The ships monitoring the mass relays near the Citadel never knew what hit them.
The ones that remained after Sovereign tore through them were destroyed by the geth ships in its wake. Word got ahead to the fleets guarding the Citadel mere seconds before they arrived, blasting through ships with horrific ease. The asari matriarch that commanded the Destiny Ascension, the Council's flagship, watched in horror, struggling to get communications through the Citadel, only to be further horrified when none of the security systems would respond. It was this series of images and bursts of information that was transmitted to the Council as an order that had never been given before went through: abandon the Citadel and get the Council out.
Udina burst into the block where C-sec was holding Anderson. The ambassador didn't look a bit like his normal, composed self. He undid the cuffs himself, ignoring the warnings from his guards, speaking hurriedly. "Saren's ship has reached the Citadel. They can't get the arms closed to protect us, so they're evacuating the Council."
Anderson was supremely unsurprised. "Have you called our fleets in?"
"Yes, but they're not sure what the best course of action is. They need you, Captain."
Anderson rose and strode past him, the calm authority and efficiency that had served Alliance and crew alike so well radiating from him. "Has there been any word from Shepard, yet?"
"Shepard? What does Shepard have to do...?"
Anderson interrupted him as several men in Alliance uniforms who had been brought along with Udina stood at attention, saluting as the captain came out of the doors. "I want to know the second anyone hears anything from her." One of the marines nodded and hurried off. Anderson looked back at Udina, his expression grim. "She has everything to do with it, Ambassador. Now is the time to sit back and hope she got there in time, and you didn't fuck us all over."
Shepard's fingers tightened on the controls of the Mako as Saren disappeared through the Conduit, her eyes narrowing on that spear of brilliant light...then on the geth in between them and it. "Garrus."
"On it, Commander," the turian said without missing a beat, taking control of the guns.
Shepard revved the Mako. "Tali, if you can do anything that'll give us a little extra burst of speed, it'd be appreciated."
The Mako shot forward. "Hang on, ladies and gentlemen."
Ilos was eerie...and fascinating. It reminded her of the kinds of ruins heroes in adventure vids and games explored, full of statues of gods and traps with rolling rocks and pits of spikes.
They didn't encounter any of those. There were ancient statues that reminded her horribly of the dying figures in her vision, consoles scattered throughout that held little more than broken transmissions trying to warn them about the Reapers and ancient technology that she actually had to drag Liara away from physically a couple of times. They were looking for the door controls, the rest could wait.
"Shepard, I think it's closing!" Liara cried.
Shepard didn't respond, all her focus on the mass relay ahead, set so its tines were pointing straight up in the air. She dimly heard Garrus snarling something as he fired the guns at the larger geth before they could fire on them.
Some of the hopper things managed to jump onto the Mako itself. Wrex wrenched Liara out of the way and threw the door open, physically ripping one off the roof and throwing it. How he managed to blast the other one off at that angle, Shepard didn't know, she'd have to ask him later.
Saren had passed by Vigil without ever realizing it was there. However, the barrier it put up, and the soft pulsing tone it sent out guided Shepard to it with ease.
It appeared to be a VI, but it was more advanced than any VI she'd ever seen. It could sense that she wasn't indoctrinated and adjust itself so all of them, not just Shepard, could understand it. Liara was utterly fascinated, almost mesmerized.
'Your society forms along the paths we desire.'
What Sovereign had taunted them with, Vigil clarified. Wrex's comment about corralling them, herding them, had been right on the mark. The Reapers had created the Citadel and the mass relays specifically so galactic society would form around them. It was a simple but perfect trap.
The center of the galaxy, the hub of the mass relay network, was a mass relay itself.
Once activated, it led straight into dark space where the Reapers crawled out of. The Reapers began their attack right at the center of civilization, taking over the mass relays, destroying the leadership of the galaxy, and gaining access to all known data on colonies, planets, and stations all in one fell swoop. They cut off systems from each other and proceeded to kill and enslave at their leisure.
Shepard finally spoke as the VI fell silent, staring at the glowing, ever dancing play of light that made up its form. "What do I need to do?"
"The Conduit is the key," Vigil said. "Before the Reapers attacked, we Protheans were on the cusp of unlocking the mysteries behind mass relay technology. Ilos was a top secret facility. Here, researchers worked to create a small scale version of a mass relay. One that linked directly to the Citadel, the hub of the relay network."
"So the Conduit is a back door to the Citadel..." Liara murmured.
"We severed all communication with the outside and our facility went dark. The personnel retreated underground into these archives," Vigil continued. "To conserve resources, everyone was put into cryogenic stasis. I was programmed to monitor the facility and wake the staff when the danger had passed."
Shepard glanced up at one of many odd containers attached to the walls that were scattered throughout the facility. Earlier, Tali had identified them as some sort of stasis pods, which had shocked Shepard and Liara to the core, leaving them wondering if they had a freaking Prothean army right here that just needed awakening.
Vigil shot that idea down a second later. "But the genocide of an entire species is a long, slow process. Years passed. Decades, centuries. The Reapers persisted. And my energy reserves were dwindling."
Shepard went very still, already guessing what was coming.
"I began to disable the life support of non-essential personnel. First support staff, then security. One by one, their pods were shut down to conserve energy. Eventually, only the stasis pods of the top scientists remained active. Even these were in danger of failing when the Reapers finally retreated back through the Citadel relay."
Liara's voice was soft, horrified. "There were hundreds of stasis pods out there! You shut them all down? You killed them?"
It couldn't have done it unless someone had programmed it with the instructions to do so, Shepard thought bleakly. Vigil confirmed her thoughts. "This outcome was not completely unforseen. My actions were the result of contingency programming entered on my creation."
"Bet they didn't tell the 'non-essential' staff about that contingency," Wrex remarked. Shepard winced slightly, willing to bet he was right.
"I saved key personnel," Vigil said. To Shepard's surprise, there almost seemed to be a note of defensiveness in the VI's voice. She wondered exactly how intelligent it was, if there was a personality programmed into it. Was it more of an AI? "When the Reapers retreated, the top researchers were still alive. My actions are the only reason hope remains. When the researchers woke, they realized the Prothean species was doomed. There were only a dozen individuals left, far too few to sustain a viable population."
What had that been like, she wondered, to fall into sleep with hope and wake up to none?
"Yet they vowed to find some way to stop the Reapers from returning. A way to break the cycle forever. And the keepers were the key..."
Warning klaxons started blaring as Shepard hit the ramp leading up to the Conduit. She heard Tali cry something but couldn't make out what it was. The light of the Conduit, so close now, seemed to dim even as she looked. For a second, despair touched her, thinking they were too late, then she felt the hard pull right in the center of her and the breath rushed from her lungs as they were thrown upward.