MASS EFFECT 3 REIMAGINED Chapter 20

20

WIDOW SYSTEM

THE CITADEL

Three turian warships explode under the onslaught of two massive reapers. Behind those reapers come seven more capital ships angling towards the Citadel. Asari and salarian battleships approach the new arrivals and open fire. Several more of the Citadel defenders perish before causing so much as a dent into the armor of the attackers.

Meanwhile, onboard the Citadel, thousands of reaper soldiers pour onto the station and attack everyone they see. C-Sec struggles to hold the creatures at bay as they push through their defenses like they never even existed.

Beyond the windows to the docking bays, the Destiny Ascension pushes past several smaller reaper vessels in a bid to exit the system as quickly as possible. Several massive capital ships block their flight path so the Ascension is forced to retreat back towards the Citadel and past a group of defense forces that go to meet the reapers head on.

DESTINY ASCENSION

BRIDGE

The all asari crew communicates quickly and urgently as the three surviving Council members watch the conflict through the viewport looking all but defeated by the events transpiring.

“What do we do!?” Telvos questions and turns to Sparatus who shakes his head mournfully.

“I wish I knew. With Vakarian and Williams fighting onboard the Citadel, the best we can hope for is evacuating the system.”

“Evacuation is looking less and less like an option!” Valern interjects. “These reapers are all too real. Had we prepared better before…”

“I knew from the moment I heard the term that if they were real we wouldn’t stand a chance. They’re galaxy harvesters, Valern. And we’re using their tech.”

Valern and Telvos stare at Sparatus and their shoulders drop in fear. Sparatus leans his hands against the railing and stares out towards the attacking forces beyond.

“We have a responsibility to our peoples, Sparatus,” Telvos says and leans her back into the railing. “There must be something we can do?”

“Pray to your goddess.”

CITADEL

LOWER DOCKING BAYS

A horde of batarian warriors meet the incoming reaper forces with fierce determination. They attack with plasma rifles, shotguns, and even their bare fists when they must. Their driving force is to hold off the reapers until their people can evacuate the Citadel and reach safety.

Warning klaxons and flashing red lights plead for attention all across the Citadel and the batarians growl in anger as ever more reapers pour in from openings forced into the side of the docking bay walls.

“We need to get those entries barricaded! Bring up some blowtorches! Hold them at bay!” sergeant Torc Lovren bellows.

Torc turns and sees batarian soldiers filing into the ranks of those who have fallen and assuming the position of defender against the aggression of the reapers. He smiles a snarl a sees a group of batarians rushing from the medical bay with a torch. He goes to assist them in shutting the doors that had been forced open.

“Push forward!” he screams at everyone. “Drive them back! Get that torch into place!”

The torch bearers push towards the entrance as the defenders step forward laying down intense suppression fire. The husks and cannibals beyond fall quickly under the onslaught and several muscular batarian soldiers bring forward a large slab of titanium they scavenged off of a medical shuttle and jam it over the opening the reapers had sheered.

The torch bearers go to work sealing the edges to the metal and nearly immediately they feel the metal being slammed against by the reaper minions beyond. After an agonizing several minutes, the metal has been welded in place and three more slabs are being brought up from the bay to reinforce the weld. “Torc, that won’t hold for long!” a soldier scowls.

“Never mind that! Take as many soldiers as you can and hold this entrance! If they break through again, gun them down! Tell your men to keep a few extra slabs on hand!”

“How long can we keep this up!?”

“Until you can no longer stand! And then fight on your knees!”

The soldier growls and rushes back to his comrades to take position around the newly welded entrance. Torc turns from the conflict and heads down the medical docking bay towards where his superiors stand in a hold looking over Citadel schematics. He finds Ghor’ant and Chanak glowering over the specs with intensity while several turian combatants sit on the side wounded from combat.

“Those C-Sec have seen better days,” Torc says and thumps his weapon on the table top.

“Watch where you’re putting that, Torc!” Chanak snarls and shakes his head. “Worry about your own skin over the turians! You might live longer!”

“Mmm…he’s right, though,” Ghor’ant says and looks over at the two men who can barely keep their eyes open. “They weren’t prepared for the reaper attack. None of us were.”

“You’ve been through two incursions, adjutant!” Torc yells and leans his hands on the table. “What chance do we have here!?”

“It’s not good. I won’t lie to either of you. The reapers destroyed Kar’shan without a fight, they laid waste to Earth and the humans gave them war yet still fell! Now the reapers have come to the Citadel. They will destroy us and make us into those so called Cannibals. Our only chance is to find a way off the station and through the relay. But…”

“But what, adjutant!?” Chanak looks to Ghor’ant.

“But where is there to run!?” he sighs and stands up looking at the Citadel specs. “No. There is nowhere to run. Shepard was right. We fight or we die. I’ve been a coward for too long. Gloating over my position yet ignoring the glory of my family name! The reapers will destroy us all! Just as they have to countless civilizations for an indeterminable number of years!”

“So what do you suggest we do?” Torc nods at Ghor’ant ignoring Chanak.

“The only thing we can do. Push back as hard as we can against the reapers, join up with the surviving members of C-Sec, get off this station and find Shepard.”

“Shepard?! What the hell will that accomplish?!” Chanak pushes up from the table and glares at Ghor’ant.

Ghor’ant leans forward and glares right back, “It will accomplish a united front! Shepard left Earth to gain the Council’s backing and get as many warriors into their Alliance as possible! That means the Alliance has fallen back to an unknown destination and you can be damned sure they already have accumulated battleships from the turians, salarians, and asari! We’ll give them our remaining fleet and drive down the throat of the reapers!”

“What nonsense, Ghor’ant!” Chanak spats. “There is no winning against the reapers!”

“And what would you have us do, Chanak!?” Torc snarls. “We have no home to run back to! We are cornered like injured varren on the Citadel! C-Sec is falling by the hour! Even the Council is on the run! I’m with the adjutant! We fight!” “It’s suicide! We will never defeat them!”

Ghor’ant looks to Chanak, “Then we will make sure that the reapers remember our faces! All of them! The reapers have focused the majority of their assault on Earth! You know what that means, administrator? It means that the humans got their attention! It means that the reapers consider them a threat! I say we remind the reapers that we all a threat!”

“Yeah! I will emblazon my face into their memory! I will take their heads for trophies! We will make the reapers realize they have come to wage war not gut us like crying karpa younglings!” Torc nods his head in excitement.

“You two are mad!” Chanak shakes his head. “And how do you think you will accomplish this?”

Ghor’ant turns to Torc, “I saw in the fleet you came in with that the Granix is still functional.”

“Yes, adjutant. It is still docked three levels up.”

“Then we need to find a way to the Granix. It has a specialized FTL drive that was developed at the Y’ore complex in Til’neba. We can rig it to explode in the ranks of the capital ships in orbit beyond the Citadel here.”

Ghor’ant changes the spec display to show the Widow system and indicates on the holographic image where the capital ships were last located.

“You’re assuming those vessels haven’t left,” Chanak says.

“They’re still there. It’s the only clear direction given for evacuating ships. They’re right between us and the relay with flanking positions established by four other reaper ships in these locations. The blast will be thermonuclear giving us just enough time to push them to the edges and drive the remaining fleets straight through to the relay.”

“It will be messy,” Torc says and looks at the display. “We will lose many ships in the effort.”

“If we stay here, we’ll lose them all. We need to get as many Citadel vessels remaining together into the driving formation. The reapers will be forced to concentrate on the column of ships which gives us some certainty that we can get vessels out of the system. We’ll position our vessels here and see if we can convince the turian command to position theirs here.”

The see lights pop into existence where his pointer interacts with the display. Chanak growls and shakes his head but Torc nods in acceptance.

“It is a good plan. We just need to get this plan to the Citadel forces still left.”

Chanak looks to Torc, “It is not a good plan! It will get us all killed!”

“If you have a better plan, we’d love to hear it,” Ghor’ant says.

Chanak says nothing and growls to himself. A voice comes from behind them.

“Excuse me…you need to get this to…the Council asap,” Ghor’ant turns and sees one of the turians trying to stand. “There are…access tunnels to the rear of the bay…We need to get your people out of here and through them to…the presidium. There we can reach a comms…tower and communicate with the …Ascension.”

Ghor’ant nods, “Yes, that might work. Torc, gather the others. Form up to the rear of the bay after placing two more layers of titanium over that entrance. Hopefully that will buy us the time we need.”

“On it.”

Torc rushes off leaving Ghor’ant and Chanak to help the turians to their feet.

“You…should just leave us. We’ll only…hold you up.”

“He has a point,” Chanak says standing up and preparing to leave.

Ghor’ant glares at him, “No. We won’t leave anyone else behind to deal with this madness!”

“People are going to die, Ghor’ant! We can’t help them and ourselves at the same time!”

“We need them to show us the way to the presidium! Unless you are so all knowing that you know every tunnel and accessway on the station!”

Chanak frowns and huffs as he kneels down to help the other turian while Ghor’ant stands with the one. Together they head towards the rear of the bay.

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A horde of reapers file down the long hallway through the C-Sec headquarters towards the Presidium entryways. They are quickly dispatched by weapons fire coming from Garrus and Ashley. They don’t let up until the way is clear allowing three officers to rush forward with metal plating and begin locking off that section of the Citadel.

“That’s forty waypoints sealed off,” Garrus says with a sigh. “Not much more we can do except get to the ships.”

“No way that’s happening. The reapers have the system completely blockaded. You know by now they’re opening up the relay.”

Garrus looks to Ashley, “The defense forces have to of open up the way somewhat by now. We’re only buying enough time to evacuate as many people as we can. We can’t keep doing this!”

“I know, Garrus! But…it all just seems so fucking hopeless.”

Garrus places his hand on her shoulder, “Don’t give up now, Williams. We’ll get out of this in one piece. We need to meet up with Shepard and drive it home to the reapers that we will not go down without a fight!”

Ashley sighs and shakes her head, “I guess it’s time to fall back to the ancillary docks then. The Council is on the Ascension and we’ve bought the majority of the Citadel more than enough time to reach their transports. Now we just have to fight off the reapers and get the people out of system.”

“Nobody said this was going to be easy,” Garrus nods and checks his ammunition. “But we can do this.”

They see Bailey walking up to them. He has a stern expression on his face and seems exhausted.

“The docks are overrun. Looks like we have just one exit now.”

Garrus frowns as he replies, “Then we need to get moving. It’s a foregone conclusion that the reapers have the Citadel.”

“This is bad,” Williams says. “If they keep the Citadel…”

“Yeah, they have access to all the galaxy. Fortunately, Shepard has spread the word on locking out a number of relays. Only Alliance frequencies will get anyone through.”

“You think that will stop them, Vakarain?” Bailey sighs. “How much of that information is in the Citadel database? How long until they figure out how to unlock those relays?”

“We just have to keep moving and hope that we’ve been bought some time,” Garrus says. “Let’s head out now while the getting’s good.”

“Right,” Bailey and Ashley say nearly in unison.

The group followed by the officers who have just finished welding the plating in place head through the corridors towards the presidium commons where they cross over to back corridors behind the presidium tower. There they head up towards the ancillary docks. An explosion catches their attention and they rush down the hall to see that patched up plating leading to the upper docks has been blasted open.

They raise their weapons and rush forward to find a group of batarians pushing through the opening. Garrus lowers his plasma rifle and feels his jaw dropping. The batarians coming through see them and raise their weapons.

“Batarians…” Garrus mumbles. “Hey! What are you doing coming up from there!?”

The lead batarian lowers his weapon with a sigh, “We’ve been fighting down the arm away from the docks trying to escape the reapers. They’re right behind us.”

“Damn it!” Bailey shouts. “You men, get over there and clear them out so we can reseal that plating!”

“Sir!” the officers shout and rush forward as the batarians finish filing out of the opening.

The lead batarian approaches the group, “Adjutant Ghor’ant of the Hegemony. Formerly that is. This is administrator Chanak and sergeant Torc Lovren. We need to meet with the Council immediately.”

“Sorry, boys. The Council is out of session indefinitely,” Ashley says keeping her rifle at the ready but not pointed directly at anyone.

“It’s an emergency. We know how we can get out of the system,” Ghor’ant says.

Garrus quirks a brow, “The Council is on the Ascension. Most of the Citadel has been evacuated to the ships. Though too many still remain. Regardless, we won’t be getting to the Council. We’re headed towards the ancillary docks and plowing through the reapers the best we can.”

“It won’t work without our strategy.”

Bailey looks to Ghor’ant and throws his hands up, “Well for all that is good fill us in already! We have ten minutes to get out of dodge before the reapers start using us for monster chow!”

“We’ll need to get to our ships to ensure that the plan works. We’re going to detonate the FTL core of the Granix. It will create an explosion large enough to clear the way.”

Garrus ponders this for a moment, “A drive core has serious power behind it. But I don’t know if it’s enough to make a dent in the reapers.”

Ghor’ant nods, “Normally you’d be right. But the Granix’s drive core is unique and contains several centrifuges used in nuclear weaponry. Detonating it will result in a blast equal to seven hundred warheads.”

“Are you insane?!” Garrus gasps. “Why would you be flying around in something like that!?”

“It was necessary. But we need that ship.”

“How long will it take you to set up?” Bailey asks.

Ghor’ant replies, “Five minutes at the most. There are three engineers left in our group who are familiar with its design.”

The officers finish welding the plating back in place and rush up to the group.

“Job’s done. We should head on,” one officer says.

“Good idea,” Garrus replies. “Let’s head to those docks. Ghor’ant, you’ll come with me and your engineers and hit the Granix. Where’s it docked?”

“Level sixteen,” Torc responds.

“That’s being hit hard right now. Let’s hope it’s still in one piece,” Garrus says with a frown.

The group continues onward towards the ancillary docks and don’t meet any resistance as they man the six vessels still in their berths. Two ships peel away towards dock sixteen while the others captained by Bailey head towards the Ascension still seeking a way out of system beyond the presidium towers.

Garrus and a squadron of batarians exit their ship from where they dock beside the Granix that hasn’t received any damage yet and fight against a horde of reaper minions. After clearing the way, several soldiers head off to two other vessels while Ghor’ant leads the way to the Granix. Within ten minutes the vessel is powered up, rigged to explode, and leading the fleet of four batarian vessels towards the Ascension that is now surrounded by defense forces made up of Alliance, turian, and asari vessels. Beyond the Citadel hundreds of ships are being destroyed by the reapers.

Onboard the bridge of the Granix, Garrus and Ghor’ant prepare the last programing instructions for the vessel to fly on a projected path towards the three capital ships guarding the path to the relay.

“They haven’t engaged the relay yet, it looks like,” Garrus says. “They must be mopping up all the defenders first.”

“Let’s give them something to think about then,” Ghor’ant says and finishes laying in coordinates. “Alright, the auto is all set. We need to get back to the fleet.”

“Bailey,” Garrus opens up the comm. “Have you communicated the plan to the Council yet?”

“Yeah,” Bailey’s voice comes back. “They are bringing together the remaining vessels for one last run when you are ready. Better make it good. We’ll only have one shot at this and the reapers look like they know something’s up.”

“We’re leaving the Granix now. Prepare for the run in five,” Garrus disconnects and looks to Ghor’ant. “Let’s get going.”

Ghor’ant nods and they head towards the shuttles at the rear of the vessel. They meet the engineers and get onboard to head out. Once out of the Granix, the shuttle makes its way to the Ascension. The Granix takes off towards the relay and the reapers move to intercept it by opening fire intensely.

The column of ships begin to move forward and the defenders holding off the reaper forces joins them. The outer ships of the column lay down heavy fire on the reaper ships trying to attack the column as the Granix gains speed and distance from the column. At the right distance and as it sustains heavy damage the Granix slides between the three reaper capital ships that turn their lasers on it. The Granix detonates causing a blinding flash and causing a massive shock wave that blows the three capital ships wide apart.

The column of ships hits FTL drive at that moment and in an instant are at the relay. One by one the remaining vessels of the Citadel jump into the mass effect relay and disappear from the system.

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Sh’obr recovers from the blast and gains his bearings. Looking around he sees the other reapers recovering as well. Llous comes towards him as he makes his way to the Citadel.

“They’ve escaped through the relay. Let us open it back up and pursue.”

“No. Let them go. Their time is short and most have been taken by us. The relay is no longer our concern. We have the Citadel. Now we must recover the Citadel and take it to Earth. Harbinger has waited too long. Begin the reinitiating procedures.”

“Of cours, Sh’obr.”

Llous speeds off towards the Citadel still hovering with its arms held wide. Explosions still ring out around it as battles with stragglers continue. Sh’obr stops just outside of the Citadel perimeter and watches the four other capital ships closing in on the Citadel tower at the center.

As it has countless times, the tchilla beacon shall be activated. This…this is the same over and over. We should feel at peace. Yet there is no peace. There is only aggression. Perhaps Penthos is correct. There is unity in our mind. We know this will just go on forever. But what can we do?

We must follow Harbinger’s will.

Sh’obr pushes forward towards the tchilla beacon, the presidium tower rising up like a stamen in a flower, and latches on to the spire. After a long moment, the Citadel arms begin to close. The ships who stayed to fight find themselves being overrun as the arms cover them and the Citadel begins to power up in a way that it hasn’t in fifty thousand years. All the reapers hurry inside the closing Citadel and await transportation back to Earth.

Once closed, a wave of energy envelopes the Citadel and it vanishes into a mass effect field.

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