by Cole Price
“You’re looking at hope,” said Eve. “All that’s left of it here on Tuchanka. This world was once full of beauty. Given a chance, it can be again.”
“That’s for tomorrow. Right now that Reaper is still up to no good at the Shroud. Find a way out of there, and we’ll pick you up.”
“We’re on it,” said Shepard, leading us out into the plaza. “What’s the status of the ground attack force?”
“Holding their own. The Reaper doesn’t seem interested in killing them, just keeping them at a distance. I can patch you through to Garrus if you want.”
“Please.”
“We’re still here, Shepard,” said Garrus. “Barely engaged, not under any real pressure at the moment. Casualties have been light so far. Though it looks like our original plan is in the bit-bucket. Thoughts?”
“Keep yourselves alive, and be ready to move again,” Shepard commanded. “Eve’s alive, Mordin’s alive, Wrex and Wreav can still maneuver. We’re not out of the fight yet. If my team can link up with what’s left of the convoy, we can try for the Shroud after all.”
“Got it. Keep us in the loop. Garrus out.”
“And when we get there, vengeance will be mine,” said Javik.
“First we have to get there,” said Shepard. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 19 : Titanomachy
4 May 2186, Urdnot Clan Territory/Tuchanka
As we moved through the ancient city, we encountered Reaper patrols, infiltrating ahead of us. We couldn’t be sure whether the Reaper knew about our plans, but it clearly suspected something. Most of the Reaper troops were the vicious cannibals, bloated parodies of batarians, each with a human corpse grafted in place of its right arm as the basis of a weapon system. Some cannibal fire-teams had a dozen husks or a brute to send ahead as shock troops. Others had one or two ravagers with them, serving as portable artillery.
To my surprise, we found these battles rather easy to win.
Shepard and I both possessed powerful biotic talents, and we had built a good working partnership on the battlefield. Either of us could telekinetically pull an enemy out of position, or I could lay down a singularity to draw several foes up into the air. We could then detonate these effects with one of my warps, or with Shepard’s devastating shockwave. As I had learned years before, working with Kaidan, the results could devastate the enemy as thoroughly as an artillery battery.
At first we couldn’t be certain what to do with Javik. His Prothean biotic techniques seemed quite foreign to the asari or human systems. Even his corona had a strange appearance, livid green rather than crisp, familiar blue. Yet we soon found that his techniques worked quite well with ours.
Like either of us, Javik could wield a biotic pull. He also had a ferocious slam technique which could detonate our pulls or my singularity. Finally, he could paint an enemy with something he called the dark channel, a clinging effect which inflicted terrible damage over time, and which my warp or Shepard’s shockwave could detonate.
Once the three of us had a chance to practice, we found ourselves tearing through Reaper forces in short order. We already knew that husks were fragile in the face of a biotic assault. Cannibals proved not much stronger. Brutes boasted armor and great toughness, but they had no ability to attack at range, and in open ground we usually managed to kill them before they came within charging distance. Ravagers presented a much harder problem, pouring out hellish three-round barrages every few moments. We soon learned to watch their timing, keeping under cover with our heads down during their firing cycle. In between, they seemed to require a short pause to recharge, so that was when we hammered them with weapons fire, grenades, and biotic effects.
Before long, I found myself almost enjoying fighting alongside Javik. He behaved like a cynical, misanthropic troll, but he was also a consummate soldier, and he fit into our fire-team like a fist in a mailed glove.
As we finished one of these short affrays, the ground shook under our feet once more, much harder this time. Whatever we felt had come much closer.
“Kalros is more than a myth!” Javik shouted, as he struggled to keep his feet and tried to stare in all directions.
“Stay sharp!” ordered Shepard.
The chatter of my Shuriken, the low hum of Javik’s ancient beam rifle, the coughing crash of Shepard’s shotgun, the booming roar of biotic detonations. In the end, we drowned out the weird chatter and howl of the Reaper’s slaves.
“Shepard, how’s it coming?” came Wrex’s voice over the comm during a pause between battles.
“We’re making progress, but we’re still in the ruins.”
“Get a move on. That Reaper hasn’t moved, and the sky is looking worse.”
Another tremor.
“Wrex, I think you’re right about Kalros. She must be on the move.”
“Yeah, we’ve got some ideas on that – what?”
“Not now, Wrex,” said Eve. “The commander has enough to worry about.”
“What’s happening?”
“Some crazy idea we can talk about later. Just worry about getting out of there for now. Your signal shows you’re close to open country again. Keep moving and we’ll pick you up.”
I saw movement by the far wall of another plaza. “Shepard! Take a breath, because here they come!”
“Check back with you in a minute, Wrex,” Shepard said, and then returned to the work of killing.
More cannibals, more husks, and two ravagers. That presented a bit more of a challenge, since the warped rachni warriors could stagger their firing cycles. We improvised, focusing on one enormous bug, then the other.
“Shepard, looks like you’re just short of a bridge over the sand. We’re less than a minute away. Try to find it, and we’ll pick you up there.”
“We’re a little preoccupied right now, Wrex!”
“Didn’t say it would be easy.”
“I didn’t think Tuchanka could get any worse,” I muttered.
“It was good enough for your grandfather, Liara. Think about it. A whole planet designed to keep you on your toes!”
“Your grandfather?” asked Javik, while he cut down a trio of husks with his rifle.
“Apparently he was krogan.”
“Rrrh. Asari. It must be very strange, to mate with other species and be capable of bearing offspring as a result.”
I flung a warp across the plaza, rocking a ravager back. “It seems natural enough to us. Wait. How would you know about that aspect of our biology? We didn’t discover it ourselves until we met the salarians.”
Javik only gave me a moment’s four-eyed stare and a wicked grin, before hurling one of his grenades against the enemy.
“Liara!” snapped Shepard. “Eyes on the prize!”
Did the Protheans do more than observe the primitive asari?
Then I had no more time to think about it, with a wave of husks bearing down on our position.
Afterward, we emerged from the plaza to find the bridge Wrex had told us about. Here the desert sands washed up against the north edge of the ancient city, with only one more massive building ahead of us. A stone bridge stood over the sand down below, leading out to that last edifice.
Javik pointed out into the desert. “There are the trucks!”
“Shepard, we’re coming under the bridge. Get down here and we can head for the Shroud.”
“Will do.” Shepard began to look around for a means of descent.
“Wait! Kalros!”
The trucks slammed into motion, rushing under the bridge in mad flight.
“Wrex?”
“Break off! We’re getting out of here!”
Goddess!
It looked like a low range of hills, cresting above the sand as it pursued the trucks.
What I saw was segmented, ridged, clearly only a small portion of the creature. The whole must have been well over two hundred meters in length. It sounded like an avalanche in full career, and then it howled in frustrated rage, an enormous, bestial sound that th
reatened to shatter my aural membranes. The high ridge of its back slammed into the middle section of the bridge, tearing a gap in the road-bed, and then it sped away in pursuit of the trucks.
Mordin’s voice: “Kalros’s territorial instinct confirmed!”
“She’s not going to get us!”
Shepard stared after the trucks, his eyes momentarily wide with something I had rarely seen in him: raw terror. Then he shook his head and it was gone. “Come on, let’s see if we can catch up with them.”
We crossed the bridge at a run, jumping with biotic assistance over the wide gap Kalros had made, and hurried into the large building on the other side. Far to our right we could see Wrex’s tomkah still moving at high speed, the monstrous thresher maw in hot pursuit.
“Go on ahead, Shepard! We’ll try to shake this thing and find you.”
“Thresher maw getting closer!” said Mordin.
“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.”
“Metal in truck excellent iron supplement for maw’s diet!”
“This planet is one giant death-trap,” I said.
“The Reapers must feel right at home,” said Javik.
That last building stood largely open to the sky, erected around a deep well guarded by several krogan statues. I could see traces of inscriptions on the walls around us, worn away by time and desert sand.
“I wonder where we are now?”
Javik peered around, and then shrugged. “A memorial of some kind?”
“Heads up!” said Shepard.
I saw another squad of the Reaper’s slaves, this time led by several marauders. These presented more of a challenge, although we found plenty of cover behind massive stonework. We deployed and began our counterattack, using the techniques we had polished back in the ruined city.
“Shepard! Wrex busy driving truck,” said Mordin. “Are you still alive?”
“Doing what we can.” Shepard flash-charged across the field, taking out a cluster of husks. “What about you?”
“Alarmed, yet entertained. Kalros is quite persistent.”
Javik flung a grenade into the enemy’s midst, scattering a fire-team of cannibals.
“Wreav, stick close!”
I moved up to new cover, turning slightly as I went, firing bursts across a wide arc with my Shuriken.
“Drive faster!” Wreav shouted. “I can smell the damn thing’s breath!”
Shepard flash-charged into a marauder, knocking it back, and then smashing the center of the enemy formation with a nova-blast. Two blasts from his shotgun finished off two marauders in quick succession.
Javik and I broke from cover and charged forward, laying down gunfire and biotic attacks to both sides. Within moments, the enemy was down.
“Shepard, we’ve almost lost Kalros! Get down from there and we’ll find you.”
A long, shallow staircase led down to the sands. A tomkah drove up onto a stone slab at the bottom of the stairs, the hatch popping open for us. A second tomkah remained out on the sand, its gun turret swiveling as its pilot tried to look in every direction at once.
“Make this quick, Wrex. We’re exposed!”
“Move it!” snapped Shepard.
We hurried. Shepard paused by the tomkah, motioning for us to hurry, clearly intending to be the last one inside. Javik made it to the hatch, with me only a few steps behind.
A deep rumbling sound. Sand began to geyser up into the sky a short distance away, approaching with terrible speed.
“It’s Kalros!”
I half-leaped through the hatch, climbing up into the passenger compartment, Shepard right behind me.
“Move, Shepard!” shouted Wrex from the pilot’s seat.
“We’re in! Go!”
The tomkah slammed into motion, heading the way Kalros had come.
“What about Wreav?” asked Eve.
“His tomkah went down,” Wrex reported. “There’s no way he survived that.”
“I’m sorry, Wrex.”
“Ah, he was a pain in the ass anyway. Now let’s finish this. There’s a Reaper waiting for us.”
* * *
4 May 2186, Shroud Facility/Tuchanka
One lonely tomkah, the last remnant of the krogan ground convoy, rolled up beside a stone wall half a kilometer from the base of the Shroud. As we emerged from the vehicle, we heard the Reaper’s bass roar off in the distance.
Shepard activated his comm. “James? Garrus? Anyone on this channel?”
“We’re here, Loco. Just finished a sharp little fight against those Reaper things. More of them massing in front of us.”
“What’s your outlook? Any chance you can resume your push?”
“Maybe. Not sure what good it would do. That Reaper is sticking to the Shroud like a burr, no matter what we try.”
“All right, stand fast for a moment while we think about this.”
“Aye-aye.”
All of us looked toward the Shroud, where the Reaper stood squarely in our path. “We don’t have a plan for this,” I said wearily.
“Vengeance is the goal,” said Javik. “Suicide is not.”
“We’re curing the genophage no matter what it takes,” Wrex growled. “Everything my people will ever be depends on it. Shepard, the krogan are ready to do what needs to be done.”
“Then I hope this idea you were talking about is a good one.”
Wrex grinned and indicated Eve, an odd mix of resentment and pride in his voice. “It was hers, actually.”
“Kalros,” said Eve. “We summon her to the Reaper.”
Shepard raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Would that even work?”
“Already discussed strategy,” said Mordin. “Need to distract Reaper. Airstrike didn’t work. Ground attack didn’t work. Maw possibly big enough, seize Reaper’s attention.”
“What makes you so sure she’ll come?”
“Legends say she is the mother from which all other thresher maws spawn,” said Eve. “This is as much her home as ours. She will fight to defend it.”
Wrex nodded in agreement. “If Tuchanka has a temper, Kalros is it. Nobody’s ever faced her and survived.”
Shepard nodded decisively. “People said the same thing about the Omega-4 Relay. We can do this.”
“That’s the spirit, Shepard.”
“So how do we summon her?”
Eve pointed toward the Reaper, raising her voice over its distant mechanical roar to explain. “The Shroud tower was built in an ancient arena dedicated to the glory of Kalros. The salarians thought she would scare away intruders.”
“Appears to have worked,” said Mordin, peering at his omni-tool. “Queries to Shroud systems are returning nominal status. No sign of external damage.”
“There are two maw hammers in the arena,” Eve continued. “The largest in existence. If you can activate them, Kalros will come. That should distract the Reaper.”
“Meanwhile, laboratory nearby. Will finish synthesizing cure.”
“All right. It’s not a great plan, but it’s the best we’ve got.” Shepard opened his helmet comm once more. “James, I need one more good solid push from the assault force. If they’re massing on your front, that means the Reaper still thinks it needs to worry about you. Encourage it.”
“Got it. We’re jumping off now.”
Almost at once, we heard a surge of gunfire in the distance, ahead of us and to the right. The Reaper did not move, showed no sign of being distracted, but I could imagine its ground forces directed to face the krogan attack. At the very least, there might be less for us to face.
“All right,” said Shepard. “We all know why we’re here. Let’s make it happen.”
“Wait,” growled Wrex, stepping forward to loom over Shepard. “I want you to know, no matter what happens, you’ve been a champion of the krogan people, a friend of Clan Urdnot, and a brother to me. From now on, all krogan will know that we can have friends among the other species. To every krogan born after this day, the name Shepard wi
ll mean hero!”
Shepard said nothing, only smiled warmly and clasped Wrex’s hand.
“Now let’s go show them why!”
“See you all on the other side,” said Shepard.
“Stay alive,” said Mordin. “Will have cure ready.”
We leaped over a low stone wall to begin our run for the Shroud.
Almost at once, Reaper troops deployed before us, falling like meteors from the sky. Cannibals, standing and laying down heavy fire the moment they appeared. Not much of a challenge. We stood our ground and softened them up for a few moments, then Shepard flash-charged forward and shattered their formation with a nova blast.
“Damn. Bunch of rachni just attacked us. I took care of them.” Wrex sounded almost satisfied. “There’s another complication, though. Someone has to raise those maw hammers before you can use them.”
“Kind of busy here, Wrex.”
“Lucky for you I’m here. I can take care of it.”
We moved to the side, out of the Reaper’s immediate view, up into a massive stone building. For a time we could move forward more quickly, and no more Reaper forces could deploy in front of us. We could hear the vast machine moving, closer and closer as we made progress.
Out onto a stone bridge, and once again we stood in the Reaper’s line of sight.
“At last,” muttered Javik.
“Double-time it, people. We’re exposed here.” Shepard fitted action to words, breaking into a sprint.
Too late. I glanced to our left and saw the Reaper’s firing chamber exposed, a great baleful red light shining out across the landscape.
It knows we’re here!
“Shepard!”
An enormous tone, almost musical, and the Reaper’s main gun fired. A great blade of ruby light lashed out, slicing down from above mere meters ahead of Shepard, breaking the bridge span in half. The span collapsed in a fall of rubble, and we went with it.
For a moment, I couldn’t think about anything but my own survival. I tucked into a ball, slammed down as strong a barrier as I could, and waited for the fall to smash the life out of me. Then I hit some scattered rubble, which shifted under me and broke my fall. I stirred, rose to my feet, battered but still alive.
