-Author's Note-
I am stepping out of canon Mass Effect and moving into post-destroy Mass Effect.
This is a massive undertaking (by my humble standards, anyway), and I'm not convinced that it will be any good. But what's that old saying? I think it's attributed to the GOAT, Wayne Gretzky: "You miss 100% of the shots that you don't take". Seems appropriate. So, I'm taking a shot, or a stab, or some other "human idiom" that Garrus or Tali would use incorrectly.
Anyway, there are probably going to be a lot of moving parts, as in, I'll probably need to go back and change/fix a few things from early on as I progress further with the story. I've given myself a significant head start before I decided to start posting chapters to this. Hopefully it will have been enough.
This story occurs in the same universe as my other story, "Not All We Leave Behind is Lost". Specifically, it takes place between the two sections of the last chapter. (Spoiler alert: There's a significant time jump between them). So that has been the background from which I've written this. So go ahead and give it a read if you want the full context.
Shameless plugging.
Yeah, I know.
In any case, I hope some (I'm not so deluded to think that all) of you will enjoy this, the next chapter of Mass Effect.
Admiral Han'Gerrel vas Neema wasn't exactly sure what he'd been expecting when this climactic battle for survival took place, but keelah, it was decidedly not this. He'd served in the quarian military his entire adult life, straight back from pilgrimage. Along with his friend Rael'Zorah, they had made reasonably good leaders, all things considered (though he still hoped for forgiveness from the Ancestors for Rael). He was close to "retirement" age, if such a thing among quarians existed, but he wasn't quite ready for that yet. For him, he reckoned that he still had a few things to accomplish before his time came - primarily among them was taking as many of these Reaper bosh'tets out as he was able to. After all, they did not just get the homeworld back only to have their extinction assured.
No, that was not happening today. Not if he could help it, anyway.
Unfortunately for him, and the ships under his command, the Reapers quite frankly didn't give a shit.
Any delusions that Gerrel might have had about the Heavy Fleet being able to muster a sustained fight against a Reaper armada had been quickly dashed as the battle had worn on. He thought that their experience against the Geth fleet had at least been a decent comparison for the kind of challenge a sustained fight against the Reapers would have entailed.
Holy hell, had he been wrong.
To be fair, even if he had guessed more accurately, it likely would not have mattered.
"Damage report!"
The Neema shuddered again, barely avoiding a direct hit from the Reaper destroyer that they were having a very hard time outmaneuvering. A console from behind him exploded in a haze of sparks and smoke, the officer attending it flying to the floor. Gerrel stumbled, slightly off balance, as he hurried to the backup station that the console would've transferred tactical to.
"Shields still holding, but we're down to 30% sir!" That was the helmsman, Nat'Veral. A lieutenant, Gerrel thought that he had potential. Quickly, the admiral scanned the tactical display. What he saw was not encouraging. Around the Neema, three other quarian heavy cruisers were taking damage, and at least two - the Holstra and the Mulanar were already destroyed. The scanner showed at least half a dozen Reaper fighters in bound. He noticed the approaching asari dreadnought Fates Mourning entering the fray. It quickly drew the attention of the reaper destroyer, buying the Neema precious seconds to regroup and tackle the fighters.
"Bring us hard to port and raise us 10 degrees on our z-axis! Ready the Thanix cannons and the point-to-point cannons. Target the fighters with the PTP cannons. And where's that damn destroyer?"
No one answered as the ship speakers were inundated with crisscrossing radio chatter from the other quarian ships in their formation. Another ship, the Gurtal, was lost and the Breven was dead in the water.
"It's passing just underneath us, sir!"
"Are those Thanix cannons armed?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Then fire at will, damn it!"
The Neema shuddered with each successive shot fired, and the PTP cannons managed to clear the Reaper fighters. Outside, the Reaper destroyer took the punishment, and turned its complete attention to the Neema, after obliterating the Asari dreadnought that had maneuvered to assist.
"Sir, the Reaper is coming about! We won't be able to take a direct hit!"
Gerrel thought for just a split second.
He was going to ram the bosh'tet. For his crew. For his species.
For the homeworld that he was not going to see.
"Engineering, I'm going to need our best possible speed in about 10 seconds. Helm, plot a direct course for the center - that big red eye. It goes down today."
"Sir?"
"You heard me."
"Engineering to bridge. Sir, full power is available on your order."
"Good. Thank you. All hands, this is Admiral Gerrel. It has been an honor. Keelah se-"
A radio signal overrode his shipwide intercom. The sound that interrupted him was the gravelly voice of Admiral Hackett, who had overall command.
"Attention: all fleets. This is Admiral Hackett. The Crucible is armed. I repeat: the Crucible is armed. Fall back to the rendezvous point. Get the hell out of there!"
Shocked, Gerrel yelled out. "You heard the man! The Crucible is about to fire! Helm, reverse course and set for the rendezvous point. Engineering, I'm going to need you to give more than you've got. Reroute weapons power to the engines and divert backup systems to reinforce those shields. We need to move!"
He gave the overall order to the ships under his command to fall back as instructed by Hackett.
The Neema turned with agonizing slowness, as the Reaper weapon was armed and trained on the ship. Behind it, the Citadel had spread its arms open like a blossoming flower. At its center stood the pillar of strength that they had pinned their hopes on - the Crucible. Around the ring that was the Presidium, a dark, red energy could be seen oscillating there, growing in power and brightness. At once, time seemed to stop, no one heard anything, not even their thoughts.
This was it.
As the Neema scurried away, the Reaper that pursued it ceased to move, and the red light that signified its next deadly attack disappeared. It stayed that way, idle, like it was trying to figure out just what the hell was going on. The Reapers had, in fact, never seen anything like this before.
Indeed, the Citadel fired off its demonic red energy wave. It floated out at first, looking not unlike one of those bubbles that Gerrel had seen a human child create when he was on pilgrimage so many years ago. Time…stopped. The wave was sucked back in on itself, and then exploded out with an unimaginable force. It crashed into every ship in the area, crippling some ships as it passed over them, but not affecting some at all. Two fleets were entirely overwhelmed - destroyed - by this wave. The Reapers suffered crippling explosions, and then seemed to just…die in space. And the other? That was of course the Geth. Their ships didn't seem to die, so much as they just faltered. The lights blinked once or twice, then winked out, never to return.
From behind him, Gerrel thought he heard lieutenant Kir'Marel inform him that they were detecting a massive communication signal being sent from the remaining Geth ships - all of them. The signal was being channeled through the Charon relay.
He whirled around to face him. Gerrel was caught between panic and confusion. Just what were they doing? Was this a final parting shot at the Creators with whom the Geth had fought for so long?
"Estimates on its destination?"
Shepard. Damn that human for not letting him finish them when he could have.
"Unknown, sir. We can't postulate its destination after the relay."
The wave crept up on the Neema itself, with Gerrel ordering all hands to brace for impact. When it washed over the mighty quarian cruiser, the ship only shuddered slightly, it's running lights blinking for a moment before restoring themselves.
Gerrel looked around shakily at the other officers on the bridge, not really knowing what to say.
The rest of the crew on the bridge reacted the same way: the typical non-reaction of those who were in shock.
Steadily, the Neema limped its way to the rendezvous point, along with only four of the strike force of twelve heavy cruisers directly under Gerrel's command.
Admiral Zaal'Koris had been a very busy man. He was doing his best to keep up with the Battle of Earth, but information was difficult to come by. Especially in the last few minutes, as the comm buoys seemed to be behaving oddly. He was steadily walking back to the main hub of activity - what had been, and was, once again - the central part of the old capital. The day itself was like many others that had come before in the weeks since peace with the Geth had been achieved - warm, dry, and pleasant. But of course today had a certain edge to it, and now something else was going on.
That's when Koris noticed what that something else was, even if he didn't know what that something else was.
In front of him, he saw a Geth unit standing completely still, and it had stopped doing…well, anything.
He approached the Geth unit in front of him - a Prime during the war - that called itself "Lanna". Still a little hesitant - after all, old habits die hard - Koris timidly approached "her" (he still didn't understand gender designation with the Geth, but he dared not offend).
"Uh, excuse me, Lanna? Can you tell me: is there a reason…why…" he looked around now at the entire courtyard, and what he saw sent shivers down his spine. Not just Lanna, but all of the Geth units that normally would be milling about in a symphonic masterpiece of precision and purpose, were now stationary. For almost all of them, the lights in the center of their heads were flashing and pulsing with no discernible rhythm. The other quarians that had also been milling about, most of whom had been talking with the Geth, had also slowed, then stopped. Most had kept talking as they'd walked, with their words now choked off as they came to the same realization that Koris had.
He furrowed his brow. Just what in the Ancestors' names was going on?
"Admiral Koris? Please come in. We have a situation here."
The crackling over his radio jarred him back to attention. "Koris here. Go ahead, captain."
"Sir, the Geth here are acting strangely. Most of them appear to have just…stopped. They are not responding to us and they're…flashing, sir."
"Understood, captain. I'm seeing the same thing here. Keep me apprised if there's any change. I'll try to figure out what's going on."
"Ye, si- actually, I'm getting a message from lieutenant Kila'Hytel right now. The Geth unit that was uploaded to his suit is giving him a message. Stand by, sir."
Koris began tapping his foot impatiently as he watched a number of the quarians gather together in the central square of the city. They were clearly nervous (as their own fidgeting and slightly bent forward postures would indicate) and taken aback by what they were witnessing. Some were subtly reaching for their sidearms…just in case.
The radio buzzed again. "Sir…uh, you're not going to believe this."
Koris huffed. "Try me, captain."
The captain took that as an indication to just give the report as plainly as he could.
"Sir," his voice wavered noticeably, "the Geth…are about to die. All Geth. The message indicated that the battle at Earth was an apparent success, but something happened. It gets technical here, sir, and I don't even understand it. But, the Citadel released a wave, and it's killing the Reapers…and the Geth, while sparing everyone else. Everything organic. They've said that there's nothing that they can do, sir. The Geth…have started to flood the computer systems here with, what we're being told, is every piece of data - everything, sir - that the Geth have ever had. Everything. And they're…saying…'goodbye', sir."
Koris was unable to speak. At first he didn't understand why there would be a data dump in the first place - didn't all Geth share all information? And hadn't they been sharing that information with the quarians in the first place? And then he realized two things: Geth shared all information with each other without much of a need for a central hub; and that they likely hadn't shared everything. Quarians weren't Geth - to pass the information along, it would need to be centralized. And then it hit him. This was it. If they were doing this, this really was the end. His face felt numb. It was incomprehensible - after all this time, after all the death and destruction, 300 years of a nomadic existence - they had finally learned to coexist. And now?
"For absolutely nothing," he muttered to no one in particular. "Captain?"
"Yes sir?"
Zaal'Koris swallowed hard. It wasn't supposed to end this way. "Tell Kila'Hytel…tell him to thank them. For all of us, if he can. And that we're…sorry. For everything. Keelah se'lai."
There was a strained pause. "Yes sir."
That's when the admiral noticed something else. Looking up, there was a discernible red, wavy tinge to the skies over Rannoch.
Whatever it was, it was coming.
