The alarm jolted Rizzi awake from a fitful sleep. She sat up on the plush couch, working a crick in her neck from the armor. They hadn't found much in the way of living quarters inside the Tower, so she'd crashed in one of the many administration offices. She checked the time and her eyes flew open; the fleets would be arriving soon.

She rushed through the halls, fidgeting the whole elevator trip up even though she knew that somebody would have contacted her if there'd been any changes. The lift deposited her at the near floor where she ran for the grav-shifting access tube.

The chamber itself displayed local space. The Citadel's orbit had just carried them into the edge of night. Darkness swathed Earth below, broken by patches of burning cities. Reaper forms crowded the space around the station, if anything even more terrifyingly close than before. Rizzi spent the ride across just staring at how many Reapers orbited the planet; they stretched out to the edge of visible distance.

Out on the control platform Murder Machine and Naomi stood at the consoles, tireless in their synthetic efficiency. Kerranus, Vael, and Doctor Michel were stretched out on the cushions they'd set up for an aid station.

"Alpha-Seven to Lieutenant Rizzi," her comm crackled.

"Go ahead."

"Be advised that proximity sensors in the Tower base are detecting activity indicative of approaching Reaper forces."

"Numbers and disposition?"

"No details available, but sensor activity indicates battalion level strength or greater."

"Oh crap. Let's hope the Tower holds them back. Okay, wake the teams up."

"Lieutenant Marx and Huntress K'Thane are currently doing so."

"Alright, good." Rizzi stepped over to the control banks and nodded to the synthetics. "How far away is the fleet?"

"Forward elements have just closed to within lunar distance. The fleet has slowed and is reforming into attack formation."

"Any response from the Reapers?"

"None."

Naomi scoffed. "The Old Ones grow contemptuous in their might."

"With good reason," Rizzi admitted. "If the Crucible doesn't work, this assault has just hastened our doom."

"Then let us hope it feels beneficent. I have grown quite fond of you all."

"Me too." Rizzi turned towards the cushions and felt a quick reluctance to wake the occupants; Kerranus and Vael were stretched out on cushions near each other, feet pointed in opposite directions. Each had an outstretched hand towards the other, meeting between them. She tapped Kerranus' foot first.

His eyes flickered open. "Has the galaxy ended yet?" Kerranus looked around and withdrew his hand from Vael's quickly before sitting up.

"Almost," Rizzi said quietly. "You know, Felix, you should probably just tell her how you feel while you've still got the chance."

He shrugged awkwardly. "Eh, I don't want to ruin anything between us."

"Really? Look around you." She gestured at the swarm of Reapers surrounding the station. "I don't think there's much you can do to make things worse at this point. Just tell her."

"Tell me what?" Vael said. The quarian sat up, stretched – and froze. "Keelah, has the fighting started?"

"Pretty soon," Rizzi said. "Be ready."

She grinned and moved on towards Michel as Vael turned to Kerranus and said again, "Tell me what?"

The doctor groaned as Rizzi woke her up. "How do you manage to sleep in these things?" she asked, rubbing at the neck joint in her armor.

"You get used to it, but it's never comfortable."

"Mm, I can feel that. Should I be prepared for casualties?"

"Yes; we've got Reaper troops on the move towards us. Doctor, thanks for being here. I know you didn't-"

Michel cut her off. "I have just as much of a responsibility to these people, Lieutenant."

Rizzi moved back to the control bank. The minutes ticked by as she stared out at the local display. Finally glittering points appeared, powering in from the outer system.

"The fleet is closing to maximum engagement distance," Murder Machine said.

She realized she was holding her breath as she waited. The fleet was still nothing more than a cloud of twinkling lights. Tiny blue pinpricks of light flashed in a rippling wave. She watched as the blue points grew brighter, closer, resolving themselves into the blue streaks of mass accelerator fire – lots of it.

Volleys of extreme range fire came in from the axial main guns of the combined dreadnought and cruiser might of the galaxy's fleets. Rizzi's hands gripped the panel tight as she watched the veritable wall of cannon fire streaking in; from this angle it looked like the allied fleet was firing at them. The spread of the shots appeared to grow wider as they sped closer and closer to the gathered Reapers. The monsters finally appeared to acknowledge the existence of the allied fleet. Reapers turned towards the incoming shots, swinging in place as they flexed and curled their long tendrils.

Mass accelerator shots and Thanix beams hammered down all around them like incandescent blue rain. The volley was unlike anything Rizzi had ever seen before. Shield impact flashes and explosions lit up across Earth orbit, bright enough that she thought this must be what it felt like in a birthing star. The unleashed firepower was enough to break even the inhuman toughness of some of the Reapers. She saw at least one convulsing as its tendrils broke apart and a quartet of cannon rounds punched through its spine. Smaller destroyers shattered entirely in the unrelenting barrage.

It wasn't nearly enough. Reapers returned fire, lancing out into the void with eye-searing red beams. The exchange of volleys grew so intense it drowned out sight of all else.

"What are they doing?" Vael said, looking down at her panels.

Rizzi tore her gaze away from the phenomenal light show. "What?"

"The fleet! They're still approaching – closing to point blank range. That's madness!"

Smaller streaks and flashes filled the space between the closing armadas as fighters hurled themselves into lethal dogfights. Attack fighters maneuvered for position to make torpedo runs against Reaper capital ships while interceptors dueled swarms of Oculi drones.

Rizzi watched, jaw agape, as the two forces collided like tidal waves. All semblances of formation and order of battle went straight to hell as cruisers plunged in and amidst the Reapers: diving, rolling, and climbing between the capital ships. Frigate squadrons darted in and out of the melee, relying on their relative maneuverability for protection as they emptied torpedo racks. Thanix cannon beams etched bright blue lines across the black. Reaper fire obliterated groups of frigates at a time in return.

Dreadnoughts coordinated their fire against individual Reaper capital ships, straining at the limits of their maneuverability to bear main guns on target. The massive globular quarian liveships drew close, pumping out volleys from their jury-rigged weapons. Sleek geth ships moved in concert through the battle, intercepting beams and pulses meant for ramshackle quarian cruisers. Batarian cruisers powered in, bold and pugnacious, to help retake a planet they'd once been preparing for war against. Only the allied carriers, with their near nonexistent armament, remained back. Even they were in a constant state of frenetic action, launching and recovering fighters every minute.

The entire mess broke the rules of fleet engagement every race had ever known.

"What the…" Rizzi kept gazing around, trying to comprehend what was happening as ships on both sides died by the moment.

"They spend their lives for the silver tower," Naomi said sadly.

"She's right," Vael said. "The fighting is concentrated around the Citadel, and- Wait. There are ships breaking off, heading for the planet."

"Where?" Rizzi said.

"Um, there's a group following a frigate down, headed for… actually, it looks like right beneath us. Landing craft in the air…" She looked up at Rizzi. "They're going for the city under us, where the other end of the beam was."

"Turn it back on!"

"Turn what?"

"The transit beam! That must be why they're landing there!"

"Tis done," Naomi said after a moment. "The Old Ones have murderous spites in place. They shall not land uncontested."

"She's right," Vael said. "They're getting shot out of the sky down there!"

"Keep that beam open, whatever it takes," Rizzi said. "They must be trying to get in here. Okay, we need to hold this position at all costs."

Her comm crackled. "Susan, what the hell's going on up there?" Wu said from the lobby.

"The fleet's here; they've engaged the Reapers." The summary, she thought, utterly failed to capture what was happening.

"I mean what's going on in the Tower? Reaper forces just cut loose down here!" She heard loud, crashing impacts in his transmission background. "They're attempting to breach now."

Rizzi shared the news of the ground assault force as quickly as she could, beckoning to Kerranus as she ran for a hexagon platform. "We're on our way!"


"Load up," Wu said as Rizzi and Kerranus ran out of the lift into the staging area. Echoing crashes sounded from the lobby down the hall. He held mods out to them and she grabbed the power amp before reaching over the sorted pile for a warp ammunition module.

Kerranus plugged in his amped shield cells, activated his incendiary ammo, and then stepped in front of Rizzi, holding his hand out. "Been a heck of a time since that little farming planet."

"Yes." Rizzi took his hand, shook it once, and then hugged him. "Stay alive, huh?"

"You too." He jogged off through the narrow passage to the lobby.

"Any idea what's coming?" she asked as she put her faceplate on.

Wu shook his head. "It's been making a hell of a racket. We've got pretty much everyone in position, but…"

"There's a lot more of them than us, I know. We just need to buy enough time for the Alliance to get through the transit beam."

Another crash sounded as they ran through the squad tunnel to the lobby. The remaining operatives had taken defensive positions; close combat specialists behind the reinforced counters on the first level, other soldiers in the raised terrace behind them, and sharpshooters in the balconies. Alpha-Seven stood in the center of the terrace line between their scavenged heavy guns, directing some final preparations and thermal clip distributions.

The couple ran down to the floor where they took places behind a reception counter to the side. A krogan in battered armor crouched next to them, a massive slab of a shield in hand. She noticed it had once been a door from one of C-Sec's armored transports. The crashing thuds from the entrance came faster. She wasn't sure what the Reapers were using to batter the thick sheaves of armor encasing the Tower entrances, but it was certainly loud.

"Harvester units approaching," Murder Machine said in her ear. "Engaging defense systems."

The crashes came in clusters, Rizzi noticed. They were also growing louder. Soldiers shifted nervously as the pounding started to bring shrieks of deforming metal and a low, hellishly droning buzz. Unconsciously, her hand found Wu's and she squeezed it tightly for a moment. Despite the design of the lobby, she didn't think much of their chances of holding it against a concerted Reaper assault.

The thick armor sealing the doorway flexed and buckled, boiling with… streaks of blue? Rizzi's eyes widened as she recognized the presence of a powerful warp field. Strips and patches curled in on themselves – and with a thunderous roar and flash blew inwards, sending shards lancing through the air. Rizzi ducked lower behind the counter as armor fragments pelted down. A wailing chorus of Banshee screams sounded from beyond the door.

"Commence fire," Alpha –Seven ordered.

The mounted guns opened up first. Deafening chatters echoed through the lobby as the heavy repeaters sent streams of fire into the smoke-shrouded archway. A pair of Banshees jumped through the dark smoke and the gunners switched over for a second before Alpha-Seven ordered, "Maintain suppression on entranceways."

Bursts went back to the doorway as Rizzi swung up and attacked the closest Banshee. She encased it with a warp field a half second before a combined storm of biotics, tech, and gunfire slammed into the spindly monstrosity. A series of sharp cracks and roars sounded out as the sharpshooters engaged the other Banshee, bursting through its weakened barriers and tearing out chunks of toughened flesh.

She hurled another pulse of biotic power at her target Banshee; the constant storm of attacks had it bursting with flames, electric discharges, and biotic explosions as it screamed and folded over backwards. The body disintegrated in a shower of crackling blue sparks. The other Banshee went down, bracketed from multiple directions by sharpshooters and cut apart by anti-materiel rifles.

A Brute slumped out of the smoke, gutted and holed from the heavy guns. Rizzi's eyes widened as she saw what had pushed it forward. Half a dozen other Brutes shoved and bludgeoned through the little archway, roaring their hate. What little was visible behind them looked like a writhing sea of monsters. Cannibals and Marauders crowded the Presidium outside, packed so densely that husks were clambering over their heads and shoulders.

The Brutes were reduced to crawling through the entrance, digging in and pulling themselves forward with their monstrous claws. Operatives punished the chokepoint. The repeaters killed the next Brute while it was still caught in the tunnel. The corpse bought them a minute as those behind snarled and rammed into it, pushing it forward. The heavy guns fell silent for a moment, saving their shots as the Reaper forces clawed at the bottleneck. It wasn't long before the Brutes in the rear plowed the mangled carcass out of their way.

The fire resumed immediately, hammering bloody craters into the lead Brute. Roaring as it charged, the creature rushed for the reception counters. Rizzi's Throw knocked its feet out from under it and it skidded to a halt. A flurry of biotics from other operatives cracked through its armored hide and carved rippling furrows through the flesh beneath. The Brute still managed to push itself up before a burst of rifle fire stitched a tight cluster through its eye socket; small flames crackled and dribbled from its ruined head as it slumped over and stayed down.

Sharpshooter volleys sounded nearly continuously as the marksmen in the balconies put shots into the open ground floor. The heavy guns were taking turns firing now as their operators burned through thermal clips. Streams of rifle and submachine gun fire crossed the air as squad leaders ordered focus on the Brutes in their fire sectors.

"Incoming!" Wu yelled. He launched a Disruptor blast at an onrushing Brute. It bounced strangely, flopping around as Rizzi slammed a biotic pulse into it. Too late, she realized the Brute was already dead; another one was carrying its bulk, raised as a shield to close the distance. She shoved Wu away and rolled aside as the combined mass of two Brutes smashed into the counter.

The living beast tossed its dead partner aside and lashed out with its claw, forcing her back as she summoned her aura. It howled and spun around, dragging its left leg where Wu had just sliced a deep gash. Rizzi moved back in, ducking under its backswing and bringing her aura into range. The Brute swung around again as its back and flank began dissolving. A targeted Throw snapped its head to the side even as the detonation shattered one of its cybernetic eyes. She sidestepped its lunge – and a slab of metal slammed down into its neck, smashing the head to the floor. She'd forgotten about the krogan with his improvised shield.

The krogan twisted the shield and wrenched it out with a sickening squelch. Shots spattered into his armor from behind and he spun, hefting the former transport door before him to block more shots. Armored Cannibals flooded out from the entrance. Soaking small arms rounds with their plates, they sprayed the terrace above with their own weapons. The heavy guns kept up their fire on the arched tunnel, dismembering Reaper troops caught in the narrow passage with merciless brutality. The sheer pressure of the thralls surging through kept the guns busy – and fighting a losing battle.

Rizzi ducked behind the mangled Brute corpse as yet another one swung its claw towards her in a downward stroke, shattering the marble floor. She responded with a warp field and squeezed off a pair of shots as Wu launched a rippling biotic wave into it from the side. The krogan slammed in from the other direction, bludgeoning the Brute with his shield. He hammered its claw aside and seized its head, wrestling it down. Wu plunged his blade up through the Brute's open mouth before blinking aside.

Dead brutes became macabre islands of cover as Marauders rushed in and added their fire to the immense racket. Rizzi flattened a trio of tightly packed Cannibals with a single Throw. Across the lobby she saw K'Thane holding a Marauder in place with one foot, letting her aura flay away at it as she engaged another with her rifle. Rizzi launched another Throw; it streaked across and blasted a Cannibal rushing towards K'Thane off its feet.

She dimly noted the panicked cries from soldiers up above and turned her gaze back to the entrance – and blanched. Husks boiled out, climbing up along the tunnel roof and skittering up along the inside wall like a nest of furious ants. They spread out in all directions away from the heavy guns, fanning up and to the sides along the walls. Fire from the operatives claimed their toll; torn and dismembered husk corpses dropped to the floor with thuds, but for each that fell more skittered through the archway.

Kill rates on the floor dropped as sharpshooters turned their attention to the reanimated forms crawling up the walls towards the balconies. The heavy guns were firing in short bursts now; Brute corpses crowded the floor around the entrance and limited their lines of fire. Warped plates of armor bent inwards and disintegrated, widening the breach for more Brutes to scrape in. A seemingly unending stream of Cannibals and Marauders crowded the exterior.

The fight came down to methodic, mechanical killing. Rizzi's existence narrowed down to fractured moments and seconds. Mnemonic gestures hurled biotic combinations at legions of Reaper thralls. She fired her pistol as her body and mind recovered in between, emptied it and reloaded with smooth movements ingrained through long practice. None of it felt enough. It was like trying to hold back the tide with a shot glass.

The biotic amps tick-ticking through her brain like a spike of power, Rizzi's aura churned a trio of husks to dust as they clambered over bloody Brute corpses towards her.

Wu blinked from Marauder to Marauder, leaving one headless corpse after another.

A batarian swung his shotgun with both hands into a Cannibal's face before shoulder-checking it with the blades sprouting from his armor.

Alpha-Seven blasted apart a Brute with a series of crackling blue bolts.

It wasn't enough.

A sharpshooter hit the floor from above, grappled over a balcony by one of the wall climbing husks. The bodies disappeared – crushed underfoot by the advancing horde.

The krogan fighting alongside them lost his shield to the sheer mass of Cannibals and husks clawing and piling onto him. He went down, buried under the flailing group of thralls. Wu hit the pile with a Disruptor blast, scattering bodies and limbs. The krogan threw the rest off with a roar, laying about with shotgun, fist, and head-butt.

Frantic calls for focus on designated squad targets went unanswered, the sheer number of priority targets far outnumbering available people and guns to deal with them. The heavy guns had small piles of ejected thermal clips by them now.

The batarian howled as a Brute tore his arm from its socket and slammed him to the floor. A stomp of its cybernetic leg silenced the batarian and added more blood and gristle to a floor already slick with puddles and viscera.

Somebody bumped into Rizzi from behind. "We need to fall back!" K'Thane yelled. When did that happen? Rizzi glanced around and realized they'd been forced back into a cluster near the center. The only things keeping them alive were the Brute corpses holding the horde back. "We can't hold this floor!" She swayed aside from a leaping Swarmer even as her aura lashed out and annihilated it.

"Agreed," Rizzi said. "Go for the stairs!"

More blue bolts sizzled down from above, obliterating Cannibals and Marauders between them and the staircase entrance. Alpha-Seven sprayed into the crowd with his Spitfire. Other troops added their fire, clearing a bloody path to the stairs. The embattled operatives on the ground floor fell back to the stairs in a rush, filing back in a rush as more Reaper thralls flooded into the chamber. Wu sent a rippling biotic wave crashing through the throng alongside Rizzi and K'Thane's attacks. Last up the stairs was the krogan, still fending off rounds with his shield.

Without the teams on the floor the Reaper troops turned their attention to the heavy guns. The gunners hunched lower behind the ballistic shields as small arms fire pattered up into them. Rizzi added her biotics to the outgoing storm, swinging up over the edge of the heavy terrace edge before ducking back down. The sturdy low wall was getting chipped away by constant fire.

Husks continued to pour in, crawling up the walls. Bodies clogged the entrance. Rizzi finally realized it was deliberate as she noticed Brutes hauling corpses of their kind under Marauder directions. They held them up before the entrance like shields, absorbing bursts of repeater fire. They waited until the guns stopped to cycle their thermal clips before stepping aside.

Ravagers scuttled from the blood-soaked tunnel. They spread apart and sheltering behind the Brutes, who kept the increasingly ragged corpses of their less fortunate counterparts up before them.

"Watch the Ravagers!" somebody cried. "Cobra out!"

The missile soared out and detonated with a shockwave that sent a mist of liquidized body parts through the air. The area kill weapon cleared a circle of a dozen meters. The only remaining sign of the Ravagers were their pools of corrosive fluid mixing into spilled blood.

The reprieve was brief. The Cannibals and husks on the floor charged for the staircases, forcing the operatives to divert their attention to holding them back.

Brutes emerged from the tunnel, shielding more Ravagers with their bodies. Husks dropped from above onto the heavy guns and grappled their crews. The time it took to clear them out proved fatal.

Pulsing bursts of cannon fire lanced into the gun emplacements. The screaming shots punched through the left gun's ballistic shield and hurled the gunner back in a spray of smoke and blood. Another burst of Ravager shots reduced the gun to a molten wreck. The right repeater managed to replace its thermal clip and killed one of the Ravagers before return fire destroyed it in turn.

Flickers of motion heralded the entrance of more Banshees into the lobby. Sharpshooters engaged them immediately, but the fire was sparse and sporadic with most of them occupied fighting off husks crawling up to the balconies. The sharpshooter comm channel was a mess. "We can't hold these positions!" Marx said.

"Fall back!" Rizzi said as more Ravager shots covered the advance of the Banshees. "Staircases to fallback positions! Get the wounded out first, bring the ammo! Move!"

Soldiers slung thermal clip crates to their back as their squad mates laid down suppressive fire. Others slung the wounded over their shoulders, falling back towards the squat tunnel leading deeper into the Tower. The most hurt went up in the elevators as others split up for the winding staircases.

"Let's go!" Rizzi yelled, crushing a Cannibal's head with a biotic pulse as it crested the terrace. She paused as she turned back to see Alpha-Seven. The Juggernaut's left arm had been torn off at some point, leaving a stump of glowing fiber-optic sinews and cords. It backed away towards the tunnel, Spitfire spinning at maximum fire rate.

"Commence tactical withdrawal," Alpha-Seven said. The Spitfire maxed out its thermal clip, beeping the overheat warning frantically. Alpha-Seven tossed it aside as a pair of Banshees flickered up to the terrace.

"What are you doing?" Rizzi said. Alpha-Seven stopped at the tunnel mouth and turned towards the closing Banshees. It staggered the closest one with a burst of energy and struck out with its remaining arm, hitting the twisted asari with enough force to spread thin spiderweb cracks in its armored skin. The Banshees responded with their claws, shredding long parallel strips from the geth. They seemed to be in a frenzy, ignoring Rizzi's warp field and Wu's shots past Alpha-Seven.

A cluster of arrow-like projectiles shuddered into the Banshee on the right. "Big guy," Jilal said, "come on!"

"Commence withdrawal!" A Brute tackled Alpha-Seven from the side. Rizzi saw the swarms of husks and Cannibals flooding up over the terrace. "Preserve-"

A Banshee tore the Juggernaut's head off, hoisting it into the air like a trophy.

"Back!" K'Thane dragged Rizzi and Wu back through the tunnel to the elevator concourse, pushing them off to the side as Jilal ducked around the other side, detonator in hand. Belatedly, she noticed that the operatives had cleared the space before the tunnel exit.

"Fire in the hole!"

Charges blew with a concussion that shook the room. Dust and debris billowed out from the collapsed tunnel.

Rizzi sagged against the smooth wall, breathing hard. Grinding scrapes and clatters came from the tunnel. "Oh, give us a break."

"Pretty sure that's not happening, lah?" Jilal moved over to the tunnel and started setting the distinctive trip mines used by the Talon Company. Once upon a time possession of such weapons on the Citadel would have been grounds for immediate arrest. Now they were here in the Tower setting as many as they could spare.

She turned back to take stock of the remaining operatives. With the fatalities and those wounded too seriously to continue fighting, they were down to about two-thirds of their original effective strength. "Fall back to assigned contingency points. Link up with the sharpshooter units and collapse the staircases as you go. Hell, block the hallways if you can."

The squads began consolidating and redistributing thermal clips. Jilal backed away from the tunnel, his booby traps set. "I dunno how long it'll take for them to break through," he said. "We don't wanna be here when they do."

"What about the elevator shafts?" Wu said. "Where are the explosives located?"

"Ah, we don't wanna be here for that boom, lah? Actually, we don't wanna be on the first five floors. I was bein' thorough, lah?"

"Any other time I'd say you were being excessive," Rizzi said. "Here I'm wishing we'd had more explosives." She switched the squad channel as they hurried for their designated staircase. "Maletha, please tell me you have some good news."

"Well, ground teams have started landing in force," Vael said.

"Does this mean we can expect reinforcements?"

"Well… not right away. There were some heavy anti-air defenses in the city, so most of the force landed some distance away. They're definitely heading for the beam, though."

"That is good news," K'Thane said.

"Except for the Reaper in the way."

"What?"

"It's one of the small ones?" Vael sounded apologetic.

"Have you seen them?" Marx broke in. "None of them qualify as small!"

"Lisa!" K'Thane said. "Where are you?"

"We're on the sixth floor, outer chambers. Hurry up, guys. We've jammed the doors, but the husks are just crawling up the walls to here."

"Damn it, that's right," Rizzi said. "What was the highest floor those balconies were on?"

"Uh, seventh or eighth?"

"Alright, get the sniper squads up to floor ten. We need to demo the staircases above balcony access." She looked over at Wu, who promptly relayed the revised orders to the other squads.

"What are we supposed to do about a Reaper on the ground between friendlies and the transit beam?"

Rizzi shrugged to herself. "Hope for a miracle?"


The trio of husks milled around on the seventh floor, seemingly bereft of the focused, hateful will driving them before. They sensed the squads coming up the staircase and that spurred them to action, rushing forward with howls. A quick combination of biotics from K'Thane and Rizzi brought them down as the squads kept going up the staircase. Below them a series of sharp thundercracks echoed up from the elevator concourse.

"They're through," Wu said.

"Well that was inevitable," Rizzi said. "Sergeant Thompson, are the wounded clear of the lifts?"

"Affirmative, LT. We're getting them to the field station."

"Good work." She switched channels. "Jilal, blow the-"

A rumble swept through the lower reaches of the Tower like an earthquake. Echoing crashes sounded from all around. Smoke and dust wafted up the staircase.

"Think he used enough explosives?" a turian Sentinel said.

Husk howls came from somewhere above. "Move," K'Thane said, springing up the stairs. The others followed quickly as sounds of fighting started. Charging up to the tenth floor, they found four marksmen holding the staircase landing against a dozen husks. The sharpshooters were reduced to bludgeoning husks with their long rifles, forcing them back to buy space to deploy omni-blades.

Marx pulled a husk off another Infiltrator, thrust her blade through its neck. Another hurled a husk to his feet and crushed its head with a short stomp. Marx snarled as a husk grappled her from behind, clawing at her helmet. K'Thane swept into their midst; the husk on Marx lost its grip and slipped as her aura sizzled away at it.

"Down!" K'Thane called. She flicked her arm as operatives hit the floor. Husks blew apart in the unleashed wave of her Annihilation Field. Rizzi and Wu swept in afterwards, cleaning up the few surviving husks with blade and dark energy.

"These things are everywhere," said a quarian in a tan and gray suit.

Rizzi shook her head. "They haven't had enough time to spread out through the whole Tower. Let's not give them a chance." She turned towards an engineer in flamboyant tiger striped armor. "Chief, prep that staircase for demolition."

"Aye aye," he said wearily.

The snipers replenished their thermal clips from the crate slung on the krogan's back. They took positions looking down the winding staircase as Rizzi and Wu put their demolitions training to work and grabbed demo packs. They descended a level and started setting charges at key points around the stairs.

"Faster would be better," urged Marx.

"With respect," said Engineer Leng, "this really isn't the kind of thing you hurry."

Shots lanced up towards them from below. Rizzi flinched back as a shot smacked into the pillar before her; that had come a little too close to the demo pack for comfort. Low, rumbling explosions sounded from multiple points elsewhere in the Tower. The other groups must have just collapsed their staircases.

Marx leaned out and returned fire. "It is right now!"

Rizzi finished setting her last charge and ran back up, sparing a glance over the edge to see what was coming up from below. She regretted it immediately.

"Clear out!" Leng called. "Move move move!"

They got to the twelfth floor before the charges went off. The concussion knocked Rizzi off her feet. She rolled up and checked the staircase behind; collapsed stair sections, pillars, and metal girders blocked off the view behind.

"We need to consolidate," she said. "We don't have enough charges to keep-"

"Jolar's squad is down," Kerranus interrupted. "We're losing stairwell four!"

"All squads converge there!" she said, calling up the Tower layout in her HUD.


"Up the Tower!" Rizzi yelled. "Fall back!"

The surviving squads had rushed to stairwell four to find a disaster in progress. Cannibals had been feasting on the corpses of the dead squad while Marauders armored husks through their strange Reaper abilities.

Combined biotics, tech, and gunfire scythed through the Reaper troops, but more were already scrabbling up the stairs. The heavy, lumbering stomps of incoming Brutes reverberated beneath. Ravagers were climbing up the stairwell walls, dragging their bulbous sacs up. Shots soared up, forcing the operatives back.

"Hey, gimme the demo packs," Jilal yelled. There were only a paltry few remaining. Jilal stuck them together with adhesive while the others poured biotics and tech abilities into the oncoming mass. Soldiers threw grenades to force them back as the Talon mercenary activated some program on his omni-bow. He sprayed an open spot several floors down with arrows. Each one detonated with a concussive shockwave, hurling some thralls over the edge and knocking others to the floor. Jilal hurled the combined demo packs down with a practiced arm, then fell back clutching a smoking hole in his chest.

"Jilal!" Wu reached out and dragged him back as he staggered toward the stair edge.

The wounded Talon coughed: wet and raspy. "We should run!"

"Fall back!" Rizzi ordered again.

The ragged band of operatives retreated up the stairs, firing desperately. Wu slung one of Jilal's arms over his shoulder and half-carried him away. The shield-bearing krogan brought up the rear again, bellowing obscenities at the encroaching horde. Kerranus shadowed him, grabbing thermal clips as needed from the crate over his shoulder.

The bundled demo charges went off with a thunderous bang that shook their Tower section. The incoming fire lessened immediately, but didn't cease. A look down revealed why; without placing the charges to collapse and block the stairwell the explosion had certainly made a mess, but hadn't completely sealed it up. Reaper troops continued crawling their way through the gaps in the rubble.

They climbed. Rizzi lost track of the number of floors they climbed. They were barely able to stay ahead of the climbing Reaper forces. Rizzi stayed with the rearguard, knocking climbing husks down the stairwell as they got close. Marx coordinated the sharpshooters up ahead, leading them to firing positions before directing volleys down to neutralize Ravagers and Marauders.

Those who fell and redlined were left by necessity. Survivors were carried, leaning against their fellows and limping on. More than one chose to slow the pursuit by turning back with an armed grenade. Keeping pace with the wounded slowed them down, but Rizzi didn't think they could've gone much faster. Her legs burned with the exertion, and she was breathing hard like… well, like she was climbing a multi-kilometer tower. She dimly registered Kerranus yelling about their ammo supplies and the amount of omni-gel their tech usage had expended. Another one of their precious Cobra missiles bought space and time with a crack of vaporized Reaper thralls.

Rizzi remembered little of the frantic retreat. They ran on as the sounds of pursuit grew behind them. Up and up the stairs, her breath came in long gasps. The angles of the winding stairs kept them sheltered from the worst of the pursuing gunfire, which she was thankful for.

Banshees blinked through entire floors at a time, making mockeries of the sharpshooters' efforts to slow them. Kerranus responded with another Cobra when six of them flickered in a single floor beneath them. He tossed aside the empty launcher. "We're almost out of missiles!"

"Keep going!" Rizzi panted.

Gunfire ebbed and flowed as soldiers fired down whenever Reaper troops drew closer. Rizzi was sure she could go no further when she realized Murder Machine and Naomi were at her side. The synthetics cleaned husks and Ravagers from the stairwell shaft with bursts of shotgun fire. "Lieutenant Rizzi, clear the area!" Murder Machine said.

She looked around and realized they'd made it to the level with the control chamber access shaft. Already? It had only been… several hours. The grueling climb was nearly over. She let Naomi pull her away from the staircase landing, belatedly noticing the set charges. Kerranus pulled back after emptying his rifle, trying to drag the sorely wounded krogan. He'd lost the shield at some point during the hellish climb, probably after it had been reduced to a mangled, blasted chunk of metal. Murder Machine ran over and grabbed the krogan's other arm, dragging him into the corridor leaving to the gravity transition. The door slid shut and the operatives stumbled towards the access shaft as shuddering detonations came from the stairwell.

Rizzi hoped that was enough to finally slow them down as she helped drag the krogan through the gravity vector shift and headed for the large chamber. Flittering hexagon platforms were already taking the wounded to the wide control dais where Doctor Michel's improvised aid station was already busy. The platform with the last heavy gun hovered in position, covering the access shaft. She sank down next to the krogan once they boarded an available hex platform and caught her breath.

Looking around, it looked like they'd lost another half of their number in the retreat up the Tower. She squeezed her eyes shut and wondered if she'd ever get over the feeling that it was her plan that had resulted in their deaths. After a second's consideration, she decided she probably wouldn't be living long enough for that to really matter.

She looked for her squad – no, her friends. Wu was helping Michel get Jilal's torso plate off. Marx and K'Thane directed operatives to positions to cover the access shaft. Vael was still working at the control consoles. With Kerranus and the synthetics on the platform with her she felt a profound relief that they were alive – for now.

The platform spun through the air for the control dais. The krogan coughed and lifted his head. "Did we lose?"

"We're not exactly chasing the Reapers off," Rizzi said. She pushed herself up to her knees. "What clan are you from, soldier?"

"Urdnot. Urdnot Darg."

"Alright, Darg. Hang in there." The hex platform slotted into a slot, where several turians helped move him to the field station. Rizzi walked wearily to the control banks. She paused as she noticed Vael trembling. "What happened?"

"I - I've been keeping an eye on the assault force on Earth."

"Any progress?"

Vael shuddered. "They killed that Reaper guarding the beam. They tried to get to it, but another one landed. One of the big ones."

Rizzi closed her eyes, felt herself sag against the console. "Were there any survivors?"

"Some. Those that could fell back. There was a frigate that flew in and extracted some people."

"And nobody made it through the beam?"

"I couldn't see," Vael said quietly. "Beam measurements did register matter translation, but… there was barely anything."

"Something came through?"

"The output barely changed, Rizzi. Probably only one person, maybe two."

"Damn it." She nodded towards the access shaft. "Okay, doomsday protocol. Close it up."

"You're certain? I – okay." Vael turned to another panel.

A dozen empty hexagon platforms detached themselves from the docking stations and hovered over to the access shaft. They soared into the shaft and crashed, one after another, until the mouth of the shaft was sealed by an interlocking mesh of rubble. Operatives cried out in alarm and confusion, looking towards those at the controls.

Rizzi raised her hand and waited until they quieted down. "Bad news."


The water was flat, tepid, and the best thing she'd ever had. Rizzi stared at the sealed access shaft as she drank, wondering how long it would take the Reapers to get through. It wasn't like they had anything to stop a concerted assault at this point. One heavy gun, one Cobra missile, and less than twenty operatives ready for combat, all of whom were walking wounded. She had minor wounds all over her body she didn't remember receiving.

It was over, she realized. Whatever plan the Alliance had that required them to get to the Citadel had failed. The combined fleets of the galaxy were outside right now engaging the Reapers in a slugging match they couldn't win. She wondered if she wanted to watch the inevitable conclusion to that battle, or if they'd even be around by-

No.

She'd somehow ended up in a position of command over the operatives here, for better or worse, and she wasn't going to go to pieces now. She looked around at the tired soldiers grabbing a drink of water or a quick bite, heard the moans and cries of the wounded. She glanced over at Kerranus and Vael leaning against each other as he cleaned his rifle. At Naomi and Murder Machine, holding hands in such a curiously human gesture-

Murder Machine tilted its head down. The geth's photoreceptor turned red, scanning through the dais below. Rizzi headed over, replacing her faceplate. "What is it?"

"Tactical networks indicate a new operative in the vicinity. This individual's armor systems appear to be severely damaged."

"Where?"

Murder Machine shrugged and pointed down; Rizzi realized it was pointing towards the Tower exterior, out near the 'bottom' of the Citadel. She opened a general channel. "Unidentified individual, this is Lieutenant Rizzi of the Special Ops team, please respond."

She tried again to no avail. "Where was the closest point this person was to us?"

Murder Machine looked around. "From the chamber curvature, down behind the lift tubes there." It pointed.

Rizzi took off at a run, leapt off the dais in the low gravity and landed in the sweeping curve of the tube. Gravity was nearly nonexistent here. She hammered on it, listening to the noise it made, hoping it was hollow. "How close was he to this point?"

Murder Machine and Naomi joined her. She saw her squad coming as well, attention drawn by her actions. "Approximately three meters," the geth said. "What are your intentions?"

"The beam terminates around here, right? I think that was who made it through from Earth."

"You think there's a tunnel running on the other side of this?" Wu said as he joined them.

"This hypothesis is likely," Murder Machine said, its photoreceptor still red. "Organic matter is present beyond this surface, arranged along rough formations indicative of a straight passage."

"What does that mean?" Marx asked.

Naomi frowned. "Bodies."

"Fitting."

"Do we have any demo charges left to get through here?" Rizzi said.

"No," K'Thane said. "They used the last of it on the stairwell. You want to go through here?"

"That was our reinforcement. Right now it's looking like he could use some backup himself."

"Sounds good in principle," Wu said. "How do you plan to-"

Rizzi stepped back and activated her Annihilation Field. She took a deep breath, trying to clear her head from the fog of exhaustion, and altered herfocus.

The biotic field ate away at the lift track beneath her, churning a deepening crater, boring through to whatever was on the other side. Rizzi groaned with the effort as she sank through slowly. Sparks flew as her aura disintegrated through electric systems and sundered exotic metals. She knew she'd never have been able to do something like this without the biotic amps singing through her system.

Down, down, up. Gravity reoriented as she broke through to the other side. Her aura vanished as she flailed, caught off guard by the sudden transition. She fell backwards, towards the chamber. Wu caught her before she left the short tunnel she'd carved. "Susan!"

"What?" She realized she'd blacked out for a moment. "I'm okay; a grav shift caught me off guard."

"You did it," he said, looking down towards the darkness she'd uncovered.

"Who's with me?" Rizzi said.

"You need to ask?" Marx snorted. "Life just wouldn't be complete without jumping into a dark tunnel filled with bodies."

"We're coming too," Vael said. She and Kerranus joined them at the tunnel mouth. "There are still control systems somewhere out there. Maybe we can finally get this damn station open."

"Alright. Watch the first step." Rizzi jumped down headfirst, reaching up to catch the edge of the opening as gravity reoriented and up became down. She pulled herself up with protesting arms, joined by her friends. The tunnel was dark and claustrophobic, dimly lit by red glows from systems running parallel to the sides.

She almost wished it wasn't.

Bodies and blood lined the floor and piled up against the low side walls. Harsh mechanical tubes looped down from the ceiling, almost like grasping arms. The bodies were in various states of decomposition, and the clothes revealed origins ranging from Alliance Marines to civilians.

"This is what the Reapers were sending up?" Marx said.

"It must be," said Vael. "Perhaps they came through that?" She pointed towards one end of the tunnel, about ten meters away. It was a dead end, with a device of distinct Reaper origin jutting from the floor. Spines surrounded an energy aperture of some kind.

"Maybe," Rizzi said. "I don't think there's anything we can do about it." She looked towards the other end of the tunnel, which was shrouded in blackness. "Looks like there's one way to go then."

Weapons raised, the combined squad headed up the hellish tunnel. They tensed as they saw an insectoid form moving among the bodies, but it was just a keeper single-mindedly working at its assigned task. If it knew the bodies were there it gave no clue. Partway up they paused as the Citadel trembled. The trembling grew in intensity as grinding clunks echoed.

K'Thane straightened. "That feels like…"

"The Citadel's opening," Rizzi said. "Come on!"

Unfortunately the tunnel ended in a sealed door. Vael worked at the door control for a moment, then pounded her fist into the angry red haptic icon. "Come on, you bosh'tet! What, yes the Citadel's opening. Oh." She backed away from the controls. "Okay then."

"What is it?" Kerranus said, covering their rear.

"Gilbert says Tower doors are inactive while the station arms are moving. Safety feature."

"They did it," Wu said. "Whoever came through opened the station."

"And what happens now?" Rizzi said. "What does that accomplish?"

"Patience," Naomi said. "Answers refuse to be rushed."

The Citadel shook for what felt like an eternity. At the end another series of echoing clanks sounded. The station jolted once more, violently enough to knock the squad from their feet. "What the hell was that?" Rizzi said. "That wasn't the Citadel opening."

"No," Vael said. "That was… I'd swear that was like a ship docking, but… the noise, the impact… what could possibly be so large?"

"There was only one thing in the system that large," K'Thane said.

Rizzi nodded. "The Crucible. It must have been."

"But… why?"

"Let's find out," Rizzi said once the rumbling finally stopped. The door control turned green and the portal slid open, leading to a ramp angling down to a narrow metal bridge. "What the…"

A towering edifice stood across the other side. An immense round cylinder hung above them, rimmed with the characteristic sharp-edged spikes of Reaper aesthetics. Electricity arced between prongs intermittently. Massive metal plates to both sides of them, extending above and below, shifted and slid like the structure was rearranging itself. Across the bridge, under the cylinder, stood a circular platform with a single console at the end.

"This is new," Marx said.

"Are those bodies?" K'Thane said, pointing towards the platform.

"Come on." Rizzi ran down to the bridge, leading the way forward. As she crossed she looked up and saw that with the Citadel open the raging space battle was revealed in all its glory, with the Earth hanging low above it all. Allied vessels clustered around the station, twisting and turning as Reapers bullied their way through the formations. She saw why immediately.

"Wow," Kerranus said. "That's… big."

The Crucible, even with their view directly above obscured by whatever lay above, seemed to dominate the space. It was so large it looked like an entire additional space station had latched onto the Citadel, connected to the Presidium ring via four immense arms. Each arm utterly dwarfed the dreadnoughts protecting the massive device.

Two bodies lay on the platform. Vael went for the holographic console as the others went for the bodies. Rizzi recognized one immediately: the Illusive Man. The Cerberus leader was missing a large chunk of skull, likely from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, given the angle. She lined her pistol up and put another round into his head. The others jumped and looked at her. "Just making sure."

Wu went to the other body. "Admiral Anderson?" he said, surprise in his voice. He checked for a pulse, then looked up and shook his head.

"Damn it, what happened here?" Rizzi said. "Anderson managed to open the Citadel before he died?"

"I don't know about that," Wu said. He nodded towards a spot on the floor before the console; a curved section was missing. "Look familiar?"

"Like that platform the Illusive Man used in the Council Chambers." Rizzi looked up, where a circular aperture led to… she didn't know where, but it must have led right to the tip of the Crucible. "You think someone's up there?"

"Yeah. I don't know how to get up there, though."

"We should worry about holding this position," Kerranus said. "Behind us!"

Rizzi spun. Back from the way they'd come she saw that their tunnel door wasn't the only one; identical doors stood in a row, curving away from them; she must have been looking at the Tower exterior. The sliding metal plates brought the tunnel doors in and out of view as they moved to their own pattern. The doors to either side of the bridge slid open, revealing Reaper troops.

"Oh, crap," Rizzi said. A Banshee emerged from each tunnel, unfurling themselves to their full height. Marauders and Cannibals followed. She attacked the right Banshee with a warp field as Kerranus slid into the depressed section in the middle of the platform. The others followed suit; with the exception of the random plates moving around there was practically no cover on the platform. "We can't let them get control of the station!"

Kerranus swung up as the plates shifted and cleared the lines of fire. An Overload danced between the Reaper thralls in the right door, stripping shields from Marauders. His Harrier rifle chattered in one long burst, drilling through torsos and bursting heads. A quick reload and he was back in it, single-handedly scything through the tightly clustered enemies with precise shots.

Murder Machine and Naomi engaged the thralls on the left. Murder Machine's explosive disc blasted a pair of Cannibals from their perch; they flew out beyond the grasp of the artificial gravity and spun off into the void. Shotgun pellets clattered into the packed thralls. Wu's Disruptor blast knocked more enemies off the ledge and sent drifting away. He snatched his arm back with a hiss as a return round fragmented on his barriers and tumbled into his shoulder.

More plates slid up, cutting off their view of the tunnels. Rizzi was thankful that there was only bridge to their platform. Then the Banshees blinked from their ledges over onto the bridge. "Watch out!"

She paired her biotics with K'Thane against the lead Banshee, working to take down the distorting barriers around it. A trio of thundering shots roared out as Marx emptied her massive rifle into the other creature.

The Banshees closed the distance with frightening speed, blinking forward meters at a time. Rizzi barely had time to summon up her aura before the lead was wailing in their midst. It lashed out and Kerranus fell back a series of furrows carved in his helmet. Naomi doused both Banshees with a single jet of freezing mist before emptying her shotgun. Rizzi's Throw sent flash-frozen shards of armored skin flying. Marx cursed as she rolled backwards, slotting a fresh thermal clip into her weapon.

Wu blinked back and forth between the Banshees, landing blows with his sword with each flicker. The powered blade carved gashes and furrows in Reaper-made hide. As he ended up before one of the Banshees it reached out with surprising speed and wrapped its long clawed fingers around his neck, hoisting him up before its face with a malicious screech.

"No!" Rizzi focused her aura, pouring her desperation into shaping the persistent warp field. She leapt in, driving her aura across – and through the Banshee's arm. The focused plane sheered through the arm, dissolving through in under a second. Wu dropped to the ground and collapsed. His sword clattered down next to him.

The Banshee turned its attention to her – and staggered as an anti-materiel round punched into its head. K'Thane dashed in from behind, bringing her own aura into range. She slammed a Warp into its hip; the detonation tore the weakened Banshee's leg off at the hip. Another shot from Marx blasted through its head.

Rizzi sidestepped a two-armed strike sweeping downwards towards her. With a scream of rage, she gathered the churning energies of her Annihilation Field and launched them at the Banshee in a single explosive burst. The billowing shockwave washed over the towering creature and ripped through into its open wounds. It tore the Banshee apart into a pile of scattered, disintegrating limbs.

She swung her gaze over as a series of shotgun blasts rang out. The other Banshee screeched as it went down under the combined fire of Murder Machine, Naomi, and Kerranus. Both synthetics sported fresh scars and furrows from its claws. Kerranus and Marx took positions to cover the tunnel doors as the plates shifted away again, but the dark portals were empty.

Susan knelt at Elijah's side, cradling his head. "No, please. Not now, not like-"

He coughed and stirred. She threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tight with a sob of relief. Elijah brought a hand up, stroked her back. "Hey," he said hoarsely, "I'm okay. Don't-"

A gunshot rang out from somewhere above them. They snapped their weapons upwards at the opening in the shaft above. Another shot, then another, and another. The shots rang out like an old bell tolling the hour. Explosions sounded above in a cascade.

The hum of building energy sounded from above, like listening to the forges of creation. Red light appeared, seemingly from nowhere and everywhere. It built in intensity gradually until Rizzi felt like a star was being born right above them.

"The fleet," Marx said. "They're leaving." Rizzi turned her gaze out to see flickers of pseudo-motion: the allied ships were indeed jumping away, going to lightspeed in complete contradiction to all sense in such a dense spatial environment. The Citadel trembled again, like it was wracked by birth pangs. The trembling grew steadily stronger. She felt the gathering energy, like vibrating chord through the entirety of her being.

"The Crucible," she whispered in sudden realization. "It's activating…"

Naomi and Murder Machine looked up at the growing red light and stopped, paused for a long second. They turned to each other, and Murder Machine reached out and took Naomi's hand. She turned to Rizzi and the others, and uttered the last words she would ever say.

"Goodbye, friends."

She turned back to Murder Machine; the two embraced as the bright red light grew and grew. A surging, rippling red wave washed over them all. The gentle heat of it engulfed Susan like she was sinking gently into warm waters. Murder Machine and Naomi stiffened, grew still, and fell with terrible slowness.

"Gilbert?" Vael said suddenly. "Gilbert!"

The shaking grew stronger.

The light grew brighter.


"The Crucible is armed. Disengage and head to the rendezvous point." Admiral Hackett's command was barely audible over the hull integrity alarms, proximity warnings, heat buildup alerts, and dozens of other critical problems screaming for attention.

Captain Brynna Whitestone clutched the arms of the SSV Salvador's command chair as the cruiser groaned and screamed around her. A Reaper clutched her precious ship in its tendrils, toying with the smaller vessel. The grip of its immense arms buckled and crumpled the hull.

"Maintain fire, all batteries," Whitestone ordered. She had to shout over the wailing alarms and protesting metal. "I want you all to know, I'm-"

"Captain!" Brecker screamed. "Something's happening with the-"

The glowing red wave front surged towards them, quick as a flesh and seemingly growing in speed. It passed right through the ship, through the crew. Whitestone saw that it radiated out in all directions from the center of the Crucible.

Its effect on the Reaper was immediate and lethal.

Flickering red arcs lanced over the entirety of its body and micro-explosions broke out through its innards. Its grip on the Salvador weakened and the cruiser broke away as the Reaper convulsed and grew still: dark and lifeless.

"My God," Whitestone said. "It's working. Status report on other Reapers!"

"Inactive, ma'am. They're… all Reapers in sensor range register as inactive. No power signatures detected!"

Cheers, relieved and frantic, burst out across the CIC. Whitestone realized that she among those cheering, and decided that this was a perfect occasion to forgo decorum.


Shiala hurled the Cannibal back with a biotic flick and gunned down another with a burst from her rifle. The former asari commando had thought she'd known the worst that combat had to offer, first as part of an elite unit, then under Matriarch Benezia.

This ruin of a human city, London, had proved her wrong.

So very wrong.

She'd felt herself die, so many times.

No, that wasn't quite right.

Ian, Hollis, many of the others. The conjoined Feros militia. Just one unit among so many, throwing themselves at the Reapers here on the human homeworld, in a desperate bid to bring the Crucible into play.

She'd lost so many parts of herself to- No. They'd lost so many to the seemingly limitless Reaper forces. Each death, they'd collectively felt.

Each death, their collective bond lessened.

Shiala had never been so frightened before. Not of the combat, the nightmare cacophony of gunfire and screams.

No, she was scared – terrified – of what waited once the bond was too weak.

She'd been exposed to the indoctrination process too long during the time she'd spent with Sovereign under Matriarch Benezia. She knew what fate awaited her, and prayed she would have the presence of mind to save the last bullet for herself. The vast god-creatures descended from the sky, striding the city ruins like the timeless beings of ruin they were.

Lizbeth, she thought as she felt the skittering drone in her mind grow in strength as one of the Reapers came closer with ground-shaking steps. I'm sorry. I'm so-

The night broke. Wrothful red light pierced the veil of black clouds, spreading across the sky and down, down, scouring the surface of the planet. All warmth and heat, red energy washed over her.

She watched it engulf Cannibals, husks, Marauders, and Brutes. She watched it leave naught but ash in its wake.

She watched it engulf the Reapers striding across the world.

She watched the red crackles of energy dancing over their bodies, the convulsions, and finally the slow, slow fall of the titans.

She felt the world tremble as they hit the ground, felt the jolts through her body.

She felt the drone in her mind fade, felt the quiet, the peace.

Lizbeth, we have a future.


The light kept growing, growing – and stopped.

"What?" Susan said. "What just-

"Wait," Elijah said. "You feel that?"

"Yes." Maiena looked around. "That energy. It's still-"

The light poured forth again, blasting through them in a colossal torrent. The concentrated beam, lancing out into space, felt like a consuming fire to the gentle warmth of the wave before.

Susan squeezed her eyes shut. Violent tremors shook the station, and she heard detonations near and far. Metal screamed as systems failed and overloaded. Crashing tremors and impacts came from above; it sounded like sections of the Crucible had come loose and collided with the Tower. She heard a grinding screech as something punched through from above.

Her hand found Elijah's and he pulled her close; they held each other as the universe ended around them.


"Captain," Brecker said once the cheers had subsided slightly. "The geth ships – they're… they're dead. All of them went inactive as soon as that shockwave hit them."

Whitestone closed her eyes for a long moment. "It must not distinguish between synthetic life forms. Damn." A flash burned past her shut eyelids and they snapped open. The Crucible was… discharging, sending out a massive beam away from the planet. Explosions wracked the hardened outer layer of the Citadel.

Whitestone stared at the beam as it lanced out across the system. She ignored the various alarms still blaring; she knew the Salvador would survive this. She raised a finger and pointed.

"Where's that going?"

Brecker consulted his blasted instruments for a moment. "Captain, it's going for the relay."

"What?"

"Fast, too, ma'am. It's… these FTL speeds are impossible!"

Whitestone sat back in the command chair, feeling the accumulated hours of combat high crashing down on her. "Well, it appears today is a day of impossibilities."


The Crucible's beam flew on across the heavens. It struck the Charon mass relay straight on, and the relay absorbed it.

Ancient concentric rings, old beyond reckoning, spun faster. And faster. And stopped.

The relay fired the beam onwards to the connected network of mass relays. It discharged the remainder in a shockwave that propagated through the system and spread to others at impossible speeds that mocked the understanding of the galaxy's races. But as had been proven again and again, it was a day of impossibilities.

Each mass relay forwarded the beam before discharging a sector-spanning shockwave of its own. The Crucible's energy thus washed across the galaxy in all its incomprehensibly vast majesty.


Section Leader Sareni had known that volunteering for reinsertion to Thessia was foolish.

She didn't care; it was still her home. She'd been ready to give her life for the jewel of the galaxy.

It looked like she was about to.

"Stand strong!" The words were… empty, utterly meaningless in the face of what was striding arrogantly across the urban ruins towards her squad. A Reaper destroyer was bad enough, but behind it in the distance came two of the big ones. Her mind rebelled at her attempt to understand the scale of the multi-kilometer tall beings coming for them.

Red light bloomed low in the sky, like the sunset was weeping for the fate of the galaxy.

The light fell over them, passed through them.

The Reapers staggered as eldritch energies surged through them, and fell. One of the big ones in the back collapsed forward. Its bulk threw plumes of dust, dirt, and debris for kilometers.

Sareni threw her arm into the air as she laughed and hollered. To her left Anisha leapt with joy, while to her right Yali and Cailia embraced, their long-standing mutual grudge forgotten. The asari squad shouted themselves hoarse.

It was a day of miracles.


Tharnok, Scoutmaster of Clan Gatatog, stood beside soldiers from Clans Urdnot, Dagrob, Jorgal, Jurdon, and dozens of others. Before the genophage cure the only thing that had ever united the krogan was an enemy too big for any one clan – or any hundred clans really – to kill on their own.

This day was putting the proof to that.

It looked like the Reapers had tired of krogan resistance. They'd come for the assembled forces in the Kelphic Valley. Tharnok was well acquainted with the typical krogan bluster before battle. Hell, he'd done it himself often enough.

None of the gathered soldiers did that now. They saw what was coming for them. There was no bluster, because they all knew there was no hope for victory. This was it. The Reapers were coming in force, the big ones and the bigger ones.

The only thing left to do was die as he'd lived: killing his enemies before they killed him.

Red washed across the sky like blood spreading in muddy water. Tharnok felt heat flow through him like he'd just chugged a half barrel of ryncol. That wasn't half bad, actually. There was no better way to die in battle than with some ryncol in your gut-

The Reapers died. The red wave swept through them, and they dropped like pyjaks shot through the head. Much slower, though.

Krogan roared and cheered as the tremors of collapsing Reapers reached them. Many grumbled and looked at each other in a mix of confusion, relief, and even disgruntlement at not getting the fight they'd expected. Tharnok pushed his way forward, slapping one of his scouts on the arm to get him to settle down. He nodded in satisfaction at the Reaper corpses and grunted.

It looked like that Crucible thing had worked after all.


Explosions buffeted the Citadel and the Tower. The red light burned the very air around them all. Susan held onto Elijah as the rocking Citadel knocked them off their feet. She heard Lisa and Maiena yelling for each other as the Tower continued to scream and groan with debris impacts and collisions. She expected to die at any moment.

She'd done it. She'd upheld her duty to the Alliance, to the galaxy. Held the line against the hordes of hell as some brave soul had managed to activate the Crucible. She reached up, eyes still closed against the unbearable brightness of the Crucible's unleashed energy, and pressed her helmeted forehead to Elijah's. "I love you," she whispered, thinking she'd never get a chance to say it again.

An eternity passed before the violent trembling subsided, before the thrumming chorus of energy faded. Susan opened her eyes; the platform above had shielded them from the worst of the debris impacts. She looked around; a massive metal spar had torn through from above, spearing down at an angle into their control platform. Miraculously it hadn't crushed anybody.

"We're… alive," Elijah said. "I… don't quite believe it."

"Everyone okay?" Susan said, looking around.

"Here," Lisa said, sitting up from behind a piece of rubble with Maiena. "Is it over? Did we win?"

"I… I don't know." Susan looked over at the Murder Machine and Naomi, who lay together still wrapped in their embrace. Her suit systems could detect no trace of power or activity from either of them, and she tried to blink away her tears. If somebody had told her at the beginning of this damn war that she'd react this way to a geth passing…

"Gilbert's gone," Maletha'Vael said, her voice thick. The quarian sat near the platform edge, holding onto Felix. She started crying. "Why did the Crucible do that? It was supposed to save us all!"

"I don't know," Felix said, looking around at the destruction. "Maybe… it malfunctioned, or misfired."

"Look out there though," Lisa said, nodding at the darkness of space around them. Light reflected off of debris, wreckage, and lifeless Reapers. "The fighting's over."

"Lieutenant Rizzi?" Doctor Michel's voice came over the comm, clearer than it had been since the Reapers had first seized the station.

Susan tore her gaze away from the dead synthetics. "We're here, Doctor."

"What's happening out there? Reaper forces just attacked the control chamber. Some kind of… red energy wave came through here, and then it was like… like a star was being born inside here. The Reaper troops all… burned away. Nothing but ash. Soldiers are moving out to check, but so far… all they're finding is Reaper ash."

"The Crucible just activated," Maiena said. "It looks like… all the Reapers are dead."

"So… we won?"

"It came at a pretty heavy cost, doc," Elijah said as he watched Maletha sobbing quietly into Felix's shoulder. He wrapped his arms around Susan as her shoulders began shaking softly; she'd deactivated her comms for the moment. Maiena and Lisa sat quietly together, utterly drained.

A minute passed before Susan pulled away and reactivated her comms with a click. She looked up at the column punching through to the platform from above, at the gaping hole it had torn – wide enough for several people.

"Susan?" Elijah said as she started climbing. The pillar wasn't smooth and provided plenty of handholds.

"I have to know what happened," she said, moving leadenly. The shock of everything hadn't quite caught up to her, she knew. They'd just had front row seats to… well, probably the biggest event in galactic history. It just didn't feel that way to her yet. She was certain it would all hit her in a bit, but for now she just felt… numb.

Elijah followed her up the pillar to an open space above. The expended ruin of the Crucible hung above them. Mangled metals and ceramics hung in space and littered the surface. The interfaces of the vast device stood blasted and nearly unrecognizable. Larger chunks of rubble and machinery had collided and settled, forming rough patches of material almost like low hedge mazes. "There," he said, nudging Susan's arm and pointing.

A body lay in the rubble, leaning back against a pile of debris. Blasted, burned armor covered his form. A glint of light reflected off identification tags hanging to the side of his chest. She couldn't see who it was; his head hung away from them.

"He must be the one who activated the Crucible," Susan said, clambering over the rubble towards him. As she drew closer the body took a sudden, short breath. His chest began to rise and fall.

Susan and Elijah got closer. Elijah stiffened. "Is that-"

"Get the doctor," Susan said. "We found Shepard."