Post by Cikarian on Apr 11, 2012 4:25:14 GMT 1
It's no secret that many people aren't thrilled with the ending of Mass Effect 3, and feel that it could have been any number of other things. Primary among those complaints seems to be that any Shepard could achieve the same endings- that it wasn't personal enough- and that the choices we made had no true effect on the final battle. Consequently, I wrote up this alternative for my own Markus Shepard, whose story will be known in A Gunslinger's Flock when I get that project more fully underway. Though AGF will explore all the nuances of his journey to this conclusion, a few things need to be known to make sense of this ending.
Canon choices:
-Markus Shepard saved the Council, at the cost of a portion of the Third Alliance Fleet.
-The rachni queen was spared.
-Captain Kirrahe was rescued from Virmire.
-Anderson was- temporarily- humanity's Council representative until he was called back to Earth for a defense summit and promotion.
-Markus blew the Collector base into space dust, earning the ire of the Illusive Man, with whom he never saw eye to eye.
-Consequently, he and Miranda were never on good footing either, especially after Jack's arrival.
-Speaking of Miranda again- she died in the Collector base.
-The krogan are unified under Urdnot Wrex, and the genophage has been cured.
-Urdnot Grunt still leads Aralakh Company, though their numbers have been depleted by battle.
-The quarians and the geth were reconciled, thanks to Shepard, Tali'Zorah, and Legion.
-James Vega made N7, with Shepard's recommendation.
-Dr. Karin Chakwas was brought aboard the Normandy.
-Javik was retrieved from Eden Prime.
Canon-altering choices:
-Wrex and Liara were deployed to save Kaidan Alenko on Virmire, and did so successfully, while Shepard, Garrus, and Tali managed to reinforce Ashley Williams in time to save her as well. (Author's note: This one wonders why the hell this was not an option in-game...)
-Garrus Vakarian was made into a Spectre shortly before the Reapers' invasion of Palaven, thanks to Shepard's recommendation.
-An open (albeit crippled) geth platform was nearby for Legion to copy its runtimes and data into before being uploaded to the geth servers. Legion remains active, while the geth gained individual self-awareness thanks to the Reaper code.
-Zaeed Massani regained control of the Blue Suns after Shepard disrupted several of their operations in the Terminus Systems. Aria forwarded him intel on Vido Santiago's location in exchange for occasional favors... one such favor including backing Shepard.
-Mordin Solus survived Tuchanka thanks to his assistant, Maelon, who sacrificed himself to cure the genophage and atone for the barbarous nature of his earlier experiments to that same end.
-Kelly Chambers was recruited back onto the Normandy, along with Ken Donnelly and Gabby Chambers. How Shepard pulled this one off is all-but unknown, but some suspect it may have been due to some Bond-like wrangling.
-With a little bit of careful wording, Shepard also managed to “wrangle” both Jack and Tali into his bed... together.
Be aware. This is nothing if not a Pyrrhic ending.
Hammer Company was crumbling on the threshold of the Reapers' Conduit. The charred, twisted husks of what had formerly been Alliance tanks smoldered where they lay, scattered by the defending Reaper's ultraviolet-spectrum beam weapons. The air was thick and acrid with the stench of charred bodies- human, turian, krogan, salarian, and asari alike lay blown apart with equal irreverence, the cracked and buckled streets of Earth drenched in the blood of her would-be reclaimers. Even the rachni that their queen had committed to Shepard's service had been torn apart, their spewed acid a poor match for the ballistic weaponry of their indoctrinated kin.
But one force was still holding their ground, protected from the brunt of the Reaper's cannon fire by a handful of buildings- or what had once been buildings. Shepard's strike team was holding the line.
“Banshees! Comin' in from the left!” Zaeed called out over the chattering din of battle, squeezing off a burst from his battered Avenger at the lead abomination. Its barriers rippled under the hail of gunfire, but the creature- along with a half-dozen of its kin- continued to stagger toward the squad's position, biotic flares lancing through the soot-choked skies as they closed ground. The veteran mercenary, along with the half-dozen Alliance marines who had heard him, scrambled for cover in the face of the corrupted asari counterattack-
-while a trio of biotic barriers lanced out from the center of the squad's formation, deflecting their warp fields to sputter harmlessly and die out. Another hail of gunfire erupted as the marines ducked out from their positions, tearing into the banshees' ranks- and chewing through their barriers long enough for Shepard's fireteam to fire off a volley of sniper shots that decimated their number.
“I really... really hate those things,” Garrus muttered, cycling a fresh thermal clip into his Valiant rifle and sighting in on a straggling banshee that hadn't yet made it to the killzone.
“Me too, but that's some damn nice shooting,” Ashley replied, laying prone on a shallow embankment and scanning the street ahead. A motley force of Reaper troops was gathering, probably about two hundred meters down... but they weren't pushing the assault yet. What were they waiting for?
“'Good' shooting, LC,” Shepard corrected, following the barrel of the Lieutenant Commander's rifle and studying the indoctrinated horde waiting ahead. “Nice shooting's what you do on top of the Presidium. With bottles.” Leaving the sharpshooters to scout out targets, their commander crossed the buckled asphalt to the rest of his squad.
“We've got another wave massing. How's everyone holding on ammo?” Shepard asked, taking in the faces of the team he had led into this meat grinder of an offensive. Tali and Mordin were busy performing emergency repairs on EDI's chassis within the crater their forces had been using as a gun nest, overseen by Legion, whose optic array swept almost restlessly across the open terrain around them in search of a new target to engage. Wrex was hauling a pair of wounded marines toward the foxhole, his superior bulk and stature enabling him to move them with ease. Grunt's armor was rent and torn in at least half a dozen places, but none of the wounds beneath looked severe enough to put him out of the action. James had moved to the front line, alongside Zaeed, and appeared to be directing a fireteam to move forward and secure the supplies that they had left behind when their forward position had been overrun. Jacob was among them, coordinating lanes of fire and possible retreat vectors.
The biotics were grouped together, nestled securely between a force of nearly two dozen troopers of various origin. Energy seemed to be boiling off of Samara, her usually-dispassionate expression slowly returning now that the loathsome banshees had been dealt with. Liara was panting, her stance uncharacteristically wide and heavy. She had run herself ragged trying to protect the forward teams, and the strain was definitely showing. Jack, on the other hand, seemed to be in her element, a sardonic, almost sadistic grin spreading across her features as she noticed the gathering forces in the distance as well. Kaidan was crouched low over a turian who had taken a bad hit earlier in the fighting, the expression on his face darkening as he stood. Sylas must have bought it.
“Not good, Shepard,” Grunt growled, tossing down his Claymore and picking up a discarded battle rifle. “We're gonna be down to pistols before long.”
“Your weapon design is inherently weak,” Javik observed dryly, shouldering his particle rifle to emphasize his point. “Our empire moved past ballistic weapons long before the end of our cycle. You cannot destroy a factory that does not exist, or disrupt a shipment that is never made; once we were armed, there was nothing our enemies could do to deny us.” The Prothean glared downrange, not toward the Reaper infantry, but toward the Conduit. “We should break cover and advance while we still have a chance. The longer we are trapped here, the weaker we will be for the final push.”
“I know. But we can't move our wounded. They'd never make it out of here without support. Anderson's convoy is still coming,” Shepard replied, locking eyes with the Prothean's dual-pupiled array.
“Then leave them with the weapons we can spare. They would cover our retreat while we ended the fight!”
“No one gets left behind, Javik,” Shepard countered, glancing over to the next crater, where most of the wounded lay. It was true- they were unlikely to make it without medical support that they simply couldn't provide, and every minute that they weren't advancing through the Conduit cost the fleet overhead a dozen ships... and a hundred more soldiers their lives.
But leaving them to die at the hands of the indoctrinated? Leaving them defenseless, just to push a few more feet toward the Reaper's killzone? Without the Mako platoon that Anderson was spearheading through contested ground, the odds of them making it to the Conduit- especially on foot- were practically nil.
“We won't make it without a diversion, anyway,” Shepard continued, gesturing toward the charred remains of a score of Alliance troops who had been caught in the Reaper's beam earlier. “Without the Makos for the Reapers to engage, we'll get blown away before we're within half a klick of the Conduit! We're holding this position until the Admiral reinforces us- and then we're hitting them.”
Javik was silent for a long, tense moment, gauging the steel in Shepard's words. At last, he nodded. “Your tactics are... sound, Shepard,” he finally conceded, turning and advancing to Zaeed's battle line.
A shrieking cry tore through the air, followed by more of its kind, as a pack of harvesters winged their way overhead. The force threw themselves to the ground almost as one when the creatures opened fire, catching one of the Aralakh krogan in their lanes of fire and perforating him. Wrex muttered something in his species' native language, loosing a volley from his light machine gun as he stood that caught one of the harvesters squarely in its face. Flesh sloughed off and chunks of metal tore away as the behemoth took fire, but still it remained in flight, screeching its challenge at the forces arrayed against it.
“Pull back that advance team!” Shepard called out, laying on the trigger of his Revenant as the harvesters swept around for a landing. Rounds found their marks, igniting with bursts of caustic flame, but the Reaper weapon platforms seemed not to notice. “Suppressive fire! Suppressive fire!”
The remainder of Zaeed's forces opened up with abandon, peppering the cluster of winged monstrosities with gunfire as their comrades scrambled backward, scattering in their panicked bid for safety. One of the marines caught a burst of hostile fire in the back, toppling forward in a bloody mist and crashing to the ground with a choked cry. The brisk crack! of sniper shots rang out, joined a moment later by the high-pitched whirring of a particle rifle being discharged- and the first of the harvesters went down, its organic and synthetic components shedding away from one another in a jumbled, gory tangle. It was joined a moment later by one of its brethren, but not before the creature unleashed another salvo of gunfire, shredding one of Zaeed's troopers.
“Try some of this, you goddamn freakshow,” Zaeed bellowed, lobbing a series of incendiary grenades over the shell of the tank he was using as cover. The grenades found their marks, blazing shrapnel lacerating the harvesters and laying two of them low; one exploded, the blaze triggering a chemical reaction with the Reaper-creature's core and detonating in a shower of twisted metal and seared viscera. “Move your asses before they get a bead on you!”
What a fucking mess, Shepard lamented, watching as the harvesters opened fire again, to the effect of more screams. The Reapers were making them pay dearly for every inch of London they wanted to control... and it was getting to the point that they didn't have much more to give. They were getting massacred on the ground- and Admiral Hackett was reporting high attrition rates in space, too. How had the Reapers done so much damage, so quickly?
When the last of the harvesters finally went down, shrieking and writhing beneath a vicious hail of gunfire, Shepard pushed forward to Zaeed's battle line. “What's your status?” he asked the mercenary.
“Piss-poor, Shepard,” Zaeed reported bitterly, eyes fixed on his aging assault rifle. “Those were my last grenades... and my whole squad bought it in that raid. That Vega kid's the only one still standin', besides yours truly an' the Prothean.”
“What about Jacob?” Shepard asked, jaw clenching. Zaeed merely shook his head.
“Goddamn buzzards picked him off while he was tryin' to pull one of the others into cover. Never saw it comin'.” Shepard lashed out at the destroyed Mako, his fist impacting the blackened metal and jarring the entire wreck. “We made 'em pay, Shepard. Best we can do for anyone now,” the grizzled mercenary offered, almost managing to sound sympathetic despite himself.
“Looks like they're gonna start moving soon. I don't think we're gonna be able to hold them back if they push, Shepard,” Garrus radioed in across his private comm chanel. “If Anderson doesn't get here soon, they'll be scraping us off the walls.”
“They'll be here. We just have to buy them a little more time,” Shepard maintained, scrambling out into the no man's land between his forces and the encroaching Reapers and taking inventory of the small supply cache they had left behind in the crater. There were plenty of thermal clips, enough medi-gel to keep at least a few more soldiers in the fight- and even a salvageable Hydra launcher and another Revenant. Then rounds began to tear into the embankment, forcing the Spectre's head down. “I need fire support!” he called out across the comm, hefting the missile launcher over his shoulder. “We need these supplies. Move up and pull 'em back to the rear line, I'll cover as long as I can!”
“Moving, Commander,” Ashley reported, the tension in her voice plainly evident even over the comm. Keeping hunched low against the crater, Shepard primed the cluster missiles, waiting for the enemy's vanguards to move forward. They didn't disappoint; marauders and cannibals pushed forward eagerly, blasting away at anything they thought might have been a target. With a whump-hiss, the missiles disgorged from the launcher, streaming almost vertically into the ashen sky as they locked onto targets. With a piercing whistle, the warheads plunged back down, blasting the Reapers' advance force into chunks. Part of what had once been a batarian landed in the foxhole next to Shepard, but he paid it no mind, tossing the empty launcher aside and shouldering his Revenant. Gunfire arced overhead as he edged forward, gun barrel creeping over the lip of the crater in search of targets- and then, a moment later, the sound of someone hitting dirt just behind his position.
Three someones. Shepard glanced back to find Kaidan gathering the supplies into a single stack, while Ashley unleashed withering bursts of fire into the advancing horde. Jack was hurling chunks of slag and debris into their ranks with her mind, crushing enemies by the handful beneath the bombardment... but it wouldn't be enough to hold back the tide. Shepard opened fire into a knot of advancing husks, sweeping their legs out from under them and effectively taking them out of the fight, picking off stragglers as they closed on the foxhole.
“Kaidan, get those supplies out of here! We'll cover you as long as we can. Jack, we're gonna need a barrier for our retreat-”
“No sweat, just tell me when we can get the fuck out of this deathtrap!” the tattooed biotic interrupted, channeling a shockwave that ripped through a column of advancing marauders. Rounds zipped past, stinging their backs with shards of concrete, but the squad kept the pressure up, carving through the oncoming horde.
“Moving!” Kaidan shouted a few moments into the fight- and a moment later, he was gone, covering the distance between their position and the relative safety of the rest of the unit as quickly as he could.
“Brute!” a krogan voice called out, and Shepard turned to face the new threat- just in time to see it come barreling into Kaidan as he maneuvered around a low concrete barrier. Even from halfway across the battlefield, Shepard heard the crunch of the blow, heard the splintering of bone as the Lieutenant was knocked sailing into a crooked streetlamp, could almost count the thermal clips as they spilled across the battlefield.
With a roar that would have given even Wrex pause, Shepard came hurtling out of his position, pulling his shotgun free of its berth as he approached the monstrous creature. The brute was too occupied with closing in on the dying engineer to pay attention- so the Commander rushed it from behind, climbing its ridged back in a few bounding strides.
Three pulls of the trigger at point-blank range, and the brute went down, its head and upper spinal column reduced to pulverized nothingness as Shepard vaulted off of its dying bulk. “Move!” he called into the comm, pinging Ashley and Jack with his omni-tool as he re-holstered the Eviscerator.
Without a second look back, Jack leapt out of the foxhole, sprinting full-tilt for the battle line, her barrier flaring as rounds impacted with alarming frequency. Ashley, however, held her ground, tucking a Revenant under each arm and laying into the horde. Blood was streaming freely down the back of her armor; Shepard realized with a leaden sense of dread that she must have turned to see the brute as well, but taken a round while her back was turned.
“Fall back, Williams! That's an order!” he shouted into the comm.
“No can do, Commander... can't feel my legs,” she responded through clenched teeth, no longer bothering to aim for specific targets as the Reaper infantry closed in. “But I can buy you some time...”
“I need a team to pull her out!” Shepard bellowed, stitching through the encroaching hostiles as he advanced to the nearest source of cover- a chunk of what had once been part of a frigate, now a convoluted lump of metal after one of the Reapers had blasted it out of the sky. “Wrex!”
“It's her or the rest of us, Shepard,” Wrex responded grimly, amid the heavy blasts of a shotgun. “We can retrieve Alenko's supplies, or we can move up there and get torn up.”
Damnit... Ash... Shepard lamented, hurling a grenade into the midst of a group of cannibals. The explosion ripped them limb from limb. “You worry about the supplies, I'm moving in!” Firing as he went, Shepard made for the forward crater. “Come on, Williams, we're getting you the hell out! You shoot, I drag!”
“Y-you got it, skipper,” Ashley replied, teeth chattering as the shock began to set in. Shepard wasted no time in working his arms under Ashley's shoulders, maneuvering her like a bitter mimic of a human shield as they retreated. Another group of banshees moved in for the kill, closing the distance with biotic leaps as they shrieked and wailed- but found themselves beaten back when the remainder of Aralakh Company rushed them, shotguns blazing. Grunt's forces locked themselves into a savage melee with the indoctrinated asari, swiping at them with broad blades or opening up at point-blank range with shotguns while the asari lashed out with their claws and powers. In the span of an instant, half of the krogan- and, Shepard realized with an abrupt sinking of his hope- far less of the mutated Ardat-Yakshi were wiped out. Grunt tore one's arms off with a triumphant roar- but found himself outflanked by two more. With a bellow of rage, the krogan used one of the severed limbs as bludgeons, lashing out with it to drive the banshees back while he brought his pistol to bear and opened fire. At this range, their biotic barriers were all-but useless; the first of the abominations went down quickly, its chilling wail silenced by a trio of rounds discharged into its skull. The second, though, was luckier; with Grunt's attention focused on its counterpart, his back was left exposed to its long, wicked claws. The young krogan staggered forward, tripping over the fresh banshee corpse, rolled to face his opponent-
-and found himself set upon from all sides by a pack of indoctrinated rachni workers, their stubby mandibles tearing through armor and flesh alike. Grunt flailed, roaring his challenge to the Reapers as he lashed out at the swarm- but as their ruthless assault continued, aided by the banshees, Grunt's struggle to take his opponents with him grew more and more feeble.
Goddamn it. Not another one, Shepard spat, watching as the banshee that had taken Grunt down moved to tear into another krogan warrior. Its victory was short-lived; a shotgun sheared most of its head from its shoulders, but the damage was done. The krogan offensive fell apart beneath superior numbers.
“Move it, Shepard!” Zaeed barked, stepping out from cover to lay down a barrage of suppressing fire. Rounds from the massed cannibals struck the terrain all around the weathered merc, some finding their mark and impacting his armor, but he took no notice; corrupted batarians and turians alike fell under the hail of fire he unleashed. Seizing the opportunity as best he could, Shepard continued doggedly onward, pulling Ashley back behind the cordon of Alliance forces.
“We need a medic over here!” Shepard called out, waving a salarian and an Alliance medic over to their position. The team skirted the bulk of the allied forces, crouching low to avoid the incoming marauder fire, meeting Shepard behind an overturned Grizzly tank.
“Spinal trauma's too severe, Commander. There's nothing we can do for this in the field,” the salarian reported grimly, studying his omni-tool's readout. “We'll do what we can to stop the bleeding, but she took a bad hit.”
“L-looks like I... won't be join... joining you for the big push, skipper,” Ashley half-mumbled, finally allowing the Revenants to fall from her now-clumsy fingers. “I'm s-sor... sorry... stupid of me. Should've kept my head... down.”
“You did what you had to do, Ash,” Markus consoled, placing a gloved hand on his fellow Spectre's shoulder. “Because of you, Wrex managed to grab the supplies... and Jack made it back. You couldn't have done better than that.”
“But Kaidan-” Ashley began, but Shepard shook his head.
“Made his choice,” Shepard interrupted. “Because of him, the rest of us will be able to hold out until Anderson gets here.”
What he didn't want to admit, even to himself, was that it wasn't a sure thing anymore. As the medics hauled Ashley off back to the relative safety of their makeshift infirmary, Shepard tried to take inventory of their situation. Most of the biotics' defensive squad had moved up to Zaeed's line, the need to meet the Reapers' pressure with as much force of their own as possible outweighing their original directives. Legion had joined the other snipers, boring through the enemy ground forces with its Widow rifle, while the surviving krogan under Wrex had formed an impromptu phalanx and were carving a swath through the enemy's vulnerable flank. With the remaining banshees taking heavy fire from the defenders, they were helpless to reinforce the rest of the Reaper ground troops- and between Wrex's barriers and the jets of searing, sticky propellant that the krogans' flamethrowers spewed out, the Reaper offensive was taking heavy punishment. Even the rachni were barely able to scratch their formation; a salvo of low-velocity grenades sailed out from the center of their ranks, decimating the insectoid weapons platforms. Garrus wasted no time in picking off the stragglers, the report of his rifle a death-knell for another Reaper every time he pulled the trigger.
“Shepard! Come in, Shepard!” Anderson's voice sounded off over the comm, amid much static and interference. “We took some losses when a pack of brutes jumped our flank, but we're just a few blocks from your position now. How's your line?”
“We're holding, Admiral. Barely. Got a lot of wounded who won't see the end of this if they aren't evacced, and I've lost damn near half of my forces.” Shepard sighed wearily as he reported the facts, watching as the krogan vanguard started pulling back in the face of a renewed Reaper offensive. Rounds hissed past his position, peppering a turian who had been in the middle of relocating; he went down hard, but kept crawling toward cover, his grip on his assault rifle not once loosening.
“Just keep holding. ETA one minute, Shepard. Anderson out.” As the link was severed, Shepard made his push to the front line, ducking beneath rounds with no definite target as he crossed the open terrain between the snipers' nest and Zaeed's forces.
“Anderson's coming. Push 'em back!” Shepard ordered, swinging out from cover as he laid on the trigger of his Revenant, shooting from the hip into the thronged Reaper assault. Husks went down in droves, their broken bodies discharging energy as they collapsed, tangled limbs ensnaring the feet of the faster-moving marauders.
“Movin' in, Shepard,” Zaeed affirmed, filing in just behind the Commander and picking off targets that had eluded Shepard's withering offensive. “Come on, you bunch'a apes! We've got a planet needs taken back!” Emboldened by the two monolithic warlords' bravery, the riflemen under their command displaced from cover as well, forming a sweeping line that met the Reaper frontline head-on, heedless of their own losses.
“This is my planet!” James roared, shotgun in hand as he came barrelling through the killzone and closing with a knot of cannibals that had so far eluded most of the reclaimers' fire. “And you fucks- aren't- welcome- here!” The N7 Lieutenant's words were each punctuated with a blast from his Claymore and a meaty thud as another Reaper was shredded-
-and then a banshee lunged in from his flank, its barriers rippling and flaring beneath a brutal concentration of fire. As rounds began to punch through its defenses and into its wraithlike body, however, its claws found their mark in Vega's abdomen. His shotgun clattered to the ground as the banshee lifted him high; all fire on the hideous creature ceased as the allied soldiers were re-engaged by other targets and were forced to choose between protecting themselves and avenging one of their own.
“That all you've got?!” the critically-wounded trooper challenged, spitting a fine spray of blood into the banshee's face as he reached for his pistol. It flinched, claws tearing ragged lines from the puncture wounds they had inflicted as it jerked in response. “I'm taking... Earth... back!” James declared defiantly, shoving his sidearm into the banshee's gaping maw and emptying the clip. Its head a slagged mess, the indoctrinated creature crumpled and fell, dropping the Lieutenant as its claws tore free.
“Kill them! Kill 'em all!” Markus bellowed, pulling a grenade from the armor of a downed Alliance trooper and hurling it into the Reapers' ranks. A geyser of viscera erupted from the point of its landing, joined by a cloud of asphalt dust and shards of pavement, but Shepard wasn't satisfied. What he wanted was a Cain launcher, something to devastate the enemy. To teach the mindless what it meant to be afraid.
A Claymore would do for now. As Shepard approached the site where the corrupted asari and Lieutenant Vega had torn one another apart, an uncharacteristically feeble groan came from the bleeding trooper.
“Sorry, Loco...” James managed to force out through bloodied, gritted teeth. “Looks like I'm... not buyin' after all...”
“Don't you dare skip out on me, Lieutenant,” Shepard replied, kneeling over his fallen squadmate. “We're here, right? That means drinks are on you.” His voice choked with unexpected emotion, Shepard clenched his fists against the buckled pavement.
“You gotta... work on the jokes... Commander,” Vega groaned, groping clumsily for his service tags. When at last he found them, he pulled them free. “Been a hell of a ride, though. When you- when you kick that Reaper... in its little machine balls... tell 'em it's from m-” a coughing fit racked through his body, and then the Lieutenant breathed his last.
“...You got it, Jimmy,” Shepard finally managed to croak out, pulling Vega's tags on over his armor. There were too many Reapers that needed killing, still, to mourn. With a bitter grimace locked on his face, Shepard picked up the discarded shotgun and shoved a fresh thermal clip into it, standing and taking appraisal once again.
The battle line had moved forward even further now; between the renewed krogan offensive and Zaeed's relentless drive, the Reapers were losing ground at an astounding rate. Alliance and turian soldiers were advancing over the broken bodies of the enemy while the salarians under Kirrahe followed close behind, hurling incinerating blasts into the Reapers' faltering numbers and finishing off the wounded that the front line had missed. The asari commandos had split off from the main force, and while they were lacking in numbers, the other two prongs of their trident assault were taking most of the heat, leaving the powerful biotics to rip through the enemy's unprotected backs unchallenged. They had moved well out of the effective range of Liara's protective barriers and Garrus' covering fire, but the Reapers no longer had the numbers or momentum for it to matter.
“Shepard-Commander. Incoming air-superiority force,” Legion appraised over the comm. “Oculus unit detected. Recommend immediate withdrawal of offensive maneuver to protect support element and non-combatants,” the geth warned.
An Oculus? You're shitting me. Shepard groaned as he heard the telltale oscillating whine of the hunter drone's approach. “Everyone, pull back! Stagger formation and pull back!” he ordered, slinging the Claymore he had just acquired into the mag-clamp on his back and hefting his Revenant. No sooner had the orders left his mouth than the fearsome machine hurtled into view, sweeping over the battleground like some baleful angel of death.
On its second pass, it lived up to that title well. The asari commandos had pushed far into the enemy formation, and weren't able to extract themselves from combat in time to react to the new threat. As they struggled to punch through to the krogan on the other side, the Oculus' beam cut through them like monofillament through hot butter, vaporizing the strike team- and several of the Reaper troops they were entangled with- in the span of a few terrible seconds. The krogan, too assured of their victory over the Reaper ground forces, held their ground, blasting away at the cyclopean machine as it screamed overhead. Its shields flickered under the salvo of fire directed by Wrex, but it wasn't enough; its second pass swept through the krogan as well, decimating Wrex's forces. Shepard could see the chieftain shouting orders, shoving his troops toward a retreat, but his instructions fell on deaf ears; the surviving krogan were just more enraged by the blow they had taken. They scattered, ducking to cover as they continued to pepper the Oculus with fire, while it strafed their grouping, looking for a weakness to exploit.
“Shepard, we'll buy the rest of you time to fall back!” Wrex relayed over the comm, the Reapers' interference clouding their link even within a hundred meters. “Don't waste this,” he demanded, an eruption of gunfire drowning out anything the krogan might have said afterward.
“I'm getting you out of there,” Shepard insisted, vaulting over a shattered barricade and rushing toward the krogan positions. To his surprise, he wasn't the only one; a flare of biotic energy shot past him as Jack hurled herself toward the engagement. The Reaper drone's shields faltered as it swung in for another pass, incinerating another group of Wrex's soldiers- but it had passed too low for its own safety as the biotic leaped into the air, angled for collision. Wrex seemed to have had a similar idea; blue energy roiled off his armor as the chieftain hurled a pulsating field toward the Oculus. It struck at the same time Jack did; the human biotic only barely managed to latch onto the drone before Wrex's attack pulled it toward the ground. As it crashed to the pavement, Jack was flung aside from the force; she and Shepard closed to the downed Oculus together, the latter pumping a blistering hail of rounds into its weapon array while the former drew back her fist and focused all of her energy into a devastating blow. Its armor peeled away to expose its power core and delicate machinery as Jack pulverized it; Shepard's machine gun clicked empty, only to be replaced with his shotgun.
“I bet your kind can see me through here,” Shepard spat, jamming his Claymore into the Oculus' optics system. “Sovereign said you'd darken the skies of our worlds... but all you've done is let us fight in the shade!” As the Reaper drone shrieked and thrummed, a trio of shotgun blasts rang out in almost perfect concert. Wrex and Jack had plunged their weapons into the Oculus' damaged shell alongside Shepard and blasted it apart. Warning klaxons began to sound from within it as its self-destruct system activated, but Wrex took hold of its mangled armor plating and hurled it into the Reapers' ranks with a roar, the throw augmented by his and Jack's biotics. The explosion ripped through the indoctrinated ground forces, bowling over or outright vaporizing scores-
-which left them utterly defenseless against the hail of explosive shells that rained in from over Shepard and the others' heads. Anderson's convoy had arrived. “Wrex, Zaeed, I want a defensive line held while Anderson mops up these bastards and loads up our wounded. Nothing gets past you- got it?”
Wrex nodded to the affirmative, picking up a flamethrower off a grievously-injured krogan. Zaeed offered only a double-click over the comm; he was too busy spraying death into the Reapers' ranks to talk. Leaving the front line to do what they did best, Shepard withdrew to the convoy.
“Shepard, I wish I could spare you the bad news,” Anderson began, his mouth a tight, narrow line. “With the losses we took getting here, we don't have the armor- or the manpower- to get your wounded back to friendly territory and also make the push on the Reapers. They'd just laugh at us before they wiped us out in one go.”
Shepard felt as though he had been gutted with a wedge of ice. If they all committed to taking the Conduit from the Reapers, there would be nothing standing between their injured comrades and another ground assault. He'd be leaving them to die- no uncertainty about it. But if they didn't fire the Crucible, it wouldn't matter whether a few dozen soldiers died here- everything, everywhere, would be wiped out.
Would it? Their fleets overhead had taken sizable losses, but they had given a damn good account of themselves, as well; at least as many Reaper hulls drifted, lifeless in the void, as human or turian cruisers. The only major ground casualties had been owed to entrenched Reaper positions; they wouldn't have nearly the opportunity to dig in elsewhere as they did on Earth. Hackett had even killed a few of them in conventional warfare while Shepard had been gathering forces... and though it had been a small victory, it was still a victory.
But at what cost? How many hundreds of thousands- how many millions- would have to die to secure that victory... assuming that victory through superior firepower even was possible? And what about the Crucible? There were several dreadnoughts' worth of materials sunk into its construction. Now that it had been built, it would be an utter waste to not at least try to fire it... especially over three squads' worth of wounded.
Three squads... and Ashley.
“What are you suggesting we do, Admiral?” Shepard asked, gesturing to his forces. “They're not gonna make it without medical attention, and this intersection is key to our assault. We know it- and the Reapers sure as hell know it, too. If we leave them here, they'll get swarmed!”
“I know. But we don't have much other choice. Without the Conduit, this whole offensive was for nothing- their sacrifice included. We have to get through, Shepard, no matter what it takes.”
Shepard was silent for a long time following Anderson's words, staring out over the battlefield. When at last he spoke, it was slow and heavy, prefaced with a weary sigh.
“Get as many engineers as you can. We're laying mines and setting up turrets. Do we have any Cerberus tech? Power generators and shield pylons?”
He didn't have to say it to acknowledge the sacrifice; Anderson didn't have to hear it, offering only a grim nod. “I think we have a few we can spare. This had better be worth it- I don't think I could have given the order any easier, Shepard. God help us when this is all over.”
“It will be... soon,” Shepard muttered, eyes fixed on a Reaper in low orbit. Explosions rippled across its armored hull as turian and geth warships encircled it, hounding it from all sides and exploiting the sentient machine's bulk as a fatal weakness. The heavier turian cruisers strafed the Reaper, drawing it into an ungainly pivot in the atmosphere while the smaller, more agile geth frigates stung at it en masse. Their ploy was working; every time the Reaper stopped to engage a frigate, the turians wheeled about to bring their main guns to bear, while the geth ships' superior agility enabled them to evade most of the Reaper's shots. One beam scythed a frigate in two, but the persistence of the allied forces proved too much for the Reaper to handle. Its hull buckled amid gouts of flame, and it erupted into a twisting, spiraling hulk of fused metal.
It did little to improve Shepard's mood. Steeling himself for the order that inevitably had to be given, he and Anderson made their way toward the makeshift triage center. A reverent sort of hush came over the freshly-cleared battlefield; even the cries of the wounded seemed to taper down to the occasional sharp gasp.
“We're in a difficult position,” Shepard stated morosely, studying the lines of injured soldiers, the despairingly few who had survived relatively unscathed up until this point... his squadmates that had survived. “The Mako convoy took some nasty hits on the way to our position. They're not gonna be able to enact an immediate retrieval and push us through to the Conduit. And unfortunately... the mission has to come first. We'll have Kodiaks inbound to pick you up... but we have to push the spearhead as far in as we can, while we still have the ability and manpower to do it. Do you understand?”
A shocked murmuring arose from the ranks of Shepard's decimated force, but none outright challenged the Commander's decision.
“Permission to stay behind with a volunteer force, Commander?” Kirrahe spoke up from his place among his forces, stepping forward through their ranks to address Shepard face-to-face. “You need someone to protect the wounded and hold the line.”
Shepard approached the veteran STG operative, snapping to attention. “Permission granted, Captain. Give 'em hell.”
“I would wish to stay behind as well, Shepard,” Samara added. “The Code requires that I serve as a protector for those who need it.”
“Staying as well, Shepard,” Mordin stated grimly. “Need someone to tend to wounded, maintain generators. They need the best.”
“Repairs on this chassis were... not as effective as we would have hoped, Shepard,” EDI stated. “Effective movement speed is down forty percent. I would be more useful as a part of a rear guard, where mobility is of less concern than your assault team.”
“Ah, hell,” Zaeed muttered, filing in alongside the other volunteers. “You gave me the Suns back, Shepard. Might as well scratch your back, now you've scratched mine. Besides, this lot's gonna need someone what knows what he's doing with a sniper rifle,” the weathered mercenary quipped.
The corners of Shepard's eyes stung as he surveyed the volunteer force. The entirety of Kirrahe's company, along with a mixed squad of turians, krogan, and marines stood at their back, while the medics hauled the more ambulatory of the wounded onto their feet. For what precious little they had left to give, it was a force to be reckoned with. But would the shuttles even be able to reach them before the Reapers overwhelmed their position? Could they even make it through their air-defense screen?
Would any of them make it to see the sun rising on a planet free of Reapers? The thought pressed a hard lump into Shepard's throat, but he had to ignore it. For their sake.
For his own sake.
“Then make me proud,” he finally replied. It wasn't a command, not so much as a request.
“Damn right we will,” Zaeed answered, throwing the first salute Shepard had ever seen him give.
Part two to follow as soon as I've finished it. I tried to give most of the team a moment in the limelight- even if it resulted in their deaths- but I know I missed a few people. The second part will address that.
Canon choices:
-Markus Shepard saved the Council, at the cost of a portion of the Third Alliance Fleet.
-The rachni queen was spared.
-Captain Kirrahe was rescued from Virmire.
-Anderson was- temporarily- humanity's Council representative until he was called back to Earth for a defense summit and promotion.
-Markus blew the Collector base into space dust, earning the ire of the Illusive Man, with whom he never saw eye to eye.
-Consequently, he and Miranda were never on good footing either, especially after Jack's arrival.
-Speaking of Miranda again- she died in the Collector base.
-The krogan are unified under Urdnot Wrex, and the genophage has been cured.
-Urdnot Grunt still leads Aralakh Company, though their numbers have been depleted by battle.
-The quarians and the geth were reconciled, thanks to Shepard, Tali'Zorah, and Legion.
-James Vega made N7, with Shepard's recommendation.
-Dr. Karin Chakwas was brought aboard the Normandy.
-Javik was retrieved from Eden Prime.
Canon-altering choices:
-Wrex and Liara were deployed to save Kaidan Alenko on Virmire, and did so successfully, while Shepard, Garrus, and Tali managed to reinforce Ashley Williams in time to save her as well. (Author's note: This one wonders why the hell this was not an option in-game...)
-Garrus Vakarian was made into a Spectre shortly before the Reapers' invasion of Palaven, thanks to Shepard's recommendation.
-An open (albeit crippled) geth platform was nearby for Legion to copy its runtimes and data into before being uploaded to the geth servers. Legion remains active, while the geth gained individual self-awareness thanks to the Reaper code.
-Zaeed Massani regained control of the Blue Suns after Shepard disrupted several of their operations in the Terminus Systems. Aria forwarded him intel on Vido Santiago's location in exchange for occasional favors... one such favor including backing Shepard.
-Mordin Solus survived Tuchanka thanks to his assistant, Maelon, who sacrificed himself to cure the genophage and atone for the barbarous nature of his earlier experiments to that same end.
-Kelly Chambers was recruited back onto the Normandy, along with Ken Donnelly and Gabby Chambers. How Shepard pulled this one off is all-but unknown, but some suspect it may have been due to some Bond-like wrangling.
-With a little bit of careful wording, Shepard also managed to “wrangle” both Jack and Tali into his bed... together.
Be aware. This is nothing if not a Pyrrhic ending.
Hammer Company was crumbling on the threshold of the Reapers' Conduit. The charred, twisted husks of what had formerly been Alliance tanks smoldered where they lay, scattered by the defending Reaper's ultraviolet-spectrum beam weapons. The air was thick and acrid with the stench of charred bodies- human, turian, krogan, salarian, and asari alike lay blown apart with equal irreverence, the cracked and buckled streets of Earth drenched in the blood of her would-be reclaimers. Even the rachni that their queen had committed to Shepard's service had been torn apart, their spewed acid a poor match for the ballistic weaponry of their indoctrinated kin.
But one force was still holding their ground, protected from the brunt of the Reaper's cannon fire by a handful of buildings- or what had once been buildings. Shepard's strike team was holding the line.
“Banshees! Comin' in from the left!” Zaeed called out over the chattering din of battle, squeezing off a burst from his battered Avenger at the lead abomination. Its barriers rippled under the hail of gunfire, but the creature- along with a half-dozen of its kin- continued to stagger toward the squad's position, biotic flares lancing through the soot-choked skies as they closed ground. The veteran mercenary, along with the half-dozen Alliance marines who had heard him, scrambled for cover in the face of the corrupted asari counterattack-
-while a trio of biotic barriers lanced out from the center of the squad's formation, deflecting their warp fields to sputter harmlessly and die out. Another hail of gunfire erupted as the marines ducked out from their positions, tearing into the banshees' ranks- and chewing through their barriers long enough for Shepard's fireteam to fire off a volley of sniper shots that decimated their number.
“I really... really hate those things,” Garrus muttered, cycling a fresh thermal clip into his Valiant rifle and sighting in on a straggling banshee that hadn't yet made it to the killzone.
“Me too, but that's some damn nice shooting,” Ashley replied, laying prone on a shallow embankment and scanning the street ahead. A motley force of Reaper troops was gathering, probably about two hundred meters down... but they weren't pushing the assault yet. What were they waiting for?
“'Good' shooting, LC,” Shepard corrected, following the barrel of the Lieutenant Commander's rifle and studying the indoctrinated horde waiting ahead. “Nice shooting's what you do on top of the Presidium. With bottles.” Leaving the sharpshooters to scout out targets, their commander crossed the buckled asphalt to the rest of his squad.
“We've got another wave massing. How's everyone holding on ammo?” Shepard asked, taking in the faces of the team he had led into this meat grinder of an offensive. Tali and Mordin were busy performing emergency repairs on EDI's chassis within the crater their forces had been using as a gun nest, overseen by Legion, whose optic array swept almost restlessly across the open terrain around them in search of a new target to engage. Wrex was hauling a pair of wounded marines toward the foxhole, his superior bulk and stature enabling him to move them with ease. Grunt's armor was rent and torn in at least half a dozen places, but none of the wounds beneath looked severe enough to put him out of the action. James had moved to the front line, alongside Zaeed, and appeared to be directing a fireteam to move forward and secure the supplies that they had left behind when their forward position had been overrun. Jacob was among them, coordinating lanes of fire and possible retreat vectors.
The biotics were grouped together, nestled securely between a force of nearly two dozen troopers of various origin. Energy seemed to be boiling off of Samara, her usually-dispassionate expression slowly returning now that the loathsome banshees had been dealt with. Liara was panting, her stance uncharacteristically wide and heavy. She had run herself ragged trying to protect the forward teams, and the strain was definitely showing. Jack, on the other hand, seemed to be in her element, a sardonic, almost sadistic grin spreading across her features as she noticed the gathering forces in the distance as well. Kaidan was crouched low over a turian who had taken a bad hit earlier in the fighting, the expression on his face darkening as he stood. Sylas must have bought it.
“Not good, Shepard,” Grunt growled, tossing down his Claymore and picking up a discarded battle rifle. “We're gonna be down to pistols before long.”
“Your weapon design is inherently weak,” Javik observed dryly, shouldering his particle rifle to emphasize his point. “Our empire moved past ballistic weapons long before the end of our cycle. You cannot destroy a factory that does not exist, or disrupt a shipment that is never made; once we were armed, there was nothing our enemies could do to deny us.” The Prothean glared downrange, not toward the Reaper infantry, but toward the Conduit. “We should break cover and advance while we still have a chance. The longer we are trapped here, the weaker we will be for the final push.”
“I know. But we can't move our wounded. They'd never make it out of here without support. Anderson's convoy is still coming,” Shepard replied, locking eyes with the Prothean's dual-pupiled array.
“Then leave them with the weapons we can spare. They would cover our retreat while we ended the fight!”
“No one gets left behind, Javik,” Shepard countered, glancing over to the next crater, where most of the wounded lay. It was true- they were unlikely to make it without medical support that they simply couldn't provide, and every minute that they weren't advancing through the Conduit cost the fleet overhead a dozen ships... and a hundred more soldiers their lives.
But leaving them to die at the hands of the indoctrinated? Leaving them defenseless, just to push a few more feet toward the Reaper's killzone? Without the Mako platoon that Anderson was spearheading through contested ground, the odds of them making it to the Conduit- especially on foot- were practically nil.
“We won't make it without a diversion, anyway,” Shepard continued, gesturing toward the charred remains of a score of Alliance troops who had been caught in the Reaper's beam earlier. “Without the Makos for the Reapers to engage, we'll get blown away before we're within half a klick of the Conduit! We're holding this position until the Admiral reinforces us- and then we're hitting them.”
Javik was silent for a long, tense moment, gauging the steel in Shepard's words. At last, he nodded. “Your tactics are... sound, Shepard,” he finally conceded, turning and advancing to Zaeed's battle line.
A shrieking cry tore through the air, followed by more of its kind, as a pack of harvesters winged their way overhead. The force threw themselves to the ground almost as one when the creatures opened fire, catching one of the Aralakh krogan in their lanes of fire and perforating him. Wrex muttered something in his species' native language, loosing a volley from his light machine gun as he stood that caught one of the harvesters squarely in its face. Flesh sloughed off and chunks of metal tore away as the behemoth took fire, but still it remained in flight, screeching its challenge at the forces arrayed against it.
“Pull back that advance team!” Shepard called out, laying on the trigger of his Revenant as the harvesters swept around for a landing. Rounds found their marks, igniting with bursts of caustic flame, but the Reaper weapon platforms seemed not to notice. “Suppressive fire! Suppressive fire!”
The remainder of Zaeed's forces opened up with abandon, peppering the cluster of winged monstrosities with gunfire as their comrades scrambled backward, scattering in their panicked bid for safety. One of the marines caught a burst of hostile fire in the back, toppling forward in a bloody mist and crashing to the ground with a choked cry. The brisk crack! of sniper shots rang out, joined a moment later by the high-pitched whirring of a particle rifle being discharged- and the first of the harvesters went down, its organic and synthetic components shedding away from one another in a jumbled, gory tangle. It was joined a moment later by one of its brethren, but not before the creature unleashed another salvo of gunfire, shredding one of Zaeed's troopers.
“Try some of this, you goddamn freakshow,” Zaeed bellowed, lobbing a series of incendiary grenades over the shell of the tank he was using as cover. The grenades found their marks, blazing shrapnel lacerating the harvesters and laying two of them low; one exploded, the blaze triggering a chemical reaction with the Reaper-creature's core and detonating in a shower of twisted metal and seared viscera. “Move your asses before they get a bead on you!”
What a fucking mess, Shepard lamented, watching as the harvesters opened fire again, to the effect of more screams. The Reapers were making them pay dearly for every inch of London they wanted to control... and it was getting to the point that they didn't have much more to give. They were getting massacred on the ground- and Admiral Hackett was reporting high attrition rates in space, too. How had the Reapers done so much damage, so quickly?
When the last of the harvesters finally went down, shrieking and writhing beneath a vicious hail of gunfire, Shepard pushed forward to Zaeed's battle line. “What's your status?” he asked the mercenary.
“Piss-poor, Shepard,” Zaeed reported bitterly, eyes fixed on his aging assault rifle. “Those were my last grenades... and my whole squad bought it in that raid. That Vega kid's the only one still standin', besides yours truly an' the Prothean.”
“What about Jacob?” Shepard asked, jaw clenching. Zaeed merely shook his head.
“Goddamn buzzards picked him off while he was tryin' to pull one of the others into cover. Never saw it comin'.” Shepard lashed out at the destroyed Mako, his fist impacting the blackened metal and jarring the entire wreck. “We made 'em pay, Shepard. Best we can do for anyone now,” the grizzled mercenary offered, almost managing to sound sympathetic despite himself.
“Looks like they're gonna start moving soon. I don't think we're gonna be able to hold them back if they push, Shepard,” Garrus radioed in across his private comm chanel. “If Anderson doesn't get here soon, they'll be scraping us off the walls.”
“They'll be here. We just have to buy them a little more time,” Shepard maintained, scrambling out into the no man's land between his forces and the encroaching Reapers and taking inventory of the small supply cache they had left behind in the crater. There were plenty of thermal clips, enough medi-gel to keep at least a few more soldiers in the fight- and even a salvageable Hydra launcher and another Revenant. Then rounds began to tear into the embankment, forcing the Spectre's head down. “I need fire support!” he called out across the comm, hefting the missile launcher over his shoulder. “We need these supplies. Move up and pull 'em back to the rear line, I'll cover as long as I can!”
“Moving, Commander,” Ashley reported, the tension in her voice plainly evident even over the comm. Keeping hunched low against the crater, Shepard primed the cluster missiles, waiting for the enemy's vanguards to move forward. They didn't disappoint; marauders and cannibals pushed forward eagerly, blasting away at anything they thought might have been a target. With a whump-hiss, the missiles disgorged from the launcher, streaming almost vertically into the ashen sky as they locked onto targets. With a piercing whistle, the warheads plunged back down, blasting the Reapers' advance force into chunks. Part of what had once been a batarian landed in the foxhole next to Shepard, but he paid it no mind, tossing the empty launcher aside and shouldering his Revenant. Gunfire arced overhead as he edged forward, gun barrel creeping over the lip of the crater in search of targets- and then, a moment later, the sound of someone hitting dirt just behind his position.
Three someones. Shepard glanced back to find Kaidan gathering the supplies into a single stack, while Ashley unleashed withering bursts of fire into the advancing horde. Jack was hurling chunks of slag and debris into their ranks with her mind, crushing enemies by the handful beneath the bombardment... but it wouldn't be enough to hold back the tide. Shepard opened fire into a knot of advancing husks, sweeping their legs out from under them and effectively taking them out of the fight, picking off stragglers as they closed on the foxhole.
“Kaidan, get those supplies out of here! We'll cover you as long as we can. Jack, we're gonna need a barrier for our retreat-”
“No sweat, just tell me when we can get the fuck out of this deathtrap!” the tattooed biotic interrupted, channeling a shockwave that ripped through a column of advancing marauders. Rounds zipped past, stinging their backs with shards of concrete, but the squad kept the pressure up, carving through the oncoming horde.
“Moving!” Kaidan shouted a few moments into the fight- and a moment later, he was gone, covering the distance between their position and the relative safety of the rest of the unit as quickly as he could.
“Brute!” a krogan voice called out, and Shepard turned to face the new threat- just in time to see it come barreling into Kaidan as he maneuvered around a low concrete barrier. Even from halfway across the battlefield, Shepard heard the crunch of the blow, heard the splintering of bone as the Lieutenant was knocked sailing into a crooked streetlamp, could almost count the thermal clips as they spilled across the battlefield.
With a roar that would have given even Wrex pause, Shepard came hurtling out of his position, pulling his shotgun free of its berth as he approached the monstrous creature. The brute was too occupied with closing in on the dying engineer to pay attention- so the Commander rushed it from behind, climbing its ridged back in a few bounding strides.
Three pulls of the trigger at point-blank range, and the brute went down, its head and upper spinal column reduced to pulverized nothingness as Shepard vaulted off of its dying bulk. “Move!” he called into the comm, pinging Ashley and Jack with his omni-tool as he re-holstered the Eviscerator.
Without a second look back, Jack leapt out of the foxhole, sprinting full-tilt for the battle line, her barrier flaring as rounds impacted with alarming frequency. Ashley, however, held her ground, tucking a Revenant under each arm and laying into the horde. Blood was streaming freely down the back of her armor; Shepard realized with a leaden sense of dread that she must have turned to see the brute as well, but taken a round while her back was turned.
“Fall back, Williams! That's an order!” he shouted into the comm.
“No can do, Commander... can't feel my legs,” she responded through clenched teeth, no longer bothering to aim for specific targets as the Reaper infantry closed in. “But I can buy you some time...”
“I need a team to pull her out!” Shepard bellowed, stitching through the encroaching hostiles as he advanced to the nearest source of cover- a chunk of what had once been part of a frigate, now a convoluted lump of metal after one of the Reapers had blasted it out of the sky. “Wrex!”
“It's her or the rest of us, Shepard,” Wrex responded grimly, amid the heavy blasts of a shotgun. “We can retrieve Alenko's supplies, or we can move up there and get torn up.”
Damnit... Ash... Shepard lamented, hurling a grenade into the midst of a group of cannibals. The explosion ripped them limb from limb. “You worry about the supplies, I'm moving in!” Firing as he went, Shepard made for the forward crater. “Come on, Williams, we're getting you the hell out! You shoot, I drag!”
“Y-you got it, skipper,” Ashley replied, teeth chattering as the shock began to set in. Shepard wasted no time in working his arms under Ashley's shoulders, maneuvering her like a bitter mimic of a human shield as they retreated. Another group of banshees moved in for the kill, closing the distance with biotic leaps as they shrieked and wailed- but found themselves beaten back when the remainder of Aralakh Company rushed them, shotguns blazing. Grunt's forces locked themselves into a savage melee with the indoctrinated asari, swiping at them with broad blades or opening up at point-blank range with shotguns while the asari lashed out with their claws and powers. In the span of an instant, half of the krogan- and, Shepard realized with an abrupt sinking of his hope- far less of the mutated Ardat-Yakshi were wiped out. Grunt tore one's arms off with a triumphant roar- but found himself outflanked by two more. With a bellow of rage, the krogan used one of the severed limbs as bludgeons, lashing out with it to drive the banshees back while he brought his pistol to bear and opened fire. At this range, their biotic barriers were all-but useless; the first of the abominations went down quickly, its chilling wail silenced by a trio of rounds discharged into its skull. The second, though, was luckier; with Grunt's attention focused on its counterpart, his back was left exposed to its long, wicked claws. The young krogan staggered forward, tripping over the fresh banshee corpse, rolled to face his opponent-
-and found himself set upon from all sides by a pack of indoctrinated rachni workers, their stubby mandibles tearing through armor and flesh alike. Grunt flailed, roaring his challenge to the Reapers as he lashed out at the swarm- but as their ruthless assault continued, aided by the banshees, Grunt's struggle to take his opponents with him grew more and more feeble.
Goddamn it. Not another one, Shepard spat, watching as the banshee that had taken Grunt down moved to tear into another krogan warrior. Its victory was short-lived; a shotgun sheared most of its head from its shoulders, but the damage was done. The krogan offensive fell apart beneath superior numbers.
“Move it, Shepard!” Zaeed barked, stepping out from cover to lay down a barrage of suppressing fire. Rounds from the massed cannibals struck the terrain all around the weathered merc, some finding their mark and impacting his armor, but he took no notice; corrupted batarians and turians alike fell under the hail of fire he unleashed. Seizing the opportunity as best he could, Shepard continued doggedly onward, pulling Ashley back behind the cordon of Alliance forces.
“We need a medic over here!” Shepard called out, waving a salarian and an Alliance medic over to their position. The team skirted the bulk of the allied forces, crouching low to avoid the incoming marauder fire, meeting Shepard behind an overturned Grizzly tank.
“Spinal trauma's too severe, Commander. There's nothing we can do for this in the field,” the salarian reported grimly, studying his omni-tool's readout. “We'll do what we can to stop the bleeding, but she took a bad hit.”
“L-looks like I... won't be join... joining you for the big push, skipper,” Ashley half-mumbled, finally allowing the Revenants to fall from her now-clumsy fingers. “I'm s-sor... sorry... stupid of me. Should've kept my head... down.”
“You did what you had to do, Ash,” Markus consoled, placing a gloved hand on his fellow Spectre's shoulder. “Because of you, Wrex managed to grab the supplies... and Jack made it back. You couldn't have done better than that.”
“But Kaidan-” Ashley began, but Shepard shook his head.
“Made his choice,” Shepard interrupted. “Because of him, the rest of us will be able to hold out until Anderson gets here.”
What he didn't want to admit, even to himself, was that it wasn't a sure thing anymore. As the medics hauled Ashley off back to the relative safety of their makeshift infirmary, Shepard tried to take inventory of their situation. Most of the biotics' defensive squad had moved up to Zaeed's line, the need to meet the Reapers' pressure with as much force of their own as possible outweighing their original directives. Legion had joined the other snipers, boring through the enemy ground forces with its Widow rifle, while the surviving krogan under Wrex had formed an impromptu phalanx and were carving a swath through the enemy's vulnerable flank. With the remaining banshees taking heavy fire from the defenders, they were helpless to reinforce the rest of the Reaper ground troops- and between Wrex's barriers and the jets of searing, sticky propellant that the krogans' flamethrowers spewed out, the Reaper offensive was taking heavy punishment. Even the rachni were barely able to scratch their formation; a salvo of low-velocity grenades sailed out from the center of their ranks, decimating the insectoid weapons platforms. Garrus wasted no time in picking off the stragglers, the report of his rifle a death-knell for another Reaper every time he pulled the trigger.
“Shepard! Come in, Shepard!” Anderson's voice sounded off over the comm, amid much static and interference. “We took some losses when a pack of brutes jumped our flank, but we're just a few blocks from your position now. How's your line?”
“We're holding, Admiral. Barely. Got a lot of wounded who won't see the end of this if they aren't evacced, and I've lost damn near half of my forces.” Shepard sighed wearily as he reported the facts, watching as the krogan vanguard started pulling back in the face of a renewed Reaper offensive. Rounds hissed past his position, peppering a turian who had been in the middle of relocating; he went down hard, but kept crawling toward cover, his grip on his assault rifle not once loosening.
“Just keep holding. ETA one minute, Shepard. Anderson out.” As the link was severed, Shepard made his push to the front line, ducking beneath rounds with no definite target as he crossed the open terrain between the snipers' nest and Zaeed's forces.
“Anderson's coming. Push 'em back!” Shepard ordered, swinging out from cover as he laid on the trigger of his Revenant, shooting from the hip into the thronged Reaper assault. Husks went down in droves, their broken bodies discharging energy as they collapsed, tangled limbs ensnaring the feet of the faster-moving marauders.
“Movin' in, Shepard,” Zaeed affirmed, filing in just behind the Commander and picking off targets that had eluded Shepard's withering offensive. “Come on, you bunch'a apes! We've got a planet needs taken back!” Emboldened by the two monolithic warlords' bravery, the riflemen under their command displaced from cover as well, forming a sweeping line that met the Reaper frontline head-on, heedless of their own losses.
“This is my planet!” James roared, shotgun in hand as he came barrelling through the killzone and closing with a knot of cannibals that had so far eluded most of the reclaimers' fire. “And you fucks- aren't- welcome- here!” The N7 Lieutenant's words were each punctuated with a blast from his Claymore and a meaty thud as another Reaper was shredded-
-and then a banshee lunged in from his flank, its barriers rippling and flaring beneath a brutal concentration of fire. As rounds began to punch through its defenses and into its wraithlike body, however, its claws found their mark in Vega's abdomen. His shotgun clattered to the ground as the banshee lifted him high; all fire on the hideous creature ceased as the allied soldiers were re-engaged by other targets and were forced to choose between protecting themselves and avenging one of their own.
“That all you've got?!” the critically-wounded trooper challenged, spitting a fine spray of blood into the banshee's face as he reached for his pistol. It flinched, claws tearing ragged lines from the puncture wounds they had inflicted as it jerked in response. “I'm taking... Earth... back!” James declared defiantly, shoving his sidearm into the banshee's gaping maw and emptying the clip. Its head a slagged mess, the indoctrinated creature crumpled and fell, dropping the Lieutenant as its claws tore free.
“Kill them! Kill 'em all!” Markus bellowed, pulling a grenade from the armor of a downed Alliance trooper and hurling it into the Reapers' ranks. A geyser of viscera erupted from the point of its landing, joined by a cloud of asphalt dust and shards of pavement, but Shepard wasn't satisfied. What he wanted was a Cain launcher, something to devastate the enemy. To teach the mindless what it meant to be afraid.
A Claymore would do for now. As Shepard approached the site where the corrupted asari and Lieutenant Vega had torn one another apart, an uncharacteristically feeble groan came from the bleeding trooper.
“Sorry, Loco...” James managed to force out through bloodied, gritted teeth. “Looks like I'm... not buyin' after all...”
“Don't you dare skip out on me, Lieutenant,” Shepard replied, kneeling over his fallen squadmate. “We're here, right? That means drinks are on you.” His voice choked with unexpected emotion, Shepard clenched his fists against the buckled pavement.
“You gotta... work on the jokes... Commander,” Vega groaned, groping clumsily for his service tags. When at last he found them, he pulled them free. “Been a hell of a ride, though. When you- when you kick that Reaper... in its little machine balls... tell 'em it's from m-” a coughing fit racked through his body, and then the Lieutenant breathed his last.
“...You got it, Jimmy,” Shepard finally managed to croak out, pulling Vega's tags on over his armor. There were too many Reapers that needed killing, still, to mourn. With a bitter grimace locked on his face, Shepard picked up the discarded shotgun and shoved a fresh thermal clip into it, standing and taking appraisal once again.
The battle line had moved forward even further now; between the renewed krogan offensive and Zaeed's relentless drive, the Reapers were losing ground at an astounding rate. Alliance and turian soldiers were advancing over the broken bodies of the enemy while the salarians under Kirrahe followed close behind, hurling incinerating blasts into the Reapers' faltering numbers and finishing off the wounded that the front line had missed. The asari commandos had split off from the main force, and while they were lacking in numbers, the other two prongs of their trident assault were taking most of the heat, leaving the powerful biotics to rip through the enemy's unprotected backs unchallenged. They had moved well out of the effective range of Liara's protective barriers and Garrus' covering fire, but the Reapers no longer had the numbers or momentum for it to matter.
“Shepard-Commander. Incoming air-superiority force,” Legion appraised over the comm. “Oculus unit detected. Recommend immediate withdrawal of offensive maneuver to protect support element and non-combatants,” the geth warned.
An Oculus? You're shitting me. Shepard groaned as he heard the telltale oscillating whine of the hunter drone's approach. “Everyone, pull back! Stagger formation and pull back!” he ordered, slinging the Claymore he had just acquired into the mag-clamp on his back and hefting his Revenant. No sooner had the orders left his mouth than the fearsome machine hurtled into view, sweeping over the battleground like some baleful angel of death.
On its second pass, it lived up to that title well. The asari commandos had pushed far into the enemy formation, and weren't able to extract themselves from combat in time to react to the new threat. As they struggled to punch through to the krogan on the other side, the Oculus' beam cut through them like monofillament through hot butter, vaporizing the strike team- and several of the Reaper troops they were entangled with- in the span of a few terrible seconds. The krogan, too assured of their victory over the Reaper ground forces, held their ground, blasting away at the cyclopean machine as it screamed overhead. Its shields flickered under the salvo of fire directed by Wrex, but it wasn't enough; its second pass swept through the krogan as well, decimating Wrex's forces. Shepard could see the chieftain shouting orders, shoving his troops toward a retreat, but his instructions fell on deaf ears; the surviving krogan were just more enraged by the blow they had taken. They scattered, ducking to cover as they continued to pepper the Oculus with fire, while it strafed their grouping, looking for a weakness to exploit.
“Shepard, we'll buy the rest of you time to fall back!” Wrex relayed over the comm, the Reapers' interference clouding their link even within a hundred meters. “Don't waste this,” he demanded, an eruption of gunfire drowning out anything the krogan might have said afterward.
“I'm getting you out of there,” Shepard insisted, vaulting over a shattered barricade and rushing toward the krogan positions. To his surprise, he wasn't the only one; a flare of biotic energy shot past him as Jack hurled herself toward the engagement. The Reaper drone's shields faltered as it swung in for another pass, incinerating another group of Wrex's soldiers- but it had passed too low for its own safety as the biotic leaped into the air, angled for collision. Wrex seemed to have had a similar idea; blue energy roiled off his armor as the chieftain hurled a pulsating field toward the Oculus. It struck at the same time Jack did; the human biotic only barely managed to latch onto the drone before Wrex's attack pulled it toward the ground. As it crashed to the pavement, Jack was flung aside from the force; she and Shepard closed to the downed Oculus together, the latter pumping a blistering hail of rounds into its weapon array while the former drew back her fist and focused all of her energy into a devastating blow. Its armor peeled away to expose its power core and delicate machinery as Jack pulverized it; Shepard's machine gun clicked empty, only to be replaced with his shotgun.
“I bet your kind can see me through here,” Shepard spat, jamming his Claymore into the Oculus' optics system. “Sovereign said you'd darken the skies of our worlds... but all you've done is let us fight in the shade!” As the Reaper drone shrieked and thrummed, a trio of shotgun blasts rang out in almost perfect concert. Wrex and Jack had plunged their weapons into the Oculus' damaged shell alongside Shepard and blasted it apart. Warning klaxons began to sound from within it as its self-destruct system activated, but Wrex took hold of its mangled armor plating and hurled it into the Reapers' ranks with a roar, the throw augmented by his and Jack's biotics. The explosion ripped through the indoctrinated ground forces, bowling over or outright vaporizing scores-
-which left them utterly defenseless against the hail of explosive shells that rained in from over Shepard and the others' heads. Anderson's convoy had arrived. “Wrex, Zaeed, I want a defensive line held while Anderson mops up these bastards and loads up our wounded. Nothing gets past you- got it?”
Wrex nodded to the affirmative, picking up a flamethrower off a grievously-injured krogan. Zaeed offered only a double-click over the comm; he was too busy spraying death into the Reapers' ranks to talk. Leaving the front line to do what they did best, Shepard withdrew to the convoy.
“Shepard, I wish I could spare you the bad news,” Anderson began, his mouth a tight, narrow line. “With the losses we took getting here, we don't have the armor- or the manpower- to get your wounded back to friendly territory and also make the push on the Reapers. They'd just laugh at us before they wiped us out in one go.”
Shepard felt as though he had been gutted with a wedge of ice. If they all committed to taking the Conduit from the Reapers, there would be nothing standing between their injured comrades and another ground assault. He'd be leaving them to die- no uncertainty about it. But if they didn't fire the Crucible, it wouldn't matter whether a few dozen soldiers died here- everything, everywhere, would be wiped out.
Would it? Their fleets overhead had taken sizable losses, but they had given a damn good account of themselves, as well; at least as many Reaper hulls drifted, lifeless in the void, as human or turian cruisers. The only major ground casualties had been owed to entrenched Reaper positions; they wouldn't have nearly the opportunity to dig in elsewhere as they did on Earth. Hackett had even killed a few of them in conventional warfare while Shepard had been gathering forces... and though it had been a small victory, it was still a victory.
But at what cost? How many hundreds of thousands- how many millions- would have to die to secure that victory... assuming that victory through superior firepower even was possible? And what about the Crucible? There were several dreadnoughts' worth of materials sunk into its construction. Now that it had been built, it would be an utter waste to not at least try to fire it... especially over three squads' worth of wounded.
Three squads... and Ashley.
“What are you suggesting we do, Admiral?” Shepard asked, gesturing to his forces. “They're not gonna make it without medical attention, and this intersection is key to our assault. We know it- and the Reapers sure as hell know it, too. If we leave them here, they'll get swarmed!”
“I know. But we don't have much other choice. Without the Conduit, this whole offensive was for nothing- their sacrifice included. We have to get through, Shepard, no matter what it takes.”
Shepard was silent for a long time following Anderson's words, staring out over the battlefield. When at last he spoke, it was slow and heavy, prefaced with a weary sigh.
“Get as many engineers as you can. We're laying mines and setting up turrets. Do we have any Cerberus tech? Power generators and shield pylons?”
He didn't have to say it to acknowledge the sacrifice; Anderson didn't have to hear it, offering only a grim nod. “I think we have a few we can spare. This had better be worth it- I don't think I could have given the order any easier, Shepard. God help us when this is all over.”
“It will be... soon,” Shepard muttered, eyes fixed on a Reaper in low orbit. Explosions rippled across its armored hull as turian and geth warships encircled it, hounding it from all sides and exploiting the sentient machine's bulk as a fatal weakness. The heavier turian cruisers strafed the Reaper, drawing it into an ungainly pivot in the atmosphere while the smaller, more agile geth frigates stung at it en masse. Their ploy was working; every time the Reaper stopped to engage a frigate, the turians wheeled about to bring their main guns to bear, while the geth ships' superior agility enabled them to evade most of the Reaper's shots. One beam scythed a frigate in two, but the persistence of the allied forces proved too much for the Reaper to handle. Its hull buckled amid gouts of flame, and it erupted into a twisting, spiraling hulk of fused metal.
It did little to improve Shepard's mood. Steeling himself for the order that inevitably had to be given, he and Anderson made their way toward the makeshift triage center. A reverent sort of hush came over the freshly-cleared battlefield; even the cries of the wounded seemed to taper down to the occasional sharp gasp.
“We're in a difficult position,” Shepard stated morosely, studying the lines of injured soldiers, the despairingly few who had survived relatively unscathed up until this point... his squadmates that had survived. “The Mako convoy took some nasty hits on the way to our position. They're not gonna be able to enact an immediate retrieval and push us through to the Conduit. And unfortunately... the mission has to come first. We'll have Kodiaks inbound to pick you up... but we have to push the spearhead as far in as we can, while we still have the ability and manpower to do it. Do you understand?”
A shocked murmuring arose from the ranks of Shepard's decimated force, but none outright challenged the Commander's decision.
“Permission to stay behind with a volunteer force, Commander?” Kirrahe spoke up from his place among his forces, stepping forward through their ranks to address Shepard face-to-face. “You need someone to protect the wounded and hold the line.”
Shepard approached the veteran STG operative, snapping to attention. “Permission granted, Captain. Give 'em hell.”
“I would wish to stay behind as well, Shepard,” Samara added. “The Code requires that I serve as a protector for those who need it.”
“Staying as well, Shepard,” Mordin stated grimly. “Need someone to tend to wounded, maintain generators. They need the best.”
“Repairs on this chassis were... not as effective as we would have hoped, Shepard,” EDI stated. “Effective movement speed is down forty percent. I would be more useful as a part of a rear guard, where mobility is of less concern than your assault team.”
“Ah, hell,” Zaeed muttered, filing in alongside the other volunteers. “You gave me the Suns back, Shepard. Might as well scratch your back, now you've scratched mine. Besides, this lot's gonna need someone what knows what he's doing with a sniper rifle,” the weathered mercenary quipped.
The corners of Shepard's eyes stung as he surveyed the volunteer force. The entirety of Kirrahe's company, along with a mixed squad of turians, krogan, and marines stood at their back, while the medics hauled the more ambulatory of the wounded onto their feet. For what precious little they had left to give, it was a force to be reckoned with. But would the shuttles even be able to reach them before the Reapers overwhelmed their position? Could they even make it through their air-defense screen?
Would any of them make it to see the sun rising on a planet free of Reapers? The thought pressed a hard lump into Shepard's throat, but he had to ignore it. For their sake.
For his own sake.
“Then make me proud,” he finally replied. It wasn't a command, not so much as a request.
“Damn right we will,” Zaeed answered, throwing the first salute Shepard had ever seen him give.
Part two to follow as soon as I've finished it. I tried to give most of the team a moment in the limelight- even if it resulted in their deaths- but I know I missed a few people. The second part will address that.