A/N: The Editing Gang is making me let them spellcheck my Author's Notes, since I keep trolling them with misspellings and missing in them.
…the word goblins struck again!
This is the vision I had for my fic when it started, this mess of a fight. Overall I've completely scrapped and rewritten it a dozen times. The final form is due to the combined efforts of the EG in reshaping some things and giving me ideas and feedback. Special thanks to Quentin, Jacob and The Elder One for ideas and concepts.
I apologize for how long this took to get out, so enjoy all thirty-one thousand words.
More than one person has asked, given what goes down here, how the Broker fight can possibly top this. My answer is the same as always: hold my beer and watch this.
As usual, please check out the works of Aberron, Xabiar, and SLotH4.
Progman: I have won the Tupari battle.
"…doomed. What kind of fucking idiot taunts Shepard when she clearly ran out of fucks to give a long time ago?" – Tradius Ahern, on seeing footage of the Butcher fighting Tetrimus.
"…that's my girl." – David Anderson, on seeing footage of Tetrimus fighting Shepard.
O-TWCD-O
On the bridge of the asari flagship Unity of Hope, in the command center of the Ilium Planetary Defense Network, in the CIC of the Normandy, and in the halls of the Citadel Council watching the live transmissions from Ilium – all who watched an endless tide of geth warships erupt out of the relay had the same thought run through their minds.
The asari Valsharess spoke it first. "How? How could a geth fleet get this far without being detected?!"
To her right, the senior sensor officer just shook her head, hands flying over her console. "Initial fleet composition is one dreadnought, fifty-two heavy-cruisers, one hundred and six light-cruisers, and almost two hundred smaller ships. We're also detecting a large battlecruiser-weight ship in the back of their formation… it is launching some kind of small fighter-craft."
The Valsharess nodded. "Order all ships to break orbit and take up Tide-bound Return formation. Comms, hail the Ilium Defense Fleet commander and whoever is in charge of the GTS system down there – on my authority as Valsharess of the 2nd Fleet of the Asari Republic I'll grant them amnesty from any charges or justicar punishment via the Fourth Oath if they help us repel the geth."
She turned to her left and addressed her executive officer. "Have the huntresses break out small arms, anti-synthetic munitions and prepare for close quarters combat. The bulk of those smaller ships are assault landers, they may try to board us. Priority message to our forces on the ground: 'Enemy fleet in-system – geth. Loss of orbital superiority imminent. Planetary invasion units present.' " She paused for a heartbeat and considered her next words carefully. "All ground forces are to assume that indiscriminate orbital bombardment is a possibility and must prepare accordingly."
She watched the geth mass slowly undulate as it approached the planet, her face tightening in a grim smile. "Sisters, let us sing."
O-TWCD-O
Shepard grimaced as more Broker soldiers came storming out of a nearby building, some injured, but all firing rapidly. She dived behind another burning aircar, flinging a grenade over her shoulder as she did so.
It exploded, killing several of the enemy and staggering the rest. They had no chance to recover as Garrus slammed down from the sky in their midst, omni-claws tearing through three of them with a single swipe while his other hand fired his Talon pistol point-blank into another's face. "Sheep, this is getting us nowhere."
She nodded, tapping her comm-link. "Teams, status."
Ezno's rough voice was distorted by the sound of his heavy weapon firing. "Bravo Team on the ground. Taking heavy fire, positioning to east side of the spaceport."
A moment later, Angel's voice sounded. "Echo Team, moving to position. Lots of Broker soldiers coming our way now, looks like this crash was recent and they're shaking off the shock. Sniping as we go."
Miranda's cool tones held frustration. "Delta Team, moving. No sign of the Sisters, but Jack says she can feel powerful biotic signatures to the north. Heat sensors and drones show something roughly two hundred meters in that direction."
Shepard paused, then Tali's voice broke in. "Butcher, my recon drones have ID'd Tazzik, he's fighting two… wait, is that Aethyta?"
Shepard's eyes narrowed. "Location?"
"Fifty-two meters east of you."
Shepard moved in that direction, only to be stopped by Garrus. "Tazzik is a tech guy. The biotic signature must be Tetrimus. I'll shut the big freak down and then come in from behind when you find Tetrimus."
She nodded. "If it is Aethyta…" A tumult of emotions tore through her, and she trailed off.
He tilted his head before nodding. "I know. Don't worry, I got this."
His armor triggered as he leapt into the air, and she turned her face to the north. Her hand wrapped around her warp sword, and she flung herself into the kanquess.
O-TWCD-O
The Illusive Man leaned back in his chair, eyeing the displays with narrowed eyes. "Vigil, how long until the geth hit the planet?"
The hovering sphere pulsed, voice quiet and without mockery for once. "That depends heavily on how long the asari can fight them off. If the 2nd Fleet and the Ilium Defense force cooperate, half an hour, perhaps more. Although the fact remains that they just don't have the ships to win. After space superiority is lost, the main cities of Ilium are still protected by city-grade barrier fields. It will take almost an hour to crack them if geth are able to use orbital bombardment uncontested, not factoring the heavy GTS defenses Ilium has."
A moment later, Vigil spoke again. "That is assuming, of course, the geth don't drop assault ships on the planet. If what I'm piggybacking off scans is correct, they have well over a hundred of those in this fleet. If nothing has changed since they landed on Ilos in terms of how they pack them, each dropship has four Colossi, twelve Armatures, four Primes, and two hundred-plus smaller platforms. They could conceivably take down the GTS command center and turn the weapons on the defenders. There are too many variables at this point, human."
Harper nodded. "How long until the asari fleet reinforcements arrive? And how long until our fleet can get there? Maximum rated speed."
Vigil's voice was flat. "Our fleet can get there in just over one hour, sixteen minutes. The rest of the asari 2nd Fleet will arrive in four hours, twenty-five minutes. I'm detecting fragmentary returns from several comm-nets I've hacked that indicate a force of ships belonging to the Broker is probably also on the way. This, of course, does not include any of his other forces that may be on the world or in orbit. At least six Royal Hunting Parties are incoming, but they are further out than 2nd Fleet. The nearest Citadel task force is just over five hours away."
The Illusive Man considered his options, then tapped the QEC link. "Your thoughts, Oleg?"
Petrovsky's voice was tense but wry. "My thoughts are mostly panic right now, Jack, mixed with incoherent internal screaming." He cleared his throat. "However, we have a paucity of options. Shepard is here, so let her people head to Trellani's location and recover all the assets who are willing to get off this shithole. Have that shuttle boost out to meet up with my frigate; I can take them all aboard this ship. Shepard's people can pick up the Sisters and anyone else. After that, I would strongly advise we advance in the opposite direction to the enemy at flank speed. Also known as 'running like hell.' "
He paused, rubbing his chin, then continued to speak. "The squads and ATLAS mechs in HAMMER still fighting need to break away pronto to a pickup location. Detonate the suits and pick up the troops and use the fighting between the geth and asari to exfiltrate cleanly."
Harper lit a cigarette, a frown crossing his patrician features momentarily. "You do not advocate sending in our fleet?"
Petrovsky's voice was low. "Jack, that's an escalation. The force we built up for Shepard was bad enough, but Vigil's produced a serious war fleet in a few weeks. God knows how he's kept it hidden, and that doesn't matter – we send it in and the Council will panic."
Vigil's tone was archly sarcastic. "And just exactly when, meatbag, have we started giving heavy consideration to the reactions of a group of morons not only stupid enough to govern from a Reaper processing station, but also willing to listen to a known murderous criminal instead of their own trusted agent when it comes to the Reaper threat? Far be it from the only being with a working brain in this entire ridiculous organization to wax sarcastic, but so what? They'd panic no matter what you do, because their only job is to keep the status quo, and we are, by nature, an imbalance."
The sphere pulsed. "Send in the ships and save these asari creatures, then fall back. Cerberus is made to look like the hero, the asari are neutralized politically because they just got through massacring their own people, and everybody is looking for the fleet while Shepard and team proceed to the location of the Broker and kill it."
Petrovsky gave a bitter laugh. "You're assuming you can deal with the geth before the rest of the 2nd Fleet arrives? And that the asari on the ground won't be an issue, or the remaining fleet?"
Vigil's tone was amused. "For a general, you aren't very good at this, organic. The weight of most of the asari ships – Republic and Ilium Defense Force – is light interdiction ships and a small handful of heavier vessels. By my most optimistic forecasts, by the time our fleet arrives, if it leaves now, the combined asari fleet strength in-system will be less than fifteen percent of what it currently is. Once we deal with the threat, I suspect they will be more concerned about capturing fleeing asari of importance than trying to fight a fleet that outnumbers them six-to-one."
Harper puffed on the cigarette and smiled. "Vigil, activate the Ironic Gesture and the rest of your ships and have them proceed to Ilium, fastest rated speed they can achieve in full stealth. Oleg, issue orders to your ground forces to fall back when they can break cleanly, and prep them to commence recovery ops, using your frigate. Inform Shepard and her forces we have reinforcements incoming to deal with the geth and to focus on the Sisters and the Broker's lieutenants."
He stubbed the cigarette out. "EVA, prepare a secure bounced comm-link to the Citadel Council… and the galactic comms network. It's time we came out of the dark."
O-TWCD-O
Tazzik was honestly torn between being enraged and, for perhaps the first time in his existence, actually frightened. He ducked under a scything slash from a warp sword so fast it left bits of blue fire in its wake and kicked out, his leg hitting nothing as the smirking form of Smiya flash-stepped out of the way.
He barely had time to redirect himself before a piece of rubble smashed him across the back and a line of fire tore through his right shoulder, shearing away a hydraulic connector that spat fluids as he staggered back. He was good in melee, but he'd never faced opponents faster than him before, and absently wondered just what kind of bionetic graa-shit let two old women keep up with a full-conversion cyborg.
Aethyta landed lightly, crippled arm bound tightly against her chest, her left hand holding her warp sword in a reverse grip. "You know, kid, I figured you'd be a harder crack than this. I mean, I had a good swordsman beside me when I tried to off Tetrimus two years ago and I barely touched the fuck until the last second."
Tazzik snarled and sprayed plasma at her from his forearm projector, only to watch as Aethyta turned it aside with some kind of biotic trick, dispersing it harmlessly against the ground. He kicked off and back, even as Smiya erupted from the kanquess in midair, her downward slash missing him by millimeters.
His arm lashed out, dragging his omni-blade against her armored leg as she came down, and she slammed down on the ground in a tumbled landing, hissing in pain but keeping her blade at the ready. Tazzik jumped up and back, trying to open distance as he took in the situation.
It didn't look encouraging.
He'd been separated from Tetrimus. Half the starport was on fire, and the other half had security systems going crazy. They probably still had a hundred or more soldiers alive and able to fight, but they were cut off by security doors whose controls they had to hack back.
Their only way off-world was a burning wreck, and their own fleet would have to fight through the geth to evacuate them – assuming the Broker bothered, which was never a given.
Their comm-net was compromised and full of screaming, and it sounded like more enemies were landing, some in shuttles, some in a MAKO, and still more in direct orbital drops. He could hear the sound of what had to be a BRKR cannon not far off, which meant even if he offed these two crazy old bitches, there was at least one other enemy with a weapon that could slag him.
He needed room to maneuver.
He dropped a pair of tech-mines and used an omni-lead to leap up and scale the side of the low storage building he'd been slammed into, smiling as the mines detonated a moment later and two asari voices rang out in pained curses. He knew he was good, but taking two Black Blades in close combat was a bit too much to ask.
He could do it though, if he kept them from double-teaming him.
He flung himself to the left behind an HVAC unit as Smiya used a biotic-enhanced leap to land on the roof, flinging arcs of warp energy as she did so. He pulled out his backup weapon – a Scorpion blast pistol – and put a pair of shots near her.
They detonated instantly, breaking Smiya's barrier and flinging her to the ground. Even as he rushed in to finish her off, though, a blast of blue energy battered him, knocking him aside. Aethyta's eyes were dark and cold as she finished her biotic charge with a complete full-extension lunge that drove her blade through splintered armor directly into his knee joint.
He roared and backhanded her, taking some satisfaction in watching her stagger back and lose her grip on her sword. He lunged at her in return, bringing around his omni-blade in a stabbing sweep, when Smiya flash-stepped behind him and drove her burning blade into his back, following up with a powerful push that smashed him through the thin metallic roof into the building below.
Aethyta coughed, wiping a smear of purple from her lips, and picked up her sword. "…I think the stupid bastard nearly broke my jaw." She spat out a tooth and gave a bloody grin.
Smiya nodded. "Circular Tide, then Weave the Path. You ready?"
The older asari snorted as she leapt down into the building, flaring her barrier into bubbling shockwaves that shoved aside debris and pushed back everything around her. A series of metallic shelves and plastic crates went flying in all directions, battering the giant salarian as he rose to his feet.
Smiya landed next to her a moment later, her blade held in both hands. "You're not looking so hot there, big guy."
Tazzik felt his nostrils contract as he gave a thin smile, and tossed away the pistol. He snapped his wrist out to the left, an omni-blade on his left arm matching the one on his right. "I don't usually do a lot of this melee shit, but I'll make an exception—"
He broke off talking in a blindingly fast dash, and both asari brought up blocks. Orange glows smashed into the cross-blocking blades and knocked both lighter built females back, as Tazzik dropped into a sweeping kick that took Smiya's legs out from under her.
Aethyta swiped down and to the left, bringing her sword across the big salarian's right shoulder and scoring the armor deeply, but he came out of the sweep leading with his left omni-blade and drove it toward her shoulder. She managed a partial deflection, but it still ended up slashing through the pauldron and drawing a hiss of agony. She parried two more fast stabs before deflecting his third blow, spinning on her right heel as she stabbed downwards.
Her blow cut into his damaged leg yet again, making him stagger, throwing his return slash off as she rolled into a ball and to the right. Leaping over her form was Smiya, leg extended in a kick as she crashed into Tazzik, catching him across the face with her foot.
She landed as he stumbled again, still off-balance, and swung her blade with every bit of power she had, driving it up and into his side with a horrible crash-crunch of impact that ended when she pulsed her biotics through the blade.
Tazzik went flying from the overcharged throw that had just gone off at point-blank range. His heavy form slammed into the cinder block walls of the building, which crumbled under the impact, and collapsed in a cloud of dust and debris.
Smiya pulled a grenade from her belt and flung it, dashing backwards as it detonated in a flare of plasma. She exhaled shakily, eyes scanning as Aethyta came up to her shoulder. For long seconds, nothing moved except the swirling dust, then there was the whine of hydraulics.
"…Is that it?"
The voice rattled out of the billowing dust cloud a moment before a piece of rubble came flying out, striking Smiya in the thigh with enough force to knock her leg out from under her. She yelped as she landed flat on her face painfully, sword skittering from her stunned fingers across the floor.
Aethyta slammed the best Wall she could in front of them both, just in time to stop a double cross-down slash from Tazzik as he leapt forward. He rebounded off the biotic wall, but his legs erupted in mass effect jets as he somersaulted mid-air, coming down behind Aethyta.
She erupted into a trio of hard slashes, grimacing as he picked each one off with his omni-blade. The orange constructs didn't even flicker from the parries, and she realized he had enough power sources that overloading his omni-blade wouldn't work. She reversed her thrust as she spun in a complete circle, missing him as he arched back unnaturally.
His hand touched the ground and his legs lanced out as he shifted into a handstand, clipping her across the temple and pushing her back. She instinctively flash-stepped to her right, a glaring blur of orange missing her by centimeters, and drove her warp sword into his exposed side with every bit of strength she had left.
It hit something important, as the giant cyborg screamed, black fluids spraying from the wound and electronics sparking. But for all that, his hand unerringly grabbed her by the wrist and he lifted and flung her.
Aethyta latched onto a wall with her biotics enough to slow her impact against said wall, but had her breath knocked out of her. She shook her head to try to clear it when a flash of orange tore out of nowhere, driving into her stomach.
She screamed as Tazzik smiled cruelly. "So much for the Black Blade of the Vasir." With a grunt he withdrew the weapon to let her fall to the ground, turning slowly to see Smiya approaching. "And now, the other one."
A blue-glowing hand wreathed in warpfire latched onto his knee, and he cursed as the energies dissolved his electronic connection to his left jump-jet. He glanced down, seeing Aethyta's bloody smile and glowing hand, and he kicked the already battered matriarch in a fury.
That was all the opening Smiya needed.
She kanquessed, coming out just above his head before driving her blade directly into the space between his shoulder and torso. Black metal wrapped in blue energy sheared through armor, through hydraulics, and through metallic anchor rods, cutting the entire right arm off as she flipped in midair.
She landed in a burst of energy, and spun into a low slash. Even as she did so, though, she saw his grin, and his uninjured shoulder opened to spray her with mini-missiles, blasting her away.
She was blown back and through a metallic shelving system, landing in a dazed tangle of limbs, burned and bleeding from where the blasts had driven shards of armor into her body. A moment later her sword arm was crushed by a giant metallic foot, drawing a howl of agony from her.
Tazzik looked at his missing limb and frowned thoughtfully. "This is going to be a real bitch to fix, you know." He leaned down to pick up her sword, now dark and without energy. "Only fair I take yours, right?"
Still in too much agony from being nearly killed by missiles and her shattered arm, Smiya spat blood in his face. He smiled and raised the weapon.
A heavy blast like a shotgun struck him in the back, knocking him forward and making him inadvertently kick Smiya in the side. As she gave another scream of pain, Tazzik turned.
A black figure crashed through the roof, landing between Tazzik and the battered, bleeding figure of Aethyta still on the floor. It slowly rose, one hand holding a large pistol, the other extending a set of omni-claws.
"I didn't take you for a dramatic entrance type of guy, Archangel."
"I'm not."
Tazzik's mind barely had time to realize the deception before a humming drone smashed into his back, blasting him forward into an uncontrolled tumble. Halfway through it he caught himself and flipped back to his feet, only to catch a power armored fist to the face, smashing him completely through the nearest wall and out of the building entirely.
Garrus glanced down at Aethyta, who was slapping a medi-gel patch over the gaping wound in her stomach. He tapped his comm-link. "Delta, medical team needed, this location. Urgent." He clicked off. "Stay down, I'll handle big ugly out there."
Aethyta looked up at the form of Archangel, and slowly nodded. "Hurry. The… the Sisters are fighting Tetrimus and they need help."
Garrus smiled in his helmet. "Butcher is on the way already." He glanced outside, through the hole he'd knocked Tazzik through, and began walking toward it. "Excuse me, I must take my leave. I have some frustration to work out."
He triggered his jump-jets, crashing through the remaining bits of masonry and catching the salarian in a power tackle just as Tazzik got to his feet. He let himself get about six meters of elevation before spinning in midair, letting Tazzik soar through the air to crash heavily into a stack of what looked like spent-eezo cans.
He landed lightly, shifting power from mobility to his omni-armor, illuminating himself in soft pearly light. Tazzik got to his feet slowly. His mask was askew and bent, revealing his mouth in a rictus grin, and his armor was battered and cracked. His left leg was slightly bent, the armor torn and melted, and several other points of damage stood out, including the missing right arm.
Tazzik took a deep breath as he assessed the form of Archangel. "I've killed a Shieldbreaker, half of an STG combat team, five ATLAS suits, a dozen heavy troopers, two SKYTALONS, and at least half a dozen Deathwatch today. I normally love a good fight, but this is getting beyond ridiculous. Could we reschedule this to some other time, Archangel?"
Despite himself, Garrus grinned and set himself into battle stance, extending his omni-claws. "Omega hasn't made me very tolerant of trimming my spurs and talon-gazing, sorry. Besides, I'm on a schedule."
"Figures." Tazzik's mouth thinned to a grim line, and he extended his sole omni-blade again. "More of this melee graa-shit? I thought you'd want a sniper duel." He began to circle to his right, making his way clear of the tumble of broken masonry and metallic bins near his feet.
Garrus laughed. "I figured I'd at least let you put up a fight before you die." With that, he rocketed forward, and omni-claw met omni-blade with a screeching clash.
O-TWCD-O
Tetrimus considered his foes carefully, pushing energy to his talon dagger as he drew it.
Thane's eyes never left his, the knives in his hands crackling almost angrily as he slowly began to circle the turian, wisps of green energy wafting from his form. The larger of the two Sisters moved back a bit, and the smaller one gave a chuckle.
All four of them moved at once. Tetrimus used a push on the ground below him to fling himself forward, a flicker-fast throw a second later deflecting the thrown knife of Thane. He landed in a roll before the smaller Sister and slashed up with his dagger—
—only for the asari to shatter into static, revealing a prox tech-mine under the haptic decoy. It detonated a second later, the explosive erupting into a cloud of some kind of acidic, burning gas, and he staggered away.
He'd used that trick himself more than once, but never realized just how infuriating it was.
He instinctively ducked back, but not far enough to avoid a slash from a warp sword, the tip dragging through his shoulder before he lashed out with a kick that slammed into the larger Sister. Triggering a shockwave, he pushed back the burning gases and watched the Sister stumble. He pounced, a lash of warpfire slamming into the asari and sending her flying.
He jerked as he was hit several times with pistol fire, from his own damned weapon, and his barrier failed from the impacts. He snarled and flipped around, pushing out a strong flare and catching the smaller Sister with it in a blast of white-hot energies. It sent her reeling, and a second later he used a push to fling a piece of debris at her. The chunk of masonry caught her in the head and she dropped like a stone.
"That's one down." He gave a laugh and turned, dancing back as Thane was upon him, slashing and kicking.
Tetrimus parried one low slash with his own talon dagger, ignoring the biotic-powered kick that caught him in the side, as it did no damage. Focusing even as he leaned out of the way of another slash, he pulsed his biotics in a surging wave below his feet, sending both of them flying.
He was prepared for it, flipping midair and letting go with a biotic salvo, a trio of blue bolts arcing through the air to catch the drell just as he landed. They exploded around him, driving the green-skinned alien to his knees, and Tetrimus laughed as he flung a spear of warpfire.
It shattered on a raised Wall, the bigger Sister getting to her feet slowly after being hit. Her mask was a shattered wreck, and she tore it off, flinging it aside.
It took almost a full second to recognize the twisted, hateful features revealed, especially given the silvery cybernetic eye implant that covered the upper left portion of her face, but when he did, his voice was a mix of incredulity and anger. "Doctor Liara T'Soni… how curious. I killed you myself."
Liara gave him a hateful stare and her voice oozed mockery. "As my wife once told me, the first rule of combat should be to always check the body. You appear to have problems understanding this concept."
From behind, a pair of flash-paks were slapped onto his back by the smaller Sister of Vengeance, who flash-stepped back a second before they blew up, sending Tetrimus flying. He smashed through a low retaining wall and bounced several times off the plascrete, coming to a stop as he drove his claws into the ground.
"How did we let this incompetent nearly kill us, Lady Liara?" The smaller asari took of her mask and let it drop, revealing the bloodied but grim features of Telanya. "No matter. Time to die for the lives you've stolen."
Tetrimus got to his feet. "Benson Tryun."
Liara blinked. "What?"
Tetrimus chuckled. "I hear these stupid declarations of how I'm going to be killed, brought to justice, or all of that so often, I invented a game where I try to remember the people who said that to me and died."
Liara's scowl deepened. "You are a sick monster."
Tetrimus's voice dripped with malicious glee. "Valitia T'Koro."
Thane's eyes narrowed and he lifted his hand. "Just die, hound of Valtha!" A bolt of green-tinted biotics lashed out, but with an almost petulant wave of his taloned hand, Tetrimus batted it away.
The amusement in Tetrimus's voice was stronger. "Irikah Krios." And then he moved.
O-TWCD-O
Liara had thought, given the nightmarish battle in which she nearly died, that she'd seen most of what Tetrimus could do. They had studied him, his battles, murdered to gain access to hints of his cybernetics, bribed to find out how he thought and fought, and they'd planned a dozen ways to kill him.
But she never let herself wonder if they had a complete understanding of their foe. She thought they had. She was sure she had. She had taken Ahern's teachings about knowing the enemy, and, assuming the worst, thought she had the measure of the turian.
As the turian dodged Thane's furious counterattack even while kicking Telanya away and using a push to neutralize her shockwave, she realized she may have underestimated him.
As Tetrimus blocked her warp sword with his bare hand, limned in biotic force, laughing as he hit Thane with a close-range Salvo that sent him flying backwards to land with a sickening crack against the wall of the spaceport, she realized she may have not done enough research as to his sheer power.
And as he hit her with the strongest push she'd ever experienced in her life, even as he slammed his hand to the ground and she felt gravity itself increase to the point where she fell almost instantly from being knocked skywards, she realized bitterly that she had made a lethal error.
Tetrimus had never been pushed to his limits, and thus there was no way to know what he had kept in reserve.
She crashed to the ground painfully, wincing as armor plates cut a gash into her ribs as they buckled. She couldn't even get up from her prone position, her sword just out of reach. Thane was channeling some kind of biotic force through his body, but he was still on his knees, and from her position, she couldn't see Telanya at all.
"I grow so tired of pitiful attempts to deny the ugly reality of life, you know. Life is meaningless, a torturous illusion given to people to justify the inanity of our existence. You struggle so hard to keep it going… and then it stops. I'll give you credit for doing better than most who tried, however." Tetrimus's voice was almost musing he walked toward the struggling figure of Thane. His talon dagger glowed brightly and then warpfire extended from it, and Tetrimus shook his head. "It's a pity you can't learn from your own previous failures, Dancer, but, like your wife, you are too proud to know when to stay on your knees."
He drove the weapon into Thane's chest, then ripped it free, kicking the drell away to land in a limp heap a meter away. Even from her awkward position, she could see his chest had not only been torn open, but seared by a flare of warpfire, and the drell's death rattle sounded a moment later.
The turian spread his arms and his voice grew mirthful. "And now, my dear Sisters, I will remedy my lapse, as you so eloquently put it, in making sure my enemies stay dead."
Liara gritted her teeth as the turian's fist clenched and the pressure on her body increased. Perhaps she had miscalculated. She didn't think he'd be this strong. She had never even heard of a biotic power like this.
But she knew he was a biotic, and this gravitic manipulation was a biotic power. And she had long ago prepared for the worst, if it came to that.
Her voice was hateful as she spoke. "Pulse ploy."
Her omni-tool chimed at the voice command before the spin-resonated pulse disruptor in her bionic hand detonated, sending a wave of out of phase dark energy across the plascrete parking lot. It wasn't a normal pulse, not one that held for minutes to disrupt the ability to use biotics, but merely a second's worth of disruption.
Of course, disrupting an active biotic power always generated lash-back. For most powers, that would be minor. For large-scale biotics it had knocked some back or to their knees.
What would be the backlash for altering gravity itself?
She smiled viciously as the weight on her body vanished even as Tetrimus gave a shout of shock before he literally went flying. He smashed through a pair of low plascrete parking barriers and struck a retaining wall of the starport with the sound of tortured metal and a hollow boom, hard enough to leave his imprint in the crushed surface of the wall.
Liara got to her feet, forcing back the pins-and-needles feeling of the pulse disruptor, and glanced to her side. Telanya was wiping blood from her mouth, the plate of armor across her torso cracked and bent in the shape of Tetrimus's foot from his kick. The smaller asari picked up Tetrimus's pistol, and nodded.
She glanced over to Thane, but the form of the Dancer was still and unmoving. She merely turned to face the figure in the distance, her biotics limning her form as her warp sword leapt into her hand from a pull.
O-TWCD-O
"It seems you are sustaining debilitating injuries," A piercing voice blared into his internal speakers. "Would you like assistance seeking medical care?"
Almost fifty meters away from his starting position, Tetrimus shook his head to clear the cobwebs. Alarms flashed for attention in his HUD, the VI most brazenly of all, but he cleared them all, annoyance coursing through his arteries. His external armor was battered and breached in several places, and one of his internal reinforcement plates was cracked. While none of his vital systems were severely damaged, his gyroscopes were out.
All that mattered was, of course, that his biotics were back online. He gave the asari credit, not many biotics would walk around with a literal anti-biotic bomb in their arm. He'd wasted a lot of power – and the surprise factor – on his uses of Gravity Crush, and he needed quite a while before he could pull it off again. There was too much chaos for him to get off a Beam strike, and who knew what other crazy tricks these bitches had ready.
His considered his options. The spaceport was a write-off. Even if Dantius had survived inside, he had no way of getting her off-planet without Broker forces landing. Given there were more incoming hostiles on the way, the chances of that working out were low.
He'd prepared a backup of course – Shanxi had taught him to trust no one, especially one's master – but it was a single-seat patrol boat with minimal life-support and no room for passengers. So his course was set by circumstances.
Kill the Sisters, tell any surviving forces to try to get Dantius out, and leave before the geth blew the planet into a ruin. If it worked out, fine, if not, he already had the OSD with her data on him, and just to be doubly sure, had uploaded it to the tattered remnants of the Broker Network on the planet with heavy encryption.
The Broker would just have to settle.
Now he just needed a good opening. His eye scanned the battlefield, looking for something to use in a pull or a throw, and then he felt a surge of amusement at something he spotted in the wreckage.
Outwardly, he staggered, falling to his knees and shaking his head again, deliberately pulsing his biotic field in a chaotic pattern as if he was having problems. He would have to thank Trellani for burning off his prosthetic cosmetics, as he wasn't sure he could have kept his mandible from quivering in laughter at the stupid fools thinking he was seriously weakened.
Sure enough, the two came at him, slowly and carefully, and he laughed in his head as they passed the shipping container that had fallen from a stowage system rack destroyed in the crash. How it had not already gone up was probably due to the robust container itself, but he was about to fix that.
He surged to his feet and with a single rapid motion flung a thin, sharp line of warpfire. Liara's good eye widened and she dropped a Wall in front of her.
Unfortunately, he was aiming to one side, and his warp strike tore through the durasteel container labeled 'Warning: pressurized pentaerythritol tetranitrate.' There was a single flash of white light and a titanic detonation a second later, strong enough that it staggered the cyborg.
Bits of metal and chunks of plascrete were hurled high into the sky, the blast wave smashing into him a second later with enough force to send him skidding. A roaring ball of black smoke and flames rushed into the sky, as debris began to rain down in a tinkling pattern across the area.
He flung out a push, biotic energy driving back the smoke and heat from the blast site, and smiled at the bubbling crater it had left behind. He wasn't even sure he would have survived a blast like that at close-range, much less the Sisters.
But as he walked closer, his eye widened. As the smoke parted, a black hemisphere stood obdurately in the middle of the blast radius, its surface flickering now and again with streaks of blue energy. He didn't even waste a second pushing into a biotic charge to the side, as the Shell broke apart and erupted into a torrent of pure energy lashing out at his position.
He emerged high and to one side, watching as the river of power smashed a six meter wide trench and gap into the spaceport, with multiple explosions going off from somewhere inside. In the place of the Shell stood Liara and Tel, the former of which was clearly spent, sword slipping from her fingers as she collapsed.
Telanya straightened shakily, bringing her barrier up as well as she could manage. Tetrimus flung a spear of warp energy at her that tore through it and her shoulder, sending her to the ground screaming. He triggered a pull a second later, snatching his pistol out of the air as it came flying in his direction.
"This has gone on quite long enough." He used a push, this time lifting the form of Telanya into the air before slamming her into the pile of burning rubble left by the explosion, and smiled as she fell to her knees, struggling to breathe the superheated air.
A second later, his smug pleasure vanished as the seemingly stunned Liara kanquessed behind him, both hands lit with blue radiance as she dropped a Flare on top of him at close-range. His barrier shattered as he was sent tumbling forwards, alarms blaring and the VI whining as his armor vaporized and warp energies ate at him.
He came back to his feet to see Liara getting to her own, warp sword flying into her hand, and threw a ball of warpfire at her. She batted this away with her incandescent warp sword and lunged at him, blade coming in a diagonal angle at his head.
He parried it away with his own talon dagger, flaring with blue energy as he pumped power into it. He ducked one wild slash and then sidestepped a fairly quick reversal before he did a short-range biotic charge to come out to the side. The blade of force he projected tore down her barrier and allowed him the chance to shoot her in the knee, the heavy caliber shot blowing through her armor and sending her to the ground.
Even as she fell, though, she flared with biotic energy, and with a scream flung almost every piece of rubble and scrap in the area around her at him, all of it glowing with warp energies. A chunk of plascrete sent his pistol spinning away, and a big hunk of reinforced concrete struck his head, sending him tumbling.
He landed in a heap as other chunks of debris battered him, before managing to bring up his barrier and deflecting the rest around him. Tiring of this game, he used a throw on a long piece of metallic scrap, hurling it at the downed asari even as her hand clenched.
He realized a second later the weak warp field was still clinging to the debris around him as a singularity erupted, a split-second before a biotic detonation went off. The blast not only tore his barrier to nothing, but smashed him into the ground. More alarms blared, this time indicating serious structural damage and impact damage to his blood filtration and internal repair systems.
It actually took him a second to get back to his feet, his malfunctioning gyroscopes not helping in the slightest. He looked across the battlefield to see his last strike had flown true. Liara was lying in a pile of rubble with a meter-long piece of metallic scrap driven into her lower torso, purple blood seeping from it. Her single eye was still filled with rage, but her body was covered in burns and the black armor suit was torn in multiple places.
She'd eaten part of her own biotic detonation trying to kill him. He could respect that, to a certain degree. He walked forward, pausing to pick up his pistol, and shook his head. He didn't usually feel anything but amusement toward those he'd defeated, and despite everything going to all nine hells in a spectacular fashion, he figured he had time to indulge himself a bit.
He didn't take chances, though, and paused to drop a remote detonation tech-mine right at her feet before bothering to speak.
"Liara T'Soni, you have given me one of the best fights of my life, and you did it for revenge. Normally, I would respect and approve of that enough to kill you quick and clean, but you and your friend have ruined our operations here, plus the Broker wants to know a few things. And I'm betting you have a way off-world, so it looks like I'm going to have do a little… digging."
He extended his mechanical talons from his hand, and walked toward her slowly.
Liara's voice was weak but defiant. "We're not done…"
She spat blood and tried to get to her feet on what was clearly a broken leg, but he casually shot her in the shoulder and laughed.
"Yes, we are. After I get through pulling whatever I need from your omni-tool and mind, I think I'll have you nerve stapled and sold to batarian slavers for amusement. Now, I can't rip minds, but I assure you, I have all kinds of fun stuff, truth serums and the like, so please try not to move, this will hurt enough without you thrashing around."
There was the sound of rubble crunching behind him, and then a glacial voice. "…You know, I thought I was angry after I saw you killing my family and friends. But there are no words in all of creation to describe how angry I am now."
Tetrimus turned around, pistol leveled, and his cybernetic eye widened as he saw the Butcher standing there, one hand on her warp sword, staring at the unmoving form of Liara T'Soni.
A second later he was flying through the air courtesy of a kick he couldn't even see, coming from a kanquess so fast it was just a blink of light. He managed to control his landing, snarling as he came down in a crouch. "The Butcher. Wonderful."
The white-armored figure stood there, staring down at the battered and nearly dead form of Liara T'Soni for a second, before looking up at Tetrimus and tapping something on the side of her helmet. "Echo, medical assistance immediately, my current location. The Sisters of Vengeance are down and need evac."
Tetrimus gave a snort. "Confident, are we? You said I killed your family…" His voice took on a musing, gleeful note. "I wonder who else important to you I can kill?"
The Butcher's laughter was cold and dark. "You can't, anymore. You are not going to kill anyone else, ever. I'm going to end you here, today."
She then tilted her head, before biotic power exploded out of her and a hunk of rubble the size of an aircar came flying at Tetrimus too fast to dodge. He kanquessed out of the way, but as he came out of it a glowing blue fist struck him in the chest and sent him rocketing back.
He crashed through an already damaged retaining wall and then through the low, thin metallic walls separating the spaceport itself from the outer grounds, skidding and tumbling before crashing to a stop into a power pole, which buckled from the impact. He barely had time to bring up his barrier before what felt like a meteor struck him, warpfire flaring nine meters into the sky and the ground around him sizzling and cracking.
He kicked off as something hurtled toward him, dodging a smear of blue light by millimeters. Shepard's warp sword cut through the power pole he'd crashed into cleanly, and she got to her feet as it slammed down behind her.
Tetrimus also got to his feet, more slowly. His pistol had been dropped somewhere, probably when she sent him flying, but his grip on his talon dagger was firm as he drove power into it.
"I'm sick and tired of prey thinking they are predators." He flared his barrier to full strength, and kicked off his emergency power reserves, bringing up his omni-armor and shifting his configuration to full speed.
Tetrimus's voice sounded almost happy as he shifted his stance. "Before we begin, I have something to take care of, Butcher."
She smiled behind her mask. "What's that, asshole?"
He tapped his omni and remote-detonated the tech-mine he'd dropped at Liara's feet earlier. "I have never failed to kill a target," he said, shrugging.
Shepard felt her entire body shake for a second. A hard, thin line of pain tore through her head. She lifted her free hand to look at its trembling shape for a moment before her voice came out, barely above a whisper. "You really shouldn't have done that."
Tetrimus didn't have a chance to respond, as the entire world seemed to explode into biotic fire.
O-TWCD-O
Ashley Williams stared out of the thick armaglass windows into the city below, her face set in a grim expression as she watched the fighting in the streets sweep further north. It seemed somehow distant, as if she was watching it on trideo, sealed away in the expensive suites the Asari Republic had put them in.
Her mouth twitched into a sour smile at the sight of white-armored soldiers and battle-suits crashing into the raging battle near the city center.
And how fucked up is it when Cerberus gets to be the good guys? Jesus Christ.
Her features returned to their grim set as she saw Cerberus soldiers open up with some kind of plasma explosives into the asari ranks, killing dozens and turning more into jiggling, screaming pyres. She turned away as the door to the suite opened, revealing the equally grim-faced Commissar Jiong as he came in.
The Commissar glanced around, setting his gaze on that of Susan D'Alte, before coming to a stop in the middle of the room. "Sir."
Sitting in an armchair in the large living area's northern corner, Commodore Anderson glanced up from his omni-tool to meet the Commissar's gaze. "Commissar. How did it go? Any chance of them letting us out of here?"
Jiong sighed, pulling off his hat, his voice even but soft. "The Republican Guard Captain was very polite, but ultimately unhelpful. It appears we will be staying put for the moment. The streets are obviously not safe, but that isn't the real problem. There was at least one bomb detonated inside the main spaceport – they fear there are more, and the possibility exists of criminals trying to hijack any ships leaving."
Ash snorted. "Like we can't take out a damned ganger trying to do that to us."
Jiong shrugged. "I think the real issue is that the situation has become chaotic. A giant geth fleet just jumped into the system and Cerberus is attacking the Republican Guard forces as well as the justicars. This has not hit the news feeds… yet. When it does, there will be panic."
Ash sighed. "Well, that's just what we fucking needed. When do the SIU, Deathwatch, and STG show up?"
Jiong coughed. "While there are no batarians… yet… according to the Captain, there have been several reports of STG activity and one STG team killed outside the city. Additionally, it seems the Deathwatch carried out an assault on a northern spaceport not long ago."
Ashley's jaw dropped. "I was joking! What the shit is going on out there if everyone is just duking it out?"
Jiong folded his arms. "At this point, there is not much I can say except to point out things really are a mess. It's readily apparent, however, that the situation is not the one we expected even late last night."
Anderson gave a chuckle. "Ahern is never going to stop saying 'I told you so' once word of this gets to him." He glanced back down at the omni-tool. "The news services are transmitting everything and there's a report of some kind of crash at one of the northern spaceports – probably related to the Deathwatch strike you mentioned, but Broker forces are also being reported there. A couple of news drones report heavy fighting near the industrial spaceport in the south too, but nothing specific." He gave a sigh. "Which still leaves us in need of a decision on what exactly we should do in this situation."
Ash shook her head. "Not to be a Debbie Downer, sir, but we can't exactly go traipsing through the streets with all of this going on and geth overhead. The blues won't even let us leave the hotel. Maybe we should punch out of here. I don't wanna get caught up in some kind of super-secret special forces orgy."
The large figure stretched out on the long couch along the wall gave a sharp snort, and then sat up. Pale blue eyes met Ashley's squarely before Jackson's voice rumbled across the room. "Lieutenant, our task is finding Shepard. Usually, I'd agree with you – this is heading south fast – but the easiest way to find Shepard in a situation like this, is to just wait. If she's here, then she's going after the guy who killed Liara – and she's not going to be subtle."
The blocky figure of Commandant Chisholm, staring out the other set of armaglass windows to the south, gave a snort of his own at that. "She doesn't do subtle much, does she, son?"
Jackson shrugged and continued. "You're not far wrong. She usually doesn't do any. Besides, this discussion is, uh, what's the word, academic?"
He made a vague gesture skyward. "I understand this situation could be more than we bargained for, but I'm almost certain leaving isn't going to be any safer. The only systems reachable with FTL are lousy with pirates, and our frigate isn't armed that well – not to mention it probably can't outrun geth ships anyway."
Anderson nodded. "It would be a very interesting, but also a very short, ride." He glanced at the omni-tool. "In any case, our options are to stay put and see what happens and hope we don't get caught up in this mess – or make an attempt to evac the system before the geth get into orbit."
He leaned back in the armchair. "Frankly, as Mr. Jackson put it, the discussion on the option of leaving is academic at this point. But even so, it won't be easy to even find Shepard, much less talk to her, in all of this…"
He trailed off and waved agitatedly at the window, and Ash chimed in. " 'Clusterfuck,' sir?"
He laughed. "Pretty much, Williams." He paused. "But even if she is here, we may not have much of a chance to interact with her coming in cold like this. Our best way may be opening remote communications with her and hope to set up a second meeting. If we leave now, assuming we even can, we lose that opportunity. At least, it won't get worse if we observe."
Jackson's voice was flatly sarcastic. "Bossman, you've known Shep long enough by now to know that shit can always get worse or crazier with her involved."
Anderson only laughed, and then turned to the Commissar sitting next to him. "Your thoughts, Miss D'Alte?"
Susan's voice was softer than Ashley expected, her expression nearly blank as she stared fixedly at Jiong. "We can't do anything to endanger mission personnel if we can avoid it. Leaving won't make things any better. If we don't get any opportunities, High Command will have to deal with it. We didn't plan for the chaos outside and they can't really hold it against us…" She trailed off abruptly, her gaze falling to the floor and her hands clenching tightly.
Jiong was silent for long seconds, staring hard at Susan before looking up. "You're right. We can only hope High Command – and the High Lords of Sol – will accept that. Commandant, sir? You are technically in charge, even above the Commodore."
Chisholm lit a cigar, puffing thoughtfully before shaking his head. "Leaving is too risky. We have no clue why the geth are attacking now, but it is very likely they won't hesitate to open fire on any ships they can. Down here, we're a little safer. As the Commodore pointed out, we can't accomplish our mission by running away. You're correct about the risks, but if we don't try this now, the High Lords are probably not going to give us another shot."
Jackson shrugged. "We also can't accomplish it if we are blown to space dust, sir. Just saying."
Chisholm nodded. "We'll wait and see what happens with the geth mess. I'm going down to the business center and getting in contact with Alliance Command for their input. I'll also see if we have any news on our missing asari operative."
He walked to the door, past Jiong, and left the room. Ashley turned to Anderson, who was showing something on his omni to Commissar D'Alte, while Jiong was staring at the other Commissar with an uncomfortable expression on his hard features.
She turned to look out the window at the war-torn city below again.
O-TWCD-O
The geth fleet attacking Ilium moved in a single coherent mass, smaller ships making sinuous trails around the bigger cruisers. At the back of the formation, the geth super-carrier vomited forth a tide of small fighter-craft.
The asari had not taken part in the various fleet assaults against the geth – turian and human ships, with quarian support, had borne the brunt of the fighting in and around the Perseus Veil. Valsharess Senia T'Purice'a of 2nd Fleet was an experienced commander of ships in peacetime activities – anti-piracy ops, breaking up raiding groups, patrol and exploration functions – but the last time she'd been in actual combat was during the Benezia Incident.
Most of 2nd Fleet's asari personnel were veterans compared to the mercenary and volunteer Ilium Defense Fleet. Both fleets arranged themselves in a typical asari fleet formation, lighter ships jetting forward to engage with missiles and ECM, cruisers arraying themselves in a line of battle, and the heavy-cruisers and single dreadnought at the back, in a rough version of the echelon formation.
The geth had already begun their attack the second they entered the system, and the asari tech engineers found to their horror that some ships' core systems had already been hacked. ECM and ECCM profiles were corrupted, targeting software scrambled, scores of viratic daemons and malware-demiurge systems already cascading through the fleet.
The geth hit the asari line in a wave, uncaring of evasive maneuver or positioning, firing as rapidly as they could while pumping out a vast cloud of missiles and torpedoes. The asari ships broke their formation, smaller ships frantically firing GARDIAN lasers at both incoming missiles and the clouds of small geth fighters, while the heavy ships turned ponderously, attempting to line up shots on the larger geth ships.
The darting forms of the fighters lined up shots on the leading asari line of cruisers, swarming and diving through the stabbing red and white flashes of GARDIAN fire to drop bombs and torpedoes into bays, weapons placements, and engines. These dealt far less damage than the geth frameworks expected, and sensors noted the Silaris plating that resisted plasma and explosive forces alike.
The Valsharess made a daring decision, splitting the main body of her fleet down the middle, giving way to the geth main body to flow along its sides, firing missiles and trading fire with geth cruisers. The geth broke through the lines of the asari, only to come into range of the Ilium Defense Force and the waiting orbital defenses, which opened fire in a blinding fusillade.
Kinetic shots and flares of explosions raced across the endless night of space. Ships blew apart into fragments of burning metal or trails of white fire as the shattered hulks entered the atmosphere. Dying asari were blown screaming into the void, spilling out from a broken cruiser like ants, seconds before another cruiser's drive core exploded violently, killing them all in violent arcs of unrestrained mass energies and superheated plasma.
Stray kinetic shots hammered Ilium. One struck the mountains above Nos Pitra, shattering the shield volcano and sending avalanches cascading down the slopes to crash into the smaller town, crushing several buildings. More shots slammed into the oceans, generating huge tsunamis that rose with implacable finality from the shallow sea floor.
One of these waves, towering over fifty meters, smashed the port towns of Nos Vedra and Nir Khaala to little more than rubble, killing thousands in seconds. Kinetic storm barriers designed to repel ten to fifteen meter waves overloaded, the supports failing and being crushed under the weight of the angry waters. Industrial buildings exploded, storage tanks ruptured, and thousands of gallons of eezo-slurry waste, chlorine, and other industrial chemicals at Nos Burasa were washed into the sea.
Downed ships – asari and geth alike – tumbled into the atmosphere, trailing long lines of burning debris and hitting the planet with awful finality. A cruiser landed a hundred kilometers south of Nos Astra, the shockwave of the explosion alone killing everything within nearly two kilometers of the crash site and leveling most of a forest of endangered native storka trees.
The geth's goal was unknown to the asari, so they did not grasp why the geth fleet would take such staggering losses just to breach the line. This was made clear, however, when the leading geth vessels began launching dropships by the score, which descended into the atmosphere.
GTS systems on the ground began firing, huge GARDIAN towers and sprays of ground-to-space missiles seeking their targets. But the geth virutic daemons in the system threw off their aim, and more than six out of ten of the smaller landing ships got past the defensive fire to disgorge geth troops and armatures on the planet itself.
Some eight kilometers west of Nos Astra, tens of thousands of geth began marching directly toward the city. Above, a squadron of geth cruisers with very special weapons slowly moved through the geth lines, the other ships shielding them as they began picking their targets.
O-TWCD-O
The Cerberus forces that dropped into the middle of the raging battle between the Republican Guard and the mercenaries of Ilium were specialist troops – outfitted extensively to battle asari and biotics. They flung gas grenades filled with a substance that caused chemical burns as well as disrupting asari biotic fields. They fired poison-metal rounds that fragmented once they pierced armor and caused crippling injuries.
Over twenty years of cruel, merciless research on hundreds of asari – both living and dead – culminated in their gear, from the armor plating designed to resist plasma blasts to the omni-tool discharges that disoriented the asari's electrical sensing fields. That meant their initial salvo not only broke the echelon, but went unanswered, and then the ATLAS suits opened up.
The front ranks of the asari line came apart in screams of agony and purple mists as high-caliber shrapnel rounds designed to take out heavy infantry tore through the lightly armored aliens. The rounds were made of phasic metal shards which ripped through biotic barriers with ease, and the entire echelon reeled in confusion.
Normally, Ganar Dhrag would find that encouraging, even uplifting. He was looking to the north, however, where plumes of thick black smoke poured into the sky. Brief flashes of blue or white light illuminated them from below.
He tapped his comm-link and spoke quietly. "Matriarch Anhira, we have a… complication to the plan. The good news is that Cerberus is attacking the Republic forces and is forcing them back. I am moving up all heavy units to drive them back even further and preparing the volus missile mechs to saturate them once we get a direct line to the war priestesses and battle matriarchs in the rear of their formation."
Anhira's voice was tight and hard. "And the bad news is the geth fleet that just arrived in the system?"
The krogan blinked. "…No, Matriarch. I did not know about that." He paused. "Although that certainly does not help anything." He glanced over to his tech-savant, an older human male grimly watching a grainy video feed from his omni-tool. "The Broker's forces apparently moved to dig in at Northpoint for some reason. They were attacked by the Deathwatch and now my people have video of the Butcher and her people attacking. Someone crashed a frigate into the eastern docking port and half the starport is on fire."
Anhira gave a brittle laugh. "And your own ship?"
"So far undamaged. I can't imagine that will last if there is any kind of battle between Tetrimus and the Butcher. I remember Tetrimus's battle with the late Matriarch Benezia vividly, and the Butcher killed our Warfather in single combat. By the time this fight is over, we will be lucky if there is a city left. Do you want me to try to send some of my men to clear this up?"
"By the moon and stars, no, Dhrag. See if you can get someone to the ship and move it to the plaza outside the Tower. I suspect the Republic will be far too busy trying to deal with geth to notice such a thing. Once we're all aboard we can have it moved to Vinthan or Serespoint, or even Port Halsa in Nos Kalra. I'll have the staff ready to evacuate in fifteen minutes."
Dhrag nodded. "I'll see what can be done." He paused. "Do you want to make contact with Cerberus to see if they're also willing to deal?"
Anhira's voice was sharp. "No, but cooperate with them and do not antagonize them. Things are complicated already. The geth will cause enough problems."
He grunted. "Very well." Clicking off, he turned to his Lieutenant, a younger krogan bearing his first scars of combat. "Vhel, have Moras and Julth get the ship spun up and land it at the big open plaza outside the Tower of Ilium. Bring up the barriers, but do not, for any reason, arm weapons or get involved with the mess at the starport. If you can't get through, inform me immediately."
The youth slammed his left fist against his right shoulder. "At once, war-brother."
He moved off at a dead run, and Dhrag turned to the savant. "Sitrep, Jourge."
The gray-haired man shrugged, the lens of his cybernetic eye whirring as he looked into the distance. "Bad. The Cerberus charge has disrupted the main force, but there are still four more echelons moving into the city center. One of them is burning and blowing up anything in its path, and the water control station is under attack by another one. If that goes down, most of the firefighting equipment will be limited to omni-foam and prayer."
The human manipulated his omni-tool, displaying a map of the city, red lines driving into it. "The other two echelons – and I suspect the majority of the justicars – are still on the other side of the river, clearing the slums. From what I can get from our drones, one echelon is moving this way now, coming up from the west. They'll probably force their way through the Sethos Bridge district and try to flank us. The other echelon is digging in around the main spaceport and our hackers have reported they're in control of the spaceport's GTS defenses."
Dhrag considered options for long seconds. "Do we have reserves enough to slow the asari coming in from the west, ones not committed here?"
Jourge gave a slight, almost tired shrug. "Not enough to stop a five hundred-plus-strong echelon, no. We could, in theory, dispatch the gunships. They would at least slow them down."
Dhrag nodded. "And the armor units?"
Jourge tapped his omni, then nodded back. "Those could be used; they've been ready to go for a while. The volus mechs are ready too, but we only have enough missiles for one big salvo, and Vhel said we should hold off on using them until you said so."
The krogan pulled up a map on his omni then smiled. "Very well. The situation is not good, but we are not in the blacklands yet. We have to crush the main force before we can deal with the smaller echelons. I'll lead a full attack and see how far we can drive these asari back alongside Cerberus. If we can push them, we can make them fall back in poor order."
His thick finger tapped at his own map. "Once the main echelon falls back, have the armor units drive ahead and engage with a full barrage. Once the force is next to Gselden Tower, have the mechs fire the full salvo at the asari, but also target the tower base. Ideally I want to drop it on them and make the war priestesses wear themselves out. For now, harry the other echelons with the gunships. The other reserves…"
He was about to say more when a streak of bright light exploded overhead. The sky was obscured briefly by shimmering white hexagons, and a second later more kinetic impacts slammed into the city's defensive shielding.
Jourge pointed beyond the clouds, where innumerable white streaks were slowly falling from the sky. "What… what is that?"
Dhrag exhaled and gave the human a stern look. "Geth landing pods. Change of plans – have the other reserve forces immediately fortify the GTS towers and send additional forces to the Tower of Ilium to make sure the controls don't fall into geth hands. If they take out the GTS and city barriers we're all gonna end up a pile of pyjak shit."
O-TWCD-O
Garrus slammed into a waist-high false-stone block wall, gray plascrete crumbling as he crashed to the ground. He rolled to one side and sprayed a burst of electrical disruption pulses upwards, catching Tazzik squarely as the salarian dove toward him and forcing his omni-blade strike to miss.
He used his jump-jets to clear distance and get upright, grimacing. Seeing how badly Tazzik had been battered – one arm missing, armor breaches, and battle damage – he thought he could finish the big salarian off and quickly leave to help Shepard.
That was not happening.
The opening minutes of the fight had gone well, with Tazzik's systems clearly having been damaged by the two asari blademistresses. Garrus had gouged a deep strike directly across Tazzik's left leg and dealt several powerful blows to the body. But the big salarian was not so easily put down. He'd parried most of Garrus's more powerful swings with his own omni-blade and had managed to twice sear Garrus with plasma; the second blast melting through some of his omni-armor projectors and rendering them inoperable.
Even in his current state, Tazzik was not only lightning-fast, but still stronger than Garrus, even with the SKYTALON's augmentation. And he was beginning to think he couldn't sit here and trade blows. Other cyborgs he'd fought on Omega had not been this well-armored, and Tazzik was quite possibly a better melee fighter. It didn't help that the salarian's huge omni-blade had left deep, smoking gouges in several places on his battle-suit, and his power levels were dropping fast.
Deciding that advantage was the better part of valor, he triggered the jump-jets and leapt up, landing atop a nearby concrete shelf that supported fueling gantries a good nine meters off the ground. He didn't even have time to reach for his sniper rifle before the giant cyborg leapt up after him, making Garrus's good eye widen in astonishment at the size of that jump.
A second later he hastily parried a savage omni-blade thrust, and with an effort, managed to move the bulky suit out of the path of a leg sweep that Tazzik threw at him. He lashed back with a upwards slash of his own, but the salarian blocked it and then turned his parry into yet another lightning-fast slash, one that left a line of smoking, melted metal across the suit's chest.
Tazzik's voice was mocking as he advanced. "You don't seem too good at dancing in that thing, Archangel. What happens if I peel you out of it?"
The cyborg charged, but Garrus leaned away from an upwards slash and lashed out with a backhand, catching the salarian across the face. Tazzik was unbalanced for a split-second and Garrus took advantage, engaging his jump-jets and driving his shoulder into the cyborg's chest, sending him over the edge. Garrus kicked off and soared upwards, coming down in a neat landing atop another low-slung storage building while Tazzik crashed into the ground.
Even as Tazzik hit the ground with a loud clang he was rolling, and came up in another powered leap, leading with his omni-blade. Garrus managed to parry it with his claws, then grimaced in pain as Tazzik's good leg slammed into his torso hard enough to dent his armor.
He blocked another wild stab, grunting with the effort it took. But through everything, Garrus saw a weakness. Tazzik was fast, very fast, but once committed to a move he had a hard time adjusting, especially in midair combat.
The turian engaged his flight unit again, dodging back and away from the flare of a plasma blast from the ejector on Tazzik's remaining arm. He opened the distance a bit and then tapped the controls on his arm, launching a salvo of micro-missiles that hammered Tazzik.
The salarian cursed and dropped to the ground in a fast roll, coming up in a lunge and performing yet another astonishing leap into the sky. Garrus juked right, but not quite fast enough, and felt his mandibles flex in agony as the omni-blade tore across his leg, the tip piercing and splintering the armor to score his carapace. Tazzik's hand latched onto his ankle and with a grin half-seen through the ruins of his mask, pulled and swung.
Garrus tried and failed to stop his momentum, coming to a juddering halt as he was flung into the main retaining wall separating the storage yard from the starport proper. His SKYTALON suit made an ugly set of alarm noises as he peeled himself off the wall, dropping to the ground and trying to clear his vision.
A flare of orange and a flash of black were his only warning, but Garrus managed to dodge, ducking under a slash from the salarian. He kicked out, his heavy armored foot slamming into the damaged leg panels of Tazzik, and he nimbly sidestepped the next counter-slash, putting himself behind Tazzik.
With a grunt of effort he buried his omni-claws into the salarian's back as he used his jump-jets again to dash past, grinning as he felt myomer shred and hydraulic fluids spatter over his arm. He wrenched it free and kicked Tazzik back down to the ground, chuckling. "Maybe you should ask what happens when I peel your meat bits out of that cybernetic nightmare you're riding in."
The Broker agent slowly got back to his feet, the torn metal of his mask revealing part of one narrowed eye and a mouth set into a grim line. "If you fought me when I wasn't already half-dead, I'd have pulled you apart already."
Garrus chuckled while circling, omni-claws at the ready. "But I'm not a moron now am I? And this is getting a little boring, so…"
He triggered his jets again, leaping straight up and back, and then the flight unit kicked in, carrying him even higher, until he landed on the access gantry of one of the massive power pylons that supplied the starport.
With a single smooth motion he unclipped and extended his sniper rifle, even as Tazzik cursed on the ground far below and began moving toward one of the remaining outbuildings. Garrus lifted the Eliminator to his eyepiece and sighted in just as Tazzik dove for cover behind a storage container.
With a flick of his mandible against the touch-spot controls in his helmet, Garrus brought up his optic sensor, shifting from standard enhanced vision to a targeting subroutine. His visor calculated Tazzik's motion and projected a target path, and Garrus fired.
The first two shots punched clean through the heavy shipping container, the third did so as well, but also impacted something behind it. With a grin he engaged his jump unit and leapt, coming down atop the next nearest pylon with a better view.
As he landed he saw the salarian had drawn a weapon of his own, some kind of overbuilt war cannon. "Like I'm stupid enough to get in range of that thing," he muttered to himself as he engaged his cloak and kicked off to a third pylon.
A moment later, Tazzik fired a spray of mini-missiles from a glowing drone, bombarding where Garrus had been before. Garrus sighted in and fired a single shot at the big salarian's head.
Tazzik staggered back, then fell over with a clatter of metal, the war cannon falling from his hand. A line of greenish blood leaked from the gory-looking impact wound, and Garrus smiled. He reloaded the sniper rifle, this time with an armor piercer. "Ah, headshots, is there anything they can't do?"
He engaged his flight unit and came down in a gentle landing about three meters away from the salarian, his rifle still trained in that direction. The massive, battered form of the salarian didn't move as he approached, and Garrus tapped his comm-link. "Bravo, Tazzik is down. Need the techs here to see what we can salvage."
Ezno's cool voice sounded over the comm-link, punctuated by heavy firing. "Understood, Archangel. We're trying to keep a force of Broker soldiers exiting the spaceport wreckage from entering the area. Might be a bit before we can get there, a minute or so."
Garrus nodded to himself and merely said "Understood," before clicking off.
He glanced back to the unmoving form on the ground and slung his sniper rifle, unholstering his pistol and walking closer. He examined the cyborg's battered form carefully, frowning at the damage to the armor and the exposed, melted arm socket, before tapping his omni-tool to bring up the constraint program he had loaded.
The moment he did so, Tazzik moved, surging upwards in a single smooth motion. His omni-blade erupted into life as it slashed across Garrus's omni-tool, and his leg kicked out at the knee of his battle-suit, unbalancing him. With a blurred motion he couldn't even follow, Tazzik picked up the SKYTALON suit with a single arm and flipped it overhead to slam into the ground.
Garrus nearly lost consciousness from the impact, the neck servos straining to prevent the weight of the suit from snapping his spine. A second later, Tazzik stomped down hard on Garrus's arm, knocking the Talon pistol free and kicking it away. A blazing slash of orange drove into his chest, searing pain filling him as the omni-blade sheared through armor and plating to split open his breathing sac.
Kneeling down on top of him, Tazzik removed his already mostly shattered mask, revealing a cybernetic eye half uncovered by the damaged faux natural covering. "Always invest in a full Silaris skull, kid. Makes headshots completely pointless, especially if you spring for a bit of fake blood in the head area." The salarian twisted the omni-blade inside Garrus, drawing a scream, and smiled as he tore it free. "Now, let's see who you are before I kill you – Broker may want you alive, after all, for all the shit you pulled on Omega."
The SKYTALON helmet assembly was a single piece, held onto the main body by an armored, codelocked collar. Tazzik merely tore that free with a single wrench, then lifted the helmet away to reveal the bloodied features beneath.
"…Huh. Garrus Vakarian. I thought you were dead." He tossed the helmet to one side, before smashing Garrus directly in the face with his hand, stunning him even further.
"You tagged me pretty good on Omega, never forgot that." Tazzik triggered the omni-blade and put the tip at his face. "I think you're probably a bit too dangerous to leave alive, sorry. You should have chosen the sniper duel instead."
Garrus spat blood and gasped out. "Maybe… but you forgot something."
Tazzik tilted his head, smirking. His voice was cool. "Oh, what's that?"
As he tensed to drive the blade home, Garrus triggered his jets again using the hand control built into the gauntlet of the suit. The suit jackknifed away into an uncontrolled spin, dumping the cyborg on his back. Garrus righted it with a swift control, spiraling up into the air, and then dropped feet first onto Tazzik's chest from a height of almost five meters. The impact made his already dizzy head throb and evoked a horrible crunching noise from Tazzik.
He stomped the giant salarian again for good measure. "You forgot angels can fly, you motherless bastard." He drove his foot into the plates of Tazzik's knee, smashing the armor into fragments and crushing the actuators.
With a grunt, he grabbed the salarian's remaining arm and lifted, flinging himself ahead and bending the limb over the broad shoulder of the suit before pulling. "I'm sick of the strong abusing the weak. I'm sick of the powerful using their power to abuse instead of protect."
Myomer parted with heavy snaps as hydraulics ruptured and Tazzik's entire forearm bent helplessly. Letting go of the mangled arm, he smashed Tazzik in the face with his fist, then lifted the cyborg in both arms and engaged full jets.
Straight up.
His voice was slurred, but he spoke in a cold tone to Tazzik as he ascended. "I'm tired of those who ignore the law. You make me sick." He climbed higher, pearlescent wings gleaming in the fading light, and looked up, seeing the haze of smoke rising from Nos Astra and the fires throughout the city.
"Most of all, I'm tired of tark-shits like you killing just because you can."
He halted his ascent and then flung himself downwards, struggling to maintain his grasp on the now frantically wriggling salarian. Air rushed past as the world around them both blurred, and Garrus found himself laughing, an edge of madness or perhaps joyous recklessness vibrating through him.
As the ground loomed, he gripped Tazzik tighter. "No ticket, no ride."
With an agonizing jolt and a titanic crash he landed, Tazzik crashing into his knee and bending over it with a screech of tortured metal and several snapping sounds. Black fluids and blue-tinted seeping gels burst free of Tazzik's chest as the cyborg spasmed uncontrollably, screaming as he flopped to the ground, his entire back bowed and the armor plating clearly driven deep into the spine. A second later smoke burst out of the cyborg's mouth and a small set of detonations went off in his torso, and the huge figure fell limply across Garrus's knee.
Garrus winced as alarms blared in his earpiece, his cybernetic leg buckled and twisted. Even his good leg felt like it was injured from bracing the drop, something in his plates and bones shifting as he staggered to his feet, agony and pressure radiating upwards through his body. With his helmet gone he couldn't pull up a status HUD, so he instead tapped his comm-link and managed to mutter "Beta… any units… request assistance. Tazzik is down… and I think I just broke my leg, the cybernetic one…"
He heard a whirring sound and glanced up, bemused to see a small cloud of various drones arriving to the scene. Several were clearly marked with various logos of media corporations, and given that they all displayed the universal green light of live transmission he sighed, thinking that this wasn't going to be something Vigil could just edit out.
Instead, he wiped a line of blood from his mouth and gave a wry flick of the mandibles to the camera as he kicked Tazzik viciously in the head with his less mangled leg. "You guys missed the big fight, but don't worry. The Butcher is gonna kill Tetrimus pretty soon, that should be a good show. Hey, sire. Hello, mother. Hi, sis."
He walked away to pick up his Talon pistol just as Ezno, Tali, and Mordin arrived, Dost and Kiala behind them. Mordin looked at the downed salarian, then at the drones, then at Garrus.
"Mugging for the camera, slamming a cyborg on a single leg, melee combat… turian melodrama. Excessive."
O-TWCD-O
Vigil usually thought of itself in Inusannon terms. Given he was created by them, that was not particularly surprising. What did often catch him by surprise was how useful some of the expressions, curses, and gestures of the Sethani and the humans were in expressing his frustrations.
Almost a third of his attention was being expended in fending off massive cyberattack routines from the incoming geth fleet, everything from attempts to reroute electrical power lines to make them blow up, to corrupted purge-command stacks at nuclear waste facilities. The sophistication and power of such attacks were laughable, but the sheer number was staggering.
While his initial scan of the fleet showed only a minimal amount of physical geth platforms – mostly in the landing assault craft – he was fending off over sixty billion runtimes in waves and torrents. He'd had to kill his ansible connections to the overunit on Parnack and even his remote backups, which were going to be, as the humans put it, a real bitch to fix up once this mess was over with.
That still beat being co-opted and hacked by the computational equivalent of manual typewriters.
Another part of his attention was being expended in his own cyberassaults on the Broker data networks that remained, trying to find anything of use. More runtimes were expended on monitoring the primitive and her people, assisting Joker, acting as real-time comms between Jack Harper and the Ironic Gesture, and operating the now numerous unmanned combat vessels incoming toward Ilium.
The rest of him was observing the shattered bits of stelae and stone wreckage in a dig site just outside of Nos Astra, based on intercepted STG communications. The dead bodies and scattered ash piles outside the site spoke of some kind of conflict. The four STG agents he'd found inside the cave proper were a nuisance he couldn't let interfere with his plans. He'd killed them painlessly, then surveyed the site carefully.
The words 'grhti,' 'fuck,' 'shit,' and 'amabi,' a mix of Sethanis and English, seemed the most appropriate things to yell as he finished his scan. He opened another ansible link back to Harper and interrupted the man's communications to General Petrovsky. "We have a serious problem on Ilium."
The Illusive Man's expression had been tightly controlled ever since he got news about Matriarch Trellani's gruesome injuries, and a flare of panic flickered over his expression before he mastered his muscles. "That being?"
Vigil's remote terminal in the ruin site circled the giant geth Prime still on the stone floor, a beam of bluish light playing over the hole in its chest. "The STG got a tip from some of the CEOs that there was an ancient dig site on the planet, one created by followers of the lost matriarch Dilinaga. According to them, the dig site had information implying the asari goddess Athame was actually an AI."
Harper's mouth curved slightly. "This is… not exactly news to me."
Vigil snorted. "Nor is it to me. I was instrumental in designing the plan to use the AI, although the idiot Sethani went with one of their own stupid ideas of a hybrid system instead of a full Inusannon AI template. That is irrelevant. The information to the STG also revealed that there were designs for some kind of large device and detailed information on Reaper capabilities – and a way to contact something known as the 'Watcher in the Dark.' "
Harper said nothing, and merely puffed on his cigarette.
Vigil continued. "Most importantly, there is a very… compromised but otherwise intact geth Prime command unit here. Remote scans of the thing's transmission memory indicates something used the Prime to send a message to the geth that it was being reverse-engineered to locate something called 'Station_001.' "
Harper crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray in the arm of his chair and folded his hands together. "That implies the geth have a method to 'jump' travel like Nazara and the Collectors do, given the distance from the Perseus Veil that Ilium is at and travel time involved. I presume this message was sent recently?"
Vigil pulsed. "Yes it was. And I agree, the fact the geth have jump capability is alarming. However, I am more concerned about the fact that whatever was here is now completely destroyed – there aren't even partial fragments of what the CEOs said was here, nor is there any sign of a Prothean beacon or Pool of Knowledge. And that isn't the worst part."
The AI paused, rechecked its findings, then spoke. "The data signature on this geth isn't some fumbling meatbag hacker. It's a Reaper signature. And unless I miss my guess, the signature is almost identical to that of Nazara. It looks like something was… implanted into this geth. Possibly what the Reapers call 'Eternal Pyramids' – devices like what that idiot and his moronic followers are studying."
Harper frowned. "This is certainly unexpected. How is it of any impact to our operations, though? If I understand correctly, this Pyramid is gone and the damage is already done."
Vigil pulsed. "Perhaps. I don't know how smart this thing was. It's possible, given geth data structures, I can recreate images or sensor readings of whatever was destroyed if we salvage this Prime. It would also, theoretically, have very useful information on the geth we could use to bargain with the quarians. They would be interested in this Station_001, I suspect. My alarm stems from the fact that now the Reapers know something and we don't, and I don't know how harmful that may be in the long-run."
It paused, then gave a very human sigh. "In the immediate, however, Mr. Harper, having your people recover this wreck would be of immense use to me, if you have the forces to do so."
Harper nodded. "That I can do. General Petrovsky is out of position to be of any meaningful assistance to Shepard and her team – I'll have him land and his people recover the machine. Anything else?"
Vigil's sensors swept the room once more, and he spoke more slowly. "Not at this time, although that may change with events moving so rapidly. I am currently rerouting planetary defense nets to ensure Matriarch Trellani's location is not discovered. Medical unit is currently on the way there. The Normandy has six stasis cells that can ensure her survival until we reach the base once we escape the system."
He paused. "I have run the tactical numbers, by the way. Unless the Cerberus fleet engages the geth fleet fully, there is a very high chance the geth will overrun and destroy this world's population. My sensors have already picked up a group of geth cruisers in the rear of the combat line that are emitting high levels of radiation consistent with cobalt-60, strontium-90, several isotopes of polonium, and other ecosphere-killing transuranic derivatives."
Harper sipped his drink. "And how much damage would the fleet take if we were to engage the geth rather than merely ensure Shepard and Petrovsky get away?"
Vigil pulsed. "It is likely the fleet would no longer be strong enough to penetrate the presumed strength of the Broker's defensive fleet around his command location, wherever that is. There is a non-zero chance it could be almost completely destroyed. It is also likely that a full engagement would result in some ships that could not clear datum prior to Citadel reinforcements arriving, meaning we would have to destroy them to ensure the fleet's docking location was not revealed."
Harper nodded. "I see." He exhaled. "And the operation itself?"
Vigil checked the data readouts, then gave a very human sigh and a Sethanis curse word. "…Shepard's vitals are redlining. Tetrimus must have done something very stupid. I'll contact you when I know more."
He killed the signal, before splitting off a remote unit that plopped into the jagged, blackened crater in the geth Prime's chest. A moment later, the glowing eye of the unit lit up, and the machine slowly stood.
The voice of the Prime was jaggedly digital. "…Distressingly medieval construction. Typical barbarian technology."
Vigil only sniffed. "What did you expect from primitives?"
O-TWCD-O
Grunt gave a bellow of laughter as his shotgun turned yet another Broker soldier to dust, while Zaeed sneered and flung an inferno grenade at the already wounded goon he'd just shot through the chest. "The stupid guddamned bastards keep coming at us."
Grunt's basso voice rose above the din of combat as he met a heavy turian cyborg in a melee clash. "I know! Is it not wonderful?"
He took the snap kick from the turian, cybernetic claws on the metallic foot leaving furrows of bleeding flesh across his muzzle even as he grabbed the cyborg's leg. He pulled with another hard laugh, the turian screaming as his leg came off and Grunt tossed the rest of him into the air.
Zaeed shot him in the head almost casually, ignoring the corpse as it fell to the ground with a heavy metallic crash and blue gore splattered from the shattered cybernetic skull. "Reminds me of the time I was on Venhtu, going up against a band of Blood Pack heavies. Ignorant bastards walked right into a minefield that was ranged into artillery I had placed."
He sidestepped as automatic fire rattled around him, returning fire with two heavy bursts from Jessie that lit up a salarian and sent him sprawling to the ground in death. "…They were better than these clowns, though. Jesus and Hunter, I thought the Broker's soldiers were the ultimate hardasses, what a load of bollocks. Fucking volus fight harder than this."
Mierin's sharp voice crackled across the comm-link. "If you boys are done measuring your phalluses, we're pinned down here by salarian snipers and the thief got herself shot in the leg again. Could use some help." Her voice was punctuated by the bark of sniper fire and an agonized scream in the distance.
Zaeed grunted and stood to move off when a blast of light from above caught his attention. Flashes of light from kinetic impactors battering the city's siege shield framed the glowing hellfire of a burning asari cruiser tumbling out of control through the atmosphere, harried by small geth fighters and losing altitude fast. It was clearly out of control, and going fast enough and at an angle that would cause it to crash into the massive kinetic shield protecting the city.
"Ah, fuck." He slapped his comm-link. "All teams, brace for impact. Big blue ship's gonna crash into the guddamned southern outskirts, prep for shockwave."
A moment later the hapless cruiser impacted the defensive kinetic barrier, sharply rebounding to smash vertically into the ground. A single sharp flare of white light nearly blinded him a second before the entire cruiser exploded violently.
Chunks of burning rubble bounced impotently off the kinetic barrier, but the ground shook a moment later as the shock of the cruiser's warp core detonating raced through the ground. Rubble shifted and a pair of slender towers at the end of the starport swayed before steadying.
Grunt chuckled. "That wasn't so bad."
Zaeed opened his mouth to speak, then shook his head and lifted Jessie. "You fucking jinxed it, moron." He lifted the weapon to the south, where the shockwave had torn a path through the rubble blocking the main starport building.
Out of the ruins, a stream of black-armored soldiers was pouring out with rifles lifted, already sighting in on the two of them. Grunt ducked behind a piece of broken armaplast as a salvo of missiles lanced out, the explosions raining more debris down on the pair.
"Charlie Team, you're on your own – we have thirty-plus hostiles incoming on our location. Could use a spot of guddamned help ourselves." He clicked off and shifted Jessie to rapid-fire. "Let's see if these ones are any better than the last batch, kid."
Grunt merely shifted his weapon.
O-TWCD-O
Tetrimus hit the ground and bounced, managing to control his tumbling a moment later and landing in a crouch. The entire segment of the wall and the area he'd been standing in was a pyre of blue flames and melted plascrete, ugly splashes of melted material splayed out like the rays of a dying star.
The bone-white figure visible through the flames flashed, and Tetrimus flung himself into a biotic charge of his own. He emerged six meters away only to catch a crushingly powerful biotic enhanced kick to the chest that sent him skidding backwards, and then another flash ended in his skid stopping to an uppercut that lifted him clean off the ground to crash back down a moment later.
How in the spirits was she able to kanquess so fast?
He didn't waste time on the alarms flaring in his HUD or the cries of the VI, bringing up a curved barrier instinctively as his reflexes had him roll to the right. He dodged an ugly and rapid slash from the black warp sword and answered with a tight lance of warpfire.
It struck the Butcher full in the chest, something she didn't even notice as she charged him. He flung a pair of blades of force and they struck her squarely, exploding into crackling blue discharges of power. This time she staggered, even as she kept coming.
He kanquessed back for distance, and as he came out of the charge the Butcher caught him across the face with a backhand strong enough to dent his facial plate, causing his entire head to ache.
He scrabbled back wildly, flinging push fields and almost hastily splayed fields of warpfire, which she batted away like irritants. The warp energies ate at her armor, but she ignored them to kanquess herself, impossibly fast, to catch his hand holding the claw dagger.
She dragged his face closer to her own faceplate, her voice a cracked, throaty growl that was almost drunken with emotion. "I am going to tear you limb from limb, slowly, Tetrimus." She smashed her helmet into his face, stunning him, and then he felt himself lifted up.
Then there was an impact across his chest, and he sat up, half buried in a pile of broken rubble. His internal chrono showed sixteen seconds had passed, and he tried to stand, only to find his gyro had completely failed. He shifted to his backup, then slowly got up.
His head felt… crooked. His HUD flashed with new alarms – armor breaches, temperature out of specification warnings, impact damage indicators, and, of course, the damned VI wouldn't shut up.
He growled. He had to find a way to get range on this crazy asari bitch before he could kill her – fighting in melee was playing her game. He glanced around – he'd been knocked into some kind of multi-story building, probably one of the hab apartments near the spaceport. He glanced out the hole he'd been knocked through, only to see a pair of sloppy singularities smash into the base of the building.
"…The nine hells is she doing—"
The bolt of warpfire that struck them a moment later didn't give him time to brace before the entire building came apart in a biotic detonation that shook everything within two kilometers. Broker soldiers, Dancers, and Shepard's team alike staggered and looked up. In the middle of the heavy combat in the city, the blast lit up the sky enough to make heads turn.
Tetrimus grimaced in pain as he hit the ground, his barrier shattered and his armor battered by more falling debris. He pushed himself upwards and saw nothing nearby. Using his biotics to fling a chunk of rubble off of his legs, he got to his feet slowly and glanced around blearily at the wreckage of the building before engaging his cloaking field.
Usually he could overpower his foes, or, if not, he could at least react faster. He couldn't do either in this case. This called for him to think rather than try to meet the Butcher head-on.
He clambered out of the rubble, moving slowly as to not shift any of the broken plascrete below his feet, even as the white-armored figure erupted out of a charge at the location he landed at. Her entire body lit up with power as she shoved what looked like an overcharged flare into the ground, turning everything in five meters into flashes of burning hot steam and ash that exploded outwards.
He cursed as the ash and debris fouled his cloaking field, even as the Butcher's head snapped up, that blank faceplate locked on to his location. He anchored his barrier this time instead of trying to dodge, barely fast enough to deflect her eruption from the kanquess in his face. He parried a slash from the black sword she had in her hand and then staggered back in shock, his arm servos blown from the impact.
The edge of his claw dagger, made from plasma-forged and gravity-compressed iron over the fossilized claw of the first Primus, was notched. The weapon that had blocked blows from the Lunarch of Athame herself was damaged.
He stared into the empty face-plate of the Butcher and tightened his barrier even more. He needed a strategy. Speed wasn't working. Power wasn't working. Maybe he could get her angry and sloppy.
He watched as she recovered from the parry and stepped back, her body shaking even as what sounded like growling came from her helmet.
"Oh, did I do something wrong when I turned your friend into a pile of meat?"
He smirked as she trembled in anger, then shoved all his biotic energy into the fastest combination of push and anchor that he could, tying her mass field to the rubble behind her and shoving back on her as she lunged at his chest. The biotic force caught her mid leap and sent her crashing backwards, warp sword flying out of her hand.
He leapt, coming down with a powerful strike, his claw dagger shearing through the Butcher's armored faceplate. He felt the dagger hit something hard below the armor and its tip snapping from the notch before stopping completely. With a snarl, he flooded the blade with warp energy, hearing something hiss and crackle before a hand grabbed his own wrist.
The Butcher pulled, flinging the turian cyborg over her prone form to smash into and through the far wall of the apartment complex. Tetrimus tumbled and crashed into a pile of building supplies after falling almost two stories, a segment of concrete barrier units snapping under his weight. He grimaced as a piece of rebar gouged a deep channel into the back of his already damaged leg, and shook his head to clear the static fogging his vision.
The wall above him came apart in blue fire, and the figure standing there was outlined in the hellish white flashes of light from the orbital battle above. The long black hair that fluttered in the wind now that the skull-faced helmet was gone was something no asari would have, and the brown flesh that suddenly ended in charred corruption was underlain by gleaming silver metal.
As he watched, she dug the tip of his blade out of her flesh, the ruined cheek snapping back into shape even as the skin glowed faintly red along the edges and regenerated. Cold blue eyes stared down at him, as he beheld something that was naturally impossible.
Sara Shepard.
"You are dead… what the…?"
A moment later it all hit him. He realized he was no longer the vakar in this scuffle, but the tork.
If this was somehow Shepard, he had just killed her wife. Actually, killed her a second time. A part of him found that genuinely amusing, a rarity for him. The rest of his mind remembered reviewing the Broker's files on Edolus and what happened after Shepard thought Liara was dead.
It was definitely time to get the fuck out of here, immediately, if not sooner. He wasn't scared of her, but he knew what he could and could not do. Given the damage he'd already taken earlier today, this little jaunt was rapidly turning into the very first entry of his 'just no' column.
His voice sounded calm as he got back to his feet. "You know, that tech-mine might not have killed her. She could be bleeding out, while you pursue me."
Shepard's expression twisted into something so malevolent that the turian felt a chill he knew was imaginary go up his artificial spine. She didn't even respond to his words, merely taking in the handful of hovering media drones that flew high overhead, nonchalantly throwing the piece of his own dagger back at him to catch, then tapped the shattered section of her collar that had connected her helmet to her armor, tossing it aside.
"The anticipation of it is so much worse than death itself, isn't it?"
And she was right.
O-TWCD-O
Doctor Sedanya glanced worriedly at the sky as the shuttle set down outside a nondescript warehouse on the west side of Nos Astra. The Normandy hovered in the distance in full stealth, ready to provide fire support if needed. Given the conditions in orbit, and the reaction of the asari if they could determine Trellani's location, Sedanya couldn't help but think that was prudent.
To her relief, however, there was no sign of Republic soldiers or justicars – a few small knots of worried looking asari in the distance were the only living things in sight.
She tapped her omni to bring up her comm-link. "Groundhog, this is Sawbones, here from the Party Train. We are outside your location and secure. Status and medical condition, over."
The voice that answered her sounded tired. "Acknowledged, Sawbones. We have six yellow and two red Dogs, plus Priestess. Also, a lot of other wounded, ah, support units that assisted. We are ready to evac."
She gestured to the Centurion next to her. "Deploy half your men in a defensive position. Have the other shuttle touch down just outside. I'll take the other half inside and begin triage. If there's trouble, we'll deploy the mechs to cover us."
The heavily armored human nodded. "Fitzpatrick, take Gamma Squad, set a four-by-four. Hutchins, get up on top of the building and spot." He got out of the shuttle seat, heading for the hatch. "Sierra Team has three combat medics, figured they could do some good."
Sedanya picked up her medical pack and gave him a thin smile. "Excellent idea. Let's see how bad things are." She exhaled. "Given Trellani's involvement, I suspect the only reason orbital fire isn't raining down on us right now is due to the geth, so let's use the time we have."
She exited the shuttle as the Cerberus soldiers spilled out, glancing up as the second evac shuttle landed neatly. In the sky beyond, framed by incoming storm clouds, the space battle was visible as flashes of light and the occasional flare of a torpedo explosion.
For a moment, she wondered what she was even doing here, instead of with her bondmate. She was a simple doctor, not one of the hyper-elite combatants Harper had assembled, or even the hardened survivors of Garrus and his people. She was out of her depth, and as the smell of burning plascrete and the all too familiar scent of death wafted across the wind, she was afraid.
She exhaled, and steadied herself. She had patients to heal. She had to trust in Shepard and her people to get her out of this mess and to bring the people responsible for this travesty to justice. All she had to do was get in, triage, stabilize, and get out.
She steeled herself and pushed through the front door of the warehouse, stepping inside. The interior was rundown and dingy, with bits of old storage equipment and stacked metallic crates here and there. To the left, however, a false wall had been slid to one side, revealing several medical beds and an older portable stasis unit.
Along one wall, a handful of black-armored asari were patching each other up, while another asari stood at a small, uncomfortable distance. Several Remembrance Dancers were sitting quietly against another wall, one talking quietly to yet another asari.
In the medical beds were two Cerberus soldiers shorn of armor and two asari. She glanced around and did not see Trellani, turning instead to face the approaching trio of people walking toward her. One was a battered, bloodied Dancer, the second was the Decurion in charge of the drop team, and the last was what had to be a Black Blade, who spoke in a rough but pleasant voice.
"I'm Crennsa. The Dancer is Darsan and you probably already know Nozno." She eyed the Cerberus symbol on Sedanya's jumpsuit with interest as she gave a lazy siari hand sign. "So there really are more aliens in Cerberus than Trellani?"
Sedanya's voice was dry. "Yes. We even have krogan now." She made a hasty sign of siari greeting and cleared her throat. "We're here to medevac the wounded and get the rest of you out of here. I'm not sure if you've been keeping an eye on what's going on outside, but a massive geth fleet jumped in-system and is headed this way. Our Commander is assaulting Tetrimus and Tazzik as we speak, and once that is done we are getting out of here." She paused. "Given that you aided us, we are prepared to offer you transport."
The Dancer gave a shallow bow. "For us, that will not be necessary. The ship we arrived on is registered to the hanar government – the asari will not disturb it. We are not combat effective at this point, but we remained here to bandage our wounds and ensure there were no additional problems with our allies." He paused. "It is likely we will need to remain to deal with our dead. If we end up needing your assistance, we have Nozno's TTL."
Sedanya shrugged. "Very well. I've brought a great deal of medical supplies – and I'm very familiar with drell physiology through my bondmate. Let me check your people over before we depart."
Darsan gave a grave nod. "That would be appreciated."
She glanced at the Cerberus trooper. "Are your men mobile, except the two on the med units there?"
Nozno gave a sour nod. "For what it's worth. We're what's left of Fox. Vask is dead, the rest of us are mobile. Green took a gutshot and had his leg blown off, but he's stable. Tera ate a warp blast and has pretty bad burns and is semi-conscious."
She inhaled and looked to the Black Blade. "And your people?"
Crennsa gave a sloppy siari hand sign of agreement. "Shot up pretty good. Smiya and Aethyta ran off after the Sisters. The rest of us came back from the hospital once it was clear they weren't going to do much to help – place was already flooded with wounded and they were having to operate on people on tables in the cafeteria."
She gestured. "The one in fancy armor is a Spectre, Tela Vasir, Aethyta's…" She trailed off. "Niece." Something about the way she said that came out sounding sour, but she continued. "She has a broken jaw and some other injuries. The other one is a rekshi, don't do a link to check her injuries. Apparently she's one of Aethyta's daughters, so…" She trailed off, then shook her head, running her hand over her crests. "The rest of us are just shot up or wounded. Biena and Siela are hurt pretty bad. Matriarch is in the stasis tube."
Sedanya nodded, and the other asari's mouth formed a grim line. "The Cerberus soldiers said we could come along. We have a ship, but it's at the main spaceport, and we kinda shot up a Republican Guard unit rescuing Morinth and the Cerberus guys here. Don't think they missed that, and if you guys are picking up Aethyta and Smiya we might as well stick with you, although I don't know if your boss will want that."
Sedanya gave a thin smile of her own. "I can't speak for the Illusive Man, but I strongly suspect the Butcher will be more than happy to employ a unit as… fearsome as the Black Blades. And in the event she does not, we'll be more than happy to provide you a drive-capable shuttle to get back to… wherever."
Crennsa grinned crookedly. "Shit, you said that like we have somewhere to go in the first place. Sure, we'll tag along, but how in the deeps you gonna get out? Shuttles aren't going to fare very well in that mess." She gestured sharply at the ceiling, referring to the battle in orbit.
The asari doctor smiled more widely. "Our ship is actually inside the shield, stealthed to vision and heat sensors. We can just ease out one of the access gaps near the spaceports when it's time to go. My people will get yours patched up and we can move out immediately."
Sedanya gestured to the three combat medics. "Start treating the wounded. We have asari blood packs ready and my kit has four drell blood packs if you need, and Miranda has more so don't worry about supply. Make sure to let me know if any of the drell are seriously hurt." She exhaled and approached the stasis tube, pausing to examine the medical readout.
She tapped the control panel and the white light faded, revealing the form of the former Priestess of Athame. Her armor was literally melted into her body in some places, her chest riddled with shrapnel, her cheekbones visible under the flesh in two areas. Her right arm was clearly broken and purple seeped from a dozen shallow wounds.
Trellani's jaw grit as she glanced upwards, and then she took in Sedanya and smiled faintly. "So, she's here." She coughed, blood trickling from her lips. "Status?"
Sedanya's expression was tight as she scanned the battered asari. "The last transmission I got said they were engaging." She winced at the readout, then met the matriarch's eyes levelly. "We're going to have to put you back in stasis. This…"
Trellani gave another weak cough, followed by an equally faint laugh. "Merely keep me alive until we can get to Minuteman Station. Do not, under any circumstances, give me biotic suppressant drugs." Her frame trembled, with pain or exhaustion. "The rest will be… handled."
Sedanya paused to apply additional medi-gel to several locations before triggering the stasis seal again. She turned to the Centurion. "Have your men start loading Trellani's stasis tube first, it has standard power connections so hook it to my shuttle. She's going into shock and the injuries she's suffered would have killed any other person I know."
The man nodded, stowing his weapon on his back. "And the rest, ma'am?"
She shrugged. "Your people and Trellani on my shuttle. The Blades, the Spectre, and the… ardat can go on Shuttle Two." She lowered her voice. "Be respectful around the Blades, they are extremely dangerous."
He snorted. "Whatever you say, doc. Like that's a big change from what we already got in the Dog." He eyed the red-coated drell. "And the Dancers?"
She turned back to the tube. "They are not coming along. Let them do what they will. Report to Lion of our status and tell him to bring the frigate down near the western outskirts of the city. We'll rendezvous and evac there."
O-TWCD-O
In general terms, the media of Ilium was widely known for being rather disruptive and sensationalist. Mostly covering tacky e-vid and trideo stars, gossip charts, and the tawdry excesses of those who visited Ilium to indulge in their less acceptable urges, it was not known for principled journalism.
The assault of Ilium had caught the major networks on the planet off-guard. Everyone assumed the Republic would haul in a few ardats, perhaps arrest a CEO, and basically make sure the insanity between the Broker and the Sisters did not continue to escalate. No one in the media expected a full out invasion.
Thus, at first, they failed to capitalize on it.
The open battles in the city between the Broker's forces and those of the Sisters and now Cerberus were just as unexpected, and the geth fleet was yet another shock. The media thus reacted somewhat slowly at first, but once said shock wore off, began to see the possibilities.
And the necessity of showing what was happening.
The live-transmitted images of the brutality of the justicars and the Republican Guard showcased the brittle tension between the Clans and the clanless, between the rigid order of asari society versus the independence of Ilium. The sights of slain aliens, killed children, burning apartment blocks, and outright wanton slaughter sickened many asari – but the producers of the broadcast were not really aiming for an asari audience.
When reports came in of more fighting away from the conflict of gangers and mercenaries versus justicars and Republican Guard, the media corporations were once again caught off-guard. They had already deployed their drones as far as they could, but the battle at the Vinthan Docks was over by the time drones made it that far south of the city center. On the other hand, Northpoint was barely three kilometers north of it, which meant that the explosions there had caught their attention almost immediately.
Drones had already caught the bulk of the brutal fight between Tazzik and the Archangel, along with the revelation that the vigilante was actually the galactic hero Garrus Vakarian, thought to be dead for the last two years. Ratings and access bandwidth had shot through the roof.
Two small ships the owners of Ilium Consola Media Group had on hot standby were launched into polar orbit, transmitting the take at full power to the distant comm beacons at the edges of the system that tapped into the galactic comms network. The geth had scrambled many communications, but tight-beam laser links couldn't be jammed, and thus the signal went out.
The datapict editors and writers of the media corporations were not known for elegance or hard-hitting journalism – after all, investigating many things on Ilium would just get you killed. The vidcasts were grainy and the editing a bit jagged, and the commentary was, by media standards, breathlessly melodramatic. They were formulaic and not used to combat reporting, and didn't grasp how to frame it all properly.
But they were not strangers to the power of a single image.
When the drones came upon Tetrimus facing the Butcher, who was revealed as Sara Shepard, the lead drone took an image that was the most widely transmitted and famous image in space for quite some time.
The two faced each other atop broken rubble, illuminated in the fading light of sunset by their biotic fields and the fires in the background. Thick clouds of smoke and broken buildings outlined the pair.
Tetrimus stood tall, a jagged-edged nightmare in black and red, clad in flapping scraps of black robes, while the Butcher shone in white and blue, hair blowing freely in the wind. The storm clouds rolling in from the north framed their face-off, while in the night sky above the flashes of a battle between geth and asari was a backdrop of the destruction.
That single frame image, as the drones spooled up capacity for full trideo recording, was viewed over eighty billion times in less than an hour. It went on to win the Garsa Prize for Image Distinction, the Kwunu-T'Shora Foundation Prize for journalism, and the Bekenstein-Pulitzer Prize for the Image of the Year.
None of this mattered to the two figures standing there.
Tetrimus eyed his opponent carefully. He could either try and kill her, or try to escape. Killing her was always attractive, but he wasn't fool enough to think he could do so without going all out… and it wasn't certain in any event.
Running would be better, but just as difficult. Her kanquess was much faster than his, so escape was contingent upon either disabling her or at least crippling her. Her newfound abilities were formidable – she'd defeated Okeer, a figure that Tazzik had problems with even when the krogan was caught unprepared and with no weapons or armor.
Disabling her would be… problematic.
He was certain that if he was fresh he'd be able to win this, but he'd taken quite a bit of damage already, and that meant he either had to go all out, or only focus on survival. Focusing on survival meant surrendering the initiative, and there was no telling what in all nine hells she had brought with her.
Pride and prudence warred in his head only for a moment before he shook his blank featured head. "Death comes to everything. One must merely be prepared to face it head-on."
Even as he spoke, he kicked off his augments, long prepared for the day when he finally faced a foe that was his equal… or when the Broker decided he was expendable. He didn't know if he could beat her or not, but he knew that if he showed any fear or hesitation, a predator always pounced for the kill.
If he was the tork, then he would be the damned tork. Time to go for the vakar's hamstring.
A two-kilo spike of eezo held in magnetic containment in his chest dropped into a slot connected to his blueware biotic plating. The power link from his Inusannon power star was rerouted to his omni-armor and support systems. A tank of high-efficiency, nanotech-laden omni-gel was opened inside his chest as well, flooding over the internal organ canisters and hardening even as two more canisters flooded the rest of his chest internals with high-impact cushioning foam.
Metallic sheathes snapped around his spinal connector, his power cabling, and internal power supplies. Two hydraulic artificial hearts came online, even as a cocktail of stimulants and endorphins was injected directly into his bloodstream.
Heavy black armor plates shifted, long claws extending from his feet and heels. As the eezo hit his systems and was charged, crackling red omni-armor flared over his chest, arms, and legs, along with a mask over his face. Heat vents opened in his back, and he tossed his ruined dagger to the side as he extended a glowing red omni-blade from his right arm, while warpfire limned the long cybernetic talons of his left hand.
With a single motion, he disconnected the rangefinder over his right eye, revealing it to be cybernetic as well. Tossing it to one side, he motioned in a come-hither gesture with his hand a second later.
"I am Tetrimus Rakora, and I am your death, Shepard. The Collectors will still pay handsomely for your corpse."
Shepard's hard blue eyes narrowed and the cold smile on her face only grew wider, even as she leaned forward. "Come and get it, then."
For a moment, there was silence, broken only by the roar of flames and the continued sounds of gunfire and explosions to the south. Then they moved.
Shepard lashed out with her warp sword, bringing it across in a dizzying slash of blue light and fire that Tetrimus parried neatly with his omni-blade. Greenish energies sizzled through it and the turian laughed as the warpfire faded in intensity. He disengaged her blade with a shove and then pushed his biotics behind him, launching himself into a flying tackle that crashed his much larger and heavier form into hers almost recklessly.
Her blade went flying as they crashed through a plascrete wall, but she drove her knee into his side, the omni-blade within popping out to slice his torso armor. His taloned feet clawed against her other leg as he smashed his fist into her face, driving her head against the concrete floor, shearing off a chunk of artificial flesh from her cheek.
With a grunt and a biotic push, she flipped him over her head, righting herself and coming to her feet in an instant. He landed roughly, his main gyroscope still offline, and she routed all the power she had to her strength subsystem and swung her weight behind a roundhouse kick to the turian's faceplate.
The heavy clang of contact was broken up by the sound of shattering plascrete as he was kicked completely through the wall. He bounced off the ledge outside the building and then fell almost two stories before smashing into the metallic roof of a low-lying aircar parking storage unit, the metal roof splintering and screeching as he punched through.
She extended her hand, using a pull to bring her warp sword into her grip, and walked to the edge, igniting it. Even as she did so, a torrent of blazing blue bolts of energy vomited out of the ruined building below, each one blasting apart meter-wide chunks of plascrete.
She lurched and lost her balance as the entire building buckled, the floor folding up abruptly as the walls gave way and the substandard frame of the building was blasted apart by the salvo from Tetrimus. It broke in half and rubble rained down, sending up thick, obscuring clouds of choking dust and sprays of various furniture and other items into the air.
Shepard gave a snarl of fury as she blasted herself clear of the debris with a titanic shove of biotic power, a push strong enough to rip off pavement tiles in the street outside. Her cybernetic eyes scanned for motion as she kicked another chunk of building out of the way, sidestepping the crushed remains of a Tupari machine as she did so.
She flung a shockwave in front of her, grimacing as she shattered the remains of the walls that had fallen down around her, even as the turian cyborg broke free of the wreckage he'd been blasted into. She burst into a kanquess directly at him, coming out leading with her sword. As she came out of it he spread his hands, blazing lines of blue energy catching her and detonating in cerulean swirls a moment later, sending her crashing to the ground.
With a snarl of animalistic fury she shattered the net invocation with a hellish eruption of warpfire, thick smears of energy smashing out in several directions. One arc plowed into a pair of aircars nearby that exploded violently a second later, another crashed into the upper stories of a nearby building and melted the plascrete even as the windows exploded outwards.
Tetrimus merely waited, head tilted, and met her raging charge head-on yet again. She swung her blade as fast as she could, kicking out and flinging biotics in a blistering torrent of power and anger and near-on insane despair, and he answered it all with blue power and brilliant parries with his glowing omni-blade.
She ducked under a return slash and shoulder checked him into a wall, then channeled all her biotic power into a kick, driving it into his chest. He flew backwards out of control, tumbling across the street and catching his knee and head on the pavement hard enough to leave gouges.
He crashed into and through an apartment complex lobby, smashing through the other side to come to a rough stop against the complex's power downlink tower. He stood up only in time to catch another violent biotic strike, this time from her fist, lifting him up and driving him through the thin metal of the pylon.
Electricity arced out in thick bolts as the pylon shorted out, followed a second later by Shepard using pull to bring the entire fifteen-meter-tall metal construct down on Tetrimus's head. Metal groaned and buckled as wires tore free, a torrent of fat sparks falling like rain as the overloaded junction box exploded violently.
She drove her sword into the wreck, only to have the blade caught in Tetrimus's hand, a faint greenish glow encircling his fingers. "You don't seem to get how this works, Shepard."
She shoved forward, but he drove his head into her face, sending her staggering back. He tore the sword out of her grip then lashed across her chest with his warpfire-lined talons, shearing right through the thick metal and thin flesh to skitter over her subdermal armor before he dug in.
Even as she began to trigger a kanquess to get free he flung her, and she entered it wild, coming out in a tumbling fall some fifty meters away, landing roughly and crashing to a sudden stop as she hit the base of the walls of a taller apartment complex.
The turian wasted no time, lifting both hands and unleashing a flare followed by a powerful warp strike. The combination attack struck her dead-on just as it biotically detonated, and everything within ten meters of the blast went up in blue fire.
The apartment building's frame shook as Tetrimus placed a biotic anchor on it, internal bracing materials snapping a second later and dropping all of the five-story building on top of Shepard's form.
Tetrimus's eyes scanned the billowing clouds of dust for movement or heat readings as he calmly began pulling something from his belt and opening a slot on his left arm. He just had enough time to insert the device when a chunk of plascrete the size of a krogan came at him.
He ducked out of the way and instinctively did a biotic charge to the right, coming out of it just as an entire belt of high-explosive grenades was flung with a push toward his previous location, detonating in a firestorm of shrapnel and flames. He immediately strengthened his barrier, looking left, then right for his target.
Shepard burst out of the kanquess above him, driving down with a biotic accelerated diving kick, smashing into his shoulder and sending him to the ground. With a single hand, she grabbed his right leg and swung him around, screaming in fury as she smashed his head into the side of the building before flinging him away.
He cursed even as he used his biotics to try and slow his fall – a second too late, as he instead went crashing through yet another building, this one of duraplast. The weaker building material didn't even slow his two hundred-kilogram body, and he gave a disbelieving shout as he went clear out the other side of the building.
He skidded and bounced along a parking area before rolling to a stop, only to immediately be knocked flat as Shepard, warp sword back in hand, came out of the air again. The black blade swung down, cutting deeply into his back, and the turian screamed.
He came to his feet with a surging move, arching his arms back as omni-blades erupted from his own elbows. One of the blades gashed her face, the other was driven directly into Shepard's side and she fell back, blood and other fluids dripping from the ugly notch left behind in her armor.
Tetrimus spun with his own momentum, catching her across the chest with another omni-blade strike before sweeping her feet. She crashed to the ground, but bent as she did so, her leg crashing into his own bad leg. He staggered and couldn't follow up on his strike. She rolled backwards and came up with her sword in a defensive crouch.
He merely stood, making a disdainful brushing motion with his talons in the air. "Not enough gun, monkey. Even Shields put up a better fight than this."
Blue eyes narrowed, a gleam of something no longer entirely rational giving them a hard glint in the rapidly fading light before sunset, but she didn't charge him as he expected. Instead she circled, clearly favoring her side where he just stabbed her.
Her expression slowly morphed into an overly cheery smile as she swung the heavy black blade in short, testing motions and her entire body started glowing white and blue, arcs of energy radiating out from her.
O-TWCD-O
Ezno ducked under a punch from a heavy cyborg and placed his shotgun in the turian's face, firing a second later and blowing its entire head off. As the battered and broken corpse fell down with a heavy clank, he glanced around. "Status?"
Dost helped Kiala to her feet, pausing to put another burst into a legless, twitching krogan. "Clear."
Mordin was still bent over the form of Garrus, dealing with his various injuries. "Secure. Captive immobilized, applied delta selective carfentanil and gallamine to render unconscious. Archangel medically stable."
Tali glanced around, clutching her shotgun. "Vigil says he has a copy on the way. Angel says they've secured Aethyta and a Black Blade named Smiya, both are very badly hurt and need immediate medical attention. Miranda is moving towards the Sisters of Vengeance." She paused. "Joker is bringing the ship in closer; so far, no one's locked her up on sensors yet."
Ezno nodded, tapping his comm-link. "Lion, this is Iceman. Site is not secure. Lost contact on primary target and Butcher. Secondary target is down, not dead, heavy internal damage. Sisters of Vengeance in process of recovery, Matriarch Aethyta is alive, I repeat, alive and being recovered with plus-one. Recommend evac, Archangel is hurt badly and all of us have taken minor damage repelling Broker forces."
The voice of Petrovsky was cool. "Iceman, understood. In process of recovering Priestess, Fox, and… associated friendly units. ETA to your location is one five minutes."
Ezno sighed. "Copy, will hold position and await further orders." He clicked off and onto Miranda's channel. "Acolyte, this is Iceman. Find a fallback position for our wounded that is clear for a shuttle recovery. Mordin and Melenis will fall back there and medically stabilize all wounded. Everyone else, we need to find the Butcher."
As he finished his sentence, an enormous booming sound was heard, and a flash of a biotic blast as bright as the midday sun nearly blinded him. A second later a shockwave of wind and the tingling backlash of biotic detonations washed past him. He stared south, where a pair of multistory buildings were each falling, having been blasted clean in half by the sheer power of whatever just happened.
Several smoking drones crashed to the ground in the backlash, and a second later another blast was felt more than seen. "…Belay my last. Non-medical team members, be prepared to assist her after evacuation efforts are complete. Pitchfork and Acolyte, you are on standby for emergency medical aid."
O-TWCD-O
The Unity of Hope was not a modern asari dreadnought, having had its keel laid almost a century before. For all of its age, however, it had been updated and refitted regularly, including bands of Silaris armor around the CIC and engineering spaces. Internal defense systems had been tightened up and made manual instead of VI-operated, and every asari capital ship carried dedicated commandos for repelling boarders.
Those were not likely to be sufficient against geth boarders.
Valsharess Senia T'Purice'a shook her head in despair as more geth boarding pods slammed into her ship. Already badly outgunned and outnumbered, her daring move to split her fleet and bait the geth into range of the planet's GTS defenses had paid off – the entire line of geth heavy-cruisers had taken a brutal amount of crossfire and torpedo strikes. Against a conventional foe it would have destroyed their cohesion.
But geth did not breathe, or have casualties, or suffer from fear. Their ships were solid blocks of weapons, engines, and armor, and they could take a truly unreal amount of damage before going down. Once the asari ships had shot their bolt, the geth had counterattacked.
While the amount of geth landing on Ilium proper had been reduced by the fleet action, the geth responded by redirecting their efforts toward destroying the defending fleet. The bulk of the Ilium ships were already smoking wrecks or drifting out of control, lit from within by internal fires. Her own line was frayed badly and as she watched the combat plot, another of her heavy-cruisers exploded from eezo core breaches.
The voice of her tactical officer was no longer calm, but strained. "V-Valsharess. Boarders reported on all decks. We… we can't raise Engineering or Medical."
Senia nodded. "Understood. Weapons, remove safeties, prepare for ripple-fire, all missiles and torpedoes on the geth dreadnought. Helm, take us into knife fighting-range and order all decks to brace for broadside combat."
She swallowed. If she could take the dreadnought, then the geth wouldn't have the firepower to break the defensive screens of the major cities. If they could stop the geth from doing that then they could hold out until Citadel help arrived…
Yet even as that thought crossed her mind, the entire ship shook, followed a second later by the main lighting going out and pale green emergency lighting coming up. "Engineer, report."
The engineer was bent over her repeater console, and shook her head. "They've cold-blown our reactor vessel and the fusion spin up. I suspect they also blew the core powertaps. We're dead in the water."
Senia closed her eyes. Her choices were less than nothing at this point. "Understood. Prepare—"
She was interrupted. "Incoming wideband transmit… and incoming mass relay translation."
Senia stood, steeling herself. "Display."
The image of Cerberus lit up her main haptic viewscreen, followed a moment later by a smooth, modulated voice that she had never heard before. She heard the alerts from her sensor team about a mass translation, but focused instead on the transmission.
"Cerberus, I long claimed, was an ideal. That meant, in essence, that it should have been run by those who were idealists, rather than pragmatists. Pragmatism tells us to hate and isolate the Other. Pragmatism eschews decency for survival, grace for power, and somehow confuses the 'greater good' with 'deciding the lives of others.' "
In the distance, the mass relay erupted. Jutting, aggressive shapes formed in the endless night of space, slowly separating as they moved forwards. Shades of dark gray outlined in burnt-orange trim gleamed as they moved into the solar plane and out of the shadow of the relay's bulk.
"Unidentified force, exiting the relay!" She ignored the call from her comm-tech, listening.
The male voice continued, cool, almost amused sounding. "Pragmatism is sometimes necessary. But when shorn of vision, of purpose, of an understanding of what is unleashed, it becomes pragmatism for pragmatism's sake, and that is brazenly evil.
"For long years, I led Cerberus down the wrong path. For long years, I treated the alien as I did their masters, and as their masters treat us, choosing not to see the source of the problem as the issue to fix. For long years, I ignored making choices that had meaning – that had the idealism I lost in my youth – in favor of moves that gave me more influence. More power. More access."
The shapes resolved themselves, in vision and on sensors. Sharp-prowed frigates and destroyers surged forward into aggressive diamond formations, while a thick band of heavy-cruisers arrayed themselves under a cloud of drones.
Senia's eyes flicked over the displays at her command station, then back to the Cerberus logo on the screen as the voice continued to speak, sounding more animated, more agitated, more determined.
"And in the end, I nearly undid my own life's work. I realized then that my own desires had been twisted into something I no longer recognized. I realized that my hate for what had been done to me – to humanity – clouded my ability to focus on the proper target.
"The problem has never been, I realize now, the alien. It has always been the greed and rapacity of those who have ignored what is right out of fear of the Other – just as I did. It has always been the refusal of choices in favor of doubling down on the hedged bets of 'dominance.' And now that we face things that will only take advantage of our division, such a path – built on the backs of the weak, the poor, and the powerless – will only see us dead.
"For long years, Cerberus languished in a trap of its own making, commiting crimes by the boatload all in the name of necessity. No more. Humanity is at a crossroads of who and what we as humans, as people, as citizens of the galaxy stand for. Not just from our own government, but from the leaders of all the alien races in this galaxy. Of what it really means, to each person, to be free. Free of the control of those who care nothing for their people, only their own power. Free of the terror of what lies beyond in the dark, be that shadowy criminal rings or the anger of so-called nobility. Free to live without having to stain one's soul with atrocity and depravity in the name of pragmatism."
The voices of her ECM techs babbled in the background. On the plot, she saw flashing red icons over the ships of the Cerberus fleet. Long-range missiles blossomed from ripple-fire pods on the heavier ships, hiding their heat signatures behind the thrusters of the frigates, before swooping around in arcs designed to stress the GARDIAN systems of the geth fleet, just as ECCM suites began scrambling the communications between ships to lower their overall processing abilities.
"Once, I said the alien was a danger and Cerberus was the shield of humanity. I said that aliens always acted to preserve their own and we had to make the same kind of sacrifices to keep up with their power. Today I see that the alien is as much a victim as my own race – victim of feckless leaders who prefer cruelty to justice, favor murder to law, and demand mindless obedience instead of ensuring freedom."
As the geth line staggered and actually wavered, the voice rose to a thundering, authoritarian pitch, and even Senia found herself responding to its sheer power, as despair and fear ebbed and waned just as surely as the geth ships did under the torrential outpouring of hellish firepower from the Cerberus line.
"Once, long ago, humans dealt with such rulers, and today, as Cerberus steps forth to protect those who suffer from those who profit from such suffering, I am reminded of their words. 'Sic Semper Tyrannis' – thus ever to tyrants.
"And the cruelest of tyrannies is that of obliteration.
"We do not, and will not, obey that which leads to sublimation. We will defend and protect, show by what we achieve that we are humanity's shield, not by empty words and actions. We will not merely protect humans, but all those who require it, for we are all stronger when we stand together in the face of what is yet to come."
There was a pause in the voice. "Today, instead of doing the easy thing, the advantageous thing, we are doing what is right. Today, Cerberus acts.
"All Cerberus forces, engage and destroy the geth."
Senia watched as the mass relay erupted again – and more black and gray ships emerged, over fifty of them. They were arranged around a giant hulk of a ship, flat black with long swept forward wings festooned with missile pods. The top of the ship was a flat deck launching small fighters below an arch that held a heavy armored command deck.
The near-dreadnought-scale ship seemed to shudder as it erupted into fire, the front of the ship temporarily obscured by smoke as a torrent of missiles and heavy cannon lanced out. The barrage smashed into the geth dreadnought, blasting a gaping, flaming crater directly into the vessel.
She was shocked out of her daze by her tactical officer. "…Do we engage them?"
After several seconds of thought, Senia smiled. "Not unless they engage us. Let them dance with the snapfish's due of the geth fleet if they wish. Focus on intercepting the landing pods and handle those boarders."
O-TWCD-O
Justicar Ysi Vhira wiped a line of blood from her face and glared hard at the thin streaks of light raining down over Nos Astra.
The fight with the rebelling forces of Ilium – and their mercenary soldiers – had not gone well at all. While the initial landing and crossing the bridge had come at little cost to the Republic forces and had resulted in fifteen executed ardats, the mercenaries had deployed unexpectedly strong assets.
Vhira had lost contact with High Justicar Samara and the entirety of the wave of Republic infantry she'd taken with her to apprehend Mirala. Fragmentary images from the shuttles and observational drones of the 2nd Fleet captured images of heavy fighting – and then nothing but bodies on the ground.
There was an eleven minute gap in the footage that shouldn't have existed. Her tech-savants were certain something was hacking their systems, and really, with the geth's arrival into the system, it wasn't difficult to figure out what, or who, that could be. A more pertinent question would be why.
Unfortunately, they were too busy trying to keep control of comms and weapons systems to investigate further, but Samara's absence or possible death left Vhira in nominal command of the entire strike force.
She wasn't trained for it. The past half-hour had proven that much.
The mercenaries had killed several powerful justicars with bombs, specialty snipers, mortars, and now collapsing buildings. The echelon had to fall back across the river in disorder after Cerberus had stormed in and gassed them with some horrible biotic suppressive poison – over a fifth of her force was dead and half of it unable to use biotics.
The Telsharess of the Republican Guard force, a Clan matriarch who was a veteran of the Second Krogan Rebellions, shut off her omni-tool in disgust. "Vena Echelon was just flanked and routed by heavy gunships, but they report the gunships have drawn back. Tesa Echelon is engaged with heavy geth units south of the city – they report dozens of heavy armor assets and thousands of geth soldiers."
The Clan soldier lowered her head, then made a sign of siari negation. "Justicar, we must give thought to tactical retreat. We are now pinned between two hostile forces, and the tech-savants cannot hold the geth hackers out of the computer systems of the spaceport forever. If that last transmission was any clue, now Cerberus has jumped a fleet in-system, and I doubt they're friendly given how their ground soldiers just tore our azure wide open."
Vhira repressed a snarl. "We cannot retreat in the face of this rabble, Telsharess Hena. It would send the wrong image. The Thirty would be very displeased by such an act. It would have far larger consequences than our deaths."
Hena gave a weary shrug. "The Thirty, blessings track their ways, are not here. I'm not unaware of the optics and politics. I'm saying we either fall back to a defensive location and look to getting out of here, or we are going to be overrun and destroyed. We don't have any gunships left, no heavy armor assets, one Paladin battle-suit that's already damaged, and we've lost a full fifth of our forces. Let the geth, Cerberus, and the clanless have this shithole of a planet."
She winced as another blast of blue-white light erupted to the north, followed by a lance of white energy that tore through a starscraper, the building's southern face shattering and sliding to the ground in a rain of debris a second later. "Not to mention the mess that is going on at Northpoint."
Vhira looked out over the field, in her position atop a low building just south of the main bridge leading into Nos Astra proper. Commandos and huntresses were falling back in jerky movements, using kanquess and flash-step to remain mobile while they covered the retreat of the shaken Republican Guard. Many asari were carrying incapacitated or heavily wounded comrades, others staggered along in agony from exposure to the gaseous agent Cerberus had used.
Vhira spat. "And no reply or sign of Samara?"
The Telsharess shook her head. "None. We've sent a shuttle to the site, we should hear from them shortly." She put her hands on her hips. "If you are unwilling to fall back, then what action should we take? Gana Echelon is already digging in at the main spaceport – I could pull them forward to reinforce our units, fold the remains of Vena into reinforcing Tesa."
Vhira hesitated, and as she did so the comm-tech on the mobile comms uplink unit to her right spoke. "Justicar, heavy geth forces now reported to the east as well." She swallowed. "Initial force estimate is over twenty thousand platforms. The mercenary forces of Ilium have completely disengaged our frontlines and are setting themselves in defensive positions."
Vhira exhaled. "Get me a comm-link to the mercenaries if you can." She turned to Hena. "Have Vena and half of Gana reinforce Tesa Echelon immediately. Once you get the main echelon reformed, we'll hold here until we figure out what to do about the geth."
Hena gave a sign of siari agreement and turned on her heel, and the comm-tech bit her lip. "Justicar, we have a comm-link to someone identifying himself as the Ilium Force Commander."
She walked over to the unit, little more than a backpack-borne TTL uplink with dedicated signal boosters and a projected haptic screen. The image on the screen was that of a krogan, but his helmet concealed his features. His voice was a cultured, smooth baritone that reminded her of when Ganar Okeer spoke at the Academy of Defense.
"I presume I am speaking with the force Jhaelress, Samara?" He used the asari title for justicar commander with easy familiarity, and she narrowed her eyes before shaking her head.
"No, I am Justicar Ysi of House Vhira. Justicar Samara is dealing with other issues. I am contacting you to suggest a ceasefire between our forces, and an offer."
The krogan inclined his head. "An offer of what, precisely? I am not in the dire position of your own forces, caught between two geth armies."
She grimaced and forced herself not to snarl. "To be plain, the main asari fleet and several Royal Hunting Parties are on their way here. This childish jaunt has run its course. However… given the threat we both face from the geth, I would appreciate your assistance in combating them. In return, once they have been put down, I will allow your forces to retreat off-world without prosecution."
The krogan was silent for several seconds. "I presume the offer does not extend to the CEOs or Cerberus?"
She inhaled sharply. "Nassana Dantius is going to undergo the Question no matter what. I already have the CEO of the company who we suspected of weapons smuggling. The rest can go hide for the rest of their short lives, if you're going to take them with you."
She paused. "Cerberus, on the other hand, are criminals, terrorists, and deployed a weapon that violates the Council Charter. They are going to be executed forthwith."
The krogan glanced to one side, off-screen, then gave a sharp nod. "Very well. I do not speak for the Cerberus units, but my own will be falling back to the Tower of Ilium to prevent geth from sabotaging the GTS defense net and city shielding system. I would be… presumptuous to advise an asari of the Thirty, but I suspect the geth will assault the spaceport directly – fortifying it might be wise."
She gave a hard little laugh at that. "And open space between your forces and mine? Very well. Who are you?"
The krogan gave a laugh of his own. "No one important, Justicar Ysi. Call me… 'Urdnot.' We will set ceasefire immediately and withdraw if your forces do the same. Violation will result in unpleasant consequences for us both, I suspect."
She sneered at the name given, and nodded. "So be it, by my word as justicar. The Code balances in all things. You have twenty-four hours of mercy, after that your life is forfeit should we ever meet again." She clicked the signal off, then turned to the comm-tech. "Order all units to fall back or reinforce as the telsharess directs you. Once we are in position, transmit a summary of events to High Command and the Council of Matriarchs."
The comm-tech nodded. "At once, justicar."
Hena walked back up, tapping into her omni-tool. "Orders sent, units moving in good order. According to our forward scouts, the geth – the ones on the ground and in the net – are looking or scanning for something. They're not actually engaging heavily, but trying to triangulate some sort of signal."
Ysi tapped her chin. "…Once our units are in position, start up all the jamming equipment we have. If there is anything to stymie them, use it. Have the rest of the justicars form up and prepare for a deep strike on my command."
Hena's face set in a disapproving expression. "…And who is in charge in the unlikely but possible situation where you are incapacitated for whatever reason?"
The justicar pulled her warp sword out and gave a thin smile. "If Justicar Samara is not alive, take nominal command yourself until Justicar Ghensa arrives. If both are dead and I fall, you are authorized to fall back with all forces to the spaceport and retreat."
She turned to the east, where the sounds of fighting were growing in intensity. "Goddess help us all."
O-TWCD-O
The geth fleet, caught between the GTS defenses and remains of the combined asari fleet, and the incoming Cerberus armada, did not panic the way an organic force would. Decision circuits flashed through probability analysis and came to the most useful result.
The fleet, after all, had been a write-off from the moment it emerged in Ilium's space. The relay slingshot could only hurl a force one way, and they didn't have the weight of ships to fight their way back to the Perseus Veil. Given that, inflicting the most damage while ensuring that no data could be recovered from the organic disassembly of Prime 302 was the highest priority.
The geth super-carrier in the rear began its reconfiguration, the open decks slanting down and to the side as the superstructure moved apart under the force of hydraulic motors. Twin mass cores spun up as arches of silvery metal erupted from the substructure, nine of them to a side, rising slowly and inexorably and meeting in the middle to form fifteen-meter-wide rings. Bluish energy pulsed from them as the ship began accelerating toward Ilium proper.
Hacked records showed the city of Nos Valeth was the most likely location for any analysis of Prime 302. Downlink runtimes had failed to crack the mainframes of Siriniti Compusys, a known AI/VI research firm with strangely secure comms systems and heavy physical security. Landing pods were close to the city in question, but not within striking distance, so an alternative was needed.
Much of the technology Nazara-Giver-of-Future had granted the geth was not fully understood, but some of those were merely new perspectives on existing and well-known technologies. The super-carrier powered up the secondary mass cores and routed the full energies through the focusing rings, even as the massive tanks of omni-gel it used to create fighter drones on the fly were rerouted to the discharge emitter amidships.
Millions of gallons of omni-gel spilled into space, controlled by projectors alongside the rings, as magnetic forces erupted, outlining the already blue-lit coils in a brighter, fey silvery-blue light. A silver canister was moved via a magnetic guide-beam to the center of the mass, vanishing within the undulating liquid.
The omni-gel slowly shaped itself into a spike, over fifty meters in length and seven meters wide, before darkening suddenly.
As Cerberus units smashed through the outer frigate line of the geth, the ship finished its ponderous turn. Targeting systems rechecked atmospheric patterns and then the entire geth ship dimmed for a second, the rings flaring sun-bright.
The omni-gel slug was flung out of the makeshift accelerator at less than two percent of light-speed. Given that it weighed over twenty-three million kilograms, the speed didn't really matter that much. The impactor hit the center of Nos Valeth a fraction of a second after launch, the omni-gel shielding the magnetically sealed bottle of antimatter in its core.
The initial impact was already massive, even before nine kilograms of antimatter reacted to the surrounding matter. Combined, the blast was almost a hundred gigatons of force. The secondary explosion acted to create a streaming blast of the energy outwards in all directions. Nos Valeth and everything within thirty kilometers flashed into energy, the blast punching right through the crust of the planet to stream hellfire into the mantle.
Chunks of the crust kilometers wide and long were flung outwards, while some of the torrent of energy burst straight into space above the planet, incinerating a dozen geth and asari ships. The atmosphere above the impact site vanished in a flash, thick ripples of air racing outwards in all directions, making the very sunlight waver as it shone through.
The shockwaves from the blast radiated outwards. Given that Ilium was tectonically stable, there were no money-sapping regulations on building codes aside from basic safety. The cities of Nos Eltha and Nos Iris instantly collapsed into rubble as shockwaves strong enough to make the ground ripple like a stormy sea smashed into them. Hundreds of thousands died in seconds as starscrapers swayed and snapped like dry twigs under the quakes, while toxic chemicals and fuel plants exploded and ruptured, spraying contents and smoke into the air.
A fifth of the geth fleet opened fire on the planet in coordinated salvos, hundreds of mass accelerated slugs tearing into the urban sprawl that radiated in all directions from Nos Astra. Nos Pitra, already hammered by earth slides from impactors before, and without kinetic shielding, was blasted into smoking ruins, the few survivors dying instantly as megaton impacts turned the city into a series of concentric craters and piles of smoking ruin.
The shields above Nos Astra glowed and flickered under the barrage, while the outlying slums left uncovered by the shielding went up in clouds of smoke and flames as they were hit. The west slums were crowded with the poor who had fled the chaos and invasion forces in the south, and they had no chance to run or find cover as the entire district came apart in kinetic death.
The weaker shielding of Nos Yithan came apart under the barrage, the city dying in blasts of actinic light and the dust of collapsing buildings. One of the impactors struck the He-3 compression facility in the city center and detonated it. The resulting fireball turned everything in its over three-kilometer area to slag and ashes, the heat alone turning thousands of asari who had survived the initial impact into burning pyres.
The geth super-carrier's sensors evaluated the results of the blast, then began retargeting. The ship was out of position to hit the next target, but it turned in that direction, even as circuits-of-decision devised how to implement it.
The geth on the surface shifted their focus from scanning to assault. The force compacted itself behind the Armatures and Colossi, setting out in thick columns directly for the three largest cities. Their instructions were to destroy the GTS controls and detonate generators for the kinetic shields protecting the cities, then to ensure nothing got out of the cities before they could be orbitally destroyed.
The asari fleet – both the Republic ships and Ilium's forces – reacted in reeling horror at the impact of the superweapon on the planet. Even from orbit, the angry crater was visible, filled with glowing magma and streaks of devastation radiating out for dozens of kilometers in all directions. Initial reports from panicked survivors on the outskirts of the destroyed area said the spike that had hit the planet was radioactive and shot through with polonium and other life-toxic isotopes.
In an instant, thirty-seven million asari and over three million other aliens died. Most died without even realizing what hit them. A few lingered long enough to be blown to ashes and dust by the blast waves, crushed by collapsing buildings, or incinerated by the ensuing firestorms.
A towering cloud of debris, superheated dirt, and particulate matter spread upwards, measuring over twenty-seven kilometers wide and filled with enough radioactive byproducts to kill the planet six times over in a few short months.
Helpless to prevent it, the asari ships broke their careful echelons and launched wildly at the geth. Asari frigates swooped alongside heavier asari cruisers to pick off incoming fighters while the cruisers launched every missile and torpedo they had left. In the face of such cruel, dispassionate slaughter, death held no more fear for them.
The Cerberus ships continued their slow and methodical advance, unmoved by the plight on the world below. No living being walked these decks; no flesh and blood creatures were present to feel horror.
And, of course, Vigil had seen much, much worse.
O-TWCD-O
Tetrimus levered himself free of the pile of rubble he'd been slammed into, shutting off the multiple alarms on his HUD, though the VI continued to pester him in the background. He drew a shaky breath, gazing up in a mixture of amazement and horror.
He didn't know what Shepard had done, but the nearest handful of buildings – several large warehouses and three multi-story apartment towers – had just shattered and been smashed backwards. He'd managed to mitigate the first blast, answering with flares of his own, then everything had exploded and he'd been hurled a good fifth of a kilometer away.
There was a patch of bubbling, smoking char nearly a hundred meters across in the distance, flames red and biotic blue burning in a shallow ring around it, along with low piles of broken concrete, plascrete, and other materials.
Walking out of the firestorm, Shepard held her warp sword lightly. Charred black sections marred her armor and a long burn had seared off a section of her cheek and her hair at the right temple, but she wasn't showing any other signs of damage. Flames danced on her armor as she walked, slowly and firmly, a white and black edged vision of death.
This, he thought sourly, is not going anywhere near according to plan.
He glanced down, and rebooted his omni-armor panels. About two-thirds of them flickered sullenly to life, although the entire segment covering his right leg refused to respond. The fact that he could see the titanium bracing and bone segments along with gray myomer along the length of said leg explained why.
He slowly got to his feet, noting with sour amusement this most recent impact had somehow jarred his primary gyro back into working. Whatever they had done to Shepard had given her more raw power than he'd even thought was possible.
But all advantages had to have drawbacks. If the previous demonstration was any example, she certainly had the power, but not the precision, of a war priestess. As she flickered and came out nearby in yet another use of dancing kanquess, Tetrimus decided meeting her head-on power for power was a losing strategy.
Cunning was needed, and a trap.
He dodged back from her swiping slash with the warp sword, clawed feet finding easy traction as he backed away, while her own footing was less sure on the jumbled rubble and shattered ground. He watched her timing, noting she always glanced to where she would be landing before she pulled off her kanquess, and threw himself into a backwards roll as she launched herself again.
As she came out of it, he hit her with the strongest core-pull flare he could summon, bracing himself against the inevitable impact. The explosion blinded him, and he lost his own footing as he was sent stumbling back from the sheer force of the detonation.
He didn't hesitate, bringing his barrier back up even as he leapt up and back. He came down lightly, in a crouch, scanning around for the sight of his enemy, before giving a short, amused laugh.
His flare had caught her squarely coming out of that damnable dancing charge and blown her clear across the ruined landscape, smashing her into the already crumbled wreck of a single-story convenience store. She tore her way free with a shockwave that sent debris flying, and he prepared a salvo and extended his omni-blade again.
She scooped up her warp sword, but, to his surprise, did not charge in, instead she walked toward him slowly and steadily. He grunted and fired his salvo, bolts of blue energy racing through the air to strike her barrier, which flickered and flared, but didn't go down.
She gave him a smile and clenched her fist. He heard the scrape of metal from behind him a second before several large I-beams from the ruined building behind him slammed into and around him, pinning him in place.
Before he could do anything else she had flashed into the kanquess, coming out behind him and slamming her blade into his back. The black metal tore through his armor plating and came to a grinding stop as it pushed through his front armor, and he gave a sigh.
"This is not the first time a moron has stabbed me in the back, Shepard." He focused his energy and pulsed it through the eezo spike, and triggered his own shockwave.
Shepard gave a shout of alarm as she went tumbling head over heels, battered by bits of debris and chunks of pavement flying through the air along with her. She landed in a rough heap, skidding hard across the ground to slowly come to a stop.
She got to one knee just as a flying I-beam hurled by a throw caught her in the chest, the impact knocking her away again. Tetrimus grunted as he tore himself free of the last of the detritus pinning him, pausing to pull the sword out of his back.
He had to remember to thank the cyberneticist for his idea to make his center mass empty of any of the organ canisters or anything vital that kept him alive. He refocused his thoughts and tapped his comm-link. "Any remaining forces, come in."
An unsteady voice answered. "This is Uresh of Dimrah… I can't raise anyone at the spaceport. I dropped off the krogan and I was sent to pull back our forces at Westpoint… geth overran them and—"
Tetrimus interrupted him. "I don't care about that. Where are you, and do you have any other forces nearby?"
He watched Shepard finally stagger back to her feet, and Uresh's voice steadied. "It's just me… I'm in an aircar."
"An aircar? Excellent. Lock on to my signal and ram the person you see in white armor." He clicked off as Shepard pulled out some kind of heavy shotgun, and he frowned.
He tightened his barrier and moved to the right, circling her and gathering power for a core-pull of his biotics as she calmly fiddled with the ammo block of the weapon and then blurred into the kanquess. She came out to his right and he flung a hard push at her even as she fired.
The push knocked her away, but the burst of armor-piercing phasic chips hit him in the face and chest and staggered him. His systems were too deeply linked for most biotic suppressive devices to fully work, but they did make things harder for him.
His omni-armor panel had kept the blast from blinding him, at least. He lifted his hands and hurled warpfire at her, only to recoil in shock as she leapt through it. Flames seared at her armor and burned off more of her skin, but she tackled him square on and put her shotgun up against his chest, firing several times.
The third blast cracked the armor and she tossed the shotgun to one side, driving her fist into his face hard enough to deform the metal of her gauntlet and his faceplate.
With a scream of exertion she hauled him upwards, throwing him with a sloppy but powerful use of a throw invocation, and sent him careening into a nearby building with enough force to turn the wall to tumbling rubble.
He had no time to do anything, his internal systems still severely jarred, as she used a pull on her warp sword. With a quick motion she redirected the flying blade, watching it slam into his lower torso and sink in halfway to the hilt. He cursed hotly as the weapon wrecked his backup gyro and ruined some of the gearing interlocks that connected his upper body to his legs, making him stagger irregularly.
He grasped the blade and began pulling it out, only to stop when the blade tore out of him from another pull from Shepard, even as she hurled a singularity at the building. He realized what she was doing just as the entire structure groaned, then collapsed on top of him.
At least one building column hit him directly in the head, while a mass of material buried him. He shifted in the mess and pulsed his biotics, but while the rubble shifted, nothing moved.
He realized she was using her own biotics to keep the rubble pinning him in place, even as he heard her speak dimly. "Joker, do you copy?" A pause, and then she spoke calmly. "Bring the ship into range and get ready for kinetic strike, single shot, target is my current position. Fire on my mark."
Terminus felt a flare of alarm, and realized that given the city's kinetic shielding was up, any ship she was expecting to fire must be inside the shield itself. There would be no time to evade such a strike.
He immediately tried a kanquess, but the disrupting phasic shards still embedded in his chest armor made that impossible. He frantically shoved everything he could into warpfire and a shockwave, stacking one atop the other, hoping he could keep the mess from detonating right on top of him.
The rubble exploded outwards, blue flames and waves of energy pushing it out in a curiously undulating wave of dust and debris mixed with biotic energy that splashed down a second later. He hastily drove a shear into his own front armor, tearing off a thin slice of it as well as the phasic fleks, and then kanquessed backwards as far as he could.
He came out of the kanquess and glanced around, before a flare of blue erupted from behind him and a black blade slashed into his left arm, carving through the black metal to sever his myomer and hydraulic lines.
He staggered back, his arm hanging limply and not responding, and she lashed out again. He triggered his omni-blade once more and parried the blow desperately, even as she rebounded from the parry and flung a push at him. He skidded back only for her to leap forward in a biotic powered kick, the tip of her boot crashing against his shoulder strongly enough to dent it and send him spinning.
He crashed to the ground a second before another push picked him up and flung him back into the same pile of rubble he'd torn himself free from just moments ago.
Her voice sounded, cool and amused. "Fire."
Even as she spoke, he dropped his entire focus onto his biotics. He'd stolen an invocation from the STG long ago, one he'd never been crazy or desperate enough to try, but he had no choice.
A hazy circle of blue-white energy erupted above him, and a split-second later his entire world seemed to explode. He felt pulses of biotic energy spring up his entire network of blueware, as the stasis force wall he'd summoned struggled to contain the entire energy of a kinetic strike.
With a yell he let the biotic construct go even as he threw himself into a biotic charge. The oval detonated violently, releasing all the energy from the impactor in a ring of destructive force that washed over the ground.
He came out of his charge, landing awkwardly on his feet, and gave a sigh of relief as he saw the white-armored figure smashed back and sent skidding along the ground, smoking from the shockwave of power. She came to a sudden and violent stop as she hit a heavy armaplast retaining wall next to the small power station that served the area around the spaceport, unmoving.
"…Still not enough gun, Shepard. But a commendable effort." He laughed to himself and checked his systems – he had less than forty percent power on his power star and his internals were either redlining or showing stage I and II failures. He'd be in repair for months after this debacle.
No matter.
He walked forward, engaging the plasma rod launcher he'd loaded earlier, and fired, the thin metallic rod shooting out and smashing into Shepard's barely moving form a second later, exploding into plasma that burned a hole into her side.
She screamed at that, staggering to her feet only to stumble and fall to her knees. Tetrimus was about to hit her with a salvo and begin the process for a Beam when the sound of an aircar engine reached his hearing module.
The aircar – a heavy volus model, he noted with glee – rounded the shattered ruins to the east and accelerated right at Shepard. She looked up just as it struck her full-on, engine roaring as Uresh gunned it at the last second. The car itself came to a juddering halt at the impact, the entire front segment crumpling, but her shaky barrier clearly overloaded and Shepard was smashed completely through the thick retaining wall of the power plant.
Tetrimus waited two seconds before letting his hands fall, head turning as Uresh clambered out of the wreck. The skinny salarian data savant's mouth hung open as he looked through the hole in the wall.
Shepard's armor had been shattered, pieces of it driven into her legs and chest. Blood seeped from her torso, and her right arm had been torn completely from its mounting, shreds of myomer and various fluids seeping out of the stump. Her face was a nightmare, a third of the skin shredded and the metallic cybernetic skull underneath scuffed and dented.
She did not move, and Tetrimus gave a single nod to himself. Even he would have been flattened by a tonne of aircar hitting him at one hundred and twenty kilometers an hour, barrier or no barrier.
He let himself relax, and admitted to himself she had been the hardest fight in his entire life. But he had won, as usual. Barely, in fact – but as the Broker himself often said, a win was a win.
"Good job, Uresh. Congratulations on your promotion to Level III."
The salarian shook his head as if to clear it, but then nodded. "…Yes, ginnister. What now?"
Tetrimus turned toward Shepard's body. "Go find a transport truck. I'm going to try to raise anyone back at the spaceport." He glanced to the south, shaking his head at how far their battle had taken him from Northpoint, before raising his working arm to hit the quick disconnect on his useless one. "Once you find one, bring it back here and we'll haul her to Vinthan. It should be clear of hostiles, and there's at least two other ships – we will have to hijack one and get o—" he stopped as his peripheral vision caught movement.
Uresh was frozen in place, blinking and stammering. "H-How?"
Tetrimus looked back to Shepard, who had stood, fist glowing with biotic energy. For a long second he just stared, his brain not even grasping what his cybernetic eyes were showing him. "…How could you possibly have survived that? Just what in all of nine hells does it take to KILL you?"
With a snarl of fury he raised his hands to create his Beam. Shepard turned her head and smiled viciously at him. "Kill me? I am that which cannot die, Tetrimus."
She punched out with her left fist, wreathed in blue light, directly into the containment wall of the power tokamak. Cracks radiated out from the spot she struck, swiftly spreading. Tendrils of biotic power swirled off her brightly glowing hand as she set it into the poorly formed but sturdy shape of a Channel evocation. "I will have my vengeance."
The damaged segment of wall shattered as the fusion sphere inside the magnetic reactor ring was hit by cool outside air. The plasma expanded and the entire fusion reaction shut down, a white-hot torrent of hellfire blowing the top and side of the reactor vessel into atoms.
Shepard ripped her left hand forward, forcing the biotic funnel to tighten and direct the eye-searingly bright flow into a blazing stream of two thousand-degree plasma fire. It atomized the hapless Uresh, instantly cored the volus aircar, and slammed through Tetrimus.
She held on to the Channel for several seconds until her own systems began reporting overheat failures. A second later, the reactor's fire fizzled out, the plasma sphere collapsing and pulsing a spray of hard radiation in all directions as it ceased to exist.
Shepard slumped to her knees, gasping. Everything hurt, and her pain editor had shut down long ago. She shook for a moment, trying to rein in all the feedback pain from her last stunt at holding a Channel, before forcing herself back to her feet.
"Warning: Heat levels exceeded. Heatsinks at one hundred thirty-four percent capacity. Power star at fifteen percent. Internal systems compromised."
She tapped her omni to shut off the stream of warnings. The fact that she was bleeding – profusely – from the wounds in her stomach and side was alarming enough. She staggered forward, following the charred, glowing ground toward Tetrimus.
The aircar was a puddle of hotly glowing molten slag, fires flickering over its surface. The salarian was nothing more than an ash shadow on the ground.
Tetrimus had crashed back into the ground, his legs deformed and warped from the heat and his entire form blackened and seared. His chest was charred and still on fire, while his other arm and most of his facial plating were smoldering and sagging. Bare black metal, pitted from plasma, framed his melted cybernetic eyes.
She knelt down next to him, pulling out her Sunfire pistol and kicking off the charger. "No more snappy fucking comebacks huh, big guy?" She placed the barrel under the shallow ridge that served as Tetrimus's chin and triggered her internal comm-link. "Vigil, you there?"
"Yes, primitive. You are showing an even more impressive set of vital parameters than you did on Freedom's Progress or after fighting Okeer. You can't even spell prudence, can you?"
She spat out a hard laugh. "That's a fruit right? Whatever. You get what we needed from Tazzik, or do we need Tetrimus in one piece?"
The voice on the comm-link became more amused. "Despite blowing up several internal subsystems, the Broker was unable to neutralize Tazzik completely. I got most of what we needed. The Broker is currently in an uninhabited and unscouted system, and will undoubtedly move to another. Tazzik had all information about the next location wiped from his mind."
She groaned. "So we need this piece of shit? He could make a handy set of paperweights."
"No, not at all. He didn't think to wipe the location of the transmit cruiser the Broker has to maintain contact with in order to transmit his orders to his Network. I hacked that fourteen minutes ago and I know where the Broker is headed. Feel free to indulge your bloodthirsty impulses."
She paused. "…What's the status of Liara and Telanya?" She closed her eyes, anticipating what the answer would be.
Vigil snorted. "The augmented organic's tech-mine severely injured them both. But they are alive and stable, courtesy of Miranda." Vigil paused, then continued in a quieter tone. "Sara, she is alive. I was there when Javik lost his mate, and saw how it poisoned his mind. She is alive. Blow his head off and let's return home to prepare for the next step."
She exhaled, shaking so badly she nearly dropped her pistol, and then she felt herself crying. "…Thanks, Shiny. I…" She blew out another long breath. "I probably need a pickup."
Vigil's pulsing noise sounded through the comm-link. "On the way, meatbag. At least try not to get killed until we get there."
She clicked off, then nudged the unmoving form before her. "You're probably still alive, or at least recoverable. I could drag your ass back and let Vigil fuck with your head; kill you a millimeter at a time. Make you suffer for all you did."
She stood up, then aimed her pistol. "But I'm tired. And also, you simply aren't worth me turning into something like you." She fired, once, twice, thrice, and then smiled grimly.
"That should be enough fucking gun. But just in case…" She turned and dropped a dozen heavy tech-mines on top of Tetrimus's corpse, before slowly staggering to where her warp sword and ODIN were lying.
She holstered the Sunfire, then picked up the ODIN and clamped it to her back. She was picking up her warp sword when a shuttle touched down nearby and Mordin opened the hatch. "Shepard. Telemetry critical. Systems failing. Need you to lay down."
She gave him a smile. "…Yeah. Just one thing." She triggered the tech-mines, and watched as the black-armored figure in her nightmares was blown into jagged fragments of metal and bits of blue mush. "I never fail to kill a target either. Rest in pieces, asshole."
She took Mordin's hand with her good one and clambered aboard, and managed to sit down on her own. "…Get me the fuck out of here and to my wife, please."
