Author's Note: So another part of the story is closed and another arc begins, Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!


Chapter 47: Collectors Base Part 4

Dozens of drones working to simultaneously scavenge material, filter it for Reaper surprises, and conduct repairs on the fly for the Normandy, the Fenrirs and the defensive turrets, while at the same time providing fire support for the forces fending off the mining drones and husks. Doctor-Doctor hasn't had this much fun in years! Not since he got stuck working with that Cloaca Hat Tor! He definitely hoped that when they got out of this god forsaken hole in the ground he wasn't going back to Valhalla. The more Damage that Shepard and company did inside of the Reaper shell the less that these bloody drones were going to care about keeping their pet project intact, which ironically enough meant that the crew also had to keep the Reaper intact for cover too.

Instead they were dealing with wave after wave of husks, Raptors, Collectors and Abomination carrying Harvesters flying through the air, Brutes, Tyrants, Demons and a Landslide attempting to break down their shielding via slamming into it repeatedly with their bodies. From afar Banshee's, Marauders, Ravagers and Revenants were blasting them with powerful biotic enhanced shots. The defending turrets were being whelmed by waves of Cannibals, Hunters being protected by Carcasses and acting as cover for Phantom Saboteurs were being blasted away by the dozens. From afar, a group of Conductors were channelling a ritual to reanimate the corpses that were rapidly Piling to secure an offensive.

"Well nice to know that the Galaxy isn't short on fresh horrors." Joker stated as he manoeuvred the ship around the area. Boxed in with limited space they might be, but that didn't stop the pilot from crushing entire groups of enemies with the prow of the ship.

"That stunt has cost us five percent Shield integrity Jeff." EDI reminded as Jeff once again used the ship itself as a weapon.

Joker's willingness to crush entire groups of enemies with the ship itself freed up the three Asari to go fight against the more serious threats that were on the offensive here. Falere's Fenrir locked claws with one of the Brutes, the former Krogan quickly pulled her over and pinned her to the ground, and was subsequently thrown off as a explosive bounced off the back of his head. Volatile Mot's, warped. Rila's own Fenrir continued to pepper the enemy forces with her tank shots as she made a deliberate effort to eliminate the most threatening members of the enemy hoard or failing that draw their attention to herself. The Gungnir rods would be no good here, and so her rack of artificial meteors were replaced with a Artemis blade launcher, a weapon whose projectiles were drones taking a form resembling small arrow heads that can zip around the battlefield using high frequency cutting technology to tear through enemies like a knife through warm butter. A small Zero Point Module made it so that the devices had a ready to use power source at all times and would be put to good use, they were after all the most efficient high capacity batteries in the galaxy, used for storing the energy that the Union extracts from suns. So yes, those little dots tearing apart the monsters on the battlefield weren't going away any time soon.

"Get." A Singularity appeared behind the Brute the artificial gravity pulling it away from Falere. "Off!" Samara supplemented her first attack with a pull directly on the neck of the Brute. "Her!"

Falere's main gun extended to it's full length and was jammed directly into the former Krogan's abdomen before firing, the force of the blast, combined with the two existing pulling forces on the Brute, managed to yank it into the air and into orbit around the singularity and that was before the canister lodged in it's chest went off. The exotic gas detonated, the ball of plasma triggered a secondary explosion in the singularity and pull tearing the Brute apart. The Torso of the monstrosity, clear of it's lower half by several feet, twitched to life and started to crawl forward across the field of gore.

"Does anyone have any idea how we're supposed to put these things down yet!?" Falere shouted over her suits coms unit.

It had become apparent to them by now that the monsters had learned the Lich's tricks to reanimate and weaponize the dead, that is beyond their existing zombification technology, and based on the fact that they have yet to see a Flerkin Husk it was quite likely that they had picked out what role that particular brand of monster is meant to play but they had yet to find him.

"I recommend dissection!" Doctor-Doctor's synthesized voice came over the coms. "The smaller the pieces the better!" Another Land slide chose that moment to make its presence known slamming against the shields of the ship.

"I don't know. Some of these pieces are already pretty small!" Joker shouted as their allies continued the assault.

"It would be better if we weren't up here alone!" Cold stone were focusing on areal defence, specifically the crystal hive who were using omni-directional lasers to cut down enemies in the air.

Collectors and Raptors were screening Harvesters carrying payloads of Abominations intending to drop the former Volus directly onto the ship with the intention of cracking it open. With the previous strategy having apparently failed the husks had adjusted appropriately, one of the intended bombs that they were supposed to be transporting had been traded in for a Carcass spitting out omni barriers, even worse that Carcass was carrying other carcasses with it's custodian mechanical pinchers and now the entire thing was on a collision course with the Normandy to blow itself up.

"Allow me!" Samara added her own biotic barrier into the mix, Slam.

The pile of Biotic Barriers and exotic gasses slammed into the bulk of the enemy forces and released a massive flaming explosion. Inside of the ship another Adjutant Abomination combination appeared, and was promptly smothered by the Ship's automatic systems. Threading the needle was a popular tactic back when jump drive travel was first discovered, thus anti-jump drive techniques were immediately developed. Someone jumps directly into your ship's hallways with ultra high pin-point levels of precision, have censors watching every inch of your ship for exactly that phenomena and have force shields ready to telefrag them on arrival. But telefragging goes two ways correct? Why bother sending your completely disposable suicide bombers into the open spaces of your enemies warship when you could instead just directly deliver them into the vitals of the ship?

Joker was working overtime here, every time EDI notified him that one of the Adjutant/Abomination combinations were about to punch a hole into something important on the ship he'd immediately maneuver the ship so that the monsters would appear inside of empty space where they could telefrag safely, remember that this was also while the pilot was squishing the bodies of lesser Husks directly with the hull of the ship and picking off bigger ones with the ship's main and secondary cannons.

"Mordin Solas to Normandy! We've located the survivors from the taken ships and are now awaiting pick up!" EDI immediately set about tracking down the source of the beacon, moving farther and farther away from the Colossus. "We've separated the section of the Collector base that was holding the prisoners captive and have disabled all the Reaper technology in the area. Repeat require immediate pickup!" Which might be difficult considering the fact that they were still stuck inside here and getting out, let alone getting through all the mining drones that were outside, would be virtually impossible.

"Welp it's hammer time it would seem." Shepard's voice in the group's comms was accompanied by dozens of explosions from throughout the inside of the Reaper. Trome's explosives, Tali's suicide drones, at one point in time the group had even split up to tackle different problems, so their capacity to plant explosives across the monster of synthorganics was quite potent.

Thus the mass destruction that the Reaper's internals was now facing, but notably not on the level of reality being torn apart. Rather a massive path had been cleared away, and three units were flying through the rubble. Tali's SCAV was carrying Trome, Gryll and Garrus, while Smok was dragging Shepard and Leo and Sam was dragging Kaiden and Ashley through the chaos. The reason why everyone hadn't been killed in a massive reality unweaving explosion would be addressed later, for now there was something outside cutting through the hull. The Mining drones have officially stopped caring about the continued safety of this Reaper, they want the people who were at the centre of this chaos dead and they want them dead this instant.

"Time to vamoose." As Joker was about to blow this popsicle stand chaos appeared outside. The remaining banshees had cast a singularity across the field of battle, and they were now using them to sweep up the pulped and burnt remains of the husks scattered around the makeshift hangar. "That, can't be good." Joker summed up the obvious for those lacking eyes or more than two brain cells.

Obviously a hail of exotic flames was the collective response of everyone able to, and a group of Carcasses responded in kind putting up a omni barrier. The Thorian had been spread to almost every living thing in the galaxy, that is to say that it was also here in these husks as well. Organic matter was being rapidly broken down and absorbed into a single mass, a gigantic arm reached out and snapped down on the Normandy, as if desperately attempting to keep it here for some reason or another, even in-spite of the force field burning away at Synthorganic flesh. Right now everyone was firing at the regenerating mass doing everything that they can to make the damned thing let go of their ship. So this was the Collectors endgame: plaster the area with enough corpses that they could use Lich Necromancy and Reaper technology to make something that they couldn't kill with conventional weaponry.

"EDI! There's a psi-signal connecting that thing to a controller. Where is it!?" Shepard demanded as her group rapidly approached.

"Sending co-ordinates." Attempting to track thousands of weak signals that constantly flicker in and out of existence as they get blown apart? Extremely hard. Tracking one massive signal that was violently attempting to rip their ship to pieces? Stupidly Easy. "Coordinates have been sent over to Smok."

Shepard had whipped out her sword as she rapidly approached the location where the signal was coming from, a single swipe through empty air later, both a Conductor and the Phantom that was keeping them invisible were both cut down, the gripping hand rapidly losing it's grip, if the way it was shifting on the surface was any indication it the nanites were trying to compensate for the suddenly lack of a brain. But it wouldn't get the chance. The Hangar bay doors on the Normandy opened and everyone immediately dog piled inside, including Tali and the two groups of Dragoons. The hole was almost finished being cut. The Three Asari and Vorcha all cast singularities at the same time directly in front of the hole that was being cut open, everyone else fired exotic plasma into the balls of biotics. A loud boom knocked the cutting of the hole out and slammed into the drone that had been cutting it before the Normandy flew through.

"Any casualties?" Joker asked as Shepard entered the cabin.

"None that I know of. You?" The Dragoon replied questioningly, a little high strung at the moment.

"Some. The Volus and a group of Cold Stone's people, the Geth got tele-fragged by an adjutant and downloaded himself into another platform on the ship before the Reaper tech could get to it's programs, other than that everything's good." Such is the lot of Tanks. "What happened to the warhead?" Joker asked as he was already performing evasive manoeuvres against the mining drones Dancing the Normandy around their beams.

"An Adjutant stole it, probably tore off the remote detonator too." Shepard stated bluntly.

"I can confirm that the warhead is no long responding to my commands." EDI stated bluntly, not that she wanted to crack open that bag of worms with so many here. Fantastic.

"We got another one?" Joker asked sounding rather concerned. Shepard reached over to one of the screens and tapped on the Mass Relay that they were flying towards. "Ah I see. How are we going to break it?" Everyone on the ship shuddered as if there was a massive disturbance in the fabric of space and time.

"We'll have help."

The Colossus shattered. A Reaper isn't a ship, it's the synthorganic core at the centre of the ship, a genetic and cultural repository of a long dead race, the ship was the weapons and the armour that was built around the core, occasionally, the Reapers stumble into something that can survive the void of space, one such abomination tore itself through the shell, a super weapon designed to break planets now little more than a piece of scrap metal the length of a continent. The Behemoth roared, not in any conventional way, but the fabric of space itself seemed to shudder as the Normandy was bombarded by waves invisible to the naked eye, and the monster charged forward.

"Gotta make a pitstop boss!"

Zaeed's group stared in naked horror at the gigantic synthorganic monster that had just tore its way out of the shell of the Reaper and was now actively giving chase to the Normandy. A ship that notably turned around mid way to have their hangar door open and scoop them up.

"My turn." With two shots the unnessary parts of the wreckage were destroyed, the floor and the ceiling both taken out of the picture. The Normandy's docking clamps reached out and grabbed the sections of wreckage containing thousands of people that had been taken captive by the Collectors and experimented on. "I have no idea what it's doing..." The Behemoth's chest glowed, a massive biotic core, incalculable amounts of energy gathered inside of the monstrosities mouth and fired. "...BUT I DON'T LIKE IT!"

With the addition of the Krogan little over three dozen biotics were on board of the ship. As one, the Krogan, the Asari, and the lone Vorcha on board collectively flared their full potential and the ship went flying off to the side, the beam missing the Mass Relay as it bent unnaturally to the side. Sadly it appeared the monster had the same idea, it's entire body glowing a dark purple before being propelled forward, notably much faster than what the theoretically much smaller and manoeuvrable ship was going.

"Joker!" Shepard stated as she made the situation known.

Aft Thrusters flared as the ship was forced upwards in order to avoid a head on collision with a monster the size of some countries, the massive creature taking a uncomfortably long time to pass under them. Then they realised it wasn't passing, it was doing a barrel role. A monster that was the size of one of the biggest ships in the Union, discounting the planet cracking guns with thrusters strapped to them the Lithoids occasionally used, did a freaking barrel roll!

"I'm not that easy you oversized manta ray!" Joker shouted in kind.

It was a delicate balancing act, matching the creature's speed, staying just far enough ahead to avoid being shattered, slowing down just enough to make contact with the enemy monster, docking was out of the question with the clamps so otherwise occupied, this would be more like parking. Joker concentrated, cybernetic-ally augmented reflexes, EDI's extremely precise corrections, and even then the Normandy took the tiniest amount of damage to its landing gear. Then the barrel roll abruptly stopped, the Normandy was sent flying away towards the Mass Relay. EDI quickly access the controls for the Relay, there was no built in protocol to make the relay self destruct, but if they switch the Normandy over to emergency power, jettison and destabilise the main power core...

"Engaging the Mass Relay!"

Once started it was impossible to stop the Mass Relay from flinging the ship across the void of space, even if there was the Normandy was running on fumes after jettisoning their energy core into the relay and setting it to self destruct. Many of the Ship's security protocols were disabled in the process, including those that auto kills the Adjutants, With a burst of blue lightning one appeared in the pilots cabin, and came but a hair's breath of grabbing Joker, before Shepard wrapped her hand around it's throat on instinct. The Normandy was sent through the relay, but the Adjutant along with Shepard was sent in a different direction, into the void of space. Shepard threw the undead synthorganic away in time to witness the power core of the Normandy detonate, and only barely had enough time to curse as the secondary explosion of the Mass Relay went off.


On Arcturus station Admiral Amanda Shepard stood on a stage in front of a microphone stand as she addressed several news teams before her and cleared her throat.

"On May 25th 2585 of the Galactic Standard Year Lieutenant Commander Jane Shepard was declared KIA During the operation to stop the Collector raids into Union territory. I mourn my daughter, as I honour and Recognise her sacrifice as one of many that will be made in the coming years."


On the planet of Aratoht, a Tebrid with one job and one job only was playing a game on his console when a reminder to conduct his business sounded. Pausing the game the Tebrid checked the Alpha Relay, and confirmed that it had become active, the monster from the other side having come through the gate, the first of many. Well it was a good run while it lasted. The Tebrid Checked the logs and confirmed the last upload of his Greybox, so he could at the very least continue life as a digital construct, and get a new body depending on how had the Reaper war hits his insurance, such is life. Pressing a button on a subdermal implant the Tebrid took a deep breath, before his entire body exploded completely destroying his organic body and cybernetic implants, the resulting gore splattered all over a screen depicting a timer rapidly beating down on a one month time until the fail-safe that only the now dead Tebrid and a handful of high ranking union personnel knew about activated and released hell into the Reaper's rear flank.


"I am not one for speeches so I will be blunt: This will be a war of extermination, either they will kill all of us or we will kill them to the last."


On Tuchanka Krogan drunk, they screamed into the void announcing the arrival of a great warrior, they prepared for war. Fabricators grinded and assembled armours and weapons, the Thorian recreated the most hostile environment ever known to the galaxy, prehistoric Tuchanka, from the planet's array of ancient fossils vines that could crush ships, monsters who can shred ships, monsters that even the Krogan once feared were birthed, gaps in the DNA filled in using broad genetic information from across the galaxy and simulations that determined how the creatures were actually built, and then improved upon them, adding apex predators of other environments together into the mass, though for now none of them would be hunting Krogan. No this planet was a death trap for the Reapers.


"The enemy is stronger, older and more numerous than us, but we are not entering this fight unprepared."


In Geth/Quarian space a factory had been built, churning entire asteroids into raw materials and raw materials into advanced components. The Geth believe in advancing themselves under their own power, but this was a emergency, so a mixed Tebrid, Lithoid, Valhallan and Quarian force was assembled together into a force to see the most advance Geth platforms ever conceived built, and on a side project, developed the most vicious anti-reaper weapon that the Union has every conceived of. They could only hope that they wouldn't run out of ammo before they ran out of targets.


"I will be completely blunt with all of you: the people watching this broadcast, each and every one of them, will die, in the days to come, in the years yet to live, on the battlefield or a bed, beside their brother's in arms or their family, this I do not know. But those who choose to live? Choose to fight with whatever tools or weapons are given to them? You will be remembered forever."


Aria stood on Omega once more, not as its ruler but a mere foot soldier. She would rule once again one day though, this much was certain to her, during the war when real leadership would be needed to find off ancient hoards, when the union stands broken and their hold over their penal colony destroyed leaving behind all of their technology and weapons behind. Aria would be back on top in no time, stronger than she ever was before.


"Oh and Harbinger was it? The so called Champion of the Reapers? I know you can see this broadcast, or your cousins will relay it to you when you inevitably finally get here. You want our Galaxy?" In Terminus space a fleet of ships gathered together. "Come and Take it!"


Liara, Garrus, Tali, Grunt, the team who invaded the collector base were all gathered together on the Normandy in front of a wall with a list of names on it, the last and latest belonging to one Jane Shepard. Liara gritted her teeth. Shepard was caught inside of the reality unzipping event, she didn't even need to bother to look it up with so much Union Data passing by her. Exotic particle release is called reality unzipping for a good reason, the normal laws of physics cease to function around them, to the point that it's hard to figure out how they affect reality. It's not impossible to survive inside of such an event: The Lich's are proof of that, as they are also proof of what happens when you enter one. For now the important thing that needed was tracking down exactly where Shepard was right now, whatever was left of her, and bring her back. Liara won't get into the lich's soul talk, but between what happened to them all the metal inside of Shepard's body if she was still 'alive' in a fashion than finding her was Liara's number one priority. And unfortunately, she knew exactly where she had to start looking.

"So we're gonna go fight through a warzone, dozens of different planets, looking for the place where Shepard's was last." That being the Collector's base, where a mass relay was detonated, the proverbial ground zero of the explosion, also the place where reality should be the most damaged, the site of at least three blackholes and soon to be the middle of a all out war-zone. That was just what they currently knew about it, for all they know a wormhole has opened up to the other side of the galaxy, or worst into dark space where the likes of the Reapers like to dwell. You'd need a army to get through all of that, and as it stands, Mordin and Grunt rescued one from the Collectors.


Author's Note:

RonaldM40196867: Glad you like it. That she is. Take too sheets of hardened Omni-gel and glue them together with one sheet of relatively soft honey combed omni-material. The Two hard layers stop penetrating and slashing attacks while the honey comb soaks up the force of impact.

Bag of Holding: That's for Andromeda.