Squishy/Beir – Present.
When I walked into the CIC that morning, I really only expected to be in for another day of frustrating and largely unrewarding engineering. Given the situation we're all in, that was really quite naïve of a thought.
As I entered the room, the first thing I can see is Saul crouched on the ground, staring dumbfoundedly at the radio comms. He's transfixed, and I'm reasoning not for a good reason. Slowly, I walk over and crouch next to him.
"S-" I don't get the chance to say his name properly.
"It's gone," he states flatly. "It's completely gone."
"The comms?" It's a rhetorical question, but part of me hopes that maybe he's talking about something else instead.
"Yes." Saul looks up at me and even if he's a turian, I can tell his features are haunted. "We can't contact high command. We're cut off. We've failed our people, I've failed-"
"You haven't failed anyone," I interrupt with a surprising sternness to my voice.
He pauses for a second, then speaks. "How would you know?"
"I've spent a good part of my life being told I've failed my people," I reply and my voice wavers momentarily. "After a while you just... realise that it doesn't matter what your superiors say and stop caring if they judge you."
There would be people who would judge him, but only out of fear. "Until every person in the galaxy is gone," I continue softly, "nobody has failed, and the reapers have not won."
I wish I could have said that about Rannoch. We won, but part of me wonders if the sacrifice was worth it. Not that I would lightly give up the homeworld again, sometimes I think the lives we lost was too great.
And this war has only been worse.
Saul sighs and moves to stand up. "I have to tell the General, excuse me."
I nod at him and watch him leave. Then, I realise that this might be one the last times I see him. If the General sends a team to take back the radio tower, it'll be Reegar's, and we all knew we probably wouldn't make it back alive from there if we do go.
Kal'Reegar – In space around Rannoch.
I'll admit, Xen's invention has slightly changed my opinion on taking back the homeworld. With the geth immobilised, we stood at much greater odds. Until they went to the reapers, of course, and we were done for. And, yet again, that only lasted as long as it took Shepard to turn up. One of these days I'll have to name one of my children after him. Or maybe a pet, given I probably won't have any children of my own.
But he isn't able to work miracles as sometimes I think he can, even if he gets pretty damn close. Up until now, Squishy and I had been grounded (or, perhaps, ship bound) in a hangar bay waiting deployment. It had been the plan that we would fly the gunship when troops were put on Rannoch's surface, but the geth's reaper upgrades firmly blew that plan away.
I have no idea what Shepard's doing at the moment because even Squishy hasn't managed to hack into the Normandy's comms (he muttered something about an AI flushing his omni-tool with large volumes of obscene material when he tried) but I do know there's something going on. Not in the least that from what comms we do have access to, we heard that Admiral Koris' ship just crashed into Rannoch's surface.
I don't know the details, but no ones making an effort to rescue him or his crew. I wouldn't blame them, it'd be pretty suicidal, but to lose the Admiral of the civilian fleet, regardless of what opinion I might have of him (albeit it has improved since the trial given his position on the war) losing him would cost more lives. His fleet needs a leader and someone to stand behind.
Squishy glances across at me from where he's sitting in the co-pilot's seat. We're not far from the surface, we could probably get there with the mantis, and one gunship might not be noticed like a whole platoon deploying would, especially when there's too much else distracting everyone in the space-fight going on.
Squishy glances at the sealed door to the bay out of the gunship's front windscreen. We know each other too well. I smile faintly and nod at him. "Do it."
He's hacked through the override in seconds and we barely hear the shouts of protest over the local comms as our ship flies out.
The view outside is startling, but neither of us has time to take it in. We're small and hard to target, but it doesn't mean we can be reckless. "Track Koris," I tell Squishy as I concentrate on keeping the gunship out of enemy fire in approach to Rannoch's surface.
It takes a few moments, but a red dot starts beeping on the map in the corner of my control screen. I head towards it. Now that we're skimming along Rannoch's surface (relatively speaking that is), we're safe from the space-fight, but there's plenty of geth on the ground still wanting to kill us. Koris seems too far away, I wish he'd crashed closer, but this gunship gives as good as it gets.
"Take control of flying," I tell Squishy. He murmurs his acknowledgement and there's a brief period of bumpy transition until he's comfortable and settled. I take control of the gun controls and the noise of the ship's machine gun firing fills our ears.
We're getting closer to Koris' position, killing what geth that attack us in our path and for a moment it looks like we might be good, until Squishy yells a curse and I glance at him in worry. Then, the ship rocks violently and I realise we've been hit by something big. Maybe an AA gun, but I don't have time to analyse.
"The drive cores failing!" Squishy shouts and there's the sickening kind of feeling from the ship losing altitude. We're not far from Rannoch's surface, but we're high enough in the air that crashing at this height would kill us both.
"Take control of the ship," Squishy tells me and I don't have time to argue because he's climbed out of his seat and disappeared behind me.
"Squishy!" I shout frantically, half because I've just been thrust into trying to keep a failing ship in flight and half because I have no idea where he's gone.
There's some kind of banging and groaning noise behind me and there's a slight but welcome decrease in the speed of our plummeting. I manage to pull the ship level briefly, but it's a fleeting win because it falls a moment later again.
The last thing I hear before the crash is Admiral Gerrell shouting for his son over the comms in horror, and the realisation he'd been tracking us the whole time.
Squishy/Beir – Rannoch.
Crash landing in a ship is an unusual feeling to experience. Probably because most people don't survive long enough to fully embrace it. Granted, this wasn't really a proper crash landing. It was more an emergency landing that could have used a great deal more bracing than it had. All I did was slow down the speed of our descent, but it's probably the reason I'm even able to think right now instead of being dead. The drive cores making an unhealthy noise, I realise, and I'm also in a fair amount of pain.
I groan as I push myself up onto my elbows and I'm grateful that I can at least move my body. I hope the pain is just bruising and not a major suit puncture or fractured bone. But I can't really stop to assess that now, given that I'm fairly certain the ship's engine is about to blow up.
"Reegar?" I try, and my voice is croaky. "Reegar, get up!"
"I would," I hear him retort, but I can't see him, "if not for the immobilising pain from crash landing you bosh-"
"This whole ships going to blow!" I interrupt frantically.
"What?!"
"I bypassed the drive core to brace our landing by redirecting non-vital energy to keep the ship in flight-"
"Squishy! Enough of the tech crap!"
"It put too much strain on the ship, it's going to blow up!"
This time, I hear him move, thankfully. "Then why didn't you say that?!"
"I did, you jackass!"
"Just move it!" Reegar actually grabs me by my suit and yanks me backwards. We both only just manage to crawl our way out of the ship's wreckage before the explosion sends us flying. We roll to a messy stop, but it could be a lot worse. I'm still in pain, but feeling the heat from the fire from this distance is considerably preferable to being inside the inferno.
I glance over at Reegar and he's propped himself up on one arm. I sit up and taking a deep breath, before Reegar smacks me over the back of my head.
"Stop blowing up my ships!"
I don't even being to consider retorting, because trickling through my fingers is sand and pebbles.
Rannoch.
