Astella Bay Highway, Nevos

Day 1, 1330

"All units, Bravo is five minutes from rendezvous. How copy?"

"Solid copy, Lynus. Cambrai's circling the AO, moving in for pickup. Are we unloading the trucks, or taking the lot?"

"Depends very much on our pursuers."

"What about them?"

"Whether they are present."

A quiet chuckle from Akito, and then the radio fell silent again, leaving Dax and Araya to the soundtrack of wind rushing through their battered cab, waves breaking against the highway… and battles tearing through the city behind them. The Reapers had almost total air superiority now, with only a few asari air units remaining to joust with them in the skies.

"Drones," Dax grunted, pointing his shot arm up towards the foothills. "Incoming, fast."

Araya clutched her Locust a little more tightly, finger sliding to the trigger for comfort, but she wasn't quite sure what she was planning to do with a sub-machinegun… the Oculi certainly came on whether she was holding the gun or not, moving fast, very fast…

They shot overhead, low, but paid little heed to the trucks on the highway below. They had bigger fish to fry, apparently.

"Vacating the bay…" Rilum muttered, cogs clearly turning in his agile little mind. "Cambrai, turn your eyes up."

"Come again?" Akito replied.

"Scanners. Up. Orbital approach over the city, possible variation twenty degrees. Anything there?"

There was a long pause. In the rearmost truck's cab, Araya and Dax exchanged a nervous glance, waiting out the conversation quietly…

"Big crimson," the co-pilot replied, finally.

"How big?"

"Big. Capital-class."

"Understood. Bravo, move faster. Need to reach the foothills."

"Faster?" Yui grunted."Why?"

"Faster," the salarian replied, simply.

Back in the cab, Dax rolled his eyes, and pulled his shot arm to one side with a grunt, reaching for the shifter in the centre console. He rammed it forward, and the truck lurched slightly, before setting off at a pace after the rest of the convoy.

"Revised ETA?" the voice from the Cambrai asked.

"Three minutes," Lynus answered, shortly. "Almost-"

Skree… thoom.

There was a sound like thunder in the skies above, as the atmosphere exploded and a dark, obsidian shape came hurtling down out of the heavens at speed. It slowed only a short way off the ground, and Araya found herself transfixed, mildly horrified, as steel arms unfurled from the torso, and then-

Wham! The whole bay shuddered, and Dax barked loudly as he fought to keep the controls in line. Off to the right side of the highway, a great plume of water had gone up, and it slammed back down with the force of a tidal wave, sending ripples and shudders all the way to the road itself. Standing tall out of the water, emitting a low, rumbling drone, a titanic Reaper cast its eye across the cityscape…

"Capital-class," the salarian muttered, simply. "Confirmed."

"Holy…"

"Alpha, this is Bravo. Touchdown in the bay to your west. Capital-class Reaper, threat immediate."

"What? Oh, for f-"

"Fall back. Almost to the rendezvous, shouldn't stay here any longer."

"Copy that, bugging out."

The radio fell silent once more. Back to the whistling wind, the rush of air through the broken windows…

"Harvester, ten o'clock," Rilum reported, calmly.

Sure enough, a dark shape was swinging over the bay on their left side, even as the great Reaper churned up the waters on the right. It drifted lazily on the wind, tilting side to side every few seconds, and circling back towards the city in search of-

Oh shit. With a screech and a whip of its wings, it spotted the convoy, and came barrelling around to face them. Dax growled in annoyance, and a moment later the radio burst out with a short, krogan bark from Yui of:

"Incoming!"

Skree! The Harvester came lunging down with a high-pitched shriek, forgoing its guns to dive-bomb the trucks outright. Tucking its wings, it came down with frightening speed, crashed down onto the left side of the road, took a few faltering, stumbling steps... Lynus' truck was already clear even as it tried to regain its balance, Yui's was swerving around the right side. Dax swung the controls left, but the creature staggering back that way, and:

Thump!

"Aaah!"

Araya couldn't help but let a little squeal escape her lips as their truck ploughed straight into the Harvester's back leg. There was a thud of dead flesh, a baleful moan from the creature, and she saw its long neck snap around, trying to get to the offending presence, but speeding metal beat flesh. Any glass left in the windows poured into the cab, along with a good measure of grime and gristle, cybernetic blood and dead flesh, but a moment later they were speeding clear, hurtling off up the highway as the Harvester wandered off in a daze.

"Eyes up!" Dax barked, checking the rear view mirror. "He's in the air again!"

True to the krogan's word, the horrible creature was lurching up into the sky as Araya leant out the window, SMG in hand. She had half a mind to start firing at it, try to clip its wings, but in a matter of moments it was too far back, too high… it circled, eyes leering back down as it tried to get a line, a shot, some means of revenge…

Boom. With a cold, emotionless flash of white, something slammed into the creature's side, gutting it and throwing up a cloud of smoke and ash. The Harvester's body tumbled limply, still smoking, until it hit the bay below and sank out of sight.

It took a moment for Araya's senses to catch up with the sonic boom and the cry of engines, as a silver shape darted over the highway from left to right, crossing the Harvester's grave. There was a dull roar, a flicker of light, and the interceptor slowed, hauling itself around in a lazy arc in search of new prey.

"Friendly contact in the air," Rilum noted. "Asari-"

Skree…

"Ah, shit…" Dax groaned.

Whoosh! A stream of scarlet light filled the sky, hurled out by the Reaper in the bay. Araya couldn't tell what Yui or the salarian were doing, but in the rearmost truck's cab, she and Dax simply held their breath, unable to do anything else as their heads throbbed and their teeth rattled. Their airborne saviour, too close to the beast, was wiped away like a twig in a torrent, disappearing in the sea of red and never reappearing, even as the Reaper's shot faded away… With a cold, mechanical clunk, the towering monster's aim shifted back away from the highway, towards the city.

"Off-ramp just ahead…" Rilum noted, and the human honestly couldn't tell if it was shellshock, or just his usual business-like tone. "Almost to the rendezvous. Keep moving."