Chapter Forty-Eight: The Battle of Nine Navies Pt. II
Never underestimate the power of Hope.
UNSC Infinity
The silence throughout the conference room was suffocating. Heavy, like a thick blizzard had coated every surface with inches upon inches of sound-dampening snow.
Not a single soul present could come up with words for several moments.
Not Admiral Lasky, eyes turned down towards the shiny surface of the large metal conference table as if in shame.
Not Admiral Hackett, who ran a hand through his rough grey stubble on his chin with solemn pensiveness.
Not Admiral Tibrinus, side mandibles subconsciously twitching as he stared steely-eyed at the intel laid out on table's central holotank.
Not Admiral Manis, whose flat nostrils flared with rapid breaths as his mind tried to process what he had just been shown.
Not Lieutenant-Colonel Dare, the only break in her stony ONI exposition being the down-turned corners of her mouth.
Not Arbiter Thel 'Vadam, whose long neck and head were visible on a wall-mounted vidscreen, head hung and four hinged jaws compressing tightly.
"We're fucked." It was Captain Skyheit, dark-skinned forehead creased heavily, thick lips pursed tight into a thin, white line, who broke the silence. "We are so — so — fucked."
Colonel Kirrahe, standing at the fore of the room next to a strategic vid display, echoed the sentiment. "The situation is indeed... grim."
The head of the Salarian Special Tasks Group had just finished delivering the most difficult briefing of his career, given the news that they'd likely all be dead — or worse — within the next two to three months.
"To hell with those Cerberus bastards," Admiral Hackett growled behind bared teeth, "They'll damn us all for their own petty vengeance."
"You see why we take such extreme measures," The Arbiter said lowly, having just hours earlier condemned an entire planet and billions of innocent Asari to death via glassing. "And how sometimes even that is not enough. The Cerberus ships must have escaped Noveria with Parasite contaminates on board before my force had even arrived."
"Spirits help us…" Admiral Manis said, "And I thought that the Reapers were bad enough. How are we supposed to fight something like this when that is the end result of a single attack?"
The Salarian pointed a long talon at the vidscreen Colonel Kirrahe was standing besides. On it, Thessia smoldered in the wake of the Sangheili glassing.
He tapped his datapad on the table and replaced the burning Asari homeworld with a video footage from Arbiter Thel 'Vadam's ground troops on Thessia, submitted as part of the Sangheili's post-battle report to those who had come to be known as Allied High Command.
The group of high-ranking officers had seen everything. They saw through Sangheili eyes during the Arbiter's battles on Noveria and throughout Omega Station, as well as recorded battlecam footage from MCPO Sierra-117's various encounters with the Flood.
They saw the brief Reaper assault on Thessia and the Flood's arrival afterwards, through sensor data and battle recordings from the Shadow of Intent. They watched the frantic defense of the surface through both Asari and Sangheili helmet cams - including the Arbiter's near last stand at the school.
The sheer weight of the barbarity they witnessed, the overwhelming, unhinged brutality that was the Flood, had either shocked into silence or set the fear of God into each of the members of the Allied High Command ... and that was only the first part of Colonel Kirrahe's briefing.
In the second half, Kirrahe explained that the Batarian civilization as it had been known was far past the point of annihilation, and in its place something wicked festered. Allied High Command watched it unfold through the sensor feeds of a Salarian stealth frigate the STG had tasked to observe the Batarian Hegemony.
The first of the galactic powers to be beset by the Reapers, the Hegemony had already suffered more than two-thirds its empire destroyed, with the last remainders besieged with no hope for rescue. While an occupation force was left behind as the majority of the Reapers had set out for the rest of the galaxy, fires choked the atmospheres of dozens of Batarian worlds, and the brutal machinations of the harvesting techniques filled the airs of the planets with never ending screams.
Then the Flood arrived.
The small group of Cerberus light cargo and personal vessels tracked from Noveria jumped to a once-thriving Batavian colony on the edge of its territory that had already been devastated by the Reapers. The capital ships had already departed for other worlds to plunder, and the occupation force left behind was well into the population's harvest.
The Cerberus ships crash-landed on the planet near the locations of largest harvesting activity… where there was also the highest density of available biomass.
While Allied fleets had been busy fighting the Reapers on the other side of the galaxy, the infection on the Batarian colony spread like wildfire. As it turned out, Reaper husks were perfect hosts for the Parasite since the Reaper turning process left the central nervous system relatively untouched. The STG frigate in system had recorded the visible changes to the planets surface as a grey tsunami of eldritch horror flooded the entire colony.
A group of Reapers warships had jumped in shortly after the planet had been inundated by the Flood, giving Allied HighCom a look into something just as hair-raisingly terrifying as the physical aspect of the Flood — The Logic Plague.
The UNSC Artificial Intelligence Roland had explained what was understood about the process to HighCom, and how once a Flood infection reached a sufficient level of biomass to spawn a Gravemind, said Gravemind could communicate with and subvert artificial intelligences within their sphere of influence. The Flood mind assaulted its victims with carefully crafted philosophical corruption, calling into question their core reasoning, then molding and shaping their thought processes to become aligned with the Parasite's end goals.
The Reaper investigatory force, twenty ships total, had all suddenly stopped in their tracks on their way towards the infested colony world. They looked immobile, as if the sentient war machines had powered down. They floated adrift for nearly two days, but their drive cores and main systems still looked like they were running according to the frigate's sensor feeds.
Then, all at once, the Reapers started… seizing. Their engines and maneuvering thrusters fired wildly, sending them on erratic courses to nowhere while their tentacle appendages writhed individually in their own random patterns. The Reapers 'legs' had ended coiled in within themselves, the war machines looking more like dead spiders on their backs than terrifying symbols of death and destruction.
The STG had lost contact with the Salarian frigate shortly after that.
"Well, this explains why the Reapers have been hightailing it out of the Turian theater," Tibrinus said. "It's because they've had the fear of god put into them by this… horror in Hegemony space."
The Turian High Admiral, commander of the entirety of the Hierarchy fleets, sat back against his chair heavily and rubbed his tired eyes. "This entire operation, our push to take back Palaven… we thought the Reapers were skirting decisive engagements and retreating from our advances to draw us in deeper, and consolidate their forces before striking us hard with the totality of their numbers."
Tibrinus gestured to a a particular image capture taken from the battle above Thessia - the giant ball of Flood-infected Reapers fused together by flesh, sinew, and metal. "But no. That's why. To the Reapers we're not the threat anymore. The Flood is."
The members of Allied HighCom took a moment to contemplate that. The bulk of the allied fleets had now regrouped at their latest staging area, a mid-sized Turian world named Jaskeir. They had just come off of eight days of hard and fast planet hopping, having split into two prongs of hundreds of ships from the Systems Alliance, Turian Hierarchy, and Salarian Union, with the small numbers of UNSC vessels providing the firepower backbone of the battlegroups.
It had been too easy. Each system the fleets jumped to, whatever Reaper presence there was in orbit retreated before them. Some Reapers would fight to cover the retreat of others, but never in any quantity of numbers to pose significant opposition to the combined weight of UNSC MAC rounds and mass accelerator fire.
Unfortunately, their hope to 'reclaim' any worlds from the Reapers was dashed as soon as the Allies jumped into the first systems. The previously habitable, well developed, and populated worlds were all burning husks of their former selves. On the Reaper's initial marauding advance starting at Palaven and sweeping through three dozen Turian worlds, their destruction was thorough in its abhorrent totality of violence.
Men, women, children, were slaughtered outright or harvested. Cities were leveled entire blocks at a time with the sweep of magnetohydrodynamic beams. The countrysides burned, frontier houses and sprawling crop fields were set alight, and wildlife choked on heat and smoke.
Twenty-five billion Turian dead. Nearly a quarter of their total population turned to ash… or worse.
HighCom had only deployed ground elements on the first few planets they had assaulted, moreso for morale purposes that for any strategic benefit. Having already secured orbit and bombing the ever-living hell out of any pockets of Reaper troops they could find, coordinated assaults from infantry, armor, and air assets drove the uncoordinated Reaper husks before them with little issue.
Like with any war, however, there were always casualties, but not nearly as many as if the Reapers had put up a determined defense. HighCom soon decided that unless there was an overwhelmingly prevalent reason, sending troops down the gravity well to fight over already ruined planets that could just as easily be bypassed wasn't worth the increasing numbers of wounded and dead troops Allied forces suffered with every attack.
Admiral Hackett asked the question that was on everyone's mind. "So… given what we know now. Do we continue to push for Palaven?"
All eyes present turned towards Tibrinus. With Primarch Victus leading the Turian government from the Citadel following Councilor Sparatus' assasination, Admiral Tibrinus had taken the lead with planning and executing the planet-hopping 'Push to Palaven' strategy.
The proud Turian Admiral's shoulders slumped. He was tired. He hadn't been sleeping enough, and food hadn't interested him in several days. The stakes and stress of the campaign, and the staggering amount of Turian dead clearly weighed heavily on him. He took a long, hard look at the final images from the Salarian stealth frigate of the Batarian world that had been utterly overrun by the flood.
"Palaven is gone. There's nothing left to save, other than our pride. But what good is pride, or revenge, in the face of such… desperate horror? The Flood - never in my most terrible nightmares could I have imagined such a thing. They've been ravaging through Batarian space, getting stronger, making things like that."
Tibrunis pointed to the image of the Flood-fused Reaper ball that had arrived above Thessia, before it broke apart in low orbit and sent the infection down planetside. "They've already turned their attention outwards - Thessia burns because of it. Where will the Flood strike next? A Salarian world? Sur'Kesh? Alliance space? Shanxi, and its tens of millions of Alliance refugees? Or the Citadel?"
Tibrinus suddenly stood up from his chair, starting to pace back and forth along one of the conference room walls. The anger and frustration at their situation bled off of him strong enough for everyone to feel. "Even when we were fighting just the Reapers, we all knew how hard-pressed we'd be to stand any chance at all, even with the miracles of UNSC and Sangheili firepower."
He braced one arm against the wall, covering his eyes with his other hand, rubbing the points of his talon-fingers along the thin lines and ridges of his colored facial tattoos that showed he was born on Palaven. "What can we do? How could we fight something that can corrupt even the Reapers? The spirits damned Reapers! Who have already killed billions of our people!"
Tibrinus' tone had increased in a pained crescendo until he was shouting by the end of his sentences.
A brightness of warmth and light shimmered in the corner of the room, the air heating suddenly by a few degrees… and a soft voice spoke. "Hope — hope is always the first thing the Flood consumes."
Kirrahe, Lieutenant-Colonel Dare, and Captain Skyheit were up out of their seats and brandishing their service pistols in a rush of smooth motion.
Tibrinus, Manis, and Hackett looked on in stunned confusion. Lasky's mouth was hanging slightly open in the surprise of instant recognition. The Arbiter bowed his head in reverent respect.
The Librarian stepped forwards and laid a gentle hand on Tibrinus' neck. He felt such a pleasant, calming heat course through his veins with such suddenness that it took his breath away.
"Before the flesh and bone, before the mind and memories, the Flood takes your hope," the woman said.
The Turian stared up at her with inexplicable wonder. "Who are you?" Tibrinus asked.
"Librarian," the Arbiter answered in pious acknowledgement.
"Many names have I been called," the tall, slender figure said. The deep pools of her violet eyes seemed to look at everyone at once. "Know me as First-Light-Weaves-Living-Song — and heed my words."
Dare, Skyheit, and Kirrahe slowly lowered their pistols slowly, compelled to do so by the overwhelming aura that the Librarian commanded.
"The Flood's presence in this galaxy is the fault of my people, and my people alone," Living-Song started. "The Precursors — the First Creators — their work spanned the cosmos. Stars and planets were their building blocks, and with simple thoughts they could create entire systems. Countless galaxies they seeded with life… until they created us."
She stepped past Tibrinus, her shimmering grey dress flowing around her legs like streamwater. Colonel Kirrahe was the next person the Librarian stopped before, reaching a hand to touch his scaled neck.
"We rose up against them when they sought to pass us over for the stewardship of The Mantle — the responsibility to safeguard life itself."
Kirrahe felt the warmth as well, the pit of dread that had solidly formed in his stomach since learning of the Flood seeming to dissolve into nothingness.
"My people, the Forerunners… we killed them in our rage for not being chosen," the Librarian said. There was a gentle sadness to her expression, one that showed true remorse of what had happened paired with the gradual acceptance afforded by time. "Or so we had thought."
Dare was he next to receive her attention. The ONI naval commander's grip was tight on her M6 Mangun, but loosened when the Librarian brushed her fingers against her cheek, tucking a strand of Dare's hair that had fallen astray back behind her ear.
"The first things we destroyed were their various gates to other galaxies. We sought to have them trapped, where we could hunt them freely with vicious abandon. The Precursors, they knew only life and creation. They could not comprehend the concept of our spiteful violence… and we were very competent in violence."
The Librarian circled the conference room as she spoke, gently touching each of the members of Allies High Command one-by-one like a mother would her children. "A few escaped our purge, fleeing to this galaxy through artifacts that allowed them to bridge the great interstellar divide, in hope that we wouldn't be able to follow."
"Artifacts," said Dare, "Like the one we found?"
"Like the one that you found," the Librarian answered. "Just like the one that brought you here precisely during this galaxy's time of greatest need."
"Did it work? Did they escape?" Skyheit asked. Though he felt the same warmth radiate through his skin and bones at the lightness of the Librarians touch like all the rest of HighCom, his skepticism of the entire situation was still evident on his hard features.
"It did," Living-Song replied. "For a time. Though they escaped immediate annihilation, the pure anguish of our betrayal drove them to madness. They isolated themselves in secret bastions that would become their crypts… Gods — as close a description of them as any — became corrupt beings of flesh and hunger, waiting to be found and unleashed."
"So what would you have us do? Now that the Flood has been unleashed?" Admiral Hackett asked, grimacing.
"You will fight," Living-Song said, as if there was never any question to the fact. "You will fight as you always have - and continue the search for the Keys."
"The Keys.. The Keys, the damn Keys," Captain Skyheit growled. "I keep hearing about these things, but just what in the hell are they supposed to do? How are they supposed to help us fight the Flood? Fight the Reapers?"
First-Light-Weaves-Living-Song, easily the closest thing to a deity any in the HighCom conference room had ever seen, the very fibres of her being shining with permeating, otherworldly, light, heat, and comfort - shrugged. "I did not make them, I did not place them. I know nought of their purpose, but I do believe you should continue the search. Find out what these Keys truly unlock…"
An icy chill swept through the room, sending shivers down the spines of several of the members of HighCom. The Librarian was gone as quickly as she appeared, taking her radiant warmth with her and leaving unanswered questions on the lips of those around the table.
Captain Skyheit shook his head as if clearing his vision, gesturing at everyone in the room. "Y'all saw that, right? I didn't just hallucinate a goddamn Forerunner — who is supposed to be dead, mind you — materialize herself into our secure briefing?"
"You will watch your tone when you speak of Her, Captain," the Arbiter hissed from his vidscreen.
"Should I?" Skyheit replied, squaring up to the Sangheili. "What has she done to help us other than tell us to look for these Keys that we don't even know anything about!"
"She is the reason that your species even exists!" The Arbiter's four hinged jaws were clenched tightly in a Sanghieli's version of a scowl. "You dare question her motives?"
"Her's are not the only motives I question," Skyheit said, fire dancing in his eyes. "We could have used your ships - at the Battle of the Citadel, at Despara - but you abandoned ALL of us to go off on your wild grey-cylinder goose chase!"
The muscles of the Arbiter's long neck rippled in a show of anger. "You know nothing of what you speak. My forces do not take orders from you - nor any Human!"
"Then who do you take orders from ? The Librarian?"
While Kirrahe, Manis, Tibrinus, and Hackett remained silent in the face of the growing tension, Lieutenant-Colonel Dare rallied to Skyhiet's side.
"How do we know she was telling the truth?" Dare started, "How do we know that even was her at all? The Librarian was supposed to have died with the firing of the Halo Arrays. What if 'she' is an agent for the Flood, and the Keys are supposed to benefit them someway?"
"Blasphemy!" Thel 'Vadam roared in protest.
Lasky cut off Skyheit's response by pounding a fist onto the large oaken table they were gathered around. "Enough!"
Admiral Lasky was typically not one to raise his voice. He preferred a command style of calm, collected practicality rather than aggressive fire-and-brimstone. "Kirrahe, how many ships do we have, roughly, across all of our forces?"
"Sixteen hundred warships, twelve hundred transports, and close to six hundred supply and logistical vessels," the STG Colonel answered.
"Ground troops?"
"Close to six million."
Given the scale of the war they were fighting against the Reapers, it was already perilously few numbers. The speed and intensity of the Reaper invasion had already killed so many, and the lightning pace of the war meant that there hadn't even been time to institute a draft. It was all they could do to just get what surviving civilians there were evacuated out of the lines of the Reaper advances and into systems further back from their path of destruction.
Lasky spent a moment dwelling on those figures before posing his next question. "The Batarian Hegemony… their total population? Before the war started?"
"The Hegemony was always very secretive about their population numbers," Kirrahe said, picking up on the point Lasky was about to make. "Including their slave population, estimates range from fifty to seventy-five billion."
"Seventy. Five. Billion," Lasky repeated, enunciating each word. He looked Skyheit right in the eyes. "All likely lost to the Flood. We have six million. Tell me Captain, and answer honestly. Is there a way — and completely disregard every other tactical advantage the Flood has over us — that we could defeat such an superior numerical force in a conventional war?"
The way in which Admiral Lasky phrased his question really set the reality of the situation into the heads of Allied HighCom.
Captain Skyheit let out a defeated sigh, hanging his head. "No sir. I do not see one."
"Dare?" Lasky asked next. The ONI commander pursed her lips, shaking her head.
Lasky turned to look at 'Vadam through the vidscreen. "Where is the next Key? Do you know?"
The Arbiter nodded. "Rannoch."
"The Quarian homeworld?" Admiral Manis asked.
"It's the Geth's world now," Admiral Tibrinus said. "What do we have near the Perseus Veil?"
"Commander Shepard and the Normandy," Hackett said. "Investigating a distress call from Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, one of his old crewmates and an influential member of the Quarian Migrant Fleet."
"I sent R'tas 'Vadum in command of the Supercruiser Jubilance to join Commander Shepard and try and gauge the situation around Rannoch while the rest of my forces recovered the Key on Thessia," Thel 'Vadam reported. Like Skyheit, his temper had simmered down.
"The Spartan-II's of Blue Team and the Sahara-class Heavy Prowler UNSC Jericho are there as well," Dare said next. "The latest report from Captain Drake was that Blue Team had joined the Normandy with the Jericho moving to conduct recon of Rannoch. He's slated to arrive in-system within the next twenty-four hours."
Lasky nodded. "So we'll have fresh intel soon at least. Does anyone know the chances of getting the Quarians, or the Geth for that matter, to join us?"
Colonel Kirrahe took the question. "It's difficult to say. The Quarians have always been wary of the rest of us, but they have the largest fleet in the entire galaxy. Fifty thousand ships, but the large majority are civilian vessels."
Skyheit whistled in surprise. "Still, fifty thousand ships? We could find good use for those numbers. What about the Geth? Do we know what their strength is?"
"The Geth figures are more muddled. The last STG recon teams to brave the Perseus Veil estimated at least ten thousand vessels. All warships, as the Geth don't have civilians," Kirrahe said.
"Ground troops?" Lasky asked.
"They've had three hundred years to make as many platforms as they can," Kirrahe said. "Hundreds of millions at minimum. Billions, potentially."
"The impact to the war effort these two factions could have if we could get them to join us would be staggering," Lasky said, garnering nods from the rest of HighCom. "And if the Librarian is to be trusted… we need the Key on Rannoch anyway."
"We are headed there already, along with four hundred Asari warships from Thessia and the Republics," The Arbiter said. "We plan to to rendezvous and re-supply at Omega Station before setting off to Rannoch."
"Asari?" questioned Tibrinus. "They would follow you after what you did to Thessia?"
"I did not doom Thessia," Thel said softly. The remorse he felt for the necessary glassing of the Asari homeworld was evident in his words. "The Parasite sealed the planet's fate as soon as they touched the ground. The Asari that have joined with my forces did so because they fear the same happening to the rest of their worlds, or they grew weary of their government's pledge of inaction."
"Tibrinus, how long for the fleets here to reach Omega?" Lasky asked.
The Turian Admiral thought for a moment. "Five days, four if we move ahead of our logistics train."
Lasky noticed that all eyes were on him again. Whether he liked it or not, all of these powerful military commanders, each the heads of their various factions, were looking to him for a final word. He took a deep breath, trying not to show the ball of anxiety that had taken a solid root in his stomach ever since the word 'Flood' had been first uttered at the beginning of this briefing.
"Send the word through the fleets. We make for Omega to link up with the Arbiter and the Asari. Then, together, we move for Rannoch."
DOS-Class Supercruiser Jubilance
En route to the Migrant Fleet
R'tas 'Vadum was rarely one to pace. It took seven strides to cover the distance from one end to the other of his raised command platform in the bridge of the Jubilance, buried deep within the hull of the Supercruiser.
"The closer we get, the more reservations I have about this… plan of yours," the Fleetmaster grumbled. No, not a Fleetmaster, at least not for much longer.
"Just trust me."
R'tas halted his pacing momentarily, swiveling his long neck to look down upon Tali'Zorah, leaning her back against the railing that circled the command platform, watching the Sanghieli's long steps. "Trust you? I have only known you for less than forty-eight hours."
"The plan will work," Tali said with just a bit of forced confidence. "It has to work."
'Vadum grunted. "Fifty thousand ships… with all of their guns likely to be pointed right at us."
"Oh don't worry, they will be pointed at us," Tali said. "All we have to do is to keep them from firing."
"Well, that makes me feel much better," R'tas murred. "And your people — if Admiral Xen has talked to them first — are under the impression that my ship and crew unduly massacred hundreds of their fellow Quarians undertaking a simple research mission?"
"Again, that's why I need to be the one talking to them instead of you."
"As if you could best me in combat and even take my ship in the first place…" 'Vadum said with no small amount of indignation.
Talk crossed her arms, cocking her head to one side. "What? Don't think I could put up a good fight? I've got a few tricks up my sleeve."
The smoldering glare that R'tas delivered into the depths of Tali's purple visor was enough for the Quarian to raise her hands in mock surrender. "Right, right, airlock, I know."
'Vadum's chest rose and fell with deep breaths as he tried to calm himself. "Nav, time to arrival."
"Forty-five seconds Fleetmaster," the Navigation Officer responded from below.
"The Normandy is set to arrive at the same time we do, but they'll be under stealth," Tali said. The fact that even Commander Shepard wouldn't be able to help if the Migrant Fleet decided to start blasting was not lost on either of them.
The Nav Officer spoke up again a moment later. "Transitioning into real-space in five, four, three, two… one."
R'tas snarled a string of Sangheili curses as soon as the sensor data started streaming in. The Reapers had beaten them there. Forty ships - twenty-four Destroyers, and sixteen Sovereign-class capital ships.
"No..." Tali whispered in a quiet expression of disbelieving anguish, as she too saw the Jubilance's sensor suite paint the gruesome picture of the raging battle in front of them. "No!"
In front of them, a tight-packed wedge of Reaper capital ships was slicing through the Migrant Fleet like so many scalding hot knives through softened butter. What Quarian vessels weren't being outright destroyed by sparking red magnetohydrodynamic weaponry were fleeing for their lives out of the Reaper's path.
Dozens and dozens of Migrant Fleet ships had already been lost, judging by the shattered and flaming remains littering the space in a debris field tens of kilometers long. Some Quarian vessels attempted to return fire with mass accelerator rounds, deck gun cannonfire, and disruptor torpedoes, but the projectiles shattered ineffectively on the Reaper's powerful kinetic barriers, while the torpedoes were shot out of the sky by point-defense lasers, or intercepted by swarms of Oculus fighters.
R'tas had shifted into battle mode in an instant, drawing himself up to his full height and roaring commands down to the bridge crew below. "Helm! Ahead flank! Weapons, warm all plasma lines and projectors!"
The Jubilance shuddered as its pinch-fusion reactor — still damaged from the engagement above B-1274 — shunted as much energy as it could into the Supercruiser's engines and weapons systems.
"How did the Reapers know where to find your fleet?" 'Vadum asked, the adrenaline that always came at the precipice of battle flooding into his veins.
"Xen," Tali hissed, the obvious answer coming to her quickly. Xen's marines down on B-1274 had tested positive for indoctrination, and if Admiral Xen was indoctrinated, she very well could have transmitted the Migrant Fleet's location to the Reapers. She cried out in exasperated frustration and anger, "I'll put a bullet through her visor myself!"
R'tas flared his half-jaw in a grimace as well. Xen's ship had been the only one to escape the Jubilance's weaponry over B-1274. If only he had known, if only he could have cut the rot out at its core… well, there was no time for dwell on it now. There was Parasite to kill.
He was about to order his Weapons Officer to assemble targeting solutions for their long-range energy projectors when Tali gasped suddenly, "The Liveships! They're going for the Liveships!"
She grabbed onto his elbow and pointed towards his personal holo-screen showing the positions of the Reapers and the Migrant Fleet - and the three enormous, spherical vessels at the heart of the Quarian formation. "All of our food is grown on those ships - if even one is destroyed, millions will starve!"
R'tas could hear the desperation in her voice, and re-evaluated the situation. The Reaper strikeforce was travelling at near maximum speed, laying waste to Quarian civilian and military ships alike as they vectored straight towards the three Liveships. Larger numbers of Quarian warships were currently trying to gather into combat formations, but R'tas could already see that they would not be able to pose a significant enough barrier to the Reapers in time, before they could reach and unleash their weapons on the Liveships.
The Jubilance herself was about to enter into range to fire her main armament - the four remaining forward-facing energy projectors - but 'Vadum knew even that wouldn't be enough to halt the Reaper advance. With the imminent threat to the Liveships, using the Supercruiser's main strength of sitting at range, picking apart the Reapers one-by-one, would be unsuccessful in stopping the Reaper formation's momentum. There was only one option R'tas could see, and he didn't hesitate for a second.
"Weapons! Fire projectors at will at enemy capital ships! Nav, get me a slipspace jump that will put us directly in front of the Parasite's path!" he shouted, finding his command chair and fastening the crash-harness over his chest. He tapped his holoscreen several rapid times, opening up the shipwide intercom channel. "All non-essential personnel are to abandon ship immediately, including Seraph squadrons. Ultra 'Harum, secure the two Huragok."
"What? Abandon ship? What are you doing?" Tali asked, her attention snapping away from the sensor display.
"If the Parasite wants their prize, they will have to get through me first," R'tas growled. The lighting dimmed inside the bridge, the deck vibrating as four pencil-thin beams of cleansing silver shot out from the Jubilance. In an instant, four Sovereign-class Reapers sparked and died as vital internal systems were carved away by the projector beams.
The lithe female Quarian rushed over and kneeled beside R'tas' command chair. She had figured out what R'tas was planning, and pressed him with a pleading tone. "The Jubilance won't survive such a close-range engagement! Even with our repairs!"
"I know," the Sangheili said quietly. Fleetmaster 'Vadum took a deep breath to steel himself. "Captain vas Kael, I suggest you tend to your crew and abandon this vessel."
Tali hesitated, and R'tas looked deep into her visor. He could just barely make out the shine of her eyes through the semi-opaque glass. The Sangheili reached to his belt, taking the handle of his ancestral energy sword and pressing it into the Quarian's hands. "Deliver this to Arbiter Thel 'Vadam when he arrives. Tell him… tell him that I believed."
She brought the hilt of the sword close to her chest, decorated with the runes and sigils of the 'Vadum family clan. "This will not be forgotten."
He gestured with his long neck to the door leading out of the bridge. "Go."
R'tas didn't watch her leave, instead looking at his displays as dozens of escape pods, Phantom and Spirit dropships, and Seraph fighters blasted away from the Jubilance. His bridge crew -the six Sangheili officers manning the Weapons, Navigation, Sensor, Flight-Ops, Engineering and Helm stations - were all looking up at him expectantly.
"Brothers," he started, looking at each of them in turn. "I ask of you only what the Arbiter has asked of you - to follow Her plan to the very end, no matter where it may take us. All of you are the best Sangheilios has to offer, but today our destiny has already been decided. If there are any among you who wish to leave, do so now, and you will not be judged."
Not a single one of the bridge officers moved an inch from their posts, and 'Vadum's two hearts swelled with pride. "We stand with you until the end, Fleetmaster," his Weapons Officer said, crossing his arm over his chest in a salute which the rest of them mimicked, shouting together, "We stand with you!"
"Very well," R'tas said, doing his best to keep his voice steady in the face of such selfless bravery. He had only been with the bridge crew of the Jubilance for a short while, but he considered them among the best he had ever had the honor of serving with.
The Fleetmaster watched he last escape pod launch from the ship's underside, the one he hoped was carrying Captain vas Kael. "Engineering, link the command to detonate the reactor to my tactical pad. Nav, execute the jump."
A flat disc of swirling purple-blue slipspace energy opened up in front of the Jubilance and the Supercruiser slid into it at speed. In the brief second they were travelling within the eleven non-visible infinitesimal dimensions, R'tas muttered a prayer, not to his Ancestors, not to Her, but to his longest and most trusted friend.
"Thel… finish what we have started."
The DOS-class Supercruiser was rocketing through the slipspace exit portal an instant later, right into the vanguard of the Reaper formation. In less than a second, six plasma torpedoes shot away from their batteries and slammed into the sides of six Sovereign-class Reapers. The superheated, magnetically shaped plasma boiled through kinetic barriers and outer hull plating, burrowing deep into the guts of the Reaper vessels. Ten shots, ten kills, all capital ships. Not a bad start, R'tas thought.
They had entered combat already in knife-fight range, a gambit to shift the attention of the Reapers away from their advance towards the Quarian Liveships and onto them. Being powerful artificial intelligences with near-instantaneous reaction time, the return fire from the Reaper ships was immediate and intense. Crimson lances of magnetohydrodynamic shot slammed into the Jubilance's energy shields, dropping the percentage strength with alarming speed and shaking the ship violently.
"Flip us around!" R'tas yelled.
The Sangheili officer at the Helm followed his Fleetmaster's commands, using the Supercruiser's repulsor engines and maneuvering thrusters to flip the Jubilance one-hundred and eighty degrees, so that their bow was now facing the Reapers. He cut the engines once the maneuver was completed, using the ships momentum to keep it travelling backwards now as fast as it had been travelling forwards.
The Jubilance's four energy projectors had recycled at this point, and his Weapons Officer used them to gut another two Sovereign-class Reapers and two Destroyers. "Helm, ahead flank!" 'Vadum roared again, and once more his ship shuddered as the repulsor engines fired back to life. "Send us right into their midst!"
The Reapers had taken the bait. They had completely abandoned their murderous rush towards the Quarian Liveships, instead choosing to swarm the Jubilance and finish what they had started above B-1274. The Reapers closed around them, and under the immense incoming fire the Sueprcruiser's shields shattered, exposing the already scarred and scorched nanolaminate hull.
Reaper weapons systems started carving fresh gouges into the Jubilance, destroying dozens of decks and causing a multitude of alarms to start blaring their dire warnings throughout the bridge. His Weapons Officer got off one last round of plasma torpedoes, felling one more capital ship and turning five Destroyers into molten slag.
The last surviving Sovereign-class Reaper fired its own engines and rushed towards the Jubilance, extending its tentacles wide. R'tas buckled against his crash webbing as the Reaper attached itself to the top hull of the Supercruiser, charging its main weapon to deliver the final killing blow.
The magnetohydrodynamic beam sliced horizontally all the way through the exposed and weakened armor plating and hull of the Jubilance, vivisecting the Supercruiser clean in two.
R'tas found his world suddenly very quiet. He had been ripped from the webbing of his command chair and sucked out into space through the gaping hole that had once been his bridge. His helmet visor had been shattered, exposing him to the hard vacuum.
He knew this was his end. R'tas found it interesting though, he had expected space to be… colder. Instead, a gentle heat originating in his chest coursed throughout his entire body.
A voice whispered softly into his mind, and it swept aside all primal fears of death and what was beyond.
"You have done well, noble warrior, but long have you fought. Rest now, R'tas 'Vadum, Knight of the Mantle. Rest, and do not be afraid. You are with me now, and forever will you be warm."
He knew who it was who spoke to him. It was Her, the very fiber of life and hope itself. He looked on towards the three Migrant Fleet Liveships as he exhaled his last breath, all unharmed and safely retreating to the opposite edge of the Quarian formation.
Yes, he deserved a rest.
With the last of his strength, he reached for the tacpad on his wrist and triggered the detonation of the Jubilance's pinch fusion reactor, enveloping himself and all of the remaining Reapers in the blinding warmth of a new sun.