"Look! The beam's back on!" Prangley's voice cut shrill over the silence in the wake of the Reaper ground forces' withdrawal—probably to the beam.
"Let's go!" Rodriguez screamed.
Jack knew they were shouting, but it didn't sound that way. Her ears were ringing from the noise of the last altercation. She felt as if she might never get her perception of noise to level out again.
"Go?" Prangley demanded.
"Yes, go!" Rodriguez shouted. "We're close enough to get there! We don't know if anyone else got through! We have to go!"
"What are we supposed to do when we get there?" Prangley argued. "We're not one of the teams—the assets already there will probably think we're Indoctrinated or traitors or—"
"We have to try!" Rodriguez protested. "Jack! We have to try, don't we?" Rather than angry, the girl looked simply desperate, unwilling to leave such an important matter in anyone else's hands…because there might not be any hands to leave them in.
"Eezo!" Jack hollered. Every time she lost sigh to the varren, her guts wrenched painfully; every time Eezo appeared—often with a Reaper arm or shin in his jaws, tail-stump wagging so hard his whole back end shimmied—she felt a surge of relief. It was a cycle she wished she could do without.
Eezo appeared with a bark and a whine. Something had cut into his hide, leaning a long bloody streak, but it didn't look terribly bad. It certainly wasn't causing him any more than discomfort and annoyance.
Jack turned to look at the beam. It had gone off once before, but had suddenly turned back on. No one was quite sure why or what it meant. The thing had always been ominous, but now it really looked ominous.
She shifted her regard to her kids. They'd lost a few in the hours since deploying to serve as one of the Monkey Wrench teams. She knew she would mourn them later; right now, it was easier to be mad. Mad, like the mad dog killer she'd been for so many years.
Some of the kids looked able to continue on. Some of them…they were done. If they went any further, they'd just get themselves killed. "Volunteers?" she demanded sharply.
All of them raised their hands, even the ones with nothing left. "You, you, you, and you," she pointed to four of her kids including Rodriguez. "Come with me. Prangley, get the rest back underground."
Prangley looked like he wanted to object, but wisely did not. He turned on his heel. "Alright people, you heard her! Let's get the hell out of here!"
Jack gnawed on her lip before turning back to the beam. "Come on. Let's move fast before they can turn it off again!" She took off at a jog, aware of the grinding fatigue she was just beginning to feel. They'd made the biggest noise and fuss they could; for a while, it felt like the Reapers might just overwhelm them there in the London streets. Then things seemed to start falling apart, at least on the Reapers' side. First, the big one heading off to shoot up the city; they now knew what that was about, apparently it thought it was hunting Shepard, but according to one of Shepard's squadmates it had been shooting at a red herring; the promised footage of Shepard's dead body, real or fake, hadn't turned up yet, either. Then, the beam had suddenly shut off. Then it turned on again.
If she was feeling optimistic, Jack would have suspected that someone from the Stiletto teams got up there and was causing some difficulties, which manifested as chaos. But she was too tired for optimism. Rodriguez was right: if you wanted something done right, do it yourself. So that was what they'd do.
Getting through the city was easier with all the Reapers apparently pulling towards the beam. Or maybe the Monkey Wrench teams had finally been able to wreak enough carnage on the ground units that even the Reapers were having staffing problems. She rather liked the idea, but wouldn't put a lot of hope in it.
Six blocks later, they bogged down. The ground forces seemed to have created a ring around the beam, standing in ranks, shoulder to shoulder. Suddenly, her optimistic idea about the Monkey Wrenches reaming the ground troops seemed like the laughable idiocy it was. They still had plenty of personnel.
"Looks like they can't turn it off and people are getting through," Rodriguez murmured softly. "Why else would they fortify like that?"
Jack nodded her agreement, emptying her canteen after doing so. The next words were bitter on her tongue. "We're not getting through that barricade."
Rodriguez opened her mouth to argue, then looked back at the sea of Reapers. After a moment, her shoulders drooped, and she nodded her agreement. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right."
Damn right she was right! If she, Jack, was backing down from a fight, if meant there was no winning it! She might have tried her luck with it, but only if she was alone. She had her kids to look after, and she wasn't so willing to take risks with their lives.
"Come on. Let's get back underground; see what they want us to do now," Jack said heavily, turning on her heel and making her way vaguely in the direction they'd come, until one of the others pointed out they needed to change directions to get to the nearest entrance.
"That entrance is awful close to the beam," Rodriguez said nervously, rolling her shoulders.
"Then I guess we'll just stand by and reinforce it," Jack said simply. "Make sure no one tries to surge in while everyone else is busy." It was, at least, something constructive to do.
Still, the situation gave her hope, even as tiredness began to invade her body. The Reapers having to fortify bigtime because they couldn't control the situation? That sounded really good for the home team.