Chapter 17
You always feel anticipation when making a drop into a hot-zone. Doesn't matter how many times you've been there and done that before, it still gets to you. Most missions, most shootouts you just laugh off and move on. You did what you had to and it happened so fast, you don't even remember all the details after it's over. Most drops are fine, but occasionally you look out at the drop and think to yourself, holy crap it looks like back in Bekke. The where and when of that mission aren't important, they differ for every soldier, but now you know you're on one of those missions and the anticipation is already setting in.
Welcoming to Benning, an Alliance colony formerly right next door to Arcturus Station. When that fell the Reapers stopped by just long enough to burn anything of strategic value before moving on to more appealing targets. While the Alliance was still coordinating its response a supposedly "rogue" Cerberus faction swooped in to take control (so-called only because the brutality of their actions against the colonists appears to have led even the Illusive Man to publicly disavow them).
In order to support the evacuation, we'd been ordered to go in and do some work in disrupting the Cerberus occupation. Lieutenant Cortez was doing his best to bring us in smoothly but the sheer amount of blind flak in the area made that impossible. Inside the shuttle, despite being strapped in as tightly as possible, the shaking was pretty intolerable. Steve is a good pilot but the Kodiak maneuvers like a brick in the wind.
I looked outside but it was too dark to see much of anything, except for the flashes of exploding shells. Turning on the night vision goggles revealed more, although none of it promising. Short bursts of hot accelerated shot blurred into trails of brilliant green light, crisscrossing each other to illuminate glimpses of the war-torn landscape.
"We need to get the shuttle on the ground before one of these shells blows us out of the sky," gasped Liara, the last vestiges of her inexperience showing in the face of the barrage.
"Negative!" Called out Garrus, the only one of us attempting to stand in this shaking nightmare. Holding onto one of the straps on the roof, he was the only one of us who seemed in his element, swaying with the turbulence rather than attempting to fight it.
"We have to wait until we're closer to the target to give this operation its best chance of success. Don't worry Liara, it's no worse than when Joker dropped us on Ilos in the Mako."
"As I recall on that occasion, I almost threw up on the Commander's lap," she replied, but there was a certain amount of jest in her tone. On the other side of the shuttle, however, Javik was less than happy.
"If I die because of the design of this primitive shuttle, rest assured I will return to haunt you all in the afterlife," he muttered loudly. As always though, no matter how bad the situation got, he always kept at least one eye fixed on me at all times. I don't think his suspicion of me is going to fade any time soon.
"Two minutes!"
The call came out from Cortez but I didn't waste a second of my time acknowledging him. My entire focus was on the landing in two minutes and the hell I would be charging out into a few seconds later. I'd done this a hundred times. Only a dozen of those were in combat zones like this but the drill was the same, final gear check and then stand ready to deploy. Assault rifle, pistol, combat knife, thermal clips, radio, check, check, check, check, check. Omnitool diagnostics all showing green and combat programs already loaded and ready to be deployed.
When Garrus gave the order we were on the ground and running before the shuttle even managed to touchdown. I was on the left flank, followed by T'Soni and Javik, skirting round toward a ruined building that looked like decent cover. The fighting was even heavier down here, the fire seemed to come from every direction and the sound of grenades thundered in our ears. We ducked down as low as possible, pressed against the exposed foundations of the building. As soon as I was satisfied that we had a (somewhat) secure location I radioed Garrus.
"Shockwave, disembarked and ready for orders, sir," I reported, referring to the name of my unit. "Intel suggests our best route is behind that line of houses and through the old prefab factory, but we need to get clear of this hot-zone first."
"Understood, the thirty-sixth battalion's distraction should begin shortly. Soon as we hear the explosions, we'll start to push through. Let Vanguard take point for now. We'll let you know when it's time for the heavy guns. Shadow team, hold position until we've cleared a path through the immediate area and then proceed to your objective."
"Understood sir," Jackson's voice was strained on that last word. I still debated the wisdom of bringing him along but he was one of the few people we had left with both the skill set and the command experience necessary to pull this thing off. Even with two crews this operation was stretching the number of specialists we had available.
Moments later the darkness was cut though by illuminating flashes of the shells launched by the 36th's attack. Garrus' Vanguard team moved forward first, into the thick fog, left by the sheer number of smoke grenades the enemy had deployed in the area. As they disappeared from view entirely, Liara tapped me on the shoulder and after a moment's consideration, I replied with a single curt nod. As one unit we stood up and followed them into the grey-white blanket.
But once inside the fog visibility dropped so dramatically that we lost all sight of the battlefield. Even the night vision was useless, the thick smog apparently having been laced with something that rendered the equipment useless. Cursing with frustration, I checked my omnitool tracker to confirm the team was still moving, roughly eighty feet ahead of us but it was impossible to know what kind of resistance they were up against.
Faced with a complete unknown I decided that we should take our approach slowly, in single file. Each squad member would hold onto the belt of the person in front to ensure no one became separated. That worked for a while, allowing us to follow a path cleared for us by Vanguard, until we stumbled across a pair of shielded Centurions, that were likely just as surprised to see us as we were to see them.
We reacted as quickly as we could, diving into hand to hand combat, as we knew our biotics would be useless against their shields. A brief skirmish ensued, in which I learned one important detail, Javik was not someone I ever, ever wanted to get into a fight with if I could help it. Both enemy soldiers were dispatched with ruthless efficiency, though we did almost lose Liara in the fog.
We pressed on, with encounters with the enemy infrequent but presenting a greater risk than usual. For the most part, our superior training gave us the edge but luck played a part as well. At one point we almost ran into an entire column of enemy troops heading for the front until Javik pulled us out of their path at the last second. But for the acuity of his four-eyed vision, we would have been killed or captured for sure.
It wasn't until we had cleared the fog that we were able to speed up enough to catch up with Vanguard and compare notes. Though Garrus wasn't best pleased.
"What're you doing here Lawson? My orders were for Shockwave to hold back and watch our six," he complained.
"In that?" I asked, jerking a thumb back towards the cloud we'd just come through.
"Damnit, point taken. You'll just have to stay close and follow our lead for now," replied, turning back towards the objective.
If he hadn't done so, he would be an ex-Turian right now. The sniper's bullet missed his head by less than a quarter of an inch. The rest of us scattered into cover the moment it happened, combat instincts kicking in faster than rational thought.
"I see them," Javik called out once we were all secure in temporary safety.
"Two primitives at the top of the tower to the west of here. I can't get the right angle to see what they're up to."
I glanced upwards, in the direction indicated.
"He's right, two snipers on the roof. They're spread out so don't try to-"
Too late, I heard the shot go off before I could say another word.
"Is everyone alright?" Garrus was angry and snappish now, he knew all too well what it was like losing members of his team.
"Yeah sorry, my bad. I was just trying to see if I could get a clean shot on one of them. Just knocked out my shields though, I'm good to go."
"Stay down for now Vega. It could be tight but we'll find a way out of this before the next patrol comes by."
"You should hurry. Cerberus protocols for a base of this size mandate patrols should recirculate every half hour. Based on the surveillance feeds from the Normandy the last patrol came by approximately 22 minutes ago."
"Understood EDI, maybe I can use my-" Liara began saying before I interrupted her.
"Sniper one is packed up and moving to a secondary position."
"Can I get a clean shot?"
"Ye- No wait, hold on a sec."
"Miranda-"
"Her route is going to take her across the path of the second sniper. Are you ready?"
As if I even needed to ask.
"Tell me when," he replied, his voice grim.
"Wait for it... Now."
One shot, two snipers, no mistakes. That's the thing about Garrus Vakarian. When it comes to long-range combat he wrote the book. No one else could do what he does, not even Commander Shepard.
"OK then, let's go prepare a little surprise for that patrol."
Dealing with the patrol wasn't an issue once we had an ambush in place, but from here on in our situation would only get more precarious. Moving rapidly we pushed forward through the ruins until we came within sight of our real target.
Even from a distance, it was ugly and imposing, but more importantly, utterly formidable. A giant squat building, like someone had just taken a house brick and plonked it down in the middle of a model city. Towering above all the other structures in the city, it bore no features on its exterior save for windows, but of these there were hundreds. All perfectly uniform squares cut into the stone, the rows each densely packed and going up seemingly forever.
Thanks to Cerberus, each window now boasted an automated turret, all of them networked together to coordinate the defense for maximum efficiency. They had enough firepower up there to wipe out an entire battalion in seconds if it foolishly strayed into range. And there was little hope of avoiding either. Up above us huge floodlights, slowly tracked across the wide empty fields outside the compound, searching for any signs of aggression. It was a fortress.
"Holy hell," exclaimed Vega in a low whisper as we all did our best to keep ourselves out of sight.
"Look at the size of that place."
"Are you sure we're not taking on more than we can handle here Garrus?"
"EDI will get the job done. All we need to do is keep these guys busy long enough for her to do it."
Did he just say 'all'?
"I believe this is one of our most foolish plans to date. We should not be trusting a machine with our lives."
"I am still on comms Javik."
"I am aware of this, machine."
"Settle down," Garrus ordered, sounding exasperated.
"No more discussion until the infiltration team is ready."
"Actually, I was breaking radio silence to inform you that we have reached the designated position."
"Acknowledged. Mark the target on the nav point for Shockwave"
A couple of seconds later my HUD flashed to indicate the location of the compound's main generator.
This was it then, the moment that Shockwave had spent most of the last two days practicing for. The concept was to create a so-called "biotic artillery strike" by using multiple biotic individuals in tandem. When it had been attempted by the Alliance's newest biotic division they suggested that it required at least half a dozen to make it work properly. We were about to attempt it with three. Granted we were stronger than your average biotics but even so, this was still the part of the plan that I didn't really trust.
The real struggle, I realized as we made our first attempt, was trying to combine our efforts properly to create a single coordinated attack. We each flared hard, rapidly building power but before we could strike Liara shook her head, indicating that we should abandon the attempt. As we wound back down I was forced to acknowledge she had been right; we weren't in sync enough.
For the second attempt, we took things a little more slowly, focused on each other to achieve a more consistent power build. As the power combined I felt myself shiver slightly in anticipation. As unlikely as it was, a slip here would unleash enough force to knock us all down. But everything went well at first and the shot flew straight and true, striking the target as intended. As the generator was hit the floodlights flickered and... went back to normal, clearly it had survived our attack.
But we needed those lights gone and we were running out of time now that we had alerted Cerberus to our location. Desperately, team Shockwave tried to create another biotic attack; our panic lending focus to our efforts as we tried to go faster than before. The speed almost made us lose our coordination again but thankfully we managed to compensate and hurl as much power as we could manage towards the target, fearful of underdoing it again.
This time the strike was effective, not that there was much time for relief. Even in the dark, the enemy had a pretty good idea of where the shots were coming from by now. I was dazed and confused from the biotic exertion, but now that we had kicked the hornet's nest there was no time to rest or think. Within seconds the enemy was firing on our position, the shots coming at us from so many different vectors it was impossible to tell how many attackers there were.
Acting on instinct I did my best to raise a barrier and return fire but the effort was draining my remaining strength. Most of my teammates stayed as low as possible, returning fire where they could while the enemy weapons ripped the buildings around us to shreds. As I saw their forces surge forward I asked myself why I had ever allowed Garrus to talk me into this. We were the legends of the Normandy, but this time I thought we might just have bitten off more than we could handle.
We fled into a basement to escape their heavy weapons but we knew they would come after us and they certainly didn't disappoint. An explosion collapsed a portion of the ceiling and filled the air with dust. For a worrying moment, I thought they might just flatten us from above, until Liara and Javik shored up the area above us with a barrier. That gave them a brief pause, dug in as we were, they didn't relish the idea of flushing us out of our hole.
I heard them calling for more reinforcements on the radio but it wasn't long before they started dropping assault troopers on our heads to wear us down. The first two waves weren't too bad, fodder sent in to sap our spirit and deplete our supply of thermal clips. We did our best to hold whatever we could in reserve but there was a limit to how much we could afford to hold back. The attackers certainly didn't show any such restraint, they were more implanted drones, happy to throw their lives away to further the Illusive Man's cause.
But as the last of them fell to our weapons we noticed bright light pouring through the gaps in the ceiling. They had restored power to the floodlights and presumably, the rest of the base.
"Crap, I thought they'd have more time," Vega swore.
"Just keep fighting. Shadow can take care of itself," Garrus grimly replied.
The third wave caught us off guard. Instead of fodder they suddenly started sending out their elite soldiers to wipe us out. The group was lead by more of the Phantoms I had seen before, only this time I would have to actually face them in battle. Their fighting style was different than I would have expected, instead of guns they each carried a short sword as their main weapon. I'm sure the others must have found it bizarre, but it told me one thing: these killers had been trained by Kai Leng, Cerberus' top assassin.
There was no time to worry about that now though. As soon as the Phantoms dropped down on us they activated their personal cloaks allowing them to all but disappear from view (there would have been no point cloaking before they descended, the cloaks don't last long and the moment would still have caught our attention). Fortunately, the advanced eyesight of both myself and Javik allowed us to easily keep sight of them through the cloak.
The Prothean focused on the group on the right, using his biotics and his beam weapon to keep them on the defensive while I tackled those on the left. I lunged forward blindly in my first attack, watching the Phantoms dart aside with ease, confident in their invisibility. Confident that is until I grabbed the nearest one and introduced her to the wall at some speed. As she collapsed to the floor I seized her sword and made quick work of two of her sisters. But it didn't take long for the Phantoms to realize I could see them and while I still saw their reflexes as comparatively clumsy, they were fast and together they could keep me on the defensive.
Then came the moment we had been waiting for. Bursts of gunfire coming from the compound, fired from more turrets than any human could ever hope of keeping track of. But the person controlling them now, the person I hoped was controlling them now wasn't in the least bit human, and EDI had no reason to hold back against these human drones.
That's what we had thrown ourselves into the fire for. A gamble that Cerberus would be so keen on killing us that the infiltration team could sneak into the base unnoticed and allow EDI to co-opt the ridiculously over the top number of automated defenses they had in place to defend the base. Now their soldiers were being slaughtered in droves and it felt good.
Afterwards not so much though. The doubts started to settle on me while we waited inside the warehouse for the 36th to finish routing the rest of the Cerberus forces in the region. As I examined the fruits of our labor I couldn't help feeling...
"I think there's a human expression, um 'Dollar for your thoughts'?"
I turned round to see Garrus had left the supplies coordination to EDI and Cortez (who for some reason was the Normandy's procurement officer on top of being its shuttle pilot).
"It's 'penny for your thoughts' Garrus," I sighed.
"Right. And?"
I sighed again, deeper this time as I released some of the stress of the battle we had just been through.
"I understand how important this victory is for the Alliance. The automated granaries have been filling warehouses like this one to the brim, ever since the Reapers brief flyby drove most of the civilian population away. There's enough food on this planet to feed the Citadel and the fleets for another month at least."
"But none of that gets us any closer to finding your sister," Garrus said, finishing the sentence for me like he could read my thoughts. I looked up at him.
"I feel selfish worrying about one person while the fate of the whole galaxy is at stake."
"We've all got family we're worried about. If Sheppard were here I think he'd say that was the point, the people we're fighting for."
"And who is that for you?"
"I have a sister to worry about as well. Father too actually and they're both still on Palaven. Or at least at least, as far as I know that's where they are. Haven't heard from either of them since the beginning of the war."
Palaven was Reaper occupied territory now, almost as bad as Earth.
"I'm sorry I didn't realize," I said, my response not sounding nearly as sympathetic as I would have liked.
"Leaving the Trebia system on the Normandy was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. But I did it because winning this war is the only hope I've got of ever seeing them again. Fortunately for you, getting Oriana back might not be quite so much of a challenge."
"You've found a lead?"
"That Colonel of yours just made contact to let me he might have something for us when we get back. Apparently Cordanoy talked."
Finally.