by Cole Price
He knows as well as we do: there’s no point in holding anything back for a reserve. We win or we die.
“That’s it,” said Shepard. “Ash, muster on the staging deck in five minutes. You know the plan.”
“Aye-aye, Skipper.” Ashley saluted and set out at once for the lifts.
Shepard touched a control on his command dais.
“All hands, this is the CO.” He paused for a moment, gathering words. “In a few minutes, we’re going to deploy all of our ground forces to support Hammer. Lieutenant Adams will be in command until the fight is over and we all come home. I know I can count on every one of you to give the last full measure of devotion to your duties.
“All of you know what’s at stake. The next few hours, what we do in this little space of time, will determine the fate of everyone in the galaxy.
“I know that’s a terrible burden to bear. Never in our history has so much hinged on what a few men and women can find it in themselves to do.
“But know this. I have faith that we will win this fight. The Reapers think they can discount us, that nothing we do will ever make any difference. I say we’ve already proved them wrong, and twenty-three of them are dead now to show it.
“We did that. You did that. You, the crew of Normandy, who have struggled and fought and beaten the impossible odds, over and over again. I am proud of every one of you, and I am grateful beyond measure that it has been given me to lead you in this terrible time.”
He paused, searching all the eyes that watched him there in the CIC. Ending with mine.
“A few more hours. One more victory. Then I promise you, every living thing that comes after us, for however many millions of years the future has in store, all of them will remember what you did here today. All of them will remember the name of Normandy. Stay strong, stay focused, do your jobs. When the sun rises on London tomorrow, it will shine on a world free of the Reapers.”
Standing straight and tall on the dais, he gave his crew a crisp salute.
Every human in that space returned it.
Then he turned away, stepped down without a backward glance, and looked at me. “Well, T’Soni, are you ready for this?”
“As ready as I ever will be,” I answered him with a smile. “Although after a speech like that, I feel as if that may be a little better than before.”
“That’s why we give speeches like that,” he said. “Come on. Let’s put boots on the ground.”
Chapter 55 : The Ruins of London
22 June 2186, Earth Orbital Space V minus 4 hours
“Advance teams are away,” said Joker from the Normandy bridge. “Hammer’s in position and waiting for your guys to clear a path.”
“Got it,” Shepard answered. “Stay safe, Joker, and we’ll all be back before you know it.”
“I’ll hold you to that. Normandy out.”
Shepard glanced around the shuttle’s main compartment at his team: Ashley, EDI, Javik, Vara, and me. I caught Shepard’s eye, gave him a grim nod, and then went back to checking my weapons and gear.
Garrus, Tali, and Miranda had remained behind on Normandy to help coordinate the deployment of Hammer. James and the rest of our Marines made up part of Hammer, waiting for advance scouts like us to deploy. Our mission was to clear an approach for Hammer, and possibly take out some of the Hades cannons interdicting London.
“Closing in on the LZ, Commander,” said Cortez from the cockpit.
“How’s it look?”
“Like hell. Take a look for yourself.” Cortez redirected the external cameras to our compartment, so all of us could see what was in store for us.
I had never been to London in the days of its living glory. Now it seemed I would never get the chance. It may have started as one of the greatest cities of Earth, but now nothing remained but a wasteland. Most buildings had been beaten down to no more than one or two stories, shells with no roofs and sometimes no walls. Streets lay deserted, filled with wrecked vehicles and the rubble of shattered buildings. I saw no sign of electrical power, almost no light at all except for scattered fires and an eerie glow from the Reaper facility on the horizon. I also saw no sign of human life, although I did spot occasional movement in the ruins: husks, cannibals, and other Reaper creatures on patrol. I hoped at least some of the populace had gotten to safety, but I knew most had not.
“It doesn’t even look like Earth anymore,” said Ashley.
“Rrrh. At least there will be plenty of cover,” muttered Javik.
Somehow, no one saw fit to rebuke the Prothean for his ill-timed humor. If it was humor.
Suddenly the shuttle banked hard, all of us grabbing for something to hold on to.
“Shit!” snarled Cortez. “One of those Hades cannons has a lock on us. Hold on!”
We went through a moment of violent maneuvering. I heard an explosion from outside, and realized one of the other shuttles closest to us had been killed.
“Damn it!” was Cortez’s comment.
“Report,” snapped Shepard.
“That was the heavy weapons squad. They’ve gone down in what used to be Swanley, about twenty-five klicks from the mustering area for the FOB. I doubt any of them survived the crash.”
“Who’s on that cannon now?”
“As far as I can tell, nobody in the vicinity. All either deployed or shot down already.”
“All right, drop us off.”
“Sir?”
“Someone has to take that thing out before Hammer comes in, or else we’ll see a lot more shuttles taken down.”
“Understood. If you can get to the crash site, they were carrying heavy weapons. You could use those to take out the cannon.”
Less than a minute, and the shuttle came low over a long slope, relatively clear of rubble and wreckage. The shuttle door opened.
We charged out, into darkness and noise.
The landing zone seemed hot, very hot, cannibals and marauders already swarming to attack us, as we deployed behind the first cover we could find. No time to think, only to throw warps and singularities in all directions, firing at targets of opportunity. Vara and I worked together, covering each another’s flanks and timing our biotic feats to set off echoing detonations every few seconds.
Then the Hades cannon fired into the night sky, blazing light and thunderous clamor, enough to play havoc with our senses. I had to blink hard and shake my head to clear it, and nearly had a cannibal cut me down with a grenade for my pains. Fortunately Shepard flash-charged the creature just as it threw, ruining its aim.
Up a slope we moved, slowly, fighting hard every step of the way. There were so many of the Reapers’ creatures, I began to worry that we would run out of thermal clips long before we reached the downed shuttle.
“Damn,” said Cortez. “It’s too hot. I can’t stay here, sir.”
“Get clear,” Shepard commanded, throwing a fierce shockwave into the middle of the Reaper line. “Come back and get us once we’ve taken that cannon down.”
“Roger that. Cortez out.”
Shepard charged forward, taking up a new position, in cover just a few meters away from a whole enemy squad. My heart jumped in fear, I broke cover – Vara spitting a curse and following just behind – and rushed forward, laying a singularity down just ahead of him to cover his advance.
So many of them. They could probably destroy us just by charging all at once.
Fortunately, they didn’t do that. I had seen it before, the Reaper creatures seeming reluctant to use their superior numbers. At least, they behaved that way when Shepard was on the field, as if the foot-soldiers sensed their masters’ unease with him.
Suddenly he seemed to go into overdrive, his corona blazing like a star, a massive flare erupting ahead of him, then a flash-charge into the heart of the enemy formation. Cannibals scattered like debris in a storm, and then crash-crash-crash, his Claymore barked as he cut down the survivors. The pressure on our position eased, and the rest of us hurried to follow.
; It helped. At the top of the slope the field opened out, giving us a chance to shake out into a longer line and bring all our firepower to bear. The pace slowed, the din of combat subsided to tolerable levels, and we could begin to choose our targets.
Of course, the periodic blasts from the Hades cannon still made me want to run, screaming, and hide far away. Especially since every step brought us closer to the damnable thing.
“This is Captain Johnson. Hammer is getting torn apart. We need those cannons off-line now!”
Shepard swore bitterly. His corona flared even brighter.
Zip-BOOM. Zip-BOOM. Crash! Crash!
All by himself, he turned into a biotic wrecking ball. I could not believe the speed with which he repeated his flash-charge, slamming into targets of opportunity all across the Reaper line.
“Come on!” shouted Ashley, emerging from cover to charge into the fray. “That’s got to break them!”
All of us followed, forgetting the risk, forgetting the disorienting impact of the cannon’s repeated fire. We created a surge of blue-white and green-white biotic energy, crimson light from EDI’s incendiary charges, and gunfire from every weapon we had.
The Reapers withered, like chaff in a fire.
Even a lonely brute, lumbering onto the battlefield in the middle of our offensive, didn’t last very long. Once the cannibals and marauders around it had been dealt with, Shepard simply flash-charged it, three times in rapid succession, dodging its vicious responses, while the rest of us concentrated our fire on the beast. It went down, leaving Shepard standing over its corpse, his hands on his knees, breathing hard.
“Jesus, Skipper.” Ashley gaped at him in pure shock. “Save some for the rest of the fight!”
Shepard made a noise that might possibly have been considered a choked laugh. “I suppose you’re right, but we are in a hurry.” He straightened up, looked around, and pointed. “I think the crash site is just up there.”
“Damn it. You’ve got airborne hostiles inbound! Gonna try to keep ‘em off you!”
All of us heard the roar of engines, above and behind us. Shepard turned sharply, shading his eyes, staring up into the darkness. “Careful, Cortez!”
Normandy’s shuttle soared overhead, two harvesters in hot pursuit, firing their cannons.
One of them hit. I saw an explosion against the engines. The Kodiak staggered and fell.
“Cortez! Cortez!”
The shuttle went down behind a row of buildings to the west. I saw a flare of crimson light, heard the roar of a violent explosion.
“Ah, shit,” said Ashley.
“The shuttle is off-line,” said EDI quietly. “If I cannot contact its on-board transponder . . .”
“Yeah,” said Shepard, sounding as if he had taken a blow to the gut. “Come on. We’ve got to make sure it wasn’t for nothing.”
I followed him, my mind numb. I exchanged a look with Vara, saw the same dull hurt in her eyes as well. She and I had been on Ferris Fields together, the day we rescued Cortez from a Collector attack. We had both become fond of the man. We had relied on him, his skill and courage, to carry us to and extract us from a score of terrible battlefields. Gone now, and no time to mourn.
Suddenly, I realized that the pilot’s death might carry more than just emotional consequence for the rest of us.
We’re in the middle of Reaper-held territory, twenty-five kilometers away from the real battlefield, and no one to get us there in time.
We crested a low hill, climbing into the shell of a destroyed building where the other shuttle had gone down. The Hades cannon stood very close, looming over the ruined structure. There we found more cannibals and marauders.
Shepard massacred them.
No restraint. No apparent limits on his biotic strength, his physical speed, the firepower of his weapon. He disdained cover and simply rolled over every Reaper creature in his path. The rest of us could only hurry to keep up, administering a final blow to any enemy who momentarily survived his passage.
A ravager close to the wrecked shuttle posed a somewhat harder problem, but Shepard soon pounded the creature into mush from a distance with biotic flares and incendiary grenades. Soon afterward we reached the wreck, formed a perimeter around it while Ashley searched for any surviving weapons.
“Hah!” she growled. “An M-920. Two of them.”
“One should be enough,” said Shepard. “You may do the honors.”
“Gladly, Skipper.”
Too busy watching my quarter, I didn’t see her prepare or aim the weapon. I did see its missile zoom off into the night, homing on some gap in the cannon’s armor.
“Everyone get down!” shouted Ashley.
We dove for cover. Just in time for what felt like the end of the world.
When I dared look up again, the cannon was toppling in a tremendous din of metal, falling to obliterate all that remained of a city block.
“That’s it,” came a voice over the comm. “Last gun down. Hammer is clear to proceed.”
“Good to hear, Hammer,” said Shepard. “Now if anyone’s free, we just called ourselves to the attention of half the Reaper army, and we’ve lost our ride. We need extraction.”
A distant screech, and then a glowing blue-white form rose over a wall in the middle distance.
Banshee.
Half a hundred dark shapes heaved themselves over the same wall, following the twisted asari as it began to advance in our direction.
“Roger that. Hang on. We’re on the way.”
“Oh Goddess oh Goddess . . .” Not me cursing, this time. Vara, who hated banshees.
All of us began to lay down fire and throw telekinetic energy at the foe.
All except Ashley. Who stood in the open, disdaining the nearby cover, another heavy weapon held to her shoulder. One second, two seconds, three seconds . . .
The weapon barked, and a missile flew down-range.
I felt my eyes go wide, and I threw myself flat again, reaching up with one hand to pull Vara down beside me.
The world ended again, in a blinding flash of light and a deafening concussion.
When all went quiet for a moment, Shepard glanced at Ashley, blinking in surprise. “Officer thinking, Commander.”
“Hey, we had a spare.”
The fight proved more feasible after that. Not easy, nothing ever seemed easy on that last terrible day in the ruins of London, but the rest of us managed to survive it. Battered, some of us wounded, all of us already exhausted even after that minor engagement, but we lost no one else.
“Commander, we’re almost with you. Prepare for extraction.”
I looked around, and saw another blue-and-white Alliance vehicle swooping down out of the sky, to hover a few meters away.
“Go for the shuttle!” shouted Shepard, turning to begin a fighting retreat.
“Come on!” shouted a voice from the shuttle. “We’ll cover you!”
All of us ran, cresting a low mound of rubble and leaping into the shuttle’s open hatch, Shepard last of us all.
“Get us out of here, Corporal,” ordered a human male in armor, wearing a major’s insignia. I glanced at his chest-plate and saw the name COATS. To my surprise I recognized the name: a soldier who had been in London the day the Reapers arrived, and had been a leader of the human resistance ever since.
“You okay?” he asked, turning to us.
“I’m alive,” said Shepard grimly. “Today, that feels like enough to be ahead of the game.”
“That it is, Commander,” came another voice, deep and familiar.
David Anderson.
“Sir!” Shepard moved forward to take the admiral’s hand, and then pulled him into a quick masculine embrace. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too, Shepard. You’re sure a sight for sore eyes. I knew you wouldn’t let me down out there.”
Quickly, Shepard made introductions, since the admiral had not met some of us in person. Anderson gave Ashley a firm handshake, EDI and Vara quic
k nods of recognition, Javik a shallow bow of awed respect, and me a warm fatherly embrace. I hugged him back, loving him in that moment, tears threatening to start in my eyes at the gesture.
“How are we looking?” asked Shepard.
“Now that those guns are down, the rest of Hammer can land.”
“Not a moment too soon,” said Major Coats.
“He’s right,” said Anderson. “What’s left of the resistance has set up a Forward Operating Base in Westminster, but we’ve paid a terrible cost, and the Reapers have already started to counter. We need those troops to hold the perimeter and push the Reapers back.”
Shepard nodded. “It must have been brutal here, cut off from the rest of the Alliance.”
“It’s been touch-and-go from day one. But once we saw the Reapers concentrate on major urban centers, it became easier to avoid contact. We could move around, hinder their operations in the countryside, help people get to safety. For a while. Then the Reapers indoctrinated what’s left of the nation-state authorities, got them to order people to give up resistance, stop cooperating with the Alliance. Tough to run an insurgency when you can’t count on your own people.”
“Damn,” said Ashley. “Even if we win, Earth is going to be a real mess.”
“You’ve got that right, Commander. God only knows what kind of political system we’re going to be able to cobble together, even assuming we survive the Reapers. But that’s a worry for tomorrow, if we last that long. For right now, we have to worry about London.”
“We’ve been sending in scouts for days,” said Coats. “Lost a lot of men getting ready for this. But with leaders like Admiral Anderson, and knowing you were bringing the whole galaxy to help, we held on.”
“You did more than hold on,” said Shepard warmly. “Without you and your resistance, we’d be dead in the water.”
“Yeah. The Admiral’s being modest. He’s the only reason any of us are still alive.”
“Let’s not start handing out medals just yet,” said Anderson firmly. “This fight’s just getting started. I just hope Hammer is going to be ready for this.”
Shepard nodded. “They may not have started out together, but they’re ready to stand side by side now. In a couple of hours, we’ll have almost every race in the galaxy here in London, ready to do what needs to be done.”
