapers... wiped a handful of Earth's cities off the map.

Tasiele staggered, moaning and sagging against the wall for a moment. "death... Close at hand, Liara. Much death!" She swallowed. "Earth."

"That..." She checked her pistol, and proceeded to pop a globe of something into her mouth from a belt pouch to supplement the food. "Is not good."

"I rather wish I had an infiltrator right now instead of a shuttle. Can we go with what you already have? If we do, we should probably plan on our departure... Immediately."

"I'm not perfectly happy with it, but I think so. We should be going... we can at least take some of the scientists with us?"

"A Tyderium has plenty of capacity for that, yes." She visibly readied herself... and then there was a sharp feeling of death... above them, as the base depressurized without any alarms going off, and Tasiele's eyes shot open and her hand went for the lightsabre at her belt. "...Liara, someone's venting atmosphere from the base!"

"... An infiltrator! Goddess, we have to hurry! That must be..." She trailed off, but it was kind of obvious who would have motive and opportunity.

"Let's go for the scientists, then the shuttle. Come on." Tasiele started off at once.

Liara came jogging after her. "Why would they attack something that offers the chance of winning...? This is... well past wilfully blind."

"Perhaps the Illusive Man wants the glory of using it for himself so he can make himself into the Emperor of Man. I don't know." A pause, while Tasiele kept jogging. "Or they've been indoctrinated."

"Regardless, we should try and stop them from gaining what they seek." Liara slipped a breath mask on, and blinked. They were at least in the Martian atmosphere, and therefore a simple mask would be adequate. "I hope Shepard will... well, no time for that."

...Tasiele followed suit with her own mask and oxygen concentrator. "We should be getting close to them."

Coming out of the dig site... there were the bodies of the scientists who had been working up here... dead. Shot, very precisely, still at what they had been doing. "... Goddess. What... happened here?"

No sign of immediate danger through the Force... not yet, as Tasiele warily looked around, avoiding the bodies. "They clearly weren't expecting their enemy to be an enemy," she answered. Despite the lack of feeling of any threat, she took her lightsabre in hand now, growing very still. "There seems to be no threat. Yet..."

"Someone was infiltrated into the project, then..." Liara took her pistol out and started to quietly move forwards. "We need to get up to the main labs and lock the computers down—or wipe them completely. Then we need to get out of here."

"Understood. Go ahead, Liara, and I'll cover you against our being ambushed from behind."

"Got it." She led them through some of the emergency stairwells, not trusting the elevators, up to the main levels—Liara paused at the door, for there, very faint gunshots could be heard.

"To the computers, or to the sound of the guns?" Tasiele kept her voice dispassionate.

"Logic says the attack is covering the assault on the computers. Emotions say those shots are too regular to be anything but executions." Her hand clenched on the pistol. "The... Illusive Man has to be stopped."

"Go to the computers! You, Liara T'Soni, are quite capable of taking care of yourself. I will follow you as fast as I can..." Tasiele flashed her a grin, and started off at a run toward the sound of the guns.

She gave a grin, before taking off herself—straight for the computers, as far as she could, crackling and ready with Biotic power.

Tasiele raced ahead, skidding up to a stop to see that there was, indeed, a squad of Cerberus troopers who felt... off... wrong somehow. And more obviously, they were shooting down fleeing civilians with short bursts from their rifles. They looked to her as she approached... And for the first time in this galaxy, she heard something very familiar indeed. "Jedi! Take her down!"

"You're welcome to try!" She brought her lightsabre up with a snap-hiss and launched forward with preternatural speed, her blade at once the first of their covering shots from the hip.

Several of them fell back and tried aimed sniper fire, while the rest opened fire with glue grenades, shock nets, and shotguns... They were trying to capture her, not kill her. The Illusive Man, it was patently obvious, wanted a Jedi.

Tasiele wasn't unfamiliar with the idea of people trying to capture her. She spun to the side, calling on the force, and sent the grenades and shock nets tumbling back toward those deploying them as she then crossed and rolled to the opposite side of the corridor, her lightsabre beautifully not touching her as she rolled, just flying up which each oscillation to deflect more gunfire. Then leaping out to her feet and concentrating on one of the ceiling air grates, she sent it flying toward them. A group of the Cerberus troopers were knocked to the ground by the massive metal grate, and with that she was leaping up and charging with her blade.

Two of them grunted as they were hit by her blade, falling—toppling with horrible scour wounds from the lightsabre across the others pinned by the grate. Others were firing, calling for support—one of the snipers from a catwalk above opened fire on her again, and two... cloaked figures with mono-molecular blades moved to attack as well, drug-improved reflexes pushing them to a near Force-inspired level of reaction time.

Tasiele threw herself to the side as the sniper's shots were fired, and threw her lightsabre away... Spinning up through the air to slice through the supports of the catwalk and send the catwalk tumbling down to the deck as she came back up with her blaster pistol to fire at the advancing cloaked figures.

...The cloaked figures dodged sideways with incredible speed, a slight blur the only sign of them, as they split up to take her in a pincer—a cry came from the falling catwalk, and more of the regular Cerberus troopers opened fire on her to cover the Phantoms.

Tasiele let her blaster fall to its lanyard, no time to holster it again, as her lightsabre flew back through the air to her hand, igniting in a single sweep that deflected and disintegrated the bullets as she turned to fight... Let the force flow through me, that I may save these innocents... cut down in this trap for me. Her mind was a perfect union with her body and her lightsabre, and in a fluid curve of motion, she cut through a dozen Cerberus troopers before swinging back to face the two cloaked figures who were the true threat.

The two flickered into view, and as they did they were already firing some sort of rapid fire cannon cybernetically integrated into their palms, covering themselves as they dashed in to attack with their blades. Tasiele reached out with a hand and send two remaining Cerberus troopers flying back, leaving her a moment to concentrate fully on her new enemies. With all the power and capability of the House of Shan, heirs of Revan and Bastila, she plunged forward and swung her blade.

It skittered across the two swords... Which had been very carefully reinforced with the best science could offer to attempt to resist a lightsaber. For a moment her eyes widened, and the two thrust against her. She dug in her heels, and the swords started to melt, locked with her lightsabre, three grimacing, braced figures vying with strength and mind.

They twitched about, trying to find an opening... somewhere. And then Tasiele was abruptly gone, falling to the ground as her lightsabre deactivated. Their blades swung through air, they tumbled as they regained their balance, and she lunged up between them. A furious storm of punches knocked the two back, and then she backflipped clear of their swords, and on landing, brought her lightsabre back up and activated it again with perfect form, just in time to deflect the shots from their hand-cannon as they recovered.

Tasiele... Had fought Mandalorians many times in the past. To their credit, they were just as dangerous. But no more. She charged again. Their shots were sent away by the lightsabre and she lunged in to attack blade to blade, steadily cut the blades to pieces, even if she didn't have the time to slice them in half quickly, each block... Cost them a substantial part of the edge, holding her blade in position to maintain a block and pivoting with shoulders and arms to catch shots from the hand-cannon as they tried to use them, point-blank.

She broke one blade, finally, which left the Phantom paused for a dangerous moment... for her, at least. Tasiele followed through the stroke, and the cyborg fell, fatally wounded, and suddenly the tenor of the fight changed. With one down, she drew herself up, holding her blade at the classic ready stance. "One chance. Flee, and let me save the civilians."

Wordlessly, the second Phantom attacked instead, charging with a burst of cannon fire for cover. Tasiele stood her ground, unmoving except her lightsabre as it parried every shot. She let the Phantom get to point-blank, and then with a blur of both blades... The Phantom's body, neatly cut in twain, tumbled away behind her.

The fight had given time for Cerberus reinforcements to arrive, though, and then the gunfire opened, this time from near to all sides around her.

Tasiele again used the force to shove them aside as her blade lashed out, and then she leapt into the air, far higher than she ought, coming down, her legs cushioning her into a crouch with her sword ready, standing behind two who were at once slashed through, reversing the encirclement. Several of the Cerberus troops were cut down by the fire of their compatriots in the chaos that followed. Leaving the rest in a circular firing squad against each other, she started running and charging, deflecting her way through the bullets. Too much like old times!

Far too much like old times... they were quickly chopped down, however, and then there was... for a moment, at least, blessed silence. The reinforcements had only been regular Cerberus troops, and they had been completely unprepared for facing her. But there was something grim about it all. They hadn't run, hadn't panicked, hadn't surrendered—and they had felt odd the entire time they were fighting her.

Tasiele promptly went in pursuit of anyone still alive to save... She didn't stop to reflect on the uneasiness she felt at the opponents she had faced, for she did not have the time. Her first duty was to the living, and these Cerberus troops had already left that land, one way or another. She treated the four survivors she with medigel from her kit and started helping them toward the computer room... She had to make sure Liara was okay and get them to all evacuate together.

And Tasiele herded them to the computer room just in time to see Liara go flying out of the room into the wall, then get back up and with a snarl, biotic charge right back in.

"Well, she's certainly still alive." And with that, Tasiele handed her blaster pistol to the one in the best condition, and then snapped her lightsabre open.

Liara was... being held by the neck, by a black-haired human woman in a jumpsuit. The charge... clearly had not gone according to plan, as kicks and punches didn't seem to be doing anything to the woman... who proceeded to throw the Asari at Tasiele... and then take off into a ventilation duct.

Tasiele caught her, turning off the lightsabre just in time, and smiled wryly. "A bit of a scrape, eh?"

Liara coughed violently, neck already bruising. "Stronger... than she looks... she was hacking in."

"Should I just destroy the computers, Liara?"

"Come on inside!" Tasiele shouted as she waited for the answer, gesturing for her wounded to limp their way forward and then going back to help her wounded again as she gave Liara a moment to contemplate that...

"... Yes," Liara answered, still rubbing her neck but looking fit to fight as Tasiele returned. "She'll almost certainly try and hack in somewhere else."

"All right. We get this done, and then we go for the shuttle."

"Let me set it to overload..." She glanced to the survivors, who were giving her quite a look. They just knew her as the quiet archaeologist...

"All right." Tasiele stood an uncomfortable guard.

Liara tapped away at the computers in a disciplined sort of frantic haste. "Done. They're wiping themselves then will overload. We can go." She looked up with a marginally relieved look on her face.

Tasiele was looking down the corridor, distantly, her eyes narrowing. The floor shook a little. "Easier said than done."