HOLOCAUST
CHAPTER FOUR:
CONVERGENCE
June 3, 2186
1006 hours.
Military Checkpoint C9, Rekalhafg Gutter 5, Rekalhafg, Khar'Shan.
The Reaper War, Fall of Khar'Shan.
Gerek Maawt, Rmaz Qualr.
The heavens had fallen. The clouds had crumbled and burned. From them came the hordes of hell; monolithic demons that were kilometers in length, blowing through their fleet to descend upon them. Airhorns blasting through the area like a descending cloud of death. It was the closest definition of hell he could find, and it converged all around them, seemingly consuming the planet and all it was worth. His home was being invaded by an enemy more powerful than any could imagine.
Khar'Shan had fallen. His world burned. His people were gathered up and either murdered, and sent into concentration camps that the unknown enemy had set up on the planet; and they never came back out again; not even as bodies. No, the person they were was destroyed, and replaced with the cybernetic body of a mindless husk; a cannibal. That was the fate that awaited the batarian species if they all fell into this enemy's hands.
I sure as hell won't get caught then.
And as he looked down up at the child he currently ran with in his arms, he knew damn well he wasn't letting those bastards get his hands on her.
She wasn't even his child; she had been a little child he had found outside the school, all covered in dust and crying. He had picked her up, and quickly began running as he heard husks heading their way. Now he just kept running and running, all the while the child get crying for her mum and dad. They're dead kid; either that, or being turned into one of their mechanical servants. You and I will be too if we don't find somewhere to hide.
The streets were empty, but the sound was never absent. As he ran down the empty road, child in his arms, he could hear gunfire in the distance; screams, which were in turn answered by the terrific airhorns of their enormous enemy. Flames licked at any building they could touch; a swath of destruction moving along their world and burning it to ashes. Rekalhafg wasn't Khar'Shan's capital city, but it was one of its major population centers.
Now it was just ashes and dust and death and wrath. The Pillars of Strength weren't enough to save them, and they all knew the batarian hegemony had all but fallen; their own government dead. Not that any batarian would mourn our dead leaders. The fall of the Hegemony should be a celebration; but there is little time to celebrate when the people who fell upon your enemy are now trying to kill you.
And this enemy made the Hegemony look merciful.
Abandoned skycars littered the road, either covered in ash, or acting as tombs for the dead. Civilians and military alike covered the ground, covered in their own blood and occassionally accompanied by a dead husk; whether it be human or batarian in origin. Some of the cars burned and crackled, and some sections of the road looked like they had been blown apart. Row upon row of buildings aligned Gutter 5, but they looked no different then they had under Hegemonial rule; rundown and stagnant, with little to no maintenance or caring put into its construction. Now some had been blown wide open, their debris laying on the ground before it, their interior scorched and flaming. Some had been damaged and some significantly so, but others were left untouched, as if they had never witnessed an attack at all.
He was getting tired now; his lungs heaving with the effort to keep him supplied with oxygen. His four eyes continously closed and opened as he felt a huge stitch form in the pit of his abdomen, but he willed himself to continue, the weeping sounds of a child in his arms possessing him into action, so he kept running. The need to survive was strong.
He had been walking to work when the city saw the attack. The ground had shook, and everyone had rushed onto the street to see a piece of hull from a batarian warship, scorched and barely recognizable, wedged in the ground, and it was quickly followed by more from the sky, and they had looked up to see what seemed to be the entire batarian navy falling from the heavens to land on Khar'Shan...
...then they had come. Down they descended, blowing their airhorns and stretching their legs out wide as they fell towards them. Some were two kilometers in height, while others were 160 meters, but all of them were huge, and he had watched crowds of people vanish into nothing as they were impacted by high-velocity beams of accellerated tungsten hitting with the force of 40 megatons of TNT, either blowing them asunder, blasting them into ashes or simply vaporizing them into atoms; either way, he had watched a slaughter, and had run as fast as he could. The coward he was, he didn't even see if his wife or kids were okay. It was fight or flight; and he had run as fast as he could. Abandoned his wife and kids to die. And the more sickening thing about it, was that he didn't care. He had always been selfish, and this was the epitome of it.
He had kept on running, his family most likely captured or killed by the enemy, but he didn't care; just kept running. He had even hid as a tank, a captured Alliance Grizzly, had rolled past, followed by a convoy of old Hegemony Ravager-Class armoured support vehicles; a large, bulky vehicle with two, large 55mm cannons that had a firing rate that was pretty slow, but incredibly powerful. They had moved in a convoy, accompanied by two Hegemony Mantis gunships, and at least forty batarian soldiers. They had raced past to meet the enemy, and he had watched just one...one...of those damn things fire into them; a single beam practically annihilating the convoy with one swath, followed by the rest of the force with a second, and the enemy had continued on...and that had been one of the 160 meter tall ones.
Wasn't long before he ran into the child; still sitting outside of the school, balling his eyes out. He had picked up the child and moved to leave, but a batarian soldier had fast approached, barking at him to stay put, his rifle raised. He continued to yell, and Gerek thought he would die, but just as quickly as the soldier appeared, he disappeared as a husk tackled him onto the ground, tearing his throat out with his teeth. Gerek had run away to the sound of the soldier's choked screaming, which seemed to intensify the child's crying.
And now here they were; running. Just running, as fast as they can, hoping to outrun them. But what was the point? They were everywhere. Their armies dropped from the skies and landed in the mountains, and these gargantuan vessels seemed to land in every major city; he doubted even the capital was safe. Where could they hide, that this enemy was not already at? Was this the beginning of the end for the batarian race?
What if this was the enemy that Commander Shepard had been talking about?
Any thought of the human or his species was dragged away as he reached a military checkpoint on the road, causing him to stop.
It was abandoned, that much was obvious. A large wall had been set up, obviously makeshift, with two towers watching over it and a large, steel gate that was open. One of the ladders leading up to one tower was dripping blood, and below was the mutilated corpse of a hegemony soldier, along with numerous other dead soldiers and civilians around it; the stench of gore reaching his nose and almost making him retch. A grizzly was left abandoned behind it, its hatch open. Slowly, and respectfully, he edged his way through the overrun checkpoint, trying to keep his eyes off the dead bodies and his mind off the wretched smell of the rotting cadavers around him.
The area beyond the checkpoint was all the same; more death, more abandonment. It was always the same.
What wasn't the same was one thing. The kid wasn't crying anymore, and he heard a tiny voice speak, words muffled by his shoulder, but still hearable.
"How much furthur?"
He gulped, swallowing as he tried to relieve his dry throat, "Not far. Just this last street."
"I want my mummy. I want my daddy."
He sighed, shaking his head as he began moving forward again, shaken into action by another, distant airhorn blast, the sound shaking him to the core. He hated it, "Well you can't see them. They're dead; they took them. The enemy took them."
He heard a sniffle, followed by the kid talking, "Who are the eneeme? I don't no the enemee. Are they bad peepel?
"Yes," he turned, watching the destruction in the distance, and the distant screaming as people were dragged into the camps. He just as quickly ripped his gaze away, unable to watch the horrors taking place, "They're very bad people. Evil." And evil doesn't even begin to describe them. Unfathomable? Malevolent? Sick? Horrific?
"I'm not scared," the kid stated, seemingly proudly, as Gerek began to break into another run, "My daddy taught me to never be scared, in case the hege..hege...hagam-"
"Hegemony," Gerek corrected.
"Yeh. Them," she stated, "He told me to never be scared. Are you scared?"
More than you know. I think I pissed myself, "Yes."
"I'm not," the kid repeated, "I won't be. I cant be. Im better than that, my daddy said."
You're braver than me. I'm just a bloody coward; the coward who fled and left his wife and kids to a unimaginable death, only to save a kid I don't even know.
He could only mutter a single response, "At least one of us is brave. At least one of us isn't scared." But she is scared. Just like me. I saw it in her eyes. She's terrified, and she has every right to be. Pillars of Strength, grant me at least enough courage to save us from this predicament. Can't be much further.
He wasn't wrong. Not technically. The end of the street had only been a kilometer up, and they had reached an intersection; one took them out towards the city walls, while the other moved further into the city's shopping district; if you could even call it that. The place looked just as deserted as the rest had, but it was clear this part of the city had not been touched yet.
He sighed, looking up into the sky, and drinking in its contents; but the taste was bitter, and bloody. The sky was the same vibrant orange as it had always been, glowing like a great fire, but now it was even brighter; brighter with the colors of the enem-The Reapers, dropping from the sky.
We all know what they are. Shepard warned us they were coming, and the idiocy of our government will cost us our existence.
The kid spoke again, "I wanna go home. I dont wanna stay hear."
He smiled, but it was grim, "We're leaving now. We'll go somewhere safe. Far away." A hole in the ground, maybe. Those bastards won't think of looking there for us.
He took a step forward, but as soon as he did, it was like a trigger for damnation. For destruction. But it wasn't of the kind you'd expect. It was of a different origin. Of batarian origin.
Sirens. They built in crescendo, like a wailing animal, rearing in alarm. His head shot up and the child started to cry again at the sound, and he began patting his back to calm her down, but it did nothing, and he just kept wailing. The sirens continued, and he didn't seem to recognize them, unable to understand what was going on. Why are they-
Then he saw it. Rising into the sky; missiles, five of them, rising from the ground and shooting up, but all spreading in different directions, and only one headed for them. He watched it with a frown as the lone rocket moved towards the city center. He saw three missiles in the distance get shot down, as if the Reapers were desperate to destroy them. Why? They're just...just...his eyes widened in horror and he cried out, his own eyes brimming with tears as he ran like a coward, heading for the exit, child in hand. He knew what came next. He wanted out.
And he remembered that the kid was still turned around.
A brilliant flash sounded behind him, and the child roared in agony. He turned the child back around, who's tears had started flowing like a well as she closed her eyes, a sizzle coming from them. And then, like a fool, he turned around, and froze.
The middle of the city was gone; a great mushroom cloud in its place, rising up into the sky. Its many rings surrounded it, and he could only watch as buildings began to combust into flames, and others simply blew apart, skycars and the like being thrown up into the sky like leaves on the wind. He growled as he felt his skin begin to prickle and burn, and he looked down, watching his skin begin to redden, and blisters formed. The blisters then popped, and his skin crackled again, before beginning to blacken and bleed. He roared in pain as he looked back, listening to the kid's screams as they were both burnt asunder. And as he melted and burnt, he watched the shockwave of the nuclear blast reach him, and this time, he looked upon it like a guardian angel.
Being blasted into atoms was better than burning alive, after all.
The blast hit him, and everything went black. The last thing he felt was his body being blasted into nothing, and the whoosing of the wind.
But this wind was angry. And burning.
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June 4, 2186
0940 hours.
Main Bridge, Amacus-Class Supercarrier THS Solemn Reaper, In Orbit of the Trebia Relay, Trebia Relay, Apien Crest Cluster.
The Reaper War, Battle of Palaven.
Didact Irix Coronati.
Irix Coronati, Head of the Turian Navy, and loyal patriot to the Hierarchy, was worried.
Normally, he was unfazed. As a turian, war was his lifestyle, his creation. He was molded in the art of combat, and defined by his ability to kill. All turians were warriors after signing up at the age of fifteen, and Irix knew this better than most, especially as he was Didact of the Turian Navy; one of the most prominent and important positions in the Hierarchy, hell, the Council, due to the turian fleet's significance in maintaining galactic peace. When it came to the galactic community, everyone knew of the turians, and either feared their wrath, or respected their audacity.
The turians had defeated every threat known to Palaven, and the Council, including their own people. They had united after the Unification War; they saved the galaxy from the krogan in the Rebellions. Palaven never fell, and neither did the turians. They were held together by three things alone; patriotism and devotion to the hierarchy, willingness to sacrifice for the greater good, and the need to protect those who could not defend themselves.
But now came an enemy even the turians couldn't comprehend.
Irix had heard the reports galaxy wide; a new enemy had reared its ugly head, an enemy called the Reapers, and it had practically toppled the Batarian Hegemony and Human Alliance in just six hours, capturing both of their homeworlds respectively; and now their next target was the heart of galactic military power itself; Palaven, birth place of the turian race.
Irix was worried because Palaven had never fallen before, but this enemy appeared to be unbelievably powerful, not to mention intelligent. The Systems Alliance had been the Hierarchy's only rival in terms of tactical brilliance, tenacity and strength; their navy rivalling the turians in sheer size. And even they had fallen easily to the Reaper onslaught; an invasion seemingly out of nowhere.
And now they come to burn my world too. But he wouldn't let it happen; the turians would not fall. They could not. The loss of Palaven would cripple the Hierarchy's resolve, and serve to weaken the Council. It was why he was here now; he had originally been assisting a task force set up by Primarch Fedorian himself; assigned to improving the Trebia System for possible enemy invasion; and all because a certain Garrus Vakarian had advised it. And now it was paying off.
The early warning systems they had in place had warned that the Reapers were splitting once more, leaving a fifth of their forces at Earth, and having the rest head straight for the Apien Crest. Their buoys detected them entering the cluster, and it gave them time to prepare and mobilize. The strongholds and defenses on Menae were garrisoned and activated, and the turian blackwatch, marines and army were all securing every major Palavade orbital space station, and major city; cities were evacuated, positions fortified. The turians were ready, with ArchGeneral Adrien Victus, a man he knew personally, moving to Menae to direct his troops from there.
Irix had elected to split his own ships. Half of his fleet; the First through to the Sixth, was positioned over Palaven, while the Seventh through to the Tenth aligned the system, waiting in reserve. Irix had the Eleventh through to the Sixteenth, all of them positioned behind the relay; their plan was to take the Reapers by surprise by hitting them in the back, use their own perceived enemy arrogance against them. The Reapers would believe that their enemy would be so misinformed on their abilities, that they'd try a head-on assault, and the Reapers would carve through them like they did at Earth and Khar'Shan; but they would find no easy victory here. The turians would wait behind the relay, and hit them from the rear with overwhelming force; torpedoes, nuclear ballistic rockets, cruise missiles, bunker busters, pulse lasers, GARDIANs, MAC guns, fuel rods, and the lot. And if that hadn't helped; they had deployed nuclear space mines around the relay's entrance, which means they'd be heavily weakened upon entry into the system.
Now, it was a waiting game. His supercarrier, the Solemn Reaper, as it was so ironically called, sat in the middle of the Fourteenth Fleet which was at the forefront of the relay defense. Numerous fighter wings sat around them, along with numerous frigates, destroyers, cruisers and a single battleship. His forces' six dreadnoughts were positioned all over, with their own escorts, and one seemed to be escorting its fleet's supercarrier, the THS Trebia's Reckoning, which had deployed all its fighter wings to defend its fleet upon orders of that fleet's admiral.
Irix stood on the bridge, galaxy map in front of him and his men's consoles awash with light as they typed. He stood there in full turian medium armor, the black of the colony of Baetus painting his features, his mandible silently twitching as he stood stiffly, hands clasped behind his back. He took in light breaths, maintaining the aura of a infallible battle commander to his troops. He had no idea just what he was expecting to face; weapons, numbers, armor, capabilities. All four of them were an unknown, the only thing he knew was that they were Reapers, and that their name was very fitting. And that was just enough to scare him.
He couldn't take the silence anymore. It might consume him. He raised his voice, flanged tones reverberating through the bridge, "Status update. What have our interior cluster beacons picked up?"
"The Reapers are advancing, but ableit slowly," one of his officers stated, "They seem to be taking their time sweeping the other systems before heading here. The Gemmae System has fallen, and they're moving towards Trebia, with the other third of their invading force cleaning up in the Castellus can assume they'll be here to bolster their forces soon."
Irix nodded. They're neatralizing any threat our inner colonies and fortresses pose to their invasion of Palaven, so they'll dispose of them before moving to us. They know we're a threat, and won't be hasty like they did with the Kite's Nest and Local Clusters. They'll take their time here, and that'll give us the advantage. But to think that Trebia is the final bastion of the Apien Crest...
"Estimation of their numbers?" Irix demanded, turning to his tactical officer, who immediately began running the numbers through his terminal. I cannot show weakness or despair. Anything like that, and their morale will be crushed, and hope lost. Besides, the turian hierarchy has learnt from the Alliance's mistake; to destroy the Reapers, we must fight overwhelming force with overwhelming force; we don't meet them with a third of our navy, we meet them with our entire navy, all at once, everything we have. It'll have to be enough. And Irix was lucky enough to have the heavy cruiser THS Seraph, part of the Twelfth Fleet, which had been fitted with one of the hierarchy's prototype thanix cannons; a weapon salvaged from the depths of Sovereign. They won't expect us to fight them with their own weaponry. The only other ships in the fleet with the technology was the dreadnought THS Incorruptible, which had two of them, and the destroyer THS Manevolence of Creed, both being part of the Fourth Fleet, and currently in the juristiction of the forces of Palaven.
The tactical officer replied, looking up at him, "The forces from Gemmae currently heading for us are around 52 in strength; with eleven Sovereign-Class capital ships, thirty-three troop transports, and the rest are Destroyers."
Fifty-two. And that's not even accounting for their main bulk in the Castellus system, "And the size of their main fleet?"
The operator gulped as he typed in the commands, and turned back to him, his features replaced with one of turian courage and valor, "In the thousands, sir. Sources indicate that a third is setting up a no-fly zone in the cluster, another third is making sure the cluster itself is clean, and the rest is attacking the Castellus System. All up, I count at least eight hundred and eighty-one capital ships, two-hundred and forty destroyers, five hundred troop transports, hundreds of others of types we cannot ascertain."
Irix gulped, not liking those numbers. The least we can do is weaken them. The Batarians and Humans weren't able to kill any of them, but we'll be able to kill a couple, at least. Show the galaxy they can be destroyed; they ain't invincible, and give them a rallying cry.
"That's good enough Gunnery Master," Irix replied, giving him a curt nod of the head before turning to look back at his galaxy map, which had currently been replaced by a holographic representation of the Trebia System; its small, but old, sun lying in the middle, Aventen being closest to Trebia, followed by Caelax. Palaven itself, along with its moon, Menae, quickly followed, and then came the colony of Impera and Essenus. And at the very edge of the system, was Datruix.
The Hierarchy had set up colonies on Impera and Essenus, but they were mostly military-controlled installations; all of which had been abandoned and evacuated as soon as word of the Reaper invasion came, and all forces were garrisoned around Palaven; every turian knowing that the defense of their homeworld always came first.
"Sir!" An urgent voice called out, "We just received word from the Hierarchy! Taetrus has fallen to the Reapers! The Mactare System is gone!"
Irix's eyes widened. Taetrus had always been a symbol of the Hierarchy's ability to protect its people, and the triumph of good over evil ever since the separatist terrorist attack on its capital during the Unification War. But to learn that it had once again fallen...it would cripple the Hierarchy's resolve. Spirits...this is becoming a harder fight than we originally thought.
"Those Reaper bastards," one turian hissed.
Irix raised an eyebrow from him, gaining enough strength to raise his head and look at him, "What?"
"They...I don't know, but they've tapped into our communications network and they're transmitting this image throughout all channels."
Irix watched the image pop up, and he had to stop himself from slouching or turning away. There, still as a freeze frame, as an image of Taetrus' capital lying in ruins, flames gushing up into its atmosphere and people dying in the streets, with Reapers raining death on the populace, along with others dropping from the sky. It was a slaughter house, and a voice spoke through the channel, causing them to flinch upon hearing its demonic, synthetic tone.
"Your destruction is all but assured," the voice stated, "The batarians and humans have fallen; it is not long before your race is also harvested. Surrender to your ascension, and you will know solace and tranquility. We are the Nazara. The Protheans, and the races of your cycle, called us the Reapers. We are your salvation through destruction. Meet your end with dignity, and you shall not have died in vain. Ascend to your new form...Reaper form," the Reaper finished, its voice seeming to echo within his brain, "Resist if you must, but know this, your time has come, and Harbinger will lead us to victory, as it always has in the many cycles before you. The Protheans fell, and so will you. I am Vanguard, and I bring you peace, alongside extinction."
A pulse. He saw it, clear as day, and immediately zoomed in on the map to the Trebia Relay, where he, indeed, saw a pulse coming from the relay, followed by it getting more intense, meaning something was coming through. This was it; the enemy was here, and they would throw everything they had at the turians in an attempt to destroy them.
The images of Taetrus disappeared as he announced battlestations, ordering his comms officer to give him a direct line to all the fleets at the relay. They all knew their orders; he just wanted command when they joined in battle. Their fleets were in battle standard; a wedge formation of ships, ready to batter the enemy head-on. It was a tactic the turians used to great effect, and he would enjoy seeing it at work with their current foe.
I am Vanguard, and I bring you peace, alongside extinction.
Irix braced against the railing, ready to engage. And just as he blinked, the relay flashed a final, brilliant blue, and the first Reaper came through, by the other fifty-one of them.
Irix closed his eyes as the multiple flashes of all the relay's nuclear mines detonating became too brilliant for him to watch. He could only close his eyes, and hoped when he opened them, that his fleet had done some damage.
Upon opening them again, he felt a small grin tug at his mandibles. The nuclear mines had done significant damage to the enemy; He watched the mangled, torn metal debris of a destroyer float away, red eye flashing in and out of existence, while two troop transports looked crippled, and drifting. Another Sovereign-Class Reaper had been blasted in half, and another had lost two of its legs. Overall, it was more kills than the rest of the galaxy had gotten. And more than one kill. Lets finish them.
"Have the Undaunted and Resolute deploy their fighter wings to harass theirs," Irix ordered, "Then have the Plight, Retribution, Contrite and the Call for Balance FTL jump into the center of their formation and unloaded everything they have; take them by surprise. Have the rest of our ships pull back and unleash our payloads for a distance."
He watched the battle practically play itself; turian battle prowess always paying off. Swarms of winged dots shot out of the carriers Undaunted and Resolute, along with their defenses firing, and they engaged the enemy Oculi, small flashes signalling combat. Oculi seemed to harass the carriers' defenses, but they held out, allowing his fleets to pull back to a safe distance so as to not be in the Reapers' firing range.
He also watched as the dreadnoughts Plight of the Eleventh Fleet, Retribution of the Twelfth, Contrite of the Thirteenth and Call for Balance of the Fourteenth shot forward and disappeared as they entered faster than light travel, reappearing in a nanosecond in the Reapers' center; what happened next was just glorious. The dreadnoughts fired their weapons, and he watched as brighter flashes joined the already sustained engagement, but this time with multiple ICBMs going off, missiles impacting hulls, and numerous fuel rods and pulse lasers firing at the enemy, along with the ocassional report of a MAC gun.
He watched as the dreadnoughts finished off the half destroyed Reaper and the one with the missing legs, followed by the crippled troop transports. A Reaper capital ship turned to fire its main gun at one dreadnought, but sustained fire from the four dreadnoughts broke through the capital ships' shields, and eventually destroyed it. One Reaper destroyer managed to land ontop of the Contrite, but quickly found itself blown apart from the overwhelming gunfire placed on it, and it eventually exploded, showering debris through space.
The rest of the fleets in position, he ordered them to type in firing solutions and fire at will. The space between the two foes lit up; bright beams of red and blue, green and yellow ripped through the fabric of space and impacted the enemy, tearing into them. He watched one Reaper finally counterattack, red beam of light impacting and cutting clean through the Thirteenth's carrier, tearing through its barriers and armor like it all added up to nothing. Another Reaper followed suit, blowing into a light cruiser, but that was the last of the casualities the enemy wrought; two capital ships responsible quickly finding themselves blown to pieces from the sheer onslaught.
But then his eyes caught on one particular Reaper Destroyer, and it seemed to eye him with a malevolence, and he felt like he recognized it. And then he did. He didn't know how he knew, but that Reaper was the one that called itself Vanguard; the one that spoke in the image broadcasted on the news. The one that mocked us about Taetrus.
I am Vanguard, and I bring you peace, alongside extinction.
He watched Vanguard land ontop of the Undaunted, and its defenses weren't enough to save it. The destroyer fired its beam, gutting the carrier from the inside and out, and Irix watched the laser tear through the other side, before swinging its body to the right, and cutting the vessel clean in half. The Resolute attempted to destroy Vanguard, but was simply swatted aside by one Reaper capital ship's leg, causing the carrier to collapse in on itself and fall apart.
A brillant beam of blue light erupted from the Seraph's belly, and he watched it connect with a nearby Reaper troop transport. The beam, after batting against the thing's shields, quickly broke through it and gutted the Reaper completely, destroying it. Satisfied with its victory, the Seraph gave itself time to recharge, and Irix shook his head. If only we have more of those cannons on our ships...we'd win the war within a week.
Their onslaught continued for three minutes, their forces exchanging fire; for every ship a Reaper destroyed, the turians would destroy one, cripple or damage another. It was an even trade, and Irix found himself pleased with the results, if only alittle. He believed that the Battle of Palaven might just turn in their favor.
Then he watched as fourteen Reaper destroyers simply vanished into FTL, followed by four capital ships. And before he could ask where they went, they reappeared.
Inside of their fleet formation.
Upon reemerging, one capital ship had rammed into two frigates, causing them to blow apart like broken splinters of wood, and it immediately rose its leg, a hot tongue of molten tungsten shooting out and gutting a nearby destroyer. The Destroyers got to work tearing into his ships, managing to destroy six more of his warships in the time it took for them to emerge from FTL. The capital ships spread out, using the turians' surprise and arrogance against them as they began destroying ship by ship, turning the battle in their favor. Where once Irix had been winning, he was now losing at a rapidly declining rate.
Another beam of blue light pierced two Destroyers in a consecutive order, reducing them to heated pieces of metal in space, and Irix had to restrain himself from crying out in triumph as he watched the Seraph facing the enemy incursion, thanix cannon now fired and needing to cooldown. He ordered the Solemn Reaper turned around and its fighter complement deployed, noticing that the fighters from the Undaunted and Resolute were now gone; overwhelmed now that their carriers were gone and could not provide any support.
These bastards think fast. They adapted more quickly and recovered more rapidly than I could have thought. An organic admiral would have been too stunned to do anything until it was too late; but they recovered unbelievably fast.
As he turned however, he could only watch as Vanguard ignored most of the ships around him and shot straight for the oblivious Seraph, a capital ship behind it simply ramming any ships that got in his way.
He heard its voice in his head as he saw the Seraph slowly turn to face the threat, but not fast enough, "Your courage is admirable, and you have shown yourselves to be worthy opponents. But you are foolish; you cannot hope to escape your destiny. Your destruction is at hand."
The Seraph charged up its thanix cannon, but Vanguard had already latched onto it, legs grasping its body like a blood-sucking mosquito, ensuring the heavy cruiser couldn't escape. Unable to fight back, the Seraph was blown apart as Vanguard fired its beam directly into its missile silos, detonating all the missiles inside in a cascade that broke the cruiser's spine, before causing it to depressurize, implode and then explode. And Vanguard, all the while during this, just lazily drifted off, as if killing had become so casual it was like completing a chore. The Seraph's debris drifted off, and Irix watched their action's only hope drift away. Without its thanix cannon, we can't hope to hold off the main force when it gets here. I need the reserves...
He moved to have the comms officer open a channel with the fleets in reserve, but watched as the four dreadnoughts he had FTL jump into the enemy fleet turned around and began firing long range at the enemy, hitting them directly. The troop transports weren't that much of a threat, so they focused mainly on the destroyers and capital ships. Streaks of light blew through space and slammed against shields and armor, doing damage all the same. And Irix felt some hope creep into his mind.
Only to have it stamped out again, this time much more violently, as the relay brimmed with activity once more.
The first capital ship through rammed straight into the Retribution, the dreadnought literally exploding outwards at the speed of the impact; like a shotgun's spread. But this capital ship wasn't normal; it was four kilometers larger than capital ships, and it had eyes; eyes that glowed brilliant orange. He had heard the Alliance's reports about this one. The leader of the Reapers, and the most powerful.
Harbinger, they called it. They didn't exaggerate its size. Spirits...
More of them poured through, and they just came in a neverending swarm. They seemed to completely ignore the debris of their fallen comrades and simply turned around, forming a wall of impenetrable armor that began to converge them, Harbinger taking up the rear to deal with the three remaining dreadnoughts.
The Contrite fired everything it had at Harbinger, but its shields simply absorbed the assault, and converged on the THS Plight. The Call for Balance turned onto a full broadside and gave the Reaper leader everything it had, but what it had wasn't enough, and Harbinger rammed into the Plight, scattered its crew and hull to the wind. Contrite and Call for Balance attempted to pull out of the engagement, but Harbinger wasn't having it, and its body lit up as four, bright red beams leapt out from its belly, the first cutting the Contrite completely in half, the second impacting the bow of the Call for Balance and coming out the other end. The third detonated the Contrite's fusion reactor, causing it to detonate in a brilliant flash, and the fourth cut the Call for Balance down the middle. In the span of seconds, Harbinger had wiped out four of the Hierarchy's dreadnoughts like they were nothing.
Luckily for us, the Plight and the Contrite were up for decomissioning anyway; construction of the Salvation and Rupture was completely yesterday, and they were due to be launched at the Citadel tomorrow; luckily they're still there, so the Reapers can't destroy them. Even so, the destruction of four of the turian navy's most powerful warships was a devastating blow, and Irix pondered how long before his own supercarrier fell victim.
Meanwhile, his fleets were being annihilated, and their victory wasn't so assured anymore. They had lost the element of surprise ages ago, and now the Reapers were free to use their overwhelming force tactics to obliterate the opposition. The Eleventh Fleet was all but completely devastated, with its flagship and admiral gone, along with the majority of its cruisers, destroyers and frigates. The Twelfth was quickly being overrun, and the Thirteenth's flanking tactic had been met with brute force. Vanguard and Harbinger were now tackling the Fourteenth, and it wasn't long before the Fifteenth and Sixteenth, unharmed by the combat apart from losing a few ships to the Reaper FTL counterattack, were called into engagement, and he would assuredly lose them as well.
Only hope we have of regaining any favor in this is to regroup with the First through to the Sixth over Palaven and hope that our combined firepower can keep them at bay, or at least delay them until reinforcements from the Council can arrive. He remembered the Hierarchy's creed, repeating it in his head.
"Palaven has never fallen, and therefore the turian spirit has never died. You can stab it, rip it, blast it or mutilate it. You can mock it, you can burn it, you can question it, you can doubt it, but you cannot kill it. It exists in every turian; it is part of our being; its in our blood. Long live the Hierarchy; long live the Turian Empire, and let it be known that Palaven has never fallen, and the Siege of Menae during the Rebellions does not count. Fight our enemies brothers and sisters; and know that your spirit is undefeatable."
Palaven has never fallen; and it won't now. Not even to the Reapers.
He had to order a retreat to Palaven before all was lost. He turned to his comms officer, "Order a full retreat back to the fleets stationed at Menae. Inform them ahead in advance that we've engaged the enemy and inflicted losses, but they're main force arrived and overwhelmed us. Tell them...the Battle for Palaven has begun in earnest."
"Very well sir!" he turned back to his terminal, "Sounding the retreat!"
"Captain, get us to Menae, full combat speed!" Irix ordered, shouting down to his subordinate, "I wanted us there yesterday."
The captain didn't even acknowledge the command; here merely relayed it to his bridge crew, and Irix watched as numerous turians of many different colonial stripes and gender moved about, executing their orders like well-trained warriors of the hierarchy did, and he turned to gaze back at the map of the turian home system, shaking his head, sighing.
The Hiearchy had been hoping for a quick victory, and they'd be very disappointing. No, this war would be long and bloody, Irix could tell. And, as he watched his fleet break away and enter FTL, followed by the Solemn Reaper, he could only wonder at just how many more people would die before the Reapers were defeated; if they were defeated.
I hate the Council, he thought also, If they had listened to Shepard three years ago, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess.
And now Palaven was paying the price for their inability to act.
He hoped Councilor Sparatus was contrite with himself.
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June 4, 2186
1258 hours.
Excavation Area, ExoGeni Research Dig, Colony New Hope, Eden Prime.
The Reaper War.
Powell.
The crate he was carrying was unbelievably heavy, probably containing numerous pieces of equipment he had no business poking around in. Either way, carrying it had been a bitch, and proven to be impossible with anyone with less strength than a krogan, so he had been forced to use a two-wheeled trolley to just move the damn thing around, and even pushing that had proven to be quite the challenge. Yet again, he wasn't exactly the mesomorphic type, and his body was pathetically limited its lifting option.
It had been three years since his experience in Colony Euphoria; he had been there during the outbreak of the Eden Prime War. He remembered just working, taking a nap, only to wake up and watch from behind a stack of crates as a mothership bigger than anything he'd ever seen descended from the sky and landed, its geth minions swarming all over the colony and butchering marine and civilian alike. They had reduced the colony to a smoking ruin, and all he had done was hide. Then he watched the spectre villain himself, Saren Arterius, murder Nihlus Kryik, if he remembered the name correctly, and simply walk off. It had also been the place he met the Commander Marcus Shepard, although he gathered it wasn't that much of an honor to know the man anymore.
The guy blew up an entire star system full of batarians. Murderous freak.
Powell had resolved to staying on Eden Prime ever since then, deciding to move and live in Colony New Hope, on the opposite end of the planet. The Colony recently became famous a a few months ago when confirmation was reached that a massive prothean structure had been located under their colony, and two companies had come running to lay claim; ExoGeni Corporation, and Synthetic Insights. Of course, ExoGeni lay claim first, and before you knew it, they owned an entire excavationary dig dedicating to unearthing the structure and selling the technology to the Council for an outrageous amount of money. ExoGeni had promised to pay those a healthy sum of the profits if they helped in the dig, and Powell had signed up quicker than ever. And now here he was, moving crates around.
He felt ripped off.
The excavation was still ongoing, but they were getting very close now; a kilometer more, and they'd have full access to the structure below, and all its secrets. Its discovery could not only dwarf the Prothean Beacon discovery back at Colony Euphoria, but could make the Mars Archives discovery seem like child's play. Powell had to admit, he was intrigued. That beacon almost got me killed, but this? Just what secrets are inside? And to think, its discovered on a human colony. The Alliance could just take this and keep it to themselves...just what lays down there?
An ancient prothean stronghold? Outpost? Shipyard? Some long, lost city? Another stupid beacon? Maybe Eden Prime's equivalent of the Mars Archives? Just what was down there, and what prothean information did it hold? Maybe it'll tell us just how the protheans build the mass relays and the Citadel...and then we could replicate it...huh, the first human-made Citadel and mass relays...then the Council will kiss our asses.
The thoughts were shaken away as he arrived at his destination, pulling the trolley to a stop and offloading the cargo onto the elevator. He took a peek down the shaft, and let out a whistle. The dig site was a square in shape, and was at least two kilometers in depth. A tree had been uprooted from its position and now lay at its side nearby, and Powell seemingly found himself being reminded of Earth; the long, green grass fields, and the blue and white sky. Mountains lining the landscape, and birds flapping in every direction. It really was Eden. Looks just like Earth; almost an exact copy.
He heard the drill down below, and looked up to see numerous ExoGeni personnel moving around the site in their grey uniforms, some wearing the yellow of excavation specialists in the corporation. Powell seemed out of place among them; what, with him and his brown beanie, messy hair, rough stubble, and dirty clothing. He seemed like a gutter rat compared to them.
He sniffed, and didn't like what his nose picked up. When my shift is done, I'm definitely taking a shower. Maybe a cold one.
Shifting the trolley out from under the crate, he moved it away and was wheeling back towards the settlement to retrieve another one when he heard a familiar voice shout out from behind him, and he turned to face the origin.
Patty ran towards him, her short, auburn hair matted as it usually was, and calm blue eyes staring into his with urgency. They had been dating for a while now, but at the moment it wasn't quite a relationship, and more of a flirting sort of establishment. But he gathered it was better than loneliness. Noone else in this colony seems to appreciate me. Seeing her approach, he smiled, but dropped it upon seeing the urgency in her eyes in its fullness, "What's wrong, sweetcheeks?"
She ignored the flirtaeous attempt and shook her head, waving to the back of the colony, "Haven't you seen the news reports?"
"No. You know I don't watch that stuff," Powell grimaced, leaning against the trolley's handle, "Its mostly just anti-Shepard batarian propaganda and more Alliance ass-kissing for the Council."
"This is serious, Powell," she gulped, "Earth's fallen. So has Khar'Shan. And they say Palaven is under attack even as we speak."
His ignorant gaze seemed to melt instantly upon hearing the first sentence, "I...what? How...I...what?"
"Yeah, happened two days ago, but we're only just hearing about it. Apparently the Council kept it secret to avoid a galaxy wide panic, but when batarians started flooding into the Citadel, telling tales of the enemy that annihilated their entire navy in a single blow, the Council just caved in. Khar'Shan fell first, followed by Earth two hours later, and all within the same day. Palaven came under attack just a few hours ago, and the attack's on going. They say the Council is just paralyzed with indecision, but they all agree that military mobilization and retaliation is the only answer. They're calling them the Reapers; apparently Shepard warned them three years ago about them, but they didn't listen, but he was right."
Powell gulped again, looking at the ground in shock. He couldn't believe it. Earth was gone? Why can't my days just go without a hitch? First I'm attacked on some colony by geth, then I'm on a colony that's almost abducted by Collectors, and now I've heard my homeworld's been invaded by an enemy we thought was a myth.
"This day just gets better and better," Powell mumbled.
"What?"
He looked up at her, sighing as he moved to repeat what he had said, "I said that this day just gets-"
A thunderous boom swept through the colony, and everyone seemed to duck instinctively, entering crouched positions on the grass. Patty cried out as she looked up at the sky, as did everyone else, looking towards the source of the boom.
They found its source pretty quickly; the sight of an Alliance Destroyer hovering over the colony was hard to miss. It hung in the atmosphere, parting the clouds with its approach, and it hung over them, its guns aimed at them. Normally, Powell wouldn't be running for the colony in safety, Patty's hand in his own. But there was something wrong with this destroyer; it wasn't flying the blue and white of the Alliance, and wasn't flying its insignia; instead, it was a deep mix of gold and white, with a golden hexagon on its rear and bow, all its guns aimed at them whilst deploying what looked to be a dozen shuttles of the same colors and insignia, and it was his sudden realization that sent him running. Even during all the batarian propaganda, he had seen the reports of the human terrorist organization, and its unforseen rise to power.
The destroyer was Cerberus. And they were here to take the colony.
Even as he was moving into the colony, the first kodiak landed, deploying its complement of troops; soldiers wielding heavy looking shields, packages on their backs, and others were wreathed in biotic flame, others simply carrying powerful looking weapons. One by one they stepped out and began to open fire, gunning down everyone in sight. Patty began to scream as they watched the people they knew and didn't know get gunned down like animals, and Powell ran for the nearest bunker, terrified out of his mind. He rushed into the bunker, Patty right behind him as they sat inside, Powell locking the door and catching his breath.
He heard more gunfire outside, followed by more screaming, and the sounds of more shuttles landing all over the colony. He heard a thunderous report nearby as a colony portable suddenly erupted into a towering geyser of flame and smoke, blown apart by a GARDIAN missile. He was confused at first, but then he remembered the Cerberus destroyer currently hanging over them. Oh crap. What do we do?
He crawled over to Patty, and the woman looked at him with tears in her eyes, trying to muffle her sobs by holding a hand over her mouth. A Reaper attack was expected, but by Cerberus? The terrorist organization chose one hell of a time to attack out of nowhere. He patted her shoulder and urged her to keep moving, despite the terror that chilled his bones at that very moment. But right now the flight instinct was strong in him, and he had to get them out of here.
Taking her hand once more, he ignored the gunfire outside and rushed into the opposite portable, sliding behind a ExoGeni employee's desk, which was currently unoccupied, for obvious reasons. He almost cried out when he heard the glass shatter from an explosion, followed by what sounded like cybernetically modified voices, likely Cerberus', shouting out orders, followed by more scream. A few more reports from the destroyer sounded, followed by more thunderous explosions. Colony 'New Hope' had become a battlefield in the space of no time, and Powell and Patty were right in the middle of it.
"Thought I saw someone in here," one soldier muttered, the sounds of gunfire dying down as the battle moved further into the colony and towards the dig site, "I'm going to check it out."
He heard, and felt, a tremor rock the ground, followed by another, and then another. It became a rthym, and he realized it was something moving. As it got closer, he heard the creak and groan of metal moving against metal, followed by the sound of a heavy cannon firing, and then reloading. Judging by the harsh steps, he figured it was a YMIR mech.
Peeking over however, showed that it wasn't the UAV he thought it was; it was an Atlas mech, and it sported Cerberus' colors. A bullet whizzed past his head, and he realized he had been spotted as a squad of Cerberus troopers pointed at the building they hid in and started chasing them, bullets nearly hitting them. Both himself and Patty made a run for the door, and he could hear the footsteps of soldiers behind him, followed by more shooting.
They leapt inside and locked the door, his eyes never leaving the door as he slid to the ground, landing on his ass with a hard thump. He heaved, trying to catch his breath, terror etched in his features. He squeezed Patty's hand, but before some reason, she wasn't squeezing back, and she felt limp. He turned around to check if she was okay, and this time, he did cry out.
Patty's face was mess, drenched in blood where her entire forehead had essentially been blown off by the impact of a heavy bullet impact to the back of her head. What was left of her skull was broken fragments, and blood squirted out every once and a while. His body wracked with sobs as he watched the woman he had been growing to like lie there, drenched in blood and very dead. He cradled her body, and barely heard the door open behind him, unable to take his eyes off of her. "There he is," one soldier rasped.
Powell panicked, his cowardice making him immediately turn to flee. He met the soldier's eyes, and only managed to choke out a yelp before he took aim at Powell's head, and pulled the trigger. A split second of pain, and it was all over.
The same couldn't be said for Colony New Hope, however. And little had Powell known, but it wasn't just New Hope that was under attack.
Pretty soon, Eden Prime would be a Cerberus-occupied colony, and with noone but the Reapers nearby, noone could do a thing about it.
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June 5, 2186
1416 hours.
War Room, The New Order Headquarters, Dyuko District, Omega.
The Reaper War, the Occupation Crisis.
General Oleg Petrovsky.
Omega. The tumor of an entire galaxy. And it was all his.
How, how honored he would feel if the place looked just a bit presentable. Luckily, his army of forty thousand and sizable fleet of warships was seeing to that renovation, while also keeping the local populace under strict laws and penalties. It wasn't a dictatorship he ran, but more of a station under temporary martial law, which would clear up once Cerberus had defeated the Reapers and taken control of galactic government. Something that Petrovsky wouldn't get to pertake in.
He looked down on what the Illusive Man had titled the 'New Order' HQ, in reference to the defeat of Aria's leadership over the station and the insertion of Cerberus as Omega's official ruler and owner. Petrovsky had only controlled it for a year, but he had made short of making his presence known to the station; his ships perodically patrolled the Omega airspace, the Sahrabarik Relay, and the surrounding cluster, while his dreadnought, the CAW Elbrus, remained in low orbit over the station. His troops scoured the station, securing every nook and cranny, and making sure that the adjutants were sufficiently locked away in the space station's lower levels.
So he stood, in what used to be Upper Afterlife, and what was now the headquarters of Cerberus control on Omega. With the space station in their grip, they had a large tactical advantage in this sector of space, and the Illusive Man intended on keeping it, and Petrovsky wasn't one to disappoint.
He looked down upon the once thriving strip club. The middle section where asari dancers had once stood on display had been completely torn down, now replaced with a biotic inhibitor; almost exactly the same as the one Aria had been in. Two struts poked out from it left and right, and once the person was inside, it imprisoned them in a stasis field, ensuring they couldn't escape. The rest of the room had suffered a dramatic change as well; the edge had been given two levels, with the upper level being the home of multiple terminals, control centers and experimental technology, while the bottom level was mostly vidscreens, allowing quick debriefings by his troops. Ashe would have been in command down in Lower Afterlife, which had been transformed into a barracks, but the idiot just had to have gotten himself killed.
The man was a racist moron anyway. He jeopardized the safety of my men, the people of Omega, and himself. He had to be removed. Ashe's remains, or at least, his adjutant form's remains, had been vented to space, never to be seen again. The Illusive Man hadn't seemed too bothered with the loss, but he had made sure Ashe was replaced, so now a new colonel commanded the barracks.
Omega's defenses had also gotten an upgrade since Aria T'Loak's exile. The defense cannons, he had to admit, were very powerful on their own, having been krogan anti-ship guns dating back to the Krogan Rebellions, and probably would have made short work of his dreadnought. But they were slow and cumbersome, and Cerberus had a much better idea.
The Illusive Man may have lost the Collector Base, but he had eventually gained access to the galactic core (through means he didn't question) and recovered parts of a destroyed Collector Cruiser, including the schematics for particle weaponry. It wasn't quite a Reaper's thanix cannon, but it was close. And TIM had immediately known where these weapons could be used best.
So the old krogan defenses had been destroyed, removed and replaced with brand-new, Cerberus-constructed, particle beam ship-to-ship surgical attack-defense weapons. They sat on rotating plates and were essentially a large gold and white metal box, golden hexagon on their side, with a barrel sticking out. They didn't fire the orange particle beams of a Collector ship, but rather a more crimson colored variant. But colors mattered nill; if these beams had the same destructive firepower of a Collector cruiser, then that's all that mattered. As it was, Omega was now lined with these things, making defense of the station much easier for the Cerberus occupiers.
And it'll offer a surprise for Aria if she ever intends on coming back to reclaim her station, like she promised she would.
His rule over Omega had all been but assured, but there was one little setback, and it had sparked the Occupation Crisis that Cerberus was currently in right now.
The Talons; a mercenary group on Omega, apparently weren't happy with the new arrangements, and had staged an uprising; an attempted coup d'etat, if you will, to overthrow him and retake Omega. Their leader was an unknown, but his subordinate commanders had promised they would find and put an end to him, whilst also destroying their Talons. Even now, the mercenary's territory was slowly falling to them, and while their guerrilla warfare tactics were an issue and had made many of his supply runs a detrimental effort, they were being overwhelmed, and therefore his worries should be irrelevant.
The one thing that had him worried was that Aria may be behind the sudden uprising. Who else? She must have somehow contacted the Talons, told them to stage an uprising, whilst buying her time to regroup and counterattack. She hopes to catch Cerberus fighting a two-front war, and hopes to overwhelm us that way. A clever strategy, but one that's already falling back. She's lost her chance to attack, and now the Talons are slowly falling apart.
Aside from that little irritation, all was going well for Cerberus on Omega. They controlled and regulated a major part of the Terminus Systems, Eden Prime, he was informed, had fallen recently, and they had access to a large cache of prothean tech, and their agents reported that Operation: Fallen Angel was well into its phase two, and were now preparing to launch the invasion.
Either way, Cerberus' only problem would be the Reapers, and Petrovsky knew the Illusive Man would have a long-term plan for controlling them; once they managed to gain control over them, Cerberus would have the force it needed to subjugate the galaxy under its rule; under humanity's rule.
Petrovsky sighed, leaning heavily against the railing he stood behind, stroking his beard. But is it right? Morally? I joined Cerberus because the Alliance wasn't for humanity; it was for itself. I came here thinking the Illusive Man was fighting for humanity where others wouldn't, but the invasion of Eden Prime and planned attack on many other colonies seems to prove we're doing the opposite. It is good that I don't have anything to do with those; although, maybe that's how the Illusive Man had planned it out...
Omega. His rule. His base of operations. He had a fleet and an army entire at his hands, and instead of fighting the Reapers with it, an enemy they should all be fighting, he was here, guarding a space station. My skills are better in the thick of battle; but now I'm stationary, my skills dormant, and my brainpower used to maintain an entire spacebound city. My potential is wasted here, I know that much, but if Cerberus wants me to hold this station, then so be it. For humanity.
He turned to walk away, returning to his desk as he activated his terminal, letting out a heavy sigh as he sat down in the seat and began searching his encrypted inbox for any messages from Cerberus Headquarters. He thought to himself where his skills could be used aside from rooting out the Talons.
Then he remembered Aria T'Loak, the original ruler of Omega and of the Terminus Systems in their entirety.
Yes, if she kept her promise, she would be giving him a worthy chance to prove his superiority in the arts of combat.
Or he could end up like another Napoleon. Either way, he would get the fight he wanted.
Petrovsky had a feeling he'd be waiting awhile, however.
"The war had spread far faster than we first thought."
- Marcus Shepard.
"And I was light years away, playing the admiral. We didn't even know the Reapers were out there."
- Tali'Shepard pav Rannoch.
"What about afterward? You mentioned getting a message that made you smile. What was that about?"
- Reia'Inas pav Earth.
"The beginning of the framework of a counterattack; a year in the making. And all because of one crazy, old bastard."
- Marcus Shepard.
A/N:
Garrus? Kal'Reegar? Really guys? No offense, but I told you to guess at who the guy Shepard was referring to was, and that the hint was that he was a 'mercenary.' Garrus has long since stopped being Archangel, and Kal'Reegar was never a merc to begin with. And now, with the words 'one crazy, old bastard,' it should be more obvious than ever. So obvious, that I'm not going to tell you, and you'll have to figure it out yourself.
As promised, this was a 'view' of the galaxy at how different people are dealing with the war. As you've noticed, I've given points of view from those suffering from the Reapers, and those from Cerberus, just to show you that this is a multi-front conflict; the Reapers are the main enemy, but Cerberus are really going to be a pain in the ass, as you all know. I was going to add a section with Aria on the Citadel, and then one with soldiers fighting on Earth, but they seemed pointless, and just seemed like they were dragging on the story, so I got rid of them. Don't worry, that doesn't mean battles on Earth or appearences of Aria are out of the question; I just didn't see a good reason to put them in this already sizable chapter.
Keelah Se'lai, troopers. I think you guys will love the next chapter; its literally focused entirely on...well, I'll leave you to figure it out. Suffice to say, its epic, and you guys should love it.
