"Captain Shepard is ashore. XO Pressly has the ship."
Shepard rolled her eyes at the VI's statement of the obvious. On a ship the size of a large bus with a crew of just over fifty, everyone aboard knew when she was in the washroom, let alone off the ship. "Thank you, artificially human-inflected computer program."
Ashley looked over at her, turning a little as they made their way down the docking tube. "You have something against VIs, Captain?"
Shepard shook her head. "I have something against lies. That voice they tried to make sound human is a lie. The VI's made to imitate famous people are the ultimate." She shrugged Roger into her hands, letting him sit easy at low rest. "Creepy bastards."
"So, the geth? AIs?" Williams pulled her assault rifle off her back as they stepped onto the dock.
"They aren't lies, just a different sort of people. As long as they're just doing their thing and aren't killing people, I take no issue with them. It's the getting uppity and trying to commit genocide I'm not a fan of, and that aversion . . . does not . . . limit itself to . . . geth." She stopped dead in her tracks, Garrus running up her heel. She cocked her head, straining to hear.
"Ma'am?" Ash went on the alert, moving to watch their flank.
"I thought I heard . . . geth!" Shepard sprinted down the docking bay, running parallel to the Normandy. Flashlight heads moved at the end of the space. As she neared the corner, she snapped off the safety and changed her ammo to tungsten rounds. A figure raced around the corner, slipping a little as he turned and came face to face with her gun. Identifying him as human, she grabbed him and tossed him behind her, slamming her back into the concrete pile at the corner.
After sucking in a couple of quick breaths to let the adrenaline settle, she leaned out, shooting in three round bursts. She activated her drone behind the mass of geth as Garrus darted across the open space, taking cover behind a pile on the other wall.
"Normandy, send someone out to grab a civilian in the line of fire. Should be near the docking tube," Shepard barked into her radio, not waiting for an answer.
"Williams, take my position, I'm moving up." She peeked out, yanking her head back as plasma rounds pelted her position. "C-Sec, as soon as I get in position and can give you some cover, move up. Doc, take his position." She didn't wait for them to respond, allowing their 'yes, ma'ams' to wash over her as she overloaded the most forward trooper, leaving Garrus to finish it off as it danced. Racing forward, she took a burst of incoming rounds, her shields sizzling in an impressive light show.
Sliding into cover behind another pile, she respawned her drone, setting it in behind the geth squad. Hopefully, it would distract a couple. Roger tore down the shields on the closest, then as she ducked back, Garrus swung out and opened fire.
"Moving up," Garrus called. "Heads up on your right."
"Roger that." Shepard leaned out, peppering the geth with rounds to keep most of them pinned while Garrus moved up. Her shields went down before she could cover him the whole way, but then Ash and Liara opened fire.
One of the green destroyers barrelled around the corner, racing for the turian. Shepard overloaded it, but it didn't even flinch as she tore down its shields.
"Shit, C-Sec, look out! It's one of the suicidal green ones. Ladies, cover him." All three opened fire on the destroyer, taking it down just as Garrus dove to his right, sliding into cover on his ass. Shepard leaned out, taking down a rocket trooper. "You okay there, big guy?"
"Yeah." He scrambled up and pressed his back to the concrete.
"Another one, ma'am," Williams yelled, pulling Shepard's attention back to the end of the corridor. Sure enough, a massive wall of green careened toward them.
Shepard and Garrus overloaded it in unison, and its head erupted in a spray of white fluid as Williams opened fire.
"Shepard, team two is entering the Exogeni building now. No sign of enemy troops," Nihlus's calm, rich voice spoke in her ear, dropping her heart rate despite the fact that yet another of the destroyers pelted down the corridor at them.
"Roger that, team two. Meeting heavy resistance, here." She overloaded the machine, but it didn't go down. Instead, it turned, aiming for her. She jumped to the side, backing up, still firing, Roger pulled in tight against her side.
A quick glance down the corridor told Shepard they were screwed. She gritted her teeth against the order she most hated to give. "Doc, Williams, retreat to the next position back."
"Another one," Garrus called, his voice almost manic with the battle high.
Shepard staggered back as the destroyer cut through her shields with a plasma blast from its shotgun, but her armor dispelled the energy. She overloaded the thing despite the close range, regretting it as her own shields exploded in sparks and shivers of electricity. "That's the second time I've done that in a week," she groaned, stepping over the downed geth to shoot Garrus's dance partner in the back of its head.
Grabbing the turian out of the corner, she pushed him behind her. "Retreat back, C-Sec." She looked up at the destroyer as it turned to face her and grinned. "Hi there. How the hell are yah?"
Shoving Roger's muzzle into the center seam of the being's chest plate, she hammered at the trigger, praying the geth went down before her gun overheated. Another one hurtled across the open area and turned to charge them. "How many of you fuckers are there?"
She twisted, using the first destroyer as cover. The second one slammed into it, the transferred energy driving the air out of her lungs as her front side smacked into her insides. A heartbeat later, her insides crashed into her backside, launching her through the air like a 155cm missile. Ass first, she smacked into the ground and slid until she hit something solid. Hands lifted her onto her feet.
Once all her giblets settled back where they belonged, she tossed a grin over her shoulder. "Thanks, C-Sec, you make good brakes." She overloaded the still-functional geth that struggled to get up off the floor, and it let out that terrible screeching, bad-extranet sound as it died. "Sweet baby Jesus," Shepard gasped when no further geth showed at the end. "How many was that? A gigajillion?"
"I think the technical term is bazillion, ma'am," Ash replied, her smile weary.
Settling Roger in low ready, Shepard grinned at the chief and crept forward. The troopers had pulled back. No bodies. "Come on, I have a really bad feeling about this."
Shepard went through the door and ducked out. No geth. Complete silence, other than the wind whistling through the structure. She frowned. "I'm moving up. C-Sec, give me three metres and watch my flank." Creeping forward, knees bent to keep her profile low, Shepard trotted down the short corridor.
"Stairs up," she called back. "Keep sharp."
"They delayed us with the destroyers while they retreated, didn't they?" Garrus whispered.
Shepard answered with a sharp nod of her head. That was her guess. Two flights up and around a corner, she saw sky above what looked like a freighter parked on the roof. No friendlies or geth in sight. Moving up, she took cover at the last open doorway, sweeping the area the best she could. The colonists had set up defenses. A few bodies lay here and there, but not nearly as many as Shepard would have expected.
Moving out onto the roof, following a narrow path between a wall of rubble and some pipes, Shepard looked up, the blood dropping out of her heart as the organ turned into a frozen lump in her chest. "Oh, we are so fucked." She ran out a few metres, ducking from cover to cover, stopping just short of the freighter that had been lifted a couple metres off the roof.
"Spirits," Garrus said, his voice a thready hiss. "We're surrounded. How many are there?"
"Too many," Shepard replied, casting a glance toward the sky and the geth ships hanging in the air above the edge of the roof. Climbing the short set of stairs, she stood on her tiptoes to look inside the freighter's open door. About ten feet down the corridor, a demolition charge counted down nine minutes. Glancing around what portion of the rooftop she could see, she spotted at least another half dozen. Too many to try to disarm, and she couldn't know if they'd find them all. Evacuation.
"Shepard!" Garrus pointed toward movement at the other end of the freighter. A small squad of geth marched smartly, arrayed around a familiar figure. The pieces of a very ugly puzzle came together. Delaying action at the dock, Saren casually walking away from demo charges on a countdown, and thirty or so geth ships aimed at the rooftop.
"Oh, shit." She grabbed Ashley and Liara, shoving them into cover and looked around. They needed a plan and fast. A herd of colonists milled near the back of the vehicle, looking like lost cattle. "Okay, Williams, Doc, go round up the colonists, fast. We have just over eight minutes before this place blows to hell." She didn't wait to watch them, looking back to the sky. "If that."
"Saren!" Garrus shouted.
The small party at the other end of the freighter stopped. Saren turned, his mandibles flaring as those horrible, glowing mechanical eyes met Shepard's, holding her in a breathless stare. After a couple of heartbeats, he winked, slow and exaggerated, then turned and continued on.
"Saren!" Garrus yelled again, but Shepard kept him from charging after the Spectre by grabbing the yoke of his armour.
"Whatever he was after, he has it." She pointed up at the sky. "He's about to blow away the evidence. We need to get the colonists and our own asses out of here."
"We have to stop him." Garrus insisted.
"He's bringing this place down, Garrus. We've got to help Williams and the doc get the colonists to safety." She grabbed his wrist and tugged, but he pulled toward the freighter.
"Ma'am," Ashley radioed in. "Thirty-two colonists still alive. They're acting strange, like they're hypnotised or something. We'll never get them to the Normandy. There is a set of stairs here that goes down into the building. We could try to take them down through the structure. Maybe if we get far enough down, into basements or something . . .."
"Shepard! Why are we still talking? Saren is getting away." Garrus threw himself against Shepard's arm, but summoning every ounce of her large mama and possible krogan lineage, she held him. He slammed into her again. "Shepard."
"Our priority is the colonists, Garrus, so shut it." She ran the direction Saren had gone, staying under the freighter, yanking the turian behind her. "Our only chance is to get down far enough before this place collapses around our heads."
"We'll lose our chance to find out what's going on," Garrus yelled, pulling at her again.
"Normandy, this place is about to come down. Pull back, full stealth, and wait for the second team. We're going to try to get the colonists clear," she said, shouting a little over the wind.
"Roger that, Shepard. Saren?" Joker asked.
"About thirty metres ahead of me, but it's too . . .." Shepard saw the colonists descending into the stairwell, organized and calm. At least Williams and Liara had their task well in hand.
As Shepard rounded the back end of the freighter, Saren disappeared behind a wall of crates, headed toward the interior of the structure. She ran up a short set of stairs to see if he knew something she didn't about a way out. Garrus flew past her, furious and in full pursuit.
"Dammit, C-Sec." She took two steps after him then the geth ships opened fire. Rounds blasted into the roof, throwing her backwards into a metal railing. Ribs gave way and agony exploded from her throat, silenced by the vacuum in her lungs.
For a few, impossibly long moments, her back wrapped around the pole, bones and tendons flexing to their breaking point. Then, like a bow, she reached maximum tension and snapped back, rebounding toward the explosion a little before the concrete rooftop came up to meet her face. The meaty, copper taste of blood flooded her mouth, but she felt no pain.
Get up, Shepard! She ignored her own order. Damn, getting insubordinate with my inner CO. A bad sign.
Must be hurt. Bad.
Doesn't matter, get the fuck up and get your damned people safe, soldier.
That one worked and she gasped, sucking in the burning air, ash, and smoke. Reaching over, she hit her medi-gel twice, then started trying to peel herself off the concrete.
"Shepard!" Garrus scrambled up a few metres away. She stared, transfixed, at the long, white marks his talons carved in the concrete. He grabbed her under the arm and tried to haul her up.
"Shepard!" Garrus yelled. "Get up!" He tugged at her arm.
Concrete exploded, shrapnel ringing musically off her armour as it pounded into her. Then Garrus grabbed her other arm and picked her up, setting her on her feet. Once her feet hit the ground, Shepard gave herself a shake. The cooling, numbing slither of medi-gel eased its way through her, and the fog lifted.
"Shepard, you okay?"
Shepard grabbed Garrus by the yoke. "Let's go. Down the stairs." She gave him a push toward the long slide of debris and the staircase that disappeared into darkness. It opened like a mouth, hungry and deadly. She glanced toward where Saren disappeared through a door at the far end of the roof. It had to be a way out, and one least likely to have things exploding, but the colonists were already below.
"It's thirty colonists!" Garrus yelled, moving to follow Saren. "You'd sacrifice the whole galaxy for thirty colonists?"
"And if we chase Saren and get killed, then what? Pick your battles, C-Sec, and obey goddamned orders! That's all you've got to do right now. Obey goddamned orders." She started after Ash again, pushing him ahead of her.
He stared at her for a second, then twisted from her grip and bolted after Saren.
"Goddamn it, C-Sec." She limped after him, but with his long legs and her battered ribs, he drew ahead of her steadily. She hobbled back up the stairs and took cover along a heavy wall, staying out of sight and hopefully out of the bombardment. If she was lucky, four minutes remained on the demo charges.
"Williams, where are you?" she called as she hurried along the wall.
"Already four floors down. Once the geth opened fire, the colonists became very willing to move fast. Where are you, ma'am?"
"Vakarian took off after Saren." Shepard cursed. "I swear, if I have to chase another goddamned turian across another goddamned human colony, I am going to rip their legs off and beat them to death with the wet ends!" Running flat-footed to avoid as much impact as she could, she passed another spot where the colonists tried to hold the geth off, then through a door, down a short hall and up stairs. "See if you can find a way out, Williams. Hopefully, we'll catch up."
"Vakarian, where are you?" she called into her radio, taking cover, then swinging around a couple of corners. A corridor led past an elevator, but the trembling of the building under her feet didn't inspire her to try that. She ran past.
Racing up another short flight of stairs, Shepard hit the far wall, pressing her back against it. She eased her way around a curved corner, trading Roger for Ingrid. A quick glance revealed that she had no cover from an entire squad of geth on elevated cover.
"Shepard," Saren's smooth voice called. "How thoughtful of you to make it so easy to clear up all traces of my operation."
Fuck.
"Yeah, I'm considerate that way. Won most helpful at Camp Starshine three years in a row." She ducked out again, gaze darting to take in enemy positions.
"Might as well come on out, Shepard," Saren called. "You're outnumbered."
"Yeah, that's okay. Thanks though." Shepard closed her eyes, visualizing the field, building a picture of where Garrus lay face down on the ground, the Spectre standing over him, the troopers on either side, the snipers further back, two drones buzzing around, and the destroyer working its way toward her right flank. Garrus lying face down, not moving.
She shook off the fear, letting it settle into a low boil. He wouldn't be there at all if he hadn't gone cowboy.
Find the damned weak spots, come on, Shepard. You've got only a few shots and maybe two minutes before that freighter goes up. Don't bother with Saren; he'll be too well shielded for Ingrid.
She called up her overload, hit her medi-gel again, took a deep breath, then leaned out. The overload took out the geth on Saren's right, the one on the left falling to Ingrid. Bolting forward, she reloaded, crouching low as she ran up the stairs, spawning her drone to deal with its counterparts.
At the top of the raised section, she took cover behind a chunk of concrete.
You've got maybe twenty seconds before the destroyer charges in from the right.
"Vakarian? You alive out there?" She popped up, waited for their lasers to give away the sniper positions, then put a bullet through the first one's head. Back down.
Why isn't Saren firing? Focus, damn it. Ten seconds to being crushed; a minute and a half to being blown to shit.
She reloaded. Back up. The destroyer's shotgun tore down half her shields and staggered her, but then the last sniper gave itself away and went down.
"Vakarian?" God, she hoped Saren needed a shield.
"Yeah. I'm alive."
"You're surrounded, Shepard. Come out, and I'll end it quickly for both of you."
Shepard poised, staying low and waited for the destroyer to charge. "This is going to hurt like a bitch," she whispered, bracing herself for the pain. When the geth charged, she somersaulted past its legs and down the stairs, ribs grinding. She scrambled up, biting down on her tongue to hold in an agonized scream that would give away her position, and ran down the length of the room.
When she ran up the stairs behind Saren, he had Garrus up on his feet, held between them as a shield. He bowed his head a touch. "You're clever. I have to give you that, Shepard, but you can't defeat this enemy."
"It's you and a destroyer," Shepard said, grinding the words out between her teeth.
"I don't mean me, Shepard. Oh, I'll kill you, but what's coming up hard behind me . . .." The Spectre shuddered. "Ask yourself why a Spectre and the council would be taking the actions we are."
"You're trying to bring the Reapers back. I don't think sanity or reason applies." Shepard overloaded the destroyer, then put a bullet in it, working her way around to Saren's left, closing on him. She reloaded, her inner alarm screaming that nine minutes was up. Why wasn't he firing?
The Spectre lunged toward her, a tiger backed into a corner. "There's no victory here, Shepard."
She frowned: his body language screamed fear, not rage.
The building heaved as the charges in the freighter detonated. Garrus twisted, slamming his shoulder into Saren's belly, bearing him to the floor. Shepard threw herself down, using more dead weight than grappling tactics to help as her frantic fingers rifled through her hip pack, searching for the last of her squad trackers.
Saren threw them off, but Shepard managed to cling to him long enough to slap the back of his armour. As she hit the floor, a shadow blotted out the light coming through the ceiling. For a moment, Shepard's hope dismissed it as a cloud passing over the sun, but then half metre hail stones made of metal and circuitry poured through, unfolding into a torrent of plasma blasts.
Survival instinct, most notably flight, kicked in, and Shepard jumped up, grabbing Garrus by the fringe. His howl of pain sent a twinge of guilt and a much larger dose of satisfaction tingling up her arms. When he caught up and ran beside her, she let him go. Rounds peppered their shields, but then they rounded the corner and raced down the corridor, headed back for the lift.
"Such a big mistake!" she screamed, throwing Garrus in first. "Death trap. This thing is a death trap." She hit the down control as massive chunks of concrete and reinforcing metal tumbled down, tearing apart walls and floors as they crashed through.
Pressing herself against the wall, Shepard covered her head with her arms and glared at Garrus. "I hate you a lot right now."
"Team One," Nihlus yelled in her ear, "we just saw a massive explosion. What's going on over there?"
"Saren is trying to bury evidence of something under the rubble of this building. Right now, we're mostly trying to not end up dead. I'll get back to you, Nihlus," Shepard called back. The lift ground to a halt, tilted enough for Shepard to know it hadn't reached its destination.
"Hey, jackass, help me pry the doors open," she barked at Garrus, opening her omnitool to override the locks. A sharp click let her know she'd been successful, and they shoved talons and fingers into the space. She stuck her head out. "We're between floors." She shoved the doors apart and knelt on the edge. "Lower me. My ribs are broken. I can't jump. Or would you rather leap over me and see if you can get back up there and catch Saren?"
Garrus grumbled, but nodded and got down on one knee. "This is still going to hurt."
She shot him a glare of death and held up her hands. "Little late to worry about that. I'm not staying here. I have to get out alive, so I can dedicate myself to making you regret going cowboy on me for the rest of your life." She grabbed his wrists, a hoarse, guttural scream forcing itself between her clenched teeth as the edge of the elevator bit into her ribs like shark jaws.
When he moved to pull her back up, she shook her head. "Just keep going. Fuck." Shepard knew what ancient criminals suffered when being quartered as Garrus lowered her. "I think you're pulling my arms off." A massive chorus of cracks, pops, and snaps rolled from her neck down to her feet. Once it passed, Shepard found she could draw a breath without feeling as though a Mako was parked on her chest, letting it out accompanied by a faint sigh.
When her feet hit the floor, she let go and moved out of Garrus's way. She reached up to open a channel to Ashley. "Williams, you guys still there?"
"Yes, ma'am," Ashley's voice came through, barely audible over the ambient chaos, "we found a lift. The skyway was marked on it, so we went to that level. There are maintenance tunnels along the length of the skyway. I scouted ahead. They're collapsed now and again, but with the geth concentrating on the colony, we might be able to get these people clear." The chief paused as crashing and screaming rose to a crescendo around her. "Should we chance it, ma'am?"
"Those people are your responsibility, Williams. You have eyes on. What's your gut telling you?" Shepard replied, gasping between words.
"It's telling me that it's our best shot to get these people out alive, ma'am. The geth don't seem to care about the Exogeni building."
"Then go. I'll contact the second team, have them come through from the other end and help escort your people through. Good luck, Chief."
"I won't let you down, ma'am."
Shepard stopped and leaned against the wall, panting. "I know you won't, Chief."
"And you and Vakarian, ma'am?"
"Don't worry about us, we're on our way down. We'll radio in when we get clear." She watched Garrus as he activated his omnitool, calling up a map of the structure.
"Holy mother of god," Ashley yelled into the radio. "Shepard, it's the dreadnaught from Eden Prime. No! Not that way! Everyone, run. Doc, get them moving into the skyway tunnels. Move! Move! Move!"
"What's going on, Williams?" Shepard started hobbling east.
"It opened fire on the colony, ma'am. A gigantic laser. Can you hear it?"
She did, but not from the radio. A dragon as massive and terrible as the sun tore into the building, claws of red flame shredding concrete and steel as if it amounted to no more than cloud. Fury bellowed down through the hollow ruins, a thunderous buzzing that promised death had come for them all.