Almost got this chapter done for N7 day 2020. Almost.
But still, after almost exactly eight years, we're coming up to the end of this gigantic story, isn't that amazing?
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Warning for this chapter: Death of a character.
Garrus fought the gravitational pull with all his strength to turn his head. This was no normal mass effect dislocation. Maybe the subspace tunnel was faster or too small for them but it felt like they were being wrung out and threaded through a tiny tube at impossible high speeds.
He couldn't tell how much time passed, everything happened too fast and his mind stayed in slow motion at the same time. Shepard's eyes were pressed close, her forehead in a frown. Everybody else looked similarly distressed, even Wrex had his eyes closed and seemed to curl in on himself.
After an endless time, the gravitational pull disappeared, slamming their bodies into their seats and then the Mako flew through the blinding light of another relay. It crashed to the ground, toppled over and screeched over the floor towards the edge of a walkway. It stopped in a pile of rubble, alarms blaring inside and emergency hatches flying off.
Garrus followed Shepard crawling out on all fours, feeling more than seeing that the rest of the crew did the same. One look around confirmed that they were on the Citadel. The statue in the lake that looked like a relay, was indeed a working relay.
"At least now I know why my teeth always tingled next to that thing," Kaidan grumbled as he scanned the area.
The Citadel looked quite different from when they had last seen it. All around them were signs of intense fighting and the destruction was immense. Bridges caved in, whole sections had crumbled and changed the layout of the Presidium. The usual path to the Citadel tower was destroyed and Garrus didn't have much hope for the elevators functioning anyway.
"This is Commander Shepard of the Alliance Navy," Shepard spoke into her omni-tool, broadcasting on all emergency frequencies. "Can anybody hear me?"
The familiar Avira voice came from the walls and railings around them. "The Citadel is under attack. Gun restrictions have been suspended. Shelters have been activated for your safety. Please contact C-Sec if you are in need of assistance. The Citadel is under attack. Evacuation is advised. Gun restrictions have been suspended." The announcement repeated again and then stayed silent.
Shepard's fingers flew over the interface of her omni-tool. "I can't contact C-Sec and I'm only getting fractured reports from the station."
"Commander Shepard?" A voice from her omni-tool made them jump.
"This is Commander Shepard."
"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams at your service, Commander."
Garrus could hear her grin.
"Ashley!" Shepard called out with relief. "Where are you, do you need assistance?"
"I'm still at the hospital, we barricaded the main entrance and have guards on the side entrance. I have a gun and ammunition, everything is under control, Commander."
"Glad to hear it. Beware of possible victims of indoctrination. They might look normal but they will attack you."
"Acknowledged, Commander," Ashley said through the omni-tool. "Did you get Saren?"
"Not yet," Shepard said with an angry growl.
"Good hunting, Commander."
"Take care, Chief."
Shepard ended the connection and turned to her team. "We need to know where Saren is. Where would you put the Citadel's master control unit?"
"The Citadel tower," Liara and Garrus said at once.
Shepard nodded. "Tali, can you get an internal sensors reading of the tower chambers? Saren should show up as some kind of biotic."
Tali's omni-tool glowed as she worked on it. "The Citadel's systems are fractured, communications are down..." She kept working. "I have a reading from the environmental systems. There is a biotic lifeform in the uppermost chamber of the tower."
"That must be him," Shepard said.
"Commander," Kaidan said. "There is no atmosphere in the sections around the tower and I doubt that the elevator still works. I've mapped a path on the outside of the tower up to the chamber."
"Outside?"
"Yes, we'll have to seal our armor anyway and outside we'll be faster. Less gravity, less enemy contacts."
Shepard nodded. "Outside it is then. Transfer the mapped path to everyone, Kaidan, we can't rely on short range communications to work all the time up there."
"I'm reading jamming emitters all over the tower," Tali said.
"Everyone, check your seals, check supplies."
Soft beeps indicated secured and sealed armor around them, one by one. At last, Shepard nodded at her team and put her helmet on, a hiss and a beep sealing her up.
They broke into a jog, pistols at the ready. Shepard took the lead and the marines brought up the rear.
The Presidium was eerily quiet. All around them destruction, broken appliances, shattered glass, and blood stains in various colors haunted them. But hardly any corpses.
"There, the spires," Kaidan said.
"Spires?" Garrus looked around, only then noticing the tall metal spikes set up on the walkway.
"The geth use these spikes to push them through a corpse and it transforms them into husks."
"Yes, I remember seeing those on the vid feed from Eden Prime," Garrus said, thinking back how he had watched the feed with Frank, showing him what geth looked like and worried sick about Jane. A lifetime ago.
"If they brought spires, they're making more husks," Kaidan said quietly. "I hope the people made it to the shelters."
The lack of corpses let Garrus cling to the faint hope that maybe the Citadel's population had had enough time to reach the shelters. The alternative was not something he wanted to think about.
The Citadel Tower loomed up ahead of them, the containing mass effect field wavering around its base like a sundress. Garrus' omni-tool beeped a warning. "The atmospheric mass effect field is unstable around here."
"What happens if the field drops?" Kaidan asked but his expression showed that he already knew the answer.
"The atmosphere will vent into open space. Everyone without an airtight suit will die," Garrus said. "Those with suits or masks will freeze to death a short time later."
"Isn't there an emergency system?"
"That is the emergency system," Wrex said with a low growl. "You wouldn't think of having an emergency system for your planet's atmosphere, would you?"
Shepard snorted. "We almost had to at one point."
"That's a story I'd like to hear one day." Wrex adjusted his shotgun as they approached the base of the tower. "But the Citadel couldn't exist without an atmosphere, and without humans around to poke at the technology and question everything, I guess nobody thought to think of a backup system." He shrugged his massive shoulders.
"Your lives must have been really boring without us around," Shepard said with a laugh.
Garrus and Wrex exchanged a look, smiling wistfully. Their lives had definitely changed to the more exciting with her around and they had gained so much. Garrus suddenly had an intense fear in his gizzard of having to live his life without Shepard one day. It felt like a knife stabbed into his gut.
"Over here!" Shepard had found a ladder leading up the tower. Down here, gravity still held them steady to the ground but up where the blue mass effect field cut through the rungs, they would lose the gravity and had to rely on the pull fields in their boots. Garrus watched as Shepard climbed up, poked through the field and how her feet lost traction when she had passed though.
With a blue glow, her shoes pulled towards the tower's hull and Shepard straightened, now standing perpendicular to the wall. It looked so strange but Garrus knew that it would feel natural, once they all had left the Citadel's gravity field.
He followed her up, Tali and Kaidan close behind him. The ladder vibrated when Wrex stepped on the first rung and Liara and the marines waited until he had cleared the ladder to come up.
"All clear?" Shepard asked through the comm.
"Aye," came the answers from everyone and Shepard started walking towards one of the deep grooves on the side of the tower. Garrus looked around, the arms of the Citadel glittered around them, every single light representing hundreds of people. The longer he looked, the closer they seemed to come. Then he realized what happened.
"The arms are closing!"
"And there's Sovereign and the Geth coming." Shepard pointed to the narrowing gap between the tips of the Citadel arms.
As the giant ship dove through the gap, flanked by several insect-like geth ships, the Citadel fleet rose up against the attackers. Debris fell around them as shots fired on both sides, hitting the structures around them. Not even the size of the Citadel could dwarf Sovereign. All the other ships looked like toys, even the Destiny Ascension.
"You lose perspective here," Shepard said quietly over their private comm. "That piece there, that was part of a building, hundreds of people just died in front of our eyes and it looked like someone threw away some candy wrapping."
"We'll stop Saren before the Citadel is too damaged." Garrus tried to make his voice sound reassuring.
"Commander," Kaidan's voice came through the public comm. "The Destiny Ascension, they're not firing."
"If they followed procedure," Liara said, "the Council will be on board."
"Then why are they not firing?" Shepard asked. "What the fuck is wrong with them?"
A new voice crackled over the comm system, a slight echo delay in it. "Shepard, Commander Shepard, do you read?"
"This is Commander Shepard."
"Thank fuck you made it, Commander, " said Joker. "This is the Normandy, I have the whole Fifth Fleet right behind me and we're ready to kick some ass."
"Glad to hear it." Shepard let out a breath of relief. "Attack the geth, Sovereign, and protect the Destiny Ascension."
"It would help if they used their own weapons sometimes."
"We don't know what is wrong with them but they have the Council on board. You have to protect them."
"What about attacking Sovereign?"
Shepard hesitated. Garrus could see how she fought with the decision. Attack Sovereign at full force or sacrifice forces and lives to protect the Council?
"Split attack. Protect the Destiny Ascension until she is out of range, then focus all forces on Sovereign."
"Understood, Commander." Joker made a pointed pause. "Not that the Council deserves it."
"I know, Joker, just do it."
"Commander, with the arms closing, we can't reach them. We do what we can with targeted attacks but we need to get closer."
"We're working on it, Shepard out." She started running, desperate to reach the top of the tower. They soon met resistance on the way, geth troopers and krogan.
The fight turned into a blur, biotic attacks, Shepard's precise shooting, Tali and him throwing tech attacks from their omni-tools and sniping, so much sniping. It was almost routine, until the ground shook under them, the tower itself shaking in its foundations.
Sovereign, under constant fire from the Citadel forces and the Alliance, had rushed directly towards the Citadel tower and now attached itself to it like a parasite. Its arms were ripping off whole sections from the construction and it was probably pure luck that Shepard and her team were hidden inside a vertical groove when the giant ship drilled its legs into the tower.
"We need to be faster!" Shepard sped up, Kaidan hurrying to throw warp fields in front of her to trap any attackers.
"At this speed we'll need at least 40 minutes to the central hall," Tali said.
"That's too slow. Ideas?" Shepard looked at all of them, her visor partly shielding her eyes.
Madhav shrugged and pointed towards the top of the tower, the path to it stretching out like a highway in front of them. "We should fly up."
"Fly?" Shepard shook her head. "If we turn off the pull field in our shoes, we'll float out into open space."
"Well..." Liara said thoughtfully.
"Yes?"
"Kaidan and I could keep a biotic field around us, keeping us tethered to the tower but unrestrained by gravity."
Shepard turned to Kaidan. "Will that work?"
"Theoretically? Sure. Nobody has tried it so far, of course."
Shepard nodded. "There's always a first time. What do you need us to do?"
"Hold on to each other and, well," Liara gestured out to the front.
"Alright everybody." Shepard interlinked her fingers with a handle on Garrus' armor. "Grab a friend and keep one hand on your weapon."
"Just like in kindergarten," Kaidan said. The aliens turned to him and it was easy to imagine how they all stared at him in confusion. "Nevermind," Kaidan said, laughter in his voice. He took hold of Omar's belt and held out his other hand. A blue glow emanated from it, forming an expanding shield.
Liara held onto Shepard and extended a field from her side, until the whole group was covered by it.
"Everybody got someone to hold on to?" Shepard waited for everyone to acknowledge and then gave the order. "Disable grav-field."
It was a disconcerting feeling to lose traction as the pull-field under their boots turned off. Garrus grabbed a little harder at Wrex' armor as he began to float. One thing you learn in basic training is that non-gravity will kill you. The smallest impulse will carry you away from your station or space ship and you will be lost out in space, no matter how much oxygen you have in your tanks.
Just as the feeling of dread settled in his stomach, the mass effect field around them seemed to contract and pushed them forward. The top of the tower came rapidly closer. The field pushed them upwards, occasionally dragging them so close to the construction that they scraped the surface.
"Sorry, Commander," Liara said.
"We're almost there, keep going."
Tali's voice came through the comm, slightly strained. "I've located an access port." Garrus wondered if a space living people like hers had the same kind of reservations against loss of gravity as he had.
"We have to go further to the right." Tali pointed to a door with a small platform in front. "I'll open the doors."
"I see it," Kaidan said and immediately the biotic field around them pushed and pulled them into the right direction.
Garrus was so focussed on hitting the access port, that the shots whizzing by caught him completely by surprise. A group of geth sat directly under the platform, the kind Shepard had called hoppers, shooting at them.
"Keep the field up," Shepard ordered, shooting at the attackers with her pistol. Garrus pulled his own pistol, he could hardly use his sniper with one hand. The biotic field didn't shield them much and his armor shield crackled from the impact of shots hitting him. He aimed and took out the geth that had hit him, just as the others hopped away.
"Get in, I'll keep guard!" Kaidan yelled.
"Negative," Shepard said. "I need your biotics with Saren."
Tali jumped into the access port and pressed to the side to pull the others in. Her omni-tool glowed in rapid flickers. "I'll guard, I can keep the port closed."
"Madhav, stay with her."
"Yes, Commander."
The access port led them into an access tunnel, just large enough that Garrus could walk with his head tucked in and Wrex only sometimes scraped along the walls with his shoulders. Smoke hung in the tunnel and they kept their armor sealed against it.
"I thought Saren needs this area intact, why is Sovereign destroying it?" Shepard said over their private comm.
"Maybe Saren doesn't control Sovereign as much as he thinks?" Garrus wondered.
The tunnel ended abruptly in the open hall of the Council Chambers. It was bathed in the usual pink light but the trees that lined the paths towards the raised platform were on fire and mass effect fields flickered over broken windows.
Shepard scanned the room and then broke into a dead run. Garrus activated his own scanner as he followed her, only four enemies showed up on his visor. Four geth jumped in their way but Shepard ignored them, trusting her team to deal with them. Garrus did the same, following her and watching her back.
The last set of stairs brought them up to the platform where they had stood before and argued with the Council about Saren's case. Now, a turian with glowing implants stood in front of a massive control panel, apparently not disturbed by the shooting behind his back. Outside of the windows, the massive body of Sovereign blocked the view to the closing arms of the Citadel.
Shepard and Garrus raised their pistols at the same time as they ran up the stairs. Garrus felt Kaidan's and Liara's biotics at his back but before they could attack, Saren had disappeared.
"Fuck," Shepard growled, "where — "
An explosion knocked them off their feet. Saren stood on a floating hover pad and had thrown some kind of device at them. Garrus received several warnings about his shields draining through his visor. He caught Shepard's gaze through the flashing visor of her helmet, she grimaced and Garrus knew that her shields didn't fare any better. They both scrambled to cover behind the support beams of the bridge. Garrus saw Kaidan, Liara, and the marines spreading out in the room behind them.
"Shepard," Saren called out, his mandibles spread in a grin. "You've lost. You know that, don't you? In a few minutes, Sovereign will have full control over the Citadel, the relay will open and the reapers will return."
"Not so fast, Saren," Shepard yelled over her shoulder. "I still have some tricks up my sleeve."
"What a quaint expression." Saren shook his head and checked something on his omni-tool with infuriating calmness as the tower shook from Sovereign's weight. "You showed such promise. When you survived Virmire, I thought you'd be worthy to join our new order. There's a place for organics in this new world, for people of strong will and — "
"Do you listen to yourself sometimes?" Shepard interrupted.
A dry laugh rattled out of Saren's throat, the implanted tubes twitching. "You don't annoy me anymore. Sovereign has improved me, upgraded me."
"You let Sovereign implant you?" Shepard looked past the wall towards Saren. "Are you insane?"
"I understand everything now."
Shepard shook her head. "He's influencing you through the implants, he's controlling you, you must know that."
"I..."
"Saren!"
Garrus whipped around at the new voice speaking. Nihlus stepped out of the shadows, leaning on a cane. "Saren, what have you done?"
A shudder went through Saren and his proud stance crumbled. He leaned forward, despite the gap between his hovering platform and the bridge, as if he wanted to stretch out his hand towards his old student. "Nihlus."
"You have no right to do this," Nihlus said, walking up to the bridge.
Shepard ripped off her helmet and snarled at him. "Don't you dare, Nihlus, you can't trust him."
"Jane," Nihlus said quietly, hard determination in his subharmonics, "I have to. Just don't shoot me."
"Nihlus." Shepard started to come out of cover to grab Nihlus by his armor but a shot from Saren had her duck back behind cover.
"Don't come here, Nihlus," Saren said, his pistol pointing at Nihlus and his voice quivering with conflicting subharmonics.
"I can't let you do this," Nihlus said, keeping his steady pace towards the end of the bridge. "Sovereign is manipulating you, you have to resist his control."
The hover platform moved forward and Saren jumped onto the bridge, taking another step towards Nihlus. His movements were jerky, his implants flashing rapidly. He shook his head. "Maybe you're right, maybe it's not too late, I —"
Saren's hand with the pistol shot forward and with another jerky jump, he crashed into Nihlus, grabbing him by the cowl of his armor, his pistol pressed into Nihlus chest. A strangled cry left his throat and the pistol in his hand trembled. "Nihlus," he rasped, almost too quiet to hear, "help me."
Nihlus grabbed his hand, his subharmonics humming calmly. He turned the pistol away from himself and up to Saren's chin, looking him in the eyes. Saren shook, his implants flashed again and he spread his mandibles wide. "Thank you." He pulled the trigger.
The back of Saren's head exploded in blue light and he dropped. Nihlus caught Saren's neck and lowered his body to the ground.
Nihlus sighed, his subharmonics wavering between anger and grief. "You spirits be damned asshole," he said to Saren's corpse.
Shepard stomped towards him. "Fucking hell, Nihlus."
"Sorry, I had to do this."
Shepard glared at him but hurried past him towards the control panel and jumped on the hover platform, her omni-tool glowing. She typed rapidly and a shudder went through the structure of the Citadel. "The prothean file works," Shepard said with a breath of relief. "The arms are opening, we got control back."
"Now the fleet can attack," Nihlus said.
The corpus of Sovereign twitched in front of the window, causing the whole tower to shake. As the arms opened, they watched the fleet pouring in. Sovereign's shields lit up in red, most of the shots glancing off. It was enough to let the Destiny Ascension escape but one by one, Turian and Alliance ships exploded after Sovereign turned its red energy beam on them.
"Come on," Shepard growled under her breath, watching the Normandy whisk around the energy beams and the wreckage of other ships to his Sovereign. Joker was a terrific pilot, swerving the Normandy in and out of Sovereign's aim, but around him, ship after ship got hit by the beams and instantly exploded in a red fire.
"That's half of the turian fleet dying out there," Nihlus said quietly.
Another ship exploded in front of their eyes, a human ship this time and the knowing look passing between Nihlus and Shepard made clear that he was aware that the Alliance fleet was dying out there just the same.
The tower shook with Sovereign's movements. Red arcs formed around its massive corpus, penetrating the walls of the tower and arching around the control panel. Shepard typed on her omni-tool and then the fleet comms blared out of the console. They heard the voice of a human calling out, "Sovereign is too strong, we have to retreat!" and Admiral Hackett's calm voice answering, "Negative. This is our only chance. Take that monster down, no matter what the cost!"
"Shit, fuck," Shepard spit out and frantically typed on her omni-tool. "We have to do something, maybe we can charge the outside of the tower with a negating mass effect field, Tali, Garrus, Kaidan, we have to find a way to shake it loose, we — "
A red beam hit the control panel, danced along the structure of the platform and shot into Saren's corpse behind them. As they turned, it rose up, shedding armor and flesh as it lit up until all that was left of Saren's body was his skeleton and the implants. The grotesque structure lit up in blinding red light, screaming as red beams shot out of its eyes.
Nihlus took a step towards the deformed thing.
"No, Nihlus," Shepard called out but it was too late. One red glowing claw, hissing with red energy, thrust forward into Nihlus' chest and skewered him like a piece of Garlefka. His cane clattered to the ground as his eyes turned dull.
He didn't even have time to scream.