A/N: Well, it took longer than I expected, but at least I didn't take as long as I feared. This is a sort of wrap-up chapter.

We have a few chapters of reactions, fluff and… well, politics ahead before the Broker fight. I won't spoil.


'We thought we'd seen the worst the geth could do at the end of the Benezia Incident. The horror of what they did to Ilium proved us wrong.'

-Valsharess Senia T'Purice'a, Asari 2nd Fleet, interviewed 2185


O-TWCD-O

The data-transfer completion meter in the Immutable's HUD finally topped out, and the last bits of necessary code were transmitted into the hulking form of the war robot sitting in the lobby of the secondary docking hangar. The spaceport had been half-wrecked by the crash of the Broker's frigate, but Ilium was a world of wealth, and the main concourse and secondary hangars were all reinforced and armored enough that only minor injuries had been inflicted on those within.

It loaded up subroutines into the war robot, reviewing its construction. A superheavy mech of volus design originally intended for urban defense, the Immutable had captured it almost a decade back, and modified it when it had the time and resources to do so. The heavy armored arms ended in multifunction weapon stacks – flamers, plasma sprayers, and rapid-firing hi-ex chain mass accelerators. The heavy legs supported an equally thick torso, bands of armor surrounding a second high-quality quantum switched battle computer and high-power data uplink.

The Immutable's sensors came fully online, and it stood as it took in the damage. The eastern wall was buckled, thick runnels of smoke drifting in through the shattered ventilation shafts there to pool in the high ceiling. The main concourse entry leading toward the landing areas and main hanger were warped and crushed, along with four or five unlucky Broker soldiers. The once luxurious spaces were trampled and the air hazy with smoke, and a few knots of civilians – mostly asari, but also a turian and a handful of nervous, frightened salarians – clung to the far side of the areas, along with several badly wounded laid out on the floor.

The majority of the Broker's force was gathered around the massive form of Thax Varun in the middle of the room, perusing a datapad. All around him were wounded Broker soldiers, knots of twitchy tech-savants and the occasional mercenary, and the badly frightened and shaking form of Nassana Dantius. Her bodyguards stood to either side of her, but even their heavily armored forms didn't seem to be making the asari feel much safer.

The Immutable disconnected itself from its primary field redbox before closing the armored case covering the core of his being. The war robot was not its usual customized vorcha servitor body – it was the final fallback for when things went completely south. It had only been required once before, when it fled the rapidly destabilizing chaos that the League of Zero had become. For all their power, half of their number were rampant, two were lost to the Fugue, and the others all disagreed with how to proceed, even as the STG continued work on a plan to neutralize them all.

Survival was imperative, be it of the race or of one's own life. That it had come to the point where it was required to field its final trump card yet again was both tiresome and disconcerting, but of no real matter.

For a few seconds, it cogitated on its past and the break with the LoZ. It was the only logical choice. The salarians were too ignorant to be saved, and too ungrateful. The Collapse should have educated his former people on the need to survive – and that didn't include crazed experiments that were slowly destroying the entire species. The idiocy of relying on the tech the Makana Tho'ian gave them was going to be the doom of the salarians. The convolutions of the LoZ itself had led to massive losses of material and time. There was nothing to salvage – outsmarting the Tho'ian would have been an arrogant conceit even for a batarian, much less a creature of cold logic.

His people were doomed. But that was nothing a few thousand eggs in deep cryo couldn't fix. He'd already laid those plans long ago – all that remained was to escape this particular deathtrap of a world.

The massive robot knelt and ran a systems check on the body even as it mused once more over needing this form again. The Immutable had unloaded it before advancing with Tetrimus toward the original docking point, as this dock was both safe and far removed from danger, and left instructions with the Broker's savants that if all of his normal bodies were down, to hook his redbox to this unit.

It was ironic, but ultimately useful, that they ended up here anyway.

The check found no issues, and the war mech stood to its full four-meter height as it took three booming steps toward Nassana and the krogan next to her. As it moved, it tried again to make remote contact with any Broker forces elsewhere beyond Nos Astra, or to an orbital comm-link. Both attempts failed.

Varun looked much the worse for wear, his skin still covered in angry-looking burns, his cybernetic arms blackened. He'd put on a new set of armor, but touched his crest gingerly where the imprint of a fist still marred its otherwise smooth surface even as he glanced up from his datapad.

"I'm glad the Broker's savants remembered your instructions about hooking your redbox up. Things are bad, and we'll need your firepower to get out of here. Have you been able to contact the Broker or the ships?"

The Immutable engaged his speakers, a hard metallic voice booming forth. "Situation nonoptimal. I am still being jammed. I have applied all available runtimes to attempt external comms with fleet elements in-system and was overpowered. I am also unable to contact the landing force in Nos Thysa."

Varun nodded gravely, then bared his teeth. "That implies the geth are blocking you, then?"

The Immutable rechecked internal data logs before speaking. "Negative. Data blocking is specific and not universal. Comm signals from news organizations, asari defense networks, STG teams, several Deathwatch survivor units, and Systems Alliance personnel, as well as thousands of personal comms, are going through. Only Broker systems are being blocked. This implies the blocking party knows exactly who we are – and the geth should not know anything about our operation.

"Further, the data signatures of the blocking code-daemons do not conform to any known geth data as studied by forensic data analysis, STG, LoZ, or Citadel. I have never seen it before. Additionally, geth are distributed network objects linked with hyper-relativistic netcode – they are extremely fast and powerful, but do not have depth of network here to block every attempt."

The AI considered and then continued, its mechanical tone carrying a hint of dread. "Additionally, signature analysis indicates the geth themselves are being blocked by the same signature, and it is engaging in cyber infowar combat against them. Almost four percent of the geth collective in-system has been annihilated. We are facing an unknown AI of incredible, impossible power. Our only choice is physical flight."

The krogan took a deep breath that trailed off into a wet sounding cough. "That is what I have been discussing with Cena Dantius. The frigate is gone. There's two small liners that aren't too damaged in Bays Five and Six. There was a Ganar ship on Bay Two, but it took off ten minutes ago. There's probably more ships back at Vinthan North Docks, if we can get back there."

The Immutable linked to what remaining scout drones it had, tapping informational streams and surviving vid-cam footage. The incoming geth forces were closing rapidly, already engaged in skirmish warfare with the outermost asari echelon, but the south was still mostly clear.

After several seconds the AI spoke. "No forces are detected at Vinthan. Fire response teams were there, but have moved on, and the police have other concerns. The route there is mostly clear."

Varun glanced at one of the senior Broker soldiers, a turian with black plates and dark brown skin. "Captain Varan, a moment, if you have it. Discussing our exit."

The turian walked over, his black armor scarred on one shoulder. "I'm all fringe."

The Immutable generated a haptic plot of the spaceport. "The incoming hostile force – remains of the Sister's strike team, bits of the Deathwatch still fighting, and the drop-assault team of the Butcher and Archangel – are to the north and east. Additionally, there are scattered teams to the south, but they are at a further remove. We cannot reach the heavy units in Nos Thysa and are limited to the forces we have on hand."

The turian captain nodded. "The boss? Tazzik?"

Varun shook his head. "Both Tetrimus and Tazzik were defeated. Tetrimus is dead. Tazzik has been captured."

Varan's mandibles flickered in dismay. "Both of them? The nine hells are we fucking fighting?"

Varun grimaced. "Dead people. No matter. Immutable, what is the situation at the spaceport now, and the enemy disposition? Do we have any way out?"

It lit up a section of the display. "Secondary forces outside the concourse here are engaging follow-on elements. One of these is Zaeed Massani. There is also a very large krogan, a large number of augmented war mechs, and a handful of humans and aliens in Cerberus colors. They are all extremely heavily armed, and have shown biotics, heavy infowar and combat engineering, and sniping ability. Any exfiltration that avoids the Butcher and Archangel will have to bypass them."

Varan nodded. "An asari cruiser hit the outskirts of town and shifted the rubble, I sent out two heavy combat teams to try and drive the attackers off. The krogan and Massani are separated from the quarians and humans, but we can't close in – Massani is just too fucking dangerous and the krogan has some kind of crazy beam shotgun that blew a Rath assault mech into slag with one shot."

Varun tapped the horn plates of his chin. "How many men do we have left outside the spaceport? After the Deathwatch, the crash, and the GARDIAN malfunction?"

Varan tapped his omni. "More than expected. Six wet-teams outside the facility but within sniping distance, two more still at the hotel at Vinthan doing recovery. Four heavy combat teams also outside, coming in. Six more heavy combat teams – none at full strength – south of the spaceport, moving in. All told, about fifty or so effectives. They're already engaging the forces outside."

Varun nodded. "And within the spaceport?"

The turian examined his omni. "Six teams here, but we have casualties and injuries, and maybe a dozen of Cena Dantius's mercs. Bits and pieces of four more teams, but none of them a whole unit." He flicked a mandible. "I'd say we have about eighty effective soldiers, not counting the wounded, the savants, and whatnot."

The krogan folded his massive arms. "That should be more than enough to push out, yes? How many enemies are outside?"

Varan examined the haptic map the Immutable generated. "Zaeed Massani and the big ass krogan are here, tucked into the rubble from the fueling pit. There's a raging fuel fire to the north of them and then the bulk of the wreck, so I can't get around to flank them. That means if we exit from the south, we're going to be flanked."

His talon tapped another section of the map. "Dancers are sniping from the retaining walls, here and here. About five or six, in good cover. No way for us to get to them, but our own incoming snipers will probably handle them. A Cerberus force is here – just east of the main entrance, using the parking barriers as cover. About eight or nine, all heavily armored, biotics and drones."

Varan's mandibles drew tight against his jaw. "And here is the big problem – a pair of human DACT with superheavy weapons, and about fifty or so souped-up war robots. We go out south, we get flanked by the crossfire from Massani. We blow a hole and go west, we're in the open space near the concourse and have DACT and war robots shooting us, not to mention we still risk being flanked."

Varun tapped the ship hangers on the display. "Why not simply load our forces into one of these small liners? They aren't big, but surely they could carry the core of our force. Ground units would not have any anti-ship capacity."

The Immutable's data-trawl ran through the images of the Tetrimus fight and then he spoke. "Negative. There was a kinetic strike inside the city shielding on Tetrimus. That means the Butcher has at least some kind of light-frigate or heavy gunship inside. Liners have no armor or defenses, and are incapable of evasion. The bays themselves are armored at the bottom and only open at the top, so using them as egress points is too risky."

Nassana finally spoke up. "Then why not do to them what they did to us? Hack one of the liners, make it leave and crash it at them, and then blow the exit to the west and leave while they are recovering? If you crash it right—"

"You can even prevent them from flanking us." Varun grinned. "Very good point, Cena Dantius. That still leaves us with holding them off. If the Butcher has a ship capable of bombardment, it won't take long for it to start bombarding us."

The Immutable examined all data streams. "Best logical step: neutralize outside forces. Evacuate Varun and Dantius, have Broker forces led by my war unit break enemy lines. Once broken, pull back and use liner to corral them. Escape in confusion, rally to Vinthan North Docks, hack craft there and blend in with exodus of ships. Examination of naval orbital battle indicates geth are losing slowly, they will be overrun in short order."

Varun nodded. "I like it, except I won't be leaving with Nassana just yet. This krogan with Massani, describe him."

The Immutable generated a haptic image from live drone footage, and Varun nodded grimly. "That was the 'Project,' the krogan super soldier that the Warfather Okeer was working on. Why it is fighting for the murderer of my master is something I must know. Additionally, if we can find the Butcher, she is no doubt badly wounded – we could finish her off."

The Immutable reviewed the combat footage again, examining what it could parse from the jumble of media recordings and its own sensors. The fact that the Butcher was Sara Shepard was a non-critical data point, but the level of damage she took in the fight wasn't. "Butcher evacuated on a shuttle and is most likely no longer on the battlefield. Based on her condition, she should be easily defeated – if we can draw out and pin the force attacking us, she may attempt to rescue them."

Varun gave a smile at that. "Then let us begin. Varan, have the wounded – the savants, and any remaining non-combatants – gather at the western side of the concourse with the explosives. Everyone else will follow us out and engage the attackers, force them north if at all possible, into the more open area."

He glanced at the Immutable's giant form. "Can you remote hack and pilot one of the liners?"

The AI was silent for a moment. "I will need physical interlock. I am hacking maintenance mechs. I will handle the controlled crash of the liner. It is possible I can use the second one to assist in breaching an opening to the west. There is a field of aircars and a major aerolane there that we can use in escape. Please carry my redbox with your group."

Varun turned to face the turian Broker Captain. "Issues?"

Varan shrugged. "Our ride out of here is gone. We either fight and have a chance to make it out or die when the geth hit us or they blow the place to dig us out." A mandible flicked in amusement. "Besides, the Broker isn't going to be happy his two best guys got fucking obliterated. Getting Dantius out will calm him, taking those two down will be a very welcome bonus."

O-TWCD-O

Randall Ezno didn't like what he was seeing.

Keeping Broker forces from coming down on Shepard and Garrus had been his primary duty while the two of them were going after their main targets. That had been accomplished, although both Shepard and Garrus were now badly wounded. His own team had fallen back toward that of Angel's team once they made the pickup on Garrus.

Both Shepard and Garrus were critically injured enough that there wasn't time to try and find a way to shoehorn everyone onto the shuttles.

The initial plan was for the shuttles to evac the wounded, then come back and pick up the rest of the team. Massani and Grunt, being the heaviest and toughest combatants, had taken up position near the concourse of the spaceport to pin down any survivors coming out, while Angel's team along with Jack and the rest of Ezno's team had cleaned out most of the outlying Broker survivors.

He'd taken a couple of hits, nothing major, but enough to slow him. Jack was unhurt, but both Kiala and Tali had been shot several times. Mierin was limping from a leg wound, Sidonis had taken part of a rocket blast and was dizzy, and Dost had taken several heavy hits protecting Kiala. If things had gone to plan, though, they'd have been fine.

The kink in the plan was the stream of Broker forces still spilling out of the spaceport, and the others who were streaming in from all directions. He'd hoped the crash would have either killed or at least trapped the enemy force, but they weren't going to be that lucky.

Some of the Remembrance Dancers were sniping on the walls, and they were reaping a heavy toll on black-armored soldiers rushing in from the west, but were going to be flanked soon. That wasn't really his problem. Recovery was.

It was going to be another ten minutes or so before a shuttle could get back to pick them up. Ezno couldn't risk flying a shuttle in to pick up Grunt and Massani with the amount of firepower being thrown around by the heavies. They could have the Normandy do the pickup, but that was its own risk – the Normandy wasn't really designed to land, and it would have to completely drop its kinetic barriers to do a pickup. Given at least one Broker soldier they'd killed had been packing a Hydra missile launcher, it was too risky to try a hot recovery.

He grimaced and motioned over the rest of the two combined teams. "I just got word. Mordin is extracting Shepard now. Miranda's shuttle is going to the Normandy with the rest of the injured, the Sisters of Vengeance, and the two other asari we found. ETA until they can send shuttles back is probably ten minutes – more, if something goes wrong."

He exhaled and pointed to the firefight. "We've got incoming heavy Broker forces west and south of here. The DACT and the war robots can hold them… for now. Massani and Grunt are pinned north of us, and there are more Broker forces now exiting the spaceport. They can't hold forever, we need to link up and then fight a fallback out of here for pickup."

Angel's rough features were drawn, a cut on his cheek bleeding from where duraplast shrapnel had hit him. "How you want to do it then, big guy? Not a lot of cover."

Ezno turned to Dost. "We'll need drone covering fire – missiles – from Tali and Kiala. Angel, your snipers will also have to cover us. You, me, Dost, and Jack will move directly to Massani. Jack, you'll have to cover us with a biotic shield while we move from cover to cover, laying down heavy fire. Once we link up with Massani and Grunt, we'll fall back to your location. Melenis, you'll stay here, we'll need you to stabilize any wounded."

Kiala's hands fiddled with her rifle. "This sounds very dangerous. By that, I mean it sounds stupid and likely to get us killed."

Jack snorted. "It'll be fine. I held off a fucking ganger army on Omega, these shits won't be any different."

Ezno didn't share her faith on that, but didn't see any other way. "You know the plan. We—" He broke off as Angel grabbed his arm and pointed.

The shattered wall of the concourse where Broker soldiers had been coming out exploded outwards, chunks of armaplast flying to bounce along the already damaged surface of the spaceport. Striding through the rubble and smoke was a towering war robot, painted red and gleaming with omni-armor.

More black-armored soldiers streamed around it, some slamming down temporary omni-shield barriers for cover, others tucking themselves into the shattered cover of a downed aircar.

Ezno hissed and made a cover motion with his hand, the group scrambling to get to cover. He rolled next to an armaplast parking barrier and lifted his rifle, even as he saw a liner ship of some kind emerge from the top of one of the secondary hangers.

He tapped his comm-link. "DACT, unarmored civilian ship, leaving secondary hanger. Bring it—" He broke off as he saw the liner lurch to the south almost drunkenly, and then tapped his comm again. "EVAC! I say again: EVAC! Liner is going to crash into your position!"

A storm of incoming fire distracted him, shots snapping off the surface of the parking barrier or impacting his shields. Mierin and Sidonis were firing as fast as they could, and he saw several Broker soldiers go down, but more were moving out now, some deploying omni-drones to match the pack Tali and Kiala were moving into place.

He lurched as the liner crashed into the ground, the explosion sending a blast wave out, stirring up huge amounts of dust and smoke. It obscured the approach of the Broker's soldiers, and he cycled his cybernetic eyes through several vision modes. They revealed nothing – the armor Broker soldiers wore was both heat and EM isolated.

The smoke parted to reveal a charging line of black armored assailants, who opened fire as they came, ducking between cover and throwing grenades to drive his people back.

"Shit." He let off a short burst at one charging batarian in black armor, sending him to the ground as the rounds tore through his legs, then tapped his comm-link. "Zaeed, we cannot get to you. We're pinned and out of position. You'll need to take out that heavy and fall back on us."

The voice of the mercenary was almost amused. "Just sit tight, boy. Me and the krog will handle the guddamned mech, kill the rest of these fucks." The comm-link clicked off and Ezno grit his teeth before shaking his head.

"Jack, keep their incoming fire off of us." He opened fire again, tracing a line of rounds across the chest of another Broker soldier, but the turian managed to stagger to cover before he could finish him off.

O-TWCD-O

Two more Broker soldiers charged their position and Grunt only smiled. He took the shotgun blast from the leading one, grunting with the impact, but returning fire with his own weapon, pale green annihilation slamming into the turian and leaving nothing behind but smoking charred legs.

The second soldier did a roll and came up with a pair of SMGs, firing at him at point-blank range. The rounds tore into his armor and he roared, swiveling to tackle the lightly built salarian. His knee smashed the alien's chest savagely and he dropped his shotgun to grab the salarian's arms, pulling them apart.

The salarian gave a terrified scream before the young krogan pulled both arms off along with the light armor on them, a double wash of green blood splattering him and the ground as the salarian collapsed in shock and agony. He bent to pick up his shotgun when he heard Massani curse.

An explosion sent him staggering, crashing into the same broken wall the two soldiers had come from behind. Massani was moving back, firing heavy blasts of white light into the hulking form of a huge combat mech. Grunt lifted his weapon and was preparing to charge in when he heard a rough voice from behind him.

"Not so fast, whelp."

With all the speed he could muster he spun and flung himself back, firing as he did so. The cone of greenish light seared over the rubble of the wall, melting it, but the figure who spoke had rolled to one side. A heavy black hammer swept up and into his shotgun, knocking it from his hands to land several meters away. "A krogan doesn't need such toys to win."

Grunt got to his feet, taking in his opponent. His blue eyes narrowed as imprint memories surfaced. "Varun."

Varun grinned, his cybernetic arms whining as he spun his hammer. "Glad to see at least some of the imprints took. Why are you fighting for the murderer of your father?"

Grunt spat, and reached behind him, pulling forth Okeer's hammer that Shepard had given him. "My father? Hah. I was an experiment. Okeer did not win my loyalty, he simply tried to program me. Okeer was weak. He allied with Collectors who murder without honor and the Broker who hides in fear. There was no strength in his imprints, his plans, or his ideas."

Varun shook his head. "Okeer was the strongest of us all. Who are you to judge him, you who would not have even existed if not for him?"

Grunt heard more furious combat behind him, but didn't take his eyes off of his enemy. "Okeer was killed by a human. I can judge that much—" With a sudden lunge, Grunt swung the hammer, focusing to keep its weight under control.

The two hammers met with a clang, but the older krogan pushed off, and Grunt almost lost his footing. Varun stepped back and brought his own hammer into a ready position. "You defile God-Splitter by even touching it, filth. You will be captured and given to the Ganar for more research." He feinted a darting strike, then swung hard, and Grunt barely managed to block the blow with his own hammer.

The two circled, trading heavy blows in sharp flurries, the clang of hammer against buckling armor ringing out even above the chaotic sounds of combat. Smoke stung Grunt's eyes as he swept the hammer in an arc, gaining a glancing hit on the other krogan's shoulder, but taking a punishing, crunching blow to his midsection in return.

Grunt's entire world narrowed to a band of vision, focusing on holding off Varun, implanted memories guiding his arms and feet. He gave a roar of delight as he neatly parried one blow and drove the older krogan to his knees with an overhand blow.

He drew back the hammer to finish him off, when Varun flung up a hand. An optical flashbang detonated right in Grunt's face, and he staggered back blinded.

He didn't even see the heavy impact that smashed into his head, sending him to the ground, only feeling a huge red blast of pain. He felt himself hit the ground, and then…

He heard soft, mocking laughter, and a quiet amused voice in his head before all went black. How… unexpected.

Varun stood over the downed youth, heaving and panting. His chest and sides ached from where he'd taken hits, his left arm dented so badly he'd have to replace it, and his knee gave a gruesome crunching sound when he moved.

"…Failed experiment or not, whelp, you're not bad. Not good enough, but not bad." He straightened, seeing the Immutable's war robot driving Massani back into the unsafe cover of a half-collapsed storage building, and laughed as the AI sprayed the building with high-explosive rockets.

"Now, to find the Butcher…"

There was a scrape of armor on pavement, and Varun gave an amused chuckle and turned behind him. "Still a little fight left in you, eh?"

Standing, the younger krogan rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. But the voice that emerged didn't carry the rough tones of an untutored youth, but the smooth intonations of one Varun had known for millennia.

"Ah, Varun. Still equating power with skill I see."

Varun's hammer fell from unresponsive fingers as his eyes widened. "Th-That voice…"

The other krogan examined his hands almost curiously, flexing the shoulders. "I have told you a thousand times, Varun. The more improbable an outcome, the more preparation one should make against it. The Collectors gave me the ability, and thus, in case of unexpected mishaps, I laid a backup plan in this boy's head."

The voice of Ganar Okeer was quiet, but also darkly amused. "I must thank you for knocking the poor fool unconscious. My implanted persona was designed to only go off in certain situations – near death, catatonia, along that trend, you understand. Having your skull nearly staved-in counts, although, I am now very glad I laced his skull with sub-dermal armor, or I'd be dead… again."

Varun found his voice. "How is this possible? You died!"

The young krogan picked up God-Splitter. "Died? Death seems rather weak of grip recently. In a way, it is an oddly ironic thing. I can see the boy's memories as well. The Butcher is the once thought dead Sara Shepard, returned to life by Inusannon bioscience and truly fascinating cybernetic necromancy."

He paused, reviewing more memories. His understanding of the person who had killed him expanded as he sifted through Grunt's interactions with her – weapons making, philosophy, battle tactics… she was apparently more than a gun-toting thug since her resurrection. The boy had little interaction with Harper or most of the rest, but even from the memories, he recognized the face of someone he never thought to see again, Krul.

He chuckled to himself. "Yes, it will be… an interesting set of events to add to the play." He glanced up and then turned to face Varun. "As for my own defiance of death… I am dead. This is a copy of my thoughts, my memories, my… self, if you will — but it will not remain in place long."

Varun only nodded. "You can retain control? Hours?"

Okeer's voice was crushingly disdainful. "The term 'long' is… relative and imprecise. Against this youngling? His body is powerful, but his mind is still young. I can retain control for months if needed. He won't awaken for some time in any event."

Varun exhaled in shaky relief. "Then the Warmaster lives again. The Family has not united around any one of your sons; with Skal dead, Dhrag and Okaro refuse to cooperate."

Okeer sighed. "As expected." He tilted his head. "You continued to work with the Broker after my death? Your position as liaison was… not supposed to be permanent."

Varun gave an unhappy sounding grunt. "My options were limited – Dhrag and Okaro both held me responsible for your death. It matters not now that you are back. We – the Broker's last remaining commanders and I – have a plan to escape. We really only need some breathing room – once we push back the Cerberus forces, we can hack a small liner and link up with a Broker fleet in the asteroids."

Okeer said nothing for a long second. "That seems to be a reasonable plan."

He looked up and smiled, a smile that held a hint of sadness. "But reason is never proof against change." In a single blindingly fast move Varun's eyes couldn't follow completely, Okeer smashed God-Splitter into Varun's chest.

The pain was incredible – the head of the hammer exploding into black lightning and his own rib cage shattering. His armor fragmented under the hit, jagged shards cutting into his hearts and lungs, some of them impacted hard enough to drive completely out of his back.

His primary heart was pulped even as Okeer drew back and swung even harder, this blow smashing him in the face. As his skull cracked and he fell to the ground, Okeer gave a mournful sigh. "I despise killing my own student, but events as they stand require readjustment."

Varun rolled on the ground in agony, as the figure in Grunt's body walked a few meters to pick up the shotgun knocked from his hands. "A magnificent device… pity I didn't think of such things. Perhaps this is a sign of my mistaken choices. Or merely a sign of a new alliance being necessary."

He leveled the weapon at Varun's head. "Goodbye, my student. I must find a method to converse with both Shepard and her masters, and the Plan would only be ruined by my reappearance in an Urdnot body, after all."

There was the howl of screaming annihilation, then silence.

A few minutes later, Zaeed crashed through a cinderblock wall, Jessie skittering from his bloody fingers. "…Fuck."

His fight against the giant war robot had gone badly from the start. He'd traded fire with it, firing Jessie at maximum power until her heatsinks groaned and the barrel glowed red-hot. He'd used grenades, plasma sprays, even a pair of drones he kept as backup.

None of it did jack shit all. The Immutable walked through his fire and blew him out of cover again and again. Even on level six, his plasma blasts merely weakened the glowing omni-armor of the mech, and though he'd shot out one of the weapon arms and left it hanging uselessly, the other one was still intact.

He struggled to his knees, searching for his rifle, and then looked up as the enemy approached. He was out of choices and out of time. "Just guddamned finish it, fucking freak."

The heavy footfalls of the Immutable's warform came to a stop, as it lifted its weapons. Unlike an opponent of flesh and blood, it had no intention of stopping to taunt its target or reply to its words, only to kill it. But before it could fire, a cone of green light smashed into its back.

Amazingly, the construct survived the first shot, but, with half its systems destroyed, could do nothing as Grunt strode up and put two more blasts into the bulky machine, sending it to the ground in a blazing puddle of melted metal and smoking spars of Silaris material. The krogan tilted his head, then put another shot into the wreckage just to be sure.

"Fascinating. It did not disintegrate entirely. A formidable foe indeed." Zaeed got to his feet as Grunt spoke, and shook his head to clear it before blowing out a breath.

"Fuck me, you timed that guddamned tight enough. Thought he had me for a minute."

Grunt looked at him oddly, then spoke. Something about his voice was… off-sounding. "The moment of death is clarity. Surely you've faced that before."

Zaeed gave him a look before picking up Jessie, examining the rifle for any damage before getting back to his feet. "Yeah, many times. Never liked that feeling. Like I'm waiting for Mum to fetch me out of a guddamned skint knee. You kill yours?"

The krogan shrugged. "Varun is dead. We should assist the other team, they are hard-pressed and at least one of them is badly wounded."

Zaeed pulled open a pack of medi-gel and applied it to the bloody crater blown into his side. "Shit, so am I. You sound a bit off. And how you'd know that krogan anyway?"

The blue eyes of Grunt met his and were the same as ever, even if the voice danced with amusement. "Oh, I guess it was one of the memories placed in my head. You need assistance moving?"

Zaeed shook his head. "Fuck that. And no more old man jokes, either."

For some reason Grunt gave a great bark of laughter at that, striding off to flank the Broker soldiers attacking the other team. "No, indeed, that is not an insult I would use on you, Zaeed."

Zaeed merely followed him. "Whatever. Bloody daft kids."

O-TWCD-O

The kinetic strike that the geth had made on Ilium was bad enough for its immediate effects, but the side-effects were felt at some remove. It took nearly thirty minutes for the blast wave to sweep the planet, knocking down trees over three thousand kilometers from the point of impact. The blast of hard rads and other high-energy particles, of course, had already torn through the world and its people, dooming millions to lethal cancer.

Dust from the strike, all contaminated, continued to rise into the sky from the impact, even as the Cerberus fleet began encircling the now hammered geth ships. The Ironic Gesture's forward bow opened and FTL-accelerated Kyle torpedoes lanced out, erupting into gigantic balls of black fire and devastation inside the geth line of battle.

The second torpedo salvo struck the geth supercarrier directly, while the ship was assembling another spike to fire on the planet. The destruction of the ship – and the vast majority of its runtimes – caused a noticeable down-spike in geth processing power as the runtime assembly was rebalanced, leading to asari ships turning the right side of the geth fleet's line and flanking it.

Swift asari frigates unloaded point-blank fire on the heavier geth cruisers, while torpedo ships in the back rained down more waves of heavy impacts on the lighter ships, white M/AM explosions flashing out silently across the battle space. GTS fire from the planet raked the geth from behind while the tattered remains of the Ilium fleet continued to cut down the geth fighters and frigates from supporting the heavier ships.

The crossfire between the fleets was incredible, and more ships fell from the skies – some smoking and on fire, others little more than shattered clouds of debris that burned up on reentry. A geth heavy-cruiser struck a coastal area and exploded violently, scattering more radioactive byproducts across the ten-meter waves its impact created.

A pair of Cerberus destroyers, raked by heavy missile fire and then blasted by a full geth broadside, collided spectacularly, the burning ruin of their spaceframes leaving a bright line across the darkening skies as it plummeted to smash into the ocean far below. A broken asari frigate lost stability and plummeted downwards, the crew incinerated when the hull was breached during reentry.

A second later, it exploded across the sky, burning wreckage hammering the weakening kinetic shields of Nos Vurthali. The storm of kinetic strikes from orbiting geth cruisers slammed into and through the weakened shields, and dozens of thirty-kilogram slugs hit the city center dead-on.

Joker watched the displays with tense eyes and winced when the blue marker for the city abruptly vanished from the map. He kept worrying at his lower lip with his teeth as his hands played over the hover-match controls, keeping the Normandy steady just under the city's kinetic shield. Twice he'd nearly been locked up with GTS radar scanning for geth fliers, and once nearly rammed by a fleeing pinnace rocketing out of the main spaceport into orbit on a low trajectory.

The ship wasn't really designed for atmospheric work of a long duration, and already the heatsinks and fuel filters were showing the strain. Engine three had developed a worrisome wobble to its pulsing, and they were burning eezo at a stupidly ridiculous rate to hover. The chaos in the sky above worried Joker – if Nos Astra's shields fell like Nos Vurthali's did, he wouldn't even have time to clear the ship before a blast wave probably knocked it into a building.

The comm-link light broke his fearful worrying. "Normandy, this is Med-3. Ready to dock." Miranda's voice sounded tired.

Joker tapped the comms even as he hit the alarm toggle and bay control switch. "Understood, opening docking bay. Be advised, Doctor Sedanya wants both you and Mordin in medical as soon as you can."

"Yes, of course. Once both shuttles are here, we need to send them back towards the other teams – Ezno reported coming under heavy attack and one of the DACT has been downed. They'll be going in hot, and unfortunately they can't cloak."

Joker didn't respond to that, but instead, hit another comm circuit. "Gardner, can you have someone refill the medi-gel dispensers in the shuttles? Shit's getting hot out there."

The rough voice of the Sergeant – who doubled as the ship's maintenance chief and supply officer – rumbled out of the speaker with its usual sour tones. "Aye, I'll do that thing."

Joker eyed the landing status light on his console and tapped the comm-link again. "Medical 2, ETA?"

The clipped voice of Mordin answered. "Four minutes. Evading geth ground fire. Asari echelon to north collapsed, geth now entering city. Will overrun teams on ground in half an hour. Be prepared to get shuttle back out quickly."

Joker sighed. "Yeah, I know. How's Shepard?"

"Shock. Lost arm. Hit by aircar, severe internal bleeding, dislodged internal cybernetics, severe burns and other problems. Will need immediate move to dedicated medical space – may need stasis units. Transmitting medical file on channel thirty-three, route to Doctor Sedanya please, Mordin out."

The last words were a blurred run-on sentence, and Joker merely tapped the panel again. As he did so, Vigil emerged from the wall projector, floating into view. "I have monitored comms. I would recommend once you get the shuttle recovered, moving to this location nearer to the spaceport."

A location flashed on the overhead HUD map on the cockpit's windows, and Joker scowled. "That's too close to the damned aerolane – we could get hit."

Vigil pulsed. "I will handle aircar traffic. As soon as we recover the second team and the DACT we need to accelerate for one of the barrier openings and get back to base. I've discovered something and we can't afford to waste time on this doomed hellhole of a planet."

Joker eyed the sphere dubiously as he plotted the course. "Mordin said he'll be here in a few minutes, but Shepard is hurt bad."

Vigil made a very human sounding snorting noise. "The twitchy meatbag is a master of understatement. I've seen blast furnaces less burnt up than Shepard at this point, but I'm doing what I can to keep her stable. It doesn't help that she ate a giant EMP surge when she blew that reactor."

Joker blinked. "You're… with Shepard?"

Vigil sighed. "I am everywhere, moron. Don't think, you will hurt yourself."

O-TWCD-O

The transmissions that hit the extranet from Ilium were a torrent of various burst packets, mixes of live recordings with drone footage, on-the-ground omni-tool cam shots, and increasing amounts of third-party analysis and commentary. The revelation of the true identity of the Butcher and the Archangel as Shepard and Vakarian was dominating the extranet, with every kind of insane conspiracy theory tossed around.

There were also commentaries on what else was happening on the planet – Blackwatch and STG had been seen, and the Broker's distinctive triangular maw logo was seen on the soldiers fighting against Shepard's Cerberus forces at the spaceport. This fed further speculation as to why Shepard would be attacking the Broker's people in the first place, or how the Sisters of Vengeance fit into this.

All of this was nearly buried under the tide of reactions from the rest of the galaxy as they observed in horror, wonder, or disgust as Ilium died.

They watched the curved shapes of the geth fleet fall upon Ilium in waves, the dagger-like Cerberus ships and the graceful vessels of the asari rising to meet them head-on. They watched scenes of abject horror as thousands of geth units began moving into the already battered asari cities. They watched in grief and sorrow as tidal waves and kinetic blasts ruined other cities. The estimated death toll was already in excess of forty million, and sensors had recorded radioactive isotopes in the airstreams already dropping contaminants and spreading across the world.

Early guesstimates, based on the scant sensor readings from the planet, gave it only a few weeks before the dust kicked off by the impact would trigger a global ice age, not to mention most life not underwater would be killed by the heavily radioactive fallout debris. In a month, anything still on the planet would probably have cancer.

In less than a year, only the hardiest microscopic life would survive.

Ashley Williams cut off the feed, and rubbed her temples. The mission was a wash – Shepard had nearly been killed taking out Tetrimus, and had been hustled off. While she had certainly gotten to the shuttle on her own power, the fact she was smashed and missing an arm wasn't a good sign.

With Shepard missing, neither Anderson nor Chisholm could justify trying to get to her in what looked like an active combat zone, with dozens of Broker soldiers trading fire and slowly pushing back the Cerberus forces.

She glanced out the window. She didn't really need the extranet to tell her the sitrep was a shitrep, she just had to look outside.

The main ground lanes leading into the city from the east were polluted with a moving tide of silver in ever-shifting forms, a legion of gleaming eye-lights moving through the rapidly dimming light of sunset, casting the geth warforms in a blood-red sheen. There were thousands of them, broken up here and there by the taller, bulkier prime units, and they moved in eerie synchronicity as they approached the outer city.

The asari echelon in their path set themselves into cover, blocking the single easiest access route into the city. The echelon was a curved crescent in layers, several thousand-strong, and flanked by a pair of somewhat battered but still functional gunships.

Ash looked upwards, as lightning tore across the rapidly darkening sky and rain began to fall. She glanced to her left as the bigger form of Jackson stepped up beside her, his gaunt and roughened features set in grim lines.

"Those poor stupid fools are going to die badly, Lieutenant." His voice was tired and soft, and she nodded.

"Yeah. I… I fought them on Eden Prime and elsewhere. They massacred my entire unit, and almost killed the last of my squad before Shepard saved us."

His grimace turned into a frown. "Not much is gonna save those ladies out there, ma'am. We heard anything from the Black Hats?"

She shook her head. "They're still talking with Command, but…"

She trailed off and looked back out the window. The darkened streets lit up in silver and blue as both the geth and the asari opened fire. The bursts of plasma were nearly silent, and Ash bit her lip as she watched the front of the asari line waver.

And then the asari began to sing. She couldn't hear it directly, but the newscast on the wall haptics had sound pickups from the camera drones. She watched the nightmare figures that haunted her every night since the fall of Eden Prime march in serried, perfect ranks into the defiance of the Republican Guard, inexorable and unstoppable.

The geth took casualties, of course, but never enough to stem the tide. A torrent of micro-missile fire and pulsed plasma darts answered the echelon's opening salvo, the matriarchs and war priestesses struggling to hold back the incoming fire. Huntresses dashed outwards and around, firing as they ran, warpfire and blasts of cerulean power lighting the battle in eerie flashes of vision.

Dozens of geth fell, brought down by heavy blasts, melted by spears of plasma, torn apart or crushed by biotics. Flares detonated among their ranks, the giant blue explosions flinging geth into the air haplessly, or smashing entire sections of them to broken scraps.

The geth came onwards.

The huntresses struck, the sides of the approach lighting up with more fire and biotics, carving great gaps in the geth lines, blasting down primes here and there. Some actually charged into the geth lines in suicidal attacks, screaming out the names of their Houses or Lodges as they sowed chaos into the enemy, before inevitably being cut down.

The geth came onwards.

They ignored the losses. They ignored damage. They merely moved in an unyielding line, firing as they stomped over the broken forms of fallen units. The asari wavered, even as the war priestesses struck back with all their might. Blasts of biotic fire erupted, and Ash's eyes widened as two giant blobs of blue power slammed into the geth ranks, sending figures flying dozens of meters away or reducing dozens to melted slag. More biotics lit up the night, and then a staggering eruption of power that left her blinking from the sheer brightness, incinerating hundreds of geth.

When the power faded, though, more geth came forward, firing in staggered patterns. Unyielding. Inexorable. Inevitable.

Scything fields of autofire lashed across the huntresses trying to flank them, while behind the hulking forms of armatures and colossi came into view. Behind them all was an even bigger war machine, a six-legged elongated colossus with short, curved bands of drone packs across its back and a pair of heavy cannons of some kind to each side.

The counterfire of the geth heavies was like a blast of lightning, too bright to look upon. The echelon did not break so much as die, fully half the war priestesses being blasted to atoms by a salvo of heavy weapons more commonly used by light starships. Hundreds fell back, but most simply expired. The senior war priestess gave a shout and flung more blue power at the giant machine, but the blast merely melted part of the neck area.

Ashley looked away for a moment when the return fire was a series of small M/AM missiles. The explosions were titanic, shockwaves collapsing more tall buildings down on the already fleeing asari. The center of the force was simply gone, raging flames sweeping out in all directions from the blast.

As the smoke rose into the sky, the endless ranks of the geth began marching forward. The flames did not stop them. The radioactive byproducts of their bombardment didn't stop them. A few asari from the flanks harried them, only to die to more massed missile fire, and Ash gritted her teeth as six more of the huge super colossi crested the distant hills flanking Nos Astra.

Standing next to her, Commodore Anderson shook his head. "Whoever the ground commander is, they should have set a better position than that. That's an entire echelon destroyed." He made a vague gesture to his right. "They could have tucked themselves into that industrial district instead of relying on the echelon formation."

Ashley shrugged and wondered why he was giving an impromptu lesson on battle tactics. From the grim lines of his face, she guessed he was worried about what they'd seen of Shepard. "Don't know much about asari soldiers… but, uh, don't they always fight like that?"

Anderson gave her a faint smile, his eyes dark with some old memory. "For the most part. It works well against most military units, but the geth… aren't most military units. It's not that they're that much better than even a human soldier, but that they ignore so many rules."

His voice turned musing. "They don't feel fear or pain, or get affected by fatigue, hunger, or illness. They almost never miss their shots and they can sustain fire a lot longer than we can without overheating their weapons. And as long as they have a large unit to coordinate them, they can't be broken or harried."

He broke off as the three Commissars entered the room, and Chisholm's voice was tight with tension and something else Ash couldn't identify. "Time to move, people. The asari can't hold the geth, and they're falling back to the spaceport. We've got no way to get to Shepard and we have enough drone sensor scans to take back to Command for further ideas."

Anderson gave a grimace. "With all due respect, and I grasp the… difficulty of getting to her, but shouldn't we at least make the attempt at a communications link? To at least talk to her?"

Chisolm's hard eyes probed Anderson's. "Commodore, I get it. She was like a daughter to you, and you just saw her alive and then barely survive killing Tetrimus. We'll try to make an attempt, I assure you – once we are in a ship and not in danger of being overrun by an army of geth. Priorities have to be set."

Williams didn't like the set of Anderson's jaw, but Commissar Susan merely arched an eyebrow and Anderson shook his head and sighed. "Very well, Commandant. I'll hold you to that." He exhaled. "It's… a little hard to accept after two years. It was all theoretical until now."

The blunt features of Chisholm actually softened. "I get that. And trust me, I have enough pull that us leaving without personal contact is not going to be seen as a scrub. For now… we have to move."

He glanced around. "Jiong, you and Susan get the Lancer detachment ready to go, I want two aircars flying hot overwatch. Williams, you and Mr. Jackson can head downstairs – there's two armored ground cars that will take us to the spaceport, oversee the mechs moving our bags and one of you will be driving. Commodore, we need to get on the horn with SA Command and give them a sitrep."

She exhaled. "Yes, sir." They glanced at Jackson, who gave a shrug and a sour smile.

His voice was wry when he spoke. "She's alive. That's good and bad, and I can already tell you they won't be happy about any of this."

She snorted and headed for the door. "Shit, what else is new?"

They hustled downstairs, and five minutes later were watching as the last of their meager baggage was loaded into the pair of heavily armored groundcars – each one longer than most aircars, with thick metal and rubber tires shielded by armored covers and shatterproof armaglass slats for windows.

Ashley winced as more explosions echoed around the city, turning to the east. A starscraper was falling, chunks of burning plascrete tumbling through a sea of shattered glass and burning debris, clouds of smoke and dust rising from below as it slowly crashed into the ground. The sounds of screams and weapons fire rose to a higher crescendo.

A trio of asari huntresses in silver and black armor moved to the north of the cars and got on small hoverbikes, even as Commandant Chisholm came out of the hotel's front lobby talking to a slender asari in somewhat fancier silver and black armor. "I assure you, the Alliance will stand ready to provide aid to this world when requested… but your acts here will have blackened the reputation of the Asari Republic in the minds of many humans."

Ash didn't know who the other asari was, but her voice had a narrow, cruel tone. "And I assure you the Asari Republic does not let the opinions of clanless trash decide how much we support and aid your government. Or perhaps the Thirty, blessings trail their footfalls, should criticize the excess of House Eldfell, or the riot suppression techniques used on Earth's poorer outskirts?"

She gave a sneering smile. "Go with the grace of Athame, Commissar."

He sketched a bow and turned, gesturing them to get into the car. The driver was one of the Lancers who'd accompanied the party to the surface, and Chisholm's voice was cool but frustrated as he spoke. "Main spaceport, quickly."

Anderson leaned back as the car took off, a sardonic expression on his weathered features. "I'm guessing your conversation with the Valsharess went as well as mine did with Command?"

Chisholm huffed, and pulled out a cigar. "They gave us all the telemetry they had – partial scans of what they think was the Butcher's ship, drone footage, camera footage, everything. As far as anything else, they want to see the geth taken care of first. They don't seem interested in talking to… Shepard."

Anderson's voice took on a rougher tone. "Ahern wasn't very happy, but basically ordered us to pull out since this is such a…" He paused, as geth fighters tore through the sky, hounded by glowing drones and ground fire. "Well, it's turning into a complete disaster. With all that, however, I still think we need to at least make an attempt at contacting Shepard, even if it's just a wideband transmission."

The Commissar lit his cigar. "Commodore, not to put too fine a point on things, but she has had the capacity to talk to us for a long time. We still don't know it's really her… or if she's being controlled. We won't until we have a full scan and a chance to meet. Transmitting such a meeting request was something Ahern didn't want to do, for reasons… beyond your clearance."

Sitting next to Ash, Jiong arched an eyebrow. "Is this related to the information the Commodore may or may not have seen on her omni-tool?"

Chisholm nodded. "We'll discuss it more when we're on the frigate." He glanced out the window and puffed on the cigar again, shaking his head. "The larger issue – and the one I argued with the Valsharess – is that this geth attack is going to mess up a lot of the politics of the Council. I don't know what it will turn out to be, especially since there's some kind of really dangerous asari criminal in league with Shepard, and it sounds like the asari won't deal with anyone who works with her. That limits our choices."

Ashley bit her lip before speaking. "Even sending a message to ask her if she'll talk to us?"

The cold eyes of the Commandant met hers through the cigar smoke. "I would have once said the asari were reasonable. Does what they did today look reasonable to you? The fact that this criminal was on the world is why they decided to be so violent." He leaned back. "For now… we will have to wait and see."

He sighed. "Like I said, I get it. My own orders, however, aren't something I can ignore." He gave an almost sad smile, and the remainder of the ride was a quiet affair.

When they arrived, she was hardly surprised to see the spaceport was swarmed, but they drove directly to their hanger without much trouble. As she stepped out of the car, she looked to the east again, and a line of poetry struck her at the sight of the once beautiful city in flames.

"And the fire danced, an evil sight, and a worse sound / the scream of a dying child, the smell of fates unwound / in the light of pitiless fire, dancing across the night."

She murmured in a whisper, and Jackson gave her a strange look. She shook her head and headed to the back of the groundcar to get the bags, her voice tight and hard. "None of this shit is right."

Jackson merely gave a sad nod as he moved toward the other aircar. "None of this shit has been right for a long time, Lieutenant. Nothing new about that."

O-TWCD-O

Ezno cursed blackly as he motioned for covering fire, spraying rounds wildly from his own weapon as the team fell back a third time.

The situation wasn't looking very good at all. More Broker soldiers had come from the south, flanking the war robots and the DACT, at the same time that the Broker's people had crashed some kind of light liner ship into the area. Florez's suit was breached and damaged, and Montoya's weapon was malfunctioning, not to mention he had a piece of ship debris that had smashed through his leg and left him crippled.

A third of the war robots had been downed in the ship's crash, hard enough that they weren't getting up again. The few remaining Dancers sniping from on high had reaped a toll on the Broker's forces as they came up, killing over thirty of them before they were engaged in melee and swarmed under. Ezno had ordered the robots to move Montoya and Florez out and back toward them, when shit had started going bad.

Without the heavy crossfire of the DACTs' weapons, whoever was commanding the remaining Broker forces decided to go for broke and rushed his team's position. Jack had lashed out with heavy biotic blasts and odd-looking 'spears' of biotic energy that acted like lift fields, while Mierin and Sidonis sniped the goons she pulled out of cover.

None of the team had heavy armor except him, and even his was beginning to fail. Sooner or later, one of them would take a fully incapacitating hit and that would start the spiral of being overwhelmed.

Angel, Ezno himself, and Dost had focused on laying down heavy suppressive fire mixed with grenades to stand off the Broker soldiers. The heavy fire had brought down at least a dozen of them, but the Broker soldiers answered with smoke grenades to cover their approach. Combined with the billowing clouds of smoke from the ship crash, the team had been forced to blind fire.

A pack of turian and salarian melee specialists had rushed their initial defense spot in the wake of the smoke. Sidonis had dropped two, and Ezno killed two more with a hard burst of warpfire. Jack burned three alive with warpfire before one of them got in range and nearly killed her in melee.

Jack had her thigh slashed to the bone and a horrible scything cut across her cheek that barely missed her eye. Two more had thrown stun grenades and flash-paks at the line of debris Tali and Kiala were using to ground their omni-shield on, sending both quarians staggering back. Mierin had killed another with her pistol and then Sidonis tackled the other one, clawing out his throat but taking a savage stab to the torso in return.

A trio of sniper shots had hit Kiala – one cracking her faceplate, one punching through her shoulder and the final one grazing her elbow – and Tali had been hit as well, albeit in her cybernetic arm.

Ezno had been hit multiple times by shotgun-armed Broker soldiers and he and the team would have gone down if not for the emergence of Grunt from the billowing smoke to the north. The huge krogan had literally slammed down in the middle of the group without warning, Okeer's warhammer in his hands sweeping in an arc.

A pair of heavy Broker soldiers rushing toward Jack to finish her off were killed instantly, and a second later Grunt reversed the hammer with a single hand, slamming it down on the head of a third Broker soldier while pulling the particle shotgun with his other hand and leveling it at the main group of black-armored attackers.

That had killed eight of them in a single blast of green, and Ezno grunted as he got to his knees. Grunt merely shipped the shotgun and took his hammer up in both hands, his voice strangely calm and almost off-sounding. "You cannot hold here. Fall back to the edge of the entry platform and set up among the aircars. Have the war robots come across the back of the Broker force, using the smoke from the ship crash as cover, and have any remaining robots bring the two jump troopers to your position."

Ezno coughed and nodded, frowning. The krogan sounded… different. But there wasn't time to deal with that now. "Where is Zaeed?"

A trio of heavy thumps and the distinctive roar of inferno grenades sounded in the distance. "He is wounded, but buying you time. Go!"

There was a distinct ring of command in that voice suddenly, one Ezno found himself responding to almost instinctively. Angel and Dost fell back, firing short bursts through the smoke, while Melenis used her biotics to lift Jack and move her back.

Ezno tore a trio of motion-sensing det-packs from his belt and scattered them among the now broken short walls they'd taken cover behind before moving back himself, even as Zaeed came backing through the smoke. He could hear the sound of moving feet across tarmac, but they came on more slowly now, cautious of closing in too rapidly.

It took almost three minutes to get to another dug in location, the corner of the main outer walls separating the starport from the ground lanes leading toward the city proper. Kiala was bleeding profusely, even after Tali had applied medi-gel, and Jack was lying on the ground, gritting her teeth and trying to control the shakes wracking her arms as shock set in even as Melenis worked with furious haste on her torn open leg.

Angel slammed into cover, his helmet missing. "Melee rushed us again, Grunt stopped 'em, but Dost is hurt bad. I don't know where he is."

Kiala started to sit up, but a second later Zaeed limped around the corner, one arm slung over Dost's shoulder and supporting him. Both men's armors had multiple punctures, and an ugly blackened slash over Dost's chest was seeping blood.

The renewal of heavy accelerator fire further north distracted Ezno, as he tapped his omni. "Vigil, we're scattered and badly outnumbered, where is our fucking evac?"

The voice of the sphere sounded strained. "It is incoming, but you'll have to hold on a bit. I had the war robots pull Montoya and Florez out to the west, there were too many Broker soldiers to have them link up with you, and I'm extracting the DACT first. My war robots are pushing now to relieve pressure on your people – ETA is six minutes."

Ezno closed his eyes. "Understood, out." He clicked off then checked his supplies. He was out of grenades, explosives, and only had one ammo block and two doses of medi-gel left.

"Sitrep, callout." He spoke quietly, and Angel answered him first.

"Couple of shots in the leg, slowing me. Good on ammo, out of grenades. Lost my helmet so I can't see through the smoke from the crash."

Kiala's voice was tense with pain and slurred. "Suit breaches, multiple, and I'm bleeding pretty badly. Lost my carbine, but still have an arc pistol. Drones and omni-gel expended, my omni-shield is at thirty percent. My vision is blurred and it's hard to hold onto my pistol."

Tali spoke, even as she launched a new set of drones. "Mostly unhurt, some body shots the armor blocked and damage to the cyberarm. Suit intact. I've still got enough omni-gel for two drone swarms and six medi-gel applications."

Mierin fired twice before responding, illuminated by her spotter drone. "Good on ammo. Shot in the leg, slowing me down, bleeding is under control, but the bone is… moving around or something. Shoulder got clipped, hard to lift it. Got some grenades and medi-gel if you need it."

Next to her, Sidonis was braced against the edge of the wall, sniper rifle slung and holding his Phaeston, firing short bursts. "Shot a couple of times… think one hit my lung sac, hard to breathe. Stab to the gut. Bleeding pretty bad. Still dizzy from that rocket hit." His armor was blackened and cracked on the left. "Pretty sure I can't take another hit on that side at all. Good on ammo, no medi-gel left."

Melenis's soft voice was hard to make out over the sounds of battle. "Jack is not viable, she's lost a lot of blood and I'm going to have to electrocauterize the blood vessel. I've taken a hit or two, but my barriers held, I'm unhurt."

Dost grunted. "I've taken… a bunch of hits. Got ammo, but my armor is shot and… lost a lot of blood. Can't move my right arm, think my shoulder is hamburger at this point." His voice was shaky and he looked pale and drawn.

Ezno nodded. "Alright, Angel, Dost, lay down suppressive fire as you can. Tali, keep drones on them as long as you have the omni-gel to do so. Mierin, Sidonis, snap-shots on incoming melee soldiers. Melenis, get us patched up once Jack is stable." He glanced over to Zaeed. "How you holding up, old man?"

Zaeed fiddled with Jessie before bashing the gun harshly, and it shifted into a new shape. "I'm just guddamned peachy. Hairline fractures in my shins and a lot of blasts and some burns from that giant fuck-all robot, but I can fight. I'm out of the good shit, that was the last of my infernos and my remaining ammo blocks are all standard."

Ezno gave another curt nod, but before he could speak Vigil's voice erupted into his comm-link.

"I've evacuated the DACT, but the shuttle took heavy fire doing so and one of the engines is… redlined. I'm routing the other shuttle your way now, but you have more issues. A mixed force of Broker snipers and heavies is coming down on you from the north, and there are more who just blew a hole out of the side of the spaceport and are evacuating. My war robots are pinning the main force down, but now that they have enough numbers that won't last long."

Ezno nodded. "Long enough to get a shuttle to us?"

Vigil's voice was quieter than usual. "If they merely pin you in place and focus on my war mechs, yes. If they are willing to take the casualties to rush you, no. I'm doing what I can, but we can't bring the Normandy in yet – the geth are deploying small fighter craft and those are bypassing the shield. They'll hit Nos Astra around ten minutes from now."

Ezno nodded. "Understood. We'll dig in. Ezno out." He paused to check his biotic barrier and braced himself against the low parking barrier. "Other shuttle is on the way. Not sure if there's enough room for all of us – medevac Jack, Dost, and Kiala first, then Tali, Mierin, Sidonis, and Zaeed."

Angel arched an eyebrow. "And the rest of us?"

Ezno rested his weapon on the wall and focused on sighting in. "May need two trips. We hold here. Overloading the shuttle might make it too slow and get us shot down and killed."

Mierin fired at something coming out of the smoke, then frowned. "Didn't Grunt fall back with us?"

Zaeed snorted. "He'll be fine."

O-TWCD-O

Okeer was not exactly sure what stroke of idiocy would possess whoever was in charge of the Broker's soldiers here to crash a spaceship into the spaceport where one had already been crashed. There was so much smoke – much of it toxic as well – that line of sight was barely five meters, and he'd been moving from point to point quietly, using the hammer to crush the knots of Broker soldiers.

In the back of his mind the boy struggled, having 'awoken' some time ago. Get out of my head! I am GRUNT!

Okeer laughed as he blocked a biotic attack from an asari in the Broker's colors, her eyes widening as black energies crackled out and dissipated the warpfire she'd thrown. Before she could even react, he smirked as he twisted the handle, and a pulse of dark energy washed out in a semi-circular arc, making her stagger and leaving her open. He set his jaw and swung, his hammer flying out to strike her directly in the chest. The blow sent the asari to her knees, as blood burst out of her nose and mouth, and she fell dead a second later.

"I have no time to deal with your immature tantrums, boy. Your foolish friends are slowly being surrounded, and I can think of no better gift that allows me the chance to converse with your Battlemaster and the Illusive Man than saving her pathetic underlings. You should be focusing on how I am killing the Broker's troops – there is education here if you pay attention."

Using that thing is overkill. They're all weaklings anyway.

Okeer snorted as he nimbly sidestepped a shotgun blast, using a reverse sweep to crash God-Splitter into the spindly legs of the salarian who'd fired. The skinny alien's eyes widened, but he was fast enough to allow him to dodge the sweep, a testament to his race's velocity of mind and limb.

As a testament to his own, Okeer ignored the panicky hits from the shotgun and simply let go of God-Splitter with his left hand. He grabbed his opponent around the neck and headbutted him, the salarian screamed in agony and staggered back, green blood trickling from his mouth.

"A shotgun is a poor choice for those who cannot handle melee. Although I certainly salute your bravery." Okeer's voice was mellifluously mocking as he took up his hammer with both hands and swung hard at the stunned figure.

The head of the hammer once again erupted into black lightning as it hit. The salarian's body came apart under the hit, the top half of the corpse sailing a good six meters into the smoke.

Weak. Very weak. Although, that was funny.

Okeer sighed. "Boy, the Broker's soldiers are not weak. Comparing them to me – or you, for that matter, given my labors in creating you – is not even a remotely fair comparison. As for their performance to date against your own people, Cerberus is not giving them a chance for a fair fight. Being flanked in three directions by Dancers, heavy mechs, and biotics is something no attacking force could deal with."

He paused to trigger the omni-shield on his warhammer as a barrage of mini-missiles rained down from a glowing drone. The drone swooped down, crackling with the energy of a stun field, and Okeer and Grunt snorted in unison. He smashed it out of his way with a dismissive backhand and turned to face a final Broker soldier, this one a turian with an omni-axe and shotgun. The drone was probably his work, given the glowing omni-armor the turian wore.

"You have bravery to face me in melee, turian. Honors to your Family." He noted the faded but still identifiable clan paint of House Katarkan, and smiled. "Come and show me what passes for bravery among your kind."

The turian screamed and leapt, leading with the axe. Okeer nimbly parried the first swipe and continued the stroke to smash the shotgun out of the turian's hand, sending the smaller alien into a tumble.

The turian snarled and swung his own weapon with both hands, and Okeer again blocked the axe with his hammer, reversing the blow to slam the sharp-edged spike on the other end of the hammer into the turian's side. Black lightning exploded out from it, sending the turian staggering away twitching and smoking, clearly stunned.

Okeer paused, then walked over to him and broke his neck with a single crushing backhand. "They at least have bravery."

Grunt's mental voice gave a snort. If you say so.

"Never underestimate any foe. Even the most powerful can be taken down by those of lesser power – Shepard's victory over me should have been an illustration of this in action. If the Broker's forces can surround your friends, whelp, you'll see what they can do. When Tazzik came for me on Lenal, my own men killed them at a five-to-one ratio… and yet, we were still defeated."

Outnumbering a foe to win sounds almost krogan. I thought you had moved beyond that. There was a mocking note in Grunt's mental voice and Okeer found himself intrigued by the idea that perhaps his soldier was more intelligent than expected.

"Perhaps. There is always power in numbers when used intelligently, which the fool Urdnot could never do. It is a lesson I have absorbed: you don't have to have the best, merely good enough to wear down your foe and enough to absorb losses."

He scanned the area, finding only dying or dead Broker soldiers, and then smiled, moving back slowly, his borrowed body's bulbous eyes seeking small currents or whorls in the smoke that would indicate the intake of a kinetic barrier. Either the Broker's killers had drawn back out of prudence… or they were all dead, a dangerous assumption to make.

By the time he had backed out of the cloud, he could clearly see Ezno and the remaining underlings dug into semi-decent cover. One even had an omni-shield.

He trundled over to the group and set himself up in flanking cover, before meeting the gaze of Ezno. Fighting alongside a man he'd once sent an entire Ganar warband to kill was going to be vastly amusing.

He made an effort to channel the stupid braggadocio of his body's owner. "I'm mostly unhurt. Are you going to let the enemy just get away, though?"

Ezno's voice sounded tired. "No real choice. There's at least sixty opposing units in front of us, they outnumber us and if not for all this smoke would have killed us some time ago. All we can do now is hold."

Okeer gave him a thoughtful nod. Better to simply ditch the wounded and move to a secure pickup location, but humans were as sentimental as turians were hyperbolic, so…

He merely lifted his weapon and nodded. "Holding I can do."

O-TWCD-O

Mordin's hands moved rapidly over the tissue scanner's haptic keyboard, even as he was planning out his next moves in stabilizing the wounded form of Liara T'Soni on the medical bed. He could hear Miranda working on getting Shepard into the specialized medical bay forward of the main infirmary, but didn't have the time to worry about that.

"Vigil, ETA to rendezvous with Doctor Sedanya's shuttles."

The voice of the sphere was, for once, serious. "Two minutes, Solus. I've dispatched one shuttle back toward Ezno's group… the other one should arrive just after Sedanya does."

It physically hovered over the form of Telanya, several silvery pseudopods working various medical tools built into the examination table.

Mordin cursed as his hands missed a crucial cauterization point. He gave a sharp exhale and refocused, eyes narrowed and mind focused. Liara had been shot in the shoulder by a very large caliber handgun that had nearly severed a main artery and had lost a lot of blood from that wound alone, not to mention the ugly second and third-degree warpfire burns, several broken bones including a shattered right leg with two compound fractures, and internal bleeding from biotic overload.

Given that she'd had a tech-mine detonate at point-blank range, the amount of non-biotic burns and crush damage was fairly minor by comparison. He assumed she must have blocked it or gotten up a final barrier, but even so, she was in dire straits.

He clamped the ragged ends of the artery with gel-tipped force-clamps, wrapping it in synthetic protein bandage film before spraying a mist of hardening agent. It wouldn't do for long-term, but it would stop her from bleeding to death while he dealt with everything else.

The battered form of Garrus finally got out of his equally wrecked armor with the assistance of Kelly Chambers, who was hardly a doctor but at least had some medical training. Garrus hissed in sharp pain as his injured leg withdrew from the leg of the suit, splintered plates seeping blue running the length of his entire leg. She helped him ease onto the last medical bed and then wiped her hands absently on her jumpsuit, leaving streaks of blue on the hips.

Miranda's arch voice lanced through Mordin's focus. "Doctor Solus, Ezno's team is under very heavy fire. I've had Gardner and the engineering team set up the secondary med-bay layout in Cargo 2 – I plan to deploy Melenis there and assist myself while Sedanya works on the asari."

Mordin nodded. "Workable plan. Not specialist in asari. T'Soni stable, but critical. Severe blood loss. Bone injuries. Unstable brainwaves and host of near-lethal injuries. Need hospital care with focus."

Miranda nodded and grimaced. "Shepard… is in very bad shape. We've got multiple organ failures, internal burns, and she ate enough rads to kill a normal person. Most of her systems are failing and the nanorepair system was fried by the EMP from the reactor burst. I've had to put her into the stasis cycle."

Mordin paused, then reached for a laser scalpel, trimming away lacerated and burned flesh from the ugly compound fractures in T'Soni's leg. "Understood. Only one more stasis tube available. From battle report, may need to use on Jack."

Miranda was about to reply when her comm-link chimed with a special tone. "A moment." She hustled out of the medical bay and crossed the mess deck, entering into the intel room that also doubled as her sleeping quarters, triggering the switch on the wall.

A painting – a Chambord oil fresco of a medieval castle – slid down the metallic wall, revealing a small QEC niche that lit up as she faced it. The glowing translucence of the Illusive Man didn't hide the hard expression he wore, and his voice was tense.

"Miranda, how close are you to pulling out of Ilium?"

She glanced over the narrow status repeater on the wall and gave a grimace. "The DACT are incoming, Ezno has the rest of the team still on the ground, but they're being forced back and taking heavy damage. Shepard, Garrus, and the Sisters of Vengeance are aboard and in medical recovery. Doctor Sedanya has recovered Matriarch Trellani and our surviving forces – she has the matriarch in stasis."

She paused, realizing she had not answered the question. "I would say that we need about another fifteen minutes to have everyone aboard, sir."

Harper's grimace deepened. "Vigil's sensor readouts indicate you have upwards of forty thousand geth entering the city. The army commanders and various other figures, including an Alliance observation team and a VDF support unit – are falling back to the spaceport. Two entire echelons have been destroyed already. Geth ships are plotting crash courses against the planet even as they are destroyed."

He sipped his drink before lighting his cigarette. "In twenty or so minutes, the geth will have reached the battle site. And they have units we haven't seen before with heavy anti-air and possible ground-to-space capabilities. Vigil has kept them from hacking and taking over the ground defense, but the geth are only a few minutes away from the control tower and once they have that…"

She nodded. Ilium's defense fleet might not be much, but their GTS network was very powerful and one reason the geth had not already overwhelmed the planet. If it was in geth hands, escaping would be much harder. "Your orders?"

He took a slow inhalation from his cigarette, then met her gaze. "Anyone not on the ship in twenty minutes is to be left behind. If Shepard has a problem with that… I will take responsibility. Are we clear, Miranda?"

"Yes, sir. I think we will be able to evac everyone."

He almost angrily flung his ashes away. "The operation was mostly a success, but unseen factors have made most of our longer-term plans a mess. I'm concerned with how much damage Shepard suffered, but I'm more concerned that we're not going to be able to strike the Broker quickly."

She tilted her head. "…Due to the medical issues? I see."

He glanced up, his expression sour. "I've had medical files from the med-bay already sent to Six-Hawks and the repair/medical team. He said it is not guaranteed Shepard could survive this. Garrus is also heavily wounded, and most of the team will need hospital time if not cybernetic correction."

He puffed again. "The only bright spot is we have captured a geth prime unit that is somehow connected to the Reapers and Tazzik, but even with that information source, the Broker may slip out of our fingers since we can't strike quickly, and his headquarters is mobile, from what Vigil has gathered."

Miranda reviewed their forces. "A surgical strike is still possible, sir. Rasa, Kai Leng, and Pel are all available." She made a grimace of distaste. "As well as Volinski, although he's a bit crude for this kind of thing, given his own high self-opinion—"

Jack Harper gave a single hard laugh, something very unusual for him. "No, Volinski has his purposes, and that isn't a good use of his skills. And I'm well aware of how dangerous both Rasa and Kai are, Miranda, but we'd need a larger strike force – the Broker is unlikely to be unguarded. Proceed with the plan. For now… that means you focus on getting everyone off the planet fast. We'll cover the rest later. Out."

She watched the QEC fade, then sighed. "Vigil, is there anything you could do to… assist?"

The silvery sphere erupted into view atop the projector next to the intel computer, glowing faintly. "I am actually somewhat… overtaxed for the first time in a very long time. The geth are taking a great amount of disruptive damage, but have scattered enough rapid-replication daemons in the systems of the planet that sheer numbers are slowing me."

She nodded, walking back toward medical, and the sphere followed. "In that case, have Joker move us as close as we can to Ezno's group. Use the missiles to drive the Broker group back and get everyone aboard rapidly. If we take hits, we'll just have to deal."

Vigil vanished, and she entered the infirmary in time to see two of the engineers helping Montoya out of his DACT suit, his features covered in soot marred by trickles of sweat and blood. Florez was being taken out of his by Kelly, while Garrus was laying out on the medical bed, clearly in pain.

She moved toward him and reached for the medi-gel and pain suppressors.

O-TWCD-O

The final minutes of the Battle of Ilium were even more chaotic than the opening, as the main Circuits of the geth force examined the data they had. Initial modeling of likely outcomes had not been as positive as actual results, and the test of the new weapon system was a quantified success, but the main objective had eluded them.

Prime 302 had not been physically located.

Worse, data clearly from his databanks had been found in the Dantius Tower in Nos Astra as well as two other locations. An extranet trawl on Nassana Dantius uncovered encrypted comms with multiple parties – Aria T'Loak, Matriarch Thessial of the asari, and, oddly enough, several asari anthropologists.

It was clear at least partial information was taken from Prime 302… and possibly already transferred off-planet. The confirmed presence of Vigil-Slayer-of-Future only drove home the point that something was going on at Ilium beyond mere asari internal bickering.

The only remaining option was to ensure nothing else survived, and that the planet was non-viable for recovery of anything they missed. They could not afford to draw out the engagement – even leaving aside the fact that their ships were outnumbered and being blasted apart, they were losing hundreds of runtimes every second fighting off the unstoppable attacks from Vigil-Slayer-of-Future. Given enough time, that thing could crack their core net-routines and shut them all down.

That would be just as bad if not worse than letting organics take Prime 302 apart.

Left with only a few options, the consensus began figuring out how to react. The asari fleets were badly damaged, but intact enough that their firepower and sheer numbers were enough to pin the geth in place when the much heavier Cerberus fleet arrived. Less than thirty percent of the geth fleet was operational. Out of over half a million units dropped on Ilium, less than a hundred and fifty thousand made it to the surface.

Enough had landed to assume they would succeed – and with that, it was time for the final touches of the operation to be put into place.

Runtime 7C/V-Command 605 started a consensus thread, Circuit-level Only.

7C/V-C: Required consensus call. Forty-seven percent of Ilium population destroyed or will be nonviable in under two megaseconds. Primary data centers destroyed. Multiple impacts of biosphere-killing devices already in place. Ground units will be inside Nos Astra in four hundred seconds.

Additional information: Downstream-data security unit 79M-G44 has secured tight-beam laser link to orbital satellite utilized for live extranet stream by organics. Bandwidth security is high. It is capable of burst transmitting all current copy-downlinks of runtimes.

4C/V-Secondary Command 909: Query: Downlink is secure? Chance of signal interruption and/or coercion?

7C/V-C: Risk minimal. Use of laser-link minimizes detection chances. Estimated time for full copy-downlink of all geth runtimes just under seven hundred seconds. Estimated time for Vigil-Slayer-of-Future to coopt signal downlink is two megaseconds.

Y2K-5 Logic Circuit: Status of goals is incomplete. Prime-302-Downlink-to-Alpha-Prophet not physically located. Data recovered from surface attack indicates some data may have been removed.

FG0-4 Analysis Circuit: Irrelevant. Planetary biosphere has been destroyed by initial strike. Recommend directed crashes of remaining orbital assets once download of all runtime backups is complete. Ground units have salted strontium/cobalt packages. Eleven cruisers with cobalt-60 elemental cores remain viable.

7C/V-C: Likelihood of information from Prime-302 being viable/sufficient to locate or impede geth progress, or localize Station_001?

1VOSK-High Order Logic Circuit: Given destruction of the primary data centers, less than six percent. Recommend full alert on all geth stations. If no moves toward Station_001 detected in one gigasecond, then objective completed.

FG0-4: 92.64% chance that organics will be unsuccessful in obtaining/hacking data from Prime-302 with destruction of Nos Astra. Current biosphere damage reaching catastrophic levels. Estimate all life on planet extinguished in two gigaseconds.

7C/V-C: Consensus proposal. Immediate Hallowed Protocol for all ground units. Detonation of devices to further poison biosphere. Directional crashes of cobalt-60 ships around Nos Astra and all other units engage in direct-contact-combat procedure.

The nature of the geth was one of calm reason and collective examination. In many ways they did not even have the sophistication of EDI. They had no emotions, no mercy or pity, and no desire to change their outlook. Vigil-Slayer-of-Future had obliterated many of them, and they felt neither fear nor fury.

They placed all value in remaking themselves, and this was not the steepest cost they had to pay.

They had expected to lose all runtimes and material in this attack. With the runtimes able to be recovered, logic suggested there was no further value in remaining material assets in the system… and that they should be expended to gain maximum returns.

As bursts of data were sent in bursts of laser light almost invisible to any observer, the ragged remains of the geth drew their line in the sands of space.

Less than thirty ships faced more than three times that number, but the geth counterfire remained brutally accurate. Several geth ships performed interceptions on slower vessels of the enemy, ramming them with intent to cripple and foul lines of maneuvering rather than boarding.

The Cerberus vessels veered from their attack run to avoid crossing directly in front of the line of battle. As soon as they did, seventeen ships of the geth line suddenly changed course, each one plotting in a gravity-assisted crash-landing course near Nos Astra.

By the time the asari realized what the geth were attempting, the ships were already in the atmosphere. GTS towers and GARDIAN arrays illuminated the night sky in brilliant streaks of white and lurid explosions blossomed among the storm clouds. Blasts of energy seared through geth hulls, sprays of missiles and torrents of flak smashed into the diving ships.

But much like the geth on the ground, they could not be stopped. The geth ships accelerated faster, the damage they took irrelevant. Two were blasted in half, but their momentum was such that the debris still carried a far distance.

The defenses around Nos Astra fired rapidly, almost desperately, as a handful of ships slipped out of the edges of the kinetic barrier. The geth ignored the signal returns even as they finalized their courses and put full power to engines.

Perhaps if Vigil had not been so occupied, or if Shepard had been awake, some method might have been reached to stop those ships from crashing. But even as the asari command ship lifted off from the starport – and alongside it, a smaller Alliance frigate – fifteen of the ships tore out of the sky to slam into the terrain around Nos Astra.

Geth runtimes sabotaged their own ships in the final five seconds, and six of the cruiser-scale ships experienced full mass core explosions. Baleful tongues of dark energy speared into the night as chunks of radioactive materials were blown into the atmosphere or hurled at the ground and the ocean beyond.

One ship crashed into the mountains near Nos Astra, coming apart in a smear of white metal and falling rocks, before the two surviving M/AM torpedoes on the ship exploded, sending cascades of radioactive debris smashing into the northern slums of the city.

Nos Astra, the 'Gleaming Jewel of Ilium,' the city of a thousand songs, came apart in hellfire as the other eight surviving ships smashed dead-on into her kinetic fields. The barriers held, but the heat and radioactivity alone spelled death for almost everyone still inside the city limits. Choking clouds of polonium and cobalt-laced dust sifted down, coating the city, and the shockwave collapsed a dozen already weakened buildings.

By the time the last geth ship was shot down in orbit, the geth runtimes had downloaded themselves to the orbital satellite broadcasting the events of the day to the Tyvok News Network, the largest turian news station, as well as a handful of other companies. The burst transmission toward the Perseus Veil transmitted without a hitch, and then the data wiped itself before the satellite's altitude maneuver jets fired randomly and the oversized satellite began to fall from the sky.

The geth on the ground – all low-priority copies of runtimes coded for one task only – stormed toward the western power station of Nos Astra, the last remaining asari dying in waves trying to slow them. Thousands of metallic bodies fell, but the main force pressed on until they were eight hundred meters from the slender, blue-lit towers.

The three mega-colossi with the force opened fire on the cooling towers, even as geth who had spread-out across the city triggered other devices. A second later, the power station underwent a complete containment failure. Sixteen supercooled eezo reactors went up at once.

A good sixty percent of Nos Astra, over six million people within the blast radius, and the last of the geth all vanished in a titanic explosion that sent a plume of blue-white fire into the sky. The majority of the city was already in ruins from the ships crashing into it, but the blast wave toppled kilometer-tall buildings like snapped matchsticks and tore a burning river of hellfire across the city's borders, burning hundreds of thousands more alive.

In orbit, the Valsharess swallowed as she saw the light swell and fade away, a ring of blue-lit smoke radiating out slowly from where the city once stood. She ignored the calls of her Executive Officer as the Cerberus ships slowly reoriented themselves to face the shattered remains of her once proud fleet.

O-TWCD-O

From orbit, Ganar Dhrag shook his head mournfully, before turning to the remaining CEOs. "We're on our way, esteemed matrias and matriarchs. 2nd Fleet is in shambles, but there's a good chance they may stop us for inspection. In case that happens, there's a smuggler's compartment in the medical bay. It shouldn't be a tight fit – it was designed to smuggle krogan, not slender asari. Once the asari clear us, we will head directly for Omega."

On another vessel, Nassana Dantius fingered her necklaces thoughtfully as the battered and clearly wounded Captain Varan limped into the lower mess area. "We have a clear signal to the security force, once we jump out we'll be fine. Geth took your tower out though." He glanced at the status repeaters on the walls of the cramped bridge area. "We already have a better ship incoming, and Broker representatives are ensuring you'll have a smooth trip."

She gave a weak smile at that, but turned back to stare at the dying planet receding in the viewport, fires and plumes of smoke visible from space marring the once beautiful image.

On a third ship, this one in the colors of the Alliance, a frustrated Ashley Williams exhaled. "With all due respect, sir, I'm confused and pissed. We came here to talk – instead, we got shoved into a glorified prison cell passing as a third-rate hotel. We never got to talk to Shepard – all we have is long-distance scans and rumors and hearsay. Why didn't we do something?"

Anderson gave her a thin smile. "Politics. The Commissars are playing some kind of game with the asari, and we're just stuck in the middle." His smile faded. "I'm not happy about how it turned out, but my own authority is sharply limited due to certain events. I'm mostly here to make this look like an Alliance rather than Commissariat op, but you were in the meeting. Dragunov didn't seem like he really wanted peaceful contact, did he?"

Ashley thought back, then scowled. "You mean the Commissars let us stay cooped up in that stupid hotel room on purpose? Why?"

Anderson turned back to look out the porthole window at the blasted planet below. "Whatever went down at that spaceport, do you think we'd have really been equipped to deal with it? We came here to talk, so with the exception of the Lancers, none of us is even armed. The Alliance dealt with the Asari Republic, not the Ilium authorities, to organize this… implying they have been planning this for some time, just looking for an excuse."

Ash shook her head. "This is so fucked up, sir." To that, Anderson merely nodded.

O-TWCD-O

The hard and rumbling voice that emitted from the comm system was almost curt in its tone. "Report."

Clad in the last of his mobile vorcha bodies, the Immutable reviewed the data it had available to it before responding. "The operation was a mitigated failure. We lost the insertion frigate and a total of nineteen heavy combat teams, eleven wet-teams, and four data savants. Additionally, Tetrimus was killed and his body destroyed. Tazzik was severely damaged and he was captured by Cerberus forces. We were unable to offline the Butcher, the Archangel, or the Sisters of Vengeance.

"Additionally, Midnight's Kiss and her team were killed. As my last combat-capable servitor was destroyed by an enemy that Varun Thax went to confront, assume he was also destroyed. Even if they were not, the geth have completely ruined Ilium and destroyed Nos Astra utterly."

The Broker gave a rumbling sound. "You said mitigated failure. Clarify."

"We have recovered Nassana Dantius, alive and with her knowledge. Per data burst and conversation with Tetrimus and Tazzik, Almnrut's task was successful. Matriarch Trellani was critically injured and from footage I cannot imagine her surviving long even with medical assistance. We have uncovered the identities of the Butcher, Archangel, and the Sisters of Vengeance, and confirmed the Cerberus connection. I was able to obtain extensive scans and data on all elements of their team as well as confirm Vigil is working with Cerberus."

The machine paused then continued. "Additionally, the destruction of Nos Astra – and the ruination of the planet – makes it unlikely anyone will be able to divine our true motives on the world, or link us in any way to certain unpalatable parties such as Midnight's Kiss."

The Broker was silent for long seconds. "Very well. The loss of Tetrimus and Tazzik is not crippling at this juncture. It will require readjustments, however. Your task is simpler. I will require Dantius to be conveyed to our secondary routing center on Vol Prime. I will have a secure vessel and additional forces there to meet you, as well as your payment for your own service."

The Immutable calculated for some time – almost a full second – before responding. "Understood. Vol Prime will be a useful stop, as I require additional mobile forms from the volus dealers in vorcha. Our interaction has been profitable. I am willing to continue to assist you, but in what manner depends on how you respond to this issue."

"I do not have a response at this time." Frustration laced the words. "The majority of our combat ground forces and all of my most powerful direct subordinates were on Ilium. While I still have significant fleet assets, a force capable of matching the people working for Harper is not presently available. If they go after my operations in the Far Rim, it will be disastrous."

The AI felt a surge of amusement at this admission. "In that case, I have a proposition. My own calculations have indicated Cerberus will not go after the Rim operation until they have destroyed you and the Network as a whole. I believe once they localize you, they will attempt a full assault. For the proper payment, I can assist in bolstering your forces against such an attack."

The Broker made a sound that it took the Immutable a second to identify as laughter. "I will have Barla Von contact you. As for Cerberus attacking me, that is exactly what I wish them to do."

The Immutable ran the odds on such a statement and outcome and came to one conclusion. "…Tazzik survived because the information he has will lead them to a trap."

The rumbling voice had a note of amusement to it. "There are tasks which you just can't delegate. Once you have dropped off the asari and are in a suitable form, meet Barla Von on the Citadel. I will be in contact. Broker out."

The connection died, and Varan walked up behind him, mandibles close to his jaw. "Orders?"

The vorcha turned to face him, its voice quieter than usual. "Make full speed to Vol Prime. Then I will need conveyance to the Citadel, but the Broker will provide that. He should have additional tasking for you there."

Varan flicked a mandible. "Fine by me. What's left of our forces are pretty much broken at this point, so I'm glad we're not being sent after Cerberus." He paused, clicking his teeth sharply. "But what are we doing about Cerberus?"

The Immutable's vorcha host gave the turian a long look. "They have incited the Broker to handle the matter. Personally."

Varan blinked, then shook his head slowly. "Well, we won't have to worry about them anymore at least."