Disclaimer: I do no own Mass Effect, I do not claim to own Mass Effect, I am only doing this for fun.
Author Notes: I got little to say to preface this, other than this episode was an utter pain to write. Space battles are an utter pain to write.
Episode 25: GoldenEye [Part I]
Thirty hours may sound like a lot, but they ticked by like thirty minutes. With each successive hour at FTL there was a ramping up level of tension aboard the Normandy. The enlisted crewmembers talked in hushed tones as they busied checking all emergency equipment. Evacuation and escape pod protocols were studied, while the engineers ran every system check and tightened every proverbial bolt.
Shepard knew Garrus spent hours in the main battery, likely verifying the system code line by line. Ashley spent just as many in the shuttle bay, running every weapon through a battery of tests. She even pressed Tali to check her weapons when she learned Tali insisted on going ground-side.
Jenkins was perhaps the most conflicted of them all. One moment he was practically hopping from foot to foot, the next he jittered with anxiety. Kaidan tried his best to keep the corporal rooted to the decks while alleviating some of his anxieties, but Shepard knew that Jenkins was about to see his first major engagement, hence the nerves.
Wrex turned into a grizzled veteran, alternating between long contemplative silences and prodding fun at the inexperienced individuals, namely Jenkins. Shepard caught him goading the corporal into what Wrex called 'doing his best', but Shepard would call being reckless. It was a curious case to observe, knowing that Wrex had centuries of experience to temper some of his bravado, but he was still a warrior born and raised, and so, was plenty eager for combat.
The biggest surprise had been that Nihlus allowed Cortez to drill him in the flying of the A-models. The pilot chose to stay on the Normandy in order to help with the transition. Shepard would admit she liked Cortez's work ethic. He was exceptionally intelligent, hard working, dedicated, genuinely cared for people, and had humility that was very rare in highly skilled pilots. The crew even forgot Cortez was a guest, and so come movie night he got one of the better seats in the mess, and all the popcorn he could eat.
Movie night ended up an enormous hit, not in small part due to the choice of film. Kaidan avoided anything that took itself too seriously, opting for a semi-classic summer-season action-thriller-comedy full of explosions and the characters walking away from ludicrous stunts without a single scratch, with enough to keep the audience in stitches and make them forget exactly what was coming.
When Legion, who had been observing from the back, questioned whether anyone believed any of that was possible, Matthews clapped the geth on the shoulder and said everyone knew it was fake, but that was not the reason the movie mattered. Legion's emotive plates flared and another round of chuckles went around the room. Shepard doubted the geth understood what Matthews meant, but no one bothered to explain.
Still, no amount of diversion could take away the stress and ramping tension forever. As the timer ran down to four hours, the good humor and relaxation went out the window. The crew went back to doing their jobs and running final system checks with a grave aura. They now faced the reality that despite the fleet traveling in a single body, they were out of any sort of contact. In FTL the ship moved faster than the electromagnetic signals used to communicate, effectively making it a blind flight. The Normandy had a QEC link to the Kilimanjaro, but that was about it. When they dropped out of FTL there would only be minutes before the shooting started.
Shepard was in the OD when they dropped out of FTL, and she was on the CIC in seconds. One look around she noticed everyone had turned toward her. She squared her shoulders and put on her game face. Now was not the time to let her crew see even a single hint of doubt.
"Are we ready to go?" She asked.
"Yes, ma'am." Kaidan replied from his position at the operations console on the port side of the CIC central console.
She nodded, and moved toward her position at the head of the CIC console, sparing a glance toward Legion who stood by the elevator. The geth wanted to observe, and she could not tell it no.
The view of the ship's systems over the central CIC console vanished, replaced with a tactical map of the surrounding couple million kilometers, complete with scaled holographic representation of each and every ally ship. The Normandy was right there with the vanguard of frigates, followed by the cruisers, and finally the Kilimanjaro in the rear.
"Commander, sensor fleet link has been established." Kaidan announced.
"Good."
The elevator opened behind her, Shepard glanced back just in time to see Garrus step out. He spared Shepard a nod by way of greeting as he moved across the CIC toward the ordnance station across from her. That position was normally left to a dedicated gunner, someone trained to operate the ship's arsenal. Now, given the changes done to the Thanix, Shepard wanted Garrus at the controls. She had not named him Ordnance Officer for nothing.
"Put us in yellow alert," she ordered.
"Aye, aye, ma'am." Kaidan replied as the lights on the CIC dimmed.
Shepard watched as the ships jockeyed into battle formations. The Grecian flotilla frigates boldly surged forward. The Thermopylae, flanked by the Salamis and Plataea took the very spear point of the formation, with the Athens just behind them. The Independence flotilla's frigates moved forward on the right, extending the line, with the Philadelphia shadowing them, while the Napoleonic flotilla took a similar formation on the opposite side.
The Berlin slid into position under and slightly rear of the Kilimanjaro, where it could protect the dreadnought's fighter bay opening. The bay was a large, hollow space perfect for scoring gutting hits. The Great War frigates arranged themselves in a chevron in front of the openings themselves, creating a safe zone for fighters to launch.
The Tokyo moved over and forward of the dreadnought, with the Japanese-named frigates arranged in a tight line in front of it. That position would allow them to intercept a running above-head attack aimed at disabling the Kilimanjaro's main gun. They could also spring to the aid of the vanguard if necessary. The rest of the cruisers scattered amidst, filling in the formation until it resembled a spearhead. The STG frigate and the Impera lingered in the rear, on either side of the giant battleship. Joker moved the Normandy to its place above the dreadnought, where they would not get into the line of fire should the Kilimanjaro open up with its broadside autocannon batteries.
Their plan was to wait for the heretics to come to them. Grissom's outer asteroid belt was too thick; fighting in there would hamper the maneuverability of the agile frigates and force them to break formation. The heretics had about the same fleet makeup; but Admiral Hackett wanted to put the deadly rocks behind them, and force the enemy to commit to an attack.
Then a background hum of whispers just out of focus filled the CIC. "Communication link with the Kilimanjaro has been established." EDI announced.
"Great, thank you, EDI." Shepard replied.
"Hackett to all ships, our enemy must now know we are here. We have only a few minutes before we meet them in battle." The admiral's voice cut across the communication link, clear as daylight.
Shepard glanced at Kaidan and nodded. He turned to the console in front of him and input a series of commands. Shepard turned back to the data projections before her.
"They invaded our sovereign territory and killed our people." Hackett continued calmly. "We will show them how badly they underestimate our strength. The Alliance faced mightier foes before, foes with unknown capabilities and with the odds stacked against us. We did not surrender then, and we will not surrender now."
Shepard hummed, was it just her, or was that an allusion to the First Contact War? Admiral Hackett was not pulling any punches here. To be sure the Alliance did not bust fancy speeches for slaver raids. She glanced at Legion. The geth was listening, but there was no way to know what it took away from all of that.
"Today we know how many enemies we face. We surpass them ship for ship and gun for gun, but our real power is in our fighting spirit. Remember those who fell on Eden Prime, the Cajamarca, and the Mukden. Honor the uniforms you wear, shoot true, and let nothing stop you from achieving total victory!"
Red dots appeared on the map in front of her, signals from Notanban's atmosphere. "We have contacts," Shepard murmured.
"A bit early for the signal to reach back to us," Kaidan murmured.
Shepard watched as the number of individual dots grew. "They could have QEC-based sensor relays hidden among the asteroids."
"Shepard-Commander is correct in her assertion." Legion announced.
Shepard had been conjecturing, based on the fact that the Alliance kept a wide network of conventional laser-pulse sensor buoys throughout the Sol system, with a heavy concentration in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The principle was the same, just that the Alliance did not need high-speed QEC-based buoys to tell HQ that someone was at the gate. The only way into the Sol System was through the Charon-Arcturus relay and the fleets on both sides. If they got past the guardians, they were at the gate, tracking their advance mattered more, and QEC buoys were too expensive to deploy as a tracking array.
The background chatter from the Kilimanjaro's bridge picked up a little, but the noise-cancellation was still too good to hear anything distinct. The OD door opened and Nihlus stepped onto the CIC. Shepard nodded his way but said absolutely nothing as he took up position at her side. She would be lying if she said she did not feel a little nervous. This was not a typical operation by any stretch of the imagination. Typical for her was boots on the ground, relying on her team, guns, and skills. This operation was relying on the Normandy, a two-hundred-plus meters hunk of matter; with little where to escape should things go wrong. There was no control in that, and that was plenty to be nervous about.
The clocks ticked and the enemy ships advanced. The hodge-podge of heretic cruisers and frigates moved as a single body, but they did not seem to have a formation. This could simplify and complicate things at the same time. Former because it showed the heretics were not tactical geniuses by any stretch of the imagination and latter because a death ball was chaos incarnate and highly dangerous for it.
Shepard glanced at Legion. Was there a point to asking for input? Were the geth in general inexperienced in combat, or was this something unique to the Heretics specifically? It seemed rather odd for a race that had won a war against their creators not to have learned a thing or two in the process. Was she over-analyzing things? A death ball was also a common Turian tactic, a part of their basic strategy of using overwhelming force rather than intricate finesse. She knew they could assume formation in a heartbeat. The geth could be playing mind games. This was engaging an unknown enemy, and she could be leaping across multiple scenarios to try and make sense of something she had too little data on.
She turned back to the console and watched as the geth ships entered the outer asteroid belt. The hum of noise from the Kilimanjaro's bridge shifted again, Shepard could hear the tension in the whispering. She could also see the rising nervousness in the bridge crew around her.
"All ships, red alert." Hackett announced.
Shepard nodded toward Kaidan by way of affirmation.
Kaidan input a series of commands into his console. The red alert lights set into the CIC's walls lit up, "Kinetic shields are up. Blast shutter closure is initiated."
All around the CIC the duty crew straightened at their consoles, but Shepard noticed one of the men look her way, concern on his features. She spared him an encouraging smile, and then turned back to the console. Then the dots representing the geth ships began to turn into holographic figures as the map area shrank.
"Steady," Hackett warned.
"Muzzle flashes detected!" A quieter voice from the Kilimanjaro's bridge called.
"Muzzle flashes confirmed." EDI echoed.
"Evasive maneuvers!" Hackett ordered.
"Joker, move us, nothing hits the Normandy!" Shepard ordered.
"Don't need to tell me twice," the pilot replied.
She could not believe the heretics decided to fire at that range. Did they think they would hit? Or was their plan merely to break the fleet's formation? The Alliance ships simply shifted around enough to dodge expected trajectories, but everyone remained tightly in their places.
"No one fire, wait until they are clear of the asteroids!" Hackett ordered.
The geth were now almost halfway through the field, but that made their decision to open fire at range even more bizarre. Shepard glanced toward Garrus, "We have armament we can still use, even if we can't use the main guns."
"We will make them pay, Commander." Garrus assured, the only voice of utter confidence on the CIC.
"Their opening volley missed. No damage." A voice said over the comm. Shepard suddenly recognized the speaker, Michael Yager, one of her mother's favorites.
"Excellent." Hackett replied.
The geth begun to emerge from the asteroid field and Shepard hummed as she watched their fleet shift into formation, frigates up front, cruisers further back, almost a mirror of the Alliance's own formation. The Alliance ships slid right back into their previous positions, and the formation tightened even further. The geth would not get in between, meaning they could only shoot from outside, where the Alliance ships could open up with everything they had without the risk of misses resulting in friendly fire.
"Ready your weapons!" Hackett ordered.
"Garrus, ready the disruptor torpedoes," Shepard said.
"Loaded and ready," Garrus replied.
Shepard watched the console, where should their first shot be aimed? Their current position allowed them a nearly perfect line of sight on a great number of enemy ships. "Target the leading frigate," she ordered.
"Yes, Commander." Garrus replied.
Given that the geth adopted a wedge formation, the leading craft would be the most logical target. If they could break the spear's tip, the Grecian flotilla would have an easier time getting into their midst to shatter their push.
"The geth fleet has crossed into designated engagement range," Yager said.
Garrus tensed over the console, and Shepard clasped a fist, the order to fire was coming. She glanced at Kaidan and nodded.
"Opening salvo, fire!" Hackett ordered.
"Fire!" Shepard echoed.
Garrus tapped a series of keys, and the Normandy shuddered as her torpedoes erupted from the launch tubes at the base of the ship's nacelles. The central console filled with moving dots that indicated projectiles. EDI's vast processing capabilities allowed her to plot the trajectory of every round in real time using the fleet link sensory telemetry, something even the Kilimanjaro's command array could not do as quickly, because it processed telemetry by VI.
Shepard watched as the leading frigate's model tried to scoot sideways, firing its point-defense GARDIAN lasers all the while. But unlike mass accelerator rounds, Javelin disruptor torpedoes homed in, and the geth point-defenses had been slow to respond. A moment later the model began to blink as EDI flagged it with a yellow marker.
"Direct hit!" Garrus announced.
"Excellent," Shepard replied. Two more frigates took disruptor torpedoes from the Alliance frigates. A cruiser in the middle of the formation blinked rapidly, its flag indicated a deep penetrating hit. Then, suddenly the marker flashed red and blinked out of existence.
"Direct hit, ma'am. Target destroyed." Another familiar voice, Theresa Carrere, announced over the comm.
"One down," Hannah Shepard stated with a chilling calm. "Carrere, target their power cores. We are not here for tea."
"Your mother is taking no prisoners," Nihlus noted.
That was putting it mildly, Shepard thought to herself. Hannah was showing everyone why they called her the Titanium Lady.
"Aye, aye, ma'am," Carrere replied.
"We're long past warning shots." Shepard said as she glanced at Nihlus. Her mother believed in decisive action. After what the heretics did to the Cajamarca and Mukden, there would be no parlay. It would take a direct command from Admiral Hackett to get her to rescind her kill order.
"A logical position. The Old Machine will not show mercy." Legion stated.
Shepard glanced at Legion and watched them for a long moment. The geth just stood there, and only the minute movements of it head plates prevented anyone from thinking it was a statue with a light.
"Muzzle flashes!" Yager shouted.
"Muzzle flashes confirmed." EDI said.
"Taking evasive action." Joker announced.
"All ships, you are free to engage." Hackett ordered.
It was like all hell broke loose as all the ships hurried to dodge the second volley. At the same time the Grecian flotilla charged ahead, flying almost nacelle to nacelle right at the leading enemy ships. The Independence and Napoleonic flotilla frigates followed, spreading into a single line, effortlessly forming a chevron with the Thermopylae as the point.
This maneuver was a classic chicken gambit, any enemy that did not want to get rammed, would dislodge and abandon formation. But as Shepard watched, the Heretic formation held, and the Alliance frigates were the ones who had to break off. Yet the pilots were ready, and the ships wheeled every which way and within an instant the whole thing turned into one giant death ball as they engaged.
Soon the moving dots that indicated the flying rounds became too fast and too frequent for her to track who fired at who and when. The battle rapidly devolved into a knife-range brawl, and the fleet responded accordingly. The cruisers closed ranks, the Athens backed up, pushed back because of a hail of rounds from the leading pair of heretic cruisers, until it was level with the Philadelphia and Paris, bolstered by the Emden and Jakarta as they moved forward. Then Cape Town, Shenyang, Seoul, and Warsaw came up from the behind, extending the line further, forming a breaker wall.
Shepard hesitated to order Garrus to fire more shots. The Normandy was a frigate, not a dreadnought; it was supposed to be right there with the rest, at knife range. Their armament was most dangerous when it was point-blank as that way it was much more difficult to counter. Furthermore, shooting from outside they ran a very real risk of a false target lock.
She watched as the death ball writhed. The Alliance frigates went after the enemy ships damaged in the opening volley. One by one they blinked out of existence after taking another pair of torpedoes. Yet some others managed to slip out, heading for the cruisers, only for Alliance frigates to swing around, trapping them in between. In that instant Shepard knew where they could bring their weapons to bear. "Joker, move us in line with the Tokyo's frigates," Shepard ordered.
"Yes, ma'am." The pilot replied.
The Normandy began to move, but then they were not the only ones. The STG frigate left its position in the back and accelerated to full speed.
"The Cape Town just took a heavy hit to the broadside!" Yager called.
The Cape Town's figure began to blink; EDI's marking flag indicated a penetrative hit. A moment later the ship began to back up, opening a gap in the screen line.
"Carrere, target the ship that hit the Cape Town. Maximum acceleration." Hannah ordered.
"Yes ma'am," Carrere said.
The Kilimanjaro began to turn on the spot, physically having to adjust its angle of fire.
"The geth are breaking past the Cape Town!" Yager warned.
The other cruisers were already moving to close the gap, but three frigates managed to slip through nevertheless.
"Sekigahara, Nagashino, Hakata Bay, move to intercept!" Hackett ordered.
The Tokyo's frigates abandoned their position over the Kilimanjaro's spine and surged forward as ordered.
"Captain, the Kilimanjaro is in position. Firing solution locked. Rails charged." Carrere said calmly.
"Fire." Hannah said coldly.
A fast-moving round exploded from the dreadnought. Meanwhile the Tokyo's frigates surrounded the breakthrough group and loosed a volley of disruptor torpedoes. The geth cruiser's sensors must have registered it being the Kilimanjaro's target, as the ship suddenly started to move, but it was too close, too big, and too slow. The Japanese-named frigates formed their own death ball, vying for weapon lock. First one, and then another heretic ship began to blink, having sustained some damage, but they were still wheeling around.
"Direct impact on target power core. Cruiser destroyed." Yager reported.
"Well done, Carrere." Hannah praised.
The STG vessel swooped in on the breakthrough frigates, flying in from outside and above. A dot appeared indicating it fired a pair of torpedoes, and then an instant later a second. For a brief moment it looked like both pairs were aimed at the same vessel, but they diverged, moving quickly and erratically, like sidewinders on the sand, to confound the heretic point-defenses tracking at range, and then both pairs vanished as the damaged frigates blinked out of existence.
"Impressive," Shepard murmured.
"Typical Salarian tactic," Nihlus voiced. "Wait for an opportunity to stab an enemy in the back."
With two of the three runners gone, the three Japanese frigates had no trouble getting a target lock on the last, and all three fired on it. The geth frigate had nowhere to go, and no way to outrun the deadly munitions, a moment later its marker vanished off the map.
"The Emden just lost a nacelle to a broadside glancer." Yager called.
Just like that whatever moment of triumph that might have formed went up in smoke. Shepard had to tell herself this was normal, that some ships were bound to take a hit. In fact, Yager would not be announcing every hit, just what he deemed the major ones. Still, every instinct called for her to order the Normandy to bring its main guns to bear, before hits became kills. She watched as the Emden began to back up as well, opening another breach in the cruiser wall.
"Enemy cruisers are advancing on the Cape Town and Emden!" Yager continued.
"They can smell blood in the water," Shepard murmured. The plan was not working all that well, the enemy was not backing up no matter how many ships they lost. The god-king seemed willing to fight to the last there and then.
The Grecians swung back, with the Thermopylae running at full speed into the rear of the cruisers heading for the Cape Town. On their flank, the Austerlitz and her sisters rounded on the cruisers aiming for the Emden, but the heretic frigates they had been fighting followed, and overshot, sliding in between them to prevent the Napoleonic flotilla from shooting. The enemy found entry into the body of the Alliance formation, and they were not going to give it up. Their target had to be the Kilimanjaro, why else keep running for the breaches in the cruiser wall?
The Alliance cruisers around the Emden opened fire from their broadside batteries, to try and weed the Heretics in their midst. Each auto-cannon fired a one-kilogram slug at one two-hundredth the speed of light. At sixty autocannons per cruiser, thirty to each side, arranged in twin rows along the hull, the batteries delivered death by battering down shields and punching multiple hull breaches, which were deadly to a crewed ship. However in this instance Shepard suspected it would not work. The geth did not breathe, but more than that, they had gotten close in between the Alliance cruisers, where the VI-operated targeting computers would not fire if the angle risked hitting a friendly ship should it miss the intended target.
One of the heretic cruisers going for the Cape Town began to blink as the Grecians hammered it with long-range disruptor torpedoes, ignoring the frigates blocking their path. On the other side, the Napoleonic flotilla fought to break through the frigates blocking them, lopping torpedoes as fast as they could get a good lock. However, it was hard to miss the fact that the Heretic frigates were deftly dodging target lock, and when that failed, their point-defense lasers were beginning to hit the torpedoes aimed at them.
"Are we really going to be watching this?" Nihlus asked.
Shepard took a deep breath and let it out. "I have orders, Nihlus. I don't like them, but they are orders." If that was not the understatement of the year, Shepard did not know what would be.
The STG frigate took up position on the Cape Town's flank, between it and the Madrid. It looked like they decided to wait for another opportunity to present itself rather than risk getting in the way. The Impera hovered over the Kilimanjaro, not backing up, but not engaging either.
Right now it was becoming apparent that something had to be done to tip the odds. The geth frigates had moved in on the Grecians, ending the volley of torpedoes as the Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea suddenly had their own concerns. On the other side, the Napoleonic ships were still locked with their own foes, and they were slowly backing out.
"Yorktown, Lexington, Concord, assist the Thermopylae. Sekigahara, Hakata Bay, and Nagashino, break that mess around the Austerlitz!" Hackett ordered.
The two flotillas split, each flying to support their designated group. A few moments ticked by, and Shepard noticed that one of the heretic cruisers had started to turn away from the melee. Just from that she knew what was coming. "The Tokyo's flotilla is not protecting the Kili's nose anymore! Joker we're going to have to intercept!"
"Aye, aye." Joker replied.
"Normandy hold your position!" Hackett ordered.
The Normandy's model paused, Joker was taking orders over her head, and Shepard clasped both her hands into fists. The Cape Town began to turn, and the heretic cruiser surged forward at full speed. The Jakarta and Emden responded, moving up to block its path, but the Emden's speed was impaired, and the Jakarta was too far away.
"Muzzle flashes detected." EDI announced, overlapping the similar announcement from the Kili's bridge.
"Target?" Shepard asked urgently.
"Kilimanjaro." EDI replied.
Shepard was not happy; they could have destroyed that blasted cruiser in one shot. Admiral Hackett was holding back.
"Divert emergency power to forward shields!" Hannah ordered.
Suddenly the Cape Town began to turn and accelerate. EDI brought up a dashed line to show its trajectory, and Shepard knew it would slide right into the incoming round's path.
"No! Carter, we can take it! Reverse your burn. Now!" Hannah called.
The Cape Town fired her main drive, accelerating further. Then the round marker crossed over, and her already blinking model began to blink faster.
"Direct hit to the Cape Town. The round has imbedded inside the hull." EDI announced.
The Emden and Jakarta opened fire at close range, as fast as their fire rate would allow. The geth cruiser's model seemed to hold for a long moment, but then its shields must have collapsed, and its model began to blink faster and faster with each hit.
In the background, the Thermopylae and Salamis seemed to have run out of patience and charged right at the frigates blocking their path, loosing torpedoes near point blank and bucking their main drives to get away from the explosions. They did not bother to close distance on the cruiser and loosed their torpedoes at range. A breathless moment later they hit, a pair from each side. The cruiser's model blinked once more and vanished.
"Cruiser destroyed." EDI announced.
"Cape Town, damage report!" Hackett demanded.
There was a tense pause. Only the Kilimanjaro had full two-way links to the bridges of all the ships in the fleet, Shepard knew they would not hear whatever the Cape Town's captain replied.
"Commander, the Cape Town is reporting critical damage to the spinal axial column just forward of engineering." EDI announced.
Shepard slammed a palm on the railing, damage to the spinal axial column of a ship meant its main gun was inoperable, and worse, the ship's structure was severely compromised. Cruisers and dreadnoughts had two such columns spanning their length, the spinal lay along the back, under the main gun, and a second, keel column at the bottom. Damage to one meant the ship could bend under acceleration. To make matters worse, the round hit close to engineering, which meant it was close to the power core. How many had died just then? Shepard could not just continue to sit and do nothing. "Admiral, the Normandy needs to engage."
"No. Normandy, you will hold your position." Hackett replied.
Shepard glanced at Nihlus, weighting whether or not she could get away with disobeying orders if she claimed Nihlus ordered it. He would back her up, but would it float? The Admiral was set on keeping the Thanix up the Alliance's sleeve if possible, so no; she would be in hot water. As frustrating as it was, she had no choice but to keep the Normandy back.
Shepard turned and counted the enemy ships still on the board, three cruisers, and a good eight frigates. The Fifth had seriously dented the enemy fleet, and all considering the crippling of one cruiser was a small price to pay, but it was still a price. Every instinct Shepard had screamed for action. No loss was acceptable to her. It was naïve, she knew that much, sacrifices in combat were a part of combat, but she could not accept them sitting down.
She watched as the STG moved across to aid the Thermopylae and Salamis as they began to buzz around the stricken Cape Town, shielding it just in case it launched escape pods. The Paris and Athens advanced on the left flank, pushing up behind the Napoleonic and Tokyo's frigates on that side, intent on that enemy flank. Their arrival seemed to dislodge something, as the death ball slowly began to drift backward.
On the right hand side, the Plataea, aided by the Independence group's frigates, reformed a line, intent on driving into the enemy on that flank. Now the Philadelphia and Warsaw moved in to back them up with heavier armament. The heretics must have registered this move on their sensors, because they suddenly broke off. Next thing Shepard knew, the three remaining cruisers began to turn, making a sharp about face, pushed out by the advancing Jakarta, Madrid, Seoul, and the bloodied-but-still-swinging Emden.
The numbers were now firmly in the Fifth's favor and Shepard saw why the Admiral prevented the Normandy from jumping the gun. The Admiral knew her instinct to protect, and he restrained it. The heretics finally realized they were not winning this; even a pyrrhic victory was beyond their reach. Still, their withdrawal was definitely not a hap-hazard panic-driven rout. One might argue that they were incapable of panic, but it made Shepard wonder. The heretics had been losing ships at a steady rate from the moment the fight began, why withdraw now?
"Should we pursue?" Hannah asked.
There was a moment of silence; Shepard imagined that the admiral had to consider things. Yes they had caused the enemy to run into the rocks, but Shepard knew fighting amidst the asteroids was never in the plan. The intent was to drive the heretics against the rocks, so their maneuverability would be gone, prior to just shooting them apart.
"Let them regroup. They will not gain much. We need to ensure our people are taken care of first." Hackett replied.
Shepard looked around the CIC. It seemed like this had done something for the tension, the duty crew was not as rigid. Kaidan looked a little less grim. Garrus was no longer hovering over the gunnery console, waiting to execute orders within a split second.
"Is it just me, or is this kind of…"
"Don't say it Commander. Let's not tempt fate now," Kaidan said.
"You know full well that if there is something more to this, it will happen regardless of me saying something about it or not, right?" Shepard asked. Really, she would not have pegged Kaidan to be superstitious.
"The geth have functional stealth technology, they might have cold, voided ships hidden among the rocks. After the trick we pulled with the decoy fleet…" Garrus ventured.
Kaidan groaned, "He said it."
"It is a thought," Shepard mused. "If there are ships in there, it'll be a good ambush for the Kili. It will not be able to maneuver, and they are set on it." There was no great mystery as to why. In every fleet Shepard knew, the biggest ship was usually the command flagship. That fact seemed even more ubiquitous than breathing oxygen.
She looked back toward the central console; the Fifth's ships had disengaged, which allowed the heretics to enter the asteroid field at their leisure. The Cape Town had turned around, limping at a tenth of her normal operational speed toward the very rear, where the Berlin and the rear guard could take over the task of shielding it.
"All hands, take this moment to plug whatever leaks you have. This isn't over." Hackett ordered.
Shepard knew she needed to talk with the Admiral, at least because of the very interesting possibility Garrus put forth. In her mind, it did not make sense for the enemy to retreat unless they had something planned. It could be a classic feint to pull a recklessly overconfident enemy into an ambush. They could also have more ships in orbit around Notanban, in which case they were pulling the Fifth into another sort of ambush, except this one would put the asteroid field at their back, a perfect turnabout.
She glanced toward Legion, whose face-lamp was turned right at her, the light beam narrowed. It was slightly unnerving how the geth just stood there the whole time, a picture of calm amidst the storm. This was probably the exactly why the geth unnerved people; they were too logical and too emotionally detached. The fact that they fought and essentially won a genocidal war certainly did not help either. Still, what did Legion think of everything that happened? There was too much uncertainty going around, and Shepard hated uncertainty.
Twenty minutes later the Normandy, leading the Grecian frigates, entered the asteroid field to run reconnaissance. Their goal was to scope a path through the field, using active sensory to analyze anything and everything for hidden ships, space mines, and any other kind of nasty surprise potentially lurking in the dark.
The Normandy was in full sensory link with the Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea. Everything their active sensors picked up was almost instantaneously passed to the Normandy for EDI to analyze and process. EDI had to run her hardware at approaching capacity, which was something given how vast her processing power was to begin with, but the end results of such a feat would be worth it. Still, this left the Normandy vulnerable to cyber attacks, but that was probably the least concern right now.
The charting operation was a slow process. The Normandy's passive sensors were like the eyes of the ship, they sought incoming electromagnetic spectrum signals. The passive array could tell them there was something there, but it took a touch, a pass from the active LADAR to ascertain whether that something was a rock, the hull of a cold, voided ship, or in the case of smaller objects, a proximity mine. The Normandy had the best sensors of the four ships, able to scan fastest, but it meant nothing when you had so many objects all around.
Shepard paced the CIC, though she made all efforts to mute her footsteps. Legion watched her pass back and forth, but otherwise remained unmoving by the elevator. The communicator chattered with out of focus activity as the rest of the fleet went about business.
"Shepard, you are wearing a hole in the deck plates." Nihlus said.
She stopped cold and spared the Spectre a chilled look.
"I have never seen you pace like that." Nihlus went on, completely unbothered.
Shepard sighed, it was best to diffuse this before Nihlus caused everyone within earshot to get nervous. Really, why was he starting this on the CIC? "I am just not used to this background work. I'm a boots-on-ground type." That would do as a deflection, and it was not technically a lie. She was facing the realities of her command, one nuance at a time.
"That is understandable," Garrus murmured. "And… that reminds me…"
Shepard picked up the great note of hesitation in the former detective's voice. Something told her that he never forgot a thing in such manner; he was merely dithering because he could not come up with the right approach.
"I am concerned about the ground operation on Solcrum."
Shepard would give Garrus credit for going for highly professional, but he blew the transition. Truly he was absolutely rotten at lying through his teeth; she could see the faint agitated fluttering in his mandibles. He was merely playing at professional calm, putting up a show for the benefit of everyone on the CIC.
Shepard glanced toward Kaidan, who was attention-splitting between the console and their conversation. Legion had turned its face-lamp, staring unashamedly right at them.
"Three people going into that base, with unknown numbers of enemies..." Garrus trailed off, but his meaning was clear.
"You forget that two of those people are Spectres, and the third is Shepard." Nihlus replied smoothly.
"I am aware that the third is the Commander!" Garrus fired back.
"Then what are you getting at, Vakarian?" Nihlus let his arms drop as he glared Garrus down over the holographic map.
"Something about this bothers me. Arterius makes no secret of his loathing for humans. But he is willing to do this? Why?"
"Orders."
Shepard noted the condescending tone of that quick, one word reply. Nihlus definitely seemed testy, was it nerves or something he knew but would not say? Shepard could not tell. Well it was certainly an interesting thought, now that she began to examine it. Strictly speaking Nihlus was right; if the Council ordered Saren to do something, he would have to do it. But Garrus was right too, there was something that did not add up. The Council had sent in the STG. Nihlus said they would send in a second Spectre to observe. So far Saren had been observing. Certainly the Impera showed no intention of joining the fight. He did not have to take an active part, yet Nihlus had been sure that Saren would want to be part of the ground operation. He would know his former mentor's temperament best. Still, that was no answer, why was Saren putting boots on the ground?
Shepard operated on a rather simple assumption when she needed to explain why people did anything. Everything people did, they did to benefit themselves. Even the most altruistic person reaped some personal benefit from their altruism. Most people thought she was a horrible cynic, but looking for the personal benefit was the easiest way to understand someone's motive, and then predict their future actions.
So where was the benefit for Saren? What was he getting out of this? What would he want? An easy assumption would be that he was still out to undermine her. But why put boots on the ground? Even as an observer he could easily play with the facts to change the picture. Maybe he could do that easier if he was there to witness something going wrong first hand, but still, he did not strike her as that obvious, not after she showed him that she could play the game as well. He would be exceptionally foolish to underestimate her, and if anything, Shepard could say Saren was no fool. He had the sort of intellect that made him dangerous. So no, there was more to all of this for him. There had to be.
"If I may?" Kaidan stepped in.
Shepard turned to the lieutenant and was not surprised to see that everyone had.
"Ultimately going into that base with just three people is underestimating the enemy." Kaidan went on, calm as can be. "That said, I think Spectre Arterius sees this situation for what it is. He may not care for humans, but this is bigger than humanity. The Heretics could become a threat to the galaxy. It is a Spectre's job to eliminate such threats."
Shepard raised an eyebrow; Kaidan was again trying to diffuse the tension with middle-road logic while taking a position he thought would not offend. Garrus glanced her way. Briefly Shepard thought he might want to say something edgewise, but suddenly chose not to.
"Alenko is right." Nihlus said.
Shepard thought that was as a good a place as any to drop that topic. At the very least Kaidan got Nihlus and Garrus to stop arguing.
"Commander, we are about to clear the asteroid field," Kaidan said almost a minute later.
"Anything on the scans?" Shepard wondered.
"Nothing foreign was detected. It's all rock, and nothing worth mining either." Kaidan replied.
Shepard hummed thoughtfully, she had expected some nasty surprise, but maybe the heretics did not seed the belt after all. Maybe they never counted on coming out on the losing side of things. Of course, the absence of a minefield did not discount the possibility of additional concealed ships around Notanban. There would still be danger in crossing the field; it just will not come from something lurking in it.
As Shepard discovered, the fog of war was indeed a thick one. The Admiral's decision to regroup gave the ships enough time to assess and patch the damage, as well as count the losses. It was shocking that only the Cape Town was now listed as out of action. The Emden lost much of its maneuverability, but her captain was eager for round two. Seeing the Emden push on, no other ship wanted to sit this one out, no matter how damaged. And there was damage. The Jakarta was grazed by a heretic's round along its mid-section, peeling up some armor and venting one section, leading to the deaths of five people. The Seoul had a MAC round gouge into its back-mounted sensor array, causing minor vents in a few compartments below. A few more people got badly hurt, but no lives were lost. Still, the ship was now nearly blind to muzzle flashes from that angle. Madrid took a MAC round through the stem of its starboard nacelle, so its main drive was structurally compromised. It was a testament to reaction times that none of these impacts hit where they were meant to.
The frigates fared only a little better, given that they had been in the thick of it. The Hakata Bay had been scorched by a too-close detonation of Heretic torpedoes locked right onto its power core; it got incredibly lucky that its point-defenses hit the torpedoes in the last possible moment. Then there was the Thermopylae and Salamis, both got over-eager with their torpedoes and their reserves were nearly expended. Their sister, the Plataea, spent the time performing an emergency propulsion system cycle. Dancing as she did, the frigate overheated her thrusters, causing damage to her own armor around the vectored cones. The system mounted enough errors that the frigate's engineers decided to shut it all down and reboot. Shepard was told that was typical of the Grecians, they always overdid it.
Shepard had listened to her mother list these facts with professional calm, but she knew it was only a front for the benefit of the bridge crew. Shepard knew her mother; if Hannah had not been on the warpath before, now she would be apt to fashion a geth's cranial casing into a drinking vessel. Shepard would have wanted to believe these would be the final deaths of the day, but she was not that naïve. There was still the ground mission, and she was not innocent enough to think they could do that without losses.
It was another hour before the Fifth's ships could advance deeper into the system. Each vessel had to make their own pathway, to dodge and weave through the rocks, which broke up their formations. The remaining heretic ships gathered in orbit over Solcrum, forming a battle line. They knew what the Fifth was there for, and looked ready to make their final stand over the gas giant's moon. The fact that they chose to retreat all the way to their stronghold was worrying, but not surprising. They had fared poorly in the first part of the battle, and now had nowhere else to go.
Shepard's major fear was that the Fifth was heading into an ambush. The positions had fully reversed, now they would have rock at their back and nowhere to go. There were too many questions buzzing in her head. Was there an ambush? That was the million credit question. If not, were the heretics merely reacting? Forming a line for the final stand? By their nature, they ought to become less organized as their numbers dwindled. The Fifth had already destroyed a fair number of their ships, how many runtimes was that? Was it enough to begin affecting them? There was also the fact that they were led by a synthetic that probably did not have the same problem, how did that alter the math? Shepard had to remind herself consciously not to pace the CIC.
As the ships began to clear the rocks, they slid back into formation, led by the Grecian, Napoleonic, and Independence flotillas. The Normandy followed behind the wedge, in-between the Athens, Philadelphia, and Paris. After them came the other cruisers forming a middle line of defense. The Emden was still limping along in their midst. Bringing up the rear was the Kilimanjaro. The dreadnought's thrusters never stopped burning in some direction. A ship her size was not supposed to slalom around rocks, but her pilots were making a damn good show of it. At the very rear came the Tokyo and her ships with the Great War flotilla. Trailing way in the rear was the STG and the Impera.
Shepard watched as the dots indicating the heretic ships moved out of Solcrum's orbit while maintaining their formation. If they had anything left around Notanban now would be the time to spring the trap. Yet as the seconds ticked by, nothing emerged from Notanban, and Shepard realized that these really were all the ships they had left. Why had they even retreated? Was that nothing more than an attempt to regroup, dig in, and try again? Those sometimes worked, but Shepard doubted it would work for them. The Fifth's ships were smarting, but that just made them eager to finish the heretics off.
"Hackett to all ships, ready your weapons."
Shepard looked toward Garrus and nodded.
"Let's do this. And maybe this time with less sitting on our hands," Joker said from the bridge.
"All systems are reporting ready, Commander." Kaidan announced from his post.
"Disruptor torpedoes are armed and ready." Garrus announced from the gunnery post.
The enemy fleet drew ever closer and the Alliance ships closed ranks, tightening formations as to keep a sudden Hail Mary charge from getting in between them. Right now, neither side would benefit from it. If the heretics rushed, they risked hitting the cruiser line brick wall and being shot apart effortlessly. If the Alliance charged, they would have to break up their lines, disassemble the wall, which would allow the heretics to get among them. On the grand scale of things, the Alliance stood to lose more from a poorly timed opening move.
"They've entered their firing range. It's about to start." Kaidan said.
Shepard watched as the Alliance frigates moved forward in their wedge formation.
"Muzzle flashes, the geth have opened fire!" Yager's voice echoed over the fleet link.
"Evasive action." Hackett replied.
Shepard watched the dots indicating the rounds fly.
"Nothing aimed at us," Kaidan noted.
"Garrus, when the order comes, put disrupter torpedoes into the lead frigate."
"On it, Commander." Garrus affirmed.
"All ships, pick your targets, and fire on my mark," Hackett ordered.
"Target lock acquired." Garrus said.
Shepard folded her arms and waited.
"More muzzle flashes." Yager warned.
Shepard thought that by now the propensity of the geth to fire long-range shots would surprise no one. The Fifth's ships burned thrusters to get out of the way even as the geth continued to close in.
"They are desperately trying to break the fleet's formations." Nihlus mused.
"That's not going to work," Shepard replied. "Let's just hope all those stray rounds hit an asteroid and do not go off into deep space." The kicker about space bullets was that an errant round would keep going until it hit something. That something could be the universe's unluckiest ship, an asteroid, or a planet, and it could be hundreds if not thousands of years until it happened.
As the Alliance ships began to reset from their evasive burns the geth finally entered volley range.
"Fire at will!" Hackett ordered.
Shepard felt the inertial dampener field kick as the Normandy accelerated forward, ahead of the Athens. Garrus hovered over his console, waiting for the ship to clear friendly zones in order to achieve final lock.
Ahead of them, the Grecian frigates charged, loosing their torpedoes before they entered a series of erratic burns to close in for knife-range. The Independence and Napoleonic frigates were a second or two behind. The monitor was filled with the rounds of the Alliance cruisers, and a quicker moving round fired from the Kilimanjaro's main gun. A moment later the Normandy gave a little twitch with the recoil of the torpedoes accelerating out of the launch tubes.
"Torpedoes are away," Garrus announced.
The Heretics attempted to veer as the shots came in, but the Grecians streamed in from the right, with the Independence flotilla from the left, and the Napoleonic from above, penning them in, forcing them to rely on their kinetic barriers rather than avoidance, but those could only take so many hits before breaking, and the Fifth would have no problem firing until they broke.
The hail of mass accelerator rounds converged and merged with the death ball and suddenly one of the cruisers started blinking, shortly followed by two frigates. Shepard smiled as she watched the Normandy's torpedoes slam into the side of the leading frigate for a third damage-dealing hit.
"Direct hit, detonation confirmed." Garrus announced.
The Thermopylae swooped in, loosing another pair of torpedoes almost point-blank and peeling away as fast as her thrusters could push her. The heretic's point defenses could not track a target that close, the torpedoes hit home, and one of the previously-injured frigates blinked out of existence.
"Whoever's piloting the Thermopylae isn't half bad. Nowhere near as good as I am though. I could have made that turn tighter." Joker said from the bridge.
"One kill, three additional hits." Yager summed up.
"Do not let them catch their breath!" Hackett ordered.
Shepard saw Legion's head flaps rise and drop back down. Shepard could tell it just decided not to comment about the turn of phrase. "Three cruisers, one bloodied, and now seven frigates." she noted.
"They've fired again," Yager said.
"Evasive actions," Hannah ordered.
The fleet danced, the cruisers held their line, only moving enough to get out of trajectory lines. The frigates kept the enemy frigates too busy to attempt a break-through; unfortunately the heretics were beginning to get really good at defending themselves. Shepard glanced up at Legion. "What is going on? The Heretics point defenses are improving on the fly. Are they really adapting that fast?"
"Affirmative." Legion replied.
"We destroyed a number of their ships, why are they not becoming disorganized?"
Legion pushed away from the wall and approached the console, "Shepard-Commander, you assume runtimes from the destroyed ships have been destroyed. That assumption is incorrect. The Heretics have hardware on Solcrum which allows runtime upload, preventing a loss of processing capacity."
Shepard stared at the geth as if it had just grown a second head, "You knew?" she asked.
"We calculated the probability of such a failsafe to be eighty percent. Recent observations increased the probability to ninety-nine percent."
"And you did not point it out?"
"Admiral! Shenyang just took a hit on the nose! It embedded!"
Shepard turned back to the console, all arguments forgotten; the Shenyang's model was blinking. The heretic frigates had worked their way around the Alliance ships, moving the fight right up against the cruiser wall. It prevented the cruisers from targeting them, lest they hit a friendly in the scrimmage, but it also created a screen that allowed the enemy cruisers to fire from the back lines.
Shepard turned back to Legion, barely keeping her glare at bay. How many more people had just died?
"Shepard-Commander, you intend to destroy the heretic stronghold on Solcrum, the backup hardware will be there. Destroying it will ensure the Heretics lose this adaptation. We did not perceive it necessary to mention the hardware." Legion explained.
Shepard was rendered speechless; Legion just admitted to sitting on vital information. They clearly did no want to arm the Alliance with more knowledge than absolutely necessary. On the one hand she understood why, but on the flip-side, it showed obvious mistrust. Not that she would blame them, mind you, but when she trusted someone, she expected it in return. Still, there was also the obvious fact that Legion did not resist her pulling the information out, once she asked the key questions. What could she make of that? Where was the truth here? Was Legion merely playing politician to the end? "We'll discuss your definitions of necessary later."
"Acknowledged."
Shepard turned back to the console. The Shenyang was backing up, opening a gap in the cruiser wall, but it did not launch escape pods, which was a good sign. Still, damage on the nose with the round embedding meant it had suffered at least a partial decompression of the command decks, with only a mass effect field between people and the void. The cruiser had to back out, lest another hit finish it off.
"I believe it's time to finish this." Hannah said calmly.
The death-ball of small ships writhed and coiled, but Shepard could see the situation shift a little by little. The Alliance frigates managed to surround the remaining heretic frigates like wolves on the hunt in pursuit of a herd of deer. With the frigates contained, the cruiser wall began to disperse, no longer as necessary. The Emden and Shenyang remained in the center, with the Warsaw and Jakarta at their sides, while the Tokyo, Madrid, Cairo, and Seoul pushed forward, taking a vector over the frigates, heading straight for the remaining heretic cruisers in the back.
"Steven, we need to eliminate those frigates. I think we can afford to do without our rear guard at this point." Hannah noted.
"Yes, they do not seem to have anything else to give." Hackett replied. "Somme, Marne, Ypres, move in."
The three frigates surged forward almost before the admiral finished speaking. The Berlin remained behind, still floating stalwartly below the dreadnought, watching her vulnerable belly. The Great War frigates loosed torpedoes at range to cover themselves as they swooped in from below.
The other frigates pulled back, wheeling free, only to swing right back and dive in. It turned into a piranha feeding frenzy, with torpedoes flying every which way, with the Heretics firing their point-defenses as well as they could, but now they were grossly outnumbered and had only so many lasers to fire.
Then a frigate took torpedoes to the flank, and blinked out of existence, but the rest fired their own weapons. A pair locked onto the Yorktown, but it wheeled around, pulling a tight one hundred and eighty degree burn to fly right between her sisters. The Lexington and Concord's point-defense turrets locked on automatically and opened fire; the torpedoes were destroyed before they could close in.
Another pair streaked for the Thermopylae, but instead of seeking backup, or firing its own point-defenses, the frigate wheeled sharply, her rear slipping a stunning one-eighty as her thrusters flared like candles. A moment later its main drive ignited, accelerating the frigate right back into the death ball as the torpedoes pulled a tight, but clumsy parabolic arc to stay on its tail. A split of a second later the Thermopylae was screaming right at one of the enemy frigates.
"Are they ramming?" Nihlus asked, shocked.
"Hell no! Just watch," Joker replied, clearly amused and gleeful. "EDI, record it!"
A screen appeared over the console, EDI had dutifully turned her camera to follow the Thermopylae. Shepard had a sinking feeling she knew what was coming. There were only a few pilots in the Alliance insane enough to go for it, the Thermopylae seemingly among them.
At the last possible moment the Thermopylae jammed its ventral thrusters into full burn, its nose pitched back as it decelerated, but its rear maintained enough momentum to slide around. For a breathless moment it looked like the frigate's nacelles would slam into the enemy frigate's back, but the pilot timed the momentum shift correctly, the frigate merely squatted over the enemy. Then the Thermopylae's main drive ignited like four blazing flares, the plumes rapidly melted holes into the insectoid ship even as the Thermopylae shot along its length. The torpedoes were a lot less responsive; they slammed into the heretic ship and detonated.
"Hah! Adapt to that you bastards!" Joker crowed from the bridge.
The heretic frigate split in two and exploded into a million pieces.
"Is that standard Alliance piloting… or…?" Garrus trailed off.
"Pfft, standard... that's fine Alliance piloting." Joker replied.
"It is certainly effective," Nihlus mused.
"Hey! For once I agree with our resident Spook!" Joker chuckled.
"It was an unnecessary risk." Shepard said as she shook her head; it would figure the flyboys would get excited. She did not know who was more insane, the Thermopylae's captain, or its pilot. Former because she allowed her pilot to do that, or latter because whoever they were, they risked it. "Joker, just… don't do that with the Normandy, alright? It cost a lot more than the Thermopylae."
"Bah! You're no fun!" Joker replied.
Shepard swiped EDI's inset screen aside and peered over the battlefield. While the Thermopylae had been grand-standing, the Great War flotilla had scored two other kills with a quiet triple-pronged attack. The Tokyo, Cairo, Seoul, and Madrid had closed in on the cruisers in the back, two were blinking, damaged, but still floating. The Seoul was blinking as well, having taken some damage, but judging by her movements, it was not hampered too much.
"Shepard, we're about done with the geth up here. I've notified the STG and the Impera to prepare for insertion." Hackett announced over the comm.
Shepard straightened and nodded toward Kaidan, "Understood, sir."
"The Kilimanjaro has launched fighters." Kaidan announced.
Shepard nodded again. She knew what that meant, the fighters were to be their air strike, but they were also to escort the unarmed Kodiaks carrying marines into orbit. Some of the frigates would follow them in as well, to deliver the Makos. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Impera push forward, and STG followed a few seconds behind. "Joker, follow the STG and Impera."
"Roger." The pilot replied.
The remaining heretic frigates were kettled and taking a hammering from all directions. Their cruisers were likewise boxed in. Solcrum lay in front of them like a prize up for snatching, though it was the sort of worthless consolation prize that no one really wanted to receive. With traces of atmosphere at best, the moon was an irradiated, baked rock with surface temperatures rising into the three-hundred degrees centigrade. Orbiting a gas giant, it had a super slow rotation period, a day lasted six tenths of Earth's year.
"Commander, the Kilimanjaro has relayed convergence coordinates." Kaidan said.
"I got them right here," Joker said from the bridge.
The Normandy caught up to the STG and Impera just over the moon, but the two ships were not descending yet. It seemed like everyone unanimously decided to wait for the fighters and shuttles. Shepard was not about to complain, instead she took the opportunity to observe the last moments of the space battle.
The Alliance frigates finally got the upper hand on the heretics, and shot apart their frigates one at a time. Fundamentally the heretics only had so many point-defense turrets, if the frigates shot volley after volley, something was bound to finally slip through. When the last heretic frigate exploded the Somme, Marne, and Ypres broke away and turned toward Solcrum, which answered the question of whose Makos they would use.
"The Impera has begun descent," Kaidan said.
"Alright. Joker, follow it." Shepard replied. She felt the Normandy give a faint kick of acceleration as they followed the black vessel into Solcrum's near-nonexistent atmosphere. The STG ship followed a few seconds later. Shepard tapped at her console for the open ship-wide comm-line, "All hands, we are descending on Solcrum. Away team, be ready to put boots on the ground in thirty."
The Normandy started to shake as it dove toward Solcrum. As thin as the atmosphere was, there was still something there, enough to put up resistance to something plowing through at high speed.
"Houston, we have a problem," Joker suddenly cut in.
"I am detecting a cruiser-sized vessel on Solcrum's surface," EDI explained.
Shepard froze in place. "Heretic?" she asked, though she knew it could not be anyone else.
"Yes, Commander," EDI replied.
"Shit, it is moving!" Joker added hurriedly.
Shepard almost cursed. The geth had tucked away one last ship to protect their assets. Except it was a cruiser, something frigates ought not to engage while unable to maneuver. Their entry vector was essentially locked. Coming in faster, more sharply, would cause more heating, and potentially damage. At the same time, pulling up incorrectly could likewise cause damage. They could not fire torpedoes while fighting the atmosphere, and even if they could, the Heretics had adapted to them. To make everything even worse, their locked vector was a relatively straight line, making it easy for a cruiser's mass accelerator cannon to snipe them.
"I'm adjusting our entry vector. That thing is not shooting us out of the air." Joker said, and as he did the shaking of the Normandy increased.
Shepard hummed; if they cleared the thermosphere quickly they could decelerate to a velocity where they could maneuver and fight. Maybe between the three of them they could use their nimbleness advantage over the lumbering giant of a ship to whittle it down. If push came to shove, she would order Garrus to fire the Thanix. Admiral Hackett would understand. "EDI, can you give me an external view?"
"Of course, Commander." EDI replied.
The image over the central console changed, displaying a composite panoramic stretch of the Normandy making entry. The Impera was on their left and the STG ship on their right, both kept to a similar angled descent, flaring heat coronas at their bellies. Yet in the distance, right under the Normandy's nose, was the cruiser. EDI flagged it with a bright red overlay that read its heading and relative velocity. It was still quite a long distance away, but that did not matter to a mass accelerator drive.
"The Somme, Marne, and Ypres have begun entry." Kaidan announced.
"They're rushing to be backup," Shepard muttered and turned to the gunner's station, "Garrus, I want torpedoes locked on and ready to fire the moment we are no longer flying entry velocity." She ordered.
"Yes, Commander."
The heat corona began to fade as the Normandy slowly decelerated, but Shepard knew they were still locked to a single vector, and they needed to lose even more speed to be able to maneuver freely.
"Muzzle flash detected," EDI announced.
"Shit!" Joker cursed.
The Normandy's thrusters fired, Joker wanted to force rapid deceleration, to throw the calculations off. Yet the corona refused to vanish, the Normandy was resisting, her hull groaned with the stress. Shepard clutched at the railing in front of her. The Impera and the STG counter-burned as well. The Impera's stabilizer wings extended and then began to glow as they heated in the friction. "Where is the round?" She demanded.
"The shot missed," EDI replied.
"I think I got this, we're stabilizing." Joker said, but even then the hull groaned.
"The Tokyo has entered Solcrum's orbit," EDI announced.
"Torpedoes locked on target, Commander," Garrus said.
Shepard nodded.
"The Tokyo has fired on the heretic cruiser." EDI continued.
"Joker hold our vector," the Tokyo was firing over their head, if they moved now, they could slide into the firing line. Barely two seconds ticked and the cruiser's kinetic barrier flared.
"Impact. The cruiser's kinetic barrier is holding." EDI announced.
"Did you guys see it flare? What the hell is that?" Joker wondered. The hull groaned again as Joker continued a pattern of pulsing counter-burns to decelerate. Then quite suddenly the corona fizzled out. "We're clear!" Joker said. Even as he did, their pitch changed, and with it the view from the cameras before EDI swung them back to show the cruiser again.
"Garrus, now!"
The Normandy bucked as the torpedoes left their launch tubes. On the screen the STG frigate fired theirs. The two pairs streaked at the cruiser, but it turned, exposing its broad-side, and its point-defenses. A second later the laser turrets opened fire. Shepard knew it was coming, but watching their torpedoes be shot out still stung. The STG pair managed to get closer, side-winding as they did, but ultimately the geth point-defenses shot them out too.
"The Tokyo has fired again," EDI announced. "The Somme, Marne, and Ypres fired torpedoes."
For a breathless moment Shepard fervently hoped all that would be enough. Then the cruiser's shields flared again.
"Impact. Kinetic barrier holding. No penetration." EDI said.
The cruiser's point-defenses lit up, and one by one each of the three pairs of torpedoes were likewise annihilated. The heretic cruiser began to turn, to bring its main gun to bear.
Shepard glared at the cruiser; there was no other choice left. "Garrus bring the-"
"Commander, I am detecting a massive energy build-up from the Impera," EDI announced.
Shepard's order died on her lips as she watched a single long turret-barrel drop down from a concealed compartment below the Impera's neck. The barrel split right down the middle, forming a channel, and rails extended from within, locking into place.
"Is that…" Kaidan began.
The rails began to spark as a glowing red mass pooled in the apex between them, momentarily blinding the camera with a lens flare before the filters adjusted. A moment later a red beam erupted from the gun like a solar flare, racing across the distance to the heretic cruiser.
The beam hit the geth cruiser in the midsection, its shields flared, but the beam cut through, sank into the hull, and erupted clear out the other side just before it died. The geth ship swelled around both entry and exit wound. Small fireballs punched additional holes in the hull as they raced out from the impact. Then the ship bulged like a balloon and exploded into a number of large sections.
"Holy shit!" Joker gasped.
Shepard blinked, stunned. It took her another long moment to realize three simple, shocking facts. The Impera was a Thanix frigate. It had gutted that cruiser with a single shot. And they effectively owed their lives to Saren Arterius.
Author Notes: This episode presented a number of challenges. First, this is the first time I ever wrote a space battle scene. This story has a very narrow, tight POV, which meant I had to come up with a way around. Yes, techno-babble and I made the CIC what I think a "Combat Information Center" ought to be, where we never really saw it used in detail. Basically this is an experiment. I hope it is enjoyable.
General Notes:
Command Array – A "command array" is used by lead ships to enable tactical/strategic coordination. The Kilimanjaro being a fleet flagship, has a command array capable of receiving and processing sensory telemetry from every Alliance ship around her, and collating it (through VI assistance) into a tactical map on her CIC. EDI can do this same function; it is one of her "experimental" functions. Basically the Alliance asked can an AI do the job better than a VI? Although it is a heavy draw on her processors, so she could not hack the Geth at the same time. This is my way of getting around the third person super limited POV of this story.
Chapter Notes:
Blast Shutters – Ever notice that the Normandy got metal panels that can close over its windows? I'm using them here, giving them a purpose.
LADAR – Laser Detection and Ranging. These sensors use lasers to scan objects for dimensions, which EDI can then reassemble into a picture, and compare with her databases.