Author's Note: Just be aware, the timeline is rewinding a little from Hammer One's assault on the beam.

-J-

Kolyat yelped as the salarian-Reaper-jumper-thing slammed into him. He hit a wall and the thing used him like a springboard, only to follow up with another pounce as he rolled away from the wall.

"Kolyat!" Siu's voice was close, followed by a grunt and an extremely close shot from a pistol.

The salarian-thing collapsed on top of Kolyat, only to be pulled away by Siu, who proceeded to unload several more rounds into it to make sure it wouldn't get up again.

Kolyat gave himself a shake, which made him dizzy. Apparently, Siu had come up behind the thing, grabbed it by its head-horn, and blown its brains out.

"You okay?" Siu demanded harshly.

"Fine," Kolyat answered, using the wall to lever himself to standing, praying the thing hadn't broken any of his bones. When he got fully to his feet he decided that he hurt, but he didn't think he was badly injured.

"Sir! We're okay!" Siu announced over the helmet radios—the only possibly secure channels available, because they were so easy to overlook and had limited range.

There was nothing for a few moments, then Van broke in. "Good lads. Where are you?"

"Uh…" Siu looked around. They could hear gunfire, but it came from multiple directions. "In relation to you, uh… I'm not really sure…"

"We can't stop!" Sheffler's voice broke in, sounding wrenched. "You're on your own. Make for the beam, it's the one thing you can't miss; maybe we'll be able to join back up. If you can't…make some trouble for someone!" His voice betrayed how much he didn't want the team split up, but how necessary it was that the bulk of the team press on. "Or just bunker down—how bad is Krios?"

"I'm fine," Kolyat grated out. "Bumps and bruises." He felt like he'd been hit by a truck. Thank goodness for armor and helmets!

"We'll be fine," Siu said, voice higher pitched than normal. "We'll-we'll catch you up! Like you said, no one can miss the beam!"

"Be careful," Van intoned.

The others also took a moment to say goodbye, in case their two comrades didn't actually make it. It was a sobering thought.

"Are you okay?" Siu asked nervously.

"Yeah, but I'm gonna bruise like ripe fruit," Kolyat announced, taking a few steps forward to prove it. "Frikkin' sky-shrapnel," he muttered.

It was because of falling hardware that the team had had to break up in the first place; then, just as they had, the unit of Reapers apparently following them had attacked, further wedging the unit apart.

"Tell me about it," Siu growled, turning to find where the beam was. "There we go." The two young men began to trudge forward, hugging close to buildings to avoid being seen from the air, ears pricked for any hint of more Reaper ground troops.

Kolyat kept hoping that, with each block they cleared, he'd see a flicker of motion, something to indicate one of the others. But there was nothing. He didn't understand how they could have been wedged so far apart in so little time…but apparently it was not only possible, it had happened.

There was still time though, time to find the others and reunite before trying to make the beam. Everyone knew, from Hackett's general announcement, that Hammer One had failed. That is to say, they had folded like they were supposed to and the only distractions left were the ones contrived by the Wrench teams.

He hoped Shepard was okay, but part of him suspected she wasn't. The plan had been too damn risky to begin with, too desperate, and she was the sort who saw things through.

As he and Siu picked their path forward, still devoid of teammates, he offered Shepard up to Kalahira and Amonkira—the one in case she was dead, the other in case she wasn't. It was the most constructive thing he could do for her, and he knew she would appreciate the thought.

"Hey, Kolyat?" Siu asked after a few more silent blocks.

"Yeah?"

"…what if we do make the beam?"

He knew what Siu was really asking: what if it's just us that make the beam? "Then we do what we can once we get there. We've got an asset on the Citadel, remember?" That was all anyone knew, that there was an asset on the Citadel, and that asset would take the Stiletto teams in hand. He didn't know how widely this asset's existence had been circulated, but he suspected just to the Stiletto teams, because they would need to know.

Siu nodded. "Yeah, there is that," he agreed.

"Come on. You're the best tech I know, and I'm the one with the sneaky feet," Kolyat pointed out. "It'll be fine, even if it's just us. And it won't be." He hoped he was telling the truth. Surely, out of four teams the enemy shouldn't know where there…

…unless the units that had been dispatched so far reported a bunch of Alliance personnel sneaking around. Kolyat didn't know how intel worked with Reapers. Surely, though…the big Reaper that had been guarding the beam had headed out, gone off to shoot randomly at a section of the city. Surely, that meant they didn't know there were other teams out there.

Though why the thing was randomly shooting at the city was beyond him. It didn't make sense, and whatever else he knew about the Reapers, there usually seemed to be a kind of logic to the things they did, though not necessarily for the reasons why they did them. Then again, he doubted there was a good enough reason to go around destroying organic life like they did.

"At least that big Reaper's gone…even if they have a smaller one there to keep an eye on things, it wouldn't be hard to get past. Remember that story about Shepard and her team on Tuchanka? Thing was trying to step on them and it didn't work," Siu observed optimistically.