Chapter Sixteen
Battle of the Citadel
To the right, To the left, we will fight to the death!
To the edge of the earth
It's a brave new world, from the last to the first
To the right, To the left we will fight to the death!
To the edge of the earth, it's a brave new world
It's a brave new world, it's a brave new world!
30 Seconds To Mars: "This Is War"
The lift powered down with a shudder as it reached their destination and the doors ground open then promptly powered down. The first thing they noticed when they reached the Mako was the disappearance of the barrier curtain that had barred their passage further into the facility.
"Warning: unauthorized synthetic life-forms in lab sector twenty three," Vigil's voice stated coldly in Prothean, "internal defense systems activated. Warning: Ilos facility power is at ten percent and falling. Estimate complete power systems failure in fifteen minutes."
"We have ten minutes to catch up to Saren," Kate ordered after Castle translated the message, "let's move!"
When everyone was in the Mako, she didn't wait for them to be strapped in before she gunned the engine. The chase was on.
Deeper into the archives, ahead of the geth advance, barrier curtains shimmered into being blocking entry deeper into the corridor. Before the column could react to the sudden obstacle, a series of automated turrets powered up and opened fire on the geth with phased plasma cannons and mass effect field propelled explosive munitions. Fifteen geth troopers and three armature class units were destroyed before the geth column could react and return fire.
"Have the armatures punch a hole through these defenses and get to the Conduit!" Saren ordered the nearest Prime. "The walkers will remain here to slow down Beckett while we complete the mission! Move out!"
The action was brief, no more than ten minutes before power ran dry and the turrets shut down along with the barrier curtain. Though Vigil's last stand hadn't stopped them, the dying AI had cut Saren's troop strength in half, required him to leave behind his heaviest firepower and delayed them enough to allow the Mako to close the distance.
The Citadel
The Widow star cluster mass relay activated and almost immediately began disgorging geth capital ships, primarily cruisers and frigates, screening the massive bulk of the Reaper dreadnought, Nazara. The massive fleet moved into battle formation as soon as the last ships cleared the relay and deployed into the nebula on an attack vector for the Citadel.
The cruisers and frigates of the Citadel defense fleet led by the asari dreadnought Destiny Ascension along with the Turian 3rd Fleet led by the dreadnought Executor deployed and rose to meet them. The geth fleet opened fire, destroying three turian cruisers outright and inflicting heavy damage to the asari cruiser Nefrane, forcing her to withdraw.
Aboard the Destiny Ascension, Matriarch Lidanya, Commander of the Citadel Defense Fleet sat in her command chair calmly giving orders to her rapidly diminishing command.
"Activate defenses, seal the station!" she shouted as the Ascension's barriers began taking hits from the geth attack ships. The dreadnought's comm officer relayed Lidanya's orders, but her brow creased when nothing seemed to be happening.
"Systems are not responding," the comm officer reported, "the Citadel arms aren't closing."
"Abandon the Citadel," Lidanya announced calmly, "evacuate the council."
Aboard the Citadel, the comm channel from the Destiny Ascension went unheard as all of the traffic and comm officers lay dead at their stations. Saren surveyed the scene, as a Spectre he was aware of the emergency evacuation plan to transfer the Council to the Ascension. Whether the council retreated to the Citadel Fleet flagship was immaterial. FTL jumps were next to impossible in the nebula, so the Council would not be going anywhere. The geth would keep them pinned down in system and once he reached his destination the relay network would be locked out.
He motioned to the geth primes who deployed their troops to secure the citadel tower. Even at half the strength he had intended to bring, they were still more than a match for Citadel Security, especially now that he had cut them off from the network, denying them an organized defense.
That same moment on Ilos
"Shore party to Normandy," Kate stated into the comm, "we're taking the Conduit to the Citadel to follow Saren. The fifth fleet should be massing for joint maneuvers in the Andura sector. Warn them that a geth attack on the Citadel is imminent."
"Understood shore party," Pressly responded, "good hunting, Normandy out."
Kate jammed the throttle forward after she saw Saren and his geth disappear into the field of the Conduit mass relay. Garrus took aim through the turret's targeting array and opened up on the geth walkers between them and the small mass relay at the center of what had once been a lab complex, but had long ago been reclaimed by nature. Those walkers that Garrus didn't knock out with the turret, Kate ignored and drove past.
"Hang on, here we go!" Kate shouted as the Mako hit the mass effect field at full throttle.
On the Normandy, Pressly turned from the command console.
"Action stations FTL!" he shouted. "Make your calculations and start the clock for FTL jump to the Andura sector!"
"Board is green, sir," Hastings reported, "ready to jump."
"Disengage IES stealth system, purge the heat sinks and execute jump," Pressly ordered.
Before the geth ships could react to the thermal bloom on their sensors, Normandy's wings retracted and she jumped away.
The Citadel
Several seconds later
The plaza surrounding the citadel tower was no longer the place of quiet contemplation it once was. Where once it had amounted to a city park it had become a twisted nightmare version of itself. Though still relatively quiet, small fires smoldered and several people who once called the station home were hoisted aloft on spikes being slowly turned into husks. The only sound to be heard over the crackling of fires and the stuttering of the nearby geth standing guard was the perversely cheerful voice of the Avina terminal avatar.
"Unrestrained fires detected." Avina droned, apparently ignored by the geth nearby. "Please begin emergency evacuation procedures."
The conduit statue flared to life, drawing the attention of the nearby geth squad just before the relay portal opened and disgorged an M35 Mako which promptly flipped over in midair before slamming down onto the deck, crushed the geth troopers underneath it and dragged their mangled platforms for several meters.
After the armored vehicle finally slid to a stop near the elevator to the Citadel tower, the bottom emergency hatch explosive bolts fired, taking a section of hull plating with it. Captain Beckett slid out of the opening, followed by Castle, Garrus, Liara and finally Wrex who - due to his bulk - had the hardest time working his way out of the opening.
Sensing the approach of organic life-forms, Avina's damaged avatar once again sprung to life.
"Critical failures detected across all monitored systems," it droned in its perversely pleasant tone, completely incongruous to the situation at hand. "Please begin emergency evacuation procedures. This is not a drill."
As they approached the terminal, it was evident to all of them that the asari-like avatar was suffering multiple software glitches in both its user interface matrix.
"The Presidium is experiencing severe system malfunctions across the entire level. All non-emergency personnel must-must-must evacuate immediately."
"Damage report," Kate commanded as soon as she had stepped within it's range.
"Main power is off-line on the entire l-l-l-level," Avina's artificial voice replied cheerfully, "environmental controls are not responding. Class three fires are fully involved in sectors two, three, six and seven, civilian casualties are high. I am also detecting numerous, unauthorized, synthetic life-forms throughout the station. They are believed to be actively hostile. Please approach with caution."
"What happened to the council?" Kate asked.
"In accordance with standard emergency protocols," Avina replied, "The Citadel Council has been evacuated to the Destiny Ascension."
"What about Captain Anderson or Ambassador Bracken," Castle added, "what happened to them?"
"System's Alliance Ambassador William Bracken's last reported location was the emergency shuttle bay where security camera footage recorded him boarding the transport to the Destiny Ascension along with the Citadel Council and their staff." Avina reported, "I have no further information regarding the status of specific individuals. Once the current crisis has been resolved, a complete accounting of casualties and survivors will begin."
"Do you have any information on Saren?" Kate asked, schooling her features at the mention of both Bracken's survival and the unknown status of her mentor.
"Former Spectre Agent, Saren Arterius was last seen nearing the council chamber," Avina stated. "A warrant has been issued for his arrest, though Citadel Security is unable to respond at this time."
"Let's go," Kate commanded, "we need to stop Saren before it's too late!"
As the group withdrew toward the elevator, Avina went back to her repeated affirmation of the necessity for evacuating the Presidium as the doors to the elevator slid open to greet them.
Saren approached the Council Chambers and shot two keepers down as he swept past - for reasons even he could not properly quantify. Sovereign's ire at them had clearly powerful enough to be imprinted onto him through the indoctrination signal. The implants he had been given had granted him not only powerful abilities, but also direct access to portions of the station even his Spectre status had been insufficient to grant him access to.
He stepped past the dais where petitioners to the council regularly stood, used his omni-tool to extend a ramp and engage a projected console suspended in front of him. A single swipe of his hand overrode the keepers and gave him direct access to all of the citadel's functions.. He sent a signal to Sovereign and issued the command to close the station's ward arms, disable access to the citadel tower and lock out all other consoles but his. He only had to wait for Sovereign to arrive to transfer direct access of the station to the massive reaper dreadnought.
The Destiny Ascension fell back from the battle line to pick up the Councilors' shuttle, and the remnants of the Citadel defense fleet and the Turian Third Fleet reformed around the Turian dreadnought Executor.
The turian grand admiral redeployed the fleet and continued the fight. The massed fire of the ships under his command gave as good as they got as they engaged the enemy. Ships on both sides were either heavily damaged or destroyed outright as the two fleets slugged it out, trading heavy weapons fire. Though the defenders threw up an impressive rate of fire, it was a fight they couldn't hope to keep up for long against geth's superior numbers. If something did not change soon, the battle of the Citadel would be their last stand.
"The Citadel's closing," the Executor's sensory officer reported. "The ward arms will be fully sealed in four minutes."
"Fleet Command to all ships," The Turian admiral stated over the guard channel. "Suppression barrage! Don't let the enemy ships inside the arms!"
The remaining fleet ships deployed to mass their fire and opened up with everything they had in a coordinated volley of fire at the oncoming geth ships screening the massive alien dreadnought.
Nazara didn't bother to slow down or even return fire as it bore down on the Executor, ramming it head on, reducing the turian dreadnought to smoking, twisted wreckage as it drove past, leaving the now leaderless fleet in it's wake as it slipped into the shelter of the citadel's ward arms flanked by a geth cruiser and three drop-ships.
The ward arms snapped closed, sealing the station into an impenetrable cocoon of near solid neutronium. Completely impervious to the increasingly one-sided battle raging outside, as the geth fleet slowly decimated the Citadel's defenders and began to move in on the Destiny Ascension.
Though Nazara was easily the largest vessel in the sector, even it was dwarfed by the internal dimensions of the closed Citadel - which would be able to accommodate an entire fleet of similar dreadnoughts with room to spare. It sailed like a dark, malevolent ghost through the empty space until it came into contact with the Citadel tower itself. The claw-like appendages at its bow closed around the tower as a four fingered hand might grip a tennis racket. Nazara transmitted a signal directly to Saren, who began the process of transferring control of the station directly to the Reaper.
Though Saren was taking longer to do so than Nazara would have preferred, it was not concerned. This sort of connection had not been attempted since the station had first been constructed many cycles ago and was a rather cumbersome affair – especially for a clumsy organic like Saren who wasn't designed for the purpose as the keepers had been. With the station sealed Nazara was secure in the knowledge that nothing could interfere. The primitive weapons of the organic fleet outside could pound on the closed ward arms for a hundred years and not be able to force their way inside. Nazara could afford to wait.
When their elevator ground to a halt only halfway up the Citadel tower and powered down, it was clear to Kate Beckett and her squad that Saren had beaten them to the Council chamber. Which left only one other option to move forward.
"Saren must have locked out the elevators," she barked. "Suit up people, we're going outside."
The five of them switched their helmets and combat hard-suits to extravehicular mode and prepared for a zero atmosphere climb up the tower. After checking each other's seals, Kate drew her pistol and shot holes in the clear exterior elevator wall, which Wrex kicked out with low chuckle.
One at a time, each of them stepped outside the elevator and allowed their mag-boots to latch onto the exterior wall of the tower, reorienting themselves in the zero-gee environment and the change in linear perspective as up and down suddenly switched places forward, back and sideways. With the exception of Liara they'd all trained for it and the mild vertigo passed after a few seconds. Once they'd had a chance to look around, it was clear what their objective would be and any doubt of the reaper's full scale was suddenly very real.
"Look at the size of that thing." Liara muttered as she took in Nazara for the first time gripped onto the end of the Citadel tower like a giant insect.
"Cut the chatter," Kate admonished, "move out!"
The chase was on.
After several running gunfights with pockets of geth and krogan along the maintenance walkways running the length of the citadel tower, they finally reached an access hatch to the atrium - through which the council had evacuated only half an hour before - and gained entry after Garrus had run a bypass on tower lockout Saren had put in place. They fought through the last pockets of geth resistance barring their path and entered the Council chamber where they could see Saren making adjustments to a console none of them had ever seen in the council chamber before.
Before they could get any closer, Saren noted their arrival, threw a grenade their way to scatter them and hurriedly shut down the console.
"I was afraid you wouldn't make it in time, Beckett," the ex-Specter taunted.
"I had to wipe out a few hundred of your followers along the way," Beckett countered, "you certainly know how to make a girl feel unwanted."
"You've lost," Saren replied. "You know that, don't you? In a few minutes Sovereign will have full control of the Citadel's systems, the relay will open and the reapers will return in force."
"I'm going to get to that console to prevent that, Saren," Kate shot back, gripping her rifle tighter in spite of herself, "and you can't stop me."
"You don't understand, Beckett," Saren implored, "There's a place for organics in the new order. The reapers need people like you and me. Sovereign recognizes your value, if you surrender to the reapers you and your crew will be spared. I represent the future, the evolution of synthetic and organic life, a union of flesh and steel. The strengths of both and the weaknesses of neither. There is a place for you in our destiny, join Sovereign and experience rebirth."
"I'd rather die!" Kate shot back angrily.
"Then you will die." Saren stated, sounding almost saddened at the prospect.
"The reapers don't use organics, Saren!" Castle shouted. "You saw the same visions I did, they devour and discard them. As soon as that relay to dark space opens, Nazara won't need you anymore. You'll be a mindless drone, cast aside and forgotten when they finish with the galaxy!"
"Yes I saw the visions!" Saren shot back, but by the tremble in his voice it was clear that his certainty was wavering. "I saw what happened to the Protheans! Saw for myself that there were no other options but surrender or death! Resistance is futile"
"Resistance is never futile!" Kate shouted, keeping the pressure on as Saren's certainty continued to waver. "You were a Spectre, goddamn it! You could have resisted, you could have fought, instead, you surrendered!"
"Maybe... you're right. Maybe there is... still a chance... to..." Saren stuttered before a wave of pain washed over him. "Argh! The implants... Sovereign's too strong! I am sorry, it's too late for me."
"There's still one way to stop this..." Kate shouted, trying desperately to keep his attention. Like Benezia had before, he was fighting the indoctrination, but she knew it would only last briefly before Nazara wrested control back, "... if you've got the guts!"
Saren's hand shook the entire path down to his sidearm. The very gun he had used to kill his own protege in cold blood. It shook even more as he raised the barrel and pressed it beneath his chin.
"Goodbye, Captain Beckett," He said before selecting sledgehammer rounds. "Thank you."
Saren pulled the trigger, blowing out the back of his own head. His body fell from the platform, down through the glass floor beneath, shattering it to plummet into the rock garden below. Kate only spared a moment to take in the enormity of what just occurred.
"Castle, get me control of the station," Kate ordered.
Castle bounded across the platform and rebooted the master control unit, using his omni-tool to input the file recovered from Vigil and watched as it cycled through the stations mainframe like a Trojan horse virus.
"Vigil's data file is working!" Castle exclaimed, "I have full control of the citadel... communications, security, internal defenses, you name it, I've got it!"
"Open a comm channel!" Kate ordered, noting Castle's nod of affirmation as he set to work.
"This is the Destiny Ascension... requesting assistance!" The Ascension's comm officer implored over the comms. "Main power is offline, kinetic barriers down to forty percent. We have the citadel council aboard, repeat the council is aboard!"
"Normandy to the Citadel, Normandy to the Citadel," XO Pressly called over the same line, "Captain Beckett, do you read?"
"Shore party to Normandy, this is Beckett," Kate replied, "report."
"We caught that distress signal, Captain," Pressly reported. "Per your orders we're waiting at the Andura sector relay with the Fifth Fleet. We can save the Destiny Ascension, if you can unlock the relay the cavalry will come in with guns blazing."
Kate nodded to Castle who set to work.
"Unlocking the relays now," Kate reported, "save the Destiny Ascension and we'll work on getting the ward arms open to hit Nazara."
On board the Fifth Fleet flagship, SSV Everest, the dreadnought's tactical officer noticed the Normandy slipping into the battle line, edging closer to the front of the queue for the relay and reported it to the ship's captain, who turned to Admiral Hackett.
"Admiral, isn't there a 'seek and detain' order on the Normandy?" she asked.
Captain Montgomery had contacted Hackett the day before and informed him about the political maneuverings behind the Normandy's grounding. Aside from the fact that Ambassador Bracken didn't have the authority to request a foreign power detain a Systems Alliance military vessel, he'd never liked the man.
"Captain, I see a strike package preparing to launch," Hackett replied with a nod, "assign them a fighter escort and a launch mark at the tip of the spear."
To Admiral Steven Hackett, actions spoke louder than words. If Normandy's crew was willing to run to the sound of the guns, who was he to deny them? He needed every ship if the geth had actually managed to decimate two fleets representing the three most powerful races in Citadel Space.
Moments later the relay network was unlocked and Admiral Hackett gave the order to move. Several ships at a time, the five main battle groups of the Systems Alliance Fifth Fleet burst through the relay, arrayed themselves into attack formation and deployed into the nebula. The fighter carriers Issac Asimov, Stephen Hawking, and Marie Curie launched their strike fighter wings and pulled back the far side of the relay with their defensive screen of frigates and interceptors. The strike fighter squadrons formed up into wolf pack formations with their assigned frigates from the Sixty-Third scout flotilla and the Normandy to screen the Fleet's cruisers and the dreadnoughts Everest, Orizaba, and Kilimanjaro.
"Admiral Hackett to all ships," Hackett commanded over the guard channel. "Engage the geth and relieve the Destiny Ascension, I want those damned synthetics out of my sky."
Aboard the Destiny Ascension, the sensors officer adjusted her console, the asari who'd held the post before her lay dead at her feet.
"Mass relay activation, Lady Lidanya," she called out "multiple ships moving on an attack vector! They're engaging the geth!"
Matriarch Lidanya glanced up at the main screen and smiled for the first time since the battle began.
"It's the Alliance!" she breathed, "Thank the Goddess!"
At Hackett's command, the dreadnoughts Everest, Kilimanjaro and Orizaba locked targets and commenced fire - sending thirty kilogram ferrous slugs at near relativistic speeds downrange - which struck the geth cruisers with twice the force of the bombs that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the The cruisers were the next to open fire as the bulk of the Fifth Fleet bore in on their attack vectors and their own heavy guns came into range.
The remaining geth ships heeled over and returned fire almost immediately, destroying three frigates and two cruisers outright as the battle turned into a slugging match. Without dreadnoughts of their own, however, the geth were at a grave tactical disadvantage as they had nothing to match the heavy fire raining down on them and were quickly overwhelmed, though not without significant cost. Two more cruisers and another frigate were destroyed before the geth fell back away from the Destiny Ascension.
"Destiny Ascension, you are all clear," Admiral Hackett hailed over the main Citadel channel. "Repeat, you are all clear. The frigates Okinawa and Kursk will escort you from the combat zone."
"The citadel's opening!" the Everest's sensor officer reported.
"All ships," Hackett commanded, "Converge on the Citadel and concentrate all firepower on Sovereign."
"Garrus, Wrex, make sure he's dead," Kate ordered as she watched ward arms begin swinging open as the battle unfolded on the holographic monitor. She itched to be in command of her ship, to be out there where the main battle was, but this was where fate needed her to be.
Without skipping a beat, Wrex and Garrus dropped down into the rock garden. Wrex stalked over to Saren's corpse, withdrew his pistol and fired two rounds directly into Saren's forehead.
"He's dead," Garrus reported.
As the ward arms swung fully open to reveal both the Citadel Tower and Nazara as it clung to it like the petals on a flower at sunrise, it began to trade fire with the Alliance fleet with it's primary weapon, destroying four more Cruisers outright each with a single shot. The rest of the fleet continued to pour fire into Nazara's barriers as the three Alliance dreadnoughts found the range.
"Sovereign's too strong!" One of the cruiser captains called out over the guard channel. "We have to pull back!"
"Negative!" Hackett replied, "This is our only chance. Take that monster down, no matter the cost. All ships increase fire!"
Kate pulled her eyes from the monitor momentarily to see Castle and Liara conversing quietly but with great animation. Clearly discussing something important.
"Captain," Castle stated when their hushed whispers ceased, "Liara and I think we can soften up Nazara for the fleet."
"Explain," Kate ordered.
"Nazara is directly connected to the Citadel, expecting a signal from the station." Liara noted.
"And?" Kate asked.
"How about we give it one?" Castle offered. "Vigil's program was intended to disrupt the Citadel, which was created by the Reapers. Perhaps we can use it corrupt Nazara's systems the same way, at least long enough to give the fleet a few open shots at it anyway."
"It's worth a try," Kate affirmed with a nod. "Do it."
Castle checked Saren's user history on the console, found the carrier wave Nazara had provided him and sent out the modified keeper reply signal with Vigil's worm program hidden inside. The results were almost immediate. The reaper's higher functions were almost immediately corrupted. It's barriers collapsed, it released its grip on the tower and began to drift away.
"It's shields are down!" Hackett stated over the comms, "Now's our chance!"
"Mr Ryan, you have the conn." Pressly ordered. "reload tubes one through six, all silver bullets till I say otherwise. Guardian defense grid at maximum."
"Wild Cards, hard on my flank," Ryan shouted over the guard channel, "I'm going in!"
As the fighters of Wild Card Squadron formed up on Normandy's six o'clock, slaving their targeting to hers, Ryan flipped her inverted relative to the station and dove on Nazara, bringing all six of the forward tubes to bear.
"Ripple fire all forward tubes," Pressly ordered, "aft tubes fire as we bear"
Normandy's six forward torpedo tubes launched their payloads of anti-ship munitions as she dove on Nazara, followed by a volley from the fighters at her flank scoring direct hits on the reaper's superstructure, two of which punched through to detonate deep inside it's inner pressure hull. Though the damage wasn't significant, it softened Nazara up as fire from the Dreadnought Orizaba, then Everest and Kilimanjaro rained down on it.
"Hit it with everything we've got," Hackett ordered.
The cruisers moved in and opened fire, pounding the now defenseless reaper from all sides. Sovereign heeled over, began to tumble, then exploded, raining pieces of itself all over the wards and the presidium. One of its massive forward limbs tumbled on a collision course with the tip of the Citadel tower.
"Scatter!" Kate shouted, just before the massive piece of the reaper slammed into the tower.
The battle was little more than a mopping up operation after the destruction of Nazara. The reaming geth retreated to the relay in a running gunfight with the 63rd Scout Flotilla and escaped after a short skirmish with the carrier force's screening frigates and interceptors. Once the soundly beaten enemy had had fled inner council space with dispatch, attention was again turned to the heavily damaged Citadel. Nazara's wreckage had rained down on nearly all of the ward arms, though Tayseri ward and the Presidium ring seemed to have taken the worst of it. Montgomery's full attention, however fell upon the very tip of the Citadel Tower.
It was almost deathly quiet in what was left of the Council chamber. Barriers had swiftly snapped into place to reinstate atmospheric integrity, but it took time for the search party to get the massive doors that had slammed closed to cycle back open.
The garden atrium surrounding the Council chamber was nearly as silent as a tomb. The rush of air escaping into space had but out the worst of the fires that had claimed the trees in the garden, but they still smoked and smoldered as air pressure began to fully reassert itself. The massive security doors finally slid up into the ceiling, allowing a a search team and damage control party to enter the area to continue their grim search for survivors, finding mostly bodies.
The silence of the atrium soon became filled with the scraping of metal and the clatter of boots as they began to clear away the worst of the debris. They quickly stumbled upon a nearly dome shaped pile of rubble supported by a biotic barrier held in place by Liara T'soni. Within its protective dome Garrus and Wrex stood over the huddled nearly inconsolable form of Richard Castle.
But of Kate Beckett there was no sign.
"Captain Montgomery!" the young human C-Sec officer shouted, "We've found them! They're in here!"
Roy Montgomery was on the scene in short order, checking on each of them, before he laid a comforting hand on Castle's shoulder.
"Take it easy Chief, you're safe now" Montgomery said softly, before asking the question Castle had been silently dreading since the piece of Nazara hit the tower. "Where's your Captain? Where's Beckett?"
Castle locked eyes with Montgomery for only a moment, before his gaze shifted toward the twisted remains of the council chambers just up the stairs. When Montgomery's eyes followed, he saw one of Nazara's massive forelimbs half buried in the deck like a hellish piece of sculpture. The last place Castle had seen her alive.
Montgomery took in the grim, foreboding scene for a moment and was about to issue orders to the C-Sec officers to get Castle and his squad-mates to safety when the sound of creaking metal and footsteps echoed in the distance. He rose from Castle's side and put his hand out palm up in silent command where it was almost instantly filled with the grip of a pistol.
As Montgomery activated the handgun, an indistinct form could be seen moving though the wreckage until the figure was standing atop a fallen section of stone to reveal none other than Kate Beckett.
All eyes were upon her as she stepped back down onto the floor, cradling her left arm carefully, but a megawatt smile bloomed upon her face as she spied Castle and began to pick up her pace. She barely made four steps before Castle was on her, arms enfolding her carefully as their embrace lead to a kiss in the depth and heat of which caused all else in the nearly destroyed chamber to cease to exist for the two of them.
The Battle of the Citadel was over. The Reaper invasion had been thwarted.
They had won.
**Author's note** Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving! Epilogue for Act I coming soon!