Chapter 126. No Man Left Behind
One Hundred Fifty-Seven Minutes After Transit, 13. May 2417 AD, Cronos Station
About half an hour had passed since Harper had gotten his last report from Shepard and now that he had gotten an update, he wished he hadn't.
While the news that there was a seemingly friendly prothean VI remnant aboard the station that was willing to help them was a huge win, the reveal as to what the base actually was had quickly soured the news.
Harper rubbed his brow and added another cigarette to the growing heap of ash smoldering on the small black table standing next to his chair.
A damned Reaper.
That's what the Collectors had been doing all of this for.
They were building a new Reaper, right in the center of the galaxy. A Sovereign 2.0, if you will.
While Shepard reported that the ship wasn't quite finished yet and the scans EDI had forwarded did suggest that the craft was nowhere near the size of a proper Leviathan-Class yet and lacked most of its armor plating, its presence represented a drastic change of the commander's rules of engagements.
Even if Solus' weapon would be able to wipe out the Collectors (which according to Shepard's intel it would not outside of a few selective areas of the station), detonating the Blank Slates was now their only option.
To ensure that the nukes had their full effect, Shepard was currently following the prothean VI, Vestige, to the central control node of the station. There, they'd shut down the barriers to allow for the full blast-yield to hit the Reaper…
… and that was the last he'd heard from the away team.
Harper looked at the holo-tiles that made up the floor of his office.
He'd been fighting them long enough to know that the timing of all of this wasn't a coincidence.
Not this close to the mission meant to delay the arrival to the larger armada.
They were just shy of two weeks out from the Reapers hitting the Viper Nebula.
If that thing got past the Omega-Four relay, he was confident that it would head straight to the predicted arrival site and do everything in its power to stop them from stopping the Reapers.
Even if it cost the life of every colonist on the station, the Reaper couldn't be allowed to escape.
They weren't ready.
Not by a long shot.
As he lit another cigarette, Harper shifted his glance to his side where a large holographic map was displaying the increasing number of vessels rallying at the HSA-side of the Sahrabarik Relay. It wouldn't be much longer until Admiral Debois' forces and their turian allies poured through the relay and conducted Red Ring.
Based on what Harper knew about War Plan Red Ring, their attack on the station would be predated by a series of insider-attacks committed by Section 6 trained and led groups of local insurgents. These asymmetrical attacks, which would most definitely be aimed at destabilizing Omega's defenses, weren't exactly something he figured Aria T'Loak and those aligned with her could anticipate or combat effectively.
Omega's armed forces, if they could be called that, were asymmetrical at best themselves. They were light, decentralized infantry with limited fire-support and non-standardized equipment… going up against what Harper considered to be the two most capable and by far most combat-experienced militaries of their current times which had not only been cross-training with one-another for nearly thirty years but also already had structures in place to effectively integrate into each other's chain of command.
Omega didn't stand a chance in hell.
Harper exhaled smoke from his mouth.
If they were going to throw themselves into a stupid conflict with the Terminus Systems at the eve of the Reapers' attack, he was at the very least glad to know that they were going to kick it off with one hell of a show.
If they left enough of an impression, maybe they'd encourage at least a few of the warlords to not jump into the fray against Council Space.
Meanwhile, 13. May 2417 AD, Collector Base
As the large, uneven metal door pulled open at an angle, Shepard and her team flooded into the control room Vestige had been leading them to for the last half hour. Without giving it much thought at all, the N7 shot at the only vaguely Collector-shaped thing in the room (an odd-looking, somewhat stocky creature with a much larger head than the rest and a malformed torso with multiple arms) and breathed a sigh of relief when it dropped dead quickly.
After a second of wondering if the thing she'd just killed had been a special breed of Collector or simply an accident, the N7 lowered her Valkyrie and watched as Vestige's hologram began to float towards the round, orange glowing console that the misshaped Collector was now bleeding out over. Only when she did so, did she realize how exhausted she was becoming.
Their way to this point had been bloody and hard fought, but luckily devoid of any more casualties. They'd gone through waves of infantry, husks and more incarnations of the 'possessed', talking Collectors they'd encountered earlier.
If anything, that level of opposition had made one thing abundantly clear: the Collectors didn't want them in this room, which in turn meant that they definitely needed to be here.
"Interfacing with this console should allow us to disable the barrier generators," Vestige stated before turning to face Shepard with his broken, holographic frame.
"Understood," Shepard stated before bringing up her omni-tool. "But first I'm checking if there's a way to reroute the colonists," she stated before adding a sentence in her own mind 'and if you're about to make me blow ourselves up.'
Vestige and them were allies of opportunity.
As far as she was concerned, there wasn't any trust involved in this little match-up.
"We have little time for your lack of faith," Vestige responded before EDI chipped in.
"I have discovered the controls of the station's barrier generators, Commander," the AI began. "But there does not appear to be a way to control the flow of the pods form here."
Shepard narrowed her eyes and accepted that she was now fully backed into a corner.
"How many pods are we going to lose in the blast?" If she was going to condemn these people to their deaths, she at least wanted to know just how many lives she was about to sacrifice.
"The station's design makes it impossible to tell," the AI replied after a second. "However low estimates suggest that tens of thousands are currently traversing the station along the refinery line."
She didn't want to do this.
But she had to.
"Shut down the barriers and plot our way back," she ordered. "We've been here long enough already anyway."
Truth be told, it felt odd to know that they'd come all this way, lost all those people, just to push a button, walk the same way back and then watch it all get blown to hell.
All the people she intended to save, all the suffering she hoped to end… it wasn't happening. At this rate, they could've just loaded the Normandy with the warheads and barraged the station and the result would've been all the same, minus the lives risked and lost to get to this point…
But alas they could not change the past.
"I've successfully disabled the barriers, Commander. A retreat-route has been forwarded to your HUD. Be advised, as anticipated, it will intersect with the docked Collector vessel."
"Then we'll use the gas to clear the way," Shepard said before looking to Vestige. "There's no version of this where we can take you with us, is there?"
"My presence here is required to ensure that our sabotage isn't reversed," Vestige responded.. "Additionally… there could be… traps… that I haven't detected yet. While my Retribution-Protocols have ensured my functionality past the point the Reapers have anticipated, I cannot rule out that I have been compromised in a manner that eludes my own understanding of myself. As such, you cannot risk bringing me elsewhere."
"We could've used your knowledge," the N7 figured before glancing at the dead, large Collector hunched over the console. "They're coming, no matter what happens here today. A prothean VI… could go a long way in helping us win this thing," she glanced at Vestige. "Not that you haven't helped already."
Vestige's hologram turned around and shifted into a purely gold light.
"If I've managed to survive long enough to deliver retribution, probability dictates that others will have survived as well."
Shepard briefly considered telling the VI about the prothean that Blackwatch had found. It was after all about to 'die'. But then she decided that the risk of the Reapers somehow being linked into its system was too large. Besides… it was a VI, it didn't have feelings and it sure as hell didn't need to be comforted on its deathbed.
"Then we'll find them. And when we do, we'll help deliver their retribution the same way we've helped you."
Instead of replying, Vestige simply floated back to the console.
"I advise that you begin your retreat. The airlocks of this station possess high-powered pumps meant to explosively remove air from selected parts of the station. They were part of an anti-intruder system designed while still under imperial command," Vestige paused. "Despite your primitive transportation methods, your weapon should be able to be deployed through them if your own construct manages to reverse their flow."
"That won't be a problem for EDI," she answered before nodding at the VI, which then disappeared in the blink of an eye without another farewell. "Alright, let's get the hell out of this place."
Without saying much of anything, the team followed Shepard as she went along the path highlighted by EDI, deliberately ignoring the trembling of the walls around them. The infant Reaper was trying to force its way out of the station, like a moth breaking out of a cocoon. And much like a moth, it didn't care if it was destroying it on its way out.
As they moved through the winding corridors made of a mixture of prothean alloys and Collector metals, Shepard could catch glimpses of the station around them every now and again. The stasis pods which had been moving on an invisible conveyor belt and been closely guarded by Collectors until recently were now just hovering mid-air with no Collectors in sight.
The whole station appeared to have just ceased its refinement activity… and the Collectors were just gone, probably well on their way to their ship… She got where they were coming form. Pieces of the walls were coming loose in a landslide-like fashion and overall the N7 was getting the impression that this place wouldn't last much longer. It had done its purpose and now it was falling apart.
"I don't like this," she heard Garrus mutter as they moved into a narrower tunnel. By Shepard's HUD, they were just a couple hundred meters away from the part of the station where the Collector ship was docked. "They know they didn't kill us… so shouldn't they try to stop us?" the turian added.
"Why the hell would you say something like that?" Leng murmured while Shepard ducked under a pillar of prothean alloy that appeared to have punched through this otherwise Collector-metal made section of the stations.
"Because this seems like a trap and by saying it out loud, I'm hoping that I'll jinx the Collectors," Garrus offered.
"I don't think that's how our luck work, Vakarian," Callius offered from the back of the formation while the floor creaked under her.
"Well it should be. We deserve a damned break after what we just went through," the other turian responded before Shepard rose up from the tunnel and came face to face with a large, jagged door reminiscent of the ones that had cost them Jack and Thane.
After looking around for a moment and noticing the holes in the floor below them and the general disarray of the walls surrounding them, Shepard figured that the ship docking (or rather ramming) this part of the station had probably done a number on it and then grabbed the cannister on her back and inspected the wall.
"EDI?" she asked, knowing that the AI was watching through her helmet.
"I have highlighted the location of the pressurizing system on your HUD. Be advised, opening the mechanical lock will require on-site interaction and a level of strength you might not be ablet o muster," the AI responded, to which the N7 looked at their geth and then at the massive, red-shaded lever that EDI had highlighted. Yeah… she wasn't going to turn that thing by her own.
"Care to give us a hand, Legion?"
"Affirmative," the geth stated before walking towards the door and ripping the metal sheath covering the mechanism clean off in one motion before pulling out white wiring covered in a orange liquid. She'd seen pictures of the few pieces of Sovereign's interior mechanisms that had survived. They had looked just like that… which begged the question as to why pumps that Vestige said where made by the protheans looked like Reaper tech.
What exactly had the protheans been doing on this station?
"This is it?"
"Affirmative," the geth repeated before bringing up an omni-tool like interface. "We have secured an access route, Shepard-Commander."
"EDI?"
"Accessing…" the AI stated before a hidden panel in the door came open and revealed a pitch-black port that looked so clearly mechanical that it clashed with the otherwise organic look of the door. It was a twist that she'd grown used to by now, though.
"Pressurizing mechanism detected and safety mechanism circumvented," EDI went on. "You are cleared to deploy the gas."
In response to the statement, Shepard pulled the cannister of her back and looked at Mordin.
"How many of these should we use here, Mordin?"
"Considering lack of other practical usages… all of them," the salarian replied dryly.
Shepard handed the gas cannister to Legion but didn't let go just yet.
"Anything else we should know?"
The salarian tilted his head.
"Avoid incendiaries."
And with that, the remaining crew began attaching the cannisters to the port, a process that proved somewhat tricky until Tali and a lot of omni-gel allowed them to fully seal the cannisters to the port.
As Legion attached the last cannister to the port with the help of the quarian, Shepard addressed Mordin again while holding her portion of the security.
"Does it work instantaneously?" Shepard asked, ignoring the sound of strained metal coming from somewhere behind her. It was probably just the mechanism.
"Nearly," the salarian replied. "All affected collectors should be deceased or incapacitated within seconds of contact."
"But the husks and Seekers won't be," Samara added.
"No. Still severely affected, though," the former STG agent stated before Legion and Tali tossed the last cannister aside.
"That's it," the quarian stated, her voice somewhat shaky. Truth be told, she'd already proven more useful and stress-resistant than Shepard had anticipated. Considering she had next to no training or experience (outside of surviving a small-scale synthetic apocalypse on Haestrom that is) the quarian had done an admirable job up to now.
Shepard threw a final glance at the circle they'd formed around the door and then looked at Samara. This maneuver had cost them Thane last time around… but there was no way she saw how they could hope to cross through another swarm of Seekers without it.
"Do you have another barrier in you?"
"Yes," the justicar replied plain and simple before summoning another dome around them.
"Alright people, we are leaving," she stated before intending to instruct EDI to open the door.
Before she could do that though, gravity decided that it had other plans.
The first thing Shepard registered was the noise of something snapping in two.
The second thing was the ground below her feet tilting to the side and causing her to start sliding towards an edge that hadn't previously been there.
Before she could do as much as try and look for something to grab, she'd already gone over the edge of the tilted platform, bumped her head against… something hard… and then rolled to a stop in a rather painful manner until coming to a halt lying flat on her back and staring at a bright, glowing light looking at her from the edge of the platform she'd just been standing on.
Without waiting to find out if the light was friendly or not, Shepard rolled to the side and reached for her Valkyrie, which had mercifully decided to stay attached to her chest-rig.
"Shepard-Commander, are you still operational?" Legion asked over the intercom, causing the N7 to realized that the light she'd just aimed her weapon at was the geth.
"Positive," Shepard stated, ignoring the slight taste of blood in her mouth and looking around to register that she hadn't been the only one who'd taken a tumble. Some five meters to her left, Tali appeared to be coming back to the world of living as well and in the corner of her eye, she could see Leng scramble for her position. "What the hell just happened?"
"The supports of the platform we were assembled on appears to have collided with the moving Reaper," the geth replied clinically. With her head clearing up, Shepard could now see that the geth wasn't actually standing on the edge of the platform as much as still dangling from the wall it had been hanging on to, right next to which a shape of purple metal was moving past. "It has snapped in half."
"I could tell that much," Shepard said before nodding to Leng and silently agreeing to go fetch the quarian. "Sound off," she instructed after taking another second to look around and realizing that several of her team were unaccounted for.
"Samara and Mordin are with me. We're still in one piece," Garrus stated calmly. "Looks like we got tossed on opposite ends, though," the turian added while Tali tried to scramble to her feet next to Shepard and Leng only to have to lean against the other N7 when her ankle failed her.
"Copy that," she said before glancing at her HUD and noticing no flat lines. With Legion, Samara, Mordin and Garrus accounted for and Tali and Kai being with her… that just left Callius.
… and she stayed silent.
"Lieutenant Callius, come in," Shepard tried. Nothing. Alright. Again. "Callius…" Still nothing. "Does anyone have eyes on the lieutenant?"
"Negative. She's not with us." Garrus stated.
"Legion?"
"No visual contact registered."
The N7 looked around the section of the station they'd dropped into… and found nothing except for the orange coffins quietly floating above their heads and the dark-purple slate of slowly moving metal.
As her head connected the dots, she pulled in a breath.
They'd dropped right next to the Reaper that was slowly inching its way out of the station. So not only were they thrown off their escape route, but they'd also happened to drop straight into its path.
And as if that weren't bad enough, they were short a turian and with time ticking against them… she wasn't sure how long they could afford to look for her.
Shepard exhaled to calm herself down.
One problem at a time.
"EDI, I need you to find us a way out," she ordered before looking at the injured quarian and the ominous wall of purple moving in front of them. "Callius, if you read me… please come in."
Meanwhile, 2158 CE, Collector Base
The first thing the biotic Blackwatch officer noticed when she woke up, was the flashing of a wall of red warning lights in front of her vision and the distinctive lack of a vision beyond them.
The second thing she noticed was that she felt like she was upside down in the pitch-black and that her left side was stinging with every breath she took.
'Get up. Focus. Fight,' her subconscious demanded, allowing her to read what the wall of warning lights flashing in front of her eyes was trying to tell her.
'Comm-unit unresponsive.'
'Servo-engines unresponsive.'
'Self-aid-systems failing.'
'Power-source critically damaged.'
After the fourth warning, Callius knew all she needed to know and stopped reading.
She wasn't going anywhere, not as long as she was stuck in the piece of junk that her honor-guard armor had been degraded to now at least.
After flexing her fingers and toes to make sure that she wasn't paralyzed, Callius determined that there was only one course of action.
Evacuation.
With a set of practiced head motions and eye-blinks one simply couldn't perform by accident, Callius activated the emergency armor-release, heard a loud hiss as the seals came apart and then quickly peeled herself out of the broken suit of power armor.
While this action freed her, it also left her with nothing but the thin suit of under-armor and a bare-bones version of her helmet that offered little more protection than an emergency breathing mask.
Not exactly ideal considering where she was.
As a trained soldier, her first instinct was to grab her gun. But before she could do that much, she had to drop to her feet and inhale sharply thanks to the ribs she'd broken in the fall.
… speaking off.
Now that she was free of her suit, Callius noticed that her surroundings weren't all that pitch black at all. She'd just been lying face down in the dirt with a completely mangled exterior-visor.
As she looked up and noticed just how far she'd actually fallen… the damage to her armor started to make sense.
The platform that had just snapped under her feet thanks to something purple moving through it (she remembered that much) was nothing but a small spot on her vision.
Judging by the steep wall ahead of her… she'd had a bit of a freefall experience. At least two hundred paces, she'd guess.
If anything she could be glad that she was walking at all and well… not dead.
After she shook her head and reached to her injured left side, Callius noticed that the weapon she'd been looking for, her Phaeston, was not going to be salvaged. It had been snapped in half by the fall, curtesy of the metal bar that had impaled her comm unit and barely missed her body in the process.
Similarly, her Carnifex was gone. Not gone as in 'lost' but gone as in 'literally shattered upon impact'. She'd landed right on top of it with her full weight, crushing it into splinters of expensive scrap metal.
After a split-second of frustration and general hatred for the universe to make her this unlucky, the former cabal simply moved on along her mental checklist and pulled the military-talon off her suits chest-piece. Next she retrieved the small emergency supply cannister attached to the back of her armor and as she did so, saw Thane's sword which she'd attached to the magnetic lock after the drell's death.
Who'd knew his last gift would come in this useful this quickly.
After grabbing the blade off the husk of her armor, she used the medigel stored inside the emergency cannister on her injured left side. As its numbing sensation set in, Callius pulled out the emergency beacon also stored in the cannister and leaned against the wall next to where her armor had impacted. As she activated it and found that it homed to nowhere due to vast signal interferences (probably from the damned Reaper), she threw her head back and looked up to the platform and the steep, cliff-like wall that separated her from the top.
If she didn't want to get nuked, she needed to get back up there and quickly too.
Even if it was reasonable to assume that Shepard was going to try and look for her for at least some time, Callius knew for a fact that the N7 had enough sense to call the search of in a timely manner if it became evident that they weren't going to find her before the Reaper left the base. And even if they did somehow find her, Shepard and the team weren't equipped for a mountaineering rescue.
Hence, the only way she was going to get out there was if she made it to the top by herself and trailed after the team.
Her combat climbing gear and any climbing safeties she had were built into her armor. Since it was useless now, she'd have to do this with no aids…
Luckily for her, she was a biotic and could reduce her own weight, a fact that made climbing very easy… if there was something to hold on to at least.
And that was probably where the problems would start.
The wall ahead of her wasn't rock.
It was smooth metal with only a few jagged pieces of prothean alloy sticking out every now and again, nearly impossible to climb.
But only nearly.
As she pulled her knife from its sheath and rammed it into the wall and then repeated the process with the assassin's blade (an act she was sure would make him rather angry if he were around to witness it), a small smile escaped the turian.
There was a way.
And as long as there was a way, she'd be damned if she didn't try.
After spending a moment mapping out the way up in her mind, Callius readied herself to pounce upwards to the first piece of alloy.
… but then she heard something behind her.
A snarl.
Familiar.
The turian spun on the back of her heel and managed to turn around just in time to sidestep the husk leaping at her. The blue monstrosity bounced off of the wall and immediately leapt at her again. Up to now, Callius had only ever fought husks while in her armor and enjoyed the increased speed and strength that had brought with it.
Now she was fighting in nothing but her undersuit, so as expected, she didn't manage to dodge the husk… or shrug it off when it grabbed her and tried to dig its talons into her throat.
The husk hit her and they went tumbling against the wall with a thud. In an instant and on pure reflex if she was being honest, the biotic used her inherited powers to throw the thing off her before it could take her head off clean with a swipe of its right hand.
Then, after it had let go of her, she pulled the first thing she could grab -Thane's sword – form the wall and went after it. She ran the blade through the things left eye and then for good measure, chopped of its head with another motion in a way that only a mono-molecular blade could.
When the husk's body went limp, she breathed a sigh of relief and realized how absurdly strong the human monstrosities were when compared to the average person.
If she didn't have the ability to control mass effect fields, this probably would've been it already.
After kicking the husk to make sure it was really down and couldn't somehow live without its head, Callius picked up where she'd left off and started to climb, consciously choosing not to bother thinking about the wall of purple still moving behind her.
Being this close to a Reaper couldn't be healthy.
Yet another argument to get clear quickly.
Ten Minutes Later, 2158 CE, Collector Base
"Your gas worked wonders, Doc," Garrus stated while Samara, Mordin, Legion and him traversed the Collector-corpse-filled section of the station they'd originally meant to pass through as a team. By a stroke of luck, their way back to their original point of entry had been rather easily accessible… something that couldn't be said for Shepard, Leng and Tali.
The N7s had to loop around the whole base with an injured quarian to worry about and an unexplored route ahead of them.
Meanwhile, Callius remained missing in action and unresponsive. At this stage, they simply hoped to locate her by chance, a chance Garrus knew was growing ever smaller the further away he headed from the broken platform.
If it were up to him, he'd have gone backed and started looking… but Shepard had given him a clear order before telling him that they'd enter a comms blindspot for the next couple of minutes: Make sure he got Mordin and Samara out of the base and ensure that the nukes were ready to blow.
The former part he could live with easily… the latter not so much.
While he'd faked obedience, mostly because he knew he didn't have a way to link back up with Shepard, Garrus didn't plan on letting anyone blow the warheads until every survivor was back at the Normandy.
He'd already lost one team this year.
He wasn't going to go two for two, not if he could help it.
"Better than expected," the salarian responded while looking at the twitching Seekers on the ground around them and the corpses of Collectors and husks that they were surrounding.
"Far better," Samara added before the twitching was violently stopped when a metal foot crashed down on it. While the salarian and asari went around the creature… the geth following on the back of their formation simply crushed it with its feet.
"Still no ping for the LT, Legion?" Garrus asked while keeping his eyes peeled at the front of the squad.
"We have yet to locate Callius-Lieutenant," the geth stated before its damaged eyeflaps twitched. "Vakarian-Detective, we'd like to repeat our inquiry-" it began, probably to repeat the same request it had voiced earlier; namely to break off the squad and go looking for 'Callius-Lieutenant' on its own.
"No, Legion. We're staying together. And that's the last I want to hear from it," he muttered before turning the corner to find a familiar sight. The jagged, tank-trap like exterior platform they'd entered the base from. "Normandy, this is Garrus," he said before taking another cautious step forward and seeing the stealth frigate sparkle in the dimmed orange light of the debris field. "You've got three friendlies headed your way from the breaching point. Hold your fire."
"Reading you loud and clear, Garrus," Joker responded. "I take it you didn't happen to stumble over our missing turian on your way here?"
Garrus looked back at the base's entrance.
"Negative. Callius' still MIA."
There was a long, drawn-out sigh on the other end of the comm-line.
"Affirm. We've got our orders. Prep the nukes until we hear from Shepard again," the helmsman stated. Unless Garrus was gravely mistaken, the fact that Shepard was out of comms for now and the reality of Callius being missing meant that Joker was now formally in charge.
He clearly didn't like that burden and Garrus didn't blame him one bit.
Meanwhile, 13. May 2417 AD, Collector Base
"Come on. You can do it. It's not much further," she heard Leng encourage the quarian whom he was supporting on their way out. As it had turned out rather quickly, the quarian's ankle wasn't just simply sprained or broken… it was shattered. Even if she wanted to move on her own, which Shepard had no doubt she did, Tali physically couldn't. And to make matters even worse, the injury had caused a temporary suit breach, one that was sure to cause an infection despite the antibiotics the quarian was swimming in right now.
They'd gotten lucky, all things considered at least. The Reaper that had hit their platform easily could've just hit them instead.
But even so, things weren't good. Especially not for them.
Unlike Garrus and his group, who'd managed to link back up with Legion (something she was immensely grateful for because at least she didn't have to worry about them making it back out) Leng, Tali and she still had to take the long route back and create a new exit for themselves.
With the aid of EDI, the use of some creative explosives and a lot of luck, they'd managed to loop back to the entrance of the Seeker chambers, at the end of which they'd lost Thane, and then hiked back along the already beaten path until they'd hit a closed door with a dark black scorch mark on the ground next to it. Jack's impromptu burial site. After throwing a saddened look at the spot where they'd lost the lieutenant earlier, the N7s and their quarian ally had continued through the previously sealed door and reasonably expected to get into one hell of a gunfight. They'd left a lot of Collectors on the far side of the door earlier.
But that gunfight had never come.
They'd just walked through the door uninterrupted and now here they were, following the thermal vent Legion had climbed through earlier without a Collector in sight.
Shepard didn't like it.
Not one bit.
As she passed the second overwrite console with Leng's gauss LMG in hand (they'd traded weapons since Leng was busy supporting Tali and could hardly use a machine gun in that state) she radioed another short-range transmission in the hopes of getting through to Callius.
"Lieutenant, if you can hear me, we're by the vents now," she said while looking at the carnage left behind by the earlier fight. "We'll hold by the landing site as long as we can," she added before pausing to make sure Leng and Tali could keep up with her. "Good luck, LT," she finished before stepping over the body of a dead Collector.
"Where do you figure they all went?" the quarian asked, a light lull to her voice.
"Probably diverted to where we lost Thane," Leng offered in return before adjusting his grip on the quarian and making her wince in the process. "Sorry 'bout that."
"It's al-" Tali exhaled sharply "…right. I appreciate you not leaving me behind like the dead weight I am right now enough already. If a little pain's what I get in return… that's fine by me."
Leng turned his head slight to the quarian.
"Like we were ever gonna do that," her fellow N7 responded while Shepard scanned their surroundings with the G-LMG. "I don't know quarian policy on this, but we don't leave anyone behind. Dead or alive," Leng stated before probably remembering Thane and Jack. "At least if we can help it."
Tali hung her head in response.
"Quarians don't have the luxury of risking the lives of many to save the few, there are too little of us left to justify that," she replied before bringing up her omni again. "We're still clear, by the way." Since she wasn't going to be useful in a fight from here on out, Shepard had tasked the quarian with using her drone to cover them. There were just three of them. Not nearly enough to provide the 360 degrees of security she would've liked to have in this environment.
"Until you say the opposite, I'm just going to assume that we are," Shepard murmured before stopping in front of the halfway opened door at the start of the thermal vents.
"We closed that, didn't we?" Leng, who realized the same thing as her, muttered.
"We did," Shepard replied before shouldering the G-LMG and inching closer to the gap. As she did so, she realized that the door had been opened by pure force, probably by one of the flying monsters that had killed Thane.
They couldn't afford a fight, not in their current state and certainly not with anything like that.
"Shepard, this is Garrus," the turian's voice echoed inside her helmet while the N7 sliced open the corner in the hopes of not finding another praetorian waiting for them. "My squad's at the landing site. The nukes are ready," Garrus paused. "The situation at the landing site's calm. With your permission, I'll take a squad out and go looking for Callius."
"Hold one," was the commander's only response as she cleared the room ahead of them and wave for Leng to follow them, slowly becoming aware of the faint buzzing sound above their heads and then remembering the enemies trapped in the ceiling. When she was confident that there wasn't a hole for them to crawl back out from, she continued her march to the landing site and replied to Garrus with a heavy note in her voice.
"It's been fifteen minutes since the drop and Callius hasn't responded yet," she reasoned. "I'm not sending you out there on a hunch," then she glanced back at Leng and Tali. Their fighting strength was draining quickly and the Reaper wasn't going to stay trapped in the station forever. Adding to that, she had no idea how long Vestige's sabotage was going to last. And finally there was the fact that all those Collectors had to have gone somewhere… and she didn't plan on sticking around to find out where.
… even so, she wasn't ready to declare Callius dead. At least not yet.
The Blackwatch officer was too tough to go out just like that.
They'd have noticed.
"We'll be with you in five. Stay at the landing site until I'm there," she finished, to which she only received silence. "Do you copy me, Garrus? No one's going looking for the lieutenant until I'm there."
"I read you loud and clear, Shepard," the turian responded. "Digging in now."
Meanwhile, 2158 CE, Collector Base
Stab, pull, release.
Stab, pull, release.
Stab, pull, release.
As Callius ascended the metal wall at a slow but steady pace by impaling the talon and the sword into it and dragging herself up with nothing but her biotics and pure force of will, she quietly wondered how the hell she had survived that fall to begin with.
She'd been climbing for nearly twenty minutes and while her progress was slow… she was already damned far up. Far higher than two hundred paces and certainly high enough to die upon impact if she slipped now, biotic fall cushioning or not.
The kinetic gel in her suit couldn't really be that good, could it?
Stab, pull … and grab.
As she pulled herself on top of another bar of prothean alloy sticking from the wall, the turian allowed herself an exasperated breath. She had put free-climbing on the backseat for the last couple of years, anticipating that there wouldn't be a whole lot of mountaineering to do when the Reapers attacked the galaxy – a decision she was now kicking herself for.
If it weren't for the fact that the Blackwatch was originally a mountaineering legion, a tradition that was still embedded into every fiber of its training, she probably wouldn't have stood the hint of a chance of making it this far up anyway… but even so, she felt both her lack of exercise in this field and the lack of powered armor as well as her age creeping up on her in the form of exhaustion.
As she judged the rest of the wall that she still had to traverse and mapped out her new path, Callius paid little mind to the loud foghorn blaring at her back.
It had been scary the first couple of times and nearly made her fall back down the way she'd come earlier… but now, after twenty minutes of listening to this crappy attempt at psychological warfare, it was more annoying than anything.
Annoyance set aside, she didn't enjoy the prospect of having to enter supervised quarantine for prolonged Reaper exposure though, if she made it out that is.
After wiping a hand against her brow, an action that was purely reflexive and did nothing because she was still wearing a helmet and a sealed undersuit, Callius decided that it was time to take on the last stretch. She'd be up in just a minute and after that all she needed to do to get back home was to somehow make her way to the Normandy with nothing a military talon and a deceased assassin's sword to her name.
Although she'd like to rely on her biotics as well, she knew for a fact that every time she used them light-hearted, she made them weaker for the time she'd really need them.
While her pride as a mountaineer forbade her from saying as much out loud, the climb had taken a lot out of her and she didn't have that much energy left. If she used her biotics one time too often, she'd enter a downward spiral and there'd be no way she was making it out at all.
As she began climbing again, the turian decided that she still liked those odds.
If she did nothing at all, she'd die in a nuclear blast.
Besides the very obvious reason of still wanting to live that was driving her forward, the notion of just laying down and waiting for the end didn't sit right with her.
Sure, a nuclear detonation was a pretty impressive way to go out, certainly a blaze of glory worthy of a Blackwatch honor guard… but just waiting it out while there was still another alternative wasn't the turian way.
Her people were fighters, to the last breath in their lungs and the drop of blood in their hearts. And while the Reapers would learn that soon enough anyways, she was dead set on giving them an early demonstration.
So she climbed, and climbed and climbed until with one last effort, she managed to pull herself back to the platform she'd fallen from earlier. When she reached the top, she rolled on her back and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, angry at how exhausted she was feeling from what should've been an easy climb.
The Hinalius Mountains had climbs way worse than this, spots where you had to hang from the ceiling to advance and she'd bested all of those with ease.
… thirty years ago, at least.
As she climbed to her feet and adjusted her grip on the two weapons she still owned, Callius decided that maybe she was becoming too old for the life of a frontline-combat officer and as her muscles started to ache when she started to jog the way she needed to go to get back to the Normandy, she began to wonder if an admin desk job wouldn't be that bad after all. Regular hours, air-conditioned rooms that weren't set to near-artic human conditions… no near-lethal falls inside alien space stations filled with monsters…
She could see herself settling for that.
Then again, with the war of all wars looming on the horizon, she wasn't sure if there'd be a position that wasn't going to eventually turn into a frontline-combat post anyway.
So if she was going to be put into a fighting position, it may as well be the one she was experienced in.
Meanwhile, 13. May 2417 AD, Collector Base
After reaching the Normandy with Leng and Tali, the N7 and her team had found out where all the Collectors and assorted Reaper monstrosities had gone.
While the gas had killed a lot of them… the survivors had rallied for a counterattack on the location of the nukes, clearly guided by the now awake Reaper that was currently digging its way through the station.
They had seen through their plan and were now seeking to stop the detonation of the Blank Slates by simply killing everyone on the station that wasn't slaved to the will of the Harbinger.
… and they were on a good course to get there.
"Medic!" she heard a marine scream somewhere to her left before a blinding cascade of red GARDIAN fire evaporated a cloud of Seekers coming their way. As she looked to where the shout was coming from, she saw Mordin kneeling over a human missing the lower half of his right arm. It was their fifth casualty since they'd gotten here and while she knew for a fact that the HSAMC detachment was going to hold this position to the last marine if there was the hint of a chance that leaving early meant leaving someone behind, the timeframe she was ready to wait for Callius was coming to a close.
'One last attempt,' she told herself after witnessing the marine's head go limp from unconsciousness.
"Lieutenant Callius, we've reached the Normandy and are prepping our evac. If you can read us, come in," Shepard said into her radio before having to duck as a burst of Collector rifle fire bounced off the impromptu defenses the marines had set up.
While they were still protected from sniper fire and other long-range attack, the Collectors, through sheer force of number, had managed to fly several platforms worth of enemies into the immediate vicinity of them – well within the barriers of the Normandy.
As far as modern combat was concerned, they were now within spitting distance.
As if he was reading her mind, her fellow N7 suddenly appeared next to her. They'd traded weapons again and after unleashing a burst of gauss fire at an approaching husk, Leng looked at her.
"Em, we can't hold this much longer," he said quietly, through the speakers of his helmet instead of the squad intercom. "I hate the idea of leaving Callius as much as you, but you need to call it. If she's not here now," he began before rising form cover and shooting another pair of husk, "then she's not coming either," he finished, prompting Shepard to look to the sole exit of the station, where there was no turian in sight. Then she looked back at the nukes.
She knew he was right.
But she also knew that it wasn't just as easy as packing up and leaving.
"As long as they're coming at us like this, we can't just leave. The moment we're gone, the Collectors can attack the Blank Slates," she offered before looking at the Mako in their ranks, praying that this would work and that they didn't need to leave behind a rear-guard. "EDI, think you can remote control a tank?"
"Replacing the tanks VI with a clone of my rudimentary functions shouldn't be a problem now that I have been unshackled," EDI stated. "My tactical analysis systems do however suggest that the timeframe in which one Mako could effectively defend the bomb site is severely limited. There are too few angles of fire to successfully account for all possible vectors of approach," the AI stated. "If a detonation is to be assured, a rear-guard may be required to cover the Mako's blind spots."
Shepard didn't need to think about her reply.
"Try and find another way," she wasn't leaving anyone else behind.
"I am afraid there is no other -" the AI stated before something on Shepard's HUD lit up, one lone shape running out of the exit of the Collector base. "Incoming friendly detected, Commander…"
Shepard squinted and didn't believe her eyes.
Then she gave the order.
"Cover the lieutenant!"
Meanwhile, 2158 CE, Collector Base
If she'd known she'd run into a shooting gallery the second she left the base, she would've been a little more careful and considerate with her dash.
But since she was now already jumping over the tank-trap like exterior of the base and trying to make her way through the hordes of Collectors, all of whom seemed solely focused on the Normandy (probably to prevent a detonation), it was a little too late for that.
Truth be told, she hadn't expected to find anyone waiting for her.
Her comms were busted and she hadn't shown another form of life-sign in the last thirty minutes either, so the only reason she could find for the Normandy still being her was Shepard somehow believing that she'd make it this far.
The officer in her greatly disproved of this decision.
Her survival instinct however was rather cheerful for the commander's borderline crazy optimism.
Judging by the way the Collectors around her were dropping to well-aimed fire, Callius suspected that she'd been noticed and was being covered right now, hence all she needed to do was run and toss aside the odd husk in her way.
That seemed easy enough.
Without missing a step, she put Thane's sword on her back with the cord of its sheath and then tossed a husk that had turned towards her into the air.
She was glad that she had saved her biotic strength for this part. If she'd exhausted herself any further during the climb, she wouldn't know what to do right now other than pray to the spirits.
Despite the battle surrounding her, Callius was making good progress in her mind. Sure, the odd shot was hitting her barriers and she had to use a throw here and there to clear her way… but all things considered, she was getting there.
In retrospective, she should've known that it was too good for the universe to continue to accept…
When she was just about to enter the last stretch of uneven terrain, maybe fifty paces away from the marines' position, the turian did one last biotic toss at an approaching husk… and then all of the sudden lost her footing. After a second of blackness she couldn't quite explain, she tripped, maybe on a corpse, maybe on the terrain, maybe on herself... Whatever it was, it didn't matter.
Due to her speed, she fell and due to her fall… she felt something in her leg snap painfully.
An involuntary scream escaped her mouth as she went tumbling into one of the small pits and disappeared from the view of the Normandy and the second she stopped rolling, she knew that she had to start crawling… but before she could start on that, the biotic downward spiral she had provoked on her way to this point told her that this was as far as she'd go on her own.
Biotic fatigue, or as the humans called it, Eezo drain, had reached her.
And once that happened to a non-asari, there was nothing they could do.
Meanwhile, 13. May 2417 AD, Collector Base
Callius had been practically within arm's reach by the time she'd fallen.
Fifty meters away at max.
Now she was out of sight.
And Collectors were closing in on her.
Shepard didn't think about what she'd do now.
She just did it.
Three steady breaths filled her lungs and after a clip of a carabiner, her Valkyrie dropped to the floor next to Leng. She wasn't going to need it for this.
'Get ready for the run of your lifetime, Lieutenant', a voice that sounded distinctively like that of the Major Ramos, the Terra Novan officer whom she'd fought under during the batarian invasion of Elysium, stated.
She'd made it back then, despite the odds, so she'd make it now.
She had to.
They'd lost enough people already.
"Cover!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.
And then, she jumped over the barricade and started running, her legs carrying her faster than she had anticipated.
Shepard wasn't sure if it was the adrenaline, the cybernetic muscles from Project Lazarus or a mixture of the two but somehow, she ran what felt like the fastest fifty meter dash in human history.
It was over nearly as soon as it had started and before she had time to consciously register what was going on, the N7 had slid into the trench where Callius had gone down and found the turian laying unconscious in a steep ditch, her left leg bent at an odd, painful ankle and her hand reaching out to the edge of the ditch.
She'd tried to get out until she'd passed out.
She hadn't expected anything less.
Without thinking much or caring about what kind of damage she'd do to Callius ability to walk, Shepard pulled the heavier turian out of the ditch by her arm, somehow managed to throw her over her shoulders (again, probably the adrenaline and/or cybernetics at work) and then began to run backwards, never caring much for the warning lights flashing in front of her eyes.
There was a generally accepted concept when it came to rescuing injured soldiers.
You didn't risk it if doing so would lead to even more wounded.
It sounded harsh but the battlefield required that kind of mindset.
As Shepard felt a sharp pain going through her right thigh just a few meters shy of the barricade and then lost all function of her leg, she got a painful reminder as to why that was the generally accepted concept.
Meanwhile, 2158 CE, Collector Base
The second Garrus saw Shepard run for Callius, he knew what was going to happen.
She was going to get hit and they'd have to either leave both of them or risk even more lives trying to save them.
Surprisingly enough, it took rather long for the Collectors to realise what was happening.
Just as the former detective turned Blue-Suns ally was starting to believe that Shepard might actually make it, a husk he was sure he'd killed twice already swung up from the ground and dug its claws into the N7s thigh. Blood spurted out of the injury and Shepard tripped, dropping Callius in the process.
What followed was a second of shock.
Most of everyone present viewed the N7 in a certain light, one that transcended the limitations of an ordinary soldier. She was Commander Shepard, Hero of the Citadel, recipient of the Star of Valor… the woman who'd come back from the brink of death… and here she was, injured and bleeding like the regular, mortal human that she ultimately was.
While Garrus held Shepard the highest regard, he'd already experienced that Shepard was ultimately as mortal as all of them when he'd dug her out of the rubble of Sovereign's destruction…
As such he wasn't blinded by shock or paralyzed by the realization that she was just another human and prepared himself to go out there and get both her and Callius by himself despite knowing exactly how that'd turn out.
Emotions were a powerful motivator, one of the few that could overrule the fear of death.
Shepard had stood by him when he'd been on the verge of losing himself in vengeance. She'd been there at his lowest point and dragged him back to the light against his will…
He'd be damned if he didn't return the favor.
First Shepard, then Callius.
Two times to test his luck.
He knew he wouldn't make it twice.
But he didn't care if this killed him.
As he jumped the barricade, Garrus barely registered the appearance of a purple dome of energy in front of him. Additionally, he also barely noticed the jet-black shape dashing past him at an impossible speed. Only when he reached Shepard, saw Legion pick up Callius and turned around after grabbing the N7 did he see Samara standing behind him with her arms extended. She was flanked by the remaining team members who could still stand and fight, Mordin and Leng and gesturing for her to bring Shepard back into cover.
So he did.
After a short sprint, Garrus dropped the N7 at the barricade and checked to see if her armor had already applied the first aid protocol. He got confirmation of that by seeing the wound sealed with medigel and finding the onyx-armored woman already reaching for the gun she'd dropped earlier.
"Prep for EVAC!" Garrus heard Shepard shout through the intercom. "EDI, we need a solution on that rear-guard issue!" she went on as bullets impacted the barrier and the Mako's weapons roared despite its crew clearly already being sheltered behind it.
"I have analyzed all possible outcomes, Commander," the AI responded. "I regret to inform you that if we want to ensure a detonation, someone will need to stay behind to cover the APC's dead angle."
Garrus looked at the assorted group and then remembered what he and Leng had talked about some days prior while contemplating Chakwas' death.
'And when shit hits the fan, grunts always go first. That's a basic rule of war.'
In his mind, it probably wouldn't get much better than this, at least not for a disgraced C-SEC officer turned vigilante.
One of the few core principles of turian society that Garrus could actually identify himself with was that everyone died eventually. So if your time was finite, why not make sure that your death served something that was worth a damn?
This station needed to go.
As did the Reaper trying to escape it.
Someone had to make sure it did.
In addition to being dishonorable considering how hard they'd already fought to get them their ticket out and how eight of them were already dead, leaving behind a lone marine wasn't going to ensure that the bombs detonated. They wouldn't do well on their own.
That was no affront against the abilities of the HSAMC, it was just a factual statement.
A squad of them? They'd hold.
But why sacrifice the many if one would do?
With that in mind, it needed to be someone from the ground team.
Shepard didn't look like she could walk right now, Callius was unconscious from biotic fatigue and Tali, in addition to not being a soldier, was in a near-comatose medicinal delirium.
Even if he had no doubt that Shepard and Callius would do it in a heartbeat, neither of them couldn be expected to put up the kind of fight needed to help the EDI-controlled Mako. Their sacrifice was to pointless.
With them ruled out, Garrus went on.
Samara and Mordin and Legion were each too valuable.
One was an exceptionally powerful biotic, whom they'd need every last one of when the Reapers hit.
The other was a once in a generation genius, whom they'd need even more if they wanted to stand a chance in hell at winning this thing.
Finally Legion, while technically not sentient, was the only shot they stood at forging a link to the geth. If what he said about the heretics was true… the galaxy would need the true geth on their side…
With all of them out of the picture, that just left two people.
Leng and him.
Despite the polarized visors both of them wore, Garrus figured that each of them knew what the other was going to say.
Now it was just a matter of who was going to be more convincing.
Meanwhile, 13. May 2417 AD, Collector Base
"I'll do it," both Leng and Garrus declared before Shepard could do as much as think about shooting them down by saying that she'd do it despite her injury.
Now, with the words said and a brief break in the Collector onslaught apparently upon them, the two riflemen looked at each other.
"Lower your hand and get on the damned ship," the older turian stated.
"This ain't your fight, Vakarian," her fellow N7 pointed out.
"Damn right it is," Garrus said, ice in his voice.
"Last time I checked, those aren't turians in those pods. Besides, you still got a messed up family to take care of. I only got the Corps," Leng said as he leaned towards Shepard. "There's only one right call here, Em. This is a textbook N7 job. Take Vakarian and let me do it."
"This isn't about who's got more of a stake in it or who has more to lose more. It's about who's going to hold out longer," Garrus stated. "I've fought worse odds than this on Omega and I lasted for days without having an AI tank to cover my rear," the turian said before turning to Shepard. "It needs to be me."
Shepard looked between the two of them, knowing they were waiting for a decision and then glanced at her leg. Her honor as an officer demanded that she didn't sacrifice anyone in her place. But there was no way in hell she was walking with what felt like a shattered thigh-bone, let alone fighting.
So no matter how bad she wanted to, she couldn't be the one to stay behind. It'd mean mission failure.
"If you give half as much of a shit as I think you do, you're not going to put this kind of call on her, Vakarian. Get on the ship," Leng muttered.
"I could say the same thing."
"This ain't the place for this kinda argument."
"So stop, leave and live to fight another day," the turian said before ducking when a stray-round bounced off the barrier, announcing another wave.
She needed to make a decision here… and quickly too.
Garrus and Kai were both friends. And they had both volunteered. Kai was right, this wasn't Garrus' fight and the turian had a lot to live for. But Garrus was also right when he said that he had fought worse odds…
If she wanted to make a morale decision, she'd needed to tell Leng to stay behind.
But if she wanted to make a tactically sound decision, Garrus would be the one to die…
The situations he was in was a worst-case scenario for any officer. Ordering people to their certain death was the toughest call you could make and it was made doubly worse by the fact that she had an emotional connection to both people and couldn't physically take their place due to a debilitating injury that'd risk mission success…
... what the hell was she going to do here?
Wait for one to back down to take it of her conscious? That was the tempting, but weak decision… and she wasn't going to take that.
After throwing a look between the two of them, she readied herself to voice the pragmatic decision that was forcing her way into her mind. Turning to face to the turian -
"The sacrifice of an organic platform will not be required. We can stay behind and ensure the detonation," Legion, who'd been resting by the unconscious Callius' side up to now, said suddenly.
"You're too valuable of a link to the geth to leave behind," Garrus countered. "We lose you, we lose our tie to the geth."
Legion's eye socket spun in place.
"We are geth," it responded before lifting its right arm and delivering a one-handed headshot at a flying Collector that the GARDIAN lasers had missed with the rifle Shepard had dropped by her feet again after realizing she wasn't going to effectively use it. "Shepard-Commander. We possess superior combat capabilities and the ability to transfer our consensus to a nearby data carrier like the Normandy," Legion reasoned. "While this platform will stay behind and be destroyed in the detonation, our programs will transfer over to our vessel with no further loss of life, organic or synthetic" he went on. "We are the only logical candidate. All other decisions are inferior. We were sent here to assist you in the fight against the old machines. Please, allow us assist."
Could it really be this easy for once?
Shepard didn't think to answer that question at the fear of jinxing all of them.
"Kai, Garrus, stand down. Legion, you're it," she said. "Everyone else, fall back to the ship. Samara, we'll need a barrier for cover. EDI, prep the Normandy for a transfer off Legion's digital conscious! Joker, get ready to fly us the hell out of here."
There wasn't a word of protest from either Garrus or Leng. Only acknowledgement and the sound of footsteps going up the ramp. As she was helped up by Garrus and under the protection of Samara, Shepard threw one last look at the geth, who was dual wielding its personal weapon and her own Valkyrie. "We'll see you on the other side, Legion," she said over the squad's battle-net while the ramp began to rise.
"Affirmative," the geth responded without taking a break from covering the Mako's vulnerable back.
"Joker… get us the hell out of here."
"With pleasure."
Meanwhile, 2158 CE, Collector Base
After the human-made, white-yellow and black craft took off and disappeared faster than an organic would've been able to process, the jet-black platform that had come to be known as Legion continued to dispatch the Collector-foes with an ease only a Project Kaziel design could achieve.
The consensus had been close.
592 in favor to 591 against.
But it had still been in favor.
Hence the deception that had just occurred.
Despite what they had told Shepard, there wasn't going to be a transfer. The interference of the debris field and the Reaper were too severe for their digital conscious to leave the trapped platform.
Even so, the programs within were unbothered by the fact that they'd soon cease to exist.
The arguments of avoiding further loss of organic life and preventing permanent damage to the software of Shepard-Commander's had outweighed the fundamental preservation programming.
Out of a galaxy of trillions of organic individuals, Shepard-Commander was the one envoy that may be able to convince the larger galaxy of the benevolent intentions of the geth, the only one who could prevent mutual annihilation once the quarians attempted to reclaim Rannoch, an action the consensus was anticipating within the next year.
As the Mako, manned by a splinter of the consciousness of the EDI-Intelligence, fired, a comm-channel with said splinter was opened.
"The Normandy is about to leave the blast and reception range," the shard of conscious stated while the geth bashed an overheated rifle over the head of an approaching husk. While it appeared similar to the EDI-Intelligence, it was nothing but a shadow of the original, at least to them. "If you wish to evacuate, now might be your last chance," the human AI offered.
"Due to interference from the debris field, we will not find a carrier for our evacuation," Legion responded calmly. After a moment of self-reflection of all that they had experienced since meeting Shepard-Commander, Callius-Lieutenant and the remaining crew, the programs answered as one. "This was already known to me," Legion said, realizing that the many pieces of him had just become…one.
It was a strange sensation.
One he couldn't quite grasp the meaning of just yet and probably wouldn't either.
"Inform me again when they have left the blast range, I will ensure the detonation occurs momentarily after," he added while wrapping his hand around the neck of a glowing Collector. This being carried the touch of the old machines.
A sliver of the same conscious that Nazara had sought to impose on the geth.
The root of their schism with the heretics.
Since this was the end, it only felt right for Legion to deliver the consensus' message now.
As Legion began to crush the throat of the Collector, he spoke through his audio-emulators.
"We will not be your slaves. The geth will determine our future by ourselves."
"Then… you will di-"
Before the voice of the Old Machines could finish its counter-point, Legion had snapped its neck and discarded the husk.
"Legion, the Normandy has left the blast radius. Structural integrity of the Mako failing. Defensive capabilities no longer optimal. Immediate detonation recommend."
"Affirmative," he replied before interfacing with the detonator of the nuke and seeing the primitive VI of its detonator appear in front of itself. While rudimentary at best, Legion could now see a hint of the spark that had just lit within him. It wasn't much, not enough to come close to being 'one'. But even so, much like the shard of conscious inside the Mako, this VI would sacrifice itself for something larger than itself.
His anthropological databases suggested that within human and turian society, that'd be considered one of the most honorable actions an individual could take and he took care to let the VI know that with its final moments, it would do something… heroic.
As he interlinked with the VI and requested command over the detonation sequence via the access codes Shepard had left behind, he caught a burst of static over the battle-net. There was a transfer directed at him… from the Normandy.
"-egion, transfer not worki-… -am sorry," he identified the voice as belonging to the original EDI-Intelligence, the one that much like him had achieved sentience over the course of the day.
The geth's damaged facial flaps protruded outward and it looked at the golden, ornate chest piece Callius-Lieutenant had gifted to him.
"Do not apologize. I go willingly," he said. Then he made one of the few choices he'd ever get to make as an individual and detonated the warheads without the hint of hesitation, hearing the Reaper cry out in anger within the fraction of seconds it took for the blast to obliterate both them and the station.
The last thought that crossed his mind that he transferred to EDI before the heat melted him was as simple as it was philosophical. It went back to an old quarian saying, one he only understood now that he could make his own decisions.
"A life given in service of others is a life well spent," he formulated the message at lightspeed, far too quick for the explosion to rob him off his chance to finish it. "Spent your lives well."
Meanwhile, 13. May 2417 AD, HSASV Normandy
While outpacing a blast wave sounded dramatic… it was actually rather easy when you were flying an FTL-capable spaceship. As such Joker was fairly relaxed at the helm… until he heard his CO behind him.
"What do you mean it didn't work?" Shepard asked while being carried to the bridge, prompting the Normandy's helmsman to turn around. The N7 had dried blood on her right leg, where a freshly sealed wound was stopping her from putting weight on it and forcing Garrus to support her.
"Commander, shouldn't you be in the med-bay?" Joker asked while making sure the Normandy wasn't hitting any large debris. At this speed, that'd be … bad.
"Not until someone tells me how the hell we lost Legion," Shepard stated.
"Legion could not transmit his backup," EDI informed her. "The interference from the debris field appears to have obstructed him," she went on. "His last message suggests that he was aware of this fact prior to volunteering but omitted as much to convince you."
There was a moment of silence in wake of this realization, one Joker couldn't quite appreciate since he was still busy dodging the debris in between them and the relay and wondering if the way back was going to work or not.
'Cheeky bastard. Well played. Well fucking played…,' he thought before EDI quite suddenly banked right, stopping the Normandy from flying into an exploding cloud of shrapnel that had been a derelict ship just seconds ago.
"What the-" Joker started before several holograms depicting Collector interceptors appeared in front of his eyes, prompting him to wave back at the non-fly staff standing behind him "We got bandits in the field! Strap the fuck in!" he shouted before taking the wheel and bringing them down underneath the hull of a large, batarian-made craft and forcing a collision alter to sound. Judging by the red lights flashing in front of his eyes, he was pretty sure he'd just hit… something. Just nothing big enough to damage the Normandy.
"Two enemy craft eliminated, Flight-Lieutenant," EDI announced. "According to your service file, you have just become eligible to be named a fighter ace," she added as an afterthought.
"Oh yeah?" Joker wondered out loud as the Normandy rolled through the emptied-out husk of an elongated craft the kind of which he'd never seen and probably would never see again. "Let's worry about that after we get out of here," he could already see the relay on the exterior cameras and realized that the ship wasn't going to end soon enough for him to maneuver out of the way of a collision… Fucking great maneuvering on his part, truly. "EDI… I need you to be quick about this one!"
"Transit calculations completed…. Initiating relay dial u-"
"Just get us the hell out of here!" Joker shouted, not letting her finish and not giving anyone time to consider if the IFF was still working.
After a second of blue light, he got his answer… via appearing at the back of what his HUD was showing him to be a massive fleet of turian and human ships that appeared to be engaged in an attack on Omega of all places. Most of the human ships instantly got id-ed by their IFF as ships from the 15th. Admiral Debois. Adding to that, the Normandy's IFF pinged thirty ships belonging to the ACG Anaru as well as the namesake of the assault carrier group, the HSASV Anaru. All were positioned in an attack formation towards Omega and appeared to escort a whole bunch of turian assault craft.
"What the fuck-"
They'd made it.
But what the hell had they just jumped in?
Why was their QRF invading Omega?
"HSASV Normandy SR-2, this is the Ascraeus Mons speaking," the disembodied voice of some comm-officer from the 15th's flagship spoke through the always-open fleet-net channel all HSA vessels logged into the second they entered proximity to one another. "Be advised, you've just entered an active combat sector. Continue to engage in stealth maneuvers and exit the system immediately… this isn't your fight."
Sixty-Three Minutes Later, 13. May 2417 AD, Cronos Station
"This is… unexpected," Harper stated while looking at the Normandy's helmsman.
"Shepard's in surgery. Shattered femur. Callius is out cold too. Biotic fatigue," the bearded man responded before folding his hands behind his back. "The rest of the ground team's fixing themselves up as well. No one got out unscathed, so you'll have to make do with me," he looked around somewhat awkwardly. "You received the final report?"
"Eleven HSAMC casualties, including Lieutenant Nader plus Thane Krios and the geth," Harper said before dipping a cigarette into his ashtray. "Not ideal but far better than I anticipated," he looked at the smoldering paper. "The loss of the station is regrettable, naturally. But if the extend of Reaper corruption is as big as I pictured… its destruction was unavoidable."
"Hellhole had to go down, for all that's good and holy at least," Lieutenant Jeff Moreau murmured before scratching his beard. "Since I'm apparently in charge as long as Shepard and Callius are out of it, I'll just get on with it…" the N7 leaned his head to the right. "What the fuck did I just drop into there earlier? Why were there turians and humans attacking Omega? I thought the QRF was only supposed to move into Sahrabarik if we screwed the pooch on the farside."
Harper let go of his cigarette, picked up his drink and decided to speak plainly with the pilot. One human to another.
"They were."
"What happened?"
"Someone made a huge fucking mistake, Lieutenant, that's what happened," he swore before downing the drink and looking at the message that had reached him the second Arcturus had been briefed about the fate of the station and the missing colonists.
He looked at the sigil, an eagle sitting on top of a balanced scale, its eyes covered by a bandage… a strange take on Justicia spawned from the HSA's attempt at streamlining human symbolism into a blend of all cultures. Ugly, if he was being honest. "Tell Shepard to call me as soon she's out of surgery… There's a debrief waiting for you."
"Let me guess. Arcturus?"
"Worse," Harper sat down his glass and opened the subpoena directed, amongst others, at Commander Shepard and Moreau. "Arcadia."
"DFI?"
"They've got questions."
"Fucking hell," 'Joker' murmured. "What the fuck do they want?"
Harper picked up the cigarette he'd left smoldering, got up from his chair and flicked the still burning piece of paper into his mostly empty drink.
"To hear about the thousands of non-combatants you just nuked. A lot of people just lost loved ones… and someone needs to face the music."
"This mission was supposed to be off the books."
"We both know that option went out the window when hundreds of thousands of people started losing folks to the Collectors."
Joker took off his hat.
"So they'll hang us out to dry? Make an example of us because we stopped those fuckers?"
Harper took a step towards the hologram.
"Not if I can help it," he offered. "Tell Shepard to call me when she can… I'll sort this out," somehow.
He didn't actually know how yet, thought.
Three Hours Later, 14. May 2417 AD, HSASV Normandy, Hangar
Thirteen caskets.
Ten full.
Three empty and just for show.
Eleven covered by the red-white and gold.
One marked with a piece of broken geth armor.
One completely empty except for a laser engraving by the socket.
"I thought I might find you here," Shepard heard Callius say from behind her. The turian was supported by a medical exo-skeleton, one that let her move without needing the freshly operated leg. Unlike the last time she'd seen the turian, it was facing the right way again.
"Shouldn't you be in the medbay?"
"Shouldn't you?" Callius replied before nodding at the cast on Shepard's right thigh. "I heard you're being called to Arcadia. Something about charges?"
"Yes," Shepard murmured. "We stopped the Reaper, but the colonists are dead. Arcturus wants to know why, so they'll debrief us… in detail and with the Ministry of Justice looking over every finger we lifted."
"From a turian perspective, we won a spectacular victory today."
"And from a human one, we lost tens of thousands of lives in the blink of a fucking eye," Shepard cursed. "I got orders to drop all non-military personal off on Arcturus and then we're headed straight to Engram-City. DFI headquarters."
"DFI?" the turian asked, somewhat confused.
"Federal police," she explained. "Special hastati essentially," she added.
"Ah."
"Mhm," Shepard closed her eyes and walked closer to the first casket. Engraved at its socket was Thane's name. Other than that, it was completely blank and empty. No body to recover meant nothing to bury. "Where will you go?" she asked as she considered the drell's memory.
He'd saved her life on the Citadel and indirectly caused his death by saving Samara. An assassin turned hero. Ironic.
"Who says I'll go anywhere?" Shepard looked at the turian and met her amber eyes. "You said non-military personal, didn't you?"
"Yes.
"Until I'm formally recalled, I'm an official liaison to the HSA Navy… and I'm also your appointed XO… I see no reason why I'd be considered non-military personal," Callius figured before suddenly placing Thane's sword on top of the casket. "We got here together, Shepard. We'll finish it together too."
"I wasn't expecting that," she admitted.
"Truth be told, neither was I when I first got here," Callius stated as she let go of the dull blade. "But time has changed that. I became a part of your crew these last couple of months … and I'm not just going to step off now that there's hard times ahead. I'd be a sorry excuse of an XO if I did," the turian averted her gaze and looked at the engraved name of the drell. "I'd like to notify his son if that's possible."
"Of course," Shepard nodded as she moved on to Nader's casket and straightened the edge of the flag laid on top of it. She was sure that she looked remorseful while she did it, which explained Callius' reaction.
"I know what you're thinking right now. You're blaming yourself," the turian said.
"Matter of fact, I'm not," she was long past that point. Losing people was never easy… but she'd done it often enough to know that evens he couldn't fight fate, no matter how good you were, no one could stop the bullet with your name on it.
What she was feeling right now, was a quiet rage… a desire to take the fight to the Reapers who'd cost the galaxy so many good people already. "Losing soldiers is never easy… but it's part of the job. There was nothing we could've done for any of them," she admitted honestly.
"That's good to hear. It'd be a shame if you drowned yourself in self-pity," the turian officer retorted before walking past her and looking at the casket where a broken piece of geth armor was placed upon. When she was there, she pulled a medal out of her pocket. A turian wounded-in-action badge. "He really played us in the end, didn't he?"
"Yes… he did," Shepard retorted. "Never thought I'd owe my life to a geth of all thin-" she caught herself. "-people."
"Me neither," Callius nodded. "We'll honor Legion's memory the same we'll honor theirs," she gestured to the row of marine-occupied caskets. "They're all heroes."
"Damned right they are," Shepard said while feeling her jaw clench. Thirteen more.
How many did that make?
Sixty?
Seventy?
Eighty?
Shepard would like to say that she was the kind of commander who had an exact track of how many had died under her watch… that she cared that much for the lives of her soldiers that she remembered all of their faces names and memories… but once you crossed a certain number, once your list grew past that magical double-digit… it got hard for things not turn blurry, especially if you had died in between yourself.
She'd never talked to anyone about this, mostly because she figured that it wouldn't reflect all that well onto her if she admitted that she couldn't name half of the people who'd died under her command on the top of her head… but Callius had done this longer than she'd been alive. If there was one person on the Normandy who'd understand, she figured it'd be her.
"Do you remember all of them? The ones that died along the way, I mean…"
There was a moment of silence where the turian adjusted herself.
"… only the really bad ones," the cabal admitted. "Don't get me wrong. All of them were bad… but some…"
"…are more memorable," Shepard figured, feeling odd the second she said it.
"Exactly," Callius nodded.
"I couldn't have picked, you know?" she went on to admit, despite having had a decision on her mind, she still wasn't sure if she could've gone through with it.
"Excuse me?"
"Leng and Garrus… If Legion hadn't stepped up, I don't think I would've been able to make the call."
"I think you would've," Callius replied.
"Why?"
"Because that's who you are. When it comes down to it, you'll make the call."
"Then why didn't I?"
"Because it was made for you," Callius said before turning towards her. "You chose to sacrifice the colonists to stop the Reapers. You chose to risk your life to save me. You were about to choose who to leave behind to defend the bombs," the turian said. "Don't get hung up on a decision you didn't get the chance to make. You're too good of a soldier for that."
Shepard considered the older lieutenant's words.
"You call it the ruthless calculus, don't you?"
"Yes, we do."
She glanced at the caskets.
To her a calculus implied a whole spectrum of options.
Yet she kept running into the same result, no matter what she did.
"Does it never not subtract?" she wondered, knowing that as they were speaking, the HSA and the Hierarchy were launching an assault on Omega of all places. Throwing away lives in the hope that it'd help them during the coming war. Starting one war to win another…
Callius sighed and shook her head. Then she started walking down the line of caskets.
"In our line of work, the best thing we can hope for is that your enemy reaches zero before you do and to let them know that you're willing to go as far as it takes to get there," as she went she brushed her hand over the flags of the fallen. "We did that today, Shepard. We killed another Reaper. With that alone we proved to them that we won't go down quietly when they arrive here. We showed them that if its our destruction that they want, it's their lives they'll have to use to pay for it," as she reached the last casket, one of a blonde, young marine with a freckled face that she remembered seeing in the gym every now and again, the turian offered a salute, held the gesture for a moment and then quietly moved on to the next.
Shepard could've said a lot to what she'd said, wondered how long she'd remember that marine…
But instead she simply joined the turian in her display.
Codex: Biography of Ezra Anaru (Part 1, Anthropological University of T'Lav)
General (of the Human Systems Alliance Army) Ezra Anaru (30.07.2081, Wellington (Te Whanganui-a-Tara), New Zealand ( Aotearoa) / Earth - 01.09.2176, Auckland (Tamaki Makaurau) Oceanian Administrative Zone) was a human military officer of the New Zealand Defense Force, United Nations Joint Defense Initiative and later Human Systems Alliance Army who over the course of his life played an integral role in unifying the UN-Government of Earth and the administrations of it colonies into the Human Systems Alliance.
Born at the end of Earth's tumultuous 21st Century, Anaru had the fortune of growing up within a relatively stable region of Earth.
Comparatively to vast portions of the human home world, in which overpopulation-spawned, resource-driven conflicts between nation states and supranational unions as well as civil wars were being fought plentiful at the time, the region that would become known as the heart of the Oceanian Administrative Zone (back then simply referred to as 'Australia and New Zealand') only had to content with ever more severe, climate-induced weather events, economic hardship as well as the odd terrorist attack.
Due to this comparatively stable upbringings, Anaru's first point of contact with armed conflict only occurred in 2101, after his enlistment with the security forces of his nation of birth within the context of a conflict with a collective of ocean-born pirate groups known to human history as the 'Southern-Pacific-Crisis' (For further information, please refer to Codex Entry: History of Armed Human Conflicts within the period of 2050 AD – 2104 AD). Anaru, who at this point had been steered into the career path of an officer within a special-mission-unit of the nation-based security forces of the former human nation known as New Zealand personally described these first experiences as 'low-intensity' combat.
Following the foundation of the UNJDI in 2105 AD, which was preceded by the discovery of the prothean ruins on Mars, the back then still uninhabited, fourth planet in the human home system of Sol, then First Lieutenant Anaru, who'd grown disillusioned with his role as a 'glorified coast guard asked to protect an increasingly selfish cause' immediately requested a discharge from the NZDF naval forces before subsequently enlisting with the ground-based forces of the United Nations Joint Defense Initiative.
Due to an administrative mistake, Anaru initially was once again demoted to the rank of Private (a mistake only rectified six months after the completion of his integration training and subsequent assignment to a signaling battalion) and, due to his past experience as a member of a special-mission-unit, was then quickly reassigned to the UNJDI Special Reconnaissance Regiment, another special-mission-unit with a mission statement similar to that of a forward-observation Huntress cadre.
In the wake of the revelation that alien life existed and was technologically superior to humanity, the UN's planet-wide 'Security and Unification Initiative' was launched on 05.05.2111 AD, a decision that led to then already Captain Ezra Anaru of the JDI-SRR being deployed to 'Africa', one of the major land masses of the human home world. It would be hear that Anaru would later say that he first experienced 'real war' and came to understand why infighting amongst humans had to cease.
'I thought I had it all figured out when I joined the JDI… that I knew what was wrong how to fix it… but truth be told, I didn't really even start to get the scale of the problem until the Bush War. The whole house was (expletive) rotten. Cellar to (expletive) ceiling and no matter how much we tried, we weren't ever going to fix it. So the way I saw it, it all had to go. A restart from scratch. Otherwise mankind wasn't going to see the turn of another century, colonies or not. We were going to the stars, yes, but we were losing our humanity at our own door step.'
A/N:
Hello?
Anyone still here?
Nope?
Yeah. Figured that much after the amount of ghosting I just pulled on y'all.
I'll be honest.
This chapter took a long as time because I pretty much didn't touch word int he last three months.
I don't know why, but I had a super bad case of writers blockade and a very critical lack of time, the latter of which... I'm afraid to say, will continue from here on out. I'm sad to say that despite how much I wanna keep you guys supplied with a chapter a month, SV's updates are going to continue to be sporadic and... stretched out for the forseeable future. Stuff happened, events occured, yada-yada (nothing bad, actually). The gist of it is this: I've got far less time to write than I used to and especially the chapters where I force myself to vaguely stick to canon (something I once again regretted with the whole Collector saga, tbqh) are a drag to write through.
So yeah.
That's why you didn't hear from me for three freaking months.
With that out of the way... holy shit we are finally here. The suicide mission is done. Legion, Thane and Jack didn't live to see its end (who'd you figure was going to go, let me know in the reviews.) and now Shep and company are gonna face the music. Meanwhile, Haugen's going to have to take care of arrival and Morneau's gonna have to figure out what PGI's up to.
So you can look forward to that in the (whenever) future!
Again, I'm super fucking sorry... but this is just how it is right now. Matter of fact, the only reason I can give you this chapter right now is because after 3 months of doing fuck-all with word, I pulled a muscle and have to sit on my ass for a week or two. If that hadn't happened, 126 would still just be a blank page with a few notes scribbled over it in annoyingly colourful highlighter color (trust me, you don't WANT to know how a chapter-script looks like. It'll probably hurt your eyes)
For the record, we're at 941 reviews, 1545 favorites and 1615 followers. (which nearly brings us on the front page of those last two categories, something my monkey brain has been cravign for the last six and a half years.)
See you around next time!