To Infinity

by creamofwheat2311

After discovering an ancient artifact, the UNSC's most advanced warship and a Sangheili Assault Carrier are transported to a universe unlike anything they have ever seen, and forced into a war against a foe they never could have imagined.

43. Chapter 43: Double Strike Pt III

Chapter Forty-Three: Double Strike Pt. III

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How quickly they flew

Their manifest destiny

Propelling them far

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Unnamed Moon B-1274, Outer Edge of the Perseus Veil

Pelican Stealth Gunship Viper-Heavy

Garrus Vakarian found comfort in the dim red lights that illuminated Viper-Heavy's troopbay. Designed to keep a soldier's night-vision intact, when the standard white switched off and the dim red switched on, everyone knew that action was close at hand.

Check your weapons. Check your armor. Check your gear. Check your body. Check your mind. Go over the briefing, the intel, the objectives, the enemies, the friendlies, the contingencies. Check everything again. Go over everything again. Make peace with your god, your family, your friends, and yourself - because you might not get another chance.

Garrus was no stranger to the 'red baths.' As a soldier for the Turian Hierarchy, an investigator for Citadel Security, a lone vigilante operating on his own, and a recurring member in Commander Shepard's merry band of brethren, he was well aware of those clockwork routines before combat. He took a look in Viper-Heavy's troopbay and saw some prime examples right in front of him.

The Spartan sniper — Sierra-058 — was making last-minute adjustments to her long rifle's scope. Vakarian knew from his own independent research on UNSC weapons platforms that this was an SRS99-S5 Anti-Materiel rifle in the Spartan's gloved hands. He noticed the customizations on the rifle: tan/brown spotted camouflage on the body, bright yellow on the scope-rings and box magazine ends. There was a lengthy jet-black suppressor on the end of the barrel - Five-Eight was ready for stealth shooting.

As Five-Eight briefly moved her armored forearm from the bolt on the side, Garrus saw the ghost-white wolf decal above the magazine well.

Cortana had noticed Vakarian staring. She opened a private comms channel to him. "Nornfang. 'In the Grasps of the Norns.' The Fates, in Norse mythology."

"In the grasp of fate…" Garrus said. He looked away from the rifle and instead at the Spartan. "Does she have a name?"

"If she wants you to know, she'll tell you," Cortana said. In Vakarian's HUD the Spartans were tagged only by their Sierra callsigns. "Same with 087 and 104."

The Turian also saw another weapon peeking out from behind her shoulder, attached to magplates on the Spartan's back. It was long, sleek, and silver, closely resembling the Adaptive Combat System that the rest of Blue Team was sporting, just with more length and bulk. Ever intuitive, Garrus assumed that it was a long-range variant of the standard ACS. There were various pieces of gear and grenades that he could see hanging off of hardpoints on the Spartan's belt, in addition to whatever could be in the several other armored storage compartments.

The Spartan who Garrus' HUD tagged as 'Sierra-104', was twirling a combat knife in his fingers with such speed and dexterity that the Turian's eyes were hardly able to keep up. Next to 104, Sierra-087 - Garrus noted the small decal of a rabbit on her left breastplate - was tapping the gloved fingers of her left hand rhythmically on her thigh. The Master Chief was just sat straight back in his jumpseat, arms crossed over his ACS, silent unmoving, and stoic as always. He was tagged as Sierra-117.

Vakarian already knew what Vega's routine was; the Alliance Marine always muttered quiet prayers in Spanish from behind the privacy of his sealed helmet on the way down to missions.

Garrus controlled his breathing. Inhale, three seconds. Hold, two seconds. Exhale, four seconds. Hold, two seconds. Repeat. It helped him with deal with that familiar build-up of anticipatory adrenaline.

Viper-Heavy's intercom light flashed and the voice of their pilot filled the troopbay. Flight Sergeant Samuel Dolton had the typical cool-as-vacuum tone that all pilots seemed to have, but Garrus could read the strain and focus behind his words. "We've made it through the Quarian's patrols screens. Proceeding to the first infil point. One minute."

Everyone stopped with their pre-battle customs at that. Showtime.

Sierra-058 flicked a finger towards Vakarian and Vega, getting both of their attention. She reached up and tapped the side of her helmet. Comms check.

An invitation to a private comm channel popped up in Garrus' visor display. He blinked to join it, seeing the channel was between him, Vega, and Five-Eight.

"Our callsign for this op is Recon-1," Five-Eight said. "Call me Five-Eight."

Garrus realized that this was the first time he had heard the Spartan speak. Her voice was hard and her words were curt; it was obvious that this was a person who didn't waste any time.

"Roger," said Vega.

"Got it," replied Vakarian.

A thought hit him unexpectedly. He'd been so focused on the mission, on getting Tali back and saving the rest of the Kael's crew, that he hadn't paused to think about just who he was in this dropship with.

Since the Master Chief has joined the Normandy, Garrus had been first-hand witness many times to the ruthless efficiency in which the Spartan eliminated his foes. He'd seen the armored soldier do things he'd never forget.

He had mowed down a company of advancing Reaper infantry near single-handedly back on Menae, methodically firing off burst after burst, each always finding its target. He had saved Primarch Victus, now one of the Turian Hierarchy's only remaining leaders, from an unexpected grenade, displaying how insane his reaction times were.

Shepard had told him about how the Chief had faced down a Reaper Brute on Tuchanka, hundreds of pounds of armored, animalistic rage, in confined close quarters and won. Later on during that battle, he lifted one Maw Hammer by himself, when even Almighty Wrex needed the additional strength of a second Krogan to help raise the other.

He had infiltrated a heavily guarded Cerberus space station alone, sabatoged the reactor with explosives, secured a valuable cache of Cerberus intel, and got out intact before blowing the station to smithereens.

Chief had been on every mission without fail. He had held the team together when it was at risk of breaking more than once. He was always at the front where the incoming fire was the thickest, where resistance was at its peak, and where danger was at its greatest. The Spartan was a steady rock in the chaos of combat, one that could always be found standing tall and rallied behind.

Now, there were four of him.

The Pelican's intercom crackled again, accompanied by the hydraulics of the troopbay door activating. "Flaring for drop now. Good luck!"

Sierra-058 stood from her seat, motioning for Vega and Vakarian to do the same. "Eyes up. Heads down. Follow my lead."

Garrus gripped his M7 Lancer close to his chest as Viper-Heavy's troopbay door slid quickly downwards, revealing the dreary grey surface of B-1274. Five-Eight was the first down the ramp and cleared forwards. By the Spirits she's quick, Garrus thought. The Turian was close behind, sweeping his rifle to cover left, while Vega followed him and pointed his SAW down the right.

The trio dashed in a low run about twenty-five meters out from the dropship, pausing for a quick crouch-and-scan. The gravity was light — 0.6 standard G's, but it was nothing Garrus hadn't experienced before. He had to be more careful and deliberate with his movements, but he appreciated how light his gear felt. The spotting scope Five-Eight had thrust to him was secured to his armours' lower chest magplates, and the collapsed Mantis-X on his back shoulder still made its heft known to him, even in the low-G.

His two new weapons were the latest courtesy of Liara's second-identity - The Shadow Broker. At Shepard's request she had procured a large quantity of powerful, experimental, and outright illegal weapons and gear to give the Normandy's team an edge. As the war had gone on, it became clear that their standard issue Avenger rifles and Predator pistols were just not going to cut it.

The M-7 Lancer Assault Rifle in Garrus' hands was based on old tech, where thermal heat would build up for as long as you fired the weapon, only venting when the wielder layed off the trigger. Rewarding the measured, controlled bursts of the disciplined soldier, the Lancer had a fast rate of fire, a good punch behind the rounds, and negligible concerns about thermal clip or ammunition reserves if used properly. The Mantis-X - an experimental version of the venerable sniper rifle already Garrus knew back-to-front - was modified to fire all manner of special ammunition. In two large ammunition chambers on his belt the Turian was carrying a number of incendiary, armor piercing, drill, phasic, warp, and disruptor rounds - to deal with any threat or situation that might arise. Currently loaded in his Mantis' ammunition block were phasic rounds, designed to pierce kinetic barriers with a minimal loss in the round's velocity.

B-1274 was a bleak, rocky moon, pocked with craters and run through with jagged trenches worn from a lifetime of unshielded extra-terrestrial impacts. Filling a substantial part of the sky were the striking sapphire blues of the gas giant B-1274 orbited, named equally unoriginally as A-1274. The gas giant cast down soft blue light on the moon, a permanent dusk that provided a low amount of light to the surface.

Definitely don't want to die here, Garrus ruminated to himself, but at least the view would be nice.

His HUD pinged, and Garrus saw a marker set about one hundred meters to their north.

"That's our first position. Move," came Five-Eight over the comms. She had already traveled twenty-five meters before Vega and Vakarian heard the end of her command, the two rushing to catch up while staying low and not breaking an ankle on the rough terrain.

Garrus noticed a small device detached from the back left shoulder of Five-Eight's Mjolnir, hanging in the thin atmosphere for a split-second before rising rapidly into the sky. A drone.

Five-Eight was already to the small outcropping of rock she had marked just as Vega and Vakarian were passing the sixty-meter point. As he got closer Five-Eight motioned for Garrus to set up besides her, and pointed Vega towards a small outcropping fifteen meters to their rear.

"Vega, you're on overwatch. Set up the laser-comms, find the Jericho," she said.

"On it ma'am," replied the Alliance Marine.

Garrus flattened himself prone out onto the dusty ground, mimicking the Spartan now besides him to his right. It was a good spot she had picked: a wide, shallow trench bordered by a raised lip of irregular rock on its northern edge.

In his HUD Vakarian saw two notifications from Five-Eight pop up, and he quickly opened them. They were two top-down topographical images of positions like the one the three were in now. Both still along the lip of the large crater, one was two hundred meters to their east, the other another three hundred and twenty meters beyond that. "Position Two - Position Three. I give the call to move, we move. Got it?"

Vega and Vakarian both vocalized their affirmatives.

"Get that scope out Vakarian," Five-Eight said. The Spartan's tone was flat, void of unnecessary color or emotion.

Five-Eight was already peeking over the lip of the crater rim. Garrus detached the spotting scope from his chestplate and set himself up behind it, taking his first look at their objective area - Admiral Xen's Quarian base.

The base was set up in a large crater roughly five kilometers in diameter, sloping gently down about seventy-five meters from the top of its rim. Garrus and Five-Eight were just back from the lip of the crater's rim, looking down into the camp from its southern side from behind the cover of their rocks.

Garrus readily recognized the compass rose layout of the base from the briefing back on the Normandy earlier. Barracks buildings, storage areas, and shuttle-craft landing zones comprised two compounds of the base at the northern and southern tips of the base, with what they thought was the large penitentiary for the crew of the Kael in the east. To the west were more intricately layed out labs, administration, and research buildings. If Admiral Xen was on-planet, Garrus bet that she would be there.

The fabricated dome at the center of the base was hard to miss. It was tall and wide, rising several dozen meters from B-1274's ground. Whatever kind of Reaper fragment that started this entire shitshow was undoubtably in there. There were makeshift roads to and from each of the base's individual compounds, strips of smoothed-out ground that Quarian earthmoving vehicles had dug out of the otherwise unforgiving terrain.

Garrus thought that it was quite the operation Xen had set up down here. "This doesn't look like a temporary base."

"It doesn't…" Five-Eight agreed, surveying the area through her helmet optics. "Lots of activity."

The base was bustling with movement. As Garrus manipulated the magnification levels on the spotting scope, he took several seconds to observe the southern barracks and western admin compounds. Quarians and Quarian vehicles were moving with haste throughout the base, most individuals carrying items or crates, and vehicles loaded down with cargo.

Vakarian and the Spartan sniper shared a brief glance. This base looked like it was meant to be here for a few weeks, not a few days.

"Infil teams, report," Five-Eight said, speaking into the groups' shared comms channel.

"Infil-Two, standing by." That was Fireteam Majestic, holding position under active camouflage on the southern side of the large penitentiary building to the east.

"Infil-Three, ready." Fireteam Crimson, positioned on the north side of the eastern compound.

Infil-One was the other three members of Blue Team - John, Fred, and Kelly. They didn't reply verbally, each flashing a green status light instead. Linda acknowledged them with a green status light of her own.

"Switch to penetrating thermals, find the hostages," Five-Eight told Garrus. "Vega, status on the laser comms?"

"Thirty seconds ma'am, focusing in on the Jericho," the Lieutenant responded. He had his M739 SAW set up on a bipod facing towards Recon-One's six o' clock, two large box magazines detached from his armor and set on the ground besides them for easy access. The Alliance Marine had also procured a new toy from Liara's weapons shipment - an M-100 Heavy Grenade Launcher. Strapped across his broad chest were two separate bandoliers, one of fragmentation grenades, and one of incendiaries.

Garrus had turned his attention to the eastern penitentiary complex. The building itself was about one hundred meters square, surrounded by six thirty-meter guard towers in a hexagonal pattern around the structure. Razor-wire fencing surrounded the entire perimeter, and there was a double-gate blocking the roadway leading into the compound. There was a good presence of Quarian guards around, two squads of eight posted at the front gate and entrance to the building respectively, and each tower held three guards looking alert, watching their sectors. Six half-squads of four Quarians patrolled the grounds, three inside the razor wire perimeter, three from the outside.

The spotting scope Garrus was looking through was of UNSC make, but similar enough to others he had used before that it was easy for him to find the dials and switches that cycled through the different views. He found the thermal setting and centered the scope's crosshairs on the penitentiary building.

With just a thin, unbreathable atmosphere of its own, B-1274 was predictably cold - negative one-hundred and eighty degrees celsius. The particular setting of the scope allowed Garrus to see through the basic walls of the penitentiary, and revealed humanoid masses of orange-red heat inside.

There were several large groups of stationary heat masses huddled together in regular intervals. I bet those are the crew of the Kael in holding cells, Garrus thought. There were other heat masses moving individually or in pairs that he reasoned were more Quarian guards inside.

"Think I found them," Vakarian said, relaying his findings to Five-Eight.

"How many?" the Spartan asked.

Conveniently for him, the spotting scope's software had already made a count of the figures in its view range. "Twenty-two guards inside, three-hundred and forty-nine hostages… Reegar said the Kael was crewed by three-hundred and fifty."

"The principle must be somewhere else," Five-Eight said. "Shift view to the western compound."

"Laser comms are up ma'am," Vega called from behind them, having successfully calibrated the delicate piece of equipment to point directly at the UNSC Heavy Prowler in orbit above.

With a series of blinks through her HUD menus Linda patched into the laser comms. "Jericho, this is Recon-One."

The response was near instantaneous. They had been waiting for her to report. "Recon-One, go."

"Mission update: All teams have made it to staging positions and are waiting to execute. The crew of the Kael has been located and all accounted for. We're still working on finding Captain nar Rayya. Be advised - the base is well-staffed and quite active. Add another twenty-five percent to initial numbers estimates.

"Affirmative. Proceed with the operation at your discre - " Jericho paused suddenly. "Standby."

Linda furrowed her brows. Plans always changed.

"Be advised, we're seeing two Quarian cruisers and their interceptor escorts breaking off and moving dirtside. At current course and speed their ETA to the base is eight minutes."

A countdown appeared in one of the corners of Linda's HUD. Eight minutes until things got a lot more interesting. "Noted. Recon-One out."

The Spartan closed the link and with a couple of more blinks, sent an audio log of the transmission with the Jericho to the other infiltration teams. "Vakarian, have you found her?"

Garrus didn't answer immediately. He was too focused, looking inside every structure he could find in the western compound for any sign of Tali. He had already been through the left and middle parts of the research and administration, and was now scanning the rightmost buildings.

There was one structure in particular that caught his attention. It was small, not even eight meters tall, maybe a similar amount of square footage to the Normandy's mess hall. It was closer to the edge of the western compound than the center, maybe two hundred meters away from the outskirts of the compound where Vakarian could see the IFF tags from Blue Team waiting in position.

There were three heat-figures he could make out in the room, two standing together near one end, and one in a sitting position on the opposite side, maybe ten meters away from the other two.

This was her. This was Tali. Garrus was certain. He just knew. He couldn't see anything more than a thermal silhouette of red and orange, but he knew. He was about to open his mouth to report his discovery, but one of the standing figures reached to his side, and then held an outstretched arm towards the sitting figure across the room. Garrus knew what that meant too: there was a weapon in that hand, and it was going to be used.

There was no thought, only instinct. Laying on the ground besides the spotting scope, Garrus shifted his body and snapped up his Mantis-X rifle into his hands. With a series of well-practiced and lightning-quick movements he thumbed the sniper rifle's ammunition block release, reached to his belt and snatched up his block of drill rounds from his belt, slamming it home into the weapon's waiting receiver.

Find the target. Even though he no longer had the thermals of the spotting scope, he knew exactly where to sight his rifle's optics. Distance: one-thousand five-hundred and twelve meters. No wind. Account for 0.6 standard G's. Center crosshairs on target's upper center-mass.

Feather the trigger. Exhale. Apply 2.75 pounds of pressure until you feel the first-stage trigger wall. Hold. Find the space between heartbeats. Apply 1.5 more pounds of second-stage pressure.

Cycle the bolt. The round leapt from the barrel of his Mantis-X at several times the speed of sound, and Garrus felt the familiar recoil dig the butt of the rifle into his shoulder. These specific drill rounds were meant to penetrate through hard surfaces - walls, floors, ceilings, metal shields, armor plating, etcetera. The relatively thin-skinned pre-fab structures used throughout Xen's base gave the drill rounds no resistance. Garrus' shot punched through the side of the small structure as if it were tissue paper, travelling on to its intended target with a negligible amount of kinetic energy loss.

Quarians were generally known to have strong kinetic barriers - a necessity given the serious risks of infection that could come with a suit puncture - but his target's shields did not save him. The high-powered round overloaded the barrier fiel, piercing through the front of the unsuspecting Quarian's chest armor and blasting out the other side, coating the wall behind with blood, bone fragments, and pieces of heart.

Garrus' round severed the Quarian's aorta, dropping him to the ground near instantaneously as he rapidly lost blood-pressure. As his arm fell along with the rest of his body his finger reflexively tightened on the trigger, but the shot went wide into the ground instead of into the person on the chair.

Garrus snapped his view back behind the spotting scope to get eyes back inside of the structure to line up his second shot. He was just in time to see warm liquid spurting out from the exposed neck of the crumpling second guard, who was curiously missing the entirety of his head.

He quickly figured out what had happened, turning his head to find Five-Eight, who had her SRS extended in rock-steady arms, pointing in the direction of the western compound, smoke lazily drifting out from the front-end of the suppressor in the low gravity. A perfect snapshot to take out the other Quarian guard, just like his had been.

The Spartan sniper didn't waste a single second giving the call to action. "All teams! Execute!"

The element of surprise was now gone. Sierra-058's shot had been suppressed, but Vakarian's was not. The unmistakable report of sniper-fire rippled through the compound, and the Quarians throughout the base reacted as well-trained, experienced soldiers and naval personnel. They got low, hunching or crouching, moving to cover if there was any available, drawing weapons, getting on comms, and swiveling heads to try and locate the source of the shooting.

Garrus saw the IFF tags of Blue Team - still under stealth - quickly closing the distance to the building where hopeful, Tali was being held. Five-Eight barked at him over their comms to get his attention, pointing him towards the eastern penitentiary compound.

"Towers!" she said, leveling her own suppressed long rifle in that direction, "Cover Two and Three!"

The Spartan snapped off three consecutive shots in half as many seconds before ducking back down behind the lip of their rocky cover and getting back on the comms. "Jericho, we've engaged, send the support!"

Vakarian twisted on the ground to orient himself towards the eastern compound, switching out his block of drill rounds back to his original choice of phasic ammunition as he did so. Five-Eight had told him to focus on the towers, so that's where he started looking first. One of the six towers was already clear of Quarian guards - no doubt the Spartan's handywork. Three shots at one thousand plus meters, all killshots, all within one and a half seconds. Damn…

Garrus saw flashes and bodies falling within the perimeter fencing - Crimson and Majestic engaging Quarian foot patrols. They had cut their way through the penitentiary's perimeter fencing and were sprinting under active camouflage towards their planned breaching points, hasty to get inside and secure the crew of the Kael.

He sighted on a Quarian in one of the guard towers, who along with the other two occupants was searching frantically for a glimpse of whatever had so quickly killed their comrades on the ground. He wouldn't be looking for much longer, as Garrus feathered his trigger and fired again.

---

Bridge of DOS-Class Supercruiser Jubilance

From his central command chair R'tas 'Vadum watched the blips on his tactical display shoot away at high speeds from the Jubilance down towards B-1274. Ultra 'Harum had deployed his Ranger battalion via Spirit and Phantom dropships and a flurry of insertion pods, escorted by one of the Jubilance's two 16-count squadrons of Seraph multirole fighters.

He admired the Ultra's professionalism - within thirty seconds of the Supercruiser exiting slipspace above B-1274 he had Talon Battalion screaming dirtside to assist the infiltration teams, clear the base, and evac the hostages.

The Sensors Officer called up to him with a report. "Ten vessels, six hundred and fifty meters in length. Seven in geosync orbit, two heading to surface, one making for the edge of the gravity well."

'Vadum saw it all on his tactical display. They had selected a jump point that would put the Quarian ships in immediate range of the Jubilance's five energy projectors and twelve heavy plasma torpedo silos. He watched as the holographic icons of the seven Quarian cruisers in orbit started maneuvering to face in his ship's direction.

R'tas's long, nimble fingers moved quickly as he personally assigned targets on the tac-display. The two cruisers heading down to the ground of B-1274 would go first — they were the largest incoming threat to the ground teams. Next would be the Quarian ship that looked like it was trying to disengage and jump away.

He was not pleased about being the only Sangheili ship in this corner of the galaxy. He was not in a merciful mood.

The seven cruisers that were burning hard to try and enter weapons range would be dealt with by plasma torpedoes and remaining charged energy projectors.

'Vadum finalized his targeting preferences and with a swipe of his hand sent the orders down to the Weapons Officer.

"Received, calculating firing solutions," Weapons said.

That would take just a few seconds. R'tas had noticed the large strike-craft force screaming towards the Jubilance ever since the Xen's ship's had noticed them in-system. There were fifty-six of them compared to the single squadron of sixteen Seraphs left to guard the Supercruiser.

"Pull them back from the initial engagement," 'Vadum called down to the FlightOps Officer. "Let the pulse laser array take the brunt of their assault, then unleash the squadron." He would let them have their glory, just with the odds a little more evened.

"Acknowledged."

"Targeting solutions ready. Fire on your order," the Weapons Officer said.

'Vadum couldn't help but give a small sigh. This wouldn't be very exciting. "Fire torpedoes."

Even buried deep within the hull and armored plating of the Jubilance, he could still feel the series of thumps as seven inert plasma torpedo cores were ignited in pinched magnetic fields, bursting from their emitters on either side of the ship in hot flashes of golden-red. Guided by far-reaching magnetic fields, each torpedo vectored towards its individual target cruiser.

"Torpedoes away and tracking," reported Weapons.

R'tas has made it known to the bridge crew shortly after he had taken command of the Jubilance that he much preferred efficiencies to formalities. He had them do away with referring to him by his rank as 'Fleetmaster' while speaking to him, as was usual naval custom.

'Vadum wanted information he needed to know and intel he could act on above anything else.

"Fire lances One and Two," the Fleetmaster ordered, taking his gaze away from the track of the plasma torpedoes to the two Quarian cruisers that were just over halfway to the moon's surface base.

"Firing One," said the Weapons Officer.

The bridge lights flickered from soft white to emergency red. The Jubilance monopolized a large majority of the ship's fusion reactor power when charging and firing the energy projectors.

R'tas felt the deck shudder gently beneath his boots. A slender beam of pure white shot across the black space in an instant, impacting directly amidships of one of the Quarian cruisers. Kinetic barriers overloaded immediately by the intense energy, the beam pierced through armor and deck as if nothing were there at all.

With a slight flick from the plasma lance's focusing crystal housing array, the light beam carved upwards from dorsal to central hull, cutting the cruiser in half.

"Kill. Firing Two."

The Jubilance rocked on calm waters once again.

As the two halves of their first kill fell towards the moon's surface, the second lance of directed plasma struck the other ship's drive core. The resulting explosion tore the ship apart, turning the fragments that were left into sudden meteorites.

"Kill. Shifting to next target," announced the Weapons Officer.

"Enemy vessels in firing range, weapons discharges along bows of all craft," reported the Sensors Officer.

'Vadum saw as the spinal weapons of the cruisers discharged towards the Jubilance. According to available intelligence, the Quarians utilized similar weapons technology to the rest of the main galactic races - small mass accelerators, gravity-disruption torpedoes, and close-in point defense laser systems.

The seven projectiles fired at the Jubilance were small but fast, far faster than UNSC MAC rounds. He didn't order any evasive maneuvering, but simply let the Supercruiser shift on its maneuvering jets as it brought about its number three energy projector to bear on the fleeing Quarian ship.

The Quarian's first salvo of mass accelerator projectiles impacted on the right bow shields of the Jubilance, the protective barrier flaring a bright silver in protest to the incoming kinetic energy. He felt a subdued shudder as the rounds disintegrated on the shields, watching on his display as the shield's energy level dipped from 100 percent down to 93 percent with only passing concern.

The Jubilance was first and foremost a weapons platform, with a majority of the ship's hullspace and generated power devoted towards the five energy projectors, twelve plasma torpedo silos, and array of three hundred pulse lasers.

Since so much energy was being constantly devoted to the weapons systemd, despite being nearly twice the size of a CCS-Battlecruiser, the Jubilance's shield strength was roughly comparable to the smaller craft. He had to remember that he wasn't aboard the Shadow of Intent, whose defensive capabilities rivaled any ship in the post-Schism Covenant fleet.

"Target acquired," called the Weapons Officer. "Torpedo impacts in five seconds."

The Quarian cruisers got off another mass accelerator salvo. What they lacked in power they tried to make up for in rate-of-fire.

"Hold," 'Vadum ordered. The Jubilance's shields had to be lowered every time they used their heavy weapons systems. He would let this second salvo break upon the Supercruiser's energy shields just like the first. It would be the last act of defiance they would ever make.

After firing their second salvo of mass accelerator rounds, the seven Quarian cruisers tried enacting defensive maneuvers to avoid the incoming plasma torpedoes from the Jubilance — but it was far too late. During the False Prophets' War, even experienced UNSC captains did not have good odds evading plasma torpedoes, such was the strength of their homing properties and skill of the magnetic field guidance technicians.

It was nothing new to 'Vadum. He had seen hundreds upon hundreds of ships - UNSC, Covenant, Reaper, Cerberus - die to plasma torpedoes, his or otherwise. R'tas was sure that he would see many more destroyed in the same way before he met his time came to an end, including these Quarians.

Seven torpedoes were launched at seven targets. All of them struck true, each individually targeted and guided torpedo found its mark, overloading hopelessly outmatched kinetic barriers, boiling through armor plating and deck like magma through plastic, igniting internal atmospheres and unfortunate crewmembers in an instant. 'Vadum watched on his display as the seven cruisers fell apart as the torpedos continued to burn through them, the devastating capabilities of the weapons clear before him.

The final breath of the dead and dying Quarian crews - the second salvo of mass accelerator rounds - impacted on the Jubilance's bow shields just like the first. Their overall shield strength fell again to 85 percent, where it would stay until their fire mission was complete and they could divert reactor power back towards recharging the Supercruiser's protective barrier.

"Seven impacts. Seven kills," reported the Weapons Officer again. He had a cold, professional detachment to the entire affaire, considering his direct role in the taking of lives. 'Vadum liked his attitude. "Shifting to final target."

Another burst of maneuvering thrusters spun the Jubilance the few degrees needed to bring its number three energy projector in line with the last remaining Quarian cruiser, which was scrambling away from the entire engagement zone at full burn. The Fleetmaster saw the targeting data for the energy projector light green. Acquired.

"Fire Three."

"Firing Three."

The beam was off and to the right by almost two-hundred kilometers.

R'tas snapped his head down towards the Weapons Officer, no small amount of surprise in his expression. Energy projectors almost never missed. "Bad data?"

"No, targeting data is good," said the Weapons Officer. His tone was much more animated now at the prospect of one of his weapons malfunctioning. He put a hand to his ear and started barking into his comms, no doubt getting an engineering team out to the number Three lance.

"Shift to target with Four, quickly," R'tas ordered. He wanted all targets eliminated.

While three of the Jubilance's energy projectors were laid in the bulbous bow of the ship, the remaining two were located further back on the hull where it 'winged' slightly outwards, one on each port and starboard side. The Supercruiser spun quickly and precisely to give the number Four lance a firing angle. It was a deft maneuver R'tas noted, the navigation crew and helmsman had to be skilled.

Damn. Too late.

The cruiser had disappeared from their displays, targeting scopes, and sensor scans. It had jumped into FTL, and was now unreachable.

R'tas clenched his half-jaws in irritation. One more second…

"All enemy vessels in the theatre are eliminated or have retreated," the Sensors Officer said.

"Move us closer to the moon," 'Vadum ordered. "Weapons, what was the problem?"

"It was the focusing crystals. During our jump in-system they became misaligned. I have a team mending it now."

That actually irritated him more than the escaped cruiser. "ETA until Three is back up?"

"Unknown," the Weapons officer said, pained. "Will update."

'Vadum understood. Aligning energy projector focusing crystals was a… delicate task, even for Huragok. Unfortunately, after the Great Schism, the Sangheili didn't have many Huragok to go around. The Jubilance only had two: one in the bow to care for the sensor arrays and the energy projectors, and one in the stern attending to the pinch fusion reactors and repulsor engines. Realigning Three's focusing crystals would require both of them - and Huragok didn't float exceptionally fast.

R'tas was understandably not enthused about twenty percent of his ship's primary armament being out of action, no matter for how long. "Get it fixed."

With nothing left to do other than die, the fifty-six Quarian interceptors charged headlong towards the Jubilance. Without any kind of challenge or ceremony, the Supercruiser's pulse laser array destroyed thirty of the doomed craft in an instant, as well as the salvo of missiles they launched in vain.

FlightOps released their squadron of Seraphs after the initial laser salvo, and sixteen of the Jubilance's best pilots shot forwards to dogfight. Veterans of the Great War with the Humans, and the Great Schism civil war conflicts, these pilots set about their work with the marks of experienced predators.

Twenty-six turned to sixteen after the first headlong pass between the two strike craft forces.

Heavy plasma cannon and pulse lasers flared, ripping apart kinetic barriers and boiling away armor plating with brutal ease.

Sixteen turned to seven after the two sides discovered that the Seraphs, equipped with gravity impulse maneuvering thrusters, won the turning war.

Quarian return fire, rapid-fire mass accelerators, struck the energy shieldings of the Seraph pilots before they deftly evaded away, who learned how to effectively evade kinetic fire during the war against the UNSC.

Seven turned into two after the Seraphs started doubling-up on targets.

One of those two Quarians, having to be either very good or very lucky to have survived this long, took advantage of a vulnerable Seraph whose shields has been depleted from a previously well-aimed missile launched by a now dead wingmate. The pilot launched his remaining two missiles and let out a flurry of mass accelerator fire, which pierced into the Seraphs armor before the two missiles blew the craft apart.

Two turned to zero, as a massed strafing run of plasma fire from half of the Jubilance's squadron slagged the last Quarian interceptors.

R'tas nodded slowly as he watched the end of the dogfight on his display. One Seraph lost…. Regrettable, preventable, but he knew those pilots wanted combat. People died in combat. It was known.

"Recharge the shields," the Fleetmaster ordered, "And get me reports from the ground."

---

Find the target. Feather the trigger. Cycle the bolt.

The Quarian trooper fell forwards on his own momentum, helmet visor shattered and head pulped by Garrus' well-aimed phasic round. The heavy machine gun he was hoisting on his shoulder tumbled to the cold ground with him.

Find the target. Vakarian sighted an officer halfway back into the Quarian formation, distinguishable by the orange hexagonal tech-armor around their chests and the blue strip along the middle of their helmets.

Feather the trigger. He had four phasic rounds left. They had proven remarkably effective, piercing through Quarian barriers and underlying light armor with ease. It was no wonder why they were incredibly hard to find, and highly illegal.

Cycle the bolt. The round tunneled through the officer's kinetic barriers and pierced entirely through his neck, sending him spiraling to the ground spurring blood and grasping reflexively around his mortal wounds.

Find the target. An oversized company-strength force of Quarian Marines were advancing towards their position after rallying at the southern barracks complex. Two-hundred and fifteen Quarians were attempting to cross over eight-hundred meters of rough, completely open terrain. He shifted focus three degrees to the right and found another officer.

Feather the trigg- Garrus' round had barely left the barrel of his rifle when his targets entire head disappeared in a cloud of dark-red mist. He zoomed out to get a wider picture of the approaching Quarians to try and figure out what had happened, but it was quickly made obvious to him.

Sierra-058 had seen Vakarian kill the officer he had targeted, and had identified the rest of the unit's officers with battle-hardened intuition and observational skills. The Spartan sniper had exchanged her SRS for her ACS-Heavy, the lightning bolt of blue hard light having removed the face, skull, and brain of the officer that Garrus had sighted.

Four more sharp cracks of thunder rang out from the right of Garrus in quick succession as Five-Eight decapitated - literally - the rest of the approaching unit's officer corps. After having the lives and encouragements of their leadership yanked out from under them like a well-snapped tablecloth, the Quarian's advance faltered.

Vega slammed into cover a few meters to his left a second later, propping up his Squad Automatic Weapon on its bipod on a flat rock. The Alliance Marine expertly sighted in for the distance - the SAW was more than deadly enough even at eight-hundred meters - and started firing measured and aimed twenty-round bursts down onto the Quarians. Five-Eight had called him to the firing line when the Quarians from the southern barracks had rallied and figured out where the sniper shots killing their comrades at the penitentiary compound were coming from.

Find the target. Garrus sighted on a Marine who was going back and forth between his fellow men and woman, trying to encourage them to keep moving. A veteran NCO perhaps, he was right. Standing still in a battlefield invited a quick death.

Feather the trigger. His movement wouldn't save him. He was too slow over the uneven, unforgiving terrain of the moon. Garrus' round entered through his left side, exiting his right along with a fair amount of shattered rib bones and a bloody soup of pulverized internal organs.

Cycle the bolt. The squad the dead Quarian was trying to get moving had hit the deck, trying to find any modicum of cover they could shrink behind. Vega pounced on them raking across their position with accurate fire. Their meager rocks and trenches weren't nearly enough — Recon-One had the high ground at the top outer ridge of the crater the base was centered in. Kinetic barriers only prolonged their deaths, deflecting two or three shots before giving way to allow the green-tipped 7.62x51mm FMJ rounds to do their ghastly work. Barriers were shattered, armor and faceplates were pierced, and flesh was rendered.

Garrus took a look at the wider view of the overall formation and to his astonishment, saw the entire right flank of the approaching Quarians was simply… gone.

Bleeding, broken, and battered bodies dotted the ground, thirty, no — at least forty-five by his count. Five-Eight has been firing her ACS-H, rhythmically, one shot every 3/4ths of a second. In the focus behind his scope Garrus hadn't heard the stormcalls of her steady drumbeat, but he did now.

The Spartan stopped firing abruptly, ducking back down into cover. The remaining Quarian infantry were sending hurried shots in their direction, but at this long engagement distance they were of little concern. Something else had caught her attention.

"Cease fire," she said curtly over their team comms, waving a flat hand across her chest rapidly. Vega and Vakarian both pulled back into cover, the former exchanging box magazines in his SAW and the latter looking towards Five-Eight.

Her head was pointed skywards, armored legs bent in coiled readiness. "Pack it up."

There was an urgentness to her tone that motivated Garrus to move quickly. He grabbed the spotting scope next to him and snapped it to magplates on his chest, backing away from the lip of the crater in a low crouch before standing upright.

Vega had took down his MG with practiced precision, bounding back towards the laser-comms to break that vital piece of equipment down for relocation. The jamming ceiling overhead was still preventing them from using general comms to contact their ships in orbit, so the laser comms unit was still critical to their operation.

"What do you see?" Garrus asked Five-Eight, who was still peering into the sky and space of B-1274.

"Nothing good," she said. "Eleven o' clock high."

Garrus tooled his visor magnification all the way up as he looked towards that part of the sky. "The two cruisers the Jericho warned us about."

"Strike craft too — sixteen of them. They're all coming in fast."

Vakarian squinted, seeing nothing than other the bow-on profiles of two approaching Quarian cruisers. Damn, I need to get some better optics.

"Vega!" Five-Eight called, an inquisition into the status of the laser comms.

"Ready to move ma'am!" the Marine replied dutifully, securing the collapsed antenna to his thigh and the commo box to his chest.

Garrus' visor darkened abruptly. The confusion was on the tip of his mind for only a moment before he saw it happen - something that he knew he would never forget.

A beam of purest white pierced through the midsection of one of the cruisers from above — an act of god right before his eyes. It sliced the ship into two sections effortlessly, sending the sparking un-powered halves falling towards the surface of the moon under their own momentum. Only seconds later, another lance from the spirits themselves struck the drive core of the second cruiser, detonating it in a flash of fire and violent light, vaporizing most of the ship and a number of the escort interceptor craft.

Garrus was brought back to the present by the bark of his team leader.

"Position Two! Move it out!"

Training and instinct kicked in, and the Turian started double-timing towards their second position, moving with experienced grace over the rough terrain. He had been to Mountain Warfare School — the brutal one, on Menae.

Vega was slower, but still kept a quick pace. He had probably gone through plenty of his own rough terrain trainings with the Alliance.

Five-Eight outpaced both of them by far. It was incredible to Garrus just how quickly and nimbly she moved over the rocks, cracks, tranches, holes, and craters of B-1274's battered surface. The three had gotten about a hundred and fifty meters to their second position when Five-Eight stopped again and looked skyward. She had slowed her pace to keep close to Vega and Vakarian, but once again stopped and looked skywards, fixing her gaze on something distant for only a split-second before snapping her head towards Vega and Vakarian.

"To me!" she exclaimed. "Interceptors bearing down on us!"

That set even more of a fire under Garrus' ass. Enemy close air support was something that every infantryman feared. He and Vega double-timed it to the Spartan's position, while she shouldered her ACS-H and raised it upwards. She sighted, the rifle as steady in her arms as it would be laying on rock, and fired a single shot. The Spartan had set the rifle to its largest calibre, the report of the round loud enough to cause Vakarian's helmet audio receptors to dampen protectively.

Sierra-058 then reached to her belt and threw a device onto the ground as soon as Vega and Vakarian were close enough. Right before it hit the rocky surface the device's three pylon-legs extended outwards to stabilize it on the ground. There was a flash of yellow, and Garrus found the three of them enveloped in a translucent hexagonal bubble.

Movement in his field of vision turned Garrus' gaze towards the same part of the sky that Five-Eight had shot towards - their immediate south-southwest. This time, even through the strange shield they were now in, he could see the interceptors. Five strong, the survivors from the reactor explosion were bearing down on them from on high, hard and fast.

He saw flashes along the undersides of the Quarian strike-craft's stubby wings. Missiles. Lots of missiles.

"Down!" Five-Eight called, just in case no one had gotten the message at this point.

Garrus didn't need any encouragement, diving to the deck. He hated missiles. Something about one exploding in his face one time.

His audio receptors cut out for a brief instant this time, but he could feel the shockwave of the missile impacts deep throughout him, vibrating his spine and threatening to shatter his pointed teeth. A couple of seconds passed and he took a shaky breath.

Still alive.

He grunted in surprise when he found himself hoisted off the ground and onto his feet in a motion quicker than he could process. Five-Eight had grabbed him by the back of his raised rear armored cowl and lifted him up like he were nothing but a bag of groceries, and now she was doing the exact same thing to Vega. Their shield-bubble was gone, the emitter sparking with flames, but the device had undoubtedly saved their lives.

Five-Eight oriented and pushed Vega and Vakarian in the direction of their intended destination.

"Position Two! Fifty meters!" she barked.

It was an order, and Garrus was a good soldier. He followed orders.

He and Vega made like hell for Position Two, were there was much more solid cover other than the ankle-high rocks and foot-deep craters that made up most of B-1274's surface. Breathing heavy from the exertion and adrenaline, it was only when he had found a solid four foot tall rock in Position Two to hunker behind when he noticed that Five-Eight wasn't with them.

The Turian popped up to look over his cover and saw her there, standing there in the open just behind where they had taken the missiles under the shield.

"What the hell is she doing!" Vega yelled, seeing her out there alone now as well.

The Quarian interceptors were coming back around. With hypnotizing grace, Five-Eight slowly went to the ground, her back against B-1274's cold surface. Garrus saw that she had a long-rifle in each hand, ACS-H in her right, Nornfang in her left. She shifted her knees up and towards her chest, as if she was preparing to do sit-ups.

Linda laid her ACS-H sniper rifle on the top of her left right knee, and did the same for her SRS on her left knee - Vakarian noticed she had taken the suppressor off of the yellow- rifle.

The five Quarian interceptors were in tight formation as they came out of their turn, diving on their intended target - the lone armored soldier out in the open. Garrus was looking right at them.

Twin claps of thunder roared across the moon.

The lead craft tilted steeply downwards, accelerating straight into the ground in a mass of fire.

Blue and orange lightning leapt up into the sky.

His wingman started swirling listlessly, banking up in a wide looping arc that ended with him crushing into the ground.

It was only now when Garrus realized what Five-Eight was doing. She had turned herself into anti-air-artillery. By the Spirits.

The remaining three pilots, having seen two of their comrades swatted from the sky, thought to start some evasive action during their approach. One of the pilots didn't get to finish the thought before bits of skull were splattered all over the back of his crash chair.

Garrus finally saw what was happening, it took him until now to be able to process it. Five-Eight was breaking the strong kinetic barriers of the Quarian interceptors with forceful rounds from her ACS-H, then following it up milliseconds later with a 14.5x114mm APHE projectile, which pierced through the cockpit and exploded inside the pilot with bloody results.

The skill, the precision, the experience, needed to make shots like that, at targets moving this fast, at this kind of engagement range, in such an unconventional firing position, using one handed grips, and with one rifle in her off-hand. By the Spirits... She is a Spirit.

The two long-rifles sang one more time in Five-Eight's arms.

The second-to-last interceptor she had targeted had banked sharply to the left, right across the top of his remaining wingman, who was still set on her attack run. Five-Eight predicted this move, sending her two shots further back into the engine cowl being exposed in the the second-to-last's interceptor's turn. She detonated the element zero core, incinerating the craft and throwing the sole surviving Quarian ship nearby off-balance - but not before she got off her last salvo of missiles.

This pilot was smart. She programmed her missiles to split in wide arcs away from each other before turning back in on their target, so that if one was detonated prematurely its explosion wouldn't take out any others.

These missiles were fast - several times the speed of sound. Linda had the ACS-H in both hands now, and in the time it took Garrus to blink she had swatted three missiles out of the sky.

The Quarian interceptor had fired six.

Vakarian watched the remaining missiles strike right on top of the Spartan, engulfing her in hellfire. Fragments of casing and blasted rocks started pelting his upper body barriers, forcing him back down into cover.

"Que mierda!" Vega cursed in rushed Spanish, hunkered down behind his own rock from the missile impacts not forty meters away. He had seen them hit too. "Mierda. Puta madre!"

That last interceptor was still out there, but Garrus didn't care. He leapt out of cover, sprinting towards the dark smoke rising from Five-Eight's last position.

"Garrus! " Vega started to yell, but the Turian cut him off breathlessly.

"Comms!" he shouted back. They needed to call for help.

It was the fasted he had ever crossed fifty meters in his entire life. Garrus found Five-Eight lying there, in the midst of a new crater created by the missile detonations. He slid to her side on both of his knees, setting his Mantis-X down besides him.

She looked bad. After fighting alongside the Master Chief for so long, he had seen just what kind of punishment a Spartan's bulky Mjolnir could take, but seeing Five-Eight now… his breath had caught in his lungs.

The majority the Mjolnir plating on both of her arms and hands had been blasted off, as well as her right thigh and left calf armor. Shrapnel had lacerated and embedded into the vulnerable areas, piercing the thick black armored titanium nanocomposite bodysuit and the gel layer underneath, deep into the skin. Garrus could see larger fragments sticking out from her arms and legs, some several inches long. Crimson blood flowed from the around these fragments, as well as out of the the cuts and holes rent by flying metal embedded into her that he couldn't see.

Her chest armor was scorched and blackened, rife with pockmarks from shrapnel, as well as fractures from the pressure and shockwave of the point-blank missile detonations. Her breastplate had bent and warped inwards to a large concave degree to the point where Garrus worried about her torso being crushed.

Five-Eight's visor had several cracks throughout, and was hissing out oxygen rapidly. Her side-attached helmet optics were gone. There was a deep trench gashed into her helmet, running in a line along her left temple.

The Spartan moved a shaky left hand nearby to her right.

Garrus breathed again. Still alive.

The Norns had decided that it was not their favored pair's fate to perish today. Nornfang had somehow miraculously survived the blasts, and Linda grasped it's familiar grip again with no small amount of effort.

She turned her visor towards Garrus, but then looked beyond him - skywards. The interceptor.

The Turian spun around, snatching up his Mantis-X and scanning for... There.

Leveling out from a wide-banking turn, the Quarian pilot was coming back to finish the job. She was out of missiles, but had plenty of mass accelerator cannon rounds.

Five-Eight had found a fresh box magazine still attached to her waist and reloaded Nornfang, racking the bolt with fingers slick of blood. Most of the tan/brown camouflage had been burned off, and the ghost wolf had a jagged new scar running across its face. Blood ran down and dripped steadily from her elbows on B-1274's rocky ground. Despite the fragments embedded into her arms, despite the cuts into her hands and fingers, and despite the incredible crushing pressure on her chest, Linda steadied her long rifle and brought it to bear.

Garrus knew what he had to do, and so did Five-Eight.

She whispered to him over comms, pain bleeding through the cracks in her iron will. "Don't miss."

Find the target. The Quarian fighter was angling towards them like a bird of prey diving on its next meal. Three thousand meters out and closing in fast. He had one phasic round left.

Feather the trigger. The enemy pilot would have to get closer if she wanted an accurate volley of cannon round on-target. Garrus let the interceptor's cockpit loom just a little bit larger in his scope, before letting his rifle spit fire. From behind him, Five-Eight's white wolf howled one more time.

Rack the bolt. The phasic round struck on the upper glass of the cockpit. The interceptor's kinetic barriers flared, but the specialized round was just too good at what it did. Upon striking the barrier it released a barrage of highly charged particle bolts that overloaded and fried the interceptor's sensitive barrier emitters.

Five-Eight's round impacted a third of a second behind his. It was a perfect shot, piercing right through the cockpit glass and the Quarian pilot's flight helmet visor, burrowing into her head right between the eyes before detonating, showering her cockpit with skull fragments, brain matter, and blood bursting from her severed carotid arteries.

In her first act from beyond the grave, the pilot's finger clamped down on her joystick triggers in a spasm of her last ever nerve impulses. The craft pitched up at the same time, acting on its own accord without the guidance of its pilot.

Garrus spun and bent over Five-Eight in an attempt to shield her from the incoming rounds. Unaimed mass accelerator fire raked across them and Position Two further behind.

The Turian grunted as he felt a pair of strikes to his back. His kinetic barriers broke and he was thrown forwards from the force of blows, having to brace himself on his arms so as to not fall straight top of Five-Eight with all of his weight.

He was okay, just had the wind knocked out of him. The first mass accelerator round had disintegrated into his barriers, while the second punched into but was stopped by the armor across his back, were it was arrested without penetrating through.

He looked at his Mantis-X in his hands. The front half of the barrel was missing, having been torn off by a lucky cannon round from the interceptor. It was useless now. Damn, and on it's first mission too. He tossed it on the ground unceremoniously.

He swiveled to check on Five-Eight. She was unconscious now, but before she went limp she had managed to trigger a quick-release command for her Mjolnir. At strategic points around the armor plating still left and in the helmet, internal bolts detonated outwards, sending her battered and broken Mjolnir popping off of and away from her body.

Garrus saw that there was a translucent mesh-like cowl covering her entire head from where the top of her bodysuit ended, high up on the neck and just under her chins. No doubt it was an emergency deployable designed to keep a seal and provide a temporary air supply.

The skin of her face was as pale as the light reflecting off of B-1274's adjacent gas giant. Her hair was short, ear-length, and scarlet red.

She needed first aid, then a casevac. Vakarian couldn't start triage here, not out in the open. He needed to get Five-Eight to Position Two, were there was actual cover.

He grabbed Nornfang, corralled two more box magazines that he saw lying about, and secured them to his armor. He then set about carefully grabbing and lifting the wounded Spartan.

She was heavy, even in the light gravity. Garrus groaned under the strain as he maneuvered Five-Eight onto his shoulders in a fireman's carry, stabilizing her and turning towards Position Two.

He started taking measures steps back towards cover and Vega, balancing the load of the Spartan's weight as he picked up the pace. As he ran for Position Two he saw flickers of light from high above in orbit - reds and blues.

As Garrus ran he switched to the operation's general comms channel. "This is Recon-One, Sierra-058 is down. Requesting immediate casevac at our position."

He went another fifteen heavy meters met by nothing except silence. "This is Recon-One, how copy?"

He tried Vega. "Vega! Can you read me!"

Vakarian could see the Alliance Marine looking their direction from over a waist-high rock, SAW pointed but away from them at an angle. Vega took a pointed finger and tapped against the side of his helmet. Comm issues.

"Ancestors..." Garrus cursed under strain. If their comms were out, then there would be no way to call for help. He made it to cover and gently laid Five-Eight down behind a large boulder. "Laser comms?"

Vega shook his head. "Fighter took 'em out."

Garrus found the equipment sparking and smoldering, hole punched straight through the commo box by a cannon round. Fuck.

He kneeled there, catching his breath. The sounds of distant battle - rifle reports and Sangheili weapon whines - drifted over them. Intel from the Jericho had estimated a battalion's worth of Quarian personnel at the base. It would have been roughly an even numbers game, but Sangheili unit size was forty percent smaller than their Quarian adversaries.

He was still betting on the Sangheili.

"Get to the rim," he told Vega, tossing him the spotting scope. "Find out what's going on."

"Got it," the Marine replied, taking off for the lip of the crater so he could see what was going on in Xen's base.

Garrus reached for his levo medical kit. He carried two, one for dextro-amino, one for levo-amino. He also found something else that he had started carrying ever since the Master Chief has come aboard the Normandy, a can of biofoam.

He opened and broke down his kit in front of him as he kneeled on the ground besides Five-Eight. First order of business was to attach a vitals probe to her, and he shoved the needle through the breathing cowl around her upper neck.

Her vital signs started streaming into a box on his HUD as Vakarian activated his omni-tool's medical scanner. Her blood pressure was low, as was her saturated percent oxygen level, no doubt a result of all the wounds she had sustained from the missile explosions right in front of her face. The medscan from his omni-tool identified and catalogued the wounds throughout her body, displayed them on his HUD on an overlay of her body, and ranked them in terms of severity.

There was a collapsing lung, courtesy of a broken breastbone, collarbone, and almost every single rib. Internal bleeding originating from the liver, left kidney, stomach, spleen, tears in her stomach and intestinal linings… those were all issues that he definitely wasn't equipped to deal with here.

What he could try and get handles on were the bevy of cuts, lacerations, and shrapnel fragments peppering her hands, arms, and legs. He could see that her bodysuit was trying it's best to self-seal around some of the holes in it, but some were just too large, or failing to properly seal against the jagged shrapnel. No doubt these tears were leaking Five-Eights already questionable air supply even more into B-1274's unbreathable atmosphere.

Garrus loaded a charge of medi-gel into his omni-tool and got to work. He moved his left arm along Five-Eight's battered limbs and let the omni-tool do its job, dispensing small doses of medi-gel to each individual wound as it passed over. The all-purpose medicinal salve sealed against the Spartan's wounds as soon as they touched skin, releasing coagulant enzymes and local anesthetics.

For the larger, deeper holes and lacerations, he switched to the biofoam. Using the tipped applicator nozzle he dispensed the UNSC medical foam into and around the more severe external injuries. Prefilled with an expansion agent and liquid polyethyltriphosphate, when exposed to the thin air of B-1274 it immediately foamed up, hardened, and adhered to the surfaces that it touched. Just like the medi-gel, the foam released medical compounds that advanced clotting, disinfected the wounds, and began localized numbing.

Vakarian was so focused on his first-aid care that he didn't even notice Vega had come back and had taken a knee besides him until the Marine put a hand on his shoulder. Garrus spun his head around in surprise, but Vega shook him a couple of times to get him back into gear.

"Relax, just me. The Sangheili are cleaning house down there - they're setting up the evac zone out in front of the penitentiary," he said, having observed the blitz of Ultra 'Harum's assault from the lip of the crater. He gestured towards the prone, unconscious Spartan. "How is she?"

"Not good," Garrus replied, truthfully. The Turian had been a soldier for a long while now. He knew injuries, he knew death, he knew what kind of wounds most races - Turian, Human, Asari, Salarian — could reasonably expect to survive.

Given what Garrus saw with his eyes and in his medical readouts, Five-Eight should be dead. She had lost too much blood, both externally and internally. Nearly all the bones in her thoracic cavity had broken or cracked from the force of the missile impacts that were powerful enough to crack and dent Mjolnir chestplate severely inwards. She was unconscious, and who knew what other kinds of damage there could be that he just didn't know about.

Yet, she was still breathing, her blood was still flowing, and because of that, Garrus would Spirits-be-damned keep trying. "We need to get her evacuated to a surgical suite."

"The Normandy then," Vega said. As Vakaian finished up with the biofoam, Vega keyed his omni-blade and deftly sliced the larger pieces of shrapnel sticking out of her limbs down closer to her bodysuit. "Doc Chakwas will know what to do. But without comms... How do we let them know?"

Garrus finished his triage by hooking a saline line into a receptor port in her neck, securing the bag with two pieces of adhesive tape in an X. "We find someone with working laser comms. Crimson and Majestic will have one at the penitentiary. The Sangheili should too."

"The eastern compound is two clicks away," Vega said.

"Better get moving then," Garrus said, taking a few deep breaths. As carefully as he could, he hoisted Five-Eight up and back across his shoulders. His leg and shoulder muscles were already twinging just from the fifty meter dash he did to get her to Position Two. "Cover us."

Vega nodded, exchanging the magazine in his SAW for a fresh one, racking the bolt with a heavy hand in silent encouragement. They started for the crater rim. They would head down the slope, try to cross two kilometers of completely open ground in the middle of an active battlefield as quickly as they could, with no comms, and carrying a wounded Spartan sparring against death himself.

Don't you die on me, Garrus tried to will into Five-Eight's mind. You Spartans are supposed to be tough.

---

Blue Team was almost there. Kelly was on point, and as they turned their last corner the Master Chief saw two more Quarians lying dead and bleeding in the dirt, pockmarked with holes from Kelly's two silenced M7 SMGs.

"This is the building," Kelly said, rushing to get to the door, John and Fred close behind.

The three Spartan-II's weren't being paid much attention. One reason was undoubtedly their active camouflage systems, the other being the fact that after being shot at by Recon-One, Xen's Quarians were busy trying to get themselves into proper order.

Blue Team stacked up by the entrance, which was sealed by an angry red haptic lock. Cortana didn't need any prompting, she tunneled into the door's security system and switched the lock setting to 'open' with no more effort than a simple glance.

"Fred, security," John said.

"Roger."

Cortana keyed the door open and Kelly glided through, the John close on her heels.

The building was small - a single room, a single chair with a single occupant, and two dead Quarians splayed on the floor in pools of their own blood.

The Quarian in the chair's head had shot up at the opening of the door, but she still couldn't see the Spartans until they toggled their active camouflage and shimmered out of thin air a few meters away from her.

"Captain Tali'Zorah nar Rayya?" Master Chief asked, deep, gravelly voice modulated through his external speakers.

The Quarian had flinched when the two Spartans had revealed themselves to her, and she swiveled her visor looking rapidly between the two. Standing over seven feet tall, the two Spartans towered over her in the chair. "Yes. Are you going to kill me?"

John and Kelly shared a brief glance. "No," Chief answered. He tilted his head towards her slightly and Kelly moved to her restraint chair, where she would undo her wrist and ankle bindings. "We're with Commander Shepard. We're getting you off-planet."

"Shepard is here?! Keelah'Selai…" She definitely perked up at that. "My crew? Are they alive?"

"They're being secured right now," Chief said. "We're getting you all out."

Kelly had pried open the metal cuffs around her wrists with her bare hands, the restrains being not even close to a challenge for a power-armored Spartan to break.

"Well then who the hell are you? I've never seen armor like that before," Tali said, massaging her wrists as Kelly moved to her front to snap off her ankle cuffs. Kelly kneeled to bring herself to eye level with the Quarian and depolarized her visor so she could see her face.

"We're Human," Sierra-087 said, stepping back now that Tali's restraints were dealt with. "Don't worry."

"Aren't you a little tall to be a Human?" she asked, standing up quickly and making for a locker in the corner of the wall. Realizing she wouldn't be able to open it without the key or the code, she turned her head around to look at the Spartans. "Would you mind?"

The Master Chief stepped forwards, pushing his fingers together into the shape of a shovel. He thrust his hand with force into the locker's door, piercing through it and ripping it out with ease, discarding it to the floor with a clang.

Tali stepped past him and withdrew three things: a Paladin heavy pistol, a thermal clip belt, and an omni-tool. She fastened the omni-tool to her left arm and activated it, tapping rapidly through various menus, programs, and functions with her right fingers.

"The evacuation site is being set up in the eastern part of the base," the Master Chief said. "We have a transport on standby to take us there."

Tali didn't respond to this. She had started pacing back and forth, becoming even more engrossed in her omni-tool.

The Master Chief gave her a few more seconds. He could hear already Ultra 'Harum's battalion crashing down onto B-1274, engaging Xen's Quarians — drop pods hitting dirt thudding, plasma weaponry whining, mass accelerator fire cracking, biotic explosions booming, adrenaline-backed shouts carrying, and dying soldiers screaming.

"Captain nar Rayya?" Chief pressed again. "We need to move."

She was still working at her omni-tool, almost frantically now.

"Captain nar — "

"Shut it!" Tali said forcefully, taking Chief aback a bit. He wasn't used to being rebuked. "And it's not 'nar Rayya'. It's vas Kael."

She wrapped up her work with a emphatic sweep across her omni-tool with her right hand. Tali stepped up towards the Master Chief, reaching up and slowly swiping across his faceplate.

The leader of Blue Team was apprehensive at the Quarian's sudden movement, but he let her do whatever she was doing. After a couple of seconds, Tali's omni-tool gave three rapid, high-pitched beeps. Tali stepped away and moved to Kelly, repeating the same process on her. Again, three high beeps in rapid succession.

Tali moved quickly to the two dead Quarians lying on the floor. She crouched next to the guard that still had a head, and ran her omni-tool across him as well.

One low, long beep.

She ran the scan again. Another low, long beep.

Tali stood back up, putting the omni-tool to her own head. She hesitated for a brief second, before swiping the orange haptic tool over her face.

Three high, rapid beeps.

The breath she had been holding in burst out in a long shudder.

"What were you doing?" Kelly asked, ever curious.

Tali regained her composure quickly. "It's a modification to the medical diagnostic program that I coded into my omni-tool. It scans for specific changes to the synapses and neurons of the the frontal and patient lobes."

Chief disabled his external speakers so he could talk to just Cortana. "She can scan my brain through my Mjolnir?"

"No," the AI chirped into his ear. "I let her."

"Why?"

Fred flashed a yellow status light. With his other eye John was watching a live-feed from 104's helmet cams in the left of his HUD.

Sierra-104 had engaged at close range a squad of Quarians who had undoubtedly been sent to try and secure the VIP prisoner. Waiting until they were nearly in touching distance before springing from his active camouflage, Fred started combat by thrusting his knife right into the neck of the closest Quarian soldier. The amount of force that the Spartan could generate was far, far more than the Quarian's kinetic barrier could have ever hoped to repel. The long blade stuck deep into the flesh, sending the man sprawling to the ground pawing at his fatal wound.

"Because I hacked into her omni-tool and saw what she was doing," Cortana replied. "I'm faster than you, keep up."

His ACS in his other hand, Fred tore into the rest of the surprised formation without mercy, round after round of rapid-fire hardlight into the squad. Grabbing and withdrawing his combat knife as his first dying victim fell, he closed the distance in a second to another target, punching straight through another Quarian's visor, smashing her face and exposing her to B-1274's freezing, unbreathable air. The final Quarian fell as Fred stripped away his barriers with two shots from his rifle and flung his knife towards him, the nano-sharpened ten inch blade burying itself up to the hilt in the Quarian's heart. The threats taken care of, Fred flashed his status light green twice.

Kelly had to get more clarification. She was seeing Fred's feeds as well, and knew that they had to get moving. "What kind of specific changes?"

"The kind that comes after Reaper indoctrination," she said, quietly. "Three chimes signals no change. One chime…"

They all looked towards the two dead Quarian guards. At least one was indoctrinated, was it only him? Tali couldn't scan the other guard, given that Linda had removed all evidence that he ever had a head with her sniper shot. Were the other Quarian's here indoctrinated? Was Admiral Xen?

In the wake of Fred dealing with the Quarian squad outside, Master Chief pressed again. "Captain vas Kael, we need to get to the evac zone, link up with Commander Shepard."

Tali shook her head emphatically. "No, not yet. Shepard can wait, I've been waiting for him for days." She peered up at the Master Chief, opaque visor to opaque visor. "I need you to take me to that dome. I need to find out what Xen wanted from that Reaper tech - the entire Migrant Fleet is at risk."

At that instant Linda's status light triggered in John's HUD.

It flashed red - green - red. Incoming fire.

Linda's vitals readout disconnected a millisecond later.

Kelly and Fred both flashed yellow status lights in worry.

John flashed his light yellow once, then green twice. Focus on the mission.

The Master Chief pinged Viper-Heavy to their location.

---

Bridge of DOS-Class Supercruiser Jubilance

R'tas 'Vadum was understanding more and more just why the Arbiter had become so invested in Talon Battalion CO Ultra 'Rael 'Harum.

He had been content to mostly ignore him up to this point, given their disparity in rank and job. 'Harum fought on the ground, 'Vadum fought in space. 'Harum was an Ultra, and 'Vadum was a Fleetmaster.

However, with all of the Quarian ships now destroyed or escaped, R'tas could only watch the rest of the operation unfold on the ground.

'Vadum had been using live feeds from the Jericho's Black Widow spy satellites deployed in low orbit above the base to observe the developing engagement between 'Harum's forces and Admiral Xen's Quarians stationed on the moon. The magnification level and image quality were exceptionally good, but this was ONI equipment of course, spying was what they did best.

'Vadum had been slightly amazed when his Comms Officer had received a connection request from the satellite network's dumb-AI manager. An ONI Prowler sharing access to its highly guarded intelligence-gathering tech with a Sangheili warship… Have times really changed that much? R'tas believed that they hadn't, and this was more Captain Drake of the Jericho being equipped with more pragmatism then the shrewdness than 'Vadum would have expected. He would take the information regardless.

Talon Battalion had fallen upon the Quarians with the overwhelming force and intensity of a tsunami, just like the ones that would ravish the seaside keeps on Sanghelios when its two moons aligned in just the right way once every twenty-seven years.

The violent intensity of their action had swept the Quarians off of their feet - in some cases literally. 'Harum had split his unit into two waves, one infilling via drop-pods, the other carried down by Spirit and Phantom dropships. Along with himself the Sangheili CO had put his most battle-hardened and aggressive combat veterans in the first wave, where they had used to shock and surprise of their orbital insertion to cut down dozens upon dozens of unprepared Quarians within the first minute of the first wave exploding out of their pods. Forcing desperate retreats on the Quarian units they encounters, 'Harum and his initial shocktroopers quickly created defined lines of battle in and outside of both northern and southern barracks compounds, as well as the western research facilities.

'Harum had been the very first drop-pod to launch, and was the very first of his unit to hit dirt on B-1274. Leaders leading from the front, just the way that the Fleetmaster thought it should be done.

The second wave came in greeted by hot landing zones, and included the rest of the battalion's fighting Sangheili, light vehicles, crew-served weapons teams, and rapid-deploy artillery and anti-aircraft batteries.

Also in the this wave were Talon's contingent of fully trained and integrated Asari, the same that the Sangheili had rescued from the mining colony of Tarissa, where their search for the Keys had first began.

Another of the Arbiter's decisions that didn't exactly make sense to him, but that he didn't question. The survivors of the Reaper's assault on the Asari colony had wanted to fight, so the Arbiter let them fight, tasking Ultra 'Harum to integrate and train them.

He watched as the second wave disembarked and rushed to reinforce the orbital drop teams. The Quarians has been pushed back hard by the fierceness of 'Harum's entrance, but they were starting to rally.

Talon Battalion's soldiers expertly halted their advances and dug in around covered locations and strategic buildings. The reinforcements flowing in started setting up crew-served plasma turrets and mortars, as well as deploying portable energy shield barriers in more vulnerable spots along the lines.

A number of Ghosts, Revenants, and Spectre light vehicles had been detached from grav-locks as well, forming rapid response units also capable of medevacing casualties.

A separate task force of dropships had vectored straight to the penitentiary compound in the east. Having been already secured by Spartan-IV Fireteams Crimson and Majestic — with the aid of overwatch fire from Recon-One — Talon's artillery and triple-A would be set up there.

Commander Shepard and his squad was also en route to that location, where he and the Spartan-IV's would start getting the crew of the Kael sorted for evac, using Talon's Phantoms and Spirits to transport them to the Jubilance.

He got two notifications at once on his tactical display, one audio, one text. He played the audio while he pulled up the text to read simultaneously.

It was a report from Ultra 'Harum. He must have gotten his laser comm unit up and pointed towards the Jubilance.

"Fleetmaster, my unit has landed and established positions in each of the four compounds. We are currently engaging three large companies worth of Quarian infantry that have rallied and counterattacked. Requesting close air support at attached coordinates."

He forwarded the coordinates to FlightOps with a quick swipe of his finger. The squadron of Seraphs that had provided top cover to 'Harum's second wave would shortly be given strafing run and bombing assignments.

He opened his other message, seeing the sender was the UNSC Smart-AI Cortana. Principal secured.

'Harum's report continued in his ear. "Landing zone has been established in the east. Preparing hostages to load into transports. Will update when evacuation starts, 'Harum out."

All seemed to be going well, R'tas thought. The crew and Captain of the Kael had been secured, and 'Vadum did not imagine the Quarians would be able to break through the Sangheili lines now that they had been established and reinforced.

He watched from above as the Quarians charged back towards Talon Battalion. Knowing by now that their ships in orbit had been destroyed, and that there was no way they were getting off this moon alive, they advanced with desperate, futile courage.

It reminded the Fleetmaster of many of his engagements with the UNSC in the midst of that Great War. Once orbital supremacy was lost, there was nothing for ground forces left behind to do, no means for them to escape.

They could only die.

'Harum's troops opened up at range with long plasma turret, a flurry of light energy mortars, and sharpshooter fire, expertly ranging in and bracketing the advancing Quarians.

Xen's soldiers tried to retaliate with their own MGs and mortars, but Asari interspersed throughout the lines erected protective biotic barriers to cover their comrades.

Despite taking losses from the raking plasma fire and slagging energy mortars, the Quarians took forwards at a steady pace. That was, until they crossed into small-arms range.

Talon's veteran soldiers opened up with frightening accuracy and intensity. Covenant weaponry was high-impact and had a rapid rate-of-fire, so the Quarians found themselves running into a solid wall of well-aimed, superheated plasma.

The wave of their advance broke upon the rock of the Sangheili fire. Dozens in the first and second lines fell with molten globs burning through their armor and flesh. Quarians further back hit the deck and crawled for cover, some daring enough to raise themselves and their weapons to return fire.

'Harum called in his artillery fire missions and air strikes. Heavy plasma mortars from the artillery units at the penitentiary fell upon the stationary Quarians, turning entire squads into glass. The Seraphs pounced in pairs, cutting long lines of death into the enemy ranks with plasma cannon fire.

It was all over rather quickly. Once the majority of the Quarian numbers had been cut down, 'Harum sent in the fast vehicles to mop up the remaining survivors. Another report came in from 'Harum, this time a text.

Resistance eliminated. Dealing with stragglers, and pulling all forces to the eastern compound. Hostage loading proceeding smoothly.

R'tas was pleased. It would be only a matter of moments before the crew of the Kael would be lifted to the Jubilance once they had all loaded aboard Talon Battalion's dropships. To pass the time, he cycled through some systems reports and diagnostics on his tactical display.

The number Three energy projector was still being attended to, crystal realignment was a process that could take hours. No use in being angry at something he couldn't control, but R'tas still allowed himself a displeased grunt.

Shields were climbing from 95 percent after power had been delegated to recharging them following the skirmish with the Quarian cruisers.

The Jubilance's guardian Seraph squadron had repositioned itself following the dogfight...plasma torpedoes were all in working order… no damage to the pulse laser arrays… sensors showed a Reaper in front of his ship….

Wait.

Sensors showed a Reaper in front of his ship.

He snapped his head down towards the Weapons Officer. The Weapons Officer snapped his head up to 'Vadum. It was a Sovereign-class, two-thousand meters tall — and one kilometer directly in front of their bow.

"FIRE ONE!" R'tas bellowed, all kinds of alarms starting to suddenly scream. Proximity, LADAR detection, target lock — incoming fire.

Angelic white leapt from the Jubilance's number One bow projector, swiping stern to bow through the Sovereign-Class Reaper's entire hull, vivisecting it into two sparking halves.

As the Reaper faded from life R'tas and the rest of the bridge crew were rocked in their chairs as the Jubilance was struck by a trio of impacts, dropping their energy shields to 74 percent.

Sensor scans were returning the distinct signatures of four-hundred and twelve Reapers.

They had all jumped in-system not seconds ago in loose formation, and the Jubilance was nearly smack-dab in the middle of them all. Alone, in a sea of red.

R'tas' mind raced, so fast that time seemed to stop. He had to think and act now, or they'd all be dead. They had to escape this sudden encirclement. They had to get the ground teams out and jump to safety. The masses of Reapers would fall upon the Jubilance like a pack of wild scavengers on a singled-out apex predator. They had to move, or they would be dead.

As the gravity of the situation set in, he realized that they would probably be dead anyways.

"Ahead flank! Redline the reactors!" he barked, and the Supercruiser shook as the repulsor engines screamed, launching the ship forwards straight through the Reaper they had just killed, bow and stern shields of the Jubilance pushing away and scraping against the inner sides of the Reaper halves.

"Weapons free, priority to closest capital ships!" R'tas shouted next. They had to get the biggest guns closest to them out of the fight.

Twelve plasma lines glowed red hot and launched guided torpedoes at twelve Reaper capital ships within a hundred kilometers of the Jubilance, bending and twisting to orient towards their targets.

The Supercruiser jolted again as another salvo of incoming fire struck the energy shields, bringing them down even further to 53 percent. Thirty-one separate Reaper ships had target-locks on the Jubilance: fourteen Sovereign-class, seventeen Destroyers.

Three-hundred and eighty-one more Reapers were orienting and accelerating towards them to get into weapons range.

The effectiveness of the Covenant's mainline energy shielding against both plasma-based fire and kinetic rounds was well demonstrated during the war against the UNSC, and later during the civil wars following the Great Schism. Able to dissipate intense heat and absorb powerful physical blows, the Jubilance's energy shields were well-suited towards protecting against the Reaper's weapons. The magnetohydrodynamic streams of molten metal ejected from their mounts at immense velocities were nothing that the Jubilance's energy shielding wasn't designed to deal with.

However, with this many enemies bearing down on them, and with this much incoming fire, R'tas knew it was only a matter of time until they gave way.

The Jubilance was gaining speed rapidly, accelerating almost twice as fast as the Reapers attempting to give chase. A lone sole trying desperately to escape the enclosing tidalwave of death. At least they had speed, R'tas thought.

Pulse laser batteries filled the vacuum with brilliant needle-pricks of cyan energy, blotting out swarms of launched Oculus fighters from the close Reapers. Seven of the Jubilance's guardian Seraph squadron were swatted out by the Reaper's own laser batteries, but the surviving nine were able to jet back into the hangar bays as per the orders of FlightOps.

At this close of an engagement distance, all twelve of the Jubilance's torpedoes found their marks, burrowing past kinetic barriers and knifing through armor plating with directed jets of molten plasma. The Supercruiser's gunnery crews were excellent, guiding their torpedoes into the front-center masses of the Sovereign-class Reapers - where the majority of their central, critical systems were.

Twelve Reapers died within seconds of each other, billions of years of collective existence ended in bubbling slag.

Target-locks dropped to nineteen, then jumped up to twenty-six just a few seconds later as more Reapers got into range.

Twenty-six magnetohydrodynamic of lances of sparking-red shot towards the Jubilance.

Four directed-energy lances of silver-white shot back.

Four more Sovereign-class Reapers were sliced into pieces.

The salvo from the Reapers - most from smaller two-hundred meter Destroyers - struck the Jubilance violently. Her energy shields reached their absolute limit and shattered after straining to absorb the first sixteen hits, letting ten through to impact the Supercruiser's hull.

The Jubilance was sporting the most advanced version of the nanolaminate multi-layered hull plating that the Arbiter's budding shipyards could provide in refits, but the ship itself just wasn't designed with much armor.

The Supercruiser wasn't meant to be a frontline brawler. It was meant to deploy in the rear of the formation, where it could use its most inherent strengths - five fast-cycling, long-range energy projectors - to its advantage.

The streams of molten metal rendered through the Jubilance's light armor plating and pierced into decks well beyond, leaving jagged, blackened scars along the Supercruiser's exterior.

Fleetmaster 'Vadum grimaced as he saw bulkheads automatically seal throughout the breached decks to keep the ship air-tight, likely dooming any unfortunate crewmembers caught on the wrong side of the heavy doors. Two of his twelve plasma torpedo silos were hit as well, one with heavy damage, the other completely destroyed along with its accompanying gunnery crew. The communications antenna suites on both the ventral and dorsal sides were hit.

'Vadum knew that they wouldn't survive another salvo like that. All of his weapons were still cycling. At the cost of their reactor threatening to flashover they had almost reached the outer edge of the Reaper formation, but there were still Reapers ahead of them, and many, many more behind. He could see sensors reporting energy buildups along Reaper weapon points.

Avenge me Thel, R'tas wished, before the remaining exterior cameras were overloaded with light and heat.

---

Pelican Stealth Gunship Viper-Heavy

"Entry method Master Chief?"

A second's pause from the Spartan standing over his shoulder. "Anvils."

Flight Sergeant Samuel Dolton grinned. "Aye Chief."

Dolton had Viper-Heavy accelerating towards the central dome after coming in for an expertly quick landing to pick up Blue team and the Captain of the Kael. He had thought that they would be going straight for the rally point at the eastern penitentiary, but the Master Chief had given different orders to head for the central dome of Admiral Xen's base at top speed - where the Reaper fragment that had been worth all this trouble was concealed.

Senior Airman Roran Cehack finalized his targeting data for his Anvils. Below him as they flew forwards, Xen's Quarians were engaged in brutal conflict with Ultra 'Harum's Talon Battalion. There were plenty of Quarian targets groundside that he could engage, but he didn't want to break stealth.

The Chief had wanted their attack to be unexpected, and lightning quick. Just their specialty.

"Fox Three," Roran called, cool as ice.

Viper-Heavy's active camouflage flashed in front of the wing-mounted missile launchers as four Anvil missiles rocketed away from their hardpoints.

The missile slammed into the side of the Quarian dome, tearing a large jagged hole through the thin aluminum siding. Viper-Heavy shot through the gap, Dolton flaring the thrusters to bring the Pelican to a hover within the confines of the dome.

The Reaper fragment was right there in the center, towering sixty meters tall. It looked like a thin tree, reaching up with jagged mechanical branches twisted with thick cables.

Cehack had immediately identified targets. Quarian infantry spread out on the ground throughout the dome, turning their heads skywards from the missile impacts above and the sound of hot engines. In this confined space, the gunship could only be so stealthy. It was emissions-proof, not sound-proof.

Roran requested permission to disable active camouflage, putting the power into the gunship's hardlight barriers instead. Sam granted it instantly, showing the stunned Quarians below an angular, jet black gunship at close range as they exited stealth.

Cehack depressed his triggers and sent a barrage of 30mm high-explosive cannon rounds down at pairs and trios of Quarians, tearing the poor souls apart in burst of blood, flesh, and shredded armor. He let the cannon barrels spin as he fired his wing-mounted M247T 7.62mm machine guns at lone soldiers either trying to run or bringing small-arms to bear. They were pierced through with FMJ all the same, the independently linked barrels tracking targets under the guide of Cortana.

It had taken some time to get used to working with a Smart-AI, but the crew of Viper-Heavy had learned to embrace it. Cortana only made their jobs easier, and allowed them to focus more on what they did best - flying and frying.

Blue Team was firing out of the back of the Pelican, boots magnetically clamped to the extended troopbay ramp. Kelly and Fred were picking out targets with their ACS's, while the Master Chief was manning the rear tri-barreled HMG, pounding away ruthlessly, methodically.

"Spin us around." It was Cortana, chirping into Dolton's earpiece. "Back us up close to the fragment, Captain vas Kael needs to scan it. So do I."

"Aya ma'am," Dolton said, using his stick and pedals to spin the gunship with its rear facing the Reaper fragment. In his troopbay cameras the pilot could see their VIP, Captain vas Kael, stepping right up to near the edge of the Pelican's ramp and extending an orange-shrouded arm towards the fragment. She was scanning it, no doubt Cortana was using Viper-Heavy's own sensor suite and Blue Team's Mjolnir scanners to get a read on the Reaper tech as well.

He reeled in surprised pain as a screeching static assaulted his ears, quickly cut off by Cortana.

"More jamming?" Dolton asked.

"Worse," the AI responded. "We're in trouble."

---

Cockpit of the SSV Normandy

Joker knew he had to be perfect.

If he wasn't perfect, then he would be dead. Everyone on the Normandy would be dead. Commander Shepard and everyone on the ground would be dead.

The sweat was streaming down his face. The Normandy's heat sinks were being filled at a rapid pace as he pushed the four antiproton thrusters to their limits. To give them more time hidden from sensors heat was vented into the interior of the ship as well, and the Flight Lieutenant could absolutely feel it.

Hundreds… Hundreds… of Reapers had materialized out of thin space above B-1274. EDI had acted immediately, shutting off any hint of outgoing transmissions from the Normandy, setting the ship to silent running and spinning them towards the moon.

Joker's instincts had taken over from there, as he pushed the throttles all the way down and worked his maneuvering controls, spinning and weaving the Normandy in between and through gaps in the Reaper's formation.

He was flying on pure adrenaline. EDI knew better than to try and take control away from him now.

In the corner of his eye he could see external camera visuals. The Jubilance was taking and returning fire, having been caught in the same mass of Reapers, but without the benefits of stealth technology. EDI displayed at least fifty nearby Reapers that would soon be within weapons range of the Supercruiser. She was moving fast though, accelerating in a bid to breakthrough the Reaper's formation and get planetside.

That was exactly what Joker planned to do as well. Get dirtside, get as many off of B-1274 as could fit on the Normandy, and get the everloving fuck out of the system.

As fates would have it, the Normandy had already been near the outer edge of the Reaper's formation, so after several intense bouts of controlled breathing, G-forces, and 100 degree heat, they burst past while miraculously remaining undetected.

Joker set in a hard burn for Xen's Quarian base. He had no doubt that EDI was sending status updates down to the ground teams via the laser comm units. He could see just… waves upon waves of Reaper drop pods being shot down towards B-1274. Far more than he knew his friends down on the surface would be able to manage.

---

Bridge of Sahara-class Heavy Prowler Jericho

Captain Nathan Drake was yelling. He never yelled. "Lieutenant! DO IT NOW! LAUNCH!"

The targeting solutions had been done in a snap-second - they had to be. Drake hoped that they were correct, else he would be condemning Fleetmaster 'Vadum and the Jubilance to death by his own hand.

The Jericho broke active camouflage for just a split-second to empty the entirety of its nuclear arsenal. Twenty Hornet nuclear mines and four Shiva nuclear missiles shot away from their launch tubes. The Jericho's nonlinear pulse cannons flared as they burned away a squadron of Oculus fighters that had strayed too close to the Prowler.

He had seen the Jubilance react to finding themselves in the same situation that the Jericho was in as well - enveloped in a cocoon of hundreds of Reapers. Watching the Supercruiser accelerate towards the planet and the edge of the Reaper formation, Drake had his Weapons Officer target the few Sovereign-Class Reapers in front of the the Jubilance's trajectory with Shivas, while the Hornets would rapidly burn through their maneuvering fuel to create a nuclear 'net' behind the Fleetmaster's ship, hoping to catch and delay pursuing Reapers for long enough to give 'Vadum options other than just... fight and die.

Not bothering to go back into active camouflage, the Jericho opened up a neat tear in the seventh dimension, accelerating into slipspace before the Reapers closeby could get a target lock, jumping out of the system.

---

Ultra Rael 'Harum was watching when the Reapers arrived. Talon Battalion had just repositioned to the eastern penitentiary compound after eliminating the vast majority of remaining Quarian resistance. He was looking skywards towards a pair of Seraphs scanning for survivors when he saw it.

The stars changed. Some disappeared, some were added. The lights erupted not seconds after. Electric ruby-reds against stark whites, blues, and purples.

He winced as high-pitched feedback filled his ears. Jamming. 'Harum filtered out the noise and switched to his external audio. "Officers!" he called, his already booming command voice amplified further by his helmet speakers.

The Company and Platoon commanders within earshot, thirteen of them out of twenty, zeroed in on 'Harum's IFF tag and jetted towards him in fast, low bounds.

"They are engaging in orbit!" 'Harum said, not wasting time. "No comms! 'Katarn, are all the hostages loaded?"

"Yessir!"

"Spread the word! Tell the pilots to launch for the Jubilance on my red flare!" 'Harum ordered. He directed his officers to then look skywards, all enhancing to their visor's maximum magnification setting.

The Jubilance stood out in the vacuum as a maelstrom of colors, as the warship fired the full extent of its impressive arsenal. They could also see the flurry of crimson strikes from multiple Reapers jolting towards the Jubilance.

More immediately pressing were the hundreds upon hundreds of Reaper drop pods rocketing towards the general direction of the base.

"Back to your positions," 'Harum said seriously. "Get your troops ready. Hold the line."

The officers broke off and jetted back to their units, but 'Harum heard his name being called from above and behind him.

He spun, looking up towards the roof of the Quarian penitentiary building. It was one of his sniper teams, perched on a south-west facing corner. The two were waving at him to come up, so he took a running start before triggering his jump jets, ascending up easily in the low-G. "What is is soldier?"

"One kilometer out, eleven o' clock," said the spotter, holding up the scope to 'Harum.

The Ultra took a look in that specific direction. There. Two distant figures moving across the uneven terrain towards the penitentiary. One of them was carrying a load on his back — it looked like a person. It looked like a causality.

'Harum recognized them. This was Recon-One, they must have come down from the rim of the crater above, trying to get to their position. Two kilometers on foot in the open, and if their comms were being affected like Talon's were, 'Harum guessed that something had gone very wrong.

"Cover them," he ordered the sniper team, turning and sprinting towards the other side of the roof. Nearing the edge he jumped and triggered his jets again, floating down towards the open patch of ground where his rapid-response vehicle task force was waiting on standby.

He hopped up on one of the wings of the lead Spectre assault transports, standing tall and gathering the attention of the crews and combat teams of the response force's four Spectres, four Revenants, and eight Ghosts. "CASEVAC!" he yelled over the idling grav-generators and repulsor lifts of the vehicles. "One kilometer, south-southeast! With me!"

Movement in his peripheries. The Ultra spun his head, and was greeted by what was becoming a familiar sight.

It was Commander Shepard, Shipmaster of the Normandy, adorned in his gunmetal grey armor - crimson red stripe running down his right arm. He had a companion with him, which 'Harum easily recognized as an Asari. Doctor T'Soni, his memory recalled.

Shepard flagged him down, running to the Spectre 'Harum was on. "Those are my people out there!" he said.

'Harum motioned them to get on the Spectre. The two deftly hopped on the opposite wing of the vehicle.

'Harum braced himself against the body of his Specter, holding on to the edge of the engine cowl with the hand not gripping his Plasma Repeater. "Driver, move it out! Fast as she goes!"

The Spectre lurched as the driver pushed the engines to full-power, rocketing it forwards at top speed, five meters above B-1274's rocky ground. The rest of the rapid-response force fell into formation around him, with the Spectres in the center-front, the Revenants just behind, and the Ghosts spread out in a close perimeter around them.

They had to get to Recon-One before the Reaper drop pods inundated the crater. He could already see the first couple of dozen streaking down to the ground, but he saw how many had been launched by the Reapers in orbit. Talon's anti-aircraft Shade turrets pointed their plasma barrels skywards and started unleashing linked bursts, but there would be more pods than 'Harum could have counted if he tried. What would start as a light drizzle would soon turn into a torrential downpour of reanimated husks and incoming fire.

The Ultra's visor darkened suddenly as flashes of orange-white fire lit up the space above them. 'Harum recognized the blasts from nearly ten years of combat experience against the UNSC.

Nuclear weapons, deployed from the Jericho. It was common knowledge throughout the Covenant militaries that Prowlers were loaded with plenty of nuclear ordnance. It looked like the blasts were centered around where he had last seen the Jubilance fighting for its life in orbit far above…

An agonizing half-minute later, the Jubilance burst through the rapidly dissipating nuclear clouds, a phoenix rising from the ashes.

The Supercruiser was steaming and smoking as it bled off heat from the nearby blasts. It's nano climate hull armor was burned or boiled away in most sections, gouged and scarred by magnetohydrodynamic blast in others. The forward half of its curved bow was slagged from nuclear radiation. A large majority of the portside wing was missing, disrupting the ship's once graceful symmetry.

Wounded, but still alive.

Without comms 'Harum couldn't communicate with them, but he just knew that they were coming to get them, rushing through the thin atmosphere at high speeds towards the base.

The rapid-response task force was well over half the distance to Recon-One's position. Drop pods were landing in and around the crater at a steady pace, and 'Harum looked back to see his battalion engaging the Reaper ground forces that started to stumble out. Searing cyan plasma, shimmering blue biotics, violet sniper beams, emerald fuel rod shells, sparking red mortars that seemed to hang in the air forever… until splashing down and turning the impact zone into glass.

Several Reaper drop pods fell within a hundred and fifty yards of Recon-One, spitting out dozens of Human husks. The Spectre vibrated as the plasma turret gunner opened up along with the rest of the response force.

---

Garrus was burning. His lungs, his muscles, his bones, they were all on fire from the strain of carrying Five-Eight. Her vitals were present but weak, and were starting to fluctuate erratically at times.

He saw the vehicle convoy coming towards them. Salvation.

He also saw as a flurry of Reaper drop-pods burrowed into the ground around them- some far too close.

The Turian gently yet swiftly set Five-Eight back on the ground. He drew Nornfang from his lower back and searched for targets.

Vega started working his M-100 Grenade Launcher, each solid thump shortly followed by a blast of shrapnel, fire, and dirt, and parts of Husk.

Four bulky Cannibals a hundred meters away fell in just as many seconds as Garrus dropped them with Nornfang's HEAP rounds, blowing off bulbous, tumorous heads and raised hunched backs.

The rifle was perfectly balanced in his hands. It seemed to whisper to him, telling him exactly how to hold it, just the right place to aim, and exactly the specific way to pull the trigger.

Vakarian took a split-second to look towards the approaching vehicles while he discarded the spent box magazine and searched for a fresh one to slam into the empty well. It was a significant convoy in strength, moving fast and floating several meters above B-1274's surface. The vehicles were curved, sleek, and bulbous, designs that Garrus wouldn't have recognized had he not known that Sangheili had deployed for the operation alongisde of them.

By some stroke of luck, fate, or both, someone from Talon Battalion had noticed Recon-One, recognized their situation, and had sent help their way just in the knick of time.

Garrus didn't know if Sangheili drank alcohol, but he'd buy every one of Talon Battalion's troops a drink if they got them off of this Spirits-forsaken moon alive.

The Turian's attention was grabbed again by more Reapers emerging from drop pods, which were beginning to fall around them in alarming volume. Twelve formerly-human Husks crawled out of the smoking pod, finding their feet and started to shambles quickly in their direction.

Garrus took aim with Nornfang once again. Three Husks lined themselves up conveniently for his first shot, the heavy 14.5x114mm rounds tearing dinner-plate sized holes in the chests of the first two, detonating inside the thoracic cavity of the third. He was sighting another target when his field-of-view was filled by sapphire blue and ruby red plasma. Their rescue convoy was firing at the Reapers, attempting to give Recon-One cover.

Vakarian stepped back and lowered his stance, seeing in his peripheries as Vega did the same, the two of them converging near Five-Eight's prone, wounded form like protective mothers.

The noise from the incoming allied cover fire was loud, but a rapidly growing sound in Garrus' ears began to drown it out.

It was immense, it was all-encompassing, it was this bone-rattling, ground-shaking roar.

---

Commander Shepard watched with no small amount of awe as the Jubilance came screaming towards them.

Shepard flexed his palms and reached his arms outwards, extending a biotic barrier out in front of the convoy. He concentrated and with small manipulations of his fingers shaped the wide barrier into a sharp, aerodynamic wedge. Shepard felt his power invigorated when Liara added her own biotic energy to his, a familiar, comforting feeling.

Far larger than any Alliance vessel he had ever seen or served on, the three kilometer, wounded warship filled the entirety of their sky as it nosed up, engines in full reverse.

The Commander braced himself against the side of the Specter as the Supercruiser drowned out everything, the wave of noise, wind, and rock following in its wake crashing against the front of the convoy's front-facing barrier with significant force.

The Jubilance was still snarling, pulse laser arrays flashing as they vaporized Reaper drop pods above and clumps of husks below. As she intensely decelerated, her lateral plasma lines flashed hot, spitting out nine torpedoes that arced straight up into the sky.

Shepard's attention was forced back forwards to the ground - they were coming up on Recon-One.

Dissipating his barrier, Shepard leapt of their Spectre with Liara and Ultra 'Harum. The rest of the vehicles circled the wagons around them, putting out high volumes of plasma fire into the masses of Reaper husks recovering from the gale-force winds brought by the Jubilance's extreme entrance.

He found his two squadmates sprawled out over top of a battered-looking, black suited Spartan. Shepard knew that this was Sierra-058.

Vega scrambled to his feet. Vakarian tried, but his legs gave out as he attempted to stand. Shepard was there in a second, hoisting his friend up and putting one of the Turian's arm around his shoulders.

"She's still alive!" Garrus shouted at him breathlessly.

---

'Harum didn't know what to make of the severely wounded Spartan in front of him.

In a different time, in a different war, in a different galaxy, he would have been encouraged - elated, even - to learn that the Demons could be hurt in such a way. Their legend amongst the Covenant was wide-reaching; almost every rank-and-file soldier, officer, and shipmaster feared when they were mentioned… including him. The ones that didn't fear often ended up dead.

Now though, the sight of the dying Demon pained him, as it would seeing one of his own soldiers in such a state.

He looked back to the eastern compound and Talon Battalion. The Jubilance had come to a swift halt four hundred yards above the unit's position - an incredible navigational maneuver. It turned out that 'Harum didn't need his red flare at all, his subcommanders were competent enough to take the obvious initiative.

The Phantoms and Spirits carrying the crew of the Kael lifted off and bolted for the Jubilance's ventral hangar bay, while at the same time the Supercruiser projected its gravity lift down to B-1274's surface. He watched as Talon Battalion personnel and equipment began to be lifted up into the field, Sangheili still sending fire outwards, Asari still extending protective biotic barriers.

They were getting onboard to get the hell out, and here he was with his rapid-response task force one kilometer out, with no comms.

The drop pods had never stopped falling. The density of the incoming Reaper troops was becoming quite concerning. The Ultra looked away from the downed Spartan and put his Plasma Repeater to his shoulder, adding to the outgoing fire from his vehicles.

'Harum noticed a new shadow on the ground, moving fast. He looked up and saw the SSV Normandy streaking in from over the top of the Jubilance. The stealthy bird-of-prey dove down towards them in a wide, low turn, GARDIAN laser batteries flaring against husks on the ground.

It sure as the Ancestors looked like evac to 'Harum.

He watched as the Normandy descended onto their position, its front-facing shuttle bay doors open and ramp lowered. Armed crewmembers were standing with magboots activated at the edges of the ramp, firing down into the growing rapids of Reaper infantry.

The Ultra turned up his external speakers to their highest levels in an attempt to reach his vehicle crews.

"DISEMBARK!"

---

No time was wasted.

Commander Shepard propped Garrus up with one arm, putting into biotic stasis and lifting Sierra-058 with the other. 'Harum and his disembarked vehicle crews poured plasma and greandes into the closing Reaper masses. For every one they burned, every one they slagged, every one they downed, two would take their place.

Liara bought precious time by casting six swirling singularities in a half-ellipse in front of their retreating forces, the negative mass effect fields snatching droves of Reapers off their feet. Lieutenant Vega spent his last drum magazine of M-100 ammunition by sending an incendiary grenade into the center of each of Liara's singularities.

The charges burst, spreading flaming napalm all over the affected area of the singularity. This was their chance, and they all turned to book it for the Normandy, covered by suppressive fire from the SR-3's crewmembers.

As they were all charging up the ramp light and pressure erupted behind them, coming from above. It was Viper-Heavy, guided to the Alliance vessel with the help of Cortana. Thirty millimeter chin autocannon blazing a trail in the Reapers below, the Pelican streaked in for a hot landing in the Normandy's bay.

The Jubilance finished loading up Talon Battalion. It gently coaxed a hole into slipspace off of its slagged bow and smoothly moved into it.

Knowing what would happen to this entire crater following a slipspace rupture in atmosphere closing, Cortana gently yet firmly told Joker and EDI to close the shuttle bay doors and follow after the Jubilance.

As the Supercruiser's rear engine cowls passed through the tear, the Normandy shot through behind it fifty meters below. Both warships now safe in the eleven dimensions, the portal snapped shut.

The fragment, the base, the crater, and every Reaper husk left on B-1274 were swallowed in an expanding spherical blast of purple-black quantum energy, after which the moon was quiet once more.