The Diomedian Chronicles/Conflictions

Conflictions is an installment in The Diomedian Chronicles series created by Cookiegobbler, written by Ahalosniper.

Its events take place in 2186 during the Reaper War, shortly after the fall of Earth to the Reapers.

The SSV Aegina has been sent to meet with representatives of the N7 Special Ops, hoping to gauge whether these rogue soldiers are potentially dangerous as allies. The Reapers, however, are fast approaching, and Gwendolyn Diomedes will come to be recognized by friends and enemies alike as a force to be reckoned with. =Conflictions=

Chapter 1: Inspection
“SSV Aegina, you are cleared to dock, begin final approach.”

The traffic controller’s signal travelled silently through space’s void before encountering the hull of the receiving ship, a craft shaped from steel and stealth panels drifting slowly closer to the signal’s origin. Rays of light reflecting off the vessel’s hull from a distant blue star in the center of the system were suddenly extinguished by a wave of shadow as it fell behind an imposing space station.

In its shade, the Aegina made the last tiny adjustments with maneuvering jets before letting armatures from the station take over, pulling the Normandy-class frigate in safely between a pair of docked freighters. The warship had to be extremely stable to maintain a closed seal while docking, as the only compatible doors on the aging station coupled with the hangar on its lowest deck.

“Aegina, you are all clear. Opening our doors.”

No sooner had the traffic controller’s signal died out than a response came back. “Copy that, Lexington Station. We’ll see you soon, over.”

While only a layer of plating between it and the soundless void, the station’s cargo dock was hot and loud with all the machinery running. Yellow cautionary lights flashed from atop load-lifting mechs and forklifts as they shifted cargo containers many times their size. Amidst all this, the whine of servos lowering the Aegina’s ramp went relatively unnoticed, even as three humans in combat armor with weapons secured over their backs came down it.

As a hooded man approached from the opposite direction to greet them, one of the human dock workers grunted as he set down a crate, and looked up at the newcomers. They wore no helmets, and his gaze fixed on the one in the lead with fascination.

“Whoo!” he called out. “Finally, an Alliance officer who lets her hair down a little!”

“Mind your work, Novak.” The hooded man told him. As the technician returned to his task, the one in the hood was met by three Alliance soldiers straightened in a formal salute. He raised a hand tentatively in response, and introduced himself. “Welcome aboard. My name is Beckett, I was told you would be arriving Commander. . ?”

The woman smiled. Her dark armor was marked with a new N7 badge, its chrome lettering still unmarked and bright. “I’m Gwen, the Aegina’s executive officer. Commander Marachuk wanted me to report on your ‘Special Ops’ group firsthand.” She motioned in turn to the two humans accompanying her, one a giant of a man wearing a heavy combat hard-suit, and the other a blonde woman in what looked like Phoenix armor. “This is Sergeant Greer and Doctor Lorelei Mobious. There’s no problem with us carrying weapons, is there?”

Beckett’s hooded eyes seemed to light up in recognition. “Ah, Lieutenant Commander Diomedes. . . no, in fact, with the Reapers active on the other side of the Traverse border, I find myself encouraging it. Please, this way.”

They followed him away from the ship and deeper into the station, detouring around a YMIR mech traipsing by on its heavy mechanical frame. Gwen made sure to stay clear of the thing. As she and her squadmates glanced left and right, it was obvious this wasn’t an average civilian supply station.

Every one of the containers was marked with some kind of warning, usually about the contents being explosive. Racks of military-grade weapons lined skeletal iron shelves, reaching all the way up to the high ceiling. Not all of them, Gwen noted, were legal in Council or even Alliance space.

She heard Greer murmur to himself excitedly, “Kid in a candy store.”

“I wanted to thank you for your operations on Irune.” Beckett said as Gwen moved up to keep pace with him. “The volus are not notorious fighters, but through trade they amassed extraordinary stockpiles of armaments from nearly all species. We were able to liberate much of them because of your actions.”

“That was Commander Marachuk. He was leading the operation.” Gwen said curtly, not looking to take credit.

“True.” Beckett said, with a slight nod. “But you were in charge of the ground team. Fighting alongside their soldiers inspired them, and made our negotiations easier. Don’t underestimate the value of a morale boost.”

She accepted it without comment, still not sure what to think of all this. The N7 Special Ops had appeared as if from the emptiness of deep space when the Reapers invaded, and while they were for the moment fighting for what seemed like the right cause, Marachuk had had. . . concerns. These people had a lot of military power, and no government keeping them in check. They were a weapon, and in the wrong hands could do as much damage as good.

Beckett was unaffected, and directed their attention to where they could see a battered Kowloon-class freighter being loaded. The vessel was showing signs of its age, but despite the dull coat of paint, it sported fresh welds securing new battleship plating and several small mass accelerator cannons to its hull. “We have a number of stations like this spread out across the galaxy, although we’ve lost many in the Terminus Systems. It gave us a bit of early warning. Right now, we are supplying what armaments we can for the krogan soldiers headed for Palaven. When they arrive, they will have much more than rocks to throw at the Reapers.”

Running footsteps approached, and the humans parted as a salarian in military-grade armor jogged by, an active omni-tool running terabytes of data on his wrist. Mobious turned back to ask, “How many species work with this. . . task force?”

His hood spun to meet her eyes, and for a moment Beckett looked as if he didn’t understand. “Every species.”

As they resumed walking, he explained, “When the Alpha Relay was destroyed, it wasn’t just humans who realized something was coming, and what Commander Shepard had been saying for years was true. We had one goal: mobilize what we could to be ready for them. The Special Tasks Group found out and many of their operatives offered to join us. Not long after that, we started recruiting the best of every race.”

“Like who?” Gwen asked, intrigued. She was beginning to like the sound of this more and more, but Greer shot her a disapproving glance.

Beckett shrugged. “Asari commandos, drell assassins, and turian officers from Council space. Mercenaries and quarian engineers from the Terminus Systems. Even batarians, once Kar’Shan fell. You’d be surprised what tactics a hanar will come up with.”

Finally leaving the loading docks, they were led into a narrow passage along one of the inner edges of the station. Outside they could see the stars from between girders holding everything together, with small transit shuttles navigating the structures to get from place to place.

Their guide began typing in on a door console. “We have to procure everything for ourselves, but it’s always through negotiation and moments of opportunity. We never resort to piracy to –”

He stopped short as a grinding sound came from within the wall. The door had slid open about a decimeter, and come to a halt. Beckett sighed and brought up his arm, an orange omni-tool glowing to life as he typed into it. “Novak, the door on bulkhead 37 is out again, put it on your to-do list.”

“Technical problems, Mr. Beckett?” Gwen asked, grinning good-naturedly.

“We’re forced to make use of everything we can. Sometimes, that means makeshift repairs.”

From the other side of the door, a massive hand grasped the slide and heaved it aside, revealing a towering krogan with a blue crest. He nodded to Beckett, and continued on his way without more than a dull-eyed glance at the Aegina crew.

The humans did likewise. Gradually, they were led away from Lexington Station’s outer hull and eventually came to a walkway overlooking its huge, outdated fusion reactor. Technicians milled about below, and what struck Gwen was just how ordinary it looked, when there were so many different species working side by side. Humans and turians in grease-stained jumpsuits were climbing on and around bulks of machinery, and a krogan hauled in new parts for a salarian team to install. The Reapers were a threat, but in reaction everyone was banding together. Everyone was so grimly devoted to bare survival, but now the state of the galaxy afterward was beginning to look optimistic to Gwen. And she wondered just how much she could do to bring that about.

“Stations like these are old, but no less useable. We only have to work harder to keep them running.” Beckett said. He seemed completely oblivious to that larger picture.

Greer leaned on the rail, cocking his head. “These guys don’t look much like soldiers. I’ve heard you send people on suicide missions. These can’t be them, right?”

“It takes more than soldiers to fight a war.” Beckett replied. “Although we would fight if we had to. We give the best a chance to really damage the Reapers, and the rest of us make it possible. Weapons, armor, fuel. . .”

Lorelei leaned around Greer to ask, “What about medical treatment? I’m certain some of that risk translates to casualties.”

“This station only has an infirmary. There are dedicated hospital posts for critical injuries, and they handle training and supplying our medics among combat squads. But it all passes through here.” Beckett gestured to her. “I could show you our inventory, if you wish.”

Lorelei nodded. Beckett turned to Gwen momentarily. “You are free to explore the station as you please. If you require anything, I am easily contacted.”

As Beckett led Doctor Mobious into another hallway, Greer watched silently until they were gone. Gwen returned her gaze to the workers below and wondered aloud, “What do you think of them?”

“I don’t like them.” He said sullenly.

After a moment waiting on him to elaborate, Gwen voiced her opinion. “I do. They prepared so we’d have a better chance against the Reapers. They’re trying to help the Alliance, help everyone, and actually succeeding.”

“It’s not the goals I have a problem with.” Greer interjected. “It’s their methods. For so many. . . warriors, they’ve got very little oversight. Who has the time to save the galaxy from them? I’ve known rogue soldiers before. Most aren’t the type of people that should be carrying weapons. Look at Cerberus. A military group gone rogue, trying to run the galaxy.”

“These people aren’t like Cerberus, Scott.” She said, glancing at him. “For one thing, they’re all-species. That means their people have an interest in looking out for everyone, not leveraging for power over them.”

Scott frowned. “Yeah, but they still have enough weapons to make them dangerous. Fighting the Reapers is going to be more difficult as time goes on. And when supplies get scarce, what’s to stop them from taking what they want?”

“They have restraint.” Gwen told him. “Look down there. Most of them are former military, and they’re working on obsolete equipment when the Alliance or the Turian Hierarchy have brand-new dreadnaughts. They’re not here because they wanted to turn pirate. They wanted to marshal everything they could to fight back. Maybe they deserted official militaries, but they’re still soldiers, fighting a war they knew was inevitable when no one else wanted to believe it.”

He grunted and returned to overlooking the engineering deck. He’d conceded the argument, but wasn’t going to be easily convinced.

Giving up on him for the moment, Gwen was just going to find a directory to a mess hall when her omni-tool chirped. Anticipating a message, Gwen lifted a hand to her ear.

“Executive officer Diomedes, this is Commander Marachuk. Acknowledge, over.”

“I read you, Commander. What do you need? Over.”

Greer perked up and made a questioning glance at her. Her eyes flicked towards him once, and he waited patiently for news.

“LC, there’s been a change in the station’s activity, and we’re reading activity around the local mass relay. We heard Beckett’s been called to the command center, can you put him on the line?”

“We split up a while ago, sir. Lorelei’s with him, they were going to go through medical inventories.”

“Lieutenant Commander Diomedes, you should meet him in their command center. Find out what’s going on in there, Gwen. Aegina out.”

The link terminated, and Gwen dropped her hand away. Greer stood up and away from the rail. “What’s up?”

“Don’t know yet.” She replied, looking once again for a directory. “But we’re gonna find out.”

Chapter 2: Contact Lost
Lexington Station’s crowded control room was set in the center of its arbitrary ‘top’ side. Unlike other sections, it was one of the few places aboard actually using mass effect fields to generate artificial gravity. The outer sections rotated like a gyro to compensate for the lack of gravity. It was an inefficient design, replaced just about everywhere else in the galaxy, and Gwen wondered if Scott noticed. But her own attention quickly shifted when she spotted the distinctive colors of Lorelei’s armor.

She stood next to Beckett and an environment-suited volus on a high chair, focused on a screen projection until waving Gwen over. With Greer following, Gwen maneuvered around consoles and several human technicians to get a better look at what they were focused on. “Is something wrong?”

Beckett looked up, startled, too intent on the screen to notice anything around him. “Our outpost near the mass relay stopped transmitting a minute ago.” He turned to the volus. “You’re sure it’s not just our coms array again?”

“No.” it replied, the filtered voice identifying him as male. The bulky environment suit sucked in a breath. “We’d be getting only static if that was the case. The problem is on their end.”

He frowned, returning to the display, and spoke while he typed. “Miss Diomedes, this is Tiven. He is the assigned captain for the station.”

The volus’ chair spun, and Tiven dipped his head. “It is an honor, Lieutenant Commander.”

Lorelei drew her aside before the volus could continue. She was a bit thankful for that, the ones she’d known on Irune could go on for hours, and usually had some pompous sense of self-importance. Unperturbed, Tiven went back to looking over Beckett’s shoulder as Lorelei said in a hushed voice, “They haven’t been lying. Medi-gel crates are everywhere in the wing next to where we docked. Most of it’s military-grade equipment, and the rest are labeled for the Citadel. It'll go to good use with all the refugees coming in.”

“Good. . .” Gwen murmured, walking around the computer the rest of them were focused on. She started reading the diagnostic programs being run. “Anything we can do to help?”

“Not unless you want to vac-suit up and check our coms array.” Beckett said absently, staring at his screen. Gwen could already see that was pointless, the data showed everything was running just as expected. She wandered over to the window to try spotting the array.

Just as she thought, it all looked fine. She wondered just how long it would take Beckett to figure that out on his own, and stared out of the viewports. A red-orange planet hung in the distance, their station on a loose orbit with it, and the blue star casting its rays of light. Something caught her attention; briefly, but it had been something. Like the twinkle of a star where there was no speck of light. There had to be something reflecting the local star’s light. Then to be invisible to her again, it would have to pass into some shadow, like that of the planet. If it had originated from the mass relay, then it was coming. . . this way.

Her augmented vision caught sight of the mass just as it exited the near side of the planet’s shadow, a solid hull reflected light and grew rapidly larger.

“Brace for impact!” Gwen yelled, diving to grab hold of a bulkhead. She had the complete trust of her team, and they did so at once. But the men of the N7 Special Ops hesitated. And then the collision happened.

The station, which had seemed in some way like a solid and permanent structure, suddenly buckled. Plates of heavy-alloy metal crumpled inward or broke off their frames, and the sound of shrieking metal was deafening for half an instant. But then the window Gwen had been standing next to shattered open.

Air was suddenly pulling everything into the vacuum outside, and Gwen felt the breath being stolen from her lungs. Despite the hurricane forces around her, bending metal and frightened screams sounded muted as the atmosphere thinned rapidly. Laws of physics tried to pull her free and take her into the void, but her augmented body clamped tightly on the handholds she found. Still, the strain and lack of oxygen was exhausting her.

Just when she knew she would let go soon, the pull from outside stopped. Gravity again took over, and Gwen fell to the deck, relieved. Looking up, she saw the viewports had been sealed by heavy steel plates, and fresh air was being pumped in quickly. All the other humans in the control center had been similarly incapacitated, it was the suit-enveloped volus that stood clutching the side of a console, one hand reaching up to the controls. Greer and Lorelei appeared from where they’d each taken shelter, as did Beckett, but two of the human technicians had disappeared. The void had taken them.

“What just happened?” Scott asked, helping Lorelei up.

“A ship hit us.” Gwen said.

“Impossible.” Beckett said, not believing it as he said it. “There should have been something on sensors.”

Tiven had scrambled to one of the now-empty stations. “Hull breaches on the east quarter.” His suit wheezed. “Decks three through twelve. Pendulum section four has broken away. They’re gone.”

“You’d have picked something up even if it was an asteroid.” Greer stated. “Think it could be a stealth ship?”

“Unlikely, but. . . it must have been.” Beckett agreed.

Gwen’s mind worked faster, logic leading her to a suspicion. “It’s the Reapers.”

Lorelei looked at her doubtfully. “How do you know?”

“They’re the only ones that would have stealth technology besides Cerberus.” She explained. “And Cerberus doesn’t throw away their ships.”

Beckett considered the possibility with dread. Then a voice emanated from the console. “Security Team Five, closing in on the breach. . . husks! We’ve got husks onboard!”

“It appears your intuition serves you well.” Beckett said, hardly enthusiastic.

“You have to evacuate.” Gwen said urgently. “Beckett, even if we can beat the husks, even a small Reaper ship could take this place out with a single blast if they know you’re here.”

He kept staring at the console indecisively, eyes flicking between bits of data. Finally, he closed them, and made a decision. “Aye.” He opened a station-wide intercom. “Security teams, converge on all entry points. Keep them contained. All other staff, begin evacuation and load everything we can into the freighters. If we must abandon the station, we will not be leaving empty-handed.”

He cut off the intercom and promptly began drawing a weapon. The members of Prometheus Squad took this as a cue.

"Finally, some action." Greer whispered excitedly, drawing his AT-12 Raider.

Gwen was absolutely calm, reaching over her shoulder to pull the M-13 Raptor from where it was secured on her armor. It unlocked with a familiar click, the barrel telescoping into place. Beckett and the remaining technicians drew sidearms, although the volus had no weapons to speak of. Beckett moved to the door.

"We'll be coming very close to the breached sections to get to the cargo dock." He said, twisting the top of his weapon until it produced the red-orange glow of an ammo mod. "I believe it's ladies in shielded combat armor first."

Scott pushed past the crowd. "Yeah right, Beckett. I'm on point."

A slight grin briefly showed on the merchant's face as Scott went by him to enter the passage, then he and the others followed him into the empty halls, muted gunfire from other decks the only thing between them and a tense silence.

Chapter 3: Gunfight in a Glass House
Reapers. Gwen knew about Reapers. Cerberus had plenty of data on them, and some of it had been hard-wired into her brain. Not technical specifications, even Cerberus couldn’t understand much of their technology, but what the Reapers were capable of. . . the conversion of species into war machines, indoctrination to turn their enemies against each other, and genocide on a galactic scale. These were reason enough to fear them, but Gwen found them disturbing on even a personal level. The very purpose for their creation was to kill, and by the millions. It went against everything else she’d seen, that this was something profoundly evil. Whatever lost origins they had deserved to be forgotten.

She could handle battle. But treading cautiously down the halls, acutely aware of every noise from battles above or below them felt like a tense calm before the storm. The rasping voices of husks and echoes of mass accelerator rifles could have originated just feet away, on the other side of the station’s thin walls or floors. Gwen could feel the vibrations through her combat boots as something massive lumbered by on another deck.

In front of her, Scott was hunched over his shotgun, waiting for something to present itself as a target. At every corner, he moved ahead of the main group to clear it and slowed until the others caught up to him. When the corridor was blocked by a solid, windowless door, Gwen and Scott took up breach positions. Just as they’d trained dozens of times, Gwen hit the door release as Scott ducked through, shotgun raised while Gwen’s rifle covered from the door.

Just as they confirmed the next hall clear, shots broke out nearby, and this time it was no echo. Scott growled a curse as they realized husks had come up behind them. The others had massed too closely for him to get through, and quickly sizing up the situation, went for his Sabre to fire over them, being tallest among them. “Hurry through the door!” he shouted, “Move!”

Caught behind the others as they pushed through the choke point, Beckett stood shoulder to shoulder with Lorelei, frantically squeezing the trigger on his sidearm and projecting grains of metal into the twisted flesh of former batarians. Lorelei held her left arm extended, and from her wrist shot liquid-filled darts with little more than a whisper. The acid they contained melted through decayed flesh instantly, but while organic matter disintegrated, the Reaper cybernetics pushed what was left until the shredded body simply collapsed. Those that took their place lifted cannons grafted to their arms and fired, straight into the midst of the group.

Lorelei threw herself sideways as several bits of half-molten metal shot by. One impacted her side, but the Phoenix armor’s shielding held. One of the Special Ops dispatchers with them wasn’t as lucky, the fabric of his clothing offering no protection. Lorelei retaliated with a dart that caught one husk in the forehead and dropped him immediately, but more had already closed the distance, and one of the misshapen creatures got past her fire.

The hooded figure of Beckett into it from the side, knocking both of them into the wall. Before it could recover, Beckett managed to bring up his glowing M-3 Predator and put several rounds into its skull. He drew back just as quickly to avoid being caught under it, but before he could extricate himself completely another flanked him and brought its arm cannon around in a savage blow aimed for Beckett’s head.

An orange gauntlet suddenly sprang to life, hanging in midair with a thin blade extending from it. The flash-forged blade met the husk’s swing with an equal force, stopping it dead and burning through flesh and cybernetics alike. Emitting a synthesized growl as the only indication of pain, the wretched batarian stared as Gwendolyn Diomedes suddenly materialized with a Talon revolver in her other hand. A moment later, the blue glow of its eyes was gone, and the corpse toppled to the floor.

Beckett immediately scrambled for the door, but Lorelei lingered half a moment more to extract a sample of husk tissue. Once it was taken, she sprinted to catch up with Beckett, and the Lieutenant Commander was right behind them. The moment they were through, Greer locked down the door as fire pelted the other side.

“They’re gonna blast through this thing pretty quick.” Scott pointed out, even as another thud sounded. “With them on our backs, we'll get boxed in.”

“Agreed.” Beckett said, focused on the technician Lorelei had dragged with them, while the medical specialist began analyzing both the wound and her sample of Reaper tissue. He was already gone, the shot he’d taken burning a deep wound. As the doctor backed away, the volus pulled his Alliance dog tags and handed them to Beckett.

While Scott looked on at this, Gwen started tapping into the door control. “Hang on. I think I can vent that section, as long as they don’t break down the door first.”

“I don’t think husks even need to breathe.” Beckett objected, glancing over to her.

“No, not that.” Gwen said, activating her omni-tool. “Explosive decompression will clear them out.”

Just as her tool beeped a success, the howl of a windstorm travelled through the bulkhead, and the door suddenly crumpled into a concave shape, but managed to hold. They must have been close.

“No lifesigns, normal or not, remaining.” Gwen said, and walked over to the window. As Beckett joined her, they observed a human husk floating in the void, struggling ineffectually. After a few moments, the flailing ceased, evidently unable to survive in vacuum.

Gwen crossed her arms and grinned smugly. “Say it.”

“Alright, you were right.” Beckett said, putting up his hands in a gesture of defeat.

The omni-tool on Beckett's arm suddenly chirped, and when he activated it, a small screen sprang up from his wrist. The borders were shaky, as the sender appeared to be running, but the frame was generally centered on an Alliance marine helmet with a non-standard paint scheme. "Ion Squad here. Beckett, they swarmed the ordnance bay before we could extract the bombs. They killed everyone else. We're falling back."

The merchant murmured a short stream of curses in a language the omni-tool translators didn't recognize. "Any chance of taking them back?"

"Negative, way too many. They knew right where it all was, too."

"Alright, get to your ship. I'll deal with the fail-safe protocols." He terminated the link, and began examining his pistol.

Anticipating a new objective, Gwen took a moment to switch out her pistol's thermal clip and unsling her Raptor. "What was that about?"

His pistol hummed and glowed purple, internal computers set to fire rounds modified by mass effect fields. "They captured our bomb storage. Those represented a very significant investment. Losing them is bad, but even worse is the possibility of them being used against us. I will deny that advantage to our enemies."

Gwen was right with him as he maneuvered through the crowd, headed for a door branching off of their main route. "Don't even start to think you're going alone. I've been trained as an infiltrator by Cerberus, Archangel, and the Alliance. Try to stop me, and not even you will know I'm there. And even though I'm telling you now, you'll never be sure, because there won't be a single trace."

Beckett forced a smile. "I don't doubt your abilities, Miss Diomedes. And while I'd normally appreciate the aid, there might not be time to get away once I reach the warheads. If that happens, it is best for only one of us to go." A hint of smugness turned it into a grin. "And as you have just pointed out, you are going to be more valuable against the Reapers. Now quickly, my men will follow you and yours. Get them all to your ship."

She gritted her teeth. He'd used her own words against her, and what's more, his cold calculating was probably right. She hated that, even if he was using it to sacrifice himself rather than someone else. "We'll clear the docking bay and wait for you. Don't be late."

Stepping through the open door, he replied, "Of course." Then it sealed, and through its small window, Gwen lost sight of him, already cloaked and moving. At once, she silently decided to do as he said and get everyone else to the Aegina, and then come back for him. No way he could argue then. She called out, "Okay people, we're getting out of here. Now which way?"

Tiven ran forward, trundling along on short legs in a bulky suit. Gwen followed behind him, walking slowly to not overtake him, as he approached the next bulkhead and reached up to the door control. "*Gasp*. Through here! We'll need to—" As the door slid open, he turned to stare at the tarnished metal of a cannon, grafted into the arm of a Reaper creature. The former batarian's head swiveled down with a synthesized growl, locking with the volus' gaze for half an instant. "Oh dear."

It was all he managed to say before the cannon centered on his head and fired. A single bolt of molten iron went through the suit, exiting at the back of the volus' neck, and the short environment suit fell over backwards.

Gwen growled in surprise and rage, bringing her Raptor to bear too late. Still, she fired five rounds into it in the blink of an eye, cutting through cybernetics, muscle, and nerves to make it fall like a puppet with its strings cut.

More of the batarians poured through the door, and were met by a hail of sidearm fire and shotshells from Scott's Raider. Gwen cloaked quickly and dropped to a knee by Tiven, checking to see if he could be saved. He couldn't. The bolt had killed him immediately, and the holes it left behind were rapidly depressurizing. Removing the clan crest from the torso of his suit, as she'd learned they were akin to dog tags, Gwen stowed them and then swung her omni-blade, the tool glowing to life as she lunged at one of their enemies. The blade pierced its body deeply, and as she reappeared, Gwen used the rapidly failing body as a shield, firing her Raptor akimbo from under one arm.

As the ranks thinned, Gwen could see several of the creatures hunched over their dead.

"They're cannibals!" Greer called, disgusted. He blasted another one of the creatures, but the armor plating it had acquired spared it from several of the pellets. Gwen helped him by finishing it off with a couple of shots before throwing her body shield at another Cannibal, then emptying the last of her thermal clip into its head as it tried to extricate itself.

With the last of this group dead, Gwen led her team and the last living N7 technician over the carnage they'd left behind and to the next door, leading into a small room with a panel beside the entrance.

"I hate elevators." Greer said, catching his breath as Lorelei punched in the docking bay.

Chapter 4: Sabotage
Gwen recognized the hall their elevator stopped at. It was the one that had taken them away from the loading bay where the Aegina was docked. The sounds of echoing gunshots had steadily grown, and now they could hear a full-blown battle on the other side of one more door. Not about to be taken by surprise again, Gwen and Scott took up positions on either side of the door, and ducked in with raised weapons.

The very air screamed as a bolt of lightning superheated it. The silhouette of a dock worker was all Gwen saw for an instant as he fired the heavy Arc Projector he held. The bolt of electricity snaked through the air, finding the metal plates of a Cannibal. The monster shrieked, then as the light faded, the blackened body collapsed.

Across the bay were a dozen smaller firefights between armored or unarmored N7 personnel and Reaper abominations. Amid the haze of smoke from several fires, Gwen had trouble sighting the Aegina. While the others opened fire, Gwen pulled the tech behind cover. “How’s our situation?”

The jittery tech’s head kept switching between her and the battle going on between now-empty storage shelves. “Novak, ma’am. We were loading everything onto shuttles and your ship when the husks got through. We all got separated when they came through the decks, most I think are holding out where you’re docked.”

“Then it’s time to regroup.” Gwen said. “Sweep the docks! Force them back and don’t let anything past you, collect everyone we find!”

Recoil of several weapons answered her. Scott walked ahead with Lorelei flanking, their strong shields providing the others with cover. Gwen cloaked and went ahead, joining a pair of turians where they’d taken cover and adding to their barrage of rifle fire. The shielding of their Marauder opponents failed, and the husks were torn apart, leaving the fighters free to link back up with the rest of her squad.

A wall of shielding and armor began to form, slowly forging ahead and always increasing in number. Salarians, krogan, asari, and drell all joined their ranks, slaughtering the enemy before them. As they neared the Aegina, the smokescreen became thinner, and Gwen spotted the blue glow of raw biotic power.

In the midst of a squad of riflemen, a man in a simple crewman’s outfit shaped the course of the battle. He waved his left arm, and a plate of metal broke from its already damaged frame on the deck and flew at high speed into a cluster of husks, jagged edges tearing through them. Turning his attention to a group of Cannibals advancing to flank them, and he found where the battle damage had weakened the ceiling and pulled a part of it down on them. His actions forced the Reapers to attack from one direction, where the rifles of other soldiers focused to tear them apart.

One monstrosity finally got through; a towering mass of krogan flesh, red cybernetics glowing from within. Despite the concentrated fire of an entire squad, the giant reached their barricade of heavy crates and batted them aside, sending the soldiers scrambling for cover or to avoid the debris. One human, pinned momentarily, shoved the crate off him in time to see the behemoth raise a tree-trunk leg to crush him, and drew his pistol in a futile attempt to fight back. But before it could bring down the blow, a glowing mass effect field of equal and opposite force stopped it.

Eyes narrowed and jaw locked in concentration, the biotic flexed and lifted the towering creature completely off the deck. It roared in frustration, swinging the massive blade grafted into its forelimb but unable to reach its opponents. The man drew one arm back, then swung it forward, colliding two mass effect fields.

The resulting detonation accelerated the hulking creature to several meters per second, only stopping when it came in contact with a very solid wall, melding with it into a mess of warped metal and torn flesh. The biotic took a step back as the other soldiers continued fighting, relieved of the exertion.

Now that the battle was in their favor, Gwen called over her radio, “Good throw, Archaon.”

The Doctor spotted her and seemed to have to strain his muscles to smile. “Would have been simpler just to disconnect his implants. But nothing helps morale like a display of heroism.”

“Showoff.” Scott quipped as he and Novak waded into another group of enemies.

Once the last of their enemies had been killed or driven out of one compartment, the Reapers’ undead war machines became strangely silent. There was no communication between them, just deathly quiet as the army of stolen corpses stood idle, completely without their own drives, being controlled from afar by the vast consciousness of a true Reaper. Their only sound was respiration for the barely-alive meat remaining on them. Forms shaped from the flesh of dead beings uttered menacing growls with every rasping breath, and treading cautiously between them, Beckett cursed their breathing for the chilling sound, the stench of burning, fetid meat, and that he’d lost a damn bet about it.

At some soundless order, a number of husks would depart, walking impassively into battle with the N7 forces that Beckett was farther from every moment. Hidden by his tactical cloak, he passed within centimeters of husks several times, but went unnoticed as he headed deeper into the station. The bombs were stored in the central hub, on the lower levels. He had to cover a lot of ground, and much of it was stained with multicolored blood.

The bodies, though some were so mangled they were unrecognizable, were of people he knew. The attack had happened so quickly, though, that most of these veterans were without their armor and weapons. It took every ounce of restraint and reminding himself of his task to keep from breaking cover when he stumbled upon a Cannibal devouring the body of a salarian who’d left his career in STG just to help Beckett’s cause.

When he reached the entrance he’d planned to take into the bomb center, he found it closely guarded by well-armed Marauders. Beckett considered his odds of taking them out, but quickly abandoned the idea. Even if he eliminated them flawlessly, the Reaper controlling them would know of their deaths and direct the husks everywhere to converge on that spot. Instead, he backtracked and found an air vent large enough for a human to climb into, and pulled himself up quickly.

Letting his cloak recharge, he crawled along the cramped duct, careful not to create any sound that might echo and alert a husk nearby. Finding the next vent, he peered through to ensure he wouldn’t be seen exiting, cloaked, and lifted the grating.

Landing lightly, Beckett took cover behind the bulk of a car-sized antimatter charge and surveyed the room. The monsters were everywhere, and looked organized compared with their typical swarming tactics in battle. A few armed Marauders seemed to be on guard, but this far from the retreating organics, the Reaper had deemed it hardly necessary. Strong batarian husks were working in teams of four to lift torpedoes weighing several tons, taking them somewhere outside the room in wordless coordination that reminded Beckett of an ant colony.

So they wanted explosives, did they? He could give them that. Moving silently, he made for the small armory branching off of bomb storage that contained codes and detonators for everything here. Slipping past an implant-fitted turian, Beckett quickly hacked into one of the computers and downloaded codes to his omni-tool before taking the master detonator and leaving undetected.

Typically, boredom would have made guards easy to slip by. But these were more machines than living creatures, and a mundane job only made their focus sharper. Still, Beckett snuck around them, going from one massive bomb to the next and inputting activation codes despite his sweating palms. Finally, he had the last of them linked to his detonator and returned to the vent, leaving undiscovered.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he relaxed as he began heading back out of hostile territory. On the other side of the duct, Beckett checked that the Marauder guards couldn’t see him, then dropped to the floor. As he spun around, he stared right into the face of the Cannibal he’d gone by.

The wretched creature had seen the vent open, and this close, his cloak was useless. It lunged at him with an electronic growl, powerful arms wrapping around his body. The cloak failed, and Beckett visually materialized as the grapplers fell to the ground.

Fighting to get on top, Beckett's omni-blade sprang to life and severed the Cannibal’s clawed hand. Still pinned, he slashed at what he could reach, gutting the metal-plated batarian until it collapsed, and Beckett forced the body off of him.

Synthesized growls echoed from around the corner. The Reaper was onto him. Getting to his feet, Beckett ran in the opposite direction, trying to get his cloak working again. A human husk came around a corner and sprinted towards him, and Beckett ducked under its dagger-tipped fingers, leaving it behind. He’d gotten far from the bomb bays, and was optimistic about escape, when something bright orange appeared ahead of him.

Walking on four spindly legs, a mass of organic material and metal cannons oriented toward him, and discharged a radiant crimson bolt of energy. Reaching an alcove in the wall just in time, Beckett threw himself sideways, smashing into the wall but evading the artillery fire. Covering his head as another one detonated against his modest cover, Beckett searched frantically for a way out, and looking up found another vent access. Seeing the husks that pursued him begin to close the distance, he fired a few warning shots from his Predator and jumped up, scrambling inside.

The duct was short, but at least it had another way out. Forgetting stealth, he crawled through and dived out of the other side. No sooner had he landed than the rasp of a human husk came from the vent. Looking up, Beckett saw it trying to follow him and immediately raised his pistol, using up half the thermal clip to ensure it stopped moving.

Letting the adrenaline run its course, Beckett caught his breath and looked around. To his detriment, he realized he hadn’t found a way out. This small room had only one way out beside the vent, a door back into the hall he’d just come from. And he could hear the husks begin to gather outside.

Chapter 5: Leave None Behind
Despite the number of Reaper troops the marines were cutting down, there never seemed to be any less of them. For every one they killed, another took its place or set upon the fallen to devour them, and throw itself against the defenders with renewed strength. But now that Prometheus Squad had regrouped to lead, they had the battle under control against any odds. Biotics, sniper fire, and shotgun blasts were a constant above the chaos of battle, but while the Reapers weren’t breaking through, neither were the defenders making any significant dent in the husks. And as the bloody stalemate progressed, attrition would favor their enemy.

“Rah!” A quarian called out as a molten shot went through his suit and arm. He fell back, leaving a gap in the barricade that Gwen became hard-pressed to fill. Lorelei immediately shifted over to check on him, keeping her head below the level of the crates they’d used to form a small stockade. The ex-Migrant Fleet Marine was alive, his suit already isolating the breach and flooding it with antibiotics, but he was out of the fight. One less rifle meant that much more ground open for the Reapers to advance, and before long they would be overrun.

Gwen needed options. Unless Beckett reached them soon, they would have no choice but to board the Aegina without him, which she had no intention of doing. She could cloak and go after him, but without Prometheus’ squad leader, there was no way the rest would hold. Perhaps if the Aegina detached while she infiltrated, and returned at her signal for a quick exfiltration. ..

A cry of alarm interrupted her train of thought. Novak’s tan coveralls suddenly appeared down the line of veterans in shielded battle armor, the Arc Projector dropping from his comparatively scrawny arms. He fell over backwards, and for a moment Gwen thought he’d been hit, but she realized something was off in the way he dropped. Even as the fighters on either side trained their guns on where he’d stood, Gwen knew that they were punching a hole up through the floor.

Metal plates were shorn in two as two extended, skeletal claws tore them down, widening the hole to climb up. Novak tried to push away, but something had seized his leg and was threatening to drag him down. The moment a Cannibal's head rose from the hole, Gwen reached him and stabbed her sai omni-blade deep into its skull. Novak kicked free, and scrambled back from the edge. Gwen drew her blade out of the Cannibal and let it fall back, but before she could get away the tears in the plating deepened and Gwen's footing slanted down. Her hand found purchase before she could slide below, but she found herself nearly face to face with something that would have inspired true terror in the bravest heroes.

The long, bladed claws that had pulled open the deck's alloy belonged to a gangly creature that towered above the crowd of husks milling below, staring at Gwen with cold, black eyes. The way its gaze pierced her, Gwen shivered as she identified a cruel intelligence in those dark pools. The skin around them had decayed, leaving the exposed bone an unhealthy gray and Reaper tech replacing mind, body, and soul underneath. Sharpened horns of tarnished metal and mutated bone protruded back from its skull like those of a devil, and despite how it had been so disfigured, by them Gwen concluded with pity that this monster had once been an asari.

Withered flesh strained as the asari's jaw opened, and unleashed a deafening shriek that seemed to stab at her mind. Ignoring the pain as best she could, Gwen drew her Talon and fired at point blank range. The handheld shotgun interrupted the scream, but otherwise did nothing but glance off of a powerful biotic barrier. Cold hatred welled in its eyes, focused on Gwen. Lightning-fast, the Banshee's claws snaked forward and sliced through the shielding and armor on her leg, slashing through tissue and nailing her to the deck as she tried to edge away. As nerve impulses carried searing pain to her mind, Gwen's scream joined that of the Reaper.

Just as Gwen expected the Banshee to pull her down, the claw slid out the way it had come, leaving deep but clean wounds where it could have shredded her. A biotic shackle on the Banshee's lean arm had pulled it free, and definitively human arms grasped hold of Gwen before she could slide into the pit below.

As Lorelei and Novak pulled her clear, Gwen could see that Archaon was locked in a biotic power struggle with the monster below, and while sweat beaded on his brow Scott rushed forward with a new missile launcher, trained it on the hole, and held the firing stud until it launched. The Cobra didn't cause a big explosion, but everything within its range was instantly killed.

Gwen bit down on her lip and tasted blood as Lorelei began applying medigel to the gashes through her muscle. The gunfire all around was still deafening, but not like the Banshee's scream had been. The sharp pain of another consciousness' mental attack was still just starting to subside, and with it Gwen began to hear the voices of her squadmates.

"They're still trying to climb up!" Scott was saying, crouched by the edge of the hole. He'd tossed aside the spent missile launcher and was ducking fire from below between kicks of his shotgun. "We can't defend here any more."

"What if we fall back into the Aegina's shuttle bay?" asked Lorelei, still focused on taping up Gwen's wounds. For a moment, seeing how calm Lorelei was while she suffered infuriated Gwen. Then the painkillers took effect, and the relief was sweeter at that moment than anything she'd ever experienced.

"No good, can't afford them getting into grenade range and damaging her." Scott replied. Gwen noticed Archaon was being unusually reserved, he usually had plenty to add to conversations. But then she spotted him, brightly illuminated by the amount of biotic energy he was devoting to protective barriers for them, and understood he needed to concentrate.

"We aren't leaving without everyone." Gwen said, trying to sit up. But as her muscles stretched or relaxed around where the Banshee's sword-like claws had impaled her, it caused a resurgence in the pain that forced her to freeze. Her hands tightened, and Gwen found through the pain she'd kept a vicelike grip on her Talon. Scanning around, she noticed Novak had recovered her Raptor for her, and the technician slid the weapon over from where he'd taken cover when she spotted him.

As she checked its thermal clip, Scott called to them, "There's been nothing from Beckett. And we stay here, none of us will be leaving."

The meds slowly submerging the pain again, Gwen had to admit he was right. "Alright, get everyone to fall back in teams. Cover each other."

Behind Archaon's shield, Gwen attempted to keep her leg as still as possible as Lorelei helped her up. Just as they started up the Aegina's ramp alongside Novak and a team of quarians and krogan, her omni-tool chirped. Beckett's voice originated from its small speaker.

"Miss Diomedes, I've armed the devices. I made it halfway back, but the Reapers have me cornered. You'd best cast off and get to a safe distance."

Resisting Lorelei's gentle attempts to guide her, Gwen raised the omni-tool and spoke into it. "Beckett? Where are you?"

"Holed up in a small storeroom. I have a detonator linked to the explosives. When you're out of range, I'll light up the sky."

Without time to convince him, Gwen merely struggled out of Lorelei's grasp and turned. "I'm going after him. Detach the ship and I'll signal you to come back and pick us up." Unfortunately, while she could no longer feel her injuries, they still took their toll, and Gwen collapsed to the deck.

She thought of curses as she pushed herself into a sitting position. "Not on that leg you're not." Lorelei said, both an order and an apology.

"Commander!" Greer spoke up. "I'll go."

Gwen looked at him carefully, standing at the bottom of the ramp as N7 personnel boarded and looking back up at her. Why would he? He didn't even seem to trust the man he'd be saving. "I can't ask you to risk your life, Scott."

Her voice had that hard undertone of a commanding officer, implying she wouldn't allow him to. He looked around carelessly and said, "I'll let you use that Geth Spitfire I found."

A spark of mayhem glinted in Gwen's eyes. "Deal!"

Scott didn't need any further consent. He simply turned back to the tide of enemies marching and firing towards them and scanned the crowd. He called to Archaon, still defending the few yet to get aboard with fields of dark energy. "Doc! I've gotta get through! Find a weak point and clear me a path!"

Archaon turned his attention to the task, and quickly found a point in the Reapers sparsely populated by unarmored Husks and Cannibals. With the last of those he needed to protect running up the SSV Aegina's ramp, he redirected the energy of his barriers into a single field. The strain of maintaining so much energy for so long had nearly exhausted him, but he had enough for this final effort.

"You should have stayed in dark space." he laughed under his breath, then unleashed the energy he'd built up. A Shockwave of singular power ripped through the space in front of him, biotic detonations rippling through the husks and smashing them against walls or hurling them away, the mere force enough to break their already battered forms.

In its wake, Scott vaulted the barricades and sprinted through the gap before the husks could close it. A Marauder rounded the corner of a collapsed structural support as he neared a door blown off its frame by Archaon's Shockwave, and Scott blasted it with his shotgun as he ran by. "Look out dumb stuff, coming through!" he said, hurdling its falling body.

Something took a shot at his retreating back, but in a moment Scott was through the door and out of its line of sight. Alone in the deserted hallways, without anyone needing protection Scott sprinted through long corridors filled with gore and debris left behind by the firefights. Clad in his heavy armor, he forced by any husks he encountered like a juggernaut, bashing the lone creatures into walls or trampling them under armored boots. While he'd left his helmet behind, and so lacked his Heads-Up Display, Gwen had remotely linked him to the signal of Beckett's omni-tool, making a compass spring up on his own wrist with an arrow and distance indicator.

Almost there, he thought, just as something Scott couldn't even identify stepped from cover at the far end of the hall and raised a weapon. Damn it. Without cover or time, Scott dropped his Raider and dived forward, reaching for the rifle on his back. Mass effect accelerated shots glanced off his shield or went over his head, and even before he landed, he'd got his first shot off.

This enemy had some form of sickly green barrier, but whatever its origin, it was no match for the Sabre's sheer stopping power. The first heavy round punched through barrier and bone, the impact felt throughout its body. Greer landed prone, the rifle already braced, and two more shots followed, finishing the monster before it could recover. It toppled over, and Scott kept his sights on its deformed head a moment more before shouldering the Sabre, standing up, and backtracking to pick up his Raider.

As he passed, Scott edged around the body and studied it intently. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn't identify what sort of organic being it had once been. Was this a husk left over from a previous cycle? What horrors had they used in place of the Banshees millenia before? Deciding he'd rather not find out, Greer continued at a brisk pace until he spotted two pure, unmutated organics in cover on either side of a branching passage. Beckett was close, and in that direction. Scott figured the krogan and asari had come to help as well.

Sliding into cover with the one on his side, the asari, Scott peered around the corner and spotted a small group of Cannibals and human husks crowded around a spindle-legged mound of orange flesh saddled with cannons, which he guessed had been a rachni. Looking across to the krogan, Greer nodded a go, and with the two of them, charged.

An M-76 Revenant Light Machine Gun thundered while the krogan bellowed, drawing the husks' attention even as many were cut down. Sprinting ahead with biotic glow all around her, the asari looked ready to make a biotic charge when a bolt of crimson light slammed into her, killing the biotics and illuminating her body red at once. Scott didn't look back as she was thrown behind him, but held his fire. He needed to close in first or be in their midst with an empty clip. He kept behind the roaring krogan who had cut down every one of the smaller husks by now. But the Ravager weathered the hail of bullets, and responded to it.

Another cannon blast lit up the krogan's silhouette, the flash enough to blind Scott for an instant. Its shielding held against one impact, but then failed as another detonated. Still running heedlessly forward as blood dripped to the floor, the krogan was finally stopped by a third detonation against its chest. The huge reptile tripped forward, sliding a short distance and coming to rest in a clatter on the deck beside its weapon. But it had closed the distance. Stepping off the krogan's armored hump, Scott leaped up in front of the Ravager and fired twice with his Raider at point-blank range. The creature burst open, its brood of Swarmers cut apart by the pellets, and was thrown to the ground as Scott shoved into it upon landing.

Breathing heavily, Scott lowered the weapon and looked back down the hall. Both the krogan and asari lay unmoving, pools of blood flowing from them. They'd been every bit as willing to sacrifice as he had. He just hope it counted for something. Reloading and securing the Raider, Scott approached the door and lifted his omni-tool, VIs automatically releasing the lock. He stepped forward as it cracked open, and found himself staring into the extended barrel of a Predator.

Beckett's eyes widened in surprise. "You're not who I was expecting."

"Disappointed?" Scott exhaled.

"Not at all." Beckett redirected the weapon's muzzle and stepped outside with him. Together they went back the way Scott had come, and while he checked the corner Beckett knelt down next to one alien, then the other. "Is everyone off the station?"

"We'll be the last." Scott replied.

Beckett looked back down at the asari, drawing his hand across her face to close her eyelids. "I hope you were right about that goddess." Then he stood, pistol drawn and modded, indicating he was ready for Scott to lead on.

Chapter 6: The Gauntlet
Suddenly, Scott was nervous. Running back down the bloodstained halls with Beckett a step behind, he realized he hadn't accounted for something. With the Aegina gone, the small army of husks waiting in the docking bay would be free to tear the two of them to shreds. Maybe if it had been Gwen who went on this rescue, she and Beckett could have cloaked through, but he would be in a dangerous position. He considered finding another airlock to be picked up, but every time he tried to leave the path he'd taken before, husks cut them off, like they knew what every other husk had seen. And they were driving the two humans back to the horde.

Despite his attempts to slip through their trap, they quickly neared the docking bay. Resigned to doing things the hard way, he activated his com and hoped he could reach his squad leader through the Aegina's hull. "Gwen? I'm gonna need you back sooner than I thought."

Mercifully, she answered his call, sounding much better now. "Alright, we're coming around. Did you run into a problem?"

"No, just the ones we left behind." Scott answered. "All the husks are going to be right between us and the ship."

"Right, I'll handle it. I was hoping for an excuse to use the Spitfire anyway." A ping of static, and the line terminated.

The broken doorframe to the bay provided Scott with a bit of cover to peer in, while Beckett crouched behind the door itself, propped against the wall just inside the corridor. Sure enough, the Reaper forces stood idle right where it had left them, still facing the dock where they'd been when the fighting ended, no further commands received. Apprehensive, Scott looked over to see Beckett waiting patiently, glancing now and then back down the corridor to see if any were coming from behind them.

Then the huge walls of the station shuddered, and the groan of hydraulics as the bay doors began to slide open. The husks seemed to rouse themselves, waking from standing dreams, as a series of strange technological noises got up to speed, a river of plasma fire burning through their ranks.

"That's our cue." Scott said, and holding his shotgun close, passed through the door to sprint headlong into the husks, looking for the fastest way through. Right beside him, he noted Beckett could have cloaked to avoid detection, but was instead firing burning incendiary rounds into the ones ahead of them.

Running by the rearmost Cannibals, others in front of them began to turn, and Scott felt like every pair of eyes knew where he was, watching or not. He responded by blasting apart a Marauder too much in his way to go around. A set of claws raked him as another husk flew by, taking more energy from his shields, but he didn't stop to argue about it. He could just make out Gwen standing atop the Aegina's ramp, firing a chrome-plated heavy machine gun.

Then a chunk of the ceiling crashed down, crushing a cluster of husks in front of him. Hunched atop the wreckage stood another example of the Reapers' hybrid perversion of organic life, like a massive killing machine that hung the dead from it to terrify those it harvested. Its body was the size of a tree trunk, so much seamless flesh that it could only have come from a krogan. But this beast was far larger than any Tuchankan lizard, the ends of comparatively short limbs grafted into complete robotics, made to fit the mutilated flesh and crafted to resemble claws. The legs ended in two toes equipped with steel talons, and the larger arm ended with two pitted metal shields that slid together like a pincer.

Still the krogan's corpse only made up to the chest. It seemed the body of a turian had been draped over its back and left to rot, resulting in two vertical lines of spikes made by the tines of its ribs. And attached to the end of the steel spine was a reverse-mounted turian skull missing its jaw, and glowing red synthetic eyes intent on them. The shield pincer raised for a savage blow, and knowing he was too close to escape Scott tried to strike first, though the single shot from the Raider had no chance of bringing it down.

But just as the claw was at its highest, a canister struck it at the shoulder joint and burst open in a cloud of white vapor. Instantly, the superchilled gas expanded, snap-freezing everything within its reach including the monster's joint before it could turn Scott into pulp. Snarling, the creature shook the arm violently, ridding its metal skeleton of frozen flesh which shattered against the ground, and turned around to find its attacker.

Gwendolyn Diomedes stood with one leg in a brace, and hefting the Geth machine gun by her waist with its barrels spinning up. Another river of light sprayed from the weapon to burn through the Brute, all the more effective against a chilled target. Scott and Beckett ran beneath it and the hail of fire, roadie running to the open shuttle bay.

"Careful, careful!" Beckett was yelling as several more shots passed narrowly over his head. Just as they reached the top of the Aegina's ramp, the Brute had sustained enough damage that it could no longer plod forward. It toppled over with a defeated sigh, sending tremors through the decks of both craft even as the Aegina pulled away, its shuttle door sealed.

With its echo, all three of them slumped, relieved. Gwen let the heavy Spitfire down and looked over to verify Beckett was in one piece, and nodded approvingly. "Good work, Scott."

"Yeah, hey, no problem. I'm absolutely fine, by the way, no need to call Doc Mobious." He looked up from where he lay flat on the deck, and saw Gwen's back as she walked towards the central elevator. "Where are you going?"

"CIC. We're not out of this yet."

The elevator opened onto the Aegina's crew deck, and suddenly Gwen, Scott, and Beckett had to forge their way through a crowd of the N7 Special Ops teams they'd evacuated. Gwen led, forcing her way across the short distance to the far wall where the name Aegina hung in bold letters, bordered by a line above and below. Over the crowd, she could hear Lorelei shouting, ushering those tending the wounded to get them into the med bay. Fortunately, the rounded stairs were less crowded, and all three of them rushed up to the command deck.

The doors to CIC opened to either side with a hiss, revealing familiar curved walls and structural supports arranged in a roughly triangular shape. All of it centered around the glowing holotable, molten orange readouts along its sides and the twinkling galaxy map projected above. And standing with his hands grasped at the command rail was Commander John Marachuk.

"Lieutenant Commander. Good to have you back, XO." Marachuk said, regarding them with a polite smile. "Mr. Beckett. Nice to finally meet in person, but formalities aren't high on my list of priorities right now."

Beckett nodded back. "Another catch?"

"See for yourself." Marachuk said, indicating the galaxy map. As the they approached it, they saw a readout of the local star system, including a representation of Lexington Station and the flotilla of ships leaving it. Gwen had to study it only a moment before realizing what the Commander was hinting at, and ran forward to the bridge. Then the others' eyes fell upon the mass relay, and saw the Aegina's sensors were picking up energy readings off of the charts. Something big was coming through, and they had a good idea what it was.

Gwen slowed as she reached the end of the walkway, and as she stepped onto the bride she could clearly see the mass relay ahead through the wide, curved windows. It was shining like a blue chemical flare, working overtime to move something through subspace.

The rings spinning around its element zero core were a blur of motion as her eyes focused on it, and just as she was certain even their advanced technology would overload, the rings slacked and were allowed to burn off speed as a beam of blue shot parallel to it. A Reaper emerged from its trail, as big as the relay itself, making every one of the hundred-ton freighters and military craft tiny by comparison.

Scott's voice was strained as he announced, already on the move. "I'm reporting to gunnery station."

"Your one mass accelerator cannon isn't going to even break that thing's barriers." Beckett warned, eyes hooded.

"Which is why we're not engaging." Marachuk said, staring down at him before activating his suit radio. "Helm, hold us back as rearguard. We'll be the last through."

He may not have understood what Marachuk was doing, but Beckett assumed he had a strategy and intended to help however he could. Opening his own com channel through his omni-tool, he hailed the freighters at his command. "All ships, break and run for the mass relay. Spread out, don't let it take out two at a time."

It would be a suicide order for many. The freighters were heavy and slow to maneuver, and stood no chance against the red beam every arm of the Reaper could emit. But the sheer number of ships made it impossible for every one to be targeted. For every one the beam claimed, three more slipped by, each vessel accumulating more and more speed in a direct, headlong dash for the relay.

As the Reaper loomed closer in the Aegina's forward screens, Scotts voice came over ship's intercom from the battery. "Sir, is this targetting information right?"

"It's accurate, Sergeant. Just be ready." Marachuk responded sternly, his voice even, but Beckett noticed the tense jaw and white knuckles grasping the rail. Even if choking fear threatened him, he wouldn't allow his crew to see anything but determination in their commanding officer's eyes.

Ahead in the bridge, Gwen could see the chasms running across the Reaper's hull between the its armored plates. Even these joints looked no more vulnerable. Then a faint trail of red appeared between one of the Reaper's arms and the last freighter ahead of them. Gwen barely had time to shield her eyes before the laser suddenly expanded into a shining beam of molten metal at near-lightspeed wider than the entire freighter, engulfing it with out so much as an explosion. Not with a bang but a whimper. That left the Aegina its last remaining target, the distance between them closing fast.

Then it spoke. Deep reverberations through the confined interior of the Aegina formed a rumbling she recognized as language. They were paralyzing, stamping out her flickering thoughts and replacing them with its own commands. Turning, she could see the helmsman was in pain, and at the other end of the command deck, Beckett and the Commander were also cringing. They could feel it, too. ''I see your minds. Human. . . that is what you have chosen to call yourselves. Insignificant. That meaningless name will be lost with those of the unfathomable number of civilizations that came before you. . . Ah, I see you already know our form, have seen it in your mythology. Good, you will embrace your destiny that much easier when your doom may be voiced. . . I am Kraken.''

Gwen felt it then. The same sensing of another intelligence that she'd felt when the Banshee attacked her. But this being had a mind to match the scale of its form. She couldn't begin to see the limits of its vast consciousness, all too large for her to comprehend at once. But she could resist it, had adapted quickly. Its attempts to smother her flame of thought were met with resistance, and she felt it hadn't expected that. There was a tangible moment within the speed of thought that it paused, and then briefly she caught a flash of its decision. To destroy this anomaly, immediately.

Its malevolent touch withdrew, and Gwen gazed out the window again to see it charging a beam to obliterate their ship. But their recovery was in the nick of time; the helmsman twisted them sideways, and the beam merely skimmed the Aegina's barriers. Though they were nearly overloaded, they'd passed the Reaper. It would have to turn its entire mass to fire at them again, and already, the first bolt of crackling blue lightning from the mass relay made contact with them.

"Sergeant. Send him a parting gift." Marachuk said over the com. There was no voiced response, but a single nuclear missile streaked away from one of the ship's torpedo tubes, on course for the relay's core.

Seconds before it made contact, lightning from the relay latched onto the Aegina and shot it into its own subspace corridor. In the moment after it was gone, the warhead streaked in, narrowly missing the rings, and detonated, blossoming into a radiation-filled explosion. And in the middle of the element zero heart of a mass relay, it began a cascade of energy that would wipe out the whole system.

To those last living beings out of the system, it was nothing more than a blinding blue flare before they escaped into FTL. As the rumble from of entering the jump died down, there was complete silence, as if everyone waited for confirmation they were still alive.

The ship's intercom opened, and Marachuk spoke. "All passengers and crewman, this is the captain. Let it be known that we have just gone into single combat with a Reaper and won. We'll be making our rendezvous after the jump. That is all."

Terminating the link, the Commander looked down at Beckett, breathing in like he'd forgotten to this whole time. "I'll bet the look on his face that last moment was priceless."

Chapter 7: Epilogue
Conversation Transcript from Shadow Broker Archives, SSV Aegina briefing room Note: Audio recorder has since been removed

Participants
 * CDR. Marachuk, John J.; Alliance Naval Officer
 * Beckett, Jacen; N7 Special Ops Division Head

Transcript

20:08 Marachuk: What you're doing's welcome, hell, the whole damn galaxy owes you whether they know it or not. But as long as I'm in command the Aegina's an Alliance ship.

20:08 Beckett: I appreciate that, Commander. I would not want to force you to do anything you're uncomfortable with.

20:09 Marachuk: You've rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Some of those who join you steal Alliance property when they leave. Do you know how much an Alliance fleet carrier costs?

20:09 Beckett: If you're referring to the Nimitz, it was purchased legally by Rear Admiral Travers when he started out.

20:09 Marachuk: Travers isn't an Admiral anymore. He's gone rogue as far as I'm concerned.

20:09 Beckett: There are those who agree with you.

20:09 Marachuk: To be sure. And what do you think of him?

20:09 Beckett: A. . . determined man, willing to make necessary sacrifices against this enemy.

20:09 Marachuk: Sacrifices which aren't his to make. Your teams are taking on suicide missions. We aren't given any numbers, but I know you lose people. How many, Beckett? What's the casualty rate.

20:11 Beckett:. . . hundreds. More than three hundred were lost in hours when they took Kar'Shan, but the few hundred thousand batarians to make it off that world owe them their lives. That's the point of this organization. We're trading the lives of a handful of heroes for hundreds of others. Soldiers and civilians.

20:11 Marachuk: And what happens when we run out of heroes?

20:12 Beckett: There will always be those who rise to the mantle, Commander.

20:12 Marachuk: We can hope as much. You have to be careful, though, Beckett. You're supplying perhaps some of the deadliest operatives in the galaxy with military or illegal weapons, technology, and warships. What happens when they decide to use your resources for their own purposes, or try and save their own skins by fleeing with the supplies we need?

20:12 Beckett: We're more careful than that with who we select. They know there is nowhere to run if we lose this war. Perhaps not all of them have flawless honor, but they recognize their only chance for themselves or others is by standing together.

20:12 Marachuk: Then I sincerely hope their courage holds. At any rate, your ship is docked with us, my XO will escort you to it. You won't be stealing me or the Aegina from Alliance command anytime soon.

20:12 Beckett: Thank you, but it wasn't for you or your ship I extended the invitation.

20:12 Marachuk: What?

"I'm sorry about Tiven." Gwen said, walking alongside Beckett with the help of a leg brace as they left the comm room. The wound was healing well, although Lorelei had wanted to keep her in the med bay for tests. She'd just handed him the volus' clan crest, and he was staring at the silver insignia in the palm of his hand.

"As am I. He was a good friend. I fought geth alongside him once." Beckett said wistfully. "Our ship was shot down by geth on an uncharted moon, with little air supply for either of us and geth troops closing in. I thought I'd be holding out alone, but he comes out of the wreckage with an ML-77 Rocket Launcher. Not that I felt like laughing at the time, but the weapon was almost bigger than he was."

Gwen imagined it a moment before shaking her head in amusement. "Well, we paid them back for every life we lost today. One warship taking down a real Reaper. Now there's a morale boost."

Beckett smirked. "Aye, there's few enough who can say they've done as much. Now if we can just kill the other . . . what? Thousands? Millions of them?"

"The odds aren't in our favor, that's for sure." Gwen acknowledged. "But do you know just how many crises in human history there have been when we could have easily died out? Organic life has a habit of beating the odds."

They stepped up the incline onto the walkway between CIC and the bridge. "I hope we roll our dice well, then. So where will you be going next?"

"Wherever the Alliance needs us." Gwen replied, keeping an eye on Beckett to make sure he wasn't peeking at the Aegina's readouts on either side of them. "And that will be where we're needed most. And yourself?"

Crossing the walkway, they turned before reaching the bridge and into the airlock. Gwen stopped short of the second door, connected to a small freighter on the other side, while Beckett crossed its threshold and spun about.

"The Citadel, probably. There are a few people in C-Sec that could be doing more with us. Speaking of which . . ." Beckett turned on his omni-tool, transmitting something to hers. "If you ever find the Alliance won't take action where it is needed, an invitation stands open to you and your squad."

"Because we saved your life?" Gwen laughed, crossing her arms and grinning.

"That, and you are more than capable of the heroics our organization usually calls for." Beckett replied. "Goodbye, Miss Diomedes."

The freighter's door began to telescope across the airlock between them, but before it got halfway, the plates jolted to a stop with the sound of grinding metal. Beckett stared at it for a moment, then opened a com channel on his omni-tool. "Novak, get down here and fix this door."

And Gwen tried unsuccessfully to hide her laughter.