Save the quarians
John deactivated the main cannon. They used it to get through to the main reactor where Tali had spotted the source of the Reaper upgrades. Suddenly behind them the maintenance openings began to close. "Move it!" Aayla shouted. They jumped through the last opening. Bly tripped and fell. Aayla reached out and pulled him through before the bulkhead slammed shut. "Thank you, General." "The second time already, Commander." Both stared at each other. The twi'lek teased him. "Incoming!" Galle shouted and broke the moment. His minigun hammered bolts into the lines of Geth. John, Garrus and Inc sneaked onto the catwalk and sniped from there while Tali covered them with her shotgun. Barr threw a droid popper towards the geth. The shock let them collapse. "Keelah. What was that?" Tali exclaimed. "Droid Popper. EMP-stun grenades." Inc explained. "Fries unprotected circuits and shuts them down. From what I understood about the geth we take out their platforms and wipe their software on it out." Under the cover of his general's lightsaber Bly moved out and flung down prone to skid a short distance like a penguin. From his prone position he shot two Geth before standing up again. "Troopers to me!" he shouted as he waved them forward. Inc swung himself over the railings and landed below. His armored boots clacked against the ground as he caught his fall and turned it into a roll. Galle marched forward with his minigun firing. He noticed a light shimmer in the air and conentrated at it. It was like the laser hammered a Geth out of nowhere. Two shots grazed his armor and he took cover again. Checking the charge on his weapon he decided to reload early. Under the cover of the clones laser fire John, Garrus and Tali moved to the shaft connecting the cannon with the drive core. Giving Cover fire themselves they enabled the clones to link up with them again. Aayla threw her sword at a hidden Geth. While she directed the sword through the air she jumped the remaining distance across the room to Bly. Her beautiful arc of flight had Bly stunned as he made room for her to land. He added her agility to the list of reasons why he loved her. The number of Geth they encountered shrank with each level they got closer to the drive core. At a few terminals John and Tali hacked it to get a sight of the battle outside.
"Admiral Tali'Zorah?...Koris...c-crash...help..."
"Damn it. Every time you need EDI, she isn't here." Barr checked his ling-range equipment. "Defender, this is Lieutenant Barr. We received a transmission but it was full of static. Can you relay it again?"
A green light flashed on his com-link. "Admiral Zorah. What is your status? The Geth are decimating us. The star-destroyers fell back on boosting their shields against the anti-ship-cannon on Rannoch. We have lost Admiral Koris. He took a hit and crashed his ship into the cannon! We need help!"
John hacked a bulkhead. "Tell them we are at the source. Reaper-code will be offline soon."
Barr forwarded the message before he grabbed his DC-15S again.
The drive core was impressive. It was double the size of the Normandy's drive core and that one was supposed to me installed on an Alliance dreadnought. Tali used a console to expose the upper part of the core. John looked up. "Legion?" The Geth was bound with tubes sticking out from its body. "Shepard-Commander. Creator Tali'Zorah. Help us."
Tali looked around. "Can't you free yourself?" "We are blocked by hardware we cannot access. The controls are on the other side of this room." The complete group went the way Legion directed them. John found the controls and deactivated the blocks. The tubes detached and Legion jumped down. The core lit up and died down. "Thank you. As a sign of good-will we have deactivated the dreadnought's drive core. Shields and weapons are offline." Suddenly the lights flared red. "Warning. Geth reinforcements inbound. Warning." The clones immediately seeked cover as the first hostile geth dropped from the ceilings. Aayla activated her lightsaber and attacked first. Leading her men through the enemy she protected them by blocking shots, cutting though geth or redirecting rockets with the force. A geth prime blocked their path but both Tali and John hacked it so it attacked its own robots. The Geth's pulse cannon cut through the unsuspecting AIs. As soon as the Geth regained control it was hailed by blaster fire as the clones focused on it. It was Garrus who finally killed it by a sniper round through the eye.
Climbing over the wreck they met Legion at the Reaper device. Suddenly the ship trembled. "What was that!" Barr shouted. Tali listened to her comm. "Gerrel is attacking!"
He opened the channel for the others to listen in. "Han!" That was Raan. "Look at your scanners, Raan. The shields and weapons are down! We can take it!" "All destroyers, cease fire! Reinforce shields!" That was Yularen.
"That bosh'tet! We are still in here!" Tali shouted.
"No time! We need to get out of here!" John shouted. "Follow us. The fighter bay is close. We can use on of them to escape the imminent destruction." Legion said in an indifferent voice.
The group didn't wait and followed Legion through the bulkhead. An explosion ripped the way apart and left them rolling down towards the lower level. "Shepard-Commander. Fighters launch from the upper level. We cannot leave until you regrouped with us." The next explosion took the gravíty generators out. The clones immediately activated the magnetic boots to stay on the fighter. Bly grabbed his general around he waist and hold her close. Tali was about to hover away when Legion grabbed her and directed her towards the fighter's cargo hold. Bly shoved Secure into there, too. "Go. We can stay out here. Our armor will protect us." "As you which, Bly-Commander." Legion launched the fighter out into the space. "Admiral Yularen. Do not target the fighter with us clones on its hull." They turned around and headed towards the open hangar bay of the Venator.
After being checked in the med-bay and changed into more comfortable clothes John went up to the bridge. The quarian admirals were already there. Han'Gerrel was in a heated argument with Admiral Yularen. "I could have you executed for treason!" "The mission parameters have changed. We had a shot at the dreadnought and we took it." Raan shook her head. "Even if Shepard and Tali were still on board?" Gerrel noticed Shepard. "The dreadnought took out a lot of quarians. We had to destroy it. As a commanding officer who fought the Geth your surely understand."
John looked the Admiral in the eye until the quarian broke contact. "I only understand that you didn't take the opportunity to withdraw your fleet safely and endangered all our lives."
"I was only..." He stooped and reached for his neck. They turned around to see Aayla holding her hand like she chocked someone. "I normally don't do things like this. Revenge isn't the path of the light." She used the force to hold Gerrel on her height. "Do never risk my men's lives like that again or I will, may the force forgive me, kill you myself."
Bly wasn't too sure if she said man or men. His line of thought was interrupted when Legion was escorted in by Galle and Barr.
"Shepard-Commander. We wish to help you." Xen looked at the Geth. "Impressive. A prototype of a Geth consensus." "Legion is my friend. He helped us before against the reaper." Shepard explained.
"It. It helped us." Tali corrected him.
Xen seemed to want to remark but the aura radiating from General Secura let her think otherwise.
A call came in through the terminal. The responsible clone redirected the call to the main holo-table.
Aria and Jane appeared. "John. Hello, Tali." Jane greeted them. "Jane. What's up?"
"I need your help. After the attack of the Citadel Cerberus is weakened. I have to use this. My fleet is already assembled. And I want you Shepard-twins to help with the ground offensive. I also have the Citadel Strike Team as they call themselves." Aria explained bluntly.
"General Tano, Captain Rex and the Lieutenants Echo, Fives and Winston. They are the remaining members of the original Team." Bly explained.
"What about my crew on the Normandy?" John asked. "They are on smaller runs. Ashley and Liara will deal with an Asari-Problem with the Night-Owls. Kaidan, Garrus and Javik will be sent with the Rangers to Arrae. Ex-Cerberus have called for help. I think it's Jacob. James will hold the line at the Citadel. K9 will be sent to help on Rannoch." Jane said. Deviss appeared in the line. "K1 and K9 will help the quarians while the remaining K-Company will evacuate the Elcor. Also a fuel depot has gone offline. A joint task force consisting of the remaining 501st and an N7-engineer team will investigate and bring it back online."
"How long?" John asked but just then a Cerberus ship arrived in front of their view screen.
"Wow. I heard these star destroyers were big but I didn't expect a dreadnought." Aria gasped and lost her composure for a second. "What we call a dreadnought would be triple the size of this." Bly remarked.
After the exchange Aayla called a meeting on the bridge. John and Garrus were gone. Now Daviss had joined their circle.
Legion uploaded something. "Secura-General. We haven't located the reaper-base yet but we have the coordinates to a server coordinating the Geth-Fighter."
Aayla looked over the plans. "I will go with you, K1 to secure it." "General! Do you really trust this machine?" Aayla sighed. "Commander Shepard trusts it. I will do the same." Bly shook his head. A jedi always would follow orders. Thinking of orders he sighed. Like all clones he had received a certain order recently. However he refused to follow it. After a long secret talk with his fellow brothers they agreed not to execute it. Luckily their units didn't contain any Centax-clones. But at some point he had to tell the jedi. At least before they returned after wiping Cerberus off this galaxy.
General Secura opened a plan. "We don't know exactly where Admiral Koris landed. The debris field is spread along this path. I want K9 ready to move in."
"What about the jamming towers. We can't locate him as long as they are intact and with the anti-air turrets I doubt you can save all of them." Bly looked at the layout of the terrain. "One small commando team. We take out the AA-batteries, then the gunships can move in and begin the search until we figure a way to disable the towers. I can do it with my squad. However we need an expert on that tech." "I will follow you. Someone has to help with Geth-Tech." Tali said.
Admiral Yularen looked at the Geth defense. "We can distract them with a random bombardment on the dreadnought. Our gunships can cross a short distance in space without harm. ARC-170s will break through and the Y-Wings will cover you."
Ashley checked the engine of the skycar they found at the monastry. "It's still warm. Someone has just arrived here." Bo-Katan looked around. "I don't like it here. Reeks like death."
One of her owls checked the elevator. "It's deactivated. We have to fly in."
The mando woman nodded. "Kat, May. Help Miss Williams and T'soni down there." The two Owls nodded and grabbed the two women. Together they jumped down into the darkness and activated their jetpacks. They arrived in a room. "Night Owls, move out. I want this room checked and salvaged." Bo belled. The Owls found a lot. Credits, a signature of a matriarch and dead reaper.
"Skids, check the asari." The team's medic kneed down and examined the body. "Asari commando. Died of blood loss. Two days ago."
"Room is clear, Ma'am." an owl reported. Lieutenant Moons. Bo remembered. After their separation from the Sith super-commandos she had become the new leader of death watch. The first female leader ever. Moons had been promoted to Lieutenant afterwards.
The second room was empty but a commotion underneath them got their attention. "Spread out! Search every room for survivors. Kill any reaper you come across." She ordered. Liara already went through the next set of doors and ended on a balcony. Below them a reaper was flung against a pillar which collapsed onto it. Another Asari. Moving gracefully entered the room. "Liara." "Samara." Liara said.
Kano fired at a Cerberus trooper. It has been confusing for their allies to understand if the clones talked. Along with the jedi the clones had decided to adapt the UST system. Especially now that after refusing to follow Order 66 they could be considered traitors to the republic. Now they used Cobras as an overall term. Otherwise the 327th called themselves Berets, after a terran special force which existed back in the 21th century. The 501st were the Deltas. One the one hand after the infamous Delta squad but on the other hand after the terran Delta Force.
"Deltas pinned down. How are you faring, Captain Riley?"
"Husks have taken one of my men. But we have managed to seek cover in a dead end. Thanks for the heads up on those Barrier Engines. Could be worse of we hadn't destroyed them. Boomer sniped the Marauders running towards them on the ceiling. If the shot didn't kill them the following fall certainly did. Slice hammered on the controls to get the reactor back online.
"Damn it! Captain! We nee to activate them at the same time!" he shouted into his comms.
"Wait. Yes I can do it now." "NOW!" Slice pressed the button. The cooling system went online. Now he could reach the master switch and activate the fuel reactors.
Suddenly Riley commed them again. "We're pinned down! Seems like the reaper see us as the easier prey and converse on our location!" Kano didn't need to hear more to know what was about to happen. "Devil, Bond! Pack up and change locations. Cover Riley." He looked at his fellow ARF-trooper. "Boomer, go help them. We all know you're a one-man-army. Boomer nodded as he jumped over a tank to get to the second reactor faster.
Slice worked on the controls. "There is some kind of interference in the reactor. Not critical at the moment but it could shut the reactor down if it reaches working temperature."
"Can you get rid of it." Slice looked at his sergeant. "I can." He opened the reactor bulkheads and fired his blaster into it. Kano was surprised until he saw the "interference." A brute and two marauders hid in the reactor. The both fired at the marauders and took them out. Kano saw a familiar structure over the shoulder of the brute and fired at it. The Barrier Engine exploded, taking out the second Marauder and damaging the brute immensely. Slice switched to stun for a second before switching back. The brute lost control over itself as the stun hit and it was an easy target for the two clones.
Bond aimed her sniper rifle. Two husks tried to ambush the alliance team but she quickly disposed of them. Next to her Devil used a Zip-Quad blaster to kill the larger brutes. Her modified gunner helmet assisted in targeting and ballistics. Both fired a constant stream of laser into the reaper. On one part of the circle Boomer broke through with an aimed charge from his rocket launcher. While the Support-Twins gave cover fire he led the engineers out of the killzone. "We're clear. Get the party started. The two fem-troopers didn't have to get the order twice. Both were proud to belong to the 501st and attacked. Devil kept his mobile artillery on while Bond swapped to a Z-6. For a sniper trained in the delicate arts of precise sniping she loved the minigun even more for its hammering. Boomer looked to the side at Riley. "You have to excuse them. They haven't seen as much action as most clones do. They were part of a secret army and were in the reserves in that unit. We just recently learned about their existence and decided to take them with us."
"How can they behave like children while killing reaper?" Riley asked unbelieving the scene in front of her. Boomer escorted her back to the entrance. "How old do you think we clones are?"
"I dunno. Twenty-five?" "Close. Biologically we are about twenty six. Chronically we are twelve."
"What!?"
Kaidan landed on the ice planet and engaged the troopers. Behind them the clones attacked in numbers. Cerberus was surprised and was taken down by the ambush. FV-22s hovered around the base. Three Gepards AA-tanks were deployed to clear the skies of Cerberus fighters. Kelly helped the wounded while the Rangers entered the base. The scientists helped the best way the could. Morgan was clearing a cache as he met a man. "Morning, Sir." he greeted. "Hello. Galvin Archer. Ex-Cerberus." "Did you say Archer?" Morgan asked. "Indeed I did. Is there something?"
"Yes. You heard about the Cerberus attack on the Grissom Academy, I assume?" "Oh God! Commander Shepard sent my brother there. Is he okay." Galvin gasped. Margan nodded. "We got him out. He is working with the alliance now. I had to promise him to get him his brother. I don't know what happened between you two but he told me to tell you that he forgave you. What you did was... eye-opening was what he said."
"Oh thank you. That really relieves me." He looked down. "You should know that in a Cerberus-Project I abused him as a test subject. Not a night has passed since then where I didn't dream about what happened and what I have done to him. From now on I will be the big brother he deserves."
Outside Garrus and Jacob were catching up. "You really did that?" Kaidanasked as the two shared a tale about the Shepards and Legion. Jacob nicked him. "Yeah. You never heard the story of Jane sleep talking did ya?" "No." "It was always Kaidan this, Kaidan that and 'no, not Kaidan'."
"That must have been one of a crash you made, didn't you?" Kaidan contered.
The crash threw them all off balance. Aria had miscalculated. Petrovsky had upgraded Omega's defense. They had evacuated their ship and hit the station with escape pods. Rex shook his head to clear his vision. Troopers were closing in on them but Echo and Fives had already the lock covered. Erik checked on a vorcha before declaring him dead and throwing the dropped shotgun to Aria. "You'll need it." before he fired at the troopers. Ahsoka jumped over the railing and engaged the Guardians as their shields were able to hold the shots off. Jane and John flanked Cerberus left and right while Aria plowed through the middle. "I'm back!" she shouted. Clearing the crash site was the easiest part. Echo and John worked on hacking the blast doors while Erik and Fives took cover behind the rails guiding the door. As soon as the blast door began to lower Ahsoka jumped through the opening. Rex was concerned about her as he heard screams from the other side. As soon as he could he jumped over it prepared to help his girlfriend... Only to find her in the middle of smoking corpses. You know I'm not a little girl anymore Rex shook his head. What?"
"Mind speak. Happens to closely bonded people." Erik stood next to him. "How do you know?"
"Catherine and me? General Tano had the same expression Catherine used to have when she did it the first times."
Aria already entered the next corridor. With John and Jane right behind her she attacked the Cerberus Engineers. They cut through the mob and while Aria activated the environmental controls for the next area John and Jane covered her. Centurions began to attack.
Fives beat the closest Nemesis down and fired his rifle into her chest. Beside him Echo fired his CS-6 Assault into Cerberus. Erik skipped over a crashed skycar and planted both feet into the Centurions back. As they fell he fired two shots at the head and used the corpse as cover against revenge shots. Rex rolled over and flanked the guardian attacking Shepard while his second gun killed the nemesis concentrating on Erik.
Finally the environmental control finished whatever it was doing. The next room had a crashed escape pod in it. "Poor bastards." Aria said. But she sounded more sad over the loss of cannon-fodder than the loss of lives.
Before she could open the next set of doors Erik stopped her. "This is the control room?"
"Yes. Now release me!"
Erik shoved her back to John and Jane. "Cobras, breach and clear. Distraction 3." Ahsoka ordered.
The clones nodded. Fives grabbed a thremal detonator, Erik prepared a flashbang and Echo had a smoke grenade ready. Rex planted the breach charge and waited. At the opening the grenades flew into the room. The thermal killed all the enemies right next to the door. The flash disoriented the others while the smoke made them invisible for a few seconds. Blastes firing the clones charged against the group.
Taking cover they left the middle clear for Jane and Aria to attack and combine their biotic powers into explosions. Aria and Jane both fired a flare which hit a guardian from two sides. The explosion was strong enough to throw the engineers down where they were an easy target for John to take out.
John accessed the controls but instead of deactivating them he used the turrets. "What are you doing?" Aria exclaimed. "Killing Cerberus. Come on. You two had your fun." he said seriously. Then he deactivated the weapons. Aria directed her fleet to the secret dock. But before she could say where it was Ahsoka covered her mouth. "What the hell! Get your filthy hand out of my face!"
A shot stopped the dispute. Aria looked at the source. Rex had fired his pistol into what seemed like a camera. The Cobras were doing the same with the other cameras in the room.
"Now you can reveal your secret." Jane said.
Deviss watched the tower in the distance collapse. "Comms are back online. I want to know where the survivors are!" he shouted.
"Sir, I have something. Boosting signal now!"
"Hello, Dorn? Are you there?"
"Admiral Korris? Commander Deviss. Dorn is on a MedEvac. His condition is critical. We don't know enough about quarians to help him. We dumped him in bacta but I don't know if it's going to help."
"Keelah. You need to save my crew. We got separated. I don't know how many survived. I managed to regroup some of them but when I set off to find more my escort got killed by Geth. They might have attacked the civilians, too. You need to save them!"
"Give me the coordinates." Deviss looked at the screen. He received a location but that wasn't anywhere near the place the Admiral's Signal roughly came from.
"Sir, I need both coordinates." he urged.
"No. You can't reach both locations on time. Save my crew." Deviss opened the map. "We have enough gunships on scene. I need your location to send the next to you! My platoon is already moving in to get your crew but we need you! Someone has to lead the civilian fleet."
Silence. "Uploading coordinates." Deviss could hear the grateful sigh. "Bly, Zaal'Koris is three clicks from your position. Can you make it?" "Already rallying there. What about the crew?" "K9 is already on it."
Zaal looked up and saw the Geth converging on him. The guns had long ago run out of ammo and he was down to his pistol. A Geth got close and knocked him over. Just as the Prime aimed its cannon green laser bolts hit its chest. Zaal looked around. Behind him a vehicle hovered in the air and fired at the Geth. The two bubbles on the wings fired constant beams.
The side doors opened and he saw a group of clones. "Come in!"
As he ran towards it rockets soared past him towards the gunship. However the pilot was skilled enough to avoid a hit. Just as Zaal jumped on board the pilot pulled away. The sudden movement caused him to loose balance and he nearly fell out again if Tali hadn't grabbed him and pulled him in. "How's my crew?" was his first question. "Bly held a hand to his ear part and listen to an intern comm. "Deviss got them all out. They also found the few remaining around the crash site. I guess we got about eighty people out."
"Keelah. I had worried that we might not make it."
Bly nodded. "Admiral. The fleet needs your guidance. If Gerrel goes on a Revenge trip again we need people to stop him. I know we can count on Admiral Zorah but I'm certain we can count Xen out. I don't know where Admiral Raan stands. But a tie is better than a loss."
Zaal nodded. "The Civilian fleet doesn't want this war. If that's the way to peace I will gladly turn my back on the fleet and withdraw from the fight."
Bly understood the Admiral. Hard choices. He made one with Order 66 and won't regret it.
Aayla looked through the server. So far they had cleaned most of it of Reaper influence. She had seen the memories stored by the Geth. She understood why the Geth waged war as they had and why they turned to the reapers. She certainly understood Legion. Geenine was with her. It was somehow different to see her astromech as a humanoid being next to her.
Geenine had a female programming. Most droids programming was identical to the gender of their first owner. G9's appearance resembled Secura's. Having the astromch helping her was great. As R4-G9 had accessed the quarian database she could help translate the Geth memories into visual holos for her master. They had just destroyed the last link when Legion called them back. Geenine beeped. Aayla had to hold back a giggle. It was somehow funny to see herself communicating with astromech sounds.
Slowly the light on the server vanished. "Secura-General. Go back into your pod. G9 and I will join you on the other side.
Aayla opened her eyes. Two clones helped her out. Suddenly the platoon surrounding her lifted their weapons. Geth Primes had exited their pods but didn't lift their weapons.
"Stand down." she ordered. The clones still aimed their blasters but had their trigger discipline up.
"Legion, what is this?" "These programs have joined us. They oppose the old machines. They are now we."
"You checked them?" "We did." "I was talking to Geenine." The astromech whooped in approvement. She had checked the Geth. Everything was fine.
"Well, we saved the lifeships and got more Geth on our side. Win-win situation in my textbook." She turned around to the next clone trooper. "Make sure they find accommodation on board our ships. Don't know how the quarians will see it."