by Cole Price
“You can do it,” I told her, even though I could feel the terrible pressure in my own mind as well. “Match me!”
Shepard turned his turret, began to sweep the pedestrian bridge from which the Reaper troops attacked. The pressure eased off as husks and even brutes began to disintegrate under that hail of fire.
“Can’t keep this up,” the solder gritted.
I seized her hand with mine, sent my corona surging across to support hers. In that extremity, I found my mind overlapping with hers, a superficial joining so that I could lend her strength and determination.
She was so young, and she had never seen anything so terrible as this day.
Twenty seconds.
Another wave.
“Shepard, there’s a barrier engine behind the Reaper troops!” I shouted, still holding my partner upright, still putting my naked mind between the enemy and the asari behind me. “Can you reach it?”
“I’ll try!”
Forty seconds.
Another wave, this time with more brutes. Despite Shepard’s efforts, they got to the barrier and began tearing at it.
The soldier moaned.
Shepard hammered at the brutes with a hail of gunfire at point-blank range. Not even those massive creatures could stand up to it.
The last of them went down. No more appeared behind them.
Then another barrage of missiles slammed into the barrier, and my mind went absolutely white for a long moment. When I came to, I found myself still standing, the barrier still in place. Somehow.
Sixty seconds. Finally, everything went quiet.
The pressure removed, my soldier partner collapsed to her knees, the barrier almost falling, but then she shook her head and rose once more. I clapped her weakly on the shoulder, and disengaged my mind and corona from hers.
“Thank you. I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“Liara T’Soni.”
I turned away the moment I saw her eyes widen, saw the impulse to stammer out her gratitude.
No time for that right now.
I walked over to where Shepard once more conferred with the tsakoni, who appeared to be the leader of this unit.
“Commander, I’m Lieutenant Kurin. We were told to expect you.” She took a deep breath. “My orders are to hold this grid at all costs, but we’ve already taken over sixty percent casualties. Our perimeter’s collapsing. I have to get my people out of here.”
“This is important,” said Shepard. “We need your help.”
“I’m not sure we have any help left to give.” Kurin glanced over at the small field of covered asari, laid out in neat rows. “Unless you can give me a good reason, I don’t intend to die for a field of rubble.”
“What, exactly, were you told?”
“Nothing but your name.” A hint of resentment crept into Kurin’s voice. “Mission details were classified, which means we’ll just die without ever knowing why.”
“We’re after a relic inside the Temple of Athame,” Shepard told her. “It’s vital to the war.”
“That’s what this is all about? One of our outposts has been trying to reach the scientists in there ever since the Reapers showed up, but we’ve lost contact.” She glared up at another asari, performing repair work on the tail-assembly of a gunship. “Get that machine in the air, now!”
The soldier jumped down, gestured. The gunship roared off to fight once more.
Kurin shook her head. “I’m sorry, Commander. There’s nothing I can do. If that relic of yours has waited this long, it can wait a while longer. I’ve lost too many people today. I’m pulling the rest out.”
“Rrrh.” Javik pressed forward suddenly, seizing Kurin by her shoulders, reading her. “I sense you have the lineage of a leader. A warrior’s skill and cunning. They are strong in your genes. But you’ve grown tired of war, exhausted by defeat. Now you worry that you don’t have the courage to go on.”
“By the Goddess!” Kurin suddenly pulled herself out of Javik’s spell, pushing the Prothean away. “What are you?”
“One who knows you and your people, asari.” Four hot yellow eyes stared at her. “Find your resolve. This war can end if you do.”
I watched Javik, suddenly suspicious.
He’s hinted from time to time that he knows more about asari than he chooses to reveal. Are we about to get beyond hints?
“He knows what he’s talking about,” said Shepard.
“I don’t doubt it,” said Kurin, finally convinced. She nodded decisively and opened her communications. “This is Lieutenant Kurin to all units. Hold your positions. I want a path carved to the Temple of Athame! Outpost Tykis, we’ve got people coming your way!”
“Thanks, Lieutenant.” Shepard readied his Claymore with a grim smile.
“Don’t thank me, Commander. Just make it count.” Kurin turned to where her remaining troops waited for her orders. “Let’s make sure the galaxy knows this war was won on Thessia!”
* * *
“Goddess. This was my home city once. To see it like this . . .”
“It can be rebuilt,” said Shepard, not without compassion. “Just worry about the next twenty meters.”
I remembered Earth, and disciplined my voice.
A howling noise from above, oddly mechanical, and I saw a pair of harvesters circling over the wreckage at the end of our bridge. Blurred movement indicated the deployment of more troops, cannibals and marauders taking up a position before us.
I gritted my teeth, my lips pulling back in a snarl.
“Good, asari.” Javik crouched next to me, behind cover, as we waited for the enemy to appear. “Draw strength from your anger. It will keep you alive.”
Shepard nodded. “Yeah, remember that, because here they come.”
We fought.
The three of us proved very effective, all of our biotic talents meshing like pieces of a well-designed machine. We lay down fire, took turns advancing from cover to cover, and tore the oncoming Reaper creatures to shreds with our minds.
Shepard in particular seemed inspired, his biotic feats coming with incredible frequency, only a few seconds of cool-down even between uses of his new flare technique. Despite my own grim concentration, a thread of cool astonishment wound its way through my mind as I watched him.
How is he doing that?
He has transcended himself. Attained heights reached by no other human. He may have become a more powerful biotic than any asari.
Has he cast off some final restraint?
We reached the opposite side of the bridge, fought our way through a wrecked building and out the other side. Into a courtyard swarming with Reaper creatures.
“Scatter and take cover!” Shepard commanded
Then he blurred and vanished, flash-charging out into a thick concentration of the enemy. His nova-blast scattered them, opening a gap, giving Javik and me a chance to deploy.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Blue-white light lashed out in all directions, with the occasional bark of red coming from his Claymore and its incendiary rounds. Cannibals and marauders all but vaporized in his wake.
“Watch the perimeter!” Javik shouted.
The Prothean and I rushed to support him.
“Watch out, more on the way,” Shepard warned us.
We crossed the courtyard, a few meters at a time, and not a single foe lived to get behind us.
“Up ahead!” I called out. “That door looks like a way out of this mess.”
“Make for it!” Shepard agreed.
The cannibals and marauders could not stand in our way. Even a banshee appeared, and went down within moments under the concentrated pressure of our biotics and weapons fire. It was the first time we had ever faced a banshee and had no difficulty defeating the thing. I began to hope we might win through in time.
“Let’s get moving, before more of them come back.”
We climbed through the wreckage of another building.
“I still have a hard time facing t
hose things,” I admitted. “My own people, twisted and ruined.”
“When we fought the Reapers, they turned our own children against us,” said Javik.
“I can’t imagine that.”
“They assumed we would hesitate to kill them.”
I glanced at the Prothean. “Did you?”
“What answer would you prefer?”
“Rrrh,” I said, unconsciously imitating his sound of cynical disgust. “None. Let’s stop talking about this.”
He said nothing, only readying his weapon in agreement.
* * *
At one point we emerged into another plaza, where I could see an asari sniper nest on a balcony in the middle distance. Shepard gestured, indicating that he wanted to move in that direction.
Then that sound rang out, the horn-blast of a Reaper establishing its effortless dominance over everything that lived and scurried beneath it. We all saw the monstrous creature, towering into the distant sky, walking slowly through the city less than a kilometer away.
“I remember seeing one of them for the first time,” said Javik. “My people had stopped believing in devils. We changed our minds when the Reapers arrived.”
“Quiet,” Shepard ordered, crouching behind some cover.
From his position, we could see the plaza before us. There were a few Reaper creatures there, most of them cannibals, devouring their own dead to replenish their energy and resources. For once, none of them seemed aware of our presence.
“The asari snipers have exacted a price,” Javik observed.
“We can do the same from our side,” Shepard suggested, adjusting the controls on his shotgun to increase the range and precision of his fire. He allocated targets with gestures.
One, two, three, and all the cannibals went down without a chance to fire back. Shepard leaped out of cover, leading us toward the sniper nest.
In the distance, the Reaper moved on to our right, seeming to concentrate on some more pressing target.
“One less we get to kill,” muttered Javik. “Although the large ones are much more difficult targets.”
“This is Specialist Cayla,” came an asari voice from the balcony as we approached. “Specialist Jineva was just killed by enemy fire. I’m the only one left.”
“What about Commander Shepard?” Kurin’s voice, over an external speaker. “What’s your situation?”
“No sign of any humans yet,” said Cayla. “Enemy forces have tripled in strength in the last ten minutes. I’m cut off from Outpost Tykis.”
“Understood. You must maintain position. Shepard will be there!”
“If you say so. Wait. Here he comes.”
Shepard vaulted over a last piece of debris and moved out onto Cayla’s balcony, the two of us close behind.
“Watch your head!” the sniper barked.
We moved into cover at her sides. “How long can you hold out?” Shepard asked.
“Now that you’re here? As long as it takes!”
A moaning roar from below. Reaper forces moved out into the plaza.
Cayla began to ply her sniper rifle, and I soon saw that she had skill enough to give Garrus a challenge. “You really think your mission can win this war?”
Shepard nodded, firing down into the plaza as well, sending a flare down for good measure. “We get to the temple, and the Reapers are history.”
“Then grab some gear over there if you need it, and let’s do some damage!”
We did just that. Even Shepard picked up a spare Widow rifle, reverting to the combat style I had seen him use years before. Javik’s own beam weapon also proved superb at picking off the enemy at a distance. I had no such skill, but biotic warps and singularities worked just as well.
“This is a kill-zone!” shouted Javik, with genuine pleasure.
Crash. Crash. Crash. Shepard fired as quickly as his weapon would allow. He lacked the cold accuracy I had once seen in him, but that only meant he was skilled with the weapon, rather than utterly deadly.
“Good shot!” shouted Cayla.
Before long, the Reaper wave broke and we could consider moving on.
“Outpost Tykis isn’t far from here,” said the sniper. “I can cover you part of the distance. Good luck, Commander.”
We advanced, toward the Reaper, since that appeared the only path available to us. Fortunately the thing remained focused on other concerns. Down through the plaza, along a short street, around a corner, and we could see the Temple of Athame less than a kilometer ahead. For the moment nothing seemed ready to attack us.
“This nightmare never ends,” I panted.
“The hell it won’t,” said Shepard. “We get to this artifact, and we can all wake up.”
“Fifty thousand years later,” Javik muttered.
* * *
Our first sign of Outpost Tykis was a single asari, running for her life from the direction of the Temple, a hail of gunfire and explosions following her. One detonation occurred right behind her, lifting her from her feet and flinging her twenty meters through the air. Fortunately she was asari, and trained, and she could use her biotics to moderate her fall. Even stunned, she pushed herself back to her feet and recovered her weapon.
Shepard got there just in time to help her stand, but then the storm of weapons fire caught up with us.
“Watch it!” shouted the soldier.
All of us dove for cover, but not before I glimpsed a great wave of Reaper creatures moving down a row of terraces toward us. Cannibals, marauders, and brutes, and ravagers, and more than one banshee.
Oh Goddess, we may be fighting at the top of our form, but we’re getting tired, and there are too many of them.
“We’re trying to reach Outpost Tykis,” Shepard said, a little out of breath.
“You’re looking at it,” said the asari.
“What about the rest of your squad?”
“All dead. We tried punching through to the Temple and the scientists, but I’m all that’s left.”
“Any possibility of reinforcements?”
She shook her head, wincing as another explosion went off close by. “We had gunships flying support, but with that Reaper close by things got too hot. They had to pull out.”
Shepard’s jaw set in determination. “Soldier, we need that support. This is our only chance to stop this war once and for all. We have to get into that Temple. Casualties or no.”
“Commander, at this point, casualties are about all I can guarantee you.” Even so, she activated her comm. “Talon Swarm, this is Outpost Tykis. Is anyone left alive on this frequency?”
“We are in immediate need of close air support! Commander Shepard is here!”
A burst of static, and then: “Copy. This is Talon One. On the way.”
Another asari voice: “Talon Five inbound as well.”
Seconds later, we heard the roar of engines overhead. All of us looked up to see two gunships sweep by, their pilots maneuvering at great risk to bring their weapons to bear on the Reaper troops.
“Ground targets confirmed,” said Talon One, her voice glacially calm. “Weapons hot. Light ‘em up!”
The sound of cannon fire deafened me, like the end of the world happening mere meters away. I peeked around the corner of my cover, and saw the Reaper army melting like wax in a furnace.
Then one of the gunships took a hit, its whole tail assembly erupting into flame.
“I’m hit! Main stabilizer is going out!”
“Pull out, Talon One.”
“Negative, negative. No way to get back to base. Hang on . . .”
Somehow Talon One regained partial control, enough to end her staggering fall, direct her flight toward the main body of the Reaper force before us.
Her gunship slammed down in the midst of the enemy, erupting in a vast ball of flame.
“This is Talon Five.” The other pilot’s voice suddenly sounded impossibly weary. “Whatever you’re going to do, you had better do it now.”
“Go, Commander!”
The nameless soldier, the last survivor from Outpost Tykis, leaped up into an exposed position and began to lay down a desperate field of fire. “I’ll cover you as long as I can!”
Shepard snarled, bending down to pick something up from the ground at his feet. “Come on!”
We broke from cover and advanced.
Only to find that Talon One’s sacrifice had not dealt with all of the enemy.
A banshee flash-charged down the terrace, one hop at a time, already almost in a position to tear into our team. More Reaper troops ran in its wake.
Like lightning, Shepard brought a weapon to his shoulder.
A missile launcher. Fired at point-blank range.
I screamed and dove for cover once more, and then the thing exploded.
When I raised my head once more, I could hear nothing but a terrible ringing, but the banshee was simply gone.
Thank the Goddess for small favors.
We charged up the terrace, dealing with what few foes had managed to survive Shepard’s desperate ploy. The last gunship flanked us, firing ahead of us, keeping the pressure off so we could continue.
We almost made it without further losses, but then two harvesters swooped down around the corner of the Temple, engaging the gunship.
“Go, Commander. I’ll try to draw them off.”
Talon Five succeeded, pulling the two harvesters away, out over the Kallianos Lagoon.
Leaving us to deal with a massive wave of husks.
At least they were only husks. Switching to biotics, the three of us could deal with any number of such creatures. One, two, detonate. One, two, detonate. Singularity, shockwave, warp, throw, flare. We proceeded around the flank of the Temple, blue-green-white chaos clearing the path before us.
Another explosion out over the water, with a different pitch and timbre, marked the final stand of Talon Five.
Finally we reached the front entrance of the Temple, no more enemies to fight for the moment, all of us half-stunned. I bent over with my hands on my knees, dropping my sidearm, gasping for air.
When I could think coherently once more, I checked my omni-tool. Less than fifteen minutes since Cortez had dropped us off with Lieutenant Kurin.
