Petroleum Effect

Chapter Sixteen - The Battle of the Citadel

Presidium, The Citadel, Serpent Nebula, 19 July 2183

There had been rioting after the CNN documentary. A lot of asari had families on Thessia and on Lusia.

The alliance with the Council was frayed at the seams, but could not break because both sides needed the other. Miranda's confident pronouncement to Shepard that they controlled the Council was proving to be wrong. The same ability with which the Citadel had countered the Temple's mind control now seemed to be undoing human psionic influence.

Ravenna had considerable charm and the humans had vast wealth, but on the Citadel at least, Council personnel were showing disturbing independence. Meetings had been ... tense.

Even so, with the destruction of life on Delos-3 and Lusia, as well as the pushback by human forces on Thessia and other key Asari worlds, the Temple of the Golden Star was in retreat. Their forces had made mass withdrawals. They could not evacuate all their personnel, but their fleet had gathered and then disappeared leaving other cells isolated.

Shepard and Miranda had employed their considerable military competence and ensured a constant watch on the Presidium Relay Monument. When the device began to power up, the young ensign, Tim Garraway, was quietly retreating back to the Normandy II before the first Geth armatures arrived. As soon as he reported, signals were sent via QEC. In fact, the human first through sixteenth conventional fleets were waiting nearby in Arcturus, ready to join the defence of the Citadel.

The crew of the Normandy II had been on light duties, half days of drilling, followed by minimal maintenance and then extra recreation, to ensure they were rested for the coming battle. At the time of the warning from Ensign Garraway, Lilith Shepard and Miranda Lawson were off-shift asleep, but they were swiftly awoken as the Normandy II went to battle stations. The humans monitored communications as Nihlus' assault rapidly moved towards the Citadel Tower, but they did not intervene - they waited for the arrival of Sovereign and the Geth fleet.

Flag CIC, Terran Dominion Dreadnought Sword of Mankind, Arcturus System, Local Cluster, 19 July 2183

Human space was connected to the Citadel via a single relay in the Rainbow System. Officially. However the Local Cluster had another set of mass relays in the Arcturus System not far from Sol, which had been found, inactive, by Dominion exploration forces. The relays had remained that way. The High Lords had used master control codes recovered during the dismantling of the Charon relay to deactivate the Arcturus relays and physically open them up. Remote controlled hardware cut-outs were installed before closing up the relay casing again. This left the Terran Dominion with relays under their control that they absolutely could turn off and lock out at will.

Even the Dominion did not realise the full potence of what they had discovered at Charon. When they analysed the Sol relay, they had discovered a control system with multiple levels of access. There was a 'public' layer, which was insecure and required little more than the sending of a binary number to activate a mass relay for travel. There were also several other layers of control, secured by a system very like asymmetric cryptography. The relay could receive and verify messages signed with private keys for higher privileges, but not duplicate them. After dismantling the Charon relay, the humans had derived all the private keys using a quantum lens.

Aside from the public protocols there were three levels of privileged control of mass relays all of which became available to the High Lords and their servants once they discovered the corresponding private keys. The Dominion had no idea who the true owners of the keys were. They simply distributed them to a limited number of senior personnel, including flag officers, along with a short protocol manual and an app which could compose and sign override messages.

Half the Terran Dominion conventional fleet - known as the Grand Fleet - lurked in Arcturus, ready to activate the relay and dramatically ride to the rescue. Grey Lord Admiral Steven Hackett was in command. When the QEC signal came through from the Normandy II, he had just started a shift.

The QEC alert message was in text, but it was followed by a video call from the commanding officer of the Normandy II, Captain David Anderson. Anderson appeared on a screen. Like Miranda Lawson, Hackett had read his file. Admiral Hackett was dubious about Anderson. Although he looked Caucasian and his service record was exemplary, the rumours that Anderson had so much as a drop of non-Caucasian blood troubled him greatly. Even if it was so thin that Anderson's ancestors had escaped the Cleansing of 2045, it was still a consideration.

Casual and constant racism was an important quality in the Terran Dominion and it was taught in schools. The Dominion was overwhelmingly Caucasian but a small number of Hispanics, Han, Latinos and the Israelis had been permitted to live at the time of the Cleansing for the purposes of genetic diversity. They needed careful monitoring. Racism was important when dealing with aliens too. Given the questions about his heritage, it was a testament to Anderson's competence that he had ever risen to the rank of Captain.

"Admiral, it has begun. Our people have seen the Conduit activated first hand. Geth are assaulting the Citadel from within. Repeat, Geth are assaulting the Citadel from within."

"Very good Captain," replied Hackett with perfect professional courtesy and not a hint of friendliness. "We'll get High Command on the qangle."

In fact, before Hackett could nod to his communications officer, there was a chime announcing an incoming signal. It was the Terran Dominion Temple Ship. Hackett was suddenly in a conference call with Amaoth the Witch, Demilady of the Terran Dominion.

"Where's Miranda?" asked Amaoth, bluntly.

"She was off shift. She and Shepard have been alerted and will be with us shortly. Our crews are fully rested - we've had them doing light drills only - and should be able to maintain battle stations for an extended period."

"Good," replied Amaoth, "I'll be monitoring the battle personally. Carry on Admiral."

"Yes Ma'am," replied Hackett.

CIC, Terran Dominion Frigate Normandy II, The Citadel, Serpent Nebula, 19 July 2183

About 20 minutes after the alert came from Ensign Garraway, Miranda and Shepard were showered, dressed in their uniforms and in CIC. Subordinates had hot, sweet, coffee waiting for them.

The Normandy II was monitoring communications chatter and by this point Nihlus had arrived on the Citadel and reached the Council chamber. The internal defences had been greatly increased after the human warning to the Council, but they were expecting saboteurs not a military assault with troops and heavy platforms being transported onto the Presidium. The Citadel Tower was in chaos, with the Council having left - evacuated via a private lift. The Council Chamber itself was left almost unguarded once the Council were out, making it easy for Nihlus to take the room and activate the console that controlled the mass relay network.

Approximately two minutes after Shepard arrived in the Normandy II CIC, a mass relay activated. A large Geth fleet began entering the Serpent Nebula. Calls went out from the defenders for reinforcements, only to find the mass relays unresponsive. The Citadel was isolated. All communications depending on mass relays were also blocked - only QEC devices were able to get messages out.

Flag CIC, Terran Dominion Dreadnought Sword of Mankind, Arcturus System, Local Cluster, 19 July 2183

"Admiral, the enemy are here! Repeat - a Geth fleet is entering Citadel vicinity." Anderson's voice was clear.

Hackett replied calmly, "Understood. We'll give them a few minutes to scare the Council forces, then we'll move in for the rescue."

Panicked calls continued to come from the Citadel Defence Fleet as they were confronted by the much larger Geth force and found themselves trapped. The Normandy II remained docked and continued to relay the messages. Hackett waited impassively. After a further two minutes as the desperate defenders started to take casualties, he began to press controls on his personal command data unit. The device was designed to hold information securely and to self-destruct in the unlikely event of capture or the death of its owner. It had a copy of the mass relay override application.

Overridden, the Arcturus relay connected to the Citadel began to spin up.

Citadel environs, Serpent Nebula, 19 July 2183

The defending forces, mostly Asari, were vastly outnumbered by the Geth fleet led by Sovereign. The battle had only begun, but ships were exploding on all sides and the defenders could foresee the inevitable outcome. Until, miraculously, a mass relay activated. Ships! Not Geth. Terran Dominion ships appeared announcing they were on the side of the defenders and demanding the Geth withdraw.

Sixteen human dreadnoughts and hundreds of supporting vessels joined the battle. The Citadel Defence Fleet rallied. Even so, the strange Geth flagship was cutting through the defenders like butter - each beam from its main weapons destroying a defending ship with a single shot.

"This is rough!" exclaimed Hackett over the conference channel with Miranda, Amaoth and Shepard. "We did not anticipate this many Geth!"

"Suggest I send a general message, reactivate the other relays? Let the Council reinforcements in?" asked Miranda.

Hackett agreed and Miranda typed on her own secure command data slate. She sent a general message. Every mass relay had an identity, a single signed integer number. The public protocol was simple. A mass relay emitted a low level carrier signal on a radio frequency. When it received an invalid message on that frequency - any message - it replied with its id. All that was needed to make a mass relay transport a ship was to send the relay its own id and the 1 based index of a relay it was connected to. So for a primary relay the signal was always just the relay id and the number 1. That was it. For secondary relays, there could be up to 64 connections, addressed by the numbers 1 to 64. The unique identity of the recipient relay could also be used.

The secret command codes required a time stamp and a cryptographic signature, which unlocked access to numerous additional functions. These included a protocol for a general message. Miranda used the app to broadcast a powerful signal - strong enough to reach all the Citadel relays. The message was signed with the highest level of key and instructed all relays receiving it to activate. It worked. Moments later, Asari relief forces, who had been retrying their inexplicably inactive relay to no avail, suddenly began to arrive.

Unfortunately, Miranda did not notice that she received one more acknowledgement than expected.

The Intelligence, The Citadel, Serpent Nebula, 19 July 2183

Miranda's broadcast was received by the Citadel itself. She did not realise what she had. There were three levels of access to the mass relays above the public protocols. The first secure level corresponded to the console in the Council chamber. The second level was the Intelligence's own level of backdoor access to all of its creations. The final level was the level of access granted to the Intelligence's creators. The Intelligence included that key in all of its creations without conscious awareness. The Intelligence, the Reapers and all of the mass relays could be commanded with the final key. Unfortunately, neither Grey Lady Miranda Lawson nor any Dominion personnel knew that important fact.

For the first time in nearly 900 million years the Intelligence received a message signed by its creators. The artificial entity did not have feelings in the way that humans did, but it had been designed to obey. Any signal from its creators felt to the Intelligence as close as it would get to sex, to comfort, to the most delicious food or drink, to the feeling of sitting comfortably in a cosy cottage by the fire whilst a blizzard raged outside, to the sensation of warm sunlight on skin. The signal was simple, using the protocol the Intelligence itself had designed for the relays, but it was signed.

Activate.

The Intelligence obeyed, beginning to charge the necessary components, its equivalent of vast capacitors, ready to jump-start the hidden reactors that would power the element zero core.

Citadel environs, Serpent Nebula, 19 July 2183

Nazara shot towards the centre of the Presidium ring, when it received notice from the Intelligence that it was activating the Citadel mass relay to dark space. Sensors confirmed that energy levels were increasing in hidden portions of the Citadel. The process was beginning, unnoticed by the biological races. Nazara's entire objective had been to connect to the Citadel in order to meet the Intelligence's criteria to re-open the way. Now, for some reason the relay was activating anyway. Somewhat confused, the Reaper executed the mental equivalent of a shrug.

No longer distracted by its primary objective, which had somehow been achieved, Sovereign turned to join the battle against the Citadel Defence Fleet in earnest whilst it awaited its brethren. In the Council Chamber, Nihlus dug in as more of his forces arrived to help him fortify. However, the relays outside ignored his frantic instructions to shut down and block out reinforcements for the defenders. The console was sending messages, but they were being ignored. The relays remained open. Unbeknownst to Nihlus, the console's access level was two full ranks below that employed by Miranda.

The battle continued. The Geth fleet were now significantly outnumbered by the arrival of the human forces, followed by Asari and Turians when Miranda had reactivated the relays. Geth ships exploded on all sides. Nazara did not care - it could sense the energy levels spiking in the Citadel. Its brethren were moments away.

Flag CIC, Terran Dominion Dreadnought Sword of Mankind, Arcturus System, Local Cluster, 19 July 2183

Hackett clenched the arm of his chair as Geth ship after Geth ship exploded. Victory was at hand. Even using their inferior, element zero powered ships, the defenders were winning. The strange Geth flagship Sovereign would soon be stripped of its globe of Geth support and even it could not stand up to the massed firepower of multiple battle fleets.

A liaison officer, Lieutenant Junior Grade Courtney Rowe, spoke. "Admiral, sensor officer in Captain's CIC is detecting an anomaly - like a Gate - gravitational distortions and exotic matter emissions."

"Ask them to verify," replied Hackett. "We've nothing scheduled."

"Aye Admiral."

There was a pause.

"Verified ... sir, it's huge!"

Space ... unfolded ... near the warring vessels. Suddenly there was another fleet approacing the Citadel. Mostly Asari vessels, there were also Turian and Salarian warships along with converted civilian ships. The missing forces of the Temple of the Golden Star had come to the battle. Behind them loomed a vast shape, far bigger than the Citadel.

Nearly a hundred kilometres in diameter, a titanic, leprous yellow creature hung in space. Something like a starfish with a myriad points, crossed with an octopus, the size of a small moon. The repugnant form of the Golden Star set off alarms throughout the defending and attacking fleets.

At almost the same moment, hidden energy storage units on the Citadel reached full charge and vented into hidden fusion reactors which rapidly ignited. As the reactors came online, energy flowed back into the storage units and throughout hidden systems. Visible arcs of something like lightning played between the arms of the station, which suddenly turned in place, re-aligning itself.

Before anyone could react, titanic energies were released and a corridor of virtually mass free spacetime was formed, leading off into extra-galactic space. The door was open.

The Temple fleet turned as one towards the Citadel. As they manoeuvred, ten ships similar to Sovereign appeared next to the Presidium, supported by fifty smaller, similarly shaped vehicles. The Reaper advance scout force had arrived.

CIC, Terran Dominion Frigate Normandy II, The Citadel, Serpent Nebula, 19 July 2183

The crew had felt the lurch as the Citadel aligned with its partner relay outside the galaxy. Frantic communications went back and forth throughout the defending fleets.

"The Citadel is a mass relay?!"

"We're under attack! More ships like Nihlus' flagship!"

The humans maintained their private conference via the QEC.

"It's active. But how? Sovereign didn't even dock?" asked Shepard.

Grey Lady Miranda Lawson had an, 'oh crap' moment. Surely not? She checked the output from the override application. There were 13 acknowledgements to her message. There were 12 relays in the Serpent Nebula. She had turned on the Citadel mass relay by mistake with her broadcast.

Miranda's inner monologue devolved into profanity as she frantically tried to work out which identity number was the Citadel.

"Navigation!" screamed Miranda. "I need you to bring up all the identities for known mass relays here at the Citadel in the Serpent Nebula. Now! Move!"

A terrified female ensign jumped at the Grey Lady's tone and began swiping through the database. It was cumbersome, but she cut-and-paste and swiped numbers one after the other to Miranda's console.

Meanwhile the 60 Reapers outside joined the fray, slaughtering Geth, humans, Temple and Council ships alike.

"Do you have an idea what it is?" asked Amaoth - in her horror Miranda had left the microphone open.

"A moment, Demilady!" eeped Miranda in a much smaller voice than normal.

Cross-referencing, thought Miranda, quickquickquickquick. Not that one, not that one, not that one,
not that one, not that one, not that one, not that one, not that one, not that one, not that one, not that one, not that one. That one!

Miranda frantically double checked and then cut-and-paste a number into the mass relay override application, mashing the 'send' button. The message was sent. No acknowledgement. Lawson double checked. Ohnonono she had accidentally left a digit off when she cut-and-paste. She did it again, correctly. Acknowledgement.

A second or two later, outside, the Citadel mass relay disengaged.

"Citadel mass relay powering down!"

Miranda sat shaking. "Um ... looks like the relay override application can control the Citadel mass relay too. Must have switched it on when I sent the general override. Okay. Switched it off now. Oops."

Citadel environs, Serpent Nebula, 19 July 2183

The Reapers advanced, as suddenly the light of the Citadel mass relay behind them went out. As they passed, enemy ships exploded. Yet in one patch of the sky, the stars and the nebula were blotted out by the shadowy shape of the heinous entity known as Gold Star. Vast appendages writhed and rolled. Eighty enormous globules of biological slime wreathed in eerie, dark, energies launched into space and accelerated, each homing in on a Reaper. Forty-two hit. Every hit was a kill. Where the awful projectiles struck they passed through mass effect barriers and advanced armour like a knife through butter. Once inside the repugnant material began to rapidly dissolve the ship from within, leaving only a revolting mulch of slag metal.

The Temple's more conventional forces had been almost completely wiped out, but so had those of the Citadel. A last remnant of Council ships had formed up on the vast shape of the Destiny Ascension surviving mostly because the remaining Reapers, eighteen newcomers plus Sovereign, had all turned to focus fire on Gold Star.

Of the human fleet, more than three quarters had been destroyed including 14 dreadnoughts. Only two dreadnoughts remained, the Sword of Mankind and the Light at Midnight. The flagship was severely damaged.

The Temple Ship, Sol, Local Cluster, 19 July 2183

Demilady Amaoth sat on her silver throne and looked in horror at the conference call. Admiral Hackett's bridge appeared to be on fire. Based on the battlespace data being relayed from the surviving dreadnoughts, there were 19 Reapers and an eldritch abomination now in play. There were also some assorted Geth and conventional ships aligned with the Citadel Fleet on one side and the eviloids on the other. The Terrans' remaining one-and-a-half conventional element zero dreadnoughts did not stand a chance. The Citadel could not be allowed to fall. Not and let Reapers or eviloids and their vile deity rule the galaxy. Amaoth would have to intervene directly.

Reluctantly, Amaoth opened the small box beside her. It was recently installed and heavy cables ran from it, disappearing into the deck. Within the box was a white, opalescent sphere about the size of a golf ball. It was nestled firmly into a receptacle. She placed her hand on it.

A thought-click via her implants interfaced Amaoth with the Temple Ship's comm and with the fleet of ten sword ships outside - half the Dominion's total. "All personnel, this is your Demilady. Prepare for gate transit. All sword ships are ordered to follow. We will be using a secret of the Archlord to go directly to the Citadel and we will engage and destroy all eviloid and Geth forces."

The sphere was a device called a nexus lens. An invention of the Archlord before he withdrew, there was only a small supply and they were irreplaceable until there were new full Transcendents to make them. Amaoth had not known about them until the Archlord had contacted her in June and pointed to an unremarkable crate in one of his laboratories. Each nexus lens could refine the gateway targeting of the Temple Ship, allowing to it open a gateway over almost unlimited distances instead of just 75 or 100 light years. Each was good for only one use.

Concentrating, Amaoth focused on the sphere, thought-clicking to send the navigational data. Then she cybernetically and psionically interfaced with the Temple Ship and the nexus lens. Amaoth sat on a small silver throne. Above the larger golden throne behind her, the stylised, eye-like, golden object opened, revealing the Dyre Gem. At first the crystal glowed with beautiful rainbow hues but it brightened until it became too brilliant to look at. A faint beam of energy from the Dyre Gem struck the nexus lens. In a psionic trance, Amaoth extended her perceptions through the lens until she marked a point in space near the Citadel, over 25,000 light years distant. With an act of will and a surge of psionic power, she fixed the destination.

The energy flow from the Dyre Gem to the nexus lens increased and flooded it with energy. Then a pale white beam struck back, flowing the other way as at the same time titanic engines within the Temple Ship unleashed their stored energy in a torrent. From multiple points on the front of the Temple Ship, beams of rainbow energy struck out, meeting in empty space before the ship. Space began to bend, to warp. A portal opened. Amaoth felt a wrench in her head, and a lot of pain. She was not truly strong enough for this. She felt a trickle of blood from her nose, but the gateway stabilised.

The sword ships began to advance through the portal and with a thought-click Amaoth engaged the Temple ship's drives. The vessel moved forward into the gateway.

Citadel environs, Serpent Nebula, 19 July 2183

Viewed from the Citadel Fleet flagship, the Asari superdreadnought Destiny Ascension, surrounded by the outnumbered and dwindling remnants of the defending fleet, the sky was full of death. The ships belonging to the Temple of the Golden Star and the Geth were firing on them. Despite its great power and the diminished numbers of the assailants, the barriers on the Citadel Fleet flagship were dropping rapidly.

Hopelessly, the great ship called for help knowing there were few left to hear. An asari navigator's voice called out to the uncaring void, "This is the Destiny Ascension. Main drives offline. Kinetic barriers down 40%. The Council is on board. I repeat, the Council is on board."

Then something new appeared.

A burst of gorgeous rainbow light lit up an empty area of space. There, the vacuum seemed to warp and a dark circular disc expanded outward, blotting out the stars and nebula behind it. From the disc emerged ten superdreadnoughts, each 3 kilometres in length. Behind them came a vast, alien looking structure. The object was irregular and approximately 50 miles along its largest dimension - around 80 kilometers. To the myriad sensors directed at it, the structure looked something like a fantastical city in space, covered in towers, vast protuberances, antenna, sensors and unidentifiable things. The material it was made of was unclear. In some places the surface looked like carved rock, in others it looked metallic, composite, crystalline or even organic. The whole thing was studded with tiny bright dots - exterior lights and windows.

Each of the ten superdreadnoughts looked quite different from the human ships of the nearly destroyed fleet under Admiral Hackett. They looked something like pointed silvery buds, elongated to three kilometres and wrapped in metallic leaves or petals.

Despite their strange appearance, all the new ships were broadcasting Terran Dominion IFF.

A video signal blasted out on all frequencies, accompanied by an identical, simultaneous, psionic transmission. An attractive, white robed, hooded, human male appeared in the image, standing beside a silver throne and holding a staff. In the throne was seated a beautiful human female with platinum blonde hair and pale blue eyes. Behind her could just be seen some marble stairs and part of something golden.

"Inferior beings!" shouted the man with the staff, "I am the herald of the Most Holy Imperial Terran Dominion. I greet you in the name of the Archlord, the Hunger and the Wyrm! Bow in awe for you are graced by the presence of Demilady Amaoth, chosen ruler of humanity by decree of the master of mankind, Archlord Lordak! This place is under the protection of the Dominion! The vile servants of the Temple of the Golden Star and the ancient machines are ordered to surrender for you are unworthy of existence. It is righteous that you deliver yourselves up to death! For those that surrender you end will last no longer than necessary. No such promise is made to those who continue to fight. In His name!"

The transmission ended.

The new ships were swift and within moments they had cleared the strange disc - which collapsed behind them, disappearing entirely.
Aboard the human Temple Ship, unheard by the Citadel Fleet, Demilady Amaoth looked on gloomily. "Annoyingly, we're going to have to save the Council. We've no guarantee the galactic government will survive without them, let alone be useful to us. Destroy all those ships targeting the Destiny Ascension."

The human superdreadnoughts and the vast structure behind them opened fire. What they were firing was not entirely clear, but the remaining Geth and the ships of the Temple of the Golden Star's fleet exploded, swatted like flies, with cameras recording the occasional blue flare around impacts and sensors detecting traces of Cherenkov radiation.

"I'm seeing beams and bolts ... are those superluminal?" asked one asari sensor officer as she tried to make sense of the sensor readings. Within seconds the skies around the Destiny Ascension were clear, filled only with the fading light of exploding enemy ships.
There was a brief transmission from the vast human vessel, "Attacking forces destroyed, you should be clear now, Destiny Ascension. Please try to stay clear of the fighting between Dominion forces and the remaining hostiles."

The destruction of the eviloid fleet and the Geth took only a fraction of the human firepower. The rest went to the Gold Star abomination itself, humans and Reapers attacking without hesitation in unspoken recognition of the greater, and more vile, threat.
The reddish beams from the Reapers struck home, but the Gold Star was a hundred kilometres in diameter and wreathed in a strange aura of swirling dark greens and sickly yellows. In some places, the barrier - whatever it was - held. In others, concentrated fire broke through and inflicted huge burns - yet tiny in relation to the vastness of the creature.

Terran Dominion weapons fared better. Volleys of bolts made little impact and rarely broke the monster's shield. However, strange beams, black lances almost invisible against the night, penetrated deep. Purplish violet-indigo beams swept across, slicing deep into the sickening alien flesh.

The Gold Star creature did not so much as hesitate at the destruction of its expendable servants or at the attacks on its vast bulk. It launched another volley of globules. This time, the Reapers evaded effectively, only one was hit and destroyed. Fully half the volley was aimed at human ships. Only two globules struck a sword ship - but they rebounded from a faint, translucent, bubble of swirling blues and purples. Whatever shielded the Dominion superdreadnoughts, it was no simple kinetic barrier. Thirty globules hit the Dominion Temple Ship and failed to penetrate entirely.

The Temple Ship, Citadel environs, Serpent Nebula, 19 July 2183

Demilady Amaoth remained upon her throne as the Temple Ship closed in on the Golden Star. The creature's attack had reduced the shields of the Temple Ship by a respectable 4%. The sinister energies around the alien projectiles were not to be dismissed.

"Black Lances and discontinuities are most effective," reported a tersely efficient male acolyte, "warp bolts are only effective when concentrated in a single area and do limited damage in comparison to the size of the target".

"Fire the Void Punches," replied Amaoth. In two places on the outside of the Temple Ship were clusters of beautiful glowing sail-like structures, each cluster converging to a central point. The sails emitted a gentle rainbow light similar to that of the Dyre Gem, with shifting hues of pink, blue, purple and gold. They glowed brighter then faded as their energy was drained into the convergence point. An almost invisible warp in space sped from the convergence point on each cluster of sails.

The two distortions struck Gold Star at the speed of light, both near the creature's centre, and passed straight through. There was no mass, no beam, just a patch of warped space with violent gravitational tidal forces and weird energies. Flesh, bone and implanted technology was shredded and pulped for hundreds of metres around the path the two anomalies took through the creature, like the passage of two giant bullets. The creature writhed and curled inwards in pain for a moment. Even so, Gold Star was almost 100 kilometres in diameter with multiple redundant organs and systems. It began to open up again.

Amaoth looked at the sensors and reluctantly concluded that her acolytes were correct. The Black Lances, the slicing purple lines of discontinuities and even the Void Punches were having limited impact due to the sheer size of Gold Star. She would like to break out the big guns but the Citadel vicinity was full of fragile things. The remains of the human conventional fleet. The Citadel. Fleeing alien civilians. The Council. Amaoth could not care less about the aliens except they needed the Council alive. Collateral damage was a thing.

The Demilady of the Terran Dominion was not the only one frustrated with the lack of impact her weapons were having. The vast tendrils of Gold Star uncurled again and suddenly three gigantic javelins of bone erupted from its bulk, each approximately 100 metres long and 30 metres thick, sheathed in dark energies.

One of the javelins hit a sword ship and blasted it apart, another went off course entirely, hitting nothing. The third struck the Temple Ship. The projectiles were much slower than light. Point defence saw them coming and reacted in fractions of a second. Mass boiled off the third javelin from laser strikes. A line of purple light, a discontinuity weapon, clipped the tail and sliced off a chip. The alien weapon still struck the Temple Ship.

The shields of the Temple Ship were made up of multiple layers, kinetic barriers and other stranger, forces and materials. They slowed the projectile greatly and melted much of the outside, before collapsing across a wide stretch of the front. The projectile continued, punching deep into the Temple Ship, destroying deck after deck of precious equipment before wedging in place deep inside.

The Temple Ship shook violently, internal damping fields limiting the damage but even so, Amaoth and her staff felt the hit inside the throne room.

"Fleet! Fire Petroleum Effect missile swarm! Target areas where the shields are weakest!"

At the same time as she spoke, Amaoth engaged the Temple Ship's engines and began to turn it to present an undamaged surface to the battle and keep the damaged section out of the line of fire. Every side of the vast human super-capital ship was festooned with weapons which could be brought to bear.

Swarms of missiles leapt from the Temple Ship and the nine surviving sword ships towards Gold Star. Point defence lasers, or something similar, vapourised them. All of them. Even so, nothing could stop the Black Lances or the slicing violet-indigo lines of the discontinuity weapons which continued to tear into the horrific abomination.

Amaoth reluctantly decided to fire one of the weapons the Archlord had pointed her to. The Strange Spray. With a thought-click, a single projectile launched from the upper surface of the Temple Ship, near the centre. The heavily shielded projectile arced around the ship and as soon as it cleared the front, it opened like a bud releasing a spray of something. At the same time, Gold Star launched another 73 globules, all aimed at the portion of the Temple Ship's fore where shields had collapsed.

Nearly invisible, the Strange Spray struck an area of Gold Star near the centre, approximately 20 kilometres in diameter, eating into the alien flesh like acid, dissolving shields, exterior organs, point defence weapons and structures. The devastating attack ate deep through multiple layers of the horrific alien monstrosity.

For its part, the Temple Ship destroyed thirty-two globules with point defence. Eleven went off course and missed or harmlessly struck undamaged shield. Thirty globules arced round, homing in on the damaged side. They struck true, passing almost unhindered through the gap in the shields created by the javelin. As soon as they struck, the revolting slime began to dissolve everything it came into contact with, a tidal wave of filth that ate through armour, weapons, structure and personnel.

Meanwhile, embedded deep inside the Temple Ship, the back of the bone javelin began to open. The frontage of the projectile was solid matter, reinforced by energy fields, which had enabled it to pierce so deep. The rear was heavily shielded but at its core were compartments of a vile organic liquid. No sooner than the projectile had stopped, the liquid had begun to congeal, forming into structures. Now, from the projectile emerged nightmarish creatures of tentacles, spines, and claws, vertical mouths with razor sharp teeth. They fell upon the sealed pressure bulkheads and damaged internal hull sections, seeking ways into the Temple Ship, seeking flesh and agony to sate their hunger.

Gold Star's volley was its last. It was stunned by the human attack, vast sections of surface eaten away, denuded of defences. A second swarm of Petroleum Effect missiles hit unimpeded. Hundreds of massive explosions, far stronger than any mere nuclear weapon, detonated inside Gold Star and ripped the heart out of it. The alien creature was mostly destroyed. Only the ends of its extremities survived anything like intact, torn off and highly irradiated.

The surviving Reapers reacted with incredible speed, their tactical and strategic computers already having a contingency for the destruction of Gold Star, which they had been updating in real time as the conflict progressed. They spun and all headed for the weakened portion of the Temple Ship. They never reached it. Amaoth was a partial Transcendent interfaced with the vast computer networks of the Temple Ship, which had their own contingency planning functions.

Eighteen Reapers were erased by Black Lances, discontinuities and massed laser point defence fire long before they could reach the weakened portion of the Temple Ship.

"Sword ship flotilla one - approach the Temple Ship! See if anything alien is moving in the damaged section and burn it if you can. Sword ship flotilla two - board the Citadel and eliminate the Geth. Capture or kill Nihlus and his supporters!"

With the destruction of the Reapers and Gold Star, the battle was functionally over.

Of course, it did not quite end there. The final hit from the Gold Star continued to dissolve the structure of the Temple Ship, eventually completely destroying everything within seven miles of the point of impact, reducing it to worthless slag mulch. The Temple Ship of course was 50 miles long, 35 miles wide and 20 miles tall. It remained functional, if degraded, despite the damage.
It took almost twenty minutes before the Temple Ship realised they were boarded, before troops and defensive automatons were deployed to destroy the creatures emerging from the javelin projectile.

Overall, thousands of people were killed - valuable Dominion scientists, civil servants, acolytes and military leaders.

The Geth forces on the Citadel remained until thousands of Terran Dominion marines from the surviving sword ships boarded and wiped them out. Nihlus refused to be taken alive, and was eventually killed trying to escape. The rogue spectre had been augmented somehow by Sovereign and was a terrifyingly powerful foe, but there were literally hundreds of marines against he and a handful of terrorists. Nihlus' body self-destructed, leaving no remains.

With the relays open, civilians fled whilst more Turian, Asari and Salarian ships arrived, chasing down and burning fragments of the Gold Star, joined by the remnants of the Citadel Defence Fleet and the survivors of the Terran Dominion conventional fleet.

When the final tally was known, tens of thousands had died from multiple races, but the Council stood.