Chapter 33 - Lighting Fires

'Well, it could be worse.' - Everyone that has tempted Fate ever.

Joannis cursed under her breath, dropping a singularity in the front of the wedge of four krogan charging them from across the room. They had a window facing to the south, giving a magnificent view of the ocean, and a row of lockers covering the entire northern wall, but otherwise the room was bare of any cover. Tali sapped their shields with an overload, ignoring the half dozen drones flying about their heads, and then Jaclyn launched a shockwave just as the krogan got caught in the micro-gravity well. She didn't know what had gone wrong, but apparently every krogan clone was dealing with them, along with what had to be every geth still in the base. She had no idea what had happened to Arlas, but if he wasn't dead to explain why he wasn't holding the attention of the geth, she was damn well going to correct that.

A loud retort from Garrus' sniper rifle blew apart the last geth hopper, and another moment of work took out the now directionless drones, operating only on pre-programmed orders. As the last drone exploded, she looked around, and while Garrus was limping slightly, and Wrex was grumbling about damage to his shotgun and armor, everyone was still standing. Done checking her squad, she glanced at the door that the geth and krogan had spilled from. "Let's move everyone. Tali, alternate ideas for the AA guns, or is it hit it with biotic explosions until they both fall over?"

Tali shrugged as she followed Wrex out the door, revealing a 'T' shaped walkway that split to the right and left, but glanced to the left before she stopped and stared at the sky. "Keelah."

Everyone else glanced in the same direction, before all four of them stopped as well. "Spirits." "Damn, lucky Eldar." "Well, we know why we have so little to deal with." "I think he did his job too well, let's move people."

Hundreds of trials of flame were falling to the north, and more were descending even as they watched. Joannis shook her head, and looked around, before pointing to the building to their left. "Only way is to the left, so lets go people. The quicker this is done, the faster we can evacuate; hopefully before that mess comes this way. If Arlas is still alive, I suppose I can let him tag along again."

Wrex recovered from watching the geth deployment first, pushing ahead to kick open the door to the next building. A shrill screech, quickly cut off, revealed there was an organic inside, sane enough to be terrified of a half ton of krogan destroying the door. "Don't shoot, don't shoot! I'm unarmed."

Wrex snarled, but refrained from firing as Joannis entered the room, and glared at the asari holding her hands over the desk she cowered behind. "Stand up, slowly. Name and job at this facility."

The asari stood up slowly, keeping her hands clearly visible. "Rana Thanoptis. I am a neuro-specialist, I just want to get out of her before it is too late."

The rest of the group came in as Joannis hostlered her submachine gun. "Too late?"

The dark asari with an unusual collection of dark markings around her eyes slowly moved around the table, lowering her hands. "You think indoctrination only affects prisoners? Sooner or later Saren will want to dissect my brain too."

Joannis stared at her, letting her expression harden. "And?"

"We're studying Sovereign's effect on…"

Joannis not so subtly rested her hand on the grip of her pistol. "No. I meant 'and why should I not treat you like everyone else I have in this base?' I know what Sovereign does to people. I got to watch Matriarch Benezia try to murder her own daughter, and everyone else in my squad. I saw the aftermath of indoctrination on the salarians. And I have been told by another member of my squad exactly how insidious it is and hard to break."

The asari's mouth moved as she tried to speak, and after a moment she got her voice back. "But I can help you. The elevator here goes to Saren's private lab."

Rana strode back to the elevator, and reached for the button. Tali spotted her and yelled. "Stop!"

Rana froze, her hand nearly touching the pad. Tali approached, keeping the asari covered with her shotgun. "Any of those buttons might be an alarm. I will open the door."

Rana stepped slowly away, confusion on her face. "But the voices said it wasn't…"

The twin's shotgun and submachine came up, covering the asari, Jaclyn's voice a deadly purr. "Voices?"

Rana turned to Jaclyn, but the vanguard didn't wait, discharging the powerful shotgun once, blasting the asari's body across the room. Joannis simply gave her sister a look, but didn't actually indicate her disapproval. "Tali, door. Wrex, mind the entrance, last thing we need is geth coming up that walkway behind us."

After a moment, Tali stood up and nodded. "The entire pad was a biometric scanner. Inputting a code would have opened it, but would have tripped at least one alarm, maybe more. I bypassed both of the alarms I found, but there is no telling how long the bypass will last."

Joannis gestured to the door. "Then we need to not stay long."

She waited for Tali to open the door, before following her in, looking around the room, before spotting something that made her freeze until her twin gave her a nudge to get her out of the doorway. Taking a deep breath, she headed down the stairs in front of her, right for the active Prothean Beacon.

Out at the very edge of the anti-air web, a dark grey and red inverted wedge rose from the oceans like a leviathan from the deep, before accelerating toward the nearest tower. A second later, a beam of energy lanced out, and obliterated the entire tower structure, before the wedge rolled, lining up with another tower, and continued forward.

"YOUR WORDS ARE AS EMPTY AS YOUR FUTURE. I AM THE VANGUARD OF YOUR DESTRUCTION. THIS EXCHANGE IS OVER."

Joannis swore under her breath as the hologram faded, before ducking as the window materials suddenly blew in on one side of the room. "Everyone, lets go! Tali, did you get that master control panel working?"

Everyone ran for the door, quickly piling into the room that Rana had hid inside. "Yes, all door and connecting platforms should be deployed, at least until the geth undo the manual controls in that room."

As they returned to the 'T' junction, and found the path that had been blocked was lowered, allowing access to a new building. A krogan and geth juggernaut were crossing the path, but both froze as they spotted the group leaving. As the party tore the two apart, Joker contacted her, voice unsteady. "Uh, commander, did you order a two kilometer tall dreadnaught? Cause one just dropped out of FTL, and is coming for us like a bat out of hell. We have maybe ten minutes before it gets here."

She glanced at Wrex, and then smirked. "Wrex, we stop for Saren and nothing else. And only long enough to collect his head."

The old krogan glanced back at her, his eyes seeming to burn with inner fire, a dark chuckle escaping from his lips as he holstered his shotgun, and drew the chainsword Arlas had made for him.

Two minutes later, they finally arrived at the turret based at the end of the breeding trench, Garrus and Joannis covering Tali as she sprinted for the turret's controls, Jaclyn and Wrex finishing off the last of the enemies in the trench behind them. Wrex fired one last pistol shot into one of the twitching geth chassi on the ground, before backing slowly through the door. As he stepped clear, Jaclyn slapped the button to shut the overflow control door, sealing them off from that side of the base. She then warped the tracks of the door, to keep the geth from easily opening it.

While she did that, Tali got into the geth console, and began the process of taking control of the turret. Joannis finished sweeping the area with Garrus, before returning to Tali. "Tali, we have seven minutes before the Reaper gets here."

The quarian muttered a couple phrases in her native language before finally answering her. "This console is going to take at least a few minutes to shut down. Thankfully the turret is mostly isolated, but it is still going to take time."

Garrus turned, firing sniper rifle at a pair of geth troopers that came from around a concrete barrier. "We don't have time for that. What about the IFF system? Can you get in that soon?"

Tali cursed under her breath as she ducked into cover as best she could while still being able to work on the console. "Yes, but what…?"

Jaclyn biotically lifted the second geth before throwing it into the wall, finishing the current problem. The real problem was the geth had had more than enough time to radio in Shadow Team's position. Garrus, however, stayed focused on the real problem of the turrets. "Can you then set the larger turret and any geth ship IFFs to be designated as hostile?"

Tali's head snapped around, before she slowly nodded. "Yes, yes I could. And since it is an isolated system, the geth would have to physically connect to stop it from firing."

It took only a minute of work before the turret suddenly powered up and rotated to face the larger turret. A few seconds later, the turret began firing. Joannis opened a communication line to the Normandy and sent the prearranged signal. The larger turret, which had been warping under the repeated fire of the supporting turret, finally failed and detonated, making Joannis smirk before moving to prepare to hold the landing site.

Captain Kirrahe finished outlining the plan with the Alliance lieutenant, based on what they expected to find. The marines had moved several pieces of spare frigate armor to act as cover near the ramp, and placed the mako in the center of the hangar, to provide overwatch and be the lynchpin of their defensive line. Several crates had been moved into position to provide cover for his salarians, who would be supporting the marines by doing with the STG did best, disrupting the enemy with superior tech and sniping officers. Icivia, Kaidan, and a pair of his technicians were putting the last finishing touches on the bomb, and would begin hardening it soon, to ensure the geth wouldn't be able to dismantle or disarm the bomb.

He looked up as his omnitool buzzed, and he opened it to see a predetermined signal from Spectre Jaclyn. He tapped the button, opening a line to the pilot. "Signal received, proceed to initial checkpoint."

Another button, and he opened his comm to all the troops. "Shadow Team has sent their mission successful signal. All troops, prepare for combat and assume your assigned positions. We will hold the line."

He strode to his two technicians as he closed his comm, ignoring the troops moving to their positions, and the human female gunnery sergeant yelling for the troops to place a couple smaller pieces of frigate armor in front of the mako. "Lieutenant Ceu, report."

The officer didn't bother looking up from his omnitool, Kaidan and the other trooper working to remove a transmitter from one of the components, while Icivia worked on the last bit of the coding. "Nearly done, two minutes. Triple checking all removed connections, other than false leads that Spectre insisted on."

Icivia smirked, finishing her programing and alterations to an entire unnecessary section of the bomb. "I have been spending a lot of time fighting geth with a quarian. I know more about how they think than anyone that isn't a quarian or a geth. This section is going to stump them for at least a minute."

Kirrahe gave her a nod, before turning to look at the others. "Finish that, we will be landing momentarily."

Saren glared at the display, which was tracking known locations of lost troops. While most of the markers clustered in the courtyard, where they had finally finished their opponent, the problem was the slowly growing markers on the other side of the base. The path had started near the near outposts, then wound their way through the base, until it got to his personal lab. Then the path had gone directly to the breeding trench, and the geth were reporting a ship had just come down to hover, though they only had a visual on it.

He ignored the geth conclusions that it was made of some new material, and instead turned to a turian that had been with him the longest, and recently had returned from his deep cover mission on the Citadel. "Sergeant Gorculus, what assets do we still have in orbit?"

The turian didn't look up from his sensor station, trying to find some clue to reveal the reported ship. "All geth units upgraded to orbital drop capable are already either in route or on the ground. We have nearly three dozen drop ships in orbit, but thirty of them are either loading or not able to deploy. The five remaining drop ships are already in route."

Saren nodded, standing from his console. "My clones failed, which simply proves the krogan are even more failed than I thought. Direct the drops ships to unload at the breeding trench, regardless of the cost. Then catch up with me, Gorculus, let's test those replacement hands of yours."

The former C-Sec smirked as he finished sending the points, then grabbed his assault rifle. He flexed his new hands as he snapped the rifle to his back, before climbing onto one of the nearby flying platforms. Saren himself took another. "I look forward to testing them and the other improvements. A pity the bastard that cut off my hands died fighting the geth, but his human whores will be enough for a mere testing."

Joannis quietly winced as a geth squad advanced out one of the two doors at the back of the breeding trench, before throwing a singularity in the middle of the squad. Her mind ached from all the biotics she had been using, but they were nearly done. "Good, all we need to do is drop the package off, collect Shadow Team, the eldar, and his gunship, then get out before that dreadnaught gets here."

She cut the radio as more geth began entering the area, forcing the group to take cover. While the group had no issues with killing geth, the synthetics just kept coming, heedless of the loss of their physical forms.

Then the area was bathed in shadow, and the fire toward the geth more than tripled in quantity, tearing the ones out of cover apart. Joannis glanced back, and spotted the Normandy just settling against the drop off, ramp already down. She saw her marines in cover, expertly suppressing the entrances the geth were using, while salarian STG snipers tore apart any machine that tried to return fire. The boom of the mako tore apart a geth juggernaut, and with the last larger geth form down, the geth troopers had their ability to function reduced.

Seeing an opportunity, Kaidan turned from his cover. "Barret, Gladstone, get that package moving. I will lift it, everyone else, cover us. Ashley, keep that left opening covered."

Joannis stepped behind one of the small sets of piping that lined the trench, and activated her radio. "Arlas, if you are alive, package is being delivered, get back here now. You have less than a minute before we leave."

Ashley suddenly spoke over the radio as the package cleared the Normandy's hangar, alerting all squads. "Shit, pair of low and fast airborne contacts inbound. And long range is jammed again, we must have something big on the way. Holy shit, is that Saren?"

The cannon swiveled up and barked once, before the twin machines ripped through the air, but whatever she was aiming at was blocked from Joannis' view by the buildings. But she didn't hear the guardian lasers swatting anything from the sky, nor did the turret Tali had taken over try to swing around to where Ashley had targeted. Instead, the large turret pointed nearly straight up, and began firing as fast as its four barrels could vent heat.

A biotic warp that had more in common with a biotic explosion like what she and her sister could do together slammed into the Normandy's barriers, and then a pair of powerful rifles began firing from one of the nearby buildings, smashing Barret and Gladstone into the ground as they struggled to get the package down the trench. Kaidan managed to dive behind it, but he was most of the way down the trench without any other cover nearby.

Jaclyn and Joannis were both pinned behind the same piece of piping, the two assault rifles doing a surprisingly good job at keeping more than three dozen infantry crouching behind cover. Jaclyn peeked over cover, but only got a brief view before a handful of shots nearly took her head off, forcing her back into cover, but she had seen enough. "It is Saren and another turian who seems vaguely familiar. Both are using rifles that I have never seen before, look semi-organic and rocky."

Joannis shook her head before glancing up at a distant explosion. "We need to leave, now. Sovereign is less than six minutes out."

She glanced out of her cover, taking everything in before fire from the two turians on the high ground forced her back into cover. "Damn, geth entering the courtyard."

The ship's barriers provided some cover to the forces in the hangar, but the ship itself also provided cover for the geth forces on the roof. Joannis glanced at the timer in the corner of her HUD, which had just clicked over the five minute marker, and then at the cover in the trench. Another distant explosion made her look up, and she could see five ships in the distance coming toward the trench, descending from orbit. The turret above them was firing away at the ships, but the geth ships had strong shields, and she could tell at least two would get in position before the turret could finish them.

She cursed in her head, before issuing orders. "Garrus, Tali, Wrex, get to the ship."

Joannis took a deep breath, and then made the call. "Kaidan, I am going to lift the package. You throw it forward on my mark. It is tough, it can take the beating. Then run for the ship."

She tapped her omnitool for a moment, changing channels. "Arlas, you have fifteen seconds to respond, or in thirty seconds we are leaving, with or without you."

Joannis was surprised when her comm crackled to life, the signal laced with static, but clear enough. "Joannis, Arlas. Seventy seconds out."

She ducked deeper into cover, and cursed as the she spotted the turian's rifle shots digging deep into the protective plating of the Package. "Kaidan, add another thirty seconds to the timer, then get ready. Jaclyn, boost my barrier, then get back to the hangar."

She watched her troops keeping the geth contained near the two entrances, but the turians on the higher ground were protected by the edge of the building, and only some of the front line of troops could fire up at them. She glanced at her HUD's chronometer, before leaning out with her locust and firing a few shots. "Kaidan, on my mark."

She leaned back as some of the fire came to her, but it quickly shifted away. A quick gesture, and the converted drive core lifted a few centimeters into the air. Kaidan quickly threw the makeshift bomb, and then both humans were out and running for the hangar.

Both turians reacted as only veteran soldiers could, turning and firing with terrifying accuracy at the sprinting humans, Saren at Shepard, the other firing at Kaidan. Shepard cursed as she realized that Saren had been called the best Spectre for a reason, as despite her having decent cover and a strong barrier, she still had to slide into cover halfway back to the ship to rebuild her shields and barriers. It took Kaidan about three steps to realize he was the only one still out in the open as Saren smoothly switched from firing at Shepard to shooting at him.

He was wearing light colossus armor, the best combat armor for front line troops available. Kadian desperately redirected power to his shields to rebuild them and even activated his experimental tech armor mod as he tried to get to cover.

Shepard watched him get another four steps, about halfway to cover, before one of the shots blew through his weakening shields, and blew through his left knee, nearly taking the limb off. He took several more shots as he hit the ground, blood pooling around him, already unconscious from the trauma. She winced as the turians kept firing near him, but after a couple seconds she realized they were just tormenting them, all of the shots missing the unmoving lieutenant and firing slowly enough that the guns were likely cooling off despite firing. Joannis looked up as one of her other troops screamed in pain, Lowe taking a shot to the chest as he tried to move closer to assist either her or Kaidan. Lowe fell back into cover, and the marine next to him ducked down to administer first aid. She activated her radio, setting it to all the frequencies her forces were using. "Stay in cover. Don't help me or Kaidan yet. Arlas, the fuck are you?"

For a second nothing happened, then the two turians opened fire, but at nothing she could see. A whine of a geth hovercraft revealed that the two turians were maneuvering, and then there was a higher, deeper pitched whine of a guardian laser quickly followed by a very wet splat. Arlas finally replied over the radio. "Lioness, ship, now. I will collect Kaidan."

She bolted for the safety of the hangar after a couple seconds of consideration, trusting the eldar to do what he had claimed. Joannis made it most of the way back when she heard Jaclyn suddenly scream. "Arlas, the fuck? He just slammed Kaidan's head into the ground hard enough to crack his helmet before vanishing with him."

Joannis ignored her sister's outrage as she thundered up the ramp, several geth forms getting shots against her shields, but none penetrated her barriers. She yelled into her radio as she made it up the ramp, lunging over one of the pieces of frigate armor to get into cover. Her HUD had less than three minutes left on it. "Joker, get us the hell out of here! Arlas, tell your ship to rendezvous with us now. We have no time."

Joker replied as one of the approaching geth drop ships exploded over the base, slamming down onto the base. The ship climbed into the sky, its main cannon barking to ward the dropships off as she looked around the hangar. "Walking wounded, to the med bay and mess hall for triage. Severely wounded, stay where you are until we get a stretcher to you. Sergeant Jonesy, report."

After a moment one of the soldiers replied. "Dead ma'am. Geth hopper got him in the head. Sergeant Williams is in charge now."

Williams answered without needing to be specifically asked. "We got five soldiers down in the hangar, ma'am, not counting Barret and Gladstone. Only two severely wounded, one was Kaidan and the other is already in medical. Salarians are down to half strength, only lost three, the rest are wounded enough to stay still."

Joannis did some quick math as the bay door opened again, the eldar landing craft coming in and hovering near the top of the hangar, it's normal place even as Joker came over the paging system. "Confirmation of detonation on Virmire, and the geth definitely did NOT like that. Every ship in system is turning to run to the planet. And the dreadnaught Sovereign is less than two minutes out. Doesn't look like the dreadnaught will be in firing range before we get to FTL."

Joannis acknowledged the pilot, as she finished her mental math. It showed that, despite fighting for only four minutes, the geth had managed to kill eight soldiers and wound more than twice that, despite charging a fortified position supported by an entrenched tank with only two assault lanes. Clearly something was vastly different between geth weapons and everyone else's, because she should have had barely anyone wounded with that kind of advantage. She glanced around, noting her twin was dealing with getting the wounded moved to the mess hall for triage, and headed for Captain Kirrahe. "Captain, glad you made it."

The salarian had a stunned look in his eyes as he looked over the wounded being helped to the elevator. "I admit, surprised as well. Didn't expect so many to survive, but horrified both by casualties, considering the attack, and what I learned from the survivor you sent back. But nevertheless, my thanks for you and the eldar coming up with a plan that got so many of us out. The Third Regiment of the STG won't forget this."

Joannis allowed herself a small smile. "So Lieutenant Imness made it back? Good to hear."

The captain nodded. "He is up in the medical bay, in isolation considering what he reported he went through. If I may inquire, where you are heading next? We need to let command know where to send our pickup."

Joannis glanced at the crowd of wounded waiting for the elevator, before wincing. "Likely Arcturus station. I need to drop the wounded off at a real hospital, no insult meant to the doctor, and pick up replacement troops. Can I collaborate and get your thoughts on the mission for my report?"

Jaclyn stepped out of the elevator, and stalked up to the lander, noting the ramp was already down. The lander had some scoring on it, but her focus was on the 'ally' inside. "Arlas, what the everloving fuck were you thinking?"

The eldar looked up from a work bench that had been added to the corner where the Vyper had originally been stored, where he was working on rebuilding his arm. Arlas simply stared at her, stripped to his waist and wearing only his body glove, but his faint frown spoke of annoyance. After a moment of staring at her, he sighed and gestured with his hand for her to continue.

"You slammed Kaidan's head against the ground before teleporting him to the medical bay. I am not ungrateful for getting him to the bay that quickly, with four chest shots, one to the knee, and another to the jaw, but you nearly shattered his helmet and did fracture his skull in three places."

Arlas simply shrugged as he turned back to the arm he was repairing, everything below the elbow had been destroyed or shot off. "And if I hadn't, he would have gone through a section of the warp suffering from disturbances. His mind wouldn't have survived, and then killing him would have been the merciful option."

He touched the arm, but after a moment looked back up with a larger frown. "Is there something else you have to say, Lynx?"

She sighed, before pinching her nose. "Yes, but all that matters is that we are arriving at the Citadel in four days, to meet with the council for an in person briefing for dealing with Saren."

He nodded, turning his attention back to the workbench. "I will be ready for the meeting."

Jaclyn stared at him, making him chuckle. "What, I have been with this hunt since the beginning. At very least, I am interested in how your… 'leaders' wish to end it."

A/N - Finally got a Pat-reon up (the weird spelling is cause hates the word, apparently), and a link is on my profile. Also, that I got this out so quickly. Even better, we are in the final stretch, so hopefully I will have this story done soon(™).

Insert standard author requests here.