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Tanith was another ruddy, drab colored planet from orbit. This time an inky, oily sort of blue, made even worse thanks to the grainy video feed they were all looking at while Shepard spoke. "Tanith is one of the Hegemony's outer worlds. A defensive world, primarily, but also a prison one, according to reports from the STG."

"A prison world…?" Pyrrha murmured, brows furrowing. "You mean slaves."

"Unconfirmed." Mordin grunted, speaking, apparently, on behalf of the intelligence itself. Or perhaps the STG. Which made a certain kind of sense. He had been a member, once, so the Salarians probably trusted him well enough with the information. At least right now. "Hard to get assets on the ground. Spy satellites track incoming and outgoing ships. Including publicly listed military transports."

"Given additional escorts," Shepard added, turning a meaningful look on the Mistralian and adding, quietly, "and with additional hab-units affixed. Ones likely able to be discarded as needed, based on… Prior experiences with Batarian bases."

Pyrrha frowned at that, remembering every last detail of the base. And the cowardly tactics the Batarians so happily employed when they fought… And what it had cost them. And so many others, all across the galaxy.

"This is the schematic from initial construction, according to STG sources." Shepard went on, gesturing at the blue-colored holodisplay that replaced Tanith, hovering above the conference table and lighting them all up in faint blues.

The Batarian complex itself was simple, almost a perfect rectangle with a massive gun emplacement that took up almost all of one side. It was essentially a long rectangle set on giant wheels enclosed by armored protectors, set up on four stubby, thick support legs. A squat building took up the rest, set a few yards in from the wall on all sides with a walkway that lead straight to the gun, and Shepard pointed at it as she went on.

"Old design." Grunt rumbled, "I remember it from the Rebellion…"

"Hereditary memories?"

"Mhm." The Krogan nodded, gesturing at the armored section at its hinge. "Cut it up on one of its hinges and it'll fall. It's why Tuchanka favored emplacements built into the ground."

"No supports to cut then, really." Garrus hummed, "Limits firing range, though."

"A bit." Grunt agreed, "But losing the gun limits it more."

"Fair."

"This installation covers thirty percent of the orbital range of the planetary defence network." Shepard explained quietly, looking at the long range cannon with a frown. "And, by our calculations, its section will be facing our fleet when it arrives to take the world. So we need it disabled."

"And if the calculations are off?" Thane asked quietly, "What happens then?"

"Our fleet will bypass Tanith, and use our preparatory strike as a diversionary one." Shepard shrugged, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "But that shouldn't happen, barring any unforeseen, catastrophic problems."

"Ugh." Garrus groaned, "Why did you have to say that?"

"Yeah." Jacob added quietly, "Now, something is definitely going to go wrong."

"Focus on the briefing now," Shepard sighed, "doom predictions later. Anyways…"

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Their Kodiak was stealth enabled, which was a fact that Penny had seen their teams use more than once. What that meant in simple terms was that most LADAR, RADAR and thermal sensor systems would miss them entirely, so long as they had their functions active and were not damaged in some way. What it very much did not do, however, was make them invisible to more simple optical systems or the simple, naked eye. Which posed a problem for their target because the defensive installation was built on top of one of a handful of plateaus, rising and falling unevenly almost like giant steps between the arid region to the rough east and the more tropical one beyond it, along the coastline to the west.

There was another, larger city built into that coastline, with scattered, smaller towns curving all along its natural edge, but the plateaus were hard to build in. Harder, obviously, than the flatter arid plains or coastline had been. And so it sat barren aside from a single look-out base in the very center, on one of the higher ones.

"Team Tiresias landing at site, under fire." Shepard reported over the comm-lines, the sheer amount of jamming being put out by both Kodiaks and the Normandy itself leaving her voice wreathed in heavy static. "EDI, make sure no reports get out."

"None will." She answered, "Parsing and editing together false reports for check-in times over the next hour."

"Good." She answered, "Odysseus, commence your operation."

"Understood." Penny answered, turning to look at the only other two in the shuttle with her. Than and Legion were both fitted for long range support, with light but reliable Viper rifles, and she trusted them to cover her as the shuttle touched down a few dozen yards away from the lip of one of the closer plateaus.

"We will signal when ready." Thane grunted affirmingly as the duo slipped by, jogging up the uneven, sandy path without another word.

She watched them vanish beyond even her sight and detection ability and waited with the Kodiak. She only had to wait around twenty minutes before the distant, muted sound of gunfire reached her. She was already lifting off into the air when the go ahead signal reached her from Legion's end. Wary of sensors even now, and who or what the Hegemony may be working with that would be interested to know she'd been on Tanith, Penny flew low and fast, curving around rocks, hills and over thin cracks and crevasses as she shot towards the emplacement base.

She found the two marksmen at the edge of the plateau, sheltering behind a towering stone formation while inaccurate rifle fire sparked off of it. She landed between them long enough to ask, "Are you safe here?"

"Affirmative." Legion answered, standing and turning, ignoring the few scant rounds that sparked off its barriers as it fired six slow shots, adjusting ever so slightly between each one before their clip whined and they ducked back into cover. "Five targets eliminated. Friend Penny, we request you make a fire pass directly across from us, trailing west for forty one point two meters, where a heavy gun is being assembled."

"A heavy gun…?"

"I see it." Thane rasped, leaning out to fire two shots of his own and then curling back into cover, hurling a wreath of Biotic fire as he withdrew. "Fire on the Biotics. They will detonate with a sufficient strike."

"Got it." She nodded, grimacing. She hated fighting people, but… "I will make the strike and pass to disable the communications system, and then move on to the gun in one manuever."

"Understood."

"Acknowledged." Legion grunted, "We will distract and then cover. Wait precisely two seconds to launch after we reengage."

She nodded and, after a heartbeat and without even needing to look to each other, the two marksmen stood and leaned out of cover. They fired so fast that it was likely too quickly to be useful, but only twice. Just enough to startle anyone moving on the outer wall before they started picking off whoever seemed a priority to them. As she'd been told, she waited a couple seconds before rocketing up and turning, hurling a pair of her blades into the rock for an anchor and then using every ounce of her own physical strength, backed by her control of the wires themselves, to pull her past it for a quick acceleration.

Rolling, she threw out her arms and legs and soared up over the wall, letting her leafs carry her past while she peppered the wall in bursts of super-heated plasma fire.

The walls did not so much explode as weaken, sagging in where multiple shots landed nearby and melted the primarily steel construction enough that it couldn't support its weight. The heavy gun, however, did explode. Whatever thermal system it used went up in a bright blue as a pair of shots slammed into it, annihilating it, a chunk of wall, and the six Batarian soldiers near it in one swoop. Others tried to run along the wall's length as it sagged, but most didn't make it far, jerking to the side as heavy shots from the marksmen caught them and put an end to them. Other, smarter Batarians leapt from it, though only a few managed to do so without breaking something on the landing.

Leaving them she continued on, over the landing pad where several of he more block Batarian shuttles, like Kodiaks but longer and with a raised cockpit at the front, were starting to lift off. She came down to land on one, turning and severing most of its engine assembly with a wave of her hand and a blast of green fire. Another lifted off too early, before the engines had primed, and fell away to crash behind the wall on its own. The third, though, managed to get up, one of its side doors opening so that Batarians inside could shoot at her.

"I'm sorry!" She called out, ducking under one of the arcs of fire and turning, burying half her swords into the severed engine assembly of the first.

She buried the rest in the other hunk of the ruined shuttle under her and pivoted at the waist, hurling the hunk of metal into the open compartment. It pitched to the side and Penny knelt, configuring her heavy blaster and firing a short burst into the hunk of engine she'd left embedded in the shuttle. Element Zero sparked along the craft's side as she turned, rocketing away and leaving it to explode behind her while she angled around to the inner joint of the heavy gun.

"Disabling the gun now." She warned, "Please withdraw, friends."

"Withdrawing." Legion affirmed as she knelt on top of the blocky hinge housing.

It was composed primarily of a seemingly naturally rust colored concrete, although a cheaper variant than she'd seen on the Citadel. Raising her hands, she let Floating Array configure into four small micro-pulse blaster variants she'd been practiceing on and zeroed their targets on the spot just between her knees. Forty seven shots fired in a sequential rotation, punching into the concrete and then melting further as it heated it. Breach made, she reconfigured them into a pair of heavier variants, blades spinning quickly enough to hum in the air, and backed away, cutting a cross section away and letting the rubble fall into the hinge assembly itself.

Inside, the hinge was almost rudimentary and old fashion, made up of simple gears and pneumatic braces like she'd seen in old artillery pieces back home. Which made calculating where to do her damage easy enough.

Five long bursts of plasma ruined the assembly and carved through it, into the very structures holding the heavy gun at the ready, like Grunt had suggested. Also like he'd suggested, it only took a few seconds of work for both of the legs on her side to shudder. And then crack, just as the survivors from the little fort's wall seemed to spot her and opened fire. They were several stories down, though, and using assault rifles, which left them inaccurate enough for her Aura and barriers to leave her confident in her safety.

Until, with a thundering crack, the heavy, rectangular barrel of the gun sagged and snapped to the side, through the concrete she stood on. It was sudden enough to pitch her off it and into the air, but she recovered quickly, backing away and peppering the support legs in light fire along its cracks to speed its breakage along.

Finally, as it fell, she shot up into the air and looked down, watching the gun crush most of the fortress and then explode. Fire bloomed into the air, hurling debris out into the city to the side, and Penny hissed and covered her mouth against the gasp.

"Commander Shepard, it-"

"I know." She cut in, voice free of the static from before, meaning they'd dropped the Kodiak's ECM. The lack of gunfire explained why. "Alarms across the city. Their fire and rescue should be moving shortly. Withdraw."

"But…"

"Even if you go to help, they'll just focus on shooting at you." Shepard said quietly, almost… Sympathetically, even. "Withdraw. It's all we can do, now…"

"...Withdrawing." She nodded, cutting the comm line and looking at the city as the fires began to spread. Quietly, she murmured, "I'm sorry."

And then turned as their Kodiak came to a hover a few yards behind her and let her propel herself forward and into the hatch.

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Rear Admiral Stephen Strange stood on the command deck as they approached Tanith at a rough angle, keeping their accelerators safely pointed away from the planet itself. His fleet was relatively small for a planetary approach, with eight Hastings class frigates, his Berlin class and a pair of light Valley Forge class ships for support. But Tanith, from their reports, had largely relied on its ground emplacements for defense rather than a proper navy, and so there were only a dozen ships arrayed to meet them. Only one of which surpasses Corvette class.

Unfortunately, the Batarians were still trying to rely on their artillery to overcome their lacking fleet, and kept themselves in front of the planet rather than meet them on terms compliant with Citadel law.

"Cowards." He sighed and frowned, resting his chin on a fist. "Even with the cannon gone, and our numbers, we're at a disadvantage from here… Officer Kururugi, how long until other guns on the planet can target us?"

"Four hours, Sir."

And only two before the Turian infantry companies dedicated to liberating the planet arrived…

"We can't wait." He growled, raising a hand and waving them forward. "Move to engage. Minimize backdrop on the planet, and restrict mass accelerator fire. Move our heavy ships to the fore and our lighter ones to flank. When we engage, I want them to run the sides and work with our bombers to cripple the enemy ships. Line holders are to prioritize self preservation and seek missile locks."

"Sir." Echoed around the decks as the combat alarm finally went off, warning everyone on board of their intentions to finally engage properly.

A heartbeat passed before his comms officer straightened and turned, "Sir, reporting a, uh… Friendly vessel, ID pattern Normandy, requesting communications."

"Normandy…?" He frowned and sighed. He didn't like working with Cerberus, but the briefing had made their involvement clear. And he wasn't so proud as to lose his own people trying to steal their thunder.

Not when he could let Cerberus lose people instead.

"Open communications." He ordered, straightening and speaking in greeting when his comm officer held up a thumb to signal a good connection. "This is Rear Admiral Strange, Forty Eighth Alliance Expeditionary Force. Identify."

"Commander Shepard, Alliance SPECTRE, aboard prototype ship ID SSV Normandy-2, authenticating now." The woman's voice responded, cold and clipped in a way that spoke of exhaust or extensive experience in communicating in military form. Her ident-signal that came through a moment later confirming her status told him it was more likely a mix of both. "We have stealth systems engaged. Cannot remain open-comm for long. How can we help the engagement?"

"Weapons complement?"

"Prototype Thanix cannon, several pulse guns, and a single concussion missile launcher." She answered, "Were you at the Battle of the Citadel?"

"I was."

"The Thanix is a prototype magneto-thermo-hydraulic pattern weapon based on Sovereign." His brows rose and, as if she could tell, the woman chuckled and said. "We can fire three shoots before needing to vent, standard. Under stealth, with heat as it is already, mark that as two. Designate targets."

"The two bigger ships." He answered simply. "Advance, disable or destroy, withdraw. I'm assuming we don't want them to get a chance to outbound data on your ship."

"We have that covered, but once we engage and pull away, comms will be open." She answered, "Designate support targets as needed. Commander Shepard, out."

He nodded and smiled as he eased back in his seat and grunted, "Weapons, prioritize our defensive systems. Let the Commander hit and then engage with missiles."

"Aye."

As his fleet moved in and the Batarians began to fire their extreme-range shots, he let out a long breath and thought of Mindoir. After so long, he knew better than to hope she was down there, after all, and simply wrapped his hand around the little cross his sister had given him so long ago. Quietly, he said, "Finally, Alexis… I'm here to make them pay."

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Saif Omar :

I mean… Based, wish I'd thought of that lmao. Unfortunately, I planned the scene a bit before WFM was finished.

Lea :

From floof to murder in this chapter lmao.

Corporal Crunch :

It's mostly an 'innocent beans' ship.

Fatquacker :

Yeah. At this point the crew has enough experience with Aura and Pyr's hangups after everything that they can just… Handle stuff, lol.

Also, Common Garrus W indeed.