"Thank you sir for coming all this way. It must've been a long journey." Shepard said respectfully.
"At the very least you deserve it, Shepard. At ease, now what is it that you wanted to tell me that's so important?" Straight to the point, this was definitely Admiral Hackett.
"Sir, I have actionable intel that reveals the location of the Illusive Man's main base of operations, I know he has agents in the Alliance which is why I have you on my ship, EDI are you sure this room is secure?"
"Yes Shepard, the only listening devices in this room are my own, and I will not disclose this meeting to anyone unless told otherwise, you are my CO."
"Thanks EDI, anyway, his main base of operations is here, in the Horsehead nubula as you can see here one of my squad mates who wishes to be anonymous had a tracer on one of the Cerberus agents we encountered, and all the navigation data points to a base near a star on the other side of the Horsehead nubula." Shepard pointed towards the estimated location.
"Thank you Shepard, this data will cripple and possibly destroy Cerberus, but how are we going to do it without the Illusive man finding out? He would have contingency plans in place, and if what you said earlier is correct, the Illusive man will know in advance and will take appropriate action to prevent us from storming it."
"You know those N7 strike teams you mentioned earlier in that email? Put together an elite task force of them and send there to storm the base, you might not kill the Illusive man, but you would badly damage Cerberus and make them weaker later on."
"I'll assembly a strike force and hit Cerberus when they aren't expecting it, it'll take a while Shepard, so don't expect Cerberus to be gone immediately after this, I'll have to do several extensive background checks first, especially concerning my own crew, thank you for this information Shepard, you have given us a chance to cripple Cerberus for the rest of the war."
"Just doing my job sir, and be careful in the Alliance, Cerberus has indoctrinated spies everywhere."
...
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"I probably deserved that, hell of a bruise though." Tom said as he walked in the main battery.
"That was what you deserve, I know it wouldn't change anything so I decided not to take it further then that." Garrus said, no nonsense.
"I definitely didn't expect it, but you're right and I won't be trying to get revenge because I deserved it, just making sure you don't hold a grudge."
"Normally I would, but we have bigger concerns and you've already made up for what you've done by giving us intel on the main base of Cerberus."
"I'll be giving you a lot more then that in the future, I just want to make sure that all the civilians that were killed in this war died to give everyone else a chance to end the war and keep everyone else alive. Also I was wondering wh-" The intercom suddenly cut Tom off. "EDI, Tali, and Tom get to the shuttle bay, we're retaking Rannoch today."
"What was it that you were going to say?" Garrus asked.
Tom swept it aside. "Nothing important, I have mission, I'll tell you about it later."
...
"Legion, how heavily defended is the base?" Shepard asked.
"It is recommended that you mount a frontal assualt, we will infiltrate through a side entrance and grant you a straight path to the transmitter."
"Wait, that would mean you would still have the Reapers upgrade code, right? There's no other way you'd be able to break past the security."
Legion legitimately seemed ashamed. "We feared you would disapprove, and wanted to facilitate unit cohesion."
"Just tell me next time, okay? The Geth are better than this, I'm sure of it."
Legion still looked ashamed. "Actually, base on preliminary evidence, they are not."
"We'll talk about it later, infiltrate the base while we cause a distraction."
"Acknowledged."
"Seems like you do infiltrate, mind if you could revisit your statement earlier, Legion?" Tom remarked jokingly.
*Flashback*
"Security seems to have tightened a bit since my last visit here." Shepard observed.
"After the Geth attack there was a review of security protocal, some minor changes were made to reduce the risk of Geth infiltration." Wait what?! She didn't even recognize Legion as a Geth! In the game that made sense but here?! Tom turned around.
"How do you do that?"
Legion's headplates raised in a sheepish 'gesture' "Geth do not infiltrate."
"Seems like you infiltrated Citadel security, buddy, considering you haven't been shot on site yet." Shepard said, he had a smirk on his face.
"Geth do not intentionally infiltrate."
"Yeah, we get it, let's go. I need to get some more weapon mods." Shepard still had that grin though.
*Present*
"That was an organic complex. This is not."
"Whatever, good luck Legion!" Tom said as Legion got off and the shuttle continued on.
"Still wondering how the hell he managed to walk through the Citadel for 24 hours of shore leave and NOT get caught." Shepard said.
"Don't question it, it works better that way." Tom said.
"Shepard we're at the LZ, you ready to go?" Cortez asked.
"Oh right, yeah, everyone off!"
"Wow, I guess it hasn't really sunk in yet that I'm actually on the homeworld." Tali's tone had trace of awe in it.
"Hadn't you gotten over this when we were rescuing your dad?" Shepard said, he was poking at her, teasing her.
"Okay, that was different, you bosh'tet! I was more worried about my dad then anything else." She said, flustered.
"What ever, let's get moving."
Finding the welcoming party was easy, fighting them was not.
"Geth on your six, Tom!" Shepard shouted before spraying it a couple times with an N7 eagle.
The welcoming party was very well equipped, with hunters for pressure and a destroyer to keep them pinned down, fortunately Tom's tactical cloak managed to negate that advantage when he stuck his Omni-blade right through the destroyer's head. Shepard was taking out the hunters left and right with neat, well placed headshots, he was probably was adrenaline.
The battle was over in a couple minutes.
"Everyone alright?" A couple of nodded heads all around. "Good, we got more targets to clear, keep moving."
...
Fightning on the balcony was annoying, espically since they were always getting shot from the top floor, and being hit by hunters on the bottom floor.
"EDI! Keep an eye on those Hunters! Tom get rid of those rocket troops by any means necessary! Tali, on me!" Shepard snapped before spraying down a hunter that had gotten too close for comfort.
EDI easily cleared the remaining hunters out of the bottom floor, due to her being a synthetic and easily being able to dectect the slightest and most subtle cloaking devices.
Tali was just providing cover fire for Shepard by distracting the rocket troops with her attack drone, which were then promptly sniped by Tom. Shepard himself was shooting anything that moved, and throwing in some grenades for good measure.
"We're clear, move forward, I think we're near where the transmitter is, good work guys."
...
"Shepard, the Geth under Reaper control are closing a blast shield over the transmitter."
"How long would it take to break open?"
"7.86 hours with consistent fire from the main fleet of the Quarians."
"We don't have that kind of time, where can we disable it?"
"Sending the coordinates to your Nav point, we will disable the security and lift the blast shield after you grant us access to the console."
"Copy that, we'll proceed and disable the security from the console, hold on for a minute."
It took a while to get inside because of crossfire from the balcony on the other side of the base, mainly rocket troops, and it took a lot longer then normal because only Shepard and Tom had sniper rifles.
"Forget the sniper Tom, everybody stay in cover and get to the other side of the balcony, we're losing this fight because we don't have the appropriate amount of weapons to deal with it."
It took a while, and Tom swore he almost blew his ear drums out from all the explosions, but they eventually made it to the other side where everyone hastily entered the door and then Tali sealed it shut with her Omni-tool.
"That was annoying." Shepard remarked. "Let's keep moving, my nav point shows that we're close to the console, we're almost done, keep up the pressure."
There were no Geth inside the area, well except until after Shepard gave Legion access, then they started pouring in to attempt to stop Shepard. Of course it had to be right after they gave Legion access, how convenient.
Tom was fighting an admittedly losing battle as he was terrible at defending a location, he was much better at infiltration then anything else. Shepard was killing Geth like nobody's business, he was getting clean head shots everywhere, and he was probably running off adrenaline, again. Tali was having a much better time defending then Tom was due to having two drones which she could throw out on command. EDI was providing cover fire for Tom after running simulations that calculated Tom having a 43.5% chance of successfully holding the console, and eventually the Geth didn't have enough reinforcements to keep on attacking, so they quietly retreated.
"Shepard-Commander, I have successfully bypassed the blast shield controls and lifted it from the transmitter." Legion said.
"Good work Legion, let's get outside everyone!" Shepard shouted.
"Negative Shepard-Commander, the area behind you has been locked down, there is an elevator which will take you up to a balcony which will provide an optimal targeting position, I am marking the location your nav point."
"Alright never mind, everyone follow me!"
And just like in the games, there was a Geth Prime and two Pyros waiting for them at the lift."
"Focus fire on those Pyros! We can't have them getting close!" The Pyros were shot down like they were marked for death, and then the Prime was eventually taken down with combined fire.
...
"Primes! They really don't want us up here!" Tali ducked into cover to avoid a siege pulse.
"Flank them Tom! I need you to distract them from behind!"
"Will do Commander!"
The only reason Tom actually made it out of the pinned down position that Shepard and everyone else were at was just because of his cloak, he made a good distraction as well as two of the Primes immediately turned around once he shot one of them. It was hard dodging everything that got thrown his way, he had to holster his Mattock just to keep with the constant pulses that kept on being shot at him, any cover he took refuge in was decimated quickly.
Fortunately Shepard and co. had just finished disabling one Prime which attracted the attention of one of the other Primes, which was a welcome break. Catching his breath, Tom sighed happily, before looking up to see a siege pulse coming right for him. His shields were decimated instantly, he was about to be vaporized when Tali grabbed him and pulled him into cover.
"Thank you, I wouldn't have lasted if you hadn't pulled me in right there." He was hyperventilating.
"We're even now, let's finish off that last Prime." Tali said before switching to her Geth shotgun.
The last Prime lasted about as long as the one on the elevator, not very long.
"Alright, I'll destroy the transmitter guys, then we can go back to the Normandy." Shepard said, relief was evident in his tone as he pulled out the targeting laser.
He painted the target and the Normandy rolled in and deployed a perfect air strike, hitting the transmitter dead on.
...Only to piss off the Reaper destroyer that WAS the transmitter. Shepard fell off the balcony in the resulting shockwave.
"The transmitter is a Reaper, start running people!"
"We have located transportation!" Legion said.
"You heard the robot, everybody get your asses to the escape vehicle, NOW!"
Everyone made it to the vehicle, and then Legion hit the gas.
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
The order was issued to #9845843 in an instant.
Kill Shepard, extinguish the last hope for this cycle, and then continue transmitting.
Projections calculated Shepard of dying in 96.35% of all simulations, there was no escape this time, Harbinger had made it personal, they were inferior to Shepard, they had failed.
Finish what Harbinger started, kill Commander Shepard.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Reaper got up, slowly, but it got up, that shot wasn't enough to kill it, sure it had stunned it, but the damage itself was minimal.
"Shepard-Commander, we may retreat before it retaliates." Legion stated.
"No, pull over."
"Shepard-Commander?"
"If we retreat now the Geth stay under Reaper control and the Qurians are dead. Retreat to a safe distance, I'll take care of it for now, EDI, have you synced up the Guidance system to the rest of the fleet?"
"Yes Shepard, anything you paint will show up on their targeting programs as well."
"Good, I'm going in."
...
It was amazing how Shepard deftly dodged those lasers, it was crazy how he dodged death so many times, and weakened the Reaper enough to disable it, in all honestly, there was a lot more to Shepard then just his skill, although that was definitely a factor. For Tom it was very different seeing it in real life, it got his blood pumping, as he knew there was no restarts here, dying would be permanent.
Shepard didn't though, he managed to single handedly take on a Reaper and WIN, and you couldn't give the fleet too much credit as he was actually exposing himself.
"We killed a Reaper, keelah." Tali was awestruck.
"That's number 4, I better get paid overtime for this when it's all said and done." Shepard said, sweat falling down his forehead.
"We can confirm that the Geth are no longer under Reaper control, we are free."
Tom inwardly sighed, this was probably the worst part, out of all the crew members, Legion deserved it the least to be killed in the third game, he was so innocent, yet deadly.
A/N: Sorry for the cliffhanger, I just couldn't find any where else to end it, in foresight I probably should've planned this, oh well.
Reviews:
redcollecter: You'll see soon enough.
Dickson: I tried to cut that down in this chapter, I hope that helps.