Chapter 119 - Journey Through the No-Man's-Land
"Admiral, the Sixth Fleet is down to 60% of their ships," Lieutenant-Commander Takashima reports hurriedly, Admiral Hackett cringing inwardly as he sees the relevant information on the screens before him. "The geth are down to around 35% and are requesting permission to withdraw to support positions!"
Damn it, Hackett curses inwardly. If we pull the geth out, we need to plug that hole with something else, and we badly need the main fleets to push back the Reapers from the Citadel! "We need to take out one of those capital ships fast and then we can reroute some of the fleets to reinforce the flank," he barks in a way of answer to his assistant's unspoken question. "I need a report of the kinetic barriers on that thing!"
"Down to 20%, sir!" comes the swift reply.
"Twenty? This is our chance! Order the other fleets to focus on the capital ship, NOW! We need to take it out fast!"
"First and Third Fleets moving in. Asari fleets also targeting the capital ship. Turian Sixth holding flanks. Enemy kinetic barriers down to 8%."
The gigantic Reaper ship is fighting back desperately, but with so many dreadnaughts focusing their fire upon it, the barriers are dwindling fast. Its main cannon is firing with increasing intensity, blowing the Alliance ships to pieces one by one, as Hackett sees one of the First Fleet's dreadnaughts being targeted by the capital ship and two destroyers at once, the Alliance vessel unable to withstand that sort of assault and disintegrating in a bright explosion.
"SSV Aconcagua has been destroyed," Takashima reports, her voice dropping low as a feeling of cold dread grips Hackett's chest when he understands the implications. "No survivors reported, sir. Admiral Ines Lindholm presumed amongst the casualties."
"Link the First Fleet into our comm frequencies, they will be taking orders directly from me," Hackett bellows, clenching his fists. "Take out that capital ship, NOW!"
"Kinetic barriers... disabled, the ship is vulnerable, I repeat, the ship is vulnerable!"
"Give it all you've got, people! I want that thing gone!"
A massive dreadnaught, not too much smaller than the Reaper capital ship, appears in Hackett's field of vision to his right, its main gun powered up, opening fire on the enemy vessel. The impact is devastating, now that the kinetic barriers on the capital ship are disabled, the force of the blow rips off two of the Reaper's tentacles and ignites hundreds of small explosions along its hull.
Just as well that Shepard chose to save them over our own people, all those years ago... god knows I resented her for that choice, but it appears she was right after all. "Tell Matriarch Lidanya that I owe her one, Lieutenant-Commander," he says curtly, watching the Reaper ship slowly beginning to disintegrate under the heavy fire, the few destroyers who had supported it now falling a little back, giving the galactic fleets an opening to reach the Citadel.
"The fleets have a clear path to the Citadel," Takashima confirms. "But the geth are retreating, a part of the quarian fleet is following to escort their liveship to safety and the Sixth Fleet is taking considerable losses!"
"Tell Admiral Singh and the Third Fleet to aid them," Hackett orders urgently. What else do we have to throw into the battle... damn it, we can't keep this up for much longer! "Deploy Asari Second Fleet to protect the flank as well!"
"Sir, the newest projections have just come in," the Lieutenant-Commander reports. "The fleets can survive this for four hours before we will be forced to retreat."
"Immaterial, unless we can secure and hold space around the Citadel," Hackett barks back. And hope that Anderson and Shepard can get those station arms open... if I was a man of faith, this would be a good time to start praying...
Commander Morgan Shepard rejoins her crew in a small alcove near the medical center of the FOB. For a while she simply stands and watches the grim, dejected marines walking in to receive their injection of drugs, walking out roaring, shouting, all fired up and euphoric. They no longer understand or care about being sent to die, she realizes, again experiencing that sick, stomach-churning feeling from before. They will shrug off all sorts of horrific injuries, fight on despite loss of limbs, completely numb to all pain. Until they die, not knowing what they have sacrificed themselves for.
"I offered to go in the first wave, Lola, but they turned me down," James says quietly.
"I feel bad enough assigning you to the second, James," Shepard shakes her head. "But that's where our heavy hitters are needed. The odds are..."
"You don't need to tell me that, Commander. I don't even want to know. It's not important, anyway," Vega shrugs. "I'm just glad I could see Earth again, even like this. Do something, try to make a difference... so I'll go where I'm needed the most."
"Good man, James. And set up a private channel on your omni-tools, everyone, I want to keep in touch with all of you," Shepard says, clapping James on the shoulder, then turning to their Prothean comrade. "Javik, you're joining James in the second wave. You've been itching to give hell to the Reapers. You'll have plenty of chances to do that now."
"Understood, Commander," Javik nods, perhaps the only one amongst them who is truly calm under the most desperate of circumstances. "And Commander... thank you for this opportunity. "
"Powerpuff Girls, you're with me. We're going with the third wave," Shepard looks at Liara first, their eyes meeting and Morgan finds it very difficult to stop gazing into those deep blue pools of swirling emotion. Eventually, she breaks the stare and looks at Aria, the Pirate Queen looking almost bored and indifferent, but time and time again unable to stop herself from glancing overhead, suggesting that she too is deeply worried.
"Damn it, Shepard, don't you dare leaving me on the sidelines!" Garrus exclaims, looking annoyed, even as Tali elbows him hard in the midsection.
"Do you honestly believe that things will go so well that we won't need to deploy the fourth wave?" Shepard chuckles grimly. "Let's be realistic here. And I need someone to stay with EDI and Tali and provide cover for them, do you want me to leave someone else to that task?"
"Uh... okay, Shepard, I see your point," Garrus finally agrees with a shrug. "Fourth wave it is, Commander."
"Alright, that's us sorted out," Morgan nods, standing tall before the group of people together with whom she has gone through so much together already, friendships forged in blood and shared sorrow. "I guess this is the last time I have the opportunity to address you with a rousing, motivational speech... but, somehow I feel that everything that needed to be said, has been said already. You all know what's at stake and what we are fighting for. There's just one thing I want you to know, before we face the enemy one last time... I'm proud of having endured all this with you by my side, all of you. I'm proud of you, so very proud."
She turns away, looking down through a broken window at the FOB courtyard, swiftly filling with the roaring, drug-pumped marines, eager to throw themselves to the slaughter against overwhelming odds. The tanks roll out as well, and the gates are finally opened, the first wave pouring out to try and cross the no-man's-land and hopefully establish a bit of a foothold for the second wave to latch onto.
"It has started," Morgan says quietly, Liara and Aria coming to stand closer to her. "We have the unique opportunity to do what no cycle before us has achieved. The next few hours will determine the fate of the galaxy..."
"Have you found anything useful at all?" Rila's voice is filled with desperation as she turns to her sister, frantically browsing through the datapads. At least twice in the past half an hour they have been frightened out of their wits by someone scratching at the doors of their small apartment, letting out growling noises, but fortunately then shuffling off as they had sat silently, shivering while holding on to each other.
"There's nothing of use here," Falere sighs, her shoulders slumping in defeat. "Is she still alive? There's... so much blood everywhere..."
"Just barely, Falere... her pulse is definitely getting weaker," Rile replies, taking Tevos' hand in hers. "The medi-gel closed the wound and stopped the bleeding, but she looks to have lost so much blood... goddess, I hope Aria reaches us soon... we are... we are just useless!"
"Don't talk like that, Rila," Falere cuts her sister off sharply. "If not for us, she'd be long dead... hush! Quiet!" she suddenly hisses, Rila also hearing the footsteps outside the doors and pressing a palm against her mouth just to be sure she doesn't let out a traitorous gasp.
Oddly enough, there is a knock on the doors, which surprises them both, considering that the Reapers have not bothered with polite knocking before. Even more strangely, suddenly there is a voice on the other side of the doors. "Councilor Tevos? Councilor Tevos, we know you are inside," the voice belongs to man, but they do not recognize it, looking at each other fearfully. "Please, Councilor, open the doors, we are here to help!"
Rila slowly gets up and heads towards the door, ignoring Falere's desperate waving of the arms. "Look, I don't think the Reapers even know how to speak," she whispers to her sister urgently. "Maybe these people can save Tevos, we have to risk it!" Falere eventually nods in agreement and Rila carefully steps up to the doors to speak to those outside. "The Councilor is unable to reply right now... who are you and what do you want?"
"My name is Commander Armando Bailey of the Citadel Security, ma'am," the man replies. "We know that the Councilor is inside and that her life signs are approaching critical. We are here to help her, open the doors or we will be forced to blast our way in."
"Listen to Commander Bailey," another voice speaks up, this one sounding distinctly turian. "I am Councilor Sparatus of the Turian Hierarchy, we have been friends and colleagues with Tevos for many years. Let us save her."
"Alright... alright, I'm opening the doors," Rila finally says, letting the two men inside. They barge past her and immediately drop down on their knees next to Tevos' limp body.
"Critical, as we thought," Bailey states after a brief examination. "She needs blood transfusion, urgently. Let me see where is the nearest medical facility..." he begins to poke around his omni-tool.
"What happened here?" the turian turns towards Rila first, then Falere.
"We, ah..." Rila hesitates, completely unused to lying, but knowing that on this occasion she must hide the truth. "We were trying to flee back to our apartment when the attack began... and we came across this asari being attacked by a husk. We helped her fight it off, but she was terribly injured... so we carried her back to our apartment and tried to heal her the best we could."
"You probably saved her life, so I have to thank you for that," Sparatus says. "Though... what was Councilor Tevos doing at the very bottom of the Tayseri Ward?" he turns towards Falere, Rila feeling a surge of pride when her little sister holds the turian's stare.
"Why are you asking us?" Falere answers the turian's question. "We didn't even know she was the asari councilor until you mentioned it."
Sparatus shrugs his shoulders and mutters something about not caring whether Tevos is keeping secret lovers or not, turning to Bailey again. "The Tayseri medical facilities are directly two floors above us. Unfortunately, there might be a heavy Reaper presence in our way. I will try to redirect a group of C-Sec personnel to secure the place before we get there."
"One of us will have to carry her there," Sparatus says, the sound of his voice suggesting that he is not fancying their chances. "That will leave only one gun against all those Reapers crawling around. Even getting here was difficult... damn, I wish that coward Valern hadn't decided to hide under a table... he's very good at that, as we learned during the Cerberus coup..."
"Yeah, so I've heard..." Bailey looks a little ponderous, then glancing at Rila and Falere in turn. "Ladies, do you think you can help in any way? Can you fire a gun or use biotics?"
"I... I'm afraid we're quite useless in combat, Commander Bailey," Falere says apologetically.
"But... we could take turns carrying her!" Rila suggests, an idea suddenly occurring to her. "That would leave you both free to fight the Reapers."
"An excellent idea, young lady," Bailey nods, lifting Tevos' light frame from the ground and gently depositing it in Rila's arms.
"Now, let's go," Sparatus says, drawing his heavy pistol. "We have a lot of ground to cover, and the old girl doesn't have much time..."
The flattened squares of the no-man's-land are littered with torn and mangled bodies of the soldiers from the first wave, caught in the open with only the scarce cover of the tanks to protect them. Despite all that, roughly a third of them have made all the way across to engage the Reaper forces deeper in the ruined parts of the city, where partly collapsed buildings provide more cover. It takes considerable time for the Reaper ground troops to finally eliminate the first wave in its entirety, and by that time, the second wave has already almost made it across the no-man's-land, the plan working nearly perfectly so far.
In some sectors, they manage to take the Reapers by complete surprise, their monstrous opponents having already thought their opposition defeated, only to have another, much larger wave suddenly overwhelming them rapidly. However, the distribution of Reaper forces along the perimeter is very uneven, in some quadrants they advance very quickly, only to then find themselves trapped as the Reapers start to pour in from left and right, closing the trap behind the advancing army.
The unit comprising of Wrex, his elite forces together with Aralakh Company, accompanied by the asari Lieutenant Kurin, find themselves in that exact very unenviable situation, having made the biggest advance of the whole second wave, almost reaching the other side of the Reaper defended zone, which would give them a good shot at the destroyer... save for the fact that the artillery units have now been cut off from them, a Reaper squadron full of marauders and brutes having poured in from the right, while a pair of banshees snapped the trap shut on the left.
"Do we try to break through going forward, or do we fall back to reunite with the artillery, that is the question," Wrex muses, pressing with a shoulder against a block of concrete, gripping his shotgun tightly.
"Krogan only know one way to go, and that is to charge forward!" Grunt roars nearby, impatiently rearing to go.
"Charging ahead would be a little counterproductive when we don't have the tanks with us," the purple-hued asari commando with beautiful deep red markings on her face exclaims, standing next to Grunt. "I propose we help out the artillery units, trying to catch up to us."
"Yes, the asari would suggest retreat, no surprises there," Wrex chuckles, enjoying the expression of annoyance on the commando's face. "So, you're the one that the pup has claimed as his own, eh?" he grins, pointing at Grunt. "He could have done worse. You've got a spine, girl, I've seen you charge down ravagers and brutes, you wouldn't happen to have a krogan amongst your parents?"
Kurin smiles and shakes her head, leaning in closer to Grunt for a question. "Who's the old guy?" she asks, nodding at Wrex.
"Oh, the old guy is just my clan leader, Urdnot Wrex," Grunt explains loudly and helpfully, making Kurin slap an open palm against her face in embarrassment.
"Right, in that case, I better go and impress him," Kurin says with determination, pointing at a marauder on their left, thinking itself to be very sneaky and trying to get into a position from which to annoy them with his sniper rifle. "Just watch me charge that bastard!" she exclaims, her body starting to glow blue from biotics and then she flings herself across the battlefield, towards her target.
"Wait, girl, there's a-" Wrex shouts at the asari, but it is too late. A brute steps in her way and manages to catch her on the side, making Kurin lose control mid-charge and she misses her target completely, instead crashing heavily into a wall. "-brute in the way," Wrex finishes, as the asari struggles to remain upright... and then a section of the wall collapses, burying her.
Grunt lets out an angry roar, rushing the slightly surprised brute, tackling it and proceeding to make short work of it, then blowing the marauders head off its shoulders with his shotgun as he makes his way over to the pile of rubble that now covers Kurin's body.
"Don't be so upset, pup, we win this war and I promise, I'll find you a new asari to play with. Two, three of them if you want! Now let's go, the artillery squads apparently have decided to die without our support," Wrex orders, but Grunt isn't moving.
"Take the Aralakh and go!" Grunt snarls, ignoring Wrex and continuing to dig in the rubble. "I'm not leaving her!"
Wrex sighs, shaking his head. "Well, I don't have the time to stick around and get everyone under my command killed," he says, turning around and bellowing at the Aralakh Company to follow him as they begin cutting their way back to the artillery squads. "Once you're done here, just follow the path littered with corpses to catch up with us..."
"James? Javik? Any of you guys getting this?" Shepard frantically shakes her omni-tool, wondering if something is wrong with it, all she hears at first is static. Meanwhile, around her, the third wave of Hammer begin their advance across the no-man's-land. The Reapers are still battling the second wave deep into their entrenched positions, and this is the perfect time to cross the exposed fields, quickly bringing the tanks to relative safety in the cover of buildings.
"...Shepard, hear you..." she finally catches Vega's voice, barely able to make it out, the interference seems to be getting worse the closer they get to the relay beam. "...heavy fighting... comms often unreliable..."
"We've started our advance, James," she speaks, hoping her fellow N7 can hear it. Liara and Aria follow her closely as they swiftly march behind one of the tanks, carefully scanning the surroundings for enemies, but the most heated fighting is still a little ways ahead of them. Time and again harvesters show up to drop some ground troops behind their forces, she sees a trio of wormnecks flying over their heads just now, dropping the brutes and cannibals amongst their ranks somewhere way over to the left, out of range of their weapons. The harvesters decide to stick around after that, taking some potshots at the tanks, but the artillery fire quickly forces them to reconsider.
"Slowly getting overwhelmed," James speaks, some kind of break in the interference letting her receive him clearly for now. "Advance in most zones has ground to halt, Lola. The squads that pushed too deep too fast dug their own graves. They sprung traps on us, and they're definitely smart enough to target the tanks first, rotten Reaper bastards."
"Don't try to push if it's not looking good," Shepard replies, as they finally reach the cover provided by the ruined buildings, the tank ahead of them beginning to wobble as it climbs its way through the ruins. "We'll be catching up to you guys soon enough, James. Sit tight."
"Alright, Lola, but if there's a chance to make a push, we'll make a push. Didn't come here to dig in, you know that. Not enough time to do that. James out."
Shepard nods at herself, acknowledging the truth in Vega's words. There is the danger that by cutting through too swiftly, they could become trapped from all sides, but at the same time, clearing out all the Reaper forces across all sectors while the harvesters are continuously supplying them with new troops is not an option either. There is no other choice than to press the attack and hope for the best.
"Now the fun begins in earnest, girls," she says, turning to the two asari. "Get ready to kill a lot of Reapers without getting killed yourselves."
"I'm glad you added that last part, Shepard," Liara adds uneasily, looking a little rattled from the sheer amount of the dead they see with every step they take, mostly the marines from the first two waves, then lots and lots of Reaper corpses as they proceed deeper into the zone.
"So, that beam we're heading for, you're really sure that's a relay that will transport us to the Citadel, Shepard?" Aria asks, peering ahead.
"Yeah, everyone seems to think so, my lovely Buttercup. Why?"
"Just making sure, Shepard. I've got the target in my sights now," Aria says with a grim promise in her voice. "And anyone standing between me and my target is going down."
"They broke the 'don't fuck with Aria' rule?" Liara asks, managing a smile as she looks at the other asari.
"Exactly," Aria nods. "You know, if the Reapers have gotten to Tevos and the girls already and I've made it all this way for nothing, Shepard... I'll be so pissed, I might take my frustrations out on you and T'Soni."
"And by that you mean-" Shepard is about to ask, but gets sharply interrupted by Liara.
"Let's not discuss that right now, shall we?" she speaks quickly, looking a little distracted, but then snapping back into focus as the Reaper forces finally announce their presence, a pair of ravagers on the second floor of a nearby building opening fire at the tank they have been following.
"Good idea, babe," Morgan nods, dropping into cover and setting the sights of her Widow at the ravagers. "About time we got to work..."