Ch. 27
There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains. the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch.
Author: Bette Davis
I feel us shoot forward we fly through the air and crash upside down. Everything goes black, I feel someone poking me and a faint voice shouting, "...will..." the volume increases until I hear fire crackling, Avina the Citadels VI guide repeating some message about unauthorized synthetics, and the voice which I now know is Tali saying, "Will get up."
"That's one way to travel," I say grabbing my head. I hear the telltale sound of dragon's teeth retracting I go for my SMGs, just to find they aren't there. I reach around my back, my rifles gone too. "My guns are gone," I say to Tali.
"Here use this," she says handing me her pistol.
"Much obliged," I say grabbing it. I hear Shepard's assault rifle start firing, I turn and see a group of husks charging us. Tali and I turn to the husks her shotgun in her hand, the pistol in mine we start shooting. A husk breaks through our fire and charges towards me. I aim low and blow it's leg out from under it, I put a bullet in it's head. "So what now," I ask after they all go down.
Shepard heads to Avina, who appears badly damaged fading out and twitching around, "The Presidium is experiencing sever systems malfunctions across the entire level," Avina says, "all non-emergency personnel must evacuate immediately."
"Give me a run-down of the damage," Shepard orders the VI.
"We have lost primary power to the level," Avina says, "enviromental controls are not responding, class three fires are burning in sectors 2,3,6 and 7, civilian casualties are high." "I am also detecting numerous unauthorized synthetic life forms, throughout the station," she continues, "they are believed to be hostile, please approach with caution."
"Where's Saren," Shepard asks getting to the point.
"Former Spectre agent Saren Arterius is nearing the vicinity of the Council Chamber," Avina answers, "a warrant has been issued for his arrest, though Citadel Security is unable to respond at this time."
Shepard turns to us, "Come on," she orders, "we need to stop Saren before it's too late."
"Gotcha boss," I say, we all turn to the elevator. "Going up," I say. It starts to rise rapidly, "I still hate heights." The elevator stops suddenly, I lose my footing and fall.
"Saren's locked the elevator," Shepard says, "suit up - we're going outside." I grab for the mask that closes up my hood making it a space suit. Shepard pulls out her pistol.
"Ready," I say after the mask was in place, Shepard blows the elevator window open. She steps out into open air then rotates and lands on the outside of Citadel tower. Tali follows suit a short while later. "You've got to be kidding me," I say gingerly moving my foot out into open air. I close my eyes and jump out lightly. I feel myself rotate and touch solid ground. I let out a breath I had been holding.
"Let's move," Shepard says holstering her pistol and pulling out her assault rifle. We head off and I must say walking on the side of a building is somewhat less scary than it sounds. Mostly because we were never near any ledges. We fight our way through the geth and krogan gaurds until we reach an area with a geth dropship floating over it. The area has several of the stations deactivated turrets around it.
"Shepard," Tali says, "I could hack the towers defenses, and use the guns on that ship."
"Will, we're going to cover Tali," Shepard orders.
"Yes ma'am," I say following her out we take shots from geth my shields start failing just as we reach cover. Tali immediatly gets to work on the turret, while Shepard and I take shots at the geth to keep them from getting too close. Tali exclaims the gun moves and begins firing on the geth dropship.
"Onto the next one," I ask Shepard.
"Move it," she answers. We repeat the process until we have three of the guns firing on the dropship. "Get down," Shepard shouts as the final shots hit the geth ship, we duck behind cover as the ship explodes. The shrapnel from the ship had taken care of the remaining geth and we continued on. We reached a hatch, Shepard opens it and it leads into an elevator.
"Thank god," I say smiling glad to be off the side of the tallest building I've ever seen. We step into the elevator and through some technology I have no idea about we right ourselves and land on the floor right-side up. The elevator door opens, it's the lobby to the Citadel council. We sprint up the stairs towards the area the Council usually met at. Saren floats up and tosses a grenade at us, we scatter I land behind cover on the opposite side of Shepard.
"I was afraid you weren't going to make it in time Shepard," Saren says.
"In time for what," Shepard asks.
"The final confrontation," Saren answers, "I think we both expected it would end like this." "You've lost, you know that don't you," Saren asks, "in a few minutes Sovereign will have full control of all the Citadel's systems, the relay will open and the reapers will return."
"I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve," Shepard shouts.
"You survived our encounter on Virmire," Saren says, "but I've changed since then, improved, Sovereign has... upgraded me."
"You let Sovereign implant you," Shepard shouts, "are you insane!"
"I suppose I should thank you, Shepard," Saren answers, "after Virmire I couldn't stop thinking of what you said." "About Sovereign manipulating me, about indoctrination," Saren continues, "my doubts began to eat away at me, Sovereign sensed my... hesitation." "I was implanted to strengthen my resolve," he says firmly, "now my doubts are gone, I believe in Sovereign completely." "The reapers need organics," Saren continues his rant, "join us, and Sovereign will find a place for you too."
"Sovereigns controlling you through your implants, don't you see that," Shepard shouts.
"The relationship is symbiotic," Saren argues, "organic and machine combined, a union of flesh and steel, the strengths of both the weaknesses of neither." "I am a vision of the future Shepard," Saren says, "the evolution of all organic life, this is our destiny, join Sovereign and experience a true rebirth."
"Sovereign hasn't won yet," Shepard argues, "I can stop him from taking full control of the station." "Step aside and the invasion will never happen," Shepard orders.
"We can't stop it," Saren argues frantically, "not forever, you saw the visions, you saw what happened to the protheans." "The reapers are too powerful," he says wearily.
"Some part of you must still feel like this is wrong," Shepard shouts, "you can fight this."
"Maybe your right, maybe there is still a chance," he says, he begins groaning in pain, "the implants Sovereign is too strong, I'm sorry."
Shepard leaps out from behind cover, I look over mine to Saren floating in the air on his hover-disc thing. "It's not over yet, you can still redeem yourself," Shepard shouts at him.
"Goodbye Shepard," he says putting his pistol to his head. "Thank you," he says and pulls the trigger. He falls from his disk to the ground below. We run up to the control panel and Tali downloads the file into the controls.
"Vigil's data file worked," Shepard says after going over the controls, "I've got control of all systems."
"Quick, open the station's arms," Tali suggests, "maybe the fleet can take Sovereign down before he regains control of the station."
"Can we contact anyone," I ask. Shepard begins working on her omni tool and a voice fills the room.
"... the Destiny Ascension, main drives offline, kinetic barriers down to 40%," the voice says urgently, "the Council is onboard, I repeat, the Council is onboard."
After that message ends a familiar voice comes over the comm, "Normandy to the Citadel, Normandy to the Citadel," Joker's voice says, "please tell me that's you, Commander."
"I'm here Joker," Shepard answers.
"We caught that distress call, Commander," Joker says, "I'm sitting in the Andura sector with the entire Arcturus fleet." "We can save the Ascension," he says, "just unlock the relays around the Citadel and we'll sen the Calvary in."
"Are you sure about this, Shepard," Tali asks, "human casualties will be very high if you send your fleet in now."
"Sovereign's too big a threat to handle with just humans," I say to them.
"True, that's why you can't waste reinforcements trying to save the Council," Tali argues, "you must hold them back until the Citadel arms open up and the human fleet can go after Sovereign."
"What's the order, Commander," Joker asks, "come in now to save the Ascension or hold back."
"Opening the relays now, Joker," Shepard says, "We need to save the Ascension... no matter what the cost."
"I hope the Council appreciates this," Tali says.
Shepard looks over the spot down where Saren fell, "Make sure he's dead," she orders.
Tali and I make our way down there, I pull out my pistol and shoot him in the head. "He's dead," I say over my comm to Shepard. "Almost," I say to myself. Sure enough red lightning begins firing through the walls as the ground shakes. Saren's body turns into the epicenter of this electrical activity. He glows red and explodes I'm thrown across the room into a column. "Ouch," I say, I notice that Saren stands up, his flesh melts away leaving just his mechanical implants remaining, the walkway Shepard was standing on destabilizes and falls down making a ramp that she tumbles down. "Crap," I say, I dropped my gun in the explosion. I begin looking around for it, "nadda," I say to myself.
Saren's voice says, "I am Sovereign, and this station is MINE!" He leaps from wall to wall too quickly for us to follow. He stops in front of Tali and reaches out for her, I hold my hand out and fire an overload at him. That didn't work as well as I would have hoped, he turns from Tali to me and begins jumping around the walls again.
"Will," Shepard shouts throwing me her pistol, I catch it just as Saren stops in front of me. I fire off all the rounds in the pistol til he leaps away again. I get back over to Tali and Shepard we stand in a circle facing outward. Shepard with her assault rifle, Tali with her shotgun, and me with my pistol. Saren came to a stop in front of me again.
"Shepard," I shout kneeling. Shepard and Tali turn towards my direction and fire their guns as I open up with my pistol. Saren survives and leaps away, when he comes to a stop it's in the middle of our circle. He grabs Tali and launches her across the room, I turn and try to grapple with him and he easily overpowers me and tosses me across the room separating us from Shepard. He reaches out and grabs Shepard by the throat holding her off the ground.
"Shepard," I shout trying my best to throw my pistol to her, I can't tell through the crack in my mask but I think she caught it because a second later I hear a gunshot and everything goes quiet, except for the sounds of the battle outside. I see Saren fall to the ground and disintegrate. Shepard falls to her knees clutching her throat.
Through her gasps she says, "Thanks Will." She looks towards the window in the room I follow her gaze a piece of Sovereign is headed right for us. "Go," She shouts. I run across the room and grab Tali I pull her away and hear the window crash, I toss her out of the way as a piece of Sovereign falls towards us. Everything goes black.
