Chapter Fifty-Three: The Battle of the Citadel
Shepard's head felt split open.
In those few seconds between regaining consciousness and being able to open her eyes, she was convinced it was truly cracked through, by a shard of glass or a broken strut, with a stomach-curdling agony that stole her breath. But she knew bone pain intimately, and this wasn't it.
Her vision blurred gray and red, smudgy, indistinct. She sprawled face down on a hard surface with a mass of debris digging into her legs and stomach. Her body felt cold. A chemical stench hung in the air. But for all that, she didn't seem to be actively dying, so she didn't feel compelled towards any particular action.
Shepard closed her eyes.
Footsteps. Somebody reached down and rolled her onto her back. Her head lolled, limp as doll.
The figure crouched beside her, shook her shoulder. "Nathaly?"
Her gut gave another lurch. She groaned. "I shouldn't have taken the car…"
Another voice, questioning, confused. "What car?"
Her accomplice's tone shifted as he looked away. "She's kind of out of it."
Shepard forced her eyes to blink, and blink again. There was no sky to speak of overhead; just billows of smoke and half a ruined tank, and the man hovering over her with his brow creased in concern. She put a hand to her head, gingerly. "Kaidan?"
"We're on the Presidium," he explained. There was a bloody gash across his forehead slathered in medi-gel. "What's left of it, anyway. Can you sit up?"
Presidium. Saren. Sovereign. Right.
Nothing sounded better than simply lying there awhile and admiring the way everything was slowly spinning around. But she rolled over and pushed herself up on her palms, paused a moment to marvel at her success, and then her stomach went into full rebellion. "Fuck-"
Kaidan stepped out of the way just in time. "Easy there. Take it slow."
Liara squatted beside Shepard, supporting her as she panted. "The head injuries seem to have caught up to her at last. She's not in any condition to continue."
He didn't seem to like it any better than her, but his eyes slid off towards the tower. He frowned. "I don't think she has much choice. We can't leave her here."
"Nobody is leaving me anywhere." Shepard bent her head towards her knees, took a deep breath, wiped her mouth and shoved away at the disorientation and the pain alike. "Someone help me up."
Liara grabbed her forearms while Kaidan hauled under her shoulders. She staggered on her feet. The already savage headache doubled down and her vision went gray. Her gut heaved. Kaidan held her upright and didn't let her go until she managed a semblance of a frosty glare. It couldn't have dried paint- but he reluctantly released her.
She took a step, and then another. Everything seemed intact. She had a look at her squad. Neither of them was going to win a beauty contest anytime soon, but their injuries seemed superficial, simple cuts and contusions.
Shepard sucked in a breath and blew it out. "Ok. How long have we been here?"
"Not that long," Liara said.
"Ok." The Presidium was unrecognizable. Piles of rubble lay across the paths, in the lake, decorating the balconies that hung overhead. Here and there the walkway had collapsed. Chunks of the curved ceiling floated on the water, exposing the scaffolding above. A rather spastic Presidium VI guide flickered on and off, chirping a welcome message in ten languages, while a few enthusiastic fires sent up clouds of smoke. The air tasted of ashes.
The elevator to the Council Chamber was still clear. Geth drop ships crowded what little of the nebula she could see through the cracks in the roof, hugging the tower and trailing streams of geth units deploying to the wards.
Shepard rubbed her eyes. "Ok. Here's what we're going to do. All the action seems to be up there. Putting this supposed control station in the Presidium tower makes sense. It's the only place on the whole damn station Saren wouldn't have had free access to, as a spectre. We're going to take this elevator and sort it out."
They exchanged glances. She started trudging forward. "Any sign of Saren?"
"Nothing yet." Kaidan was walking a bit close to her with his rifle ready.
"I am never teasing you about your headaches again."
"Don't make promises you can't keep."
Liara hit the call button. "Are you certain you're up for this?"
Shepard's gaze lingered on the Mako. The tank was nothing short of annihilated. "I'll be fine. Let's just get this done."
Halfway up the tower, the elevator stalled out. Shepard buried her face in her hands.
"Power transmitter must've been hit." Alenko went to the window. They were just high enough to begin to see the Presidium for the ring it truly was. "There should be a hatch- oh, god."
He was staring upwards, craning his neck along the length of the tower. Liara followed. "The ward arms- they're closing."
"What?" Shepard pressed her face against the cold glass. One by one, the stars winked out as the Citadel sealed shut. And there was something else, too. "Does the end of the tower look strange to you?"
Perspective was lacking and it was difficult to see anything at the top clearly. Still, there was something familiar and telling about the distant triangle of black flecked with reddish lightening. Alenko blinked, his breath fogging the port. "Is that Sovereign? It's sitting on top of the Council chamber?"
"I think we've got our confirmation on where that control station is." Shepard stepped back and unclipped her helmet from her belt.
Liara gave her a questioning look. "What are you doing?"
"Saren came through the Conduit. He'll have to meet his boss upstairs." She fastened the collar clasp, sealing the suit and engaging the respirator. "I'm not waiting to figure out the damn backup power. We'll walk."
Thirty seconds later, after her squad secured their protective gear, Shepard blew out the glass with her pistol. They crawled out the window and steadied themselves on magnetized boot soles as they looked along the length of the tower.
The slender spire that housed the Council was the spindle about which the Citadel turned. Here, at the center, centripetal force was negligible and artificial gravity kept each floor comfortable. There was no reason to extend those fields beyond the walls. And it was just as well- walking up the side would've been difficult otherwise. Similarly, there was no cause to project the expensive mass effect field barrier that contained the station's breathable atmosphere a millimeter beyond what was necessary. So it was that they stood in an airless, weightless gap, stuck to the skin of the tower by magnetism alone.
The view was disconcerting to say the least. But the situation didn't leave them long to be confused.
Up ahead, smaller ships from Saren's fleet continued to drop ground units onto the tower. Clearly Saren had realized their predicament; perhaps he was in a similar situation. He couldn't have beat them through the Conduit by very much or the Citadel would already be under Sovereign's complete control. Shepard wondered, not for the first time, whether Saren would survive so much as five minutes past his reaper cohort achieving its objective- but she didn't intend to let him live long enough herself to find out.
Alenko drew his rifle. "What's the plan?"
Shepard winced, and turned down the volume on her comm- everything was too loud. She wished her head weren't aching quite so badly. It was difficult to think. "We fight our way to the top, and look for an access panel, or something. There's a big- you know, glass thing, at the back of the Council Chamber."
"Window?"
"Yeah, that." She ignored his frown. "Maybe we can go through it."
Liara pursed her lips. "How can you know the master control unit is there? Wouldn't they have found it by now?"
"She's got a point," Alenko said. "The asari have occupied the Citadel for almost three thousand years."
"Yeah, and they somehow missed the fact that it's a giant mass relay." Shepard was dismissive. "They couldn't even tell the difference between a relay monument sitting in their lake and a real relay, either. The control unit is there. Sovereign would have told Saren how to find it. We just need to arrange a little interruption."
They started forward. A secondary thought penetrated her throbbing haze. "Did we hear from Normandy or Alliance Command while I was out?"
"Nothing."
She let out a sigh and glanced up towards the ward arms, which were now firmly shut. "Cross your fingers we're not all alone out here."
/\/\/\/\/\
The Normandy arrived through the Serpent Nebula relay alone and immediately engaged the IES. Navigator Pressly, apparently of a similar view as Admiral Mikhailovich regarding the location of the CIC, stood on the bridge directly behind Joker with his arms crossed. The iron-faced X.O. made the pilot nervous. Shepard shouted constantly, and he'd learned to deal with it. This grim silence was something else.
"Sir, we've got at least twenty enemy ships here, not counting what's inside the Citadel," Joker said at last, unable to bear it a moment longer.
"I know how to read a ladar scan, Lieutenant."
That was the other thing. Even the commander knew better than to bother with his rank at a time like this. Joker muttered under his breath.
Pressly's gaze never left the nav screen. "Steady as she goes."
"I know how to steer a ship, sir." The remark slipped out before Joker's rusty better judgment could lodge a protest.
The stern glance he got in reply brimmed with reproach, but before Pressly could utter an admonishment, Bakari came over the comm. "Sir, we've got orders from Admiral Hackett. The Fifth Fleet is en route."
Pressly glanced at the ceiling, at the comm. "When are they inbound?"
"Uncertain, sir. The relay system is nonresponsive."
"Nonresponsive-"
"The admiral says they'll regroup and come through the final relay together once they figure it out. We're to sit tight and not engage."
The X.O.'s attention snapped to the ceiling speaker. "How many squadrons?"
"As many as he could mobilize on short notice, sir." Bakari paused to read in new information. "The admiral is requesting continual status updates until they arrive."
Joker reached up and hit the transmit switch. "The big guy went inside with a lot of the geth fleet. The Citadel's sealed. The Destiny Ascension is fighting off the remainder. They're holding their own for now, but who knows how long that will last."
Pressly glared. Joker glanced back at him. "Or did you want to answer that, sir?"
He rubbed his nose. "Still nothing from the commander?"
"If she said she had a way off Ilos, she had a way off Ilos." Joker refused to believe anything else, even if a dark corner of his mind realized Shepard absolutely would trick them into abandoning her if she thought it was the only way. "We just have to wait."
The X.O. snorted. "As you were, Lieutenant. As you were."
/\/\/\/\/\
Shepard fired twice into a fallen geth, just to be sure, each shot rattling through her suit like an artillery shell. For the thirteenth time, she attempted to massage her skull through the helmet. It was a dull, inexorable ache, too painful to easily ignore and too persistent to dismiss. Her stomach churned. She concentrated on breathing through her nose. "That's the last of this group."
"There's steady patrols all the way to the top." Kaidan glanced between her and their destination, torn.
She ground her teeth. Shepard knew she was moving more slowly than they could afford, and it had crossed her mind more than once to tell them to go on ahead. The geth posed little threat to her, not this far from the prize, not if she hunkered down to wait. But every time she began to speak, her stubborn nature intervened. This was her fight. She was going to be there when it ended.
She wasn't going to leave the two of them alone to face this and possibly die for this, while she hid safe.
She shuffled ahead, past Kaidan, and the flicker of concern in his eyes annoyed her out of all proportion- if only because there was a little bit of her that had grown very seriously worried over what was happening in her head, and she didn't like to be reminded. "It's not far now."
"I see a few gun turrets ahead," he replied, evenly, as if he hadn't seen the flash of irritation, though the almost complete lack of inflection intimated that he had.
"This tower looks so smooth from a distance," Liara said, attempting to change the subject. "Yet we could easily lose ourselves in all these tunnels and surface structures."
Shepard sucked at her tube of water. The suit reservoir was nearly dry. Her mouth was a wad of cotton. "Most space stations are lumpy. It takes a lot of systems infrastructure to keep them running." She looked up. "Alright. Those are defense turrets. If we can activate them, they might thin the geth, or at least prevent more from dropping in our path."
Liara glanced at her. "Will they target us?"
She shook her head and immediately regretted it. "No, they can't get a firing solution on the tower itself."
Alenko set his rifle. "Nice safety feature."
"I don't know. This is the Council we're talking about." Shepard sighed and rolled her neck, which was beginning to ache horribly as well. "Move out."
They crept ahead, following a crude valley running up the tower. It dead-ended between the guns. Shepard hoped it would afford them some cover until they activated the defenses. Otherwise the geth would have the advantage of firing from high ground.
How in the hell had Saren convinced the geth to take the Citadel anyway? How was that remotely in their interest? But that was the wrong way to think about it- Sovereign was calling the shots, and Sovereign was a god to the geth. When god speaks, the faithful listen, and computers were nothing if not deterministic.
"Incoming, two o'clock," Alenko called out.
A squad of geth was closing in. Shepard fired. Each bullet made her brain feel like jelly in a bowl. The machine on point stumbled back. "Make for the port gun. Go!"
She guarded their flank while Liara and Alenko scrambled up onto the deck. It had to be a patrol; while the geth undoubtedly knew they were on the tower, these particular geth seemed taken by surprise. She took out two before they managed to hit her.
"Shepard!" Liara reached down.
Kaidan took over on cover fire as she hauled her up. Shepard stumbled over the lip. Her reactions were sluggish, her boots a pair of clubs at the end of her legs. The lapse allowed the geth to tag her again and her shield failed. "Hold them back-"
He glanced over his shoulder. "Commander-"
"Hold them, damn it!" She scrambled towards the gun turret, dragging herself across the tower through the firefight. Shepard blessed the vacuum. The only sounds in her helmet were contact noise coming up through the suit and the comm channel. She thought she might pass out if she had to listen to all of it.
She reached the control terminal. This was serious artillery, the last line of defense between the seat of galactic government and any threat powerful and suicidal enough to assault the Citadel. The thing was, everyone knew turians built the best weaponry. So the guns were from Palaven. But since nobody liked the idea of the turians getting an exclusive contract on such a sensitive matter, the interface was programmed by salarians and wired into a network produced by the asari that coordinated the entire station defense.
The result was an arcane mess of subcontracting gone awry that Shepard couldn't have figured out with a few hours of free time and a stout manual.
Alenko came up beside her. "That group's down but we'll have more inbound any moment."
"I know." She pressed buttons, uselessly. "Would it have killed them to install a VI with this thing?"
"Look, there." Liara tilted her head back, staring up at a drop ship streaming overhead.
Kaidan frowned. "Coming in hot."
"Fuck." Shepard punched at the controls.
Liara watched the ship hover over the field and commence spewing geth onto the field. "It's come to something when a Spectre of the Citadel can't command the station defenses."
Somewhere in the primordial sludge that presently passed for Shepard's thought process a bell went off. "Right! I'm a spectre! Yes!"
Kaidan glanced at her warily.
She was too elated to care. She waved her omni-tool at the feckless machine. It took a moment long enough to cause her to doubt, but her spectre code successfully overrode the majority of the system's interface, taking her directly to the gun controls without any further authentication or redundant safety checks.
Point and shoot she could do. The gun swiveled and locked onto the geth drop ship. It was an absolute dinosaur of a gun- old, heavy, slow, and utterly inevitable. Whole sections of the hull sagged beneath the onslaught of its shells. But it was a large ship, and the damage far from catastrophic.
While they were distracted, the ground troops it deployed were scampering down the tower towards their position. Alenko's biotics scraped the field raw with slash of his arm. Geth sailed out into open space on a wave of blue light.
Shepard swept the remaining line with her rifle, filling the vacuum with droplets of milky geth fluid. "It's going to take more than this!"
Liara snapped off several rounds. "We need that second gun!"
Apparently the geth realized it as well, because they were forming a protective ring around the turret, while the frontal assault kept them pinned and occupied. Shepard fired until her shield went down a second time, falling back behind the gun. "Damn it, that thing is still streaming geth! We need to take it out!"
"We're barely keeping up as it is!" Alenko shot one geth, and lifted the one behind it off the tower. Without any gravity to pull it back, it floated away, squirming.
Her eyes darted over the terrain, seeking any advantage. "Pull back!"
Liara turned and blinked behind her faceplate. "What?"
"Just do it!" Shepard scrambled back down into the tower furrow, retreating slowly as the geth pressed ahead. Electronic communications had their benefits. There was no evidence to date that the geth had cracked Alliance encryptions. "I saw a hatch back here somewhere."
Liara blocked the way with a singularity. Kaidan shot the geth who attempted to creep around it. "It won't be more than a maintenance shaft."
"Exactly." She finally spotted it, lying between two power sinks. Another invocation of her spectre code unlocked it. It was a stroke of luck that the Council barred Saren when they did; Shepard shuddered to imagine what he could have accomplished with this kind of universal access.
Shepard vanished into the station.
The abrupt return of gravity sent her sprawling to her knees. She shook off the disorientation and scrambled up the ladder towards the gun, trying hard to forget that a second ago this was the floor.
The maintenance shaft was also oxygenated, the muffled sounds of geth feet marching over the tower skin coming down through the walls and penetrating her helmet. She was well under them now. She hoped her own movements were quieter. Most of the geth were now directly overhead and the station's skin was none too thick.
She reached the top of the ladder and located the turret maintenance console. Hooking her arm through the rungs, she tapped away one-handed until she found the correct program.
"Have to fire the thing to test it," she muttered, examining the interface. "Can't maintain it without testing it."
She pressed a button. It felt wrong, firing what amounted to a very large gun this way, but the ceiling shuddered flakes of rust down onto her and the shell shot out with a reverberation that rang the chamber like a bell. A lance of pain shot from her skull down into her stomach; she gagged hard, desperate not to vomit into her helmet.
She forced herself to reach out and fire it again. And then a third time.
The metal-on-metal of geth feet overhead accelerated from a shuffle to a run, as some fled towards their ailing ship and others attempted to disrupt the turret. Executing a maintenance safety procedure effectively locked them out of the topside console. Shepard doubted it would last long against geth hacking, but probably long enough to drive off the drop ship.
Her comm activated. Liara. "Shepard, it's getting hot out here!"
She took a heavy breath. "On my way."
Shepard left the terminal gratefully and hauled herself back to the surface. Her stomach lurched again, through the abrupt transition from gravity to weightlessness. The back of her throat tasted raw and sour.
The drop ship was gone. Evidently the guns worked better than she hoped, because bits of the wreckage decorated the deck. Geth hid behind protrusions and inside the mechanical valleys running the length of the tower. Kaidan and Liara were crowded up against their own valley wall, taking turns firing bullets and flinging biotics over the edge.
Shepard hunkered down next to them. "How many?"
"Don't know." Kaidan fired at a geth. It darted behind an HVAC box. "They're calling in patrols further up."
"This is it then." She took aim at the unit, and the subsequent burst of escaping air sent the geth spinning into space. "We take these ones out, we should have a clear path to the top."
"I would have preferred smaller doses," Liara said, raising another singularity.
"And I would've preferred we not be alone out here, but what can you do." Shepard nailed another machine right up its flashlight. It fell, twitched, and floated off as the magnetism failed.
Kaidan lifted several more free of the tower surface. "We've got to get those arms open."
"And hope like hell the fleet's out there when we do." She pursed her lips and glanced along the length of the trench. "We're not going to break this front. Move up. Make them chase us for a change."
He gave the geth one last look. "Absolutely."
They scuttled up the tower, keeping to cover, and in the chaos it was a few minutes before the geth realized they were gone. After that it was shoot and run, and pray to find a way into the top before they got pinned down in a blind alley or ran out of tower.
They climbed down into a vacant shaft bright with glass and white paint. The sight delivered an extra vicious stab to Shepard's throbbing head. Staccato shots followed them as they ran up the length, with those oddly careful, bounding steps designed to never allow both feet off the floor at the same time. Shepard and Alenko had trained on it, as new recruits, until it sucked the last drop of romance out of zero-g ops. Liara fumbled a bit but kept up admirably; either the long experience of a wandering life or natural asari grace coming to her rescue.
The geth seemed to encounter little difficulty from the exotic terrain. They were all but breathing down their backs when they finally hit the end of the shaft and scrambled back up to the surface.
Liara blocked their exit with another singularity. "We're running out of space."
Alenko glanced up at the peach-toned arc of the ward arms and grimaced. "And time. Who knows what the geth fleet is doing out there."
"Keep moving," Shepard said, more concerned than she let on. The geth would have kept them tied up forever back by the gun turrets, but if they got pinned between their pursuit and Saren's entourage, they would quite simply die.
"We have to be getting near the Council Chamber," Liara panted.
"Maybe it'll lock behind us." Shepard slogged onward. It was increasingly difficult to focus. "We can shoot geth out of the cherry trees."
Alenko and Liara exchanged a look, but held their silence.
"Here," Shepard said, after a little while. They'd followed a trench nearly to the very top of the tower. It terminated in a boxy cavern dimly lit by emergency power, with a solid square hatch set into the floor. "The Council Chamber should be just on the other side."
Liara hovered at her shoulder. "So what are we waiting for?"
She sat back on her heels and sighed. "It's locked."
Alenko's pistol barked. "Incoming, right on our six!"
"Shit." Shepard tried to prod her tired brain into action. "Kaidan, deal with this hatch. Liara-"
"On it." She pressed into a support column and started to obstruct the path with her biotics.
Shepard took up station opposite her, while Alenko crouched down and tried to hack the lock. She sent a burst of fire down the trench. It was more a dissuasion than an assault. Her aim was suffering, her reflexes sluggish at best, and her arms felt like twin sacks of cement.
A geth staggered as one of her errant bullets struck it almost entirely by accident. Liara's warp put it down for good. More climbed over the chassis. Shepard held her finger down on the trigger, letting up only when her heat sink beeped a warning.
"Almost got it!" Alenko entered frantic commands into his omni-tool.
There were several more geth clogging the path now, slowing down the others. Their shots came as fast as ever. Liara's shield failed and a split second later she cried out and fell back. Blood seeped from the suit webbing over her arm.
Shepard found a hidden cache of resolve from somewhere deep in the dregs of her reserves, and sent the geth down to join its colleagues. Then the one behind it, and then the one behind that. Time moved at a crawl. There was a small infinity between one bullet and the next. She couldn't even say how often she hit; all she could do was keep firing.
She lost count of the geth. Once they joined the pile, they fell out of her world. Her shield failed. One of them chipped her ceramic plating. It went unnoticed. There was nothing but the necessity to hold the goddamn tunnel.
She didn't even realize she was shouting until Kaidan shook her, hard. "Come on! We have to go!"
He helped Liara through the hatch, and then ducked in himself. Shepard spared the geth one last glance and disappeared after him into the Council Chamber.
The second she was through, Alenko yanked her clear of the door and slammed it shut, engaging the lock. Then he took a step back and shot out the access panel beside it.
Shepard blinked at him, a bit disconcerted. He shrugged and looked away, almost embarrassed. "It should hold them for a while. Long enough."
She nodded, because what else was there to do, and immediately regretted it. Gingerly, she removed her helmet, feeling rather like getting all the way here without fouling it was one of the greatest achievements of her life, and let it clatter to the floor. She breathed in a lungful of station air. "Status check."
Liara's face was pale, but resolute. "I think it's broken. I can make do."
"All hands on deck," Alenko said, dryly. "And you, Commander?"
There was no dignified response to be made, so she simply vented her heat sink and staggered towards the pedestal where the Council met. "I'm still in one piece. That'll have to be enough."
He took her arm without being asked and kept them straight along the path, and for once she had the sense not to object. Their footfalls felt muted by the hush hanging over the room. There was not so much as the hiss of a ventilator.
"It's quiet." Liara's face tilted up towards the garden branches. Cinders drifted down through the leaves. "The trees are burning."
"Yeah." Shepard felt the strongest sense of déjà vu as they moved deeper into the chamber, almost as though the busy murmurs of the Council and their many petitioners and staff echoed in the silent halls. It was hard not to remember her first time here. Kaidan appreciated the aesthetic, while Ash's cynical eyes could only see the strong defensive positions framed by the stairs.
She caught his eye and could tell he was thinking the same thing. A half smile, sweet and sad, said he knew who deserved to be here, and it wasn't only them.
"Look, up ahead." Liara pointed, breaking the spell. "The ramp's extended. I think I see-"
"Saren," Shepard said, adrenaline spiking her veins and driving off pain and fatigue alike. She raised her rifle.
Almost as before the word left her mouth, the figure turned, reaching for his belt. She bolted up the stairs. As she dove for the protection of the railing, something ruffled her hair.
The grenade exploded not more than ten meters away, down the stairs, and drove her back into the barricade as her shield popped. A wetness trickled down her neck. Shepard retched.
"Shepard," Saren said, almost more a welcome than a condemnation. "I thought you might be joining us. My geth have never been much of a contest for you."
She wanted to make some kind of biting repartee. But her ears were ringing and her stomach was heaving and her tongue was lost somewhere in it all.
"You've lost," Saren continued, drawing a pistol and examining it with an abstracted air. "You know that, don't you? We have already seized control of the relay system. I'm afraid your fleet won't be joining us. Soon Sovereign will have full control of this station, the Citadel relay will open, and the reapers will return."
She couldn't see Kaidan or Liara. In a way it was comforting. If they'd been caught by the grenade, she'd see pieces of them everywhere. "Funny to hear the puppet brag about how well it's been played."
"You don't understand."
Shepard swallowed, roughly, and took a breath. "I understand I'm going to that control panel. If you try to stop me, I'll kill you. Without your geth I'd have had you last time."
"Last time?" His laugh was rich like soured milk, thick, redolent. "Last time you were too busy saving your wretched friends to care whether you killed me. To your loss. Sovereign's… upgrades are now complete. You won't stand a chance."
"You think I'm worried about a few cybernetics?" The very thought was preposterous.
Saren switched tactics. "There's a place for organics in the coming galactic order. People of ability and of action. People like you and I."
She didn't dignify that with a reply. Her rifle was somewhere scattered down the stairs. She drew her pistol and checked it.
"Sovereign recognizes your value. You've impressed it, more than enough to earn a place. Your life will be spared."
"Before this is over, Sovereign's kind are going to beg me for the same courtesy." The words were out before she even knew where they came from, some kind of hindbrain snark reflex. She shut her eyes and quietly began locking away every bodily alarm sounding in her head, using the time he spent speaking to steady herself for what was coming, knowing she wasn't prepared.
He laughed again. "Asari have diplomacy, salarians have intellect- but you humans, you have so much arrogance that you've built an entire civilization on baseless audacity."
"I take it back. The reapers aren't like you. They have too much dignity to beg."
Saren shot through the decorative sheet metal that protected the council dais from the garden below. Shepard was forced to scuttle sideways as he brought her shields down. She laughed herself, then, beyond exhausted. "Is that it?"
"You will die. You, and everyone you love. Everyone you've ever met." His frustration was evident. "They will all die! The reapers cannot be stopped, not by any power known to mortals. The cycle will continue forever. This is the only way to make peace."
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Shepard's temper failed at last. "The reapers don't negotiate. They don't use organics. They devour and discard them- exactly like the cattle they think we are. You'll be dead ten minutes after Sovereign takes this station, along with everyone else in reach."
"I had no choice! You saw the warnings. You know what became of the Protheans."
"And I know that you surrendered to Sovereign long before you found that beacon on Eden Prime. How do you explain that?"
Silence. She shifted a bit, balancing on the balls of her feet. She finally spotted Liara- crouched behind a bench at the base of the stairs, lost in the ornamental plants. Half the chamber was aflame. Smoke crowded the vaulted ceiling. Liara stared back at her, steady as she was grim, pistol in hand and her injured arm tucked close to her body.
"It wasn't like that," Saren said, though more than a little uncertain.
"Women, men, children of Eden Prime- you burned them alive in their homes. You tortured them to create husks. You were a spectre of the Citadel. Of the galaxy. All of it." Shepard spat. "Is that how you perform your duty?"
"I can't-"
"Were the geth your idea, or Sovereign's? Did your brother die so that it could come to this?"
"There was… there was no hope…"
"You could have fought." Shepard rose out of cover and faced him, heedless of his gun. She figured she was too sick to do much about it, anyway. "What we choose matters. You chose to survive at the cost of everything else. You quit. Does that sound like a spectre to you? Or does it sound like a reaper?"
He was staring at her now, stricken and defenseless as a child. His cybernetics gleamed as he shuddered. "It's too late…"
"There's still a way," she said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kaidan trying to sneak around the railing, towards her position. "If you've got the guts."
They stared at each other. An endless moment later, his pistol lowered until it pointed at the floor. Saren took a breath, closed his eyes, and nodded.
She stood there, not an avatar of vengeance or justice or even necessity, but as a simple marine, carrying out her duty to defend and serve. There was neither elation nor regret. This turian, who had butchered his was across the Traverse on a mission of madness, now seemed ordinary, old, and above all, tired. Her eyes softened. She knew that kind of tired.
"I'm sorry," she said.
He nodded again, acknowledgement more than acceptance, and raised the pistol to his head. A shot rang out.
He fell back into the garden, through the glass, through the trees, and landed in the grass with a meaty, final thump. It was a long moment before the tinkle of falling shards faded from the air.
The squad let out a collective breath. Kaidan glanced at her. "Why apologize?"
She licked her lips. "He was just a man, Kaidan. If I'd met Sovereign before he did… I don't know that it would've turned out any different."
"That's not true," Liara said firmly. "Sovereign exploited Saren's hatred and malice. It needed that foothold into his mind."
"I don't want you to brush it off, Liara. I want you to remember it." She pointed at the tall window decorated the far side of the Council chamber. Outside, Sovereign's legs curled about the tower, while in the distance geth drop ships flowed like silver fish. "Reapers with laser cannons, geth armies, cycles of harvest- they're distractions."
"Distractions!"
"They can burn our colonies, raze our homes, end our lives- but this?" She looked down at Saren through the mess of broken glass. "This destroys who we are. That's our enemy. And the second any of us forgets that, we're finished."
Liara's rejection was flat, categoric. "None of us could ever be like him."
Shepard exchanged a look with Kaidan, who knew her better, and he simply took her hand. "Let's unlock the relays, open the ward arms, and finish this."
The three of them crossed the extended walkway to the dais where the Council usually stood. Today it was occupied instead by a large haptic array, streaming with symbols from no language Shepard knew- and even in this era of omnipresent translation software, she passed for an amateur linguist. But there was no time to dwell on mystery. Quickly, she uploaded Vigil's code, and hoped like hell there was still time to disrupt whatever protocols Saren set in motion.
At first nothing happened. She held her breath, unsteady on her feet, and begged her exhausted, injured body to hold together just a little longer. Knowing that the adrenaline was draining from her system, and sooner rather than later, she would be unable to ignore the bill.
Her eyes turned to the long window gracing the back of the chamber. "Come on…"
"What are we-" Kaidan started to ask, but she ignored him entirely.
Shepard stepped towards the window, her hands curling into balls. "Come on."
"Look!" Liara gasped.
The barest of blackest cracks appeared between two ward arms.
She let out a scream and jumped, punching the air. "Yes!"
Kaidan's mouth dropped open. "I don't believe it."
Shepard spun in circles, headaches and exhaustion alike momentarily eclipsed. "Yes! Fuck yes!"
"Try the comm," Liara urged.
She put her fingers to her ear, with the biggest smile on her face. "Shepard to Normandy, do you read?"
There was a long pause. A bit of her elation decayed into concern. "Come in, Normandy."
Outside, the distance between the arms grew larger as they continued to separate. Stars glimmered, pins in the wisp of nebula just barely visible beyond the bright lights of the wards.
A burst of deafening static crackled through her ears like a lance through her head. Bakari. "Commander Shepard, this is the Normandy. We read you loud and clear."
Liara's hands flew to her mouth, though her eyes betrayed the grin they hid. Kaidan did just the opposite. He covered his eyes, the sag of his shoulders and the curve of his mouth both conveying a profound relief at reaching the end of this long journey.
"Where the hell are you?" There was nothing but sheer irreverence; it was almost over. All she needed now was the fleet.
"Hanging tight outside the Citadel, ma'am. Damn good to hear your voice. I've got a priority transmission from Admiral Hackett waiting for you."
"Patch him through."
"Yes, ma'am."
There was a pause as they waited for Bakari to complete the transfer. Shepard glanced down at the garden for the second time. Seven meters below, Saren's corpse lay face-down in the grass. After five months of chasing him all over the Traverse, it was hard to believe he was truly gone.
Shepard had seen any number of dead men in her time. But as she stared at him, waiting for Hackett, the faintest glimmer of doubt crossed her mind. This had been all too easy. "Check him."
Kaidan blinked at her. "What?"
She jerked her chin at the body. "Check him."
He took in her expression, and decided not to argue. "Right away."
Liara grimaced and followed him as he walked across the path and started to pick his way down the fallen debris.
"Commander Shepard," spoke her comm link.
She immediately forgot the endeavor below. "Sir."
"The relay network was nonresponsive for an extended time, but it appears back online now." Hackett was obviously troubled by that, but understood it was a question for later. "I've got the entire Arcturus fleet ready to enter Citadel space. I need a status update."
"The Citadel is back under our control." A groan from the ceiling as the massive reaper perched outside shifted its weight called her attention. She stared upward. "For the moment."
"Enemy forces?"
"Well, there's the whole geth fleet." Shepard laughed, though there was nothing humorous about it. "You've really got to worry about Sovereign. Saren's flagship. It's a… It's an AI entity in partnership with Saren and the geth. We've been calling them reapers."
"Understood, Commander." Hackett paused. "Where is Saren?"
"Dead," she said, just as Liara raised her pistol and fired an additional shot into his head. "Very dead."
Far away, on the other side of a relay, Hackett tried desperately not to smile. The CIC of a dreadnought was significantly busier than that of a frigate. The ship commander's station was at the heart of everything, elevated, and ringed by sober-faced men and women carefully monitoring the status of the fleet and organizing their activities. It was not a place for frivolity.
Anderson was right about some things. Shepard was hot-headed, rebellious, and relentless to a fault, particularly when it came to what she saw as higher duties. But she had a way about her. Something endearing. She just tried so damn hard, and failure seemed to simply irritate her.
"I've got the fleet on stand-by, ready to attack. But we've never faced this kind of enemy." Hackett crossed his arms. "You have."
"Not in open combat. Not with ships." The reply came with a measure of reluctance, as though she was annoyed by the prevarication.
He had little patience for it. "I'm asking what you think."
"You're going to need everything you've got to take down Sovereign and then some. Prepare for heavy casualties, but don't hold back."
"Understood." He nodded to his officers, who began entering commands and whispering into their own comms. "Ready the fleet. We go now."
They surged through the relay like the wrath of god.
As they winked into the heart of the Serpent Nebula, ship after ship, Hackett strode ahead, towards the bank of windows decorating the long wall across the bow of his vessel. The fleet spread out before him. Some might call it reckless, leaving Arcturus and the border skeleton-crewed, but while the Normandy was out fighting the war, Hackett spent these long months embroiled in intelligence reports, gleanings from the larger situation. He was blessed with an exceptional mind. It had been engaged in the tedious work of assembling meaning from all this chaos.
The history of these reapers went back farther than Shepard knew. Four decades at the least, of rumors and shadows, half-remembered nightmares and unexplained mysteries. The beacon was the centerpiece. He didn't like it; he'd never wanted to believe anything less. But he knew as well as her that this battle was only the opening act.
But it would be the final if they did not succeed.
"Sir!" A young lieutenant serving as Hackett's comms officer looked up from his console. "We've picked up a transmission from the Destiny Ascension."
Hackett turned away from the port. "What is it?"
He punched a button, and the distress call filled the deck. "This is the Ascension. We are taking heavy damage. GARDIAN defenses are overwhelmed, kinetic barriers are offline."
The admiral's eyes shot to the lieutenant. "Confirm that."
"Destiny Ascension, this is Alliance Fleet, confirm identity."
"Fleet, this is the Ascension. Sending confirmation codes now. We are under attack. Our barriers are offline." Palpable relief colored the asari officer's voice. "We have the Council on board."
There was an abrupt silence in the CIC as every person turned to stare at the command center. The lieutenant licked his lips. "Ascension, say again?"
"The Council is aboard, repeat, the Council is on board."
Hackett turned towards him. "Do we still have Shepard?"
"Yes, sir." He switched the VI output to the first channel.
"I'm patched through, sir," Shepard said without preamble. "How does the sky look?"
Hackett glanced from the ladar screens to the ports, taking in the distribution of the geth fleet descending upon the Citadel ship. Most of the Citadel fleet was away, guarding relays Saren bypassed and unable to get home quickly, dispersed and disconnected as they were. The Destiny Ascension was the flagship, and the largest dreadnought in galactic space, but the geth had her positively swarmed, like wasps crawling over a picnic. Across from the ship, the Citadel continued to open, with aching slowness. The ward arms were not sufficiently separated to safely pass between. Not with thirteen million people riding them.
Hackett leaned forward. "Losses would be high, but I think we could pull off a rescue."
There was a long pause. Shepard said, "We can't afford it. I've got Sovereign sitting on my damn head. Eden Prime is a hole in the ground and it wasn't even trying. What the hell good is a Council without a galaxy?"
"You think Sovereign is that strong?"
"Yes. If we lose this, sir, it's over."
"Understood. Hackett out." He glanced at the lieutenant. "Close the channel."
He hesitated, his hand hovering over his haptic console. "Sir-"
"Sovereign is our target. Nothing else matters." Hackett nodded. "Close the channel."
/\/\/\/\/\
Shepard's hand fell from her ear. The fleet- and Hackett, and the Normandy- had greater concerns than chatting with her. She sat down on the edge of the walkway and stared up at Sovereign's legs through the tall window framing the chamber.
Alenko and Liara milled about in the garden below. From that vantage, he looked up at her, expression conflicted. "I hope you know what you're doing."
"Hardly ever." Her feet swung over the thin air, kicking under the platform in time to the pounding of her head, which had finally subsided to a dull ache. The room was spinning gently. Distantly, Shepard knew that ought to concern her, but she couldn't seem to connect it with any semblance of action. Just staying upright was hard enough.
"Everyone knows you and the Council despise each other," he replied, undaunted by her snark. "They die on your order, and everybody in this galaxy who's not human is going to blame us. And some of those who are."
"What choice did she have?" Liara cut in.
"We're saving their Citadel." Shepard looked down at him, a bit more seriously. "And we don't do curtain calls or politics. Just our job. They want to be bitter, that's their prerogative. Me, I'm happy that they'll still be around to bitch instead of husks or slaves-"
Liara shouted. "Shepard!"
"What?" Derailed, she peered into the garden.
Saren's corpse was glowing red.
As she watched, the light became lines, running over the body and tracing the nervous system and his cybernetic implants alike. Slowly, it rose several centimeters and began to tilt upright.
The hairs stood up on the back of Shepard's neck. Her fingers tightened on the pistol still in her hand. "What the hell?"
Alenko already had his rifle aimed at the apparition. Liara gathered dark energy into her hand. They both backed away, almost unconsciously, as Saren's arms and legs spread wide, drifting as though weightless.
His head snapped back. His mouth parted and loosed an unholy wail laced with electronic noise that shook the floor.
The sound so intensified the pain in Shepard's head that she nearly blacked out. Beneath her the platform groaned and began to capsize. It, too, was crawling with red light, streaming from the windows and over the entire room. The tower shivered like a twig in autumn.
It was too late for her to grab hold of anything. Instead, she slid down its length and tumbled off the end, falling gracelessly into the grass. Saren's body was rigid, every muscle strained to breaking, his face a rictus of pure unending agony. Fingers curled inward like claws. Blue fluid oozed from every joint and crease, dripping off his boots. Shepard realized abruptly that it was blood.
His illumination grew too great to look at directly. Through shielded eyes and half-glimpsed moments, she watched a figure writhe and curl upon itself, struggling, changing. After a few such glances she chose not to look any longer.
The air seemed to collapse in on him. Shepard knew that silence. She buried her face in the dirt and covered her head with her hands. "Get down-"
With a final screech of victory, most of what was left of Saren Arterius was blown off with enough force to knock her squad off their feet. The explosion ripped past Shepard, tearing her hair loose and sending shards of glass and handfuls of dirt into her face.
What was left could not be called turian. It was skeletal; bones and sinew held together by blue-lit cybernetic lines traced with husk runes. The eye sockets of its skull blazed with blue fire. And within the rib cage lay a throbbing core of sick red light, the same sort as the lightning she'd seen dancing about Sovereign that day on Eden Prime.
This figure took a cautious step, and then another. It spoke with a thunder that emanated from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It came out of the very walls. "I am Sovereign, and this station is mine."
The implants, Shepard thought, remembering Saren's alterations on Virmire. Holy hell. Sovereign wired itself directly into Saren's body.
The figure dropped to all fours, almost like a spider, and scuttled towards her with speed and coordination that defied its recent birth. Shepard scrambled to her feet, fired and ran.
/\/\/\/\/\
High overhead, the Alliance Fleet sailed into the station and surrounded Sovereign. What geth ships remained inside immediately turned their attention to the new threat, reforming their line to defend their master.
On Normandy's bridge, Joker narrowed his eyes as he prepared for his third run at the reaper. Hackett had taken Shepard's advice to heart. Wherever the carriers managed to punch a hole in the geth defenses, the Alliance hammered Sovereign with all they had. But the ship was over a kilometer long, intelligent, and shrouded in barrier technology far beyond what their heavy arms were designed to defeat. There was nothing like it in galactic space. And every time they made a pass, Sovereign's cherry-red cannon beam cut through their ranks and exacted a heavy toll.
Comm chatter grew despondent. "Sovereign's too strong! We have to pull back!"
Hackett himself seized the comm in response to that. "Negative! This is our only chance! Take that monster down!"
Joker pressed his lips together and concentrated on dodging part of a destroyed frigate. Debris clogged the field. "This isn't working."
He hadn't meant to say it loud enough for the VI to pick up. From the CIC behind him, Pressly voiced his irritation. "What else would you suggest, Flight Lieutenant?"
Internally, Joker cursed, but he straightened in his chair and cleared his throat. "We need to get those shields down. Until then, the fleet's just providing Sovereign with some target practice."
"There must be some vulnerability-"
"This isn't a movie!" Joker was exasperated. Pressly was proficient in a technical sense, coordinating the crew and providing the battery team with solid direction. But he had none of Shepard's instinct or inventiveness.
Of course, Joker had yet to see Shepard in an aerial battle either, so it was possible her limited experience in this arena would be as constrictive as Pressly's. Still, he ground his teeth. "Sir, those shields are solid as lead. I've never seen anything like it. We won't be able to take them offline by wearing them down, we aren't going to find a valid join, and the only way this is going to happen is if someone on the inside disables them."
"What are you suggesting?" Pressly was terse, and equally out of patience. "Shepard's squad board Sovereign and somehow outwit an advanced AI over control of its own internal processes?"
"I don't know!" He rubbed his face. He'd never admit it, but they were ten hours since taking the Mu Relay to Ilos and he was starting to feel it. "Something's got to give. Because this isn't working."
Pressly started to respond, but was evidently distracted. "Tali, you were given orders to stay below decks-"
"Pressly," she cut in, panting through her ventilator. "I've processed the signals coming from the tight beams linking Sovereign to the Presidium tower."
"You mean those red lines?" Pressly furrowed his brow. "What about them?"
"The signal strength just increased a thousand fold. Sovereign is dedicating a lot of processing power to keep them running- even for a ship of that size. More if you count the fact that whatever it's doing with them has obvious high priority."
"What's your point?"
"Sovereign is an AI. If we could interrupt those communications… the backlash might temporarily disable other systems."
Joker shook his head. "I'm not destroying the tower. Not with our people and god knows how many Citadel residents inside."
"Shepard's already inside," Tali said. "Maybe she can sever the connection."
Pressly jerked his head. "Do it."
Tali glanced over at Bakari. He worked the comm, then frowned. "No response." He entered a few more commands. "Nor the L.T. or T'Soni. Something's happened."
Joker got the signal for his attack run and accelerated, muttering. "This day gets better and better."
/\/\/\/\/\
Shepard pressed into a support beam just before a laser pulse from Saren/Sovereign would have fried her electronics. The last one already wiped out her shields and pistol heat sink. It wasn't any kind of weapon she'd seen before, but it was too late to worry what else Sovereign might have installed.
Bakari garbled something into her ear. There was no time to worry about that, either. Her ship was going to have to look after itself for a little while.
Across the park, Liara crouched under a bush. Thin cover, but Saren fixated on Shepard relentlessly, seeming not to care what became of her squad. Alenko disappeared into a side hall as soon as the fighting began, shooting at Saren from its protection.
A biotic strike caught the creature mid-leap and knocked it into the grass. Shepard fired before it could rise, and darted to another pillar.
Saren got his limbs back under him and sprang at wall, where he stuck like a lizard, craning his naked skull. It was difficult to say whether their assault was inflicting any damage.
Liara seemed to have similar thoughts. "This isn't working!"
Shepard rested her head against the column and tried to stop the world spinning, just for a second. All of this had to wear him out sometime. For all the cybernetics, there was still meat under there somewhere, right?
Alenko leaned out of the hall and sighted up along the wall. Saren scuttled out of the line of fire. "We have to try something else!"
Shepard was empty of ideas. Her thoughts were fuzzy at the edges. If only I could sit down for a moment…
"Look out!" Kaidan yelled.
Saren dropped down in front of her and lashed out with both skeletal arms, fingertips like claws of pointed bone. She dodged on pure muscle memory, not enough to evade him entirely, but caught the blow on her shoulder rather than her face. His fingers stuck under her armor plate.
He let out an unholy shriek and jerked hard enough to rattle her teeth, trying to break free. With a grunt Shepard pivoted and slammed him into the column, and rammed her shoulder into his sternum for good measure. She stumbled back as Saren slipped down the support.
She tried to put some distance between them while he was off balance, but the fog in her head made her slow. Saren snagged her ankle in a vise grip and she went down hard. Her fingers dug furrows into the dirt as he dragged her towards him. Shepard flailed and fought, trying to break free.
"Nathaly!"
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kaidan running across the garden, but Saren's fixed fleshless grin was only a few meters away and halfway across the garden might as well be halfway across the galaxy. HIs grip was so tight she could feel the bones grinding together. It wasn't hard to imagine it as her neck.
Desperate, she twisted onto her back and fired at his arm, past caring if the shot cleared her foot. If this thing clawed its way to any vital part of her body she was good as dead.
Several of the rounds struck her boot and were deflected by her armor, though the bruises were already forming beneath the layers of ceramic and carbon webbing. Saren- though scarcely armored at this point- seemed to shrug off every shot.
Until, finally, one lodged in Saren's elbow.
The tension on her leg evaporated. Shepard scrambled back- the lower half off his arm still clinging to her body. "The joints! It's weak at the joints!"
Her yell barely rose above Saren's piercing scream. Whether it represented agony or rage was anyone's guess. Shepard's money was on rage.
She got to her feet, stumbling once as she discovered there wasn't enough left unbroken in her ankle to bear her full weight, and cleared the hell out as best she could at a fast limp.
The Saren/Sovereign hybrid had no such mobility issues. It leapt towards the ceiling and scuttled around the periphery towards Liara.
Alenko finally caught up to her. He stared. "Holy hell."
"It's still mechanical." Reaching down, she pried the arm loose. Shepard had never felt worse in her life. She raised her gun and missed wildly. "It's a skeleton. To physically destroy it you have to hit it where it counts."
She gave him a shove. "Cover Liara."
"But-"
"Go. I've got this."
There was no time to argue. He bit his lip, clearly unhappy, and took off towards Liara. Shepard turned back to Saren, who was now crouched in a corner, singed by a biotic attack and considering his next move.
She sucked in a breath. Ok. Ok. You did this once, you can do it again.
Her tank was beyond dry, but she reached down and scraped the scum off the bottom and moved towards Saren.
Damn, but he was fast. She fumbled for her belt.
He charged her. She shot at his knee, missed, and shot again, and then a third time. He hit the ground hard.
The weight of a grenade filled her shaking hand. His good arm lunged at her. She half-fell on it, crushing the elbow with her knee, and tucked her explosive deep in the cybernetic web within his chest.
Saren surged upward, mouth snapping at her head. Shepard stumbled back, fell to the ground, and desperately scuttled away as he dragged himself over the grass. Even with only two good limbs he was faster than she would have ever believed. She dragged herself behind a column, at the utter end of strength, and tucked her head into her knees.
The grenade went off. Saren screamed one final time, abruptly silenced. Red light too bright to watch streamed over the walls in sheets and ribbons of robotic agony.
And then the whole tower seemed to slip sideways.
/\/\/\/\/\
The Normandy sped towards Sovereign.
Joker was intent upon his target. They'd picked up a pair of geth frigates on the way in and the pilot was forced into several desperate maneuvers to avoid their cannons. Accelerators driven by mass effect fields still relied on metallic ammunition; the geth's slugs sailed on ribbons on yellow, hallmarks of their velocity's origins.
Several of the other Alliance ships on his attack run were not so fortunate. Normandy was top-of-the-line, faster and better armored. They entered Sovereign's engagement zone alone.
The wasp-shaped reaper shifted its giant head, lights shining like great eyes, and unfurled its tentacle-like mouthparts. A jet of cherry red plasma shot at the heart of their ship.
Joker rolled starboard- the kind of maneuver that would shear the wings off any other frigate. The ship's frame groaned under the strain. Joker grimaced and silenced an alarm.
Pressly, who had returned to the bridge- more like Mikhailovich than he ever knew- watched the sky whirl with an expression of displeasure. "We're surrounded."
Joker jerked the ship up several meters, pressing the thrusters to their limit and narrowly avoiding a geth strike from behind. "We have to get to Sovereign."
"Negative. Call off the run and get us out of here. We can try again after we regroup-"
"How many ships did we lose getting here?" Joker's mouth settled into a determined line. "I can do this, sir."
"Flight Lieutenant, I am ordering you-"
Sovereign fired again. Normandy slammed hard to port. There was a scream from the CIC.
Pressly seized the comm. "Status!"
Bakari. "Starboard outer engine gone, sir. Debris penetrated the CIC. The emergency field sealed the gap, but Serviceman Pakti's bleeding everywhere."
"Get him down to med bay," Pressly ordered, as Joker cut fuel to the affected engine. The X.O.'s attention cut to the pilot. "Return to the fleet."
Joker stabilized the ship, glanced up at Pressly, looked back at Sovereign, and hit several switches on his console. Twin salvos from the Normandy's main battery streaked towards the reaper. "Yes, sir."
Pressly's face went purple.
The attack sailed through open space. Joker turned the ship, but his eyes were fixed on the ladar. The X.O.'s yells, the shudders of the ship, the chatter of the fleet comm faded. His entire focus was on the two small slugs, enough to mortally wound any ship in the galaxy if placed carefully, but utterly dwarfed by Sovereign's bulk.
"They're going to splash against the shields," Pressly sneered.
Joker soared over their two geth tails, disengaging them entirely, and whispered under his breath. "C'mon, baby, go!"
The Citadel tower was aft of them now, and so Joker didn't see the red light crawling up the walls, sucked up into its host with ever increasing speed. Without warning a sudden surge snapped the remainder into Sovereign. The reaper shuddered once-
Normandy's shells streaked past the shield boundary and blew a crater in the side of the ship.
Joker let out a yell. Pressly stared at the screen. "I don't believe it."
Joker threw the switch for the comm. "Normandy to fleet, Sovereign's shields are down. I repeat, the shields are down!"
Hackett spoke through a burst of static. "Form up! We're going in! Carriers, break their line! This may be the only shot we get!"
Joker took their place in the formation. Damaged or no, the fleet would need every gun it had. Pressly retreated to the CIC to coordinate and left the pilot alone with his thoughts.
His eyes narrowed at the reaper, a distant blot through the forward ports. You are mine.
"Go!" Hackett yelled.
Rivers of fighters poured from the carriers. They raced down towards the geth fleet in an unstoppable tide. Small, one-man craft were a novel concept in galactic warfare, and even the geth had no idea how to respond to the swarm of ships now stinging at their hides, selectively targeting weapons, engines, drives- anything to disable a ship.
In the chaos, the bulk of the fleet was able to slip past the geth and converge on Sovereign.
Hackett gave the order. "Fire at will! Bring that bastard down!"
The reaper was completely surrounded. The Alliance hammered it with every weapon in their arsenal. It loosened its grip on the tower, as if trying to flee, but the barrage quickly severed its segmented legs. Its hull melted beneath the assault. Slowly, unbalanced by the centripetal forces of the station it gripped, Sovereign began to fall.
/\/\/\/\/\
Shepard sprawled beneath the pillar and stared upwards at the battle, through the broken glass of the garden roof, past the mangled platform and through the tall window at the back of the chamber.
She watched Sovereign lose its grip. A single, final arc of its cherry beam cut through a swath of Alliance ships. She heard them scream over the comm.
Somewhere, grass was burning. Smoke drifted over her head. She drifted with it, disconnected from her body, every ounce of her imbued with an exhaustion so profound it made a mockery of sleep. The pain had receded. All she felt was curiously heavy, like a particularly damp fog rolling over the lawn.
Something began to obscure her view. Her brow knit. Somewhere deep inside, she roused a bit, the tattered shreds of a half-numb survival instinct trying to kick her awake.
The object grew larger. Falling towards her? Shepard blinked a few more times.
It was one of Sovereign's massive legs.
Her mouth was parched. The words were only a dry wheeze. "Run-"
A little louder. "Run!"
She threw her arm across her face. The leg crashed through the window and buried the garden in glass and steel.
