Jupiter seemed comparatively peaceful. The orbital infrastructure and the moons had been bypassed by the Reapers. The Lord of the Gods gazed across His domains serenely, and the Imperial ships might as well have been dwarfed by Sol as by a "mere" planet.

They rushed in, silhouetted against Io, making haste. The Reapers were coming for them, after all, and Tanda sent her fleet careening toward the atmosphere of Jupiter. She was looking silently from the bridge as it loomed up before her, pacing again.

"Interestingly enough one of the most famous Terran speculative fiction authors proposed that it was possible that this planet could be turned into a Star. I've been reading local human literature on recommendation."

Tali frowned, and checked her Omnitool. "...Don't you need something like... ten times the mass to start fusion?" She scratched at the side of her helmet, looking warily at the gas giant and then back at Tanda.

"Fusion is more a function of density than mass properly," Tanda answered. "It could be a star, just not for very long; if you used the right technology to compress it, ten times less mass, it would burn for a hundredth the time."

"Maybe," Tali answered. "Are you really thinking about...?"

"No, not really," Tanda shook her head.

"Reapers, coming in!" Scolus' disembodied voice from the conning bridge came through.

"Thank you, Captain. Tali, Tactical."

The Quarian brought up the system holo-projection, showing two concentrations of Reapers sweeping into Jovian orbit.

"Standing out pretty far," Tanda's eyes squinted through her visor, and she shook her head softly.

"Yes, but... they're forming up to try and pincer us again. Much more cautious this time, sure," Tali glanced over. "Orders?"

"Bring us inside the outer atmosphere. Let their pincer develop, then we let our's develop."

"Understood." Tali transmitted the orders, and... The ships moved in, radiation pressure increasing. It was on now... shuddering, starting to feel the intensity of the flux between Io and Jupiter, the magnetic field of the most powerful of Sol's planets.

"Fire at will, all ships."

Spinning, flaring around them, the drones came in against them in a series of wave attacks, sweeping across the ships at close range. The Reapers were using drones to feel out their defences, first, the main ships firing at longer range, as her fleet's guns again opened fire.

What the Reapers quickly found was that the probing worked to the advantage of Thunderflare's main guns, firing at range like they were designed to with Stalker in close support. Now they were just... Waiting. Both playing the same game, for the moment, and Tanda wondering how long the Reapers could play it, as Reapers started to show visible signs of damage from the long range exchange of fire.

"They're probing at our computers and droids..." One of the Asari EW officers turned to her.

"Thank you, Leftenant Aylinu," Tanda replied. "Take the appropriate countermeasures." Her lips curled. This could be far greater of a problem than anything else. The geth are also very not happy about it all.

At a remove, the Reapers were moving evasively, starting to close slowly as more of them gathered, Tali biting her lip inside the mask; "...They're going to try and force us into the atmosphere, Moff. They're all massing higher than we are."

"Well, let us oblige them, then! I am not afraid of the atmosphere. Begin descending into the Jovian atmosphere, at once. Let's not let them bring too much firepower to bear..." She pressed her hands to the rail. "How many of them are there, L'tenant Darkhaul?"

"Something like six hundred of the large ones... six to ten times that in smaller units, Moff Pryl... they are moving to contain us within the Jovian atmosphere."

"Signal Admiral Shala'Raan."

"I have her on the comm, Moff Pryl."

"Admiral, bring yourself in to the Jovian mass limit at high velocity and commence deceleration into the body of the Reaper force. Pin them between us and your own force before they spread out around the planet."

"Understood, Moff Pryl. We're commencing the jump to lightspeed now. All hyper capable starfighters are deployed, including your own."

"Stand by to reorient to present our batteries up, engines down, for positional sustainment in the Jovian atmosphere."

"Standing by!" Tali answered. She felt her own fingers tense. This was the moment that all of Tanda's brilliance, all of her wife's brilliance, all of their hope, would come together... They'd kept those old ships secret for a reason.

"We are coming in... Now," her godmother's voice echoed.

... The Reapers, to their credit, started trying to turn to engage those light grey doom-wedges and the accompanying Republic ships as they came out. The Harrowers were as large as any dreadnought except the Asari ones; the Republic cruisers nearly as big, and the whole sweeping phalanxes of their escorts each individually had the firepower of several Reapers despite their age and smaller size. Their sides rippling with massed fire, concentrating on a small number of Reapers to overwhelm and destroy them at once. Fourteen big ships, and a host of lesser vessels-forty ships, plus three heavily refitted native dreadnoughts. Plus three large cruisers. Plus a hundred and eighty-five refitted Quarian cruisers.

450 starfighters already in action from the moment they arrived, another six hundred launching.

The Reapers immediately came about and started firing their beams... nothing... Nothing would serve against that firepower, even when they concentrated on the Quarians, they found them ray-shielded. Then the Thunderflare and Stalker spun about and caught them between two fires with the concentrated power of their broadsides.

Reapers started to ripple and explode, and others, more dangerously, lost all power under ion cannon bombardment and immediately started to fall lower, irretrievably into the Jovian atmosphere. More Reapers were dying now than had ever died in war before, and all the Reapers knew it, too.

...And so they started climbing out of the Jovian gravity well to engage their FTL drives under that level of firepower. They were firing lighter beams at smaller vessels, using drones en masse against the fighters... and attempting to retreat as quick as they could. The ion cannon were particularly nasty. More and more of the Reapers wouldn't be retreating, but would be tumbling down into the Jovian atmosphere instead.

"Bring us out of the atmosphere in pursuit!" Tanda's voice drove like a ramrod into the crew, and rising on the shafts of power of their ion drives, they screamed back out of Jupiter, watching converging heavy turbolaser bolts longer than the Normandy interpose with a Reaper, and at once it exploded.

"We have the terror of a million generations on the run!"

-

Liara and Tasiele looked to each other. "I think that's a combat mech," Liara offered grimly.

Tasiele gestured. "...That doesn't seem like a bad guess. Is there another way to the hangar, then? If you can help me with the wounded... "

"I'm afraid not."

"Then we'll have to attack it head on. Please take care of the wounded, Liara, when I do. I'll help carry them as long as I can." She started forward, shepherding the injured scientists with her.

"Of course." Liara would offer a smile, and start helping them along... Down the corridor toward the noise of the mecha, and whatever force was waiting for them.

Then suddenly there was an attack, an attack lacking in the malign intent that should have informed Tasiele of the threat. Instead there was just a blur of motion and sound as the "good doctor" re-appeared, jumping on the group from a shadowed spot above. Her blade was out instantly, and before Tasiele could intervene, she had succeeded in killing two of the scientists with terrific slashes that tore them open before trying to hit Tasiele with the omniblade. She was really bloody fast.

...Tasiele's eyes widened in horror at her helplessness, and her lightsabre ignired to cross the omniblade, going for the attacker's wrist to severe it. The hand went tumbling away as the lightsabre struck straight through her enemy's wrist. The omniblade in turn, though, kept on travelling by its own momentum, in a combat fast enough to be between two force users, managing to slice partly through Tasiele's clothes and skin before the momentum cancelled.

Her attacker didn't bleed, she just used the opportunity to send her other hand in a motion that was literally bluringly fast to grab Tasiele's sword hand, shattering it in an iron grip. Her face as she did this to the Jedi, too fast to counter, was absolutely emotionless face. Liara was still reacting to try and tackle Dr. Core. But she was trying, at least, as Tasiele's eyes widened in pain and a sallow wash of agony washed her face as she recognized what she was fighting, at last.

"A human replica droid... Arrh!" The lightsabre crumbled away from her hand. Ow that hurt. She clapped her own hand down on the Doctor's and used the force to wrench it away from her, locking the two in a supernatural arm wrestling match. It was the most important thing she could do, pulling the hand off while she still had a wrist as opposed to pulp.

What followed was a savage attempt by the HRD to try and batter her face in with the stump of her other arm, which was sort of sparking and bleeding some kind of fluid a bit, as Liara switched to pulling out her pistol and then had to move to the side, to not shoot Tasiele... All fighting point blank, as Dr. Core and Tasiele swung and gripped each other with the force and super-strength. It was going very quickly and very awkwardly.

Tasiele let the force flow into her shattered hand. It snapped to, and with it, through it, she concentrated... levitated Core above her. The HRD struggled, but now she was kicking air, and Tasiele spun her back to face toward Liara...

An omnitool spun up, and a flash went off... but Liara still started shooting, with a flat spang-spang-spang... and had to keep shooting for most of the clip before the damned droid finally went limp. As it did, Tasiele threw Core as hard as she could into the corridor wall for good measure, a resounding and deafening metallic drumbeat rumbling down as the body fell to the deck. She watched it fall. "We'll take it with us. The memory core is probably still intact and it may contain useful information on Cerberus... I'd really like to know what's going on outside of this station." Tasiele sighed grimly, looking to the two surviving scientists, almost unable to comprehend she'd lost two of her charges so fast, so helplessly. But she could not give into rage or despair over it. There was much work to be done.

"I can attempt to contact Normandy through the shuttle's comm system once we are within remote range... still, we should hurry. Cerberus has clearly overrun this facility." Liara reached to her biotics and slung one of the remaining scientists over each shoulder.

"Yes." Tasiele was concentrating through the force to contain the pain, and with the immediate problem taken care of, reached out with her left hand and sucked her lightsabre to it. She could still fight... She hefted the body of the HRD up with the force, floating along behind them as they walked down the corridor at the limits of their exertion.

"Medigel? It will ease the pain, if not fully heal the damage. I have had many a recourse to it in my adventures thus far."

"Yes, if we can stop long enough."

"I should think it's a worthwhile investment," Liara answered, and they paused again, using up what was left on both of the scientists and on Tasiele's wrist.

They only had to cross another junction, and this one undefended at that, before the shuttle was finally in sight. So was a group of Cerberus troops along with the Atlas mech that they'd heard earlier. Tasiele ducked back, letting the HRD's body drop, as Liara crouched down and settled the scientists into cover.

"I don't think we've been spotted," Tasiele offered.

"I hope so..."

"That said, I would still say we have something of a problem on our hands, Doctor."

"I would be forced to agree with you, Lady Tasiele." She glanced out, and frowned before sliding back into cover. "Our options are poor, but they must be either drawn away or disabled to reach the shuttle safely. Suggestions?"

"If I had my wrist intact, I'd just walk out there. But I don't." She paused, and twisted her lips into a wry smile. "If I got rid of the 'mech, could you take care of the troopers?"

"Do we have a choice?" A small smile flitted onto her face as she visibly steeled herself. "It has a pilot under that canopy, if that helps."

"I've always hated playing by the rules, you know," she answered. "It does." She tossed her lightsabre to her good hand... And then Tasiele leapt out of cover, igniting the blade, and threw her lightsabre at incredible speed across the hangar bay straight into the canopy of the 'mech. It spiralled until, tumbling end over end through the air, it struck its target with unerring accuracy to go through the canopy and leave behind a rather terrible mangled and abruptly cut-off scream. With no further ado, the battle was joined.

With a whirring noise, the 'mech slumped, and there was a "Hey, what the-?!" from the officer in charge of the landing bay group. "Attackers!" They ran for cover and defensive positions... as Liara was already vaulting over the containers and charging at the troopers, biotics flaring as she did, and with that other Cerberus troopers started to fall.

Tasiele recalled her lightsabre to her left hand and prepared to defend the two scientists still alive, her eyes sharply on the fight... Dislodging objects through the force and sending them flying at troopers or falling onto them where she could.

Liara was not commando trained, but... that didn't seem to be helping her enemies by this point. Biotics able to detonate their own singularities was a... rare skill. And one that left the broken bodies of Cerberus troopers flying through the air with screams... A few of them made a dash to flank her.

Tasiele was on them, her lightsabre igniting again as a few swift strokes from her off-hand still sufficed to send the men tumbling and spinning down. Then she unleashed a cargo container, tumbling down onto the remaining Cerberus heavy weapons.

Liara was on the survivors in a heartbeat. It was over seconds later. She was bleeding from her side, and limping, but the hangar bay was clear.

Tasiele levitated the body of the android and covered the scientists on the run to the shuttle. "Come on, Liara!" ...When she got within about twenty feet of the ramp, there was a sharp pulse of DANGER, flickering through her mind and screaming through the force. Tasiele recoiled, bodily flinging the scientists back and running backwards. "Liara, no, no...!"

Five seconds later the shuttle exploded, and she turned her powers in a frantic thought into shielding the others, accepting what may. The world went black.

Slumped into a wall, she woke up a few minutes later, woozy, and hopped up on a lot of medigel plundered from the Cerberus corpses. Looking around the scorched hangar-bay in complete disarray, disorganisation, and confusion.

"We seem to have a problem... without the shuttle..." she would gasp. "...and thank you..."

The Asari was bent over her. "Lie still. You're stable, but will be needing to meet a doctor, I do think... I... hope somebody is on the way to rescue us."

But almost on cue for Liara to have said those words, the galaxy's only Imperial-painted Kodiak shuttle came floating gently into the bay.

"Thank the... wait, Tasiele, is it another trap?" She relaxed for a moment, before tensing again and looking down to the Jedi.

"I don't sense it. But let's let them come out first." They both watched... The first person down, well. That was Shepard.

Liara stood up, and while James snapped his rifle up, Shepard batted it down with a hand. "Easy, Lieutenant, she's one of us..." Shepard gave a small bittersweet smile. "Rescue already accomplished, let's get the hell out of here?"

"We did indeed manage the situation without you, Shepard," Liara answered with a smile.

"That would be good... The leaving part, I mean." Tasiele coughed from where she was on the ground. "They killed everyone but Doctors Tkele and Esparza here. And we've got the body of this Cerberus Human Replica Droid to plumb for information."

"I'm sure EDI will be pleased... all right, Doctors, come on, let's get you out of here," Shepard answered.

Ashley was heading over to one of the Cerberus corpses. "We might be able to get something about their orders off... what the hell?!" She nearly jumped back at whatever she'd found... Liara stood up to look over, and murmured; "Goddess."

"Vega, help the Doctors... helping humanity, huh?" Shepard strode forward grimly.

Liara bent down to help up Tasiele, and then she could see... the Cerberus soldier... was huskified.

Tasiele followed Liara's gaze. "Indoctrination. That's what I felt, then."

"That's more than indoctrination..." Shepard moved up and scanned. "... He's got Reaper cybernetics and nanites, for sure. ... I think we can now firmly state Cerberus is in the 'Reaper' camp, whether or not they believe it."

"A new race of Collectors-what two years ago they were fighting."

"While I'm happy to not be dead... fuckers." Shepard grumbled, glancing about. "Come on, we need to lift. Pryl's fighting the Reaper fleets right now."

They were quickly loaded into the shuttle, and climbed for orbit-docking with Normandy. Alliance crew were waiting, being slowly shaken down, with hands detailed to take the wounded to sickbay as Shepard headed back to CIC to check the situation.

In the meanwhile, the fighting had moved to Jupiter, it seemed. Shepard frowned a bit. Jupiter...? "Joker, get us underway to assist, whatever it is, and Specialist Traynor - send a message to Thunderflare, normal priority, that we're awaiting orders."

...As they approached Jupiter, they would be rewarded with one hell of a battle to watch. Shepard was watching from behind Joker, all of them with a feed were: the massive flashes and explosions... A tearing and a rending of Reapers and a fluttering horde of fighters killing each other hard-by the atmosphere of the Gas Giant, and then there was shout from Joker. Shepard saw it too, and grinned as she pressed a button; "Now hear this, now hear this, this is your Captain speaking... the Reapers are retreating from the engagement with the Imperial Grand Fleet, I say again, the Reapers are retreating."

-

Tanda watched them go, too, a savage twinge threatening within her heart. "They've been playing the bully for longer than the Gree have been sapient. This must be especially unpleasant, to finally have a real fight on their hands."

"Quite... they seem to be all out running now, Moff Pryl," Scolus answered from the conning bridge. "They're barely even shooting, and leaving their drones to make ram attacks."

"The fleet is to form up and stand by to descend into the Jovian atmosphere. Network the hyperwave sensors to monitor surrounding space for FTL activity. I don't think they're retreating from Sol so easily."

"They are coming out of FTL over Earth, Moff Pryl, and re-descending into the atmosphere with a strong orbital guard. We've cut their numbers by at least half, at best estimate."

Tanda wrung her hands and glanced to Tali before answering Scolus. "Very well, cancel orders. Maintain upper Jovian orbit. Stand by shuttles and transports. We'll arrange the evacuation of the outer system installations that haven't been attacked yet. Give me a full system scan..."

She watched the holoplots populate with the damage, and what was intact. Really, what was intact was everything except Earth, and Earth was in the process of being ruined. Distress calls came from virtually every habitat, station, platform, and ship throughout the system. They were all coming to her, and they were all asking for help. They were all asking the Empire for help.

But Tanda just looked at the Motherworld. "Prepare a plan to move into the inner system. We will engage their orbital guard, at least..." A glance back to Tali and a greedy breath of oxygen later, she softly amended: "And more importantly, arrange for the evacuation of the Lunar Domes before they can be destroyed." Slowly the desire to attack slipped away. "I want to summon evacuation ships... We should be able to get in touch with the Citadel with hyperwave transmission." They sat, and Tanda dithered through her options, none of which seemed to be good.

"Do they have a receiver for it?" Tali would ask, looking... hesitant. And will they actually help...?

"Yes, one was sent along with our ambassador. If they won't help we can at least relay to other Alliance systems... There are quite simply a large number of humans outside of the Reaper grasp in this system who will inevitably be destroyed if we are forced to retreat without evacuating them."

She turned back to pacing to mask her frustration, though it didn't, of course. "If I knew how to destroy that Reaper force on the surface without destroying the planet, we'd have an utter victory..."

"Kinetic strikes? I know one of the things the Fleet was studying was using a star to 'slingshot' dreadnought-grade mass slugs into targets..." She frowned, Tali did, looking at it. "Without the satellites, they only have old radio stations to coordinate... this is stupid, you're supposed to win once you hold the orbitals."

"The enemy isn't supposed to have landed three hundred dreadnoughts on the surface to camp under their kinetic shields," Tanda answered sardonically.

"...I suppose we can just plink at them with the fleet's ion cannon until they're forced to come up to fight. Doesn't their landed configuration in fact point their main cannon downwards?"

"I wasn't here for the landed phase of the battle, you should be able to pull the footage from the data that Bombard sent to us," Tanda answered.

"Let me check the footage... yes. The smaller ships point theirs forward, but the large vessels have their spinal cannons facing the ground. It's a ground-attack mode, it looks like..."

"They've never had to deal with this before," Gristholm remarked as he stepped over, arriving from engineering. "That much, Captain Zorah, is clear." He saluted Tanda. "M'lady."

"Is something a matter, Commander?" Tanda looked up.

"Yes it is. We should begin the evacuation first. I don't want... To lose the chance to rescue about ten million humans from the system."

Tanda and Tali shot a glance to each other, and Tanda faced her subordinate. "Commander...? That is not your decision to make."

"No, it is the Empire's. We've..."

Tanda fought down the temptation to raise her hand, a vision unbidden in her mind of strangling him forced down too. She shrugged neutrally. "It's true. We might have saved Earth if we had conquered it while we had the chance. As it is now, I don't know what will happen. I made an error, and it is one that I will work hard to rectify. We will save as many humans as we possibly can, Commander. You can inform the lower deck to that effect. This will, however, take a very long time for local resources to do it. We can help, but... where are we going to move them all?"

"Anywhere the refugee ships take them. It is our obligation to try..."

"Then we'll need the Council to assist... that is not going to be pleasant."

She watched Gristholm go and shook her head. "I'll be in my sea cabin. Keep the men at Condition One but let section leads rotate men through to pick up rations and distribute them to the rest."

"Yes, Moff Pryl."

She'd won, and she had done what they had wanted. But her authority... It stung to her that she had backed down, it went against all Imperial custom. Tanda lurched into her cabin and sat down roughly, reaching hungrily for one of her pureed food packets. She'd barely finished getting over the infections she'd gotten to her lungs from her wedding.

Someone had followed her in.

"..Tali?"

"...Yes, Tanda...?" The Quarian sounded exhausted and... still congested, too. Granted, that made her sound cuter, somehow.

Tanda reeled at the abyss, and one thing could save her. "Give me a hug."

Without hesitation, she was enfolded in a warm but not too crushing hug.

"I can't believe we just did that. Worthy of some of the greater stunts of the Clone Wars."

"Well, you'll be the one in the history books. I can at least take comfort in the galaxy probably thinking you're a Quarian after the last Asari who knew you were human dies." She giggled. "Shepard would somehow have tried to take the Reapers on foot... or crashed a Mako into them."

"We haven't won yet. I've just been punishing the Reapers for their recklessness."

"Hey, that slows them down, and you heard Liara, apparently they found something."

"Yes, well. Now we have to finish getting them off Earth after the evacuation. Somehow."

"And everywhere else. I'm sure there's tendrils smashing everywhere they can reach... But for now, you won, Tanda! And you did it the right way..."