Log 2

Date: 30TH SEPT 2186

Location: VANCOUVER, CANADA

Today, the worst has happened. All my claims of 'knowing the truth' about the threat, now seem hollow and empty. The real truth is that I knew nothing. That I scarcely comprehended the scale of what was coming for us. For the last three years, I endured sleepless night after sleepless night, endlessly worrying away at one scheme or another. Schemes that I hoped might offer us some hope, some chance when the monsters finally arrived. And it was all wasted, all completely pointless. My preparations were woefully inadequate but had I known what was coming the terror might have driven me insane. So maybe it was better that way, to have hope born of ignorance. Believing that we still had more time left. Believing that there might be some way for us to hold the line in this conflict. But there was no war when they came for us, only slaughter, only the Harvest.

I'll try to pick up from where I left off. After I stopped writing I went to see the defense committee, to investigate the alert that had been raised regarding Arcturus Station. When I got there the room was filled with a crowd of anxious young officers. They were keeping busy but I could sense the panic in the room. For a while they were so busy that my arrival went unnoticed until eventually I managed to grab a junior officer going past and get her to tell me what was going on. She told me that Arcturus Station had just gone dark, no transmissions, no warning it just fell silent. We had just lost all contact with the single most important station Humanity had ever built, the site of the Alliance Parliament.

I went cold right then. The officer was still speaking to me, trying to reassure me that this was probably just some technical glitch but all I really remember is that cold feeling you get in the pit of your stomach sometimes. The raw fear of what's coming next. I spent the next twenty minutes hovering on the sidelines as junior officers rushed around. The screens stayed stubbornly blank and I grew anxious, feeling the situation slipping out of our hands. In my head I said the same word over and over again 'Reapers'. I felt quite sure they were responsible but what to do about it? Acting quickly I pulled an officer off the nearest work station and opened a comm link to someone I was confident would keep his head in a crisis, Admiral Hackett.

I had known the Admiral for a long time (I actually served under him directly a couple of times) and his known him by reputation even longer. Hackett had commanded the fifth fleet for as long as almost anybody could remember and that experience coupled with his straight forward, no nonsense approach had won him the respect of our military, our politicians and even with many of our allies. I also considered him a trusted ally even if I wasn't sure if he believed as strongly in the Reaper threat as myself and Sheppard. Besides his fleet was closest to the station so hopefully he could provide some answers.

"What's going on Admiral? I assume it's not a 'technical glitch'," I commented as I approached.

"I'm afraid not. We're letting that story run on the Extranet for the time being but in truth this was sabotage."

"Sabotage? Who was responsible?"

"I'm just waiting to find that out now," he replied.

"I've already sent a team over to board the station but so we only have their initial reports to go on."

"What do they say?"

"About thirty minutes ago a team of Alliance personnel began a campaign of aggressive sabotage against the station. They attacked openly and without any fear of being identified or captured. My team is rounding them up but the station is a mess. Every major system has suffered damage. The attack was coordinated and recklessly destructive, we suspect the Batarians may have had a hand in this."

I was less convinced and waited impatiently for the team on Arcturus to check back in. When they finally did so their report only served to confirm my fears.

"They've all gone crazy Admiral, we found them babbling like madmen. No clue as to why they did this but we're testing them for hallucinogens, hopefully that might explain how they were affected."

I shook my head at his words; there was a far more plausible explanation than drugs. I demanded the names of those involved and quickly searched for their service records. After looking at about five of them, a pattern soon emerged. I could see what was going on and it wasn't the work of Batarians.

"Admiral, it looks like everyone on that list was captured and later rescued from the Geth incursions three years ago.

"All of them? That can't be a coincidence. The Geth might've tried to turn them into sleeper agents but why strike now, the Geth hadn't been active in almost a year.

"We both know that those Geth were servants of the Reapers so it's possible that they indoctrinated their prisoners. Which means if they've been activated now, it can only mean one thing. The Reapers are on their way."

"Hackett gave me a long hard look, his face unreadable.

"Are you certain Admiral? If we act on this and turn out to be wrong, we could both end up losing our careers."

Leaving no one left in the Alliance who even slightly believed that the Reapers are real, I realized. A wrong call here could leave Earth oblivious to the threat. But how much worse would it be if it was the Reapers and we did nothing?

"They're coming," I stated firmly, not leaving any room for doubt in my voice. "Do whatever you have to."

So while some were already trying to write this off as a stupid attempt to embarrass the Alliance, Hackett attempted to mobilize the fleets to fight. It took hours but for once we were actually getting somewhere. Several of the Batarian ships had finally been stopped and questioned and their stories added weight to our theory. They claimed that Khar'shan, the Batarian home world had been attacked by an overwhelming enemy and far from an assault, the incoming ships were filled with fleeing refugees or retreating troops. The Batarian Hegemony had already fallen under Reaper control and it was clear their next target would be the Alliance.

We weren't going to go quietly though, particularly not with Admiral Hackett leading the defense. He had ordered the Sixth and Seventh fleets to take position near Eden Prime. Their orders were to slow the enemy advance for as long as possible to give the Second, Third and Fifth fleets at Arcturus a chance to prepare a proper defense. Then they'd fall back to Arcturus to join the rest of our forces and any reinforcements the Council could send us. We figured with so many ships we'd be able to hold off their initial invasion force. After that we could decide how best to link up with the other Council races long term and take the fight to the Reapers. For all that I'd heard about the Reapers' strength I still figured we had a shot. In past cycles they had won by hitting the Citadel first and crippling any chance of a coordinated defense. Thanks to Commander Sheppard we had been spared that catastrophe and I had to believe that it would make a difference.

Still there were some issues we had to face first, the main one being the Earth Defense Committee. Despite the fact that we planned to have our fleets hold the line at Arcturus we still wanted to have our forces on the ground ready in case they broke through. Unfortunately the authority to give that order rested with the committee and they had a habit of dragging their heels over every issue. We couldn't afford that in this situation so rather than get bogged down in endless arguments we settled on a small piece of theater for their benefit. Something simple that would give them a sense of urgency on this issue. It ran something like this:

"How bad is it?" I asked to set the tone while the committee listened in quietly.

"Bad." Replied Hackett gravely. "We just lost contact with two of our deep space outposts. There's something massive on long range scanners."

A complete lie of course. Our scanners didn't have the range to detect ships that hadn't jumped into that star cluster yet but from everything we'd been told from the Batarians it wouldn't be long before we could.

"Is this what Sheppard warned us about?" I asked. We had agreed that I should be passive in this exchange so that my own personal bias (in that I believed in the Reapers) wouldn't be brought up.

"I'd stake my life on it."

"How long do we have?"

"Not long. I've sent word. The fleets are mobilizing."

"God help us all."

Full credit to Hackett for the script, if there was ever such a thing as an 'expert' in leadership it would be him. Every bit of it was carefully calculated to get the result we needed. The added tension, the clear statement of facts to discourage argument, even the fact that the committee were set up to 'overhear' the discussion instead of being presented a case to mull over for hours. In the end they bought it completely and immediately ordered us to begin mobilizing ground troops. It would take hours for them to be fully ready but we hoped our fleets could buy us sufficient time.

Soon the only possible preparation left was get our main Reaper expert here pronto. Given the fear that was enveloping us all it didn't take much convincing to get the top brass to order Sheppard's release and have him brought here. I set off to meet him halfway, hoping to brief him on the situation before he faced the full committee.

When I caught up with him he was being escorted by Lieutenant Vega, a soldier I'd assigned to guard Sheppard during his trial and subsequent house arrest (call me paranoid but I wanted someone to have his back). We also ran into Lieutenant Commander Williams who had just come from the committee herself. She and the Commander are old friends but I think things have been awkward ever since he worked for Cerberus. In any case we had to leave the Lieutenants behind as we headed into the committee chamber.

Things had gotten much worse by the time we'd returned. The crowd had been cleared away, sent on assignments I think just to keep them busy. Hackett's comm link was dead too, so it was just me and Sheppard standing in front of the defense committee with a handful of guards on the sidelines. It was strange to see the vast room so empty. The committee were sat in a row behind a huge desk, like judges at court. Behind them the massive windows let the light of the new day (I hadn't even noticed it getting so late, or should I say early) into the room.

Then they dropped the bombshell that we'd actually lost contact with everything beyond our own solar system. In the time it had taken me to fetch Sheppard we had gone from having a fighting chance, to not knowing if our fleets were even still out there. Most likely I assumed that a force of Reapers had somehow managed to avoid the battle and were now somewhere nearby, jamming our communications. The other possibility, that they had smashed their way through our fleet already; it didn't even bare thinking about.

Either way it looked like we would need to fight soon ourselves. Not that the Defense Committee was likely to be much help .From the fear clearly evident on all of their faces it was plain to see they were expecting us to tell them how to survive all this. In fact within minutes they asked Sheppard exactly that question. I'm not exactly sure what they were expecting, the Commander wasn't a miracle worker after all. All he could do was attempt to make them understand the nature of the threat, that we could fight or we would die.

It made little difference in any case. Within moments we were interrupted, a young officer announcing we'd lost contact with our Luna base. The idea that they could have gotten so close so quickly seemed absurd but in truth it was only the tip of the iceberg. We were told that someone had a visual on the Reapers in London. When the feed came up all we could see was smoke and flames, a single soldier shouting into the camera before the connection was lost. Then we saw the news feeds as Reapers began to descend on the cities one by one.

It was so surreal, while we held a meeting to figure out how to stop the Reapers they were occupying the Earth as a conquered territory. My first instinct was to try and get the committee to safety, to retreat back to… where? That was my second reaction, nowhere was safe. The Reapers owned our skies, could drop on us at any time, could burn through buildings like a hot knife through butter. I swear to god that was my last thought before that shot came straight through the window, wiping out the committee and sending us flying.

Everyone in the room had been knocked down or killed, I was on my feet quickly though and rushed to get Shepard moving. He was dazed from the impact or something I think, but I managed to get him to focus on getting out of there the only way we could. We rushed out of the broken windows and fled over the rooftops. From up there we could see most of the city and clear across Vancouver. Several Reapers had landed nearby, towering over us despite our being on the roof of a skyscraper. Their spider like legs supporting their main body so they could pick targets at their leisure. Occasionally one of these giants shifted its position crushing buildings and knocking over tower blocks with their sheer size. Bright bursts of red light seemed to emerge from the clouds to burn swathes through the city, the only visible sign of the orbital bombardment.

I tried to signal the Normandy, had no success there but I managed to get through to Lieutenant Commander Williams. She and Vega would head for the Normandy while we hurried over the rooftops to reach the spaceport so they could pick us up. It wasn't likely to be easy for either group though our vantage point did let us see how bad the situation really was. In the sky I saw what seemed like thousands of tiny ships all flying around chaotically. Most were ours, fighters and gunships trying to fight the Reapers (hopeless as it was, those things were a thousand times their size) and shuttles and skycars attempting to flee the city. The only ship really making a fight of it was a single dreadnought still holding position over the city. Dreadnought class vessels are the strongest ships in our fleet (we only have nine in total) but I knew it wouldn't be long before even that ship was forced to retreat.

The Reapers had their own stuff in the air too. Not just giant Reapers but also thousands of smaller drones, sent out to shoot down as many ships as possible. I was worried that, exposed as we were, we might might make an easy target for them until I realized that we had more than enough to worry about on the ground. The Husks were already here in force, overrunning the streets and swarming up the sides of the building towards us. We managed to deal with the first wave easily enough but I decided we should head into one of the ruined buildings to avoid attracting even more attention.

Oh yes the Husks, I should explain these things in case this ends up as a message to the next cycle. The Husks are humans, or rather were humans that the Reapers have converted by implanting cybernetics to control them. Every trace of humanity is stripped from them, leaving behind a rotting corpse, riddled with metal implants. In the Reaper army Husks act as mindless killing machines, that throw themselves at the enemy in vast numbers to overwhelm them. The way they charge at you, unarmed and crazed like a rabid animal can be terrifying to the average soldier. I don't understand what the Reapers do to them but I'm sure there's a lot of pain involved. Sometimes it almost seems like the Husks can still feel what was done to them, that the Reapers are weaponizing that tortured agony to turn people into snarling beasts, bent on revenge.

I could hear the crowds of people in the streets below us, I even caught sight of them once or twice. The bombardment had flushed a group of survivors out into the open. Terrified of being crushed by the falling buildings they tried to flee the city but it was hopeless. When I saw them the street was so crowded that the people couldn't even move. Crammed in like sardines, there was nothing they could do when the enemy closed in from all sides. The screams grew louder below us but I forced myself to ignore it. I was too far away to help them and it was hard enough trying to make our way over the rubble as it was. If we tried to rush our only reward would be a very long fall (a stupid way to get ourselves killed given the circumstances).

Still it wasn't easy to hear unarmed civilians being slaughtered below us. Particularly when we, the trained soldiers faced no more resistance than a few Husks. To distract myself I tried talking to Sheppard, knowing that I needed to anyway; so that he would be ready for what I had planned. Someone had to get off-world and get a message to the Council to let them know what happened here and request reinforcements to help retake earth. They'd stalled and dragged their heels and basically been a pain in the ass from day one but if we wanted to stand any chance at all we needed them now. I told the Commander all this because I'd already made up my mind, Shepard didn't know it yet but I was going to stay on earth. One of us clearly had to go, that much was obvious. But I refused to leave these people here to die. Besides I owed the Reapers some payback.

We kept an eye out for survivors, as unlikely as it was, hoping that we might be able to save someone from this nightmare. I didn't see anyone but I think Shepard may have come across a kid (I assume it was a child from the way Sheppard spoke to him) that I hadn't spotted. He spoke with them briefly while I struggled to get the next set of doors open but I could only make out Shepard's half of the conversation. In the end it sounded like the kid ran off rather than accept our help. I closed my eyes and said a small prayer for whoever it was, not because I believed but because there was nothing else I could do.

Eventually we made it out of the wreckage and out into the open air again with the harbor and the space port now clearly in view. Unfortunately before we had gone more than a few steps we saw the Reapers target the dreadnought that was still fighting above the city. As it exploded the shock wave was so huge it hit us from miles away and caused the entire platform we were standing on to collapse. We slid down the side of the building, down towards the docks themselves and found ourselves surrounded by water and debris. A maze of scrap metal made from the remnants of the ships shot out of the sky.

By this stage I'd lost all contact with the Normandy (Williams and Vega had got there before the line went dead) and I needed to get it here so I could send Shepard to get help. That's when we finally came across some other Alliance soldiers. They'd come from a gunship that had crashed in the harbor, told us it still had a radio on-board that could reach the Normandy. We managed to get our hands on it but we were ambushed by these creatures. Never seen anything like them before. They seemed to be like the husks, an altered race designed to serve the Reapers but they were so distorted I couldn't make out which species they'd used. These things certainly did have guns though; we were hard pressed to hold out until the Normandy arrived.

I told Shepard to go on without me then, left him standing on the ramp up to the ship. Just as expected he hadn't wanted to leave me behind but they had no choice, they were lucky the Reaper didn't blow them out of the sky as it was. I watched them disappear into the clouds then hurried back to the survivors from the gunship. To be honest I'd been so focused on getting Shepard out of there I hadn't really thought much about what I was going to do on the ground. Hadn't had much time to think really, when I got back to the survivors we were all just reeling from shock I guess. As I stopped to try and make plans the full enormity of the situation hit me. Earth was an occupied territory. The human home world, fallen in a matter of hours to the Reaper arrival.