Zealot24 - Don't worry. You can put those binoculars down. The coming chapters should be getting juicy for you.
Kellise - Legion. Yes. Don't want to say more than what's necessary.
Janizary - Wow. I haven't seen you in a long, long time. I'm surprised you've actually still read this. We'll see in good time what happens!
Lambo105 - I wish I could tell you all the things that are coming, but I can't spoil anything! I'm just glad I can write well enough for you to enjoy!
Twisp56 - As usual, thank you for the corrections. In the back of my mind, I knew what a fireteam was, but I put it in there because it sounded cool. Then, I forgot to change it out. haha. I had to recall what the opening sequence was to that it's what Joker said as they approached. I do my best to research what I'm doing to make sure I stay relatively canonical. If that means anything.
Ivandundalov7- You're most welcome. It's crazy to think I'm nearing the end of ME2. We're still kind of a ways off, but don't worry. I've got a whole 'nother game I got to write over. I'm honestly a little overwhelmed about how I'm going to tackle it. But I'll figure it out.
~Enjoy.
Tali's breath felt shallow. In the silent lull that followed, she stared at the geth's exposed components to what should've been a breastplate. As eye-catching as it was, the thing that got her the most was what it used to repair the hole in its chest. It wasn't something you could really miss. Its shoulder sported the pale white and blood red stripe of an Alliance N7 shoulder pauldron. Where it managed to find that was beyond her.
Seeing it was incredibly unsettling. Clearly, just by the look on John's face, that whatever thoughts he had, Tali had as well.
"What the hell are you." John muttered, grip wound tightly around the handle of his rifle.
"Geth."
"That's not—" John cut himself off, held his glare, and inhaled. It was apparent it didn't understand social cues. Elaborating was just going to carry them in circles. It was best to ask questions related to their mission and nothing else.
"—Have you learned anything about this place?"
The geth observed him and spoke.
"Yes. Any vessel to attempt an approach toward the old-machine will be ensnared or sheared away by its kinetic barrier."
"How?" Gregg spoke aloud, lowering his rifle slightly, "Is the reaper still alive? Is it trying to kill us?"
"Unknown. We do not believe this to be a deliberate attempt to incapacitate, however. It is likely the old-machine is decaying from corrosion and aging. This is predicted to excite other system modules; namely the present jamming of radio propagation. Destruction of the old-machine's mass effect core will void active barriers and terminate obstructive EM radiation."
Tali clenched her teeth. She didn't like where this was going. "At the cost of altitude."
"This is correct, Creator-Zorah. Tidally locked orbit around the gas giant will be lost. We will fall."
A cold sweat licked the back of her neck. It knew her name. Her fucking name.
"...You know who I am." She said as more of a statement than a question.
"We watch and observe organics."
"Just you? Or all geth?" Garrus asked.
"We are all geth."
Garrus didn't look impressed with the answer.
"You know those really simple VI convo-programs you can talk to on the extranet?" Skyles spoke up, "It's like talking to one of those."
Greg gave Skyles a haughty look. "The hell are you doing in your spare time, dude?"
The geth stared at Skyles. "We must not delay. The effects of indoctrination are still present." It turned around and started walking toward the core with the barrier still keeping them out.
"Where are you going?" Shepard demanded.
"We have installed shaped transient electromagnetic ordnance around the core. Powering these charges will require power that this platform will provide. We will be deactivated, but the data collected here will be transmitted back to the Perseus Veil."
Tali's eyes went wide. "Keelah. What about us?"
"You will have three galactic standard minutes until this old-machine reaches crush depth."
John's face was a mere inch away from the barrier. "How long before you detonate?"
"In four minutes."
John's mind reeled. Christ. Would that even be enough time to run back and tell the others to prepare for a freefall that would occur soon after? There was a million things that could go wrong without any advance notice. Sure, radios would be back up, but how long until they actually worked? If at all?
John put his hands up against the barrier, grimacing.
"You have to give us more time to tell the others. We can use our own explosives. Let us help you."
"Negative. Further delay is not an option. Proximity to old-machine accelerates the manifestation of indoctrination. We are within its walls. Data collected here suggests those previously were lost to these effects after four hours. You are nearing this expiry period." It reached for a power cable, attached the plug to its hip, and dropped to the floor, completely inert.
Shepard took a disbelieving step back, turned on his heel, and pointed at Garrus.
"Get back to the others. All four of you. Make sure that IFF is secure with Kylie before time runs out. We cannot afford to lose it in this god-forsaken place."
"And what about you?" Garrus said, already trotting backward with his team, "What are you doing?"
"Tali and I will stay. We're going to try and stop it if we can."
"But the geth just sai—"
John didn't let him finish. "—I know what it said and I don't care. We still need more time than the seven minutes it gave us."
Garrus gave them both a hard stare, but didn't say another word. He and the rest of them hightailed it out of the hallway and disappeared.
"John." Tali swallowed, "What now?"
"Get your grenades. All of them."
"I only brought two."
"Give them to me."
With two hands, she gave them both to John. Getting on a knee, he fashioned all their grenades together with duct tape.
"Your multi-tool, Tali."
She extended the knife and handed it to him.
"Seven grenades." He muttered, slicing the roll of tape away from the wrapped explosives, "This should do it. Should either blast through the barrier or beat up the bulkhead enough for us to crawl through a hole. Sync them up Tali. Have them all explode at the same time."
She brought up her omni-tool. "Got it."
He shoved the bundle into the weakest looking part of the door.
Several scans and key presses later, they ran back to the tent and took cover behind a table they flipped onto its side.
"Ready?"
"Yeah." He nodded, "Go."
She keyed the detonator.
The sound was absolutely piercing. Completely deafening. The shockwave and vibrating metal shook Tali's bones and jarred her so much, it made her cough. Dust and black smoke spat out from the hallway and settled over their gear and the artifacts around them.
Two minutes left, John." Tali gulped.
"Come on. We have to get in there." John stood and helped Tali up.
"Keelah," Tali sputtered as they ran back down the hallway, "if we don't make it—"
"We'll make it." He assured her.
Reaching the end of the hallway, they surveyed the damage and knew they had made progress. The barrier was gone. But the frame was mangled beyond repair. John immediately started to shed himself of gear.
"Through there." John pointed, "Looks big enough for us to crawl through."
Tali set her shotgun down and pried away the plate carrier from her chest. With only her sidearm clipped to her belt, she carefully made her way through the warped and frayed metal.
One minute thirty seconds left until detonation.
She made it past the last of the metal and stood back up.
"Go Tali!" John was still tearing off his gear, I'll be right behind you!"
In a frantic sprint, she ran to the geth, skidded to a halt, and tried to search for anything that might stop this madness.
Dropping to her knees, she groped the geth's shell with her hands and decided to try the easiest stuff first.
She grasped the thick wire with both her hands and planted her feet against its leg before heaving.
Nothing.
It wasn't budging.
She tried again. And again. She tried until her arms, legs, and wrists burned with pain.
"Anything yet, Tali?"
"No!"
One minute left.
She got back to her feet and turned the geth over to expose its back. She felt a muscle twinge in her back from the amount of force she had to exert. The platform must've weighed close to a hundred and fifty kilos. Way more than your average platform.
Breathless, she surveyed the back plate before eyeing its exposed chest cavity. Its architecture didn't look familiar, but she could see its power core from here, but just barely. To power it off would require her to remove the plate, but with it damaged, there wouldn't be enough time to even get it off. She could jam her hand in there to try something, but touch the wrong component and you just might outright kill yourself in the process. Add in the damaged internals, and it only increased your risk of nicking something you shouldn't have. The idea of just shooting it dead came to mind, but then its most basic failsafes would likely kick in and detonate the ordnance prematurely.
John had finally caught up and was behind her now.
"Anything, Tali?"
She shook her head idly, hands limp, and sobered herself with the realization that failure was now inevitable. "John… I—I can't. There's nothing I can do."
"We can't give up." He searched around him instead, eyes wrought with angst and fretfulness, and ran toward the first thing he thought could help.
He found a long and sharp lump of serrated metal and towed it behind him toward the wire drawn between the geth and charges.
He was going to try and cut it.
"John. No."
Thirty seconds.
"Look at me!" She stood up and blocked his path, "There's enough power running through that cable to kill you if you pierce it. You're not going to slice through that thick of a gauge of wire in time even if it was safe! We have to go, John! We have to go now!"
He glowered. He wanted to grab the pistol off her belt and just fucking shoot the damn cable, but he stayed his hand. Now wasn't the time to be applying metaphors, but he realized that Maslow's hammer probably applied here. So he relented.
"Tali, we have to try something!" He dropped the metal and reached for the plug and started to yank with all his might. "Help me!"
She sat, clutched the wire next to John's hands, and pulled with all her might.
Thirteen seconds.
Veins bulged and their faces flushed red, but they continued to twist and turn the wire. Metal and plastic began to snap and pop.
"It's… it's working!"
Five seconds.
"Don't stop, Tali! Don't let up!"
The plug buckled under their grip and it finally snapped away. But it was too late.
One whole second too late.
There was no explosion. Only a discharge and shutdown of the mass effect core.
Weightlessness overtook them.
The loss of gravity was instant. Anyone and anything not tethered to the catwalks was sent upward without a thing to stop them. Equipment and people alike rose higher and higher. Raised brows turned to fear. Then to panic.
The only thing the ground team heard in spite of the shrieking metal, shouts for help, and the now howling wind, was the squawking radio and Garrus broadcasting his voice over it.
"Miranda! Can you hear me? Hello?"
Miranda frowned. "Garrus? What the hell is going on? Wh—"
He cut her off. "—Is the IFF secure? We're in freefall! You need to brace!"
"Where are you?"
"Running back to you! Is the IFF secure?" He repeated again.
Kylie, overhearing their exchange, gave Miranda a quick thumbs up to show it was fine.
"Yes," Miranda answered, "It's secur—"
She was cut off again, but this time by Dan pointing ahead of him and screaming. "Jesus Christ! It's coming down! Move!"
Miranda looked up. The reaper shell flexed and forced the catwalk to flex with it in ways it was never designed to. It buckled and caved. Pieces snapped. And like stacked dominoes, sections were flung around like a madman smacking mailboxes with a bat.
Anyone unlucky enough to be standing on the long strip was catapulted.
Kylie didn't even have time to try and run from the carnage. All she had time for was to lock eyes with Miranda and get thrown violently into darkness.
Miranda's heart sank. "Oh god..."
"Grab my hand!" Tali ordered, extending a hand for John to reach. He clasped her arm while she drew her sidearm, locked her elbow, and faced it toward the ceiling.
Dumping rounds until her heatsink was tasked to capacity, it provided her with enough momentum to send them back toward the ground. By now, the reaper began to convulse and moan. Tumultuous tremors pounded the hull and began to throw them off their balance.
This was not looking good.
They made their way steadily back to the wrecked door.
"Get through, Tali! You go first!"
She glanced at the mangled mess of metal and frowned. The hole they'd crawled out from had been further warped by the reaper's fall. It might've still been big enough to berth her... but there was no way in hell Shepard was going to get past that as well.
"I don't think we can make it through."
He faced her and put both his hands on her shoulders. "You have to try."
Tears began to blot her vision when he went over to grab onto whatever he could to widen the crawlspace. "Go. Do it. Now."
"I'm not leaving you."
"Tali. You need to go."
She saw what he was doing. He was going to try and do it again. To go die and have her survive. Again.
Despair subsided. She began to feel outraged even as their world fell apart around them. "No. Not this again. Don't you fucking dare."
"I'm not going to ask you again!" He demanded, scowling, "You need to go! Now!"
"Miranda," Jacob pulled Miranda away from the last of the buckling girders before whipping around to have her face him. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine—" Miranda gasped and stared up at him, "We just— we lost Kylie. She had the IFF."
He stared at the darkness and frowned. "Shit."
"We have to get her."
"We have to call in evac." Jacob corrected, "We can find her in the meantime."
Slowly, Garrus' voice began to bleed back through the radio. "—randa, can you hear me? Miranda?! Answer me! Is the IFF still secure?"
"Negative on that," Miranda breathed, "IFF MIA. Stand-by."
"Miranda." Jacob reminded.
She only nodded. "Normandy, this is Lawson. Are you there?"
"This is Normandy," EDI answered her over the radio, "We are pursuing. Kodiaks are already underway."
"Affirmative, Normandy." Miranda stood at the edge of the crevice and was about to dish out orders to find Kylie at the exclusion of all else, but realized Olasie's squad was already on top of it.
The quarians anchored themselves to a secure part of the reaper with rope and propelled themselves toward Kylie's last known location.
"This is Olasie, we're looking to retrieve Kylie and the IFF. Stand-by, over."
Those who survived the onslaught of thrashing metal were already engrossed with finding anyone that had been floating helplessly above and around them. Samara guided anyone she could see back down with her biotics. Others used rope and flares to light up the area around them.
Torches out and searching, the four of them scanned the pipes above and below them to search for her.
"Kylie. Report. Can you hear us?"
"I can still hear you," Kylie coughed over the radio, "I'm okay. I hit my back pretty hard. I can see you all."
"Kylie, respond, over. Can you hear us?"
It was apparent that her signal wasn't going out, but she was still receiving.
Kylie weakly reached for her chemlights, snapped them in steady succession and set most of the aside. She kept one in her hand to wave with.
The growing but soft glow of light revealed a bubbling mass of blood encircling her. Kylie followed the trail.
Suit breach.
...Her calf had been snapped in half like a fucking twig. She hardly even felt it.
The others could see her silhouette now and gnarled up leg.
"We're coming to you, Kylie. Just hold on." Juel cooed. They were off by about thirty degrees and a meter too high. Juel corrected Olasie's flight path by pushing her toward Kylie. When she was within reach, Olasie reached for Kylie's trauma handle and pulled on her rope to guide them both back to relative safety. Bundling their ropes, the quarians regrouped and made their way back together.
Kylie's murmur was fragile and low. "The IFF... is it okay?"
Juel touched her on her shoulder. "I'm going to check."
He dug a hand into her ruck and retrieved only dust and crushed pieces.
Juel held his stare and watched the crumbs float away from his hand. Past the crushed granules and dusty soot was Olasie's expressionless gaze. As they neared the exit, Olasie brought up her radio and swallowed. "This is Olasie... IFF is a no go, Miranda. It's gone."
Garrus spoke over the line. Olasie could see him vaulting toward the exit. She noticed it was only him and his team. Shepard and Tali were nowhere in sight.
"Say again, Olasie... IFF is lost?"
"It's gone, Garrus. Where's Tali? Where's Shepard?"
"Still back at the core. We'll wait until they're here to exfil."
Shepard's voice, for the first time since losing coms, came on. "Belay that. You will all leave at soonest availability. Over."
"Shepard. The IFF is gone. Get out of there."
"Don't worry about us, Garrus."
The urgency Garrus had died on him. Hearing John's tone wasn't leaving much to his imagination. He wanted to say something, but to say goodbye felt wrong. So he didn't say it. "Copy that, Shepard. I'll see you both back on the ship."
Tali refused to move even an inch.
"Tali," He hissed, "You need to go. Are you not listening? Please."
"You're not going to make that decision for me," She rebuked, the hull around them groaning from the tormenting winds, "Not again. Not like this."
He let go of the rubble and stepped toward her, "If you don't g... holy shit." He went wide eyed and stopped talking when he noticed what was walking behind her.
"P̶̷̲̅ʟ̶̷̲̅ease step away-̶̷̲̅y, Shepard-Commander ᴀ̶̷̲̅ɴ̶̷̲̅nd Creator-Zorah. We will m-M̶̲̅r i̲̅emove the obstacle blocking your path."
Dumbfounded, they both stepped aside and watched the geth tear away at the metal until there was just enough room for the both of them to escape through.
It took several paces backward to give them their space. "Pp̲p̶̲̅ owerr-r reserve depletted." Its eye flickered and waned until it glimmered out of existence.
Time was a premium here, now more than ever, but John stood still and let his mind race. Above his mixed feelings of partial relief, swelling kernel of hope, and growing dread, was something he realized he had to do first.
Shepard took a step toward the geth.
"John."
He put up a reassuring hand and kept walking to it. Face to face, he stared it down before grabbing an arm and bracing himself to carry it. "We need to take it with us."
"Why?"
"You heard Garrus. They lost the IFF. It might be our only chance to get one somewhere else. Now help me."
Crushing her inner struggles, she did as she was told.
They supported the now weightless geth with their arms and pushed it through the opening. Tali followed. Then Shepard.
When he made it through, he reached for his rifle that'd been clinging to the ceiling.
Still supporting the weight of their new and recently defunct friend, she turned her head as best she could to face John. "What now?"
"Can't make it back to the others. Joker's going to have to get us himself."
"How?"
"With luck. Might need to buy lottery tickets after we pull this off." He brought up his radio.
"Shepard to Normandy, do you read?"
"We're right here, Shepard." Joker answered, "Where the hell are you? What's going on? Why aren't you with the others?"
"Joker," John berated to keep him focused on what was more important, "Stand by for location paint. We're going to need you to pick us up. It's going to be a little unconventional."
"You best hurry the hell up then. The winds are getting strong and the Normandy won't be able to keep up forever."
Dragging the geth along behind them, they ran down the hallway, passed the tent, and headed back outside to the howling orange sky. Tali gazed out into the distance and stared. Bowing to the fiercely growing waves of wind, the furthest parts of the reaper were coerced into swaying violently to and fro.
"Up here."
They climbed the small flight of stairs and ran until they were at the edge of the catwalk. Before them was nothing but the void of space and their hoarse breaths.
"Joker: painting now. It's going to be a tight fit for her." He held his rifle out to point the laser, "Now please, get us fucking out of here."
"Copy, Shepard. We see it."
John set the barrel shroud against the railing and faced Tali with a dead geth between them. "Hey."
She looked at him.
He gave her a smile. "We're almost out of this."
She didn't say anything.
The Normandy came into view and approached as close as it could.
"This is as good as it gets." Joker told them as the Normandy's aerobridge door opened. There was about six meters of space separating them. Knowing that they were going to have to jump that distance felt like they were asking for a miracle.
"On my go, Tals."
They balanced the geth as best they could and tossed it toward the open door. It ragdolled its way across the expanse and finally crumpled against the airlock.
"Go, Tali!"
Tali got a running head start and jumped. Hands and feet outstretched, she crossed the gap, landed, and planted a foot against the geth to keep it from floating off before waving to John to go next. "Come on!"
He launched himself toward the Normandy. Tali caught his hand and pulled him in.
When his feet touched the Normandy's metal floor, he turned back around to get a final look of the hell they escaped from and nodded with relief. "We're in. Close it."
The Normandy began to pull away and the airlock closed.
They did it. They made it out.
As the cabin began to pressurize, John let out the breath he'd been holding and wiped the sweat away from his brow. "Joker, where are the others?"
"Still in the shit, Commander. They're getting out right now."
"Good." He nodded and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath before turning to see how Tali was faring.
"Tali?" He said with a little gruff in his voice, "You good?"
She only glanced at him, having been so intensely focused on staying alive and watching the geth. She wanted to say she was fine, but that would be lying. And right now, she wasn't in the mood to lie.
"No. No I'm really not." She breathed, bitterness dripping from her lips. She didn't know what to do with her hands, so she kept them at her sides.
"...Is it about the geth?"
"No. It's about you." She put a single pointer on his chest and stillness stood between them. "John. Don't you ever tell me to leave without you again." There was love behind those piercing eyes, but they weren't without anger. "Your life is not a game."
He knew it wasn't. But he also knew when a point was being made. "...I'm sorry."
She backed away from him and ran a hand against the glass that sat over her face. She shook her head and couldn't look him in the eye anymore. "I don't want an apology."
He just stared at her, frowning.
Her face was still plastered with anguish from the updraft of thoughts coursing through her head. She didn't know how to explain how she felt, so she decided to give him context first.
"Freedom's Progress. You promised you wouldn't leave me no matter what. You—" She stammered and balled her hands into fists because it hurt her to say it. "You almost broke it. So stop making promises to me if you aren't going to keep them." A tear fell from her eye, "Just—you have to stop."
"What did you want me to do, Tali?" He countered, hands open as he reflected over her words, "To just... have you stay trapped with me?"
"Yes." She found the courage to look him in the eye again with her knife-like stare. "I can handle dying, John." She grabbed onto his hand and held onto it like her life depended on it. "Do you understand me? I can handle it. Please. Don't do this to me."
As upset as she was about all of this, she was keenly aware of the knife they balanced their lives over. She wasn't going to feign or profess ignorance to herself anymore. Garrus, in his own way, had reminded her of it with his talk all that time ago.
Which meant that if it really came time for fate to reap them of their life, so be it. But to have her spend the last few precious moments trying to escape an inevitability while she left him behind? To even contemplate that was unthinkable. Whatever was in store for John would be a demise they would share together. No ifs. No buts.
He felt himself crumble under her gaze. The way she pleaded to him tore at his innermost fabric. Lost for words, he pulled her in and hugged her tightly, lip trembling.
They set Kylie down as carefully as they could despite the almost panicked rush of the ground team as they boarded the two shuttles.
"I'm sorry, boss." Kylie winced, teeth clattering, "I should have put it somewhere safer." Her blood floated about the cabin because no one had the time to actually bandage her.
"It's okay." Olasie crossed her legs and held her head up while Teri and Darehk worked on finally getting her leg under some control, "The blame isn't yours to take."
Stuffed with people, Miranda stepped aboard, scanned their immediate surroundings, and brought her hand up to signal everyone was on.
"That's it. Let's move."
The kodiak doors closed and they took off. The reaper began to recede from view. Olasie managed to get a final peek of it as it fell into Mnemosyne; with its monstrous arms outstretched like a battered wind sail helplessly flailing against the winds of a hurricane.
Casualties were high. Only one life was lost, however. A Cerberus soldier with the name of Armani Dyer. She had been pinned between two warped girders. They didn't have time to retrieve her body. Everyone else was accounted for.
Zaeed lost his hand and broke his ankle.
Kasumi suffered a fractured wrist and a stab wound to her lower abdomen.
A deep laceration had been drawn across Jack's back that bled profusely.
Corporal Ted Hornady suffered head trauma.
Specialist Arthur Montoya also suffered head trauma, but only seemed to be half conscious.
Lastly was Private Miley Inman with three crushed fingers and a broken toe.
Two of the six mechs were lost. The rest were salvaged by EDI and already aboard the second kodiak.
"Keelah." Kylie groaned as she shivered "...I'm so glad we're gone from there. The place was giving me a headache."
"It's going to be okay, Kylie." Teri hummed quietly, sitting on her knees and watching her vitals with her omni-tool, "Just relax for us, okay?"
Kylie stared at her jutting compound fracture and just nodded before closing her eyes to shut out the world around her.
Juel's hands were marred with Kylie's coagulating blood. He tossed behind him his eighth red soaked bandage and sighed frustratingly.
"Juel?" Olasie asked with a murmur.
He met her stare and tore open another bandage with medi-gel. "What the hell happened down there, Olasie?"
"I don't know." Olasie murmured, caressing Kylie's shoulder to help soothe both their nerves, "Just... focus on the bleeding."