Mass Effect: Event Horizon
A Mass Effect Fanfiction
By Drussius
Chapter Fifty-Four: Deployment
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Scott, Capital City of Terra Nova…
"Are you sure this will work?" Corporal Harper asked anxiously, looking down at the thirty meter drop from the exhaust port to the ground below.
Aida followed his gaze, trying to ignore the horrible stench being vented through the conduit in which they crouched from the slaughterhouse they'd just left behind. She'd been eager to breathe the fresh air upon escape, but now that she was on the threshold of freedom, she found herself simply trying not to gag. Breathing could wait a few more minutes.
"I promise," Aida nodded. "The biotic pull will more or less negate your mass. It is typically used to set enemies floating, so that they have no stability or control over their movements. I will go first to show you. Just hold on tightly, and once you feel weightless, push off toward the ground. But do not jump until I have landed and can pull you in turn," she warned.
Aida turned away from the soldier and her small charge after offering a reassuring smile to the latter. Then she swallowed, hoping that her plan did indeed work. The movements of enemies affected by a biotic pull, at least in her experience, were unpredictable at best. There was every possibility that they might actually float higher once they were free of the exhaust port, and thus have an even greater chance of death when the effect ended and they finally fell. But a thirty-meter fall from their current position – there was only sheer wall below them – would certainly result in injuries. She didn't see any other option.
A biotic orb formed in her palm, and she took firm hold of the edge of the port with her free hand, bracing her feet against the edge of the opening. She allowed the orb to burst upon herself, and at that very moment, she pushed off as hard as she could, trying to direct her path toward the ground and the building opposite. She floated downward, but much as she expected, her position in the air was erratic. She flipped end over end – slowly, of course, given the weightlessness – but it made it hard to see where she was actually going. When her head revolved around to a point where she could see the ground, she was only meters away from the remains of the building opposite the Reaper structure and still several meters up. She braced herself to bump into the wall, and when she did, she found herself floating not further toward the ground, but straight out into the air. She sighed.
At least I am unlikely to suffer serious injury from this height, she mused. And I can finally breathe…
She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and reveling in her freedom. There had been a moment, when she was caught in that cell, where she had never expected to breathe free air again. Now, floating weightlessly above the broken concrete of the street below, she felt the last of those fears melt away. With freedom in her grasp, however, she felt compelled to get back to the Alliance. If she could manage that, perhaps the humans could give her an idea of where to start searching for her friends. She had to convince the people she cared about that it was time to escape this planet. They could not continue to fight the Reapers. Doing so would only result in deaths.
The effect of the biotic pull wore off suddenly, and she fell with a small shriek, landing on her back upon the concrete. She had enough time to get her arms behind her head to keep from striking it against the ground, but the impact still knocked the wind out of her. She rolled over, trying desperately to draw a breath, and once her lungs finally started to work again, she greedily took in great gulps of air, waiting for the natural panic that came with being unable to breathe to subside.
She struggled to her feet and turned to look up at the two perched in the exhaust port high above. Harper was holding Candice firmly, and the child was perched at the edge, ready for her turn. Aida smiled up at the pair, and she prepared to hit the girl with a pull. She hoped that with Harper propelling the child in the right direction and herself waiting to catch her, the small blonde's trip would be a little smoother than her own had been. She hurled the biotic orb, and could see the girl flinch at the last second before it struck her.
As she had hoped, Candice floated down at a much better angle than her own trip had taken. Though the girl was flailing her arms wildly and screaming the whole way down, Aida smiled. She had no idea why, but she had no fear of the Reapers coming to investigate the commotion. The street was deserted, and there was no sound but the wind and the child's shrieks to hear. As soon as Candice was within arm's reach of her, she grabbed hold of her and pulled her close, waiting until the effect ended and she could once more feel the child's weight in her arms. The poor girl was shaking, but she was alive, free, and uninjured, so Aida felt the fear of the trip down was a small price to pay.
Harper's trip was more like hers had been. While she had hoped to be able to pull him to the ground and hold him there until the biotic weightlessness ended, he sailed across to the building opposite, where he got stuck in the gaping hole of a window. Aida considered him lucky at first, until she had circled to the other side of the wall and discovered that the interior of the building had entirely collapsed, leaving the man stranded three stories up, in little better shape than he had started. She cautioned him to stay there so they could repeat the process, but he tried to push off from the wall to get closer to the ground, only to sail outward in an almost perfectly horizontal line toward the Reaper structure.
Aida winced when the biotic field finally dissipated, and she watched the man fall toward the broken concrete. A biotic orb formed in her shaking hand. She tried to time her throw perfectly, and just as he was closing the last dozen meters, she hurled it toward him, subjecting him to a new pull just in time to keep him from hitting the ground with any real force. Much to her amusement, Candice was right on top of the situation; the child ran over and jumped on the marine, keeping him from floating back up into the air again. The asari hurried over to help, since she could see that the child's weight was barely enough to keep him on the ground.
"Thank you," Harper's voice was shaking.
"You are welcome," Aida smiled at him, though her whole body was trembling. It has been far too long since I have eaten, she realized. Just a few biotic pulls have exhausted me. I feel like I am about to collapse.
"I think our first priority has to be finding some weapons and food," Harper suggested while they all waited for the pull's effects to dissipate. "Then we need to get out of the city. I don't hear any signs of fighting here. The Reapers must control the entire place."
"I thought as much," Aida nodded. "The streets are deserted. The Reaper forces are probably busy elsewhere."
"Corporal Ubruscia said that the Alliance was still fighting in Dotterstown," Harper reminded her. "I suggest we head that way. We can meet up with whatever resistance forces are fighting there and get back into the war."
Aida glanced at Candice, who had been silent throughout the exchange, and saw the girl chewing on her lower lip. She could guess what the child was worried about. Taking her into a warzone seemed like an unacceptable risk. But she knew it had to be done.
"Do not worry, Candice," she smiled at the child. "The Alliance will have a base set up somewhere away from the fighting. You will be safe there with other civilians while we are busy with the Alliance soldiers."
"I know," the child nodded. "But I'm hungry."
"Me too," Aida sighed.
"Try not to think about it," Harper suggested. The biotic pull had finally worn off, and he gently pushed the child off of himself, sitting up. "There are not many edible plants on Terra Nova, but I am sure we can find something once we get out of the city. We just need to get moving."
Aida nodded, turning and looking back at the Reaper structure that had been their prison for what seemed like an eternity. She was glad to be leaving it behind. As she was looking at it, however, she saw for the first time that there was something towering above it. From their vantage, she could see only the very tip of the second structure, but it moved slightly, and when it did, several small tremors ran through the ground beneath her feet. Harper and Candice both felt the tremors and followed her gaze.
"That's a Reaper," the Alliance engineer breathed.
"I… I do not think it would consider three unarmed people a threat," Aida said softly, and some instinct told her she was correct. "Just the same, I think we should keep to the ruined buildings until we are well out of its sight."
"Agreed," Harper nodded.
Aida took Candice's hand, and together the three of them crept around into the ruined shell of the building nearest the Reaper structure. From there, they moved from building to building, climbing over piles of rubble and through gaping holes in the walls. As they traveled, Aida found herself frowning at the foolishness of fighting the Reapers. The capital city of the human colony was now a crumbling, decimated wasteland. How could anyone expect victory against such an overwhelming force?
Infirmary, Prothean Ruins…
Julisa opened her eyes slowly, staring at the stone walls and ceiling around her without moving at first. There was a throbbing ache in her chest, but the pain wasn't nearly as severe as she would have expected it to be. She vaguely recalled regaining consciousness a few times prior to this, but aside from a hazy memory of being spoon fed a few mouthfuls of food and some water, she couldn't recall much of what happened after she was shot. Given the lack of agonizing pain, she found herself wondering whether it had been weeks or months since her injury.
The memory of her struggle with the salarian loomed up from the back of her mind, and she found herself growing angry as she replayed the events in her head. She was an experienced commando, trained to anticipate and adapt to enemy tactics, and yet she'd blindly allowed the salarian's ineffectual offense and the successful blows she had delivered blind her to the truth of the situation. Some of her success had been a result of skill, of course, but he had managed to avoid almost every truly dangerous blow she had attempted to deliver. She felt certain, looking back on the whole fight now, that he had been purposely taking some of the abuse to lull her into a false sense of confidence and maneuver her to the position where he needed her. It shamed her to realize it had worked.
"You're awake," a somewhat familiar voice greeted her. The human doctor stepped into her field of view.
"I expected more pain," Julisa croaked. Her throat was dry. "How long have I been here?"
"Four days," the woman smiled at her, seating herself on the edge of the bed. In her hands, she held a container of water with a straw in it, which she guided to Julisa's lips.
The asari greedily drank the water she was offered, feeling the cool liquid soothe her throat and refresh her a bit. However, her brow furrowed at the news. She couldn't possibly have been recovering for only four days… Without pain medications, she would still have been in agony. Her wound had been serious. She must have asked the wrong question. Perhaps she had been recovering elsewhere and was moved to her current location just a few days prior.
"How long ago was I shot?" she chose a more specific question.
"Four days," the doctor repeated herself.
"Impossible…"
"Have we been without proper medical supplies for so long that you've forgotten what it's like to have them?" the doctor laughed a little, leaning over her and holding up a finger. "Follow my finger with your eyes," she instructed, and started moving it around. "Your friends brought a decent supply of proper medications with them when they arrived. With painkillers, regenerative stims and the like, you are recovering swiftly."
"But the severity of my injuries…"
"You were severely injured," The doctor nodded, her expression grave. "The round penetrated your armor at the back and passed through your upper torso. It nicked your lung and passed through a major artery. We almost lost you a couple of times. But we were able to stabilize you and give the meds a chance to begin working. You'll feel pretty lousy for a few more days."
Julisa was surprised. Her previous injuries had been recovering without the benefits of modern medication, and had seemed to linger forever. This was an entirely different situation, but not one she was going to complain about. When she was losing consciousness, she had anticipated never waking up. To wake up to such a bright prognosis was a blessing.
"What has been happening while I was incapacitated?" she asked. "Was the salarian killed? I… I remember seeing him injured."
The doctor's smile fell, and Julisa could tell from her expression that the news wasn't good. She wondered just how many other people he had been able to kill after she fell. Just as the human woman opened her mouth, however, Illitha walked into the room, distracting them both. The young engineer's expression brightened considerably when she saw that Julisa was awake.
"Captain!"
"I'll leave the two of you alone to talk," Rebecca offered, turning and heading for the door. As she passed Illitha, however, she paused and put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Just keep it brief… Spectre," the woman cautioned, and Julisa thought she heard a note of playfulness in the physician's tone.
"Spectre?" Julisa repeated once they were alone, her concerns momentarily driven from her mind by curiosity.
The younger asari looked intensely uncomfortable as she pulled a crate over next to the bed and seated herself upon it. "I-I may have inadvertently misled some people into thinking I am a... uh…"
"A Spectre?" the captain finished for her, frowning. "Illitha, you are not the type to lay claim to accomplishments that are not your own…"
"It started as a joke, Captain, I swear," the younger girl protested. "Rachel… Uh… the girl who was with me through most of the last several weeks… s-she kept jokingly calling me 'Spectre', to tease me about my… my potential, I guess."
The captain could already see where the story was headed. "Someone overheard her," she guessed.
"Y-Yes," Illitha nodded. "I told the original group the truth after a little while. Th-They did not care. But when we ran into more people, one of my new friends told them I was a Spectre, and… and… I have not been able to shake the title since."
"You could tell the truth," Julisa pointed out, shifting uncomfortably in the bed. She'd obviously been lying there for too long. Her legs were stiff and aching.
"I wanted to," Illitha said earnestly. "B-But since so many of our people joined us b-because they thought I was a Spectre…"
"Telling the truth now could drive them away," Julisa took over.
"I… I am in c-command of almost thirty men," the young engineer's head bowed, and she fidgeted uncomfortably. "A-And a few dozen civilians."
Julisa closed her eyes and shook her head. She knew that Illitha had greater potential than it had first seemed. She had seen something in the girl the first time they met, and it was that indefinable 'something' that had driven her to hire the girl as part of her crew when there were more impressive – and more experienced – candidates available. But she still had trouble picturing the shy and soft-spoken girl she knew as a woman in charge of soldiers.
"I am guessing the doctor knows the truth?" she asked, thinking about the playful note in the woman's voice when she left.
"Y-Yes," Illitha nodded. "She treated me for injuries when I was at the first Alliance base we went to, so she knew me as… me. She has chosen to keep it secret… for the sake of morale."
"There are others that know?"
Illitha nodded her head again, raising fingers as she listed the names of those who knew the truth, "Rachel, Jay, Elliot, Zaeed, Rebecca, and of course Neela and Selura…"
Two names were glaringly absent from the list. Julisa remembered the way the doctor's expression had shifted when she asked about the salarian, and the feeling of dread she'd experienced now returned full force.
"Prathus? Aida?" she watched the younger girl intently.
Illitha's expression fell, and she bowed her head. Julisa understood immediately, and closed her eyes, containing her disappointment and grief and keeping her expression neutral.
"Prathus… H-He was killed in an explosion," Illitha said softly. "S-Some kind of trap left behind by the salarians…"
"Plural?" Julisa nodded slowly. It made sense. There had been a second opponent in the corridor… the one that had taken the shot that almost killed her.
"There were three originally," Illitha explained. "W-We killed one up north, when we were trying to obtain the communications filters. T-They are all indoctrinated Reaper agents."
"And they escaped," Julisa's expression hardened. It will not happen a second time, she vowed. Our next engagement ends in your death, salarian…
"N-No one knows where Aida is," Illitha continued after a moment. "S-She was last seen before Mivian Heights was attacked. There have been no responses to any of my attempts to contact her…"
Julisa said nothing. The glimmer in the young engineer's eyes betrayed the looming tears she was somehow managing to hold in check. She knew Illitha could probably use some reassurance that her friend could still be alive, but the captain didn't want to make assurances she didn't believe. With the planet under siege and the cook on her own, it was very possible something had happened to her by now…
"C-Captain, we… I… I was really hoping you would take command… when you recover," Illitha said softly, obviously eager to change the subject. Julisa saw no need to linger over the uncertainty regarding Aida's fate, and was perfectly willing to oblige.
"And how would you explain that? The Spectre turning command over to a former commando?" Julisa asked.
"W-We could say you are a Spectre too…" Illitha's expression was full of hope.
In looking at the young engineer's face, Julisa wished she could have given her what she wanted. But there were certain lines she was not willing to cross… not anymore. She'd spent years pretending to be someone she was not so that she could infiltrate pirate bases and avenge her bondmate. When she'd returned home and found it had cost her any possibility of a relationship with her daughter, she promised herself she would never return to that life of constant deception. Smuggling might not have been an 'honest' trade, but at least she wasn't forced to live a lie. Her clients typically knew exactly what she was.
"I know a Spectre," Julisa finally said. "A real one," she tried to keep the severity from her tone and was not entirely successful. "I will not claim laurels that are not mine to boast. You allowed yourself to be cast in the role. Now you have to live with the consequences," she admonished.
"I…" Illitha stared at her, looking horribly miserable and guilty, and for a moment the former commando's heart failed her. However, the younger asari finally bowed her head. "I understand."
"I can at least advise you," Julisa offered. After all, she had no wish to see Illitha fail in her duties as a commanding officer to actual troops, nor to allow her inexperience to cost lives that could be preserved with the benefit of an experienced advisor.
"Th-Thank you, Captain…"
The smile that formed upon the engineer's lips drew a nod of satisfaction from the elder asari. She was actually curious to see what it was that had changed in the girl to allow her to take on such a role. Simply lying about being a Spectre would not have been enough to inspire troops to follow her. She had obviously done something that gave credence to her claims of Spectrehood. The captain was looking forward to seeing it for herself.
"So, fill me in on our situation," Julisa prompted, a little annoyed to once again be unaware of the current state of things. Waking from injuries was wearing upon her. She was used to being the one in possession of all the facts. "Supplies, personnel, weapons, obstacles, position…" She shifted to get more comfortable, preparing herself to learn what their assets and liabilities were.
"W-Well, Zaeed is my acting XO," Illitha began her report. "He is a career mercenary, and has a lot of skill and experience, even if he is a little bit rude sometimes…"
Prefab Interior, Dig Site Theta-129…
"Sit still…"
Though the words had been growled, Neela could hear the playful cast to them as Selura crouched in front of her, carefully affixing small sections of sculpted armoring to the exterior of her new suit. Neela had been sitting all day while the asari worked, meticulously piecing together cut-up sections of ceramic plating taken from Cerberus armor. She would test the shape against Neela's body, and then pull them away to weld them together, test them again, make any necessary alterations, then test again, and so forth.
They had taken numerous breaks, but Selura had been working for a good twelve hours altogether, and Neela was extremely uncomfortable. The source of her discomfort, however, was not the fact that she had been sitting more or less in one place for a dozen hours, or that she could see that Selura was tense and tired, or even the fact that the project was nearing completion and she was anxious to see it finished. Her discomfort came from the asari's frequent contact with her body as she worked to make sure the armoring was shaped properly to fit her.
She was still dealing with the aftereffects of her impulsive attempt to sleep with her girlfriend three days prior. Their closeness had not suffered, thankfully. In fact, after Selura had been so thoughtful and careful in her rejection, putting Neela's feelings ahead of her own obvious desires, Neela was more smitten with her than ever.
But today had been especially hard, because the feeling of Selura's hands upon her bare skin – fleeting as it had been – was indelibly etched into her memory. Every time Selura returned to fit a new piece of armoring against her body, even though she was now sealed in her new suit, she felt her pulse quicken and a rush of warmth run through her. She actually found herself wishing that this new suit had all the proper functions of a quarian enviro-suit, especially now that Selura was sculpting the chest plate for her armoring. Every time the asari returned to check the fitting of the piece, she was teased with the memory of her girlfriend's hand upon the swell of her breast…
The heat inside of her suit was becoming stifling, and she would have given almost anything at that moment for the environmental control systems her old suit had boasted. The intensity of the desire she felt had her trembling, and this time, it had nothing to do with grief or a need to escape her pain. It was made all the worse by the persistent blush upon Selura's cheeks whenever she returned to check the placement of the next piece she had to add. She knew that her girlfriend was thinking something very similar.
Neela tried to distract herself by looking at the suit as it was shaping up. Armored plating already covered her thighs, her calves and shins, her arms and forearms, and her back and shoulders. Selura had even affixed a series of overlapping plates, similar to a reptile's scales, to cover portions of her body that needed to be flexible, such as her sides and her lower back and abdomen. She had to give her girlfriend credit for her aesthetic sense too. Rather than looking like armor formed of piecemeal scraps from salvaged suits of enemy armor, the points where it was welded together were blended seamlessly. It had the sleek, sculpted, unblemished look of a professional creation. Her father might have been jealous of the results so far.
"This should do it," Selura announced, turning around and holding up the solid piece of ceramic armoring that would protect her from her collarbone to her navel.
Neela nodded and leaned back, supporting herself with her hands while the asari settled the plating against her torso, adjusting and fussing with it until it was in the perfect place, and then carefully fusing the plating to the points of contact she had incorporated into the under-weave in advance. The quarian marveled at the lack of fear she felt while Selura used an extension to her omni to spot-weld the pieces together. The welding was taking place so close to her body, with only a layer of kinetic padding and airtight weave between her skin and the heat, and yet she trusted the asari so deeply that she felt no hesitation to let her work.
"When you promised to do it, I knew you would get the suit done," Neela said softly. "But I have to admit, I didn't think it would look quite so… pretty… when it was finished."
"It had to. Nothing less than a pretty suit would do justice to such a beautiful girl," Selura commented, the casual tone of the words doing nothing to soften their sweetness.
Neela felt herself flushing again in response to the words, and had to resist the urge to fidget. Moving around while Selura was spot-welding pieces to her suit was an undeniably bad idea. Selura did her work quickly, and when she disengaged her omni-tool's welder, Neela smiled. She sat up straight, twisting her body from side to side, feeling the movement the suit allowed with the chest piece in place. It was a little heavier than a quarian enviro-suit, but the weight wasn't severe enough to hamper her, and her flexibility was unimpeded by the armoring.
"Test the shield generator," Selura instructed, standing back a few steps.
Neela activated her omni-tool and connected to the simple systems Selura had transferred to her new suit, which had been borrowed from a suit of salvaged armor. She saw the field shimmer as it appeared around her, but the shimmer persisted along her left side at about waist level, indicating a weak point in the barrier. Selura nodded and grabbed an emitter from a pile of extras she'd brought in with her, crouching at Neela's side. The quarian deactivated the field and let her girlfriend work.
"How soon do you think we'll be leaving?" Neela asked. "They started loading the shuttle hours ago."
"I expect them to come in any time now," Selura shrugged, her eyes fixed firmly upon her work as she removed the damaged emitter and worked to replace it. "It is why I have been working so hard to finish this. But you know that this is not a proper suit of armor… You really need to avoid getting hit."
Neela nodded. Though Selura had done wonderful work, there were certain things that simply were not in her capabilities. The armor did not contain breach sensors or an automatic medigel dispenser. While they could have cannibalized the components for such systems as they did everything else, Selura's lack of familiarity with them would have meant weeks of trial and error trying to install them and get them working properly. It was time they simply didn't have. It had taken the asari a great deal of time just to figure out how to transfer a shield generator over and make it work.
"I'll be fine," Neela promised. "I don't think Illitha means to put either of us in a position where we will be involved in heavy fighting. What did she call the unit to which we are assigned? Support services?"
"Something like that," Selura nodded, finally stepping back from her work and giving a nod.
At the gesture, Neela reactivated her shield emitters, and watched in satisfaction as the shimmer around her heralded the creation of the shield, after which she could see no sign of it. It seemed her shield was now stable. She deactivated it again.
"Help me up?" Neela held out an arm, and the asari was quick to slip her arm around the quarian's waist, helping her to her feet. With the brace on her ankle, Neela was capable of walking, but it was painful, and she could do little more than hobble. She preferred to keep her weight off of it. She was grateful to Selura for her occasional assistance. She reached for the crutches that one of the Alliance soldiers had cobbled together to help her maintain mobility without stressing the broken limb.
"Am I a bad person for feeling apprehensive about following Illitha into combat?" Selura suddenly asked.
Neela smiled and shook her head. The last time she'd spent any real amount of time with the engineer, she had been a shy and uncertain girl that always looked to others to take the lead, seeming content to be ignored and forgotten. She had no idea what Illitha had been through in the intervening weeks; they'd had little time to talk, even over the past five days of relative peace. But apparently something had changed drastically in her shy friend, because she had a veritable army of devoted followers now, and everyone was looking to her for leadership and guidance.
"Apparently, she has changed," was all Neela was able to say before a loud knock upon the prefab door startled them both. The door opened, and one of the human soldiers stepped inside.
"Spectre T'Zari says it's time to go," he announced. "She wants you piloting Shuttle Alpha," he added, his eyes upon Neela.
Selura glanced over at her as the man left the room, and Neela saw the corner of her lips curl upward. She knew a smart-ass comment was coming before her girlfriend said a word.
"Now I know she is not fit for command," the asari grinned. "I have been stuck in a vehicle with you at the controls. We will arrive at our destination too scrambled to walk straight."
"Shut up!" Neela punched the asari in the arm, drawing a wince out of her. "I'm an excellent pilot, and you know it!"
"I hope I am assigned to the other shuttle. I want to live to reach our destination!" Selura grinned, quickly darting out of Neela's reach so that she couldn't hit her again.
"That's a horrible thing to say to your girlfriend," Neela murmured with a playful pout. The upside to Selura's choice of a clearer visor for her helm was that she could use such expressions for emotional blackmail now.
"My girlfriend is here?" Selura looked around. "Where? I had hoped to keep you two apart for longer…"
Neela's jaw dropped, and Selura started laughing merrily in response to the look of shock upon her face. Neela took a half-hearted swing at the asari with a crutch, but Selura had wisely put additional distance between them. Still, after the improvised weapon passed, her girlfriend stepped closer, slipping an arm around Neela's waist and pulling her close. Sadly, the armor and the suit denied Neela many of the benefits of that closeness, but as she stared at the beautiful, smiling face of the asari, she couldn't dwell upon those drawbacks. She set one of her crutches aside and brought up a hand to softly caress Selura's cheek.
"All kidding aside, you are the only girl I love, Neela'Xara nar Ganaza," Selura told her, and Neela felt a small shiver of delight run through her as she gazed into the asari's eyes.
Neela couldn't find her voice to return the words, even though her heart was screaming them. In looking into her girlfriend's eyes, however, she realized that she didn't have to say them. The asari already knew.
"We should go," Selura grinned at her. "You have a shuttle full of soldiers to terrify… Uh… I mean ferry…"
Neela couldn't find it in herself to retaliate this time. She just grinned and nodded, sighing a little when the asari released her from her embrace and stepped away. She hoped that this big offensive the Alliance was planning would be enough to drive the Reapers from the planet. She was looking forward to a long and peaceful future with the asari, without the threat of annihilation to keep them apart. She reached for her crutch and followed her girlfriend from the prefab, blushing when she caught herself glancing down at the hypnotic sway of the scientist's hips as the girl walked ahead of her.
Approaching Dotterstown…
Illitha sat quietly on the bench in the shuttle, trying to ignore the fact that the eyes of almost everyone in the vehicle's interior were upon her. She was filled with nervous energy, and she wanted to fidget, or pace, or fuss with the settings on her omni-tool… anything to distract her from what was coming. But she was trying to appear calm and collected for the benefit of the people following her lead. The eyes of her captain were fastened upon her and had never once wandered away during the rather lengthy flight to this point, a fact that was only increasing her nervousness. She felt like she was being evaluated for some unknown test.
Including herself and her friends, Illitha was bringing a force of twenty-four people to assist in the big offensive, and it was her hope that their contribution would make some kind of difference in the battle. She had left Private Mills and four marines behind to secure the Prothean ruin and protect the civilians there. She'd been apprehensive about leaving such a small force, but they needed all of the fighters they could bring with them.
In her ear, the newly-installed communications equipment in her helm was broadcasting a steady stream of brief transmissions from forces in the city. She'd never been privy to such a staggering number of status updates and requests for help before, and it was a terrible distraction. She was trying to block them out, but as her attention had done a dozen times during the ride already, she once more found herself focusing on the words issuing from the earpiece.
"This is Gamma-Tango-Three… We've got a sizeable Reaper force on our right flank, headed north-northwest toward the factory zone. One-One-Four, watch your left flank."
"Mayday, mayday! This is Echo-Alpha-One-One! We're pinned down and taking heavy fire! We need immediate air support at the following coordinates…"
"Delta wing, divert immediately to sector two. We've got confirmed sightings of Oculus Drone activity over Jackson Square."
"We've got eyes on six brutes… I say again, eyes on six brutes, escorting a single Marauder into sector six. Possible priority target. I repeat: Possible priority target."
"God damn it! Reapers just tore through the barricade at Checkpoint Eight. Oculus drones demolished our artillery there. We're falling back, but we need immediate assistance! Jesus they're everywhere! We need-"
This last transmission cut off suddenly with a burst of white noise, and Illitha closed her eyes, immediately picturing the reason for such an abrupt termination of a request for help. She activated her omni-tool and shifted the active Alliance comm channels to the background, tapping into the cockpit intercom.
"Neela? Status report?"
"We're about six minutes out, Illitha," the quarian's voice answered her. "There are three Reapers in the city, and from here, it looks like there's fighting all over the place."
"They said their offensive was starting today," Detective Kilpatrick's voice joined the channel from the other shuttle. "Did we miss the start of it?"
Illitha had no idea. She realized she probably should have contacted Alliance forces in the city before now to let them know they were incoming, but she hadn't been sure what to say. She was still debating whether or not to lie to Alliance command and claim she was a Spectre. She'd never blatantly told that lie herself before, but she was afraid the people that trusted her would be taken from her command if she told the truth. While she didn't like being in command, she felt a sense of duty to the people with her. She valued the lives of every one of them and would do everything she could to keep them safe. She couldn't make the same claim of whoever might take charge of them if she relinquished her authority.
"I don't think we missed it," Neela's voice answered the Detective while Illitha was trying to decide what to say. "The Nav-Point is still live, and I'm reading an encrypted beacon pulse from that location. It hasn't moved."
"The forces in the city are undoubtedly defenders trying to hold key points," Captain Nisaria told them. "The Alliance could not withdraw everything from the city, or the Reapers might have pursued to the mustering point for the offensive. They have to keep fighting to slow the Reaper advance."
"She's right," Corporal Rivera nodded. "When you fall back, you never just abandon everything and run. You do it little by little, covering your fellow marines while you go. Blindly fleeing gets people killed."
"At least we know that Private Benner got the civilians out and made it this far," Rachel pointed out. "These transmissions seem to be clear as a bell and they're talking to each other. They obviously have the communications filters installed."
Illitha smiled at the blonde's observation. She hadn't even thought of it, but she realized now that Rachel was right. If the Alliance didn't have the filters, she assumed that communications in the city would be completely dead, as had been the case in Scott, or at least heavily scrambled.
"Spectre," Neela's voice interrupted the discussion. "Frequency 142…"
Illitha activated her omni-tool and shifted to the frequency Neela had mentioned, muting all others so that she could focus on whatever it was that she needed to hear without the distraction of dozens of other overlapping distress calls. A slightly accented voice greeted her ears when the channel was live.
"-units in the city, this is Captain Shirakawa. Be advised: Operation Clarity commences in seventeen minutes. All southern positions, fall back to the southeast and muster at the Twenty-second Artillery division. All northern positions must be held at all costs. Roving patrols and sniper units, fall back to the nearest barricade and assist in the defense. If any position is overrun, shift to your alternate assignment immediately."
"That answers that," Detective Kilpatrick chuckled. "We're just in time for the party."
"Zaeed, d-did you copy Captain Shirakawa's transmission?" Illitha asked after restoring the other Alliance channels and shifting them to the background. The mercenary was piloting the second shuttle, since they were short on trained pilots.
"Affirmative," the gravelly voice of the mercenary answered. "Sounds like a real cluster down there. But I'm amazed they've managed to hold any part of the city at all."
"They weren't blindsided by an attack that demolished their headquarters before anyone knew they were in danger," Rachel spoke up, sounding a little defensive. "We never had a chance to hold the city…"
Illitha felt some sympathy for how Rachel must have been feeling. She had been assigned to serve under a commander who, Illitha felt, was ill-suited to leading during a war. Tarrislav's decisions had been generally foolish ones in her experience, and even though there had been other men in higher positions of command in the city, as a whole, the defense of Scott had been plagued by disaster after disaster. Illitha wondered if it really would have been different if the Reapers hadn't destroyed the Alliance HQ in the city in the first seconds of their invasion. Had the Alliance still had the soldiers, weapons and vehicles stored there, would they have had a better chance?
"Mayday, mayday, can anyone hear me?" a voice from one of the channels in the background caught Illitha's attention. She tried to block out the others and pay attention while she used her omni-tool to isolate the channel in question. "My name is Maggie Hayes. I'm with an Alliance escort heading into the city, but… Reapers are attacking us. There are so many! The Alliance guys said to keep off the radio, but… Please, God, we need help! We're near a big shattered skyscraper at the south side of the city! Please help us!"
Illitha stood up from her seat, activating the small display screen next to the exterior hatch so that she could see the city outside. They were rapidly approaching their destination, and could reach the Alliance meeting point within a matter of minutes. But her heart was screaming at her to go and save the poor girl and anyone else still alive in her group.
"Illitha…" she heard the warning tone in the captain's voice, but she couldn't ignore the fact that there were people down there that needed help.
"Neela, Zaeed… Circle around a-and zero in on this point," she instructed, tracing the distress call to its source and activating a nav-point at its origin. "We are going to perform a quick rescue."
"That's a bad idea," Zaeed's voice came back. "The Alliance offensive starts in fifteen minutes. It's more important to join the offensive than save a few civilians and a handful of soldiers."
"T-This is not up for debate," Illitha frowned. "We could save some soldiers that could help in the offensive, as well as saving civilian lives."
"And if we lose half our own people in a futile rescue attempt?" the mercenary prompted.
Illitha suppressed her anger over the mercenary's cold practicality. Logically, she knew he was right. If a bunch of her people got hurt to save these people, they could lose more than they gained. But she couldn't live with the idea of passing by without trying to help. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and release her anger. "Circle around," she said calmly. "People down there need help."
The shuttle banked and began to circle, and Illitha was happy when there was no further argument from Zaeed. She grabbed hold of the bar above the shuttle door and triggered the exterior hatch. Around her, people got to their feet and gathered their gear, prepared to follow her.
For a moment as the door opened, Illitha was dizzied by the height of the view and the fact that the shuttle was moving. Her grip tightened involuntarily upon the bar. Her gaze strayed to the Reapers towering over the buildings in the distance, and she marveled at the swarm of small black dots speeding back and forth over the city while Alliance and Reaper air forces did battle. This was her first taste of a real war zone – by the time she first arrived in Scott, the city had been mostly conquered – and now that she was descending into the thick of it, she was terrified.
"Touchdown in ninety seconds," Zaeed's voice announced.
Illitha pried her attention from the aerial battle in the distance and focused upon the streets below. She could see the position where the civilians were trapped and the positions of the enemies around them perfectly. A small number of defenders had bunkered down amidst the twisted wreckage of a toppled skyscraper, and were desperately trying to hold back dozens of Reaper troops. There looked to be only a handful of defenders, and the Reapers were quickly surrounding their position.
"Zaeed, s-set your shuttle down on the roof of that building on the southwest," Illitha instructed as she surveyed the scene. She'd already come up with a simple strategy. "Charlie Squad will set up on the edge of that roof to cover us from above. Jay, focus on big threats. Brutes first, then the turian things."
"Copy that," Jay's voice answered her.
"Neela, set us down in the street to the south of the defenders. Alpha and Bravo Squads will accompany me from there. We can… uh, we will move up from the south and eliminate the Reapers between our landing zone and the survivors. Then we cover the survivors and help them withdraw into those buildings behind them. Once we are on the ground, Neela, you take the shuttle to the roof with the other one."
"Illitha," Captain Nisaria stepped close, speaking so softly that the engineer had trouble hearing her over the rush of the wind past the open hatch. "You are now in command. Your place is not in the middle of the fighting. You should be on the roof with the shuttles, so that you can oversee things from there."
"I-It is my plan," Illitha protested. "I should be the one that places myself in danger to see it done. H-How can I ask these people to carry out orders I will not perform myself?"
"You are in command now," the captain repeated. "Your job is strategy. You must trust the people under your command to execute that strategy. I will take command of the ground teams. You oversee the situation from above."
Illitha turned to stare at the elder asari, feeling conflicted over the idea. While she was technically in command, it felt wrong somehow to disobey her captain. And she knew intellectually that the elder asari was correct. If she was in charge, she should be in a position where she could see any potential complications and adjust the strategy accordingly. But the need to get out there and save people was overwhelming. She had been throwing herself into the thick of things for so long to do what she felt was right. It felt horribly wrong to stand back and watch others do it now.
"You know I am right," the captain hissed.
"C-Captain Nisaria will lead the ground team," Illitha spoke up, firmly suppressing her doubts that she was making the correct decision. "I will accompany the shuttle to the rooftop to oversee the rescue."
Illitha glanced over at Rachel, and she could see both understanding and disappointment in the blonde's eyes through her visor. She sighed. Rachel knew what she wanted, and it was obvious that the girl thought she should be following her heart this time. Still, her friend never said a word to try to dissuade her.
Illitha stepped back out of the way as the shuttle descended to the ground. When the shuttle was close enough to the street, she watched as the captain and her men and women quickly hopped out, spreading out through the street to secure the area. Once she was alone in the shuttle, she returned to her position by the door and sighed softly.
"We are clear, Neela. Take us up to the roof."
As the shuttle rose into the air and circled around toward the nearby rooftop, Illitha bowed her head. She had never liked being in command, but it was a hundred times worse to be in charge and not be in the middle of everything, where she could try to save her people if her plan went horribly wrong. More than ever, she wanted to just tell the truth about her qualifications and relinquish command to someone else. But she knew that she couldn't do that. Her people trusted her. She wouldn't betray that trust now.
Streets of Dotterstown…
Captain Nisaria activated the Prothean rifle and manifested a barrier once she was on the ground, swiftly crossing to the remains of the nearby buildings and glancing in through the windows to check for signs of hostile forces. She wasn't familiar with the humans that were following her into battle beyond their names, so she had no idea about their capabilities and general level of trustworthiness. She was forced to rely upon Illitha's judgment regarding their usefulness. Since the blonde female was the one Illitha seemed to trust most, the captain chose to place that same level of confidence in her. The blonde woman was in charge of Alpha Squad, so it made her decision simple.
"Alpha Squad, take the left side of the street. Clear the buildings and then converge on the Reapers at the south side of the survivors' position. Bravo Squad, follow me. We will clear the buildings on this side before converging."
She watched the blonde girl motion for the four men under her command to follow her, and the group disappeared into the remains of a crumbling building across the street. Julisa turned and led her men into the shell of a building on her side of the thoroughfare, moving with silence and grace over the broken terrain and rubble that littered the floor. As she moved through the building, the captain felt a tremendous sense of relief that she was fully recovered. This was the first time since waking on Terra Nova that she was able to concentrate on what needed to be done without balancing her goals against the possible toll upon her injuries.
She and the men that followed her quickly swept through the rooms in the building, making certain it was clear of Reaper forces. When they found nothing hostile in the structure, the captain led the way out through a window and into the next building along the street to continue the search. She could hear the distant sound of rifle fire and the howls of Reapers, but nothing seemed close.
"Contact!" she heard a voice announce over the comm channel.
The sounds of gunfire were muffled, and she assumed the other team had encountered Reapers in one of the buildings they were searching. She focused fully upon her surroundings. If the Reapers had taken position in the buildings on the other side, she was sure they would be found on this side as well.
"Stay sharp," she heard the squad leader, Corporal Rivera, hiss to his men.
Julisa spotted a gaping hole in the wall between two rooms ahead of her where the ceiling had collapsed. She approached cautiously, scanning the edges of the hole above for signs of a Reaper lurking on the rooftop. It seemed like the perfect place for an enemy to hide. As it turned out, she wasn't wrong, but she also didn't need to worry. There was a distant crack and a dull thud from somewhere above her, and then the bloated and misshapen body of a cannibal plummeted through the hole, hitting the ground with a soggy splat. There was a hole in its forehead.
"Good shooting, Jay," Corporal Rivera announced over the comms.
"Dumb bastard was out in the open on the roof," a human voice answered with a chuckle.
Any further conversation was stymied when a pair of husks dashed in from an adjoining room, emitting inhuman screeches as they advanced. All at once, the thunderous reverberations of assault rifle fire filled the air, combined with the hum of Julisa's particle rifle. Within moments, one husk was crumbling into white ash, and the other was lying upon the ground in a puddle of grayish goo. Julisa advanced swiftly to the doorway from which they had emerged, gesturing for the others to secure the second door leading from the room. She could feel a tremor in the floor beneath her feet, and wondered at the portent.
"Cannibals!" someone called out.
"Brute!" a second voice shouted.
"Fuck! Grenade!" a third man screamed.
Julisa heard the soft clink of the grenade as it struck the ground near her, and she turned and spotted the device. She had only seconds to clear the area, and she picked the first target she saw… a massive figure was stalking past a window nearby. She shifted the properties of her barrier in preparation for a charge and streaked out of the blast zone, colliding an instant later with the immense form in the street outside. The impact rocked the massive beast, but only barely. It recovered quickly and roared angrily, leaping toward her. She was quick to dive to the side and roll out of the way, letting the creature's massive metallic claw slam into the wall of the building. The surface cracked under the force of the blow.
Julisa trained the Prothean rifle on the beast and started firing, but the creature was covered in thick metal plating. Even when she trained the beam upon the creature's flesh, it stalked toward her without pause, shielding its head behind the metal claw that dominated its right arm. She focused her energy and hit the beast with a biotic warp, watching as the shifting mass effect field crumpled the metal armoring and caused tears to appear across its flesh. The beast barely seemed to notice. It set itself and charged toward her, swinging its claw as it barreled into range. Julisa braced herself and executed a biotic dash, passing beneath the creature's arm and skidding to a halt behind it. She turned and fired upon its unarmored back, and the Prothean rifle's beam carved a trail through the beast's flesh.
It turned and charged toward her again, but Julisa had the same thought at the same time. She executed a biotic charge, driving herself into the creature's head as it rushed toward her. The impact sent both of them reeling, and the former commando staggered backward and fell, landing gracelessly on her backside. But she didn't let the fall distract her. She fired the particle rifle at the creature's head, keeping her finger upon the trigger until the beam's power input increased. Just as the beam cut off and an alarm from her rifle sounded, the creature's head withered and melted away into ash, and its massive body keeled over. Julisa had to scramble to avoid being crushed beneath the creature's bulk.
The captain quickly got to her feet and glanced in through the window to check on the rest of the men that had been following her, but she found the entire group still standing and apparently uninjured. One man was stalking from cannibal corpse to cannibal corpse, firing a final shot into the head of each. The captain's gaze turned to the group in the street ahead. There were only a half-dozen cannibals and a few turian Reapers on the side of the survivors that faced them. It would be a simple matter for their two squads to deal with them and evacuate the survivors.
"Building's clear," the blonde's voice announced, and she saw the woman and her squad gathered just inside a doorway on the opposite side of the street.
"This one too," Corporal Rivera announced.
"Then everyone, hit the group on this side of the survivors now," Julisa instructed, bracing her feet against the ground and altering her mass for a charge.
An instant later, she was standing in the midst of the enemy forces, and a turian figure crashed face first into the slab of concrete it was using as cover, its shield shattered. Julisa focused upon building up all of the biotic energy she could, which she released in an omni-directional wave that knocked several nearby Reapers flat. She turned and took aim at a fallen Reaper, but when she squeezed the trigger, the alarm she'd heard earlier merely repeated. The fallen cannibal raised its gun arm and fired at her point blank, forcing her to dive over the concrete slab beside her to get out of the line of fire. Once she was under cover, she turned her attention to the rifle, trying to figure out how to reset it. She'd never had this problem before. But then, she'd never fired the rifle continuously until it overheated either.
The sounds of rifle fire filled the air, and over it all, she could hear the occasional crack of a sniper rifle's discharge. She finally spotted a small release button near the trigger and pressed it, and the weapon immediately released a burst of heat and steam. She saw a small red line on the side of the rifle go dark, and then slowly fill with blue light.
Must be a power indicator, she realized. But she didn't have time to dwell upon the workings of the rifle. Now that her weapon was functional once more, she needed to get back into the fight. She leapt over the concrete slab and picked a target, charging into it and sending it tumbling over the rubble.
The fighting was done within seconds. The Alliance soldiers were well-trained and efficient, and when the last of the cannibals fell, Julisa turned and scrambled over the pile of twisted steel and concrete to reach the survivors. As she neared the point where they were entrenched, she heard Illitha's voice over the comms.
"Attention defenders in the street below: Hold your fire to the south flank. Alliance and allied forces are incoming on that side. Prepare to evacuate your position."
Julisa circled around a massive chunk of the collapsed building, and found a group of several young men and women in civilian attire huddled together in a depression amidst the rubble. Around them, a handful of Alliance soldiers were firing over cover in multiple directions.
"Come on," she called to them. "We are withdrawing to the buildings behind your position. We have shuttles waiting on the roof."
"Thank god," one of the women exclaimed, and the civilians quickly did as they were told. The Alliance soldiers were slower to leave their positions, and Julisa saw several of the men in her group climb up on the rubble to join them in firing at the enemy.
"Move," she demanded. "We cannot stay here until the Reapers spread out to flank you again."
"Fall back," one of the defenders commanded.
One by one, the marines left their positions behind. Once they had all withdrawn, the men that had joined them quickly broke off their attack and joined the rest in the retreat. Julisa waited until the last of the men had passed her, and then she too withdrew, covering the group's retreat. A few cannibals appeared over the cover the marines had been using, but the Prothean rifle made quick work of them. By the time the third one fell, they had reached the building upon which the shuttles waited.
The former commando was pleased. While she hadn't been happy about Illitha's decision to divert from their destination for a rescue, it had all gone about as well as could be expected. No one had been seriously injured, and they had saved a quartet of civilians and five Alliance soldiers. She hoped that the fighting to come would go even half as well…
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Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, favorited/followed or otherwise paid any attention to this story. It really does keep me inspired to know that so many people have taken a liking to this little tale, and I'm really hoping that you'll all stick with me until the end of the ride. I promise to do my best to keep it interesting.
I don't actually have anything specific to say about this Chapter. But I'm happy with the response I got overall about the last couple, both of which I was anxious to hear thoughts about. So, I will just finish here by saying that if everything remains problem-free, my next Chapter should go up on Friday morning. Until then, I hope everyone had a great weekend, and that you all have an excellent week!
