A/N: To be honest, I have no idea what the chapter title actually means. I just thought using Latin would make me appear really smart!
I'm afraid EDI's takover of sexy fembot body will have to wait a little bit, because at least my version of EDI is considerate enough not to sabotage Normandy while the ground team are fighting for their lives. This also means Liara can remain planet-side for the entire mission. Yay!
Also, I thought Leviathan was really good. I would absolutely recommend it to everyone. :)
Chapter 47 - Una Salus Victus
"So... anyone wants to tell me what the hell that is?" Shepard asks, wiping the sweat off her brow as she stares at a large, still twitching armored monstrosity at her feet. It is of the size of a krogan, but somehow repurposed and covered with thick armor plates, making it an even deadlier opponent than a real krogan.
"We haven't come up with a better name for them than 'brute'," Garrus says, breathing heavily. "They are some sort of mutation between krogans and turians. Just one of the many horrors already spawned by this war, Shepard. And I doubt it's the last by far."
"You were always such an optimist, Garrus. Reminds me why I like you," Shepard grumbles.
"I thought those mutated turian marauders were bad enough," James says, then giving Liara a worried look. "You okay, Doc? That charge almost got you."
"I am fine, thank you, Lieutenant," Liara replies, looking a little paler shade of blue. "I will make sure to be more careful next time we come across these things. I would not wish to test my biotic barriers against... this," she adds, staring at the dead brute.
"No, let's just do our best not to allow these bastards to close in on us," Shepard agrees. "You know... I'm just thinking it's kind of insulting. I mean, humans are the Reaper chosen species for ascension in this cycle, and yet when repurposed, we still make the most harmless shock troops of the Reaper arsenal. Husks! Who's afraid of them? Even the mutated batarians are so much more dangerous."
"Shepard, only you would think to complain about something like that," Garrus shakes his head, leading them further through the barren canyons of Menae.
"I... don't even want to think what plans they have for my people..." Liara says quietly, coming to brief stop, disturbed by the thought.
Shepard reaches out to squeeze her hand comfortingly. "Sorry. I regret starting this line of thought now," she says, but Liara shakes her head, managing a brave smile as they move onwards.
"How far is it, Garrus?" Shepard asks after they have walked a few minutes without encountering any Reaper resistance.
"Should be quick, unless we run into trouble," the turian replies.
"I can't possibly fathom what sort of trouble we could run into here," Shepard rolls her eyes. "Pastoral picture of fucking tranquility."
As the road leads a little uphill, they can see one of the destroyers not too far in the distance, standing over a still burning crashed turian frigate, the particle beam continuing to ravage the wreck, making sure that there would be no survivors.
Garrus stops midway up the hill, his eyes drawn towards his home planet. "Damn it. Look at that. Can you see that blaze of orange, the big one?" he points in the distance. "That's where I was born."
"I... know that place. Benezia once took me to those mountains when I was very young. A turian there teased me that the mountains went on forever... and I believed him," Liara says, her voice breaking with sadness. "And now... everything there is on fire, burning..."
"That's... rough," James agrees, his thoughts like Morgan's back on Earth.
"What about your family, Garrus?" Shepard asks as they continue to walk, falling in step next to her turian friend.
"My parents are still there. So is my sister," he replies through clenched teeth, clearly not wanting to think too much of what the situation is like back on Palaven.
"The casualties have to be staggering," Shepard remarks.
"Three million dead on the first day. Five million on the second," Garrus replies.
"I haven't asked for numbers from Earth, haven't dared to," Shepard admits. "Somehow I expect them to be even worse. We are not as militaristic society as turians, Garrus. Most of our civilians don't even know how to hold a gun."
"And our fleets have all been recalled from Sol System," James butts in. "The Reapers are free to bomb Earth from the orbit as they see fit, and our people are bogged down in a nasty ground war."
"Our fleets won't be able to keep this up for too long either," Garrus remarks unhappily. "We might last longer in a ground war, but for how long? And we need to preserve some of our fleets, just like the humans have done, for without them... there is no way we can win this in the long run."
"Yeah... I don't even want to think about how do you give an order to just pull out and leave your people to something like this..." Morgan sighs. "At least you're holding your ground on the surface."
"But we still lost four hundred men in the first half-hour down here," Garrus replies. "The strategy was to use this moon to flank the advancing Reaper forces." He sighs, pointing at the destroyers in the distance. "How do you flank something like that? And what good does it do if you manage to flank them?"
"It would have been a good tactic if the Reapers didn't come attached with an 'Immune to Conventional Warfare' label," Morgan grumbles.
"If only they had listened to your warnings, Commander. Then we would have been more prepared," James says.
"I'm not even sure of that anymore, James. I mean, even if you knew they were coming, how do you prepare for something like this? I wouldn't have answer for that question, all I could do was to simply warn of their return." Shepard then looks at Liara, walking a little behind them. "If not for our Prothean expert, we'd be left completely without a chance of defeating them."
"We still don't know if it will work... though I am flattered by your trust," Liara smiles.
"You have a plan?" Garrus' eyes travel from Shepard to Liara. "It better be something good, or else we'll have trouble convincing Victus to abandon his men and leave the battle here just to go and make nice in some boardroom."
"I hope he's farsighted enough to realize the importance of this summit. You have the strongest military in the galaxy, and even then it is abundantly clear that you can't beat the Reapers alone," Shepard says.
Shortly after, they run into a small turian patrol, sent out to look for the survivors of the crashed frigate, and they inform Shepard of fighting alongside Victus in a nearby encampment less than an hour ago. Encouraged by the news, they pick up the pace, only stopping briefly to watch in horror as the nearby destroyer takes down yet another frigate that for some reason has carelessly wandered too close to the walking monstrosity.
"So, Lola... I've been wondering about this summit," James pipes up as they resume walking. "I mean, why just the Council races? Asari and salarians? Where's the meat, where's the krogan and the batarians?"
"Well, the summit is-" Shepard starts, but is interrupted by Garrus yelling for them to get down and she quickly obeys, watching a turian fighter zip by right over their heads, a Reaper harvester hot in pursuit. There is a loud explosion as the fighter crashes into a nearby cliff, the harvester heading off in search of new prey.
"Ugh, that was close..." Morgan grumbles, slowly picking herself up from the ground. "I meant to say that the summit was primarily intended for coordinating the Council fleets. Though... I would not be opposed to broaden its goals and get more races in. Like the quarians..."
"Heard anything from them, Shepard?" Garrus asks. "I haven't been able to get in touch with Tali for months."
"Just that they're preparing for war," Shepard replies. "Hopefully it's a war with the Reapers."
"Lieutenant, the batarians took the first blow of the attack when the entire Reaper force arrived through their system," Liara tells James to answer his question. "Their eradication has been very... thorough, by all reports. There are so few of them left that we can almost consider them an extinct species."
"That's harsh," James shakes his head. "And the krogan?"
"There's the whole genophage thing," Garrus replies. "I don't see them being forgiving enough to decide to help us or the salarians just because we ask nicely."
"I should get in touch with Wrex ASAP," Morgan says, making a mental note to herself. If he doesn't want to do anything with the old Council races, maybe I can at least get direct krogan help for Earth...
"If you believe that will help, by all means," Garrus shrugs his shoulders. "I wouldn't say no to their aid. But I shudder to think what their demands would be."
"That looks like another base," James points ahead with the barrel of his Avenger rifle, staring at a collection of barricades, smoke and explosions enveloping the camp. "Looks like they're under a bit of pressure."
Just as he says that, the Reapers decide to make things more interesting and incoming harvesters drop more and more of their reinforcements smack in the middle of the base. "Uh-oh! Double time people!" Shepard yells, breaking into a run towards the camp. "Let's save this Primarch fast like! God knows I don't want to be arsed looking for the next one in line of succession!"
The situation in the camp is dire, the remaining turian forces beset by at least a dozen of the mutated batarian cannibals, plenty of marauders and three brutes. "Well, fuck this," Shepard speaks grimly, quickly giving her team the orders. "Liara, singularities on the cannibals, and if you have time do something about those brutes, but be careful. James, stick with Liara, thin out those cannibals quick and then switch to the brutes, Garrus, you're on the marauders." They all nod, not wasting any time in joining the desperate defenders of the base.
Shepard and Garrus quickly open fire, both downing a marauder each, their shields already weakened by the turian defenders. Liara's singularity rips into the crowd of cannibals at one of the barricades, rendering three of them helpless at once and James quickly makes sure they hit the ground as lifeless pieces of meat. The Reaper forces slowly become alerted to the entrenched turians receiving rather considerable backup, diverting some of their forces to their position.
One of the brutes leads the assault towards their position, but it falls under their combined weapons fire and biotic attacks. However, this has allowed the cannibals and the marauders to move up unopposed and Shepard has difficulties leaving the cover under the heavy fire to counter the enemy attacks. She activates her cloaking and slips away from the barrier she has been covering behind, moving around the Reaper position in an attempt to flank them. She watches Garrus leaning out of the cover to shoot and immediately having to pull back, his shields gone in an instant. One of the cannibals launch a frag grenade at Liara and James' position and they are forced to scamper to another location, Liara getting off a singularity on the run, managing to disable at least one of their attackers.
By now, Shepard has made the full circle behind the enemy forces, distracted by the rest of her squad. She lines up one of the marauders in the scope of her sniper rifle and releases the bullet, hitting the enemy smack in the temple, spraying bits of brains everywhere. Before the opposition has become aware of her position, she repeats the same with the other marauder, concentrating his weapons fire on Garrus' position, suddenly surprised at the bullet entering through his neck and causing fatal injuries. The mutated batarians now turn towards Morgan, but James repays them the favor with the grenade trick, catching most of them in the deadly explosion, Liara finishing off the last with her biotics.
The turians are being hard pressed by the remaining forces, especially the brutes who have managed to tear down several of the barricades, tearing apart the turians inside in a rather one-sided melee combat. One of them grabs an already dead opponent and with a deafening roar tears off the turian's head before launching it like a demoralizing projectile into another of the barricades.
Seeing that the cannibals and marauders are almost entirely thinned out, Shepard orders her crew to concentrate on the brutes, knowing that they also pose the greatest danger to the besieged turians. Between the explosive plasma rounds from her omni-tool, Liara's warp fields and James' and Garrus' weapons, the already weakened brutes go down swiftly enough, and Shepard allows herself a small sigh of relief, before catching herself with the worrying thought that she doesn't even yet know whether General Adrien Victus was not amongst the victims.
Fortunately, for once luck is on their side. Victus, looking like any other turian to Shepard, only recognizable by the distinct black heavy armor with red patterns, approaches them from one of the barricades at the far end of the base, accompanied by three of his soldiers.
"General Victus," Morgan says, not wasting any time, worrying about more possible Reaper reinforcements. "I'm Commander Shepard of the Normandy."
"Ah, Commander... I know who you are," Victus says in a voice that sounds even more nasal than Garrus. "I wonder what you are doing here... and in the company of Vakarian. Where did you run to, Garrus?"
"Heavy Reaper unit on the right flank? I believe your exact words were 'Get that thing the hell off my men!'," Garrus smirks, as Victus nods appreciatively.
"We've come to deliver some news that you will no doubt find... interesting," Shepard says, looking at Garrus to explain.
"Fedorian was killed," Garrus says simply, not wasting any breath. "You're the new Primarch."
"We came to get Fedorian for the war summit he was supposed to chair," Shepard elaborates further. "Now we need you to represent your people there."
Victus doesn't say a word in reply. He simply turns away from them to look at the view of his burning world spreading before them. He stands there like frozen for a good while before speaking again. "I am the Primarch of Palaven?" he finally says, a hint of disbelief in his voice. "Negotiating on behalf of the turian hierarchy?" He turns back around to face them again. "I've spent my whole life in the military... I'm no diplomat. I hate diplomats. I'm not really a 'by-the-book' kind of guy, and I piss people off."
"Excellent," Shepard rubs her hands, smiling. "I like you already."
"The summit is between our people, the asari and the salarians," Victus says, his bright green eyes scanning Shepard with curiosity. "What is your stake in this, Commander?"
"Councilor Sparatus extended an invitation on my behalf," she replies. "He believes I can offer helpful advice on how to coordinate your fleets. And, I believe he was also interested in the plans my partner," she points at Liara, "presented for the Council. It involves building a Prothean weapon capable of destroying the Reapers. To this end, I need the support and resources of the Council races." Victus gives her a disbelieving stare. "All relevant information about the device has been forwarded to your government, Primarch Victus. Multiple sources have confirmed that it is the real deal. Now I just need your aid to build it."
"We're not exactly in the best position to offer aid, Commander," Victus makes a sweeping gesture towards Palaven. "Not while my world is burning. If there would be a way to take the pressure off Palaven, you could have our ships, our resources..."
"I'm capable, but I'm not that good, Primarch," Shepard shakes her head. "I don't know quite how you imagine driving the Reapers off Palaven..."
"We need the krogan," Victus says, making Morgan raise her eyebrow in surprise. "I can't see us winning this thing without them. Get them to help us, then we can help you."
"I like the way you think, Primarch, but getting them to help you might be a bit difficult, with the genophage and all," Shepard sighs. "Besides... what's to stop me from getting the krogan help directly for Earth? Then I would have no need for you," she tries a small bluff, but Victus isn't stupid enough to fall for it.
"Commander, the krogan can't help you build something as complex as this Prothean device surely must be, you know that. Besides, they don't have fleets. In the end, you know that you will need our ships," Victus replies. "But the krogan... they can help us push the Reapers back in the ground war, or at worst fight them to a standstill, giving us a pause to breathe."
"So... what do you propose? That we invite the krogan to the summit?" Shepard asks. Victus simply nods. "If you're sure, I know just the right krogan warlord that you want on this summit," she says, smiling. "But we risk ticking off the salarians with this move. And possibly the asari as well."
Victus shrugs. "They'll be singing a different tune when their own worlds come under attack."
"Right, I'll get you your krogan, Victus," Shepard finally says. "Does that mean you're ready to come with us?"
"Yes, Commander," Victus nods. "Just let me say a brief farewell to my men." With that he walks off towards the small group of what remains from a full complement of an entire platoon.
"You coming with us too, Garrus?" Morgan asks hopefully.
"Yeah, without a doubt," the turian replies, but a slight twitch of his mandibles betrays the faked ease of this decision. "You know... without Victus and myself down here, there's a good chance we'll lose this moon."
"I know. I felt like that when we left Earth," Shepard says, patting Garrus on the shoulder. "Running away from the fight, that has never been our way, has it?" she asks, Garrus shaking his head. "Somehow I feel this war is going to force us into making a lot of painful decisions, before we manage to end it..."