Irie looked up at the night sky as lights started to flash past overhead, the high pitched droning of engines shattering the quiet. Gerty, crouched by their pod and trying to salvage what he could from it, looked up as well, then abruptly straightened.
"Those are Alliance escape pods," he said. "They'll be coming down all over the place."
One, clearly badly damaged and spinning as it spit fire, rushed by only a couple of hundred feet over head. It vanished past the trees, but only moments later a horrible sound reached them, fire blooming a mile or two away.
"Oh!" She covered her mouth.
What if that was from the Normandy? was all she could think. What if Lily was aboard? Or Aleu and Ashley, or…
She felt Gerty's hand gently grip her shoulder, and she did her best to steel her fears.
"A couple of those landed close," he said after a moment. "We can hike to them, follow their beacons-"
"Oh Goddess!"
Her cry was a gasp of pure astonishment, eyes widening as the entire field suddenly brightened. Licked with flame, a much larger vessel was sailing in from above, shedding metal and billowing smoke, the unhealthy whining roar of its engines seeming to shake her very bones inside their flesh. It was low, moving fast. Trees were shattered and torn as its wings caught them, ripping them from the ground and throwing them a hundred feet into the air in all directions.
Gerty gripped her, and she almost unconsciously threw a barrier up just in time. One broken length of trunk, twelve feet long, sang in from the crashing ship and deflected on that barrier, flipping and crashing into the nearby trees instead in a rain of wooden shrapnel.
The Normandy broke through the far trees and plowed into the field. Dirt, rock, and grass parted before it like waves before a bow. The high roar of its engines made a sudden stuttering sound and the damaged ship keeled slightly, threatening to roll before its momentum finally died. Skidding to a final halt, the ship drunkenly slammed down upright again.
This all happened less than five hundred yards from where Gerty and Irie were standing in horrified astonishment. More wood, dirt, rocks, and bits of metal from the crash had rained down near them, but none quite so large as the log had been. Irie's biotic bubble kept them safe, but their escape pod was not so lucky, battered, pelted, and dented by the debris.
The ship had not come down facing them but rather parallel, and just before it had impacted the ground something odd happened.
A shuttle had all but spat out the back, darting free of the larger vessel even as it made its initial slam into the field. Its engine blades spat and whined, ignited for a moment, stuttered, then went out. As the Normandy slid to a final groaning halt, the shuttle skidded down into the trench of dirt plowed up by its passing, then slid to a standstill.
Everything went still, save the settling dust and drifting grass, the thin billows of dark smoke lifting along the hull. They could still hear the ship's engine a moment, before it stuttered again and then ceased, the lights all over the Normandy fading and going dark.
Letting her biotics die, Irie gathered up her skirts and her determination, and began to run.
Joker watched as the last of the escape pods jettisoned from the Normandy's crew deck-both over internal and external sensors, through the integrated computer systems, and with the synthetic eyes of his chassis glued to his frantically flashing displays. The ship was entering the atmosphere now, and he aimed it toward an open area far enough from the monastery that the explosion and radiation would pose no harm to them if the core did go critical.
He could feel the heat from entry as the ship's weakened barriers gave way. Damage from a million different corners of the ship rang through his being. His calculations jumped to trillions per second as he fought to save the ship.
Then he noticed there were still life signs on board.
He zeroed in on the signal, pinpointing it in what was left of the cargo bay. All internal video sensors were down, but what scans he had left intact were reading the signs as weak, fading…and asari.
He did not lose a beat in his work as his chassis rose from the helm and rushed across the CIC, overriding his own security locks to the cargo deck.
Barriers everywhere were down completely. As he reached the remnants of the cargo bay wind was roaring past it from the gaping maw that had been ripped out of it. Anyone unsecured would have been torn out immediately, but the life signs were still there. His chassis was secured by automatic mag locks in its feet, and despite the tornado of wind rushing past only feet away, he strode across the ragged deck, following the signal.
Two of the ship's four shuttles were gone, lost when the cargo bay had been hit. The third was badly damaged, wrenched in its clamps. The fourth seemed more or less intact. He entered its systems and began to scan it even as he headed for the third.
Engine couplings were hit. It may be able to launch but it will lose power quickly as it automatically shuts down the faulty connections. Briefly usable.
He found her wedged halfway under the third shuttle, and it was clear she had not gotten there of her own volition. She'd been thrown there-either when the inertial dampeners went or the barriers, catching up on the bent clamps and getting wedged tightly enough to keep from being flung out into the atmosphere. Assessing her medical condition even as he crouched, Joker tore part of the bent coupling away to free her, pulling her loose and lifting her into his arms.
The Normandy was still on his planned course. Impact was in less than sixty seconds. Internally, he put the Normandy's core systems on automatic full shut-down, a process that would take a few moments to complete. If it failed for any reason, the core would soon go critical and it would not matter. There was no time for them to get out of the blast or radiation zone safely, no matter what he did. Fortunately, the system seemed to be responding fine, acknowledging his shut down protocol and implementing it.
Withdrawing himself from the greater ship's systems, leaving the Normandy to its set path and momentum, Joker carried Melara's body into the fourth shuttle. He strapped her in, loosening the docking clamps. The moment they came free the shuttle began to slide over the deck as the Normandy struck the tallest trees of a thick wood and canted. Through the torn rent in the hull, wood, leaves, and branches were starting to spit into the bay. As they cleared the trees and reached the field he had been aiming for, Joker lit the shuttle's damaged engines and launched her out of the Normandy.
The engines only had moments, stuttering almost immediately, but it was enough. They cleared the bay seconds before the Normandy hit ground hard. Using what power the shuttle had, Joker managed to land it more or less intact, skidding it in the frigate's own plowed trail, halting it against a relatively soft mound of loose dirt.
As the shuttle fell still, he reached out to the Normandy only briefly…and could not make the connection. All power in the ship was gone, which meant the core shut down had been successful.
The Normandy would not explode.
He focused his full attentions on the shuttle, and the ship's captain strapped onto the passenger bench. He activated the vehicle's diagnostics, assessing damage and activating the external sensors with its secondary power source. The scans were weak, but they showed two life signs outside the shuttle itself, dozens of yards away, heading for the Normandy.
As Kallini had no inhabitants beyond the asari at the monastery, he knew they were likely crew of one ship or another that had come down in a pod.
His 'diagnostics' of the Normandy's captain were far more troubling. She was seriously hurt, one lung collapsed, bleeding internally. Removing her battered helmet after he determined that she had no threatening neck injury, he pulled an oxygen rebreather and a medical kit from under the shuttle bench. Moving carefully, he strapped the rebreather to her face, and broke out the medi-gel. As he tried to get the external bleeding halted, he identified the omni-tools of those rushing toward the Normandy, and opened his communications channels.
"Irie, this is Joker, come in."
{Irie, this is Joker, come in.}
Her omni-tool suddenly lit, and the asari skidded to a startled halt, gasping for air as she hit the command to open her line.
"Joker! I am here!"
{No one remains aboard the Normandy. I'm in the shuttle with Captain Shepard. She is unconscious and gravely injured, she needs immediate medical attention.}
Both she and Gerty changed trajectories, turning and running toward the shuttle.
"Can you get that shuttle to fly?"
{She's going to need some repairs but yes, I can get her in the air again.}
"We need to get her to the monastery," Gerty said. "They'll have an infirmary there, doctors. We don't know where the Normandy's medical team landed."
"Joker, is my daughter…did she get out all right? Daenys, and the children…?"
{I can verify they evacuated the ship,} he said. {They were uninjured when they did so, but since then…}
Relief flooded her. It was not a guarantee, but it was something. They had at least gotten into the escape pods.
"Understood. We are nearly to you-"
About half a mile separated the Normandy's wreckage with the downed shuttle. Running fast, Irie using her biotics to lighten their mass and increase their speed, they had nearly covered that distance. Only a few dozen yards remained.
Then, fiery lights flashed out of the night sky once again. Something darted down at speed, thumping into the sod and dirt with a heavy whump, sending a geyser of grass and soil into the air less than a hundred feet away.
Irie, thinking it was falling debris just catching up to the crash, wheeled to a halt and looked upward just in time to see a second object flash down as well. She saw little beyond a dark, egg-shaped gleam, but it was enough.
The second one whumped into the dirt not twenty feet from the first…which was already opening, the sides of the smooth black pod parting like flower petals.
The dark asari crawled from within, its eyes fixed on the pair that was standing in the night, gaping at it.
"Joker, we have hostiles!"
The first alien straightened to its feet, its tail coiling behind it, the end fanning with blades with a faint sing of metal.
Nearby, the second pod also began to open.
Low and lean, the geth shuttle skimmed just over the surface of the snow, its lights playing through the gently falling flakes that were all that was left of the earlier snowstorm.
Once she had looked out of the pod and saw where they had landed, Dae had told Lily to stay inside with the children, then closed the hatch again to seal in the warmth. Hardly dressed for the conditions herself, she started shivering almost immediately, making a quick and careful circuit of the pod. They had come to rest in a broad snowbank, not far from the cavern site where they had dug up the anchor. The pod was in no immediate danger, and the distress beacon was flashing obediently. She looked down toward the monastery.
If it had been just her and Lily, she might have chanced making the hike to it. Aleu would probably be all right, but little Ash was only in her nightgown, with no protection against the cold. The most prudent course of action was to stay put, stay warm in the pod, and try and establish communications.
She had just turned to go back to the hatch when the approaching lights caught her attention. In moments, she recognized the geth shuttle for what it was, and turned back, opening the hatch.
"The geth are here, from the monastery," she told those within. "We came down near the artifact cavern."
"They should be able to track where the other pods came down," Lily said. "Perhaps even the Normandy. They'll be making ferry runs to the monastery's infirmary- I should help."
The whine of the shuttle engines cut above the faint wind, and Dae turned back, half closing the hatch and shielding her face from the blowing snow with one arm as the shuttle settled down, its own doors opening. Figures moved off, lights cutting through the gloom, then she blinked.
Several geth were approaching, but there was also-
"Beth?"
"Daenys, are you injured?" The matron asked in concern. In her hands she held a blanket, and immediately draped it around the shivering Dae.
"We are not injured. We have children aboard, we must get them somewhere warm."
"We can talk aboard the shuttle," Beth said, taking another blanket from one of the geth and handing it to her. Lily passed Ashley through the hatch, and Dae bundled her up as the young rakir climbed out after. Lily followed a moment later, the gathered medical kits in her arms.
"Quickly, this way," Beth said, and guided them over to the shuttle. As they got aboard and the door shut, Beth looked to Dae. "We alerted asari High Command and the Alliance when we realized a battle was occurring, but it will be at minimum another twenty minutes before the first asari ship can enter the system. We are tracking the pod distress beacons as we are able but we only have two shuttles at our disposal. I have the others prepping the infirmary preparing for injured. Were the hostiles the same as attacked here?"
Dae nodded, still holding Ashley tight. "We believe so. They came out of nowhere, hit us so hard and fast…"
"We will drop you at the monastery," Beth said kindly. "I expect a High Command liason will arrive shortly after the ships do. A full scale rescue operation will be in place soon. In the meantime, I will take this shuttle to see if we can retrieve more survivors."
"I would like to come with you," Lily said. "I am a trained doctor, chief of the Normandy's medical staff. There may be injured that need immediate treatment."
"You are welcome to join us."
"Our scanning systems have located a frigate that has come to ground," the geth at Beth's side said suddenly.
"Chiktikka?" Beth looked at her. "Do we have an ident and location?"
"Processing. Yes. It is located two hundred and thirty three point three five kilometers south of our position. The ship has no power signature, it is in full core shutdown. However, the scanned dimensions read by our satellite match the lines of the Normandy."
"Joker got her down!" Dae said, her heart thundering.
"There are several distress signals from jettisoned pods in the immediate area," Chiktikka added. "I count at least seven within a ten kilometer radius."
Every fiber of Dae's being was urging her to go along with them…but the shivering, traumatized little girl in her arms steeled her. She could not put Aleu and Ashley through that. They needed warmth and relative safety, and seeing others of the crew wounded, perhaps even dying…
Aleu's own father, she thought miserably. If they find her, and she…she's gone, he would see the brutality of that face to face. I cannot put him through that.
"Then drop us at the monastery and go," Dae said. "As quickly as you can."
"Chiktikka will remain with you," Beth said, the shuttle bumping slightly as it landed. There were more than enough geth left in her 'escort', and while several geth remained in the monastery to keep them secure, she knew Dae would feel a bit better if it were Chiktikka assigned to them. She at least knew Chik from when she was young, from when the geth was her aunt Tali's good friend.
She knew she could trust her.
"Go with speed," Dae said as the doors opened. Chiktikka stepped down, Dae carrying Ashley following her, Aleu sullenly stepping off after her. Though he had said nothing in protest, she knew her son well enough to know he wanted to go too, to help find his father.
The cold wind cut in again on the open landing pad, and she tightened the blanket around Ashely before looking back, meeting Beth's eyes.
Find her. Please.
The other asari nodded slightly, an understanding passing between them, before the door closed again, the shuttle lifting away.
"Get in the shuttle!"
Joker's voice broke through their horror, and grabbing Irie's hand, Gerty yanked her around and they started to run. Only a few feet away was the slope of the Normandy's crash trail, and they hurried down it, feet sinking into the loose dirt and debris. They reached the bottom and somewhat level ground, but as they pelted for the open shuttle door, something dark sailed overhead.
The abomination slammed to the ground in front of them, between the shuttle and couple, jaws opening to bear row after row of sharp, silver teeth as it snarled. Almost the moment it touched ground it leapt toward them.
They both reeled as they attempted to change their momentum, Irie giving Gerty a clumsy shove to his chest that sent him sprawling as a result. Stepping in front of him she flung up her arm, a barrier bubble appearing just in time. The alien hit it hard, then rebounded, tumbling away. As it started to recover, it suddenly bellowed and hissed, whirling around.
Gunfire lit the air, bullets singing as they deflected off its back armor, others sinking into flesh with white splashes of ichor.
Joker had stepped out of the shuttle, carrying a machine pistol he'd taken from the vehicle's small weapons' locker. The thing turned to face him, lunging his direction. Irie reached out and a lasso of biotics snagged around its ankle. She yanked and it slammed hard onto the ground on its face and chest.
Segmented tail switching furiously, it tried to twist. She let loose the lasso and instead enveloped it in a bubble, lifting it high and helpless off the ground. It thrashed and spat and tried to break free as Irie strode forward with determination.
A look of fury crossed the normally gentle asari's face. The glow of dark energy outlined her face, transforming it into a mask of vengeance and hatred. With a growl, she swung her arm, driving the alien into the side of the shuttle hard. She did it again, then again, slamming the creature repeatedly into the hard metal hull until it went limp. Then she flung her arm, pitching it along the ground. It tumbled and skidded bonelessly, then slid to a halt, unmoving.
Exhaustion, the pain of her wounds, and the biotic strain of what she had just done replaced the mindless fury that had caused it, and she swayed a little. Rushing to her side, Gerty caught hold of her.
"Irie?"
"I will be fine, I-"
"Head's up!" Joker said, and tossed Gerty a pistol before gesturing up the slope with his own.
The eyes of the second dark asari glittered out of the shadows at the top of the slope. The two men opened fire, Irie lighting up with biotics again as the thing bunched, then leapt…then was cut in half, light flashing out of the dark as the geth shuttle swooped in, weapons ablaze.
Irie jolted slightly, not able at first to process what she had just seen as the now dead creature's two halves fell down the slope. The shuttle door opened even before it landed, a pair of armed geth dropping out with rifle's ready. The shuttle began to land as the first geth went to the remnants of the second creature, making sure it was dead. The other geth headed toward the one Irie had slammed against the shuttle, rifle up cautiously.
The shuttle put to ground, more figures already stepping off.
"Goddess, are you three all right?"
Irie felt her knees go weak with relief, a sob immediately welling in her throat. A moment later she had her arms around her daughter, hugging her tightly.
"Lily, oh my baby…thank the Goddess. Thank the Goddess you are safe!"
"Mama, are you hurt?" Lily asked. Though she was just as relieved to see her mother alive as her mother was her, the doctor in prodded the question out without thought. "Gerty-?"
"We need you in the shuttle," Joker said, interrupting as he moved over and taking Lily's arm. "Sorry, but there's no time. The captain needs medical attention immediately."
Lily ran with him to the shuttle, Irie and Gerty following behind. They stepped up into the shuttle just as Lily got to the side of the figure laying on one of the benches.
"She's hypoxic," Lily said, all business as she looked over her aunt. "One of her lungs has collapsed, she's bleeding internally and her vitals are tanking. Joker, can this shuttle fly?"
"Not without repairs," he said.
"We need to get her to an infirmary right now or she is going to die," Lily said. "Field kits aren't going to cut it. We have to get her on the geth shuttle and back to the monastery."
Melara suddenly shimmered with biotics, lifting slightly off the bench. Irie looked around in surprise to see another asari standing in the shuttle door, hands lit up with fire.
"Beth…?"
Lily didn't hesitate, getting to her feet and following her patient as Beth moved her out of the shuttle and across to the other one, the others following. Snatching up one of the medical kits, Irie immediately started tending to her as Beth set her gently down, letting the biotics die.
Irie gingerly knelt at her daughter's side as the shuttle closed up and began to lift off.
"Tell me how I can help, Lily. Let me help…"