The sixth chapter is here, and hopefully y'all will enjoy it.
"Get the munitions door open, Tali! I want those guns down now!" Shepard fired a few bursts from his rifle as he stood in front of Tali, taking a few rounds to the shield as he covered her. It was just her, Garrus, and Mathias- one of the marines had been hit by a concussive round and then shot in the chest on his way down, the other was hit by a grenade fired from the launcher of a trigger-happy Cerberus mercenary.
"I'm going as quickly as I can, Mathias, but it'll be another minute! Just hold out," the Quarian responded. She was tapping away at her omni-tool as quickly as her three-fingered hand would let her. While Cerberus's lesser troops were green, their technology was amazing compared to what she was used to going through, and so it would take a few extra moments for her to break through their locked doors.
"Shepard, I'm out of thermal clips! Toss me one!" Garrus yelled, sliding the last of his clips into his rifle and taking the head off of a Cerberus marine. The anthropocentric organization's first cruiser had run out of cannon-fodder to send their way and they were now facing off against the marines on-board, a step up from the mercenaries they had been facing. They even had shields and medium armor, something that made killing them much harder.
"Last magazine; make every shot count," Mathias shouted back, firing one last burst before reaching to his bandoleer and tugging off a thermal clip, tossing it to Garrus, who released his own empty clip and slammed the last one into its slot, firing another shot as a marine peaked from cover. The man's shield absorbed the shot and he leaned out of the doorway to light up the hallway with tracers as he held down the trigger of his assault rifle for a long burst.
His shoulder twisted to the left and then his chest emptied as the first round of a burst from Shepard's rifle finished his shields and the last two ripped through his armor without effort. The Commander ejected his magazine and put his rifle on his back, reaching to his hip for his pistol and raising it to pin a sergeant to his cover. Just as the last round from his pistol cleared the barrel, the gunnery doors slid open with the sound of hydraulics and Tali urgently tapped his back with her hand.
"The door is open, get in so I can close it!" her desperate voice called out. He moved to the other side of the hallway and tapped Garrus on the shoulder to let him know that they were moving, took his shotgun off of his waist, and popped through the door gun first, Garrus following behind him and finishing off his thermal clip by shooting the same sergeant they had pinned down earlier in the sternum, watching the man crumple onto the ground.
Mathias's gun was pushed down by an unarmed man with gunnery sergeant chevrons & rockers, then his head tilted back and the front of his helmet made a metallic sound as the enemy who had caught him by surprise punched it in the visor. He recovered and raised his gun back up in time to watch the man cradle his broken wrist, the result of slamming his fist into a reinforced plate of armor. When he realized the error of his ways, the sergeant reached for his pistol with his left hand, but stopped when two of his ribs were broken by the butt of Shepard's shotgun.
Commander Shepard looked around the first gunnery deck of the ship, one of the three on port side, and noticed that the gunnery sergeant was the only one that was armed, the rest standing at their posts with whatever they were doing when he entered dropped as soon as they saw him knock down their NCO with his gun. He registered the sight of Garrus on his right, rifle pointed at the door, then walked over to the gunnery sergeant and put his foot on the man's chest, aiming his shotgun down at the man. He shrugged his shoulders up and ducked his head a slight when a shot pinged off of the doorway just a few feet away.
"Close that door, Tali! You, fucker, you'd best think long and hard about your next few words. What type of round are you firing at the Quarian Migrant Fleet?" he asked at gunpoint.
"Go to hell, you goddamned suit-rat fucker," the man spat out. Shepard looked at the man in surprise, a bit alarmed that he seemed to know about the relationship he had with his Quarian crewmate. The man had obviously been in Cerberus a while with those viewpoints, or perhaps a hardline supporter of Terra Firma before joining the organization. The sound of the door sliding and locking shut behind him cut the Spectre off from his next reply and he couldn't help but grin grimly down at the man.
"Wrong answer. Hey, Garrus, I hear you like target practice. What's say I drag this guy to the other side of the deck and we'll see how many shots you can put into him before he dies?" the N7 threatened, and the sergeant cringed into the ground as the commander dug his boot into his chest.
"Sounds like fun. I've always wanted to see how quickly I could fire this thing," the Turian responded.
"Okay, okay! Just don't let your pet dino shoot me and I'll talk," he wisely decided, taking in a deep breath when his ribs were relieved of the pressure of Mathias's armored boots, "We're loading in APTD ammunition- armor piercing, timed detonation. They shoot off into space about twice as quick as most other rounds and hit ships about twice as hard. If they get wedged in a ship, they explode after a while. Things go off with about the strength of a small nuke if you get 'em to hit the right spot on the larger ships."
"You bosh'tets! You're hitting civilian ships with massive ordinance rounds!? They don't even stand a chance against rounds like that!" Tali's voice interrupted anything Garrus or Mathias had to say, and the Spectre put a hand on her shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze and then looking back down at the man.
"Cerberus aren't equipping their men with top-notch gear. I know The Illusive Man can afford the highest ranking armors and shields. Why are all of your men cannon-fodder?" he inquired.
"Heh, he-heh... What, you thought The Ill-" he was cut off by his own coughing as he sputtered some blood onto the deck of the ship, "Euch... You thought The Illusive Man didn't know that you were coming? We all knew we were heading into a possible Commander Shepard situation. Damned officers wouldn't shut up about it. Guess that's why the NCO's should really be the ones who give the orders. Never would have sent my men into something like this without proper gear," he finished.
"Do you know what The Illusive Man has planned for my crew?" Shepard asked.
"Look, y'damned bastard, I'm just the fucking gunnery chief. You want answers, you have to get to the man in charge. He's not even on this ship, so good luck getting there," the NCO coughed again, struggling to keep his head off of the deck.
"Who is in charge then?" Garrus spoke up from the side, dusting off his sniper rifle and looking around for thermal clips absently.
"Some viking named Yorrich. He's a right ugly one, that one, and fucking mean. Won't let you get to him, though. We had plans to retreat if you even got close to the dreadnought," the sergeant replied, obviously not fond of the admiral, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go lean up against a wall somewhere and wait to drown in my own blood."
Mathias blinked at the blunt statement by the man who was dying from internal bleeding. Medi-gel definitely wasn't going to help someone who had internal bleeding, and Shepard wasn't entirely keen on helping the enemy anyway. Still, the guy had given them information. It was a moot point to think about it, though.
"What do we do now, Shepard? We're only about halfway through the ship and the bridge is a long way away," Garrus asked.
"Yes, I don't think we'll be able to charge up the hallways like we have been so far. There's not much cover either way. We can't just sprint through the enemy and hit the bridge like in a Volus transport," Tali said.
Mathias thought about what to do for a moment, scanning the gunnery deck for a moment and letting his eyes rest on the ports for the massive port-side guns. He looked for the munitions and spotted the rounds to be fired through the gun no more than half the deck over. An idea formed in his head and he smiled a charmingly sinister smile. Turning to the gunnery crew, he raised his shotgun into the air and fired a round into the ceiling of the deck.
"Alright, listen up! As of right now, I'm your new commanding officer. This shotgun is my XO. If you disobey my orders, I'll introduce you to the XO formally. Load those guns up with those armor piercing rounds and let's have them pointed at the next cruiser in line. Where's the viewport on this deck?" he asked. The new gunnery chief, the corporal that had just been field-promoted to gunnery sergeant, pointed to the viewport with a shaky finger. It was up a short ladder leading into what looked to be a small recreational room. It was where the gunnery crew would rest when not on duty.
"Shepard, you're either a genius or a madman. Those rounds will pass through those cruisers like nothing, but what about the dreadnought? Won't we be open to fire by the rest of the fleet?" Garrus questioned, watching as the rest of the crew made sure the guns were loaded, most deciding that whatever their pay was was not worth their lives.
"The Illusive Man knew that I would possibly appear here. He either really wants me dead, or he wants me alive for some reason. When Joker came over the comms to tell us that there was a clone of the Normandy out there, I gave it some thought. He wouldn't need to lure me away from my mission to kill me, and my location isn't necessarily ever a secret. If he wanted me dead, he would have just attacked the Nelson alone. Instead, he went through the trouble of luring us out by attacking the Quarians. It's harder to capture something than to kill it, and so that level of difficulty indicates that he didn't want me dead. TIM needs me alive for some reason, and I intend to find out what that reason is," Shepard replied, grabbing onto the ladder and climbing up to the viewport.
In the gunnery lounge, he found an intercom leading to the gunnery deck beside the doorway, most likely to communicate between rooms without moving back and forth. From the viewport, he was able to see the next cruiser in the formation, a heavy cruiser of the same design as the Systems Alliance. Its shields would most likely be of a heightened strength in comparison to the Alliance's, but at this range, it would hardly matter to the APTD rounds. The rounds would hopefully pass through the first ship and quite possibly the second and third at nearly point-blank range for ships.
"Tali, are the guns ready to fire?" he commed in. The girl examined the process of loading for the guns for a second before putting her hand up to the side of her mask to return comms.
"They are now, Shepard. Do you want to give the order?" she asked. Instead of responding to her, he put his finger up to the intercom on the wall and looked out the viewport, waiting a few seconds to make sure the ships weren't moving before turning back to the microphone and letting his voice come through.
"All stations, prepare to fire on my order. If there are any last-second adjustments to make, do it now. Brace deck for collective fire... Fire!" he shouted through the microphone, turning his head toward the viewport and watching as the four guns' rounds passed through the cruiser beside their own, causing the Cerberus vessel to break into millions of pieces and float off in every direction, flames licking at the insides only to snuff themselves out in the anti-atmospheric environment of space. When the ship had spread only for a few seconds, Shepard could see through and noted with cheer that the next ship in line had also broken into pieces.
In another few seconds, he saw a bright flash of light and shielded his eyes, looking back out and seeing the next three cruisers falling out of formation, one completely destroyed and the other two crippled beyond hope. In a single barrage, the four heavy guns on their cruiser had decimated five of the remaining seven heavy combat vessels. All that was left was a cruiser that he noted was now adjusting course to take cover behind the dreadnought, the dreadnought itself, and the combat frigates that were engaging the Quarian combat ships in ship-to-ship fire.
Without the support from their major combat vessels, the Cerberus frigates would be overwhelmed by the Quarian Navy. They were already on the path to victory.
Jeff "Joker" Moreau was in a bit of a situation. It wasn't because of the Normandy clone behind the Nelson- well, technically it was, but it was more of a secondary result rather than a direct cause-and-effect. He was in a bit of a situation because he had to watch his flightpath more closely than he was used to. The guns on the frigate chasing him were surprisingly powerful and any shot fired by the main cannon destroyed or weakened a ship, or it passed harmlessly (but not so much- every shot fired would continue until it hit something eventually) into space. That being true, Joker had to make sure that whenever the enemy ship fired, he was not above a Quarian vessel, as if he was, that vessel was doomed to destruction.
Thus, his current predicament. He was running out of Cerberus vessels over which to fly, and because of that, the chances of his enemy destroying a Quarian vessel was increasing exponentially with each passing minute. He needed to find a way to get behind the Normandy clone so that he could target it with his main cannons, otherwise he would be looking at a few thousand Quarian lives on his conscience. He didn't feel like having that sort of guilt on his mind, so he figured he would have to pull some crafty maneuvers or else things would turn for the worst.
He felt the ship shake as the main gun of the Normandy clone fired a shot that passed directly above and slammed into a floating piece of debris that rocketed off to the side and sliced into the hull of a Quarian destroyer. Joker heard the captain of the destroyer shout over the comms that they were losing mass effect cohesion. Joker tapped a few buttons on the console in front of him and shot the ship upward and around the destroyer. He pulled up targeting solutions for the Nelson's main cannons and made sure to keep an eye on the Normandy. He had just lost his first Quarian ship to direct fire from that ship's guns.
He was out of time. He needed to destroy that ship now.
"Sir, we've lost most of our escorts, but our guns are locked on the boarded cruiser. Would you like to give a fire order?" the ordinance officer asked, looking up at Yorrich and expecting an answer to the affirmative. The admiral thumbed his chin and looked out over the battle throughout the space of the Hades Cluster. While he had started losing the battle following Shepard's appearance, he was still able to look out over the enemy fleet and see that massive amounts of casualties had been dealt to them in a short amount of time. It was most likely a good idea to pull back- their main objective was not achieved, but The Illusive Man hadn't expected success the first time around anyway.
"No, our benefactor needs Shepard alive. Leave that ship alone and have the navigator prepare the ship for a retreat," Yorrich replied. The ordinance lieutenant was taken aback, but nevertheless made contact with the navigator and had the new mission course set. The Rising Sun kicked its main engines into gear and moved out of the area more swiftly a dreadnought should have been able to. Behind them, no ships followed. Yorrich tightened his glove hands and walked out of the bridge to take a conference with TIM in the Quantum Entanglement Device communications room.
He tapped the communicator in his ear and opened comms to the first mate, "Commander, has Project Effigy's ship followed us out of combat, or are they still engaged with Shepard's ship?"
There was a moment of static and he could hear the tapping of fingers on a console before his first officer responded, "Sir, the Normandy SR-2 is still engaged in combat. Would you like to give the retreat order?"
"Not at all. This is all according to plan. Carry on, Commander," the admiral replied, a snarl-like smile covering his face. The Illusive Man was correct; his little toy really was as brash as the actual Commander Shepard.
"Yes, sir."
Mathias watched through the viewport of the gunnery deck as the massive dreadnought loomed over his half-captured cruiser with its thrusters online, swiftly carrying it in the direction of the nearest mass relay. The other ships of the Cerberus fleet failed to follow, and he watched a high-impact round slam into the remaining cruiser with enough force to destroy the bridge and cripple its ability to issue orders. He watched the dreadnought switch from backwards thrust to turn around, and then take off immediately. When he realized that the Rising Sun was in full retreat, he punched the wall next to the intercom and moved out onto the main gunnery deck, climbing down the ladder and stopping in front of Garrus and Tali.
"You two, get whatever you need to head back to the Nelson and let's get out of here. Their dreadnought is getting away and I don't think we'll be back soon enough to follow. Tali, I need you to get us onto the migrant fleet to talk with the admiralty board. We need to figure out everything that went on in person, and I think... you should know how many we didn't save. Do you think you could do that?" he shot out, still a bit irked at not being able to stop the dreadnought, especially if the Nelson was still facing that Normandy clone.
"I think I can get us on board after what you just did, but Mathias... There were only seventeen million of us before this attack... The losses have to be..." she took in a sharp breath and looked toward the door, and Shepard put a hand on her shoulder. Deciding this wasn't the place for a heart-to-heart, though, he moved past her to the door, leaned against it with one hand, and put the other to his ear to get Joker on comms.
"Joker, status update! Have you dealt with the problem yet?" Shepard ordered. He was met with the obvious sounds of naval combat and a reply from the pilot.
"Negative, Commander. Whoever the pilot is, they're good enough to keep behind me. Haven't hit me yet, though. I'm waiting for the Quarians to finish up with those Cerberus frigates so they can help get it off my tail," Joker replied, surprisingly serious for a man who spent most of his time joking.
"We're stuck on this cruiser until you get out of your situation, so see if you can speed up the Quarians' efforts at all. Shepard out," he said, turning back to his two dextro companions and leaning up against the wall, sliding down onto his backside, holding his shotgun in his lap. Garrus found a spot on a crate to sit and examine his rifle, and Tali came up next to her boyfriend and sat down, staring at the ground and losing herself in thought about the horrific events of their day.
Shepard, not knowing what else to do in the face of his girlfriend's race barely being saved from annihilation, wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tugged her into his chest, giving off a terribly shaky sigh and just staring at one of the guns on the other side of the room.
Why couldn't he even go a year in service without nearly witnessing a genocide?
Joker let out an excited shout as he watched the last Cerberus assault frigate split into pieces. Flying a loop around one of the larger pieces of an enemy destroyer, an impressive display of agility for a ship nearly a time and a half as large as the Normandy SR-2 behind it, he took a second to register the destroyed ships in the warzone. There were destroyed Quarian and Cerberus ship parts everywhere, but there were still plenty of Quarian frigates around to help him out in combat. Hailing one of the Quarian captains, he pointed the fleet toward the ship tailing him.
Immediately, the battle started to turn more toward his own favor, and he bobbed and weaved throughout the battlefield with the Nelson, dragging the enemy ship through a gauntlet of fire from the allied frigates and a destroyer or two. A few moments later, he managed to draw the ship into the firing path of a few torpedoes and then performed a backwards loop, watching as his target seemed to lose track of him and turned off to the side. He followed behind and slammed his fingers into buttons and levers almost hard enough to snap his bones. He was on the chase.
The enemy ship swerved from port to starboard, performing every maneuver possible to attempt to shake Joker off, but the experienced Alliance pilot was too skilled to be fooled so easily. Instead, he tracked every movement that the Normandy SR-2 made, and held targeting solutions on the ship until he had a clear shot. After ten minutes of firing the cannon on the front and making some near misses on the stealth frigate, he had an opportunity, but he only had a nanosecond of a window to fire, and he instantly jumped through that window.
The enemy ship flew on a straightaway for just over a second, and that was enough time for Joker to get corrected firing solutions and fire all ordinance. It proved to be a fatal mistake on his enemy's part, and he watched as the Normandy SR-2's shields dissipated and an explosion rocked the rear of the ship. The Normandy clone, having proven a difficult and dangerous opponent for Joker, drifted forward long enough to slam into a piece of floating debris, and then stopped as the debris continued forward. The Normandy SR-2 was "dead in the water," so to speak.