The Reaper War

by Cole Price

  “Rrrh. Obviously some ships had reason to visit this system and approach more closely. Perhaps they hoped to use this uncharted world as a rendezvous point for illegal trade. Then Leviathan took them.”

  We approached a set of shelters. Shepard bent suddenly, picking up a discarded datapad.

  “It’s a personal log,” he said after a moment. “It identifies this ship as the MSV Monarch.”

  I nodded. “That’s one of the ships that went missing in this region of space.”

  “It says the crew managed to rig the ship for flotation before they crashed. They didn’t know what hit them. Some kind of directed-energy weapon was their guess. They tried to restore power and get the mass effect core back online.” He sighed and dropped the pad. “Obviously they never managed it.”

  “Here’s one of the shelters . . .”

  Suddenly I recoiled in horror. Three corpses, long since lost to decay, sprawled around a makeshift table and over a crude cot. A scattering of ration packs, all empty. A medikit, open, its contents ruined by moisture and the open air. Tucked in a shadowed corner, a sphere of apparent rock crystal, a hint of shimmering blue-green light deep in its core.

  Shepard stepped closer, while I stood back with a hand over my mouth and tried to wrestle my gut into submission.

  “That’s one of the artifacts,” I breathed at last.

  “Explains why no one ever gets out of here,” he said. He picked up another datapad. “This one’s dated. Seven years ago, long before the Alliance mapping probe came through. They never got the reactor or the mass effect core back online, and the distress beacon was fried too. They couldn’t catch any of the native sea life, and they weren’t sure it would be edible anyway. The rations were low. They could catch rainwater for drinking, but . . .”

  “Goddess. They must have starved to death.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Is that what’s in store for us?”

  He gave me a determined stare. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  “More over here, Loco,” said James. “They brought up some of the native life just before the rations gave out, but it must have been some kind of poison. Couldn’t eat any of it. They sent a raft over to another wreck, but that didn’t bring back anything but more of these artifacts.”

  “Let’s keep moving.”

  We moved further out onto the wreck. I glanced behind us, and saw the shuttle in the distance, smaller than I had expected.

  “Commander. I have found something.”

  We converged on Javik’s position and found him standing in front of a large machine: cockpit, two arms, two legs, and no sign of life.

  “What is that?” asked Garrus. “Some kind of mech?”

  “Looks a little like an Atlas,” said Ashley.

  Shepard nodded. “Yeah. Different design, though, and not painted in Cerberus colors. Besides, seven years ago Cerberus didn’t even have Atlas mechs yet.”

  “One of the crew logs we found talked about something called Triton mechs,” said James. “Some sort of diving equipment?”

  “Maybe.” Shepard had that expression on his face, the one I associated with sudden reckless inspiration. “This one looks pretty badly damaged. Let’s see if we can find some more.”

  As we moved forward again, I approached Shepard. “You’re planning something.”

  “Not really.” He glanced at me, tried to look reassuring. “It just occurred to me, if Leviathan is hiding in the depths of this ocean . . .”

  “Goddess. I sincerely hope we don’t find any more of those mechs in working order.”

  “Liara, we may not have many choices here. If Cortez can’t get the shuttle airborne again . . .”

  “I know.” I thought of one of us descending into the pitch blackness of the abyss, with no assurance that she would find anything down there, or that she would be able to return. I shuddered. “Let’s make that our last option.”

  He nodded, but I could tell he felt unwilling to commit himself.

  Javik’s voice snapped over the comm link. “Look! Up there!”

  Shepard and I glanced up into the storm-wracked sky . . .

  An enormous sound, at once like a great horn and a clap of thunder, echoing from horizon to horizon. There, emerging from the clouds, a vast shape. A Reaper.

  “They were right behind us!” I shouted.

  “All hands, fall back!” commanded Shepard. “Protect the shuttle!”

  We turned, began to dash back toward Cortez and the shuttle. Then boom-boom-boom, and deep crimson glare bloomed on all sides.

  Reaper deployment pods. Husks. Cannibals. Marauders.

  The Reapers had already emerged deep in the middle of our formation, attacking anyone within reach the moment they emerged from their pods. We didn’t have time to form any kind of perimeter. We found ourselves in a wild melee for our lives, unable to support one another.

  Shepard and I went back-to-back, standing in the lee of a stack of shipping containers, and began to fight.

  “Cortez! What’s your status?”

  “Swapping out some parts, Commander. Hang on!”

  A fire-team of cannibals bracketed us with weapons fire, but we saw they stood too close together. I tagged them with a wide biotic pull, yanking all three into the air at once, and then Shepard’s shockwave smashed them into paste.

  “Son of a bitch!” Ashley’s voice, high-pitched with tension. “You could hit them with grenades a little farther out, four-eyes.”

  “Shoot them faster, human.”

  A flood of husks charged us. One of them recoiled and fell, a sniper’s shot from Garrus putting the thing down, but the rest nearly swarmed us under before I constructed a singularity in their path.

  “Cortez?”

  “Almost there, Commander.”

  “It’s getting a little busier than I like out here!”

  Marauders. I hated marauders. I couldn’t easily exert my biotics against them, protected as they were by inherent kinetic barriers. My own barriers melted down, little by little . . .

  Shepard saw the problem. He flash-charged, then reached high and slammed down his fist, scattering warped turians like chaff in the wind. Then again, to smash a fire-team of cannibals. Then again, to hurl a half-dozen husks off the side and into the ocean.

  That took the pressure off our position. Unfortunately it left me fighting alone.

  I lost track of how many times my biotics lashed out, a warp here, a pull there, a singularity in a third place to cut off one of the enemy’s lines of attack.

  Then crimson fire bloomed right in front of me, a brute emerging from its pod, all stink and overclocked krogan muscles.

  I had an instant to think oh Goddess this is it I’m dead and then it lashed out, one massive paw slamming into the side of my head and throwing me off my feet. I dimly felt my body slam into the side of a shipping container, and then nothing but darkness and chaos.

  I’m not sure how long I was out. Then James loomed over me, an expression of concern on his face, his hand working the medi-gel tab on my armor. “Madre de Dios. Come on, Doc, don’t die on me. I don’t wanna have to explain it to Loco . . .”

  “Oh Goddess,” I moaned as the stimulants hit. I hurt, I hurt a lot, but a quick inventory and a check of my omni-tool told me nothing was actually broken. I took his hand and permitted him to haul me to my feet. “What’s happening?”

  “Reapers are letting up a bit. Cortez got the shuttle up and gave us some covering fire, then that damn pulse hit him again. Come on.”

  With James’s strong arm around my shoulders, I found I could stagger along and even keep some semblance of watch for the enemy. I could hear gunfire ahead, and the deep boom of Shepard’s flash-charge striking home, and then relative silence. I enjoyed the cool rain on the brute-pummeled side of my head and tried not to think about a possible concussion.

  We convened at the shuttle’s new position, perhaps fifty meters down the freighter’s hull from our fir
st landing point. Cortez emerged from the vehicle, and stood watching over the battlefield as all of us approached him.

  I felt a deep shock as I saw the others approach. The vicious fight had left almost none of us uninjured. Ashley had a deep gouge in her armor over one thigh, a thick pad of medi-gel visible in the gap, and she limped badly. Javik bled profusely from a jagged cut along one side of his face. Shepard . . .

  I broke free of James’s support and went to him. Cuts and scuffing on his armor, blood running freely down his right arm, swelling along one side of his face that nearly closed his eye, and pale, much too pale. He held his Claymore with grim determination, but I could tell nothing kept him upright but the medi-gel and stimulants.

  “Shepard,” I whispered. “You look terrible.”

  He grinned at me. “That was a good fight.”

  “You sound like Wrex,” I chided him.

  “I wish he was here. He would have appreciated it better.” He stared at me out of his good eye. “You’re hurt.”

  “We’re all hurt,” I told him, my voice sharper than I had intended. “I’m asari. I’ll mend.”

  “Well, we’re clear for now, but that Reaper is still up there somewhere,” said Garrus, breaking the tense moment. “If we’re going to do something, we had better make it quick.”

  “Agreed,” said Shepard. “Cortez, what’s our status?”

  “Shuttle’s a mess,” the pilot reported. “That pulse knocked us right out of the air twice. We’re not going anywhere.”

  “Could Normandy extract us?” asked Javik, in a tone that betrayed his lack of confidence in the idea.

  Cortez shook his head. “I don’t think so. Same thing would probably happen to her, and the landing wouldn’t be as pretty. Leviathan must have some sort of defense system in place.”

  “Might explain why that Reaper isn’t getting too close,” said James. “So what do we do?”

  Boom. Three Reaper deployment pods, dropping husks onto the hull a dozen meters away.

  Even in my condition, I could manage to deal with a few husks. I confirmed that my biotics still worked by throwing a warp, then fired my Shuriken at them. Once they went down, I ducked down behind cover once more to listen.

  “I don’t see any alternative,” said Shepard. “We have to find Leviathan and talk to it. Convince it to help us against the Reapers, or at least let us take off without interference.”

  Garrus gave a turian frown, his mandibles tight along his jaw. “Sounds like a real long shot, Shepard.”

  “Maybe, but it’s all we have. So how do we do it?”

  We all looked at each other.

  Finally Cortez spoke up, sliding along behind our cover to point off to one side. “Well, you might be able to use a mech.”

  I glanced in that direction, saw two more of the big odd-looking mechs, sealed into a deployment bay about twenty meters away.

  “Looks like they’re rigged for diving,” Cortez continued. “Maybe the Monarch crew thought about searching down below for whatever was holding them here.”

  “One of the datapads we found talked about Triton mechs.”

  “That’s them. Specifically designed for deep-sea exploration. Quite a coincidence that they had some on board. If the seawater hasn’t corroded them, we might be able to put them to use.”

  “All right,” said Shepard. “If that’s what we have to do, let’s get started.”

  I fired my Shuriken at a few more Reaper troops, and then turned to stare at him with incredulity. “Wait a minute, Shepard. Are we seriously considering . . .”

  Cortez jumped up onto the platform with the shuttle. “First, we’ll need to restore power to those cargo doors so you can get one of the mechs out here.”

  “How?” asked Shepard, ignoring my objections.

  “It appears we are,” Javik murmured to me.

  Goddess. I thought I had grown used to human recklessness . . .

  “These old Ballard-class ships are equipped with exterior power sockets,” Cortez explained. “They’re for emergency repairs. I’ll strip a few cells from the shuttle and you can use them for juice. Hang on, I’ll get you started.”

  “All right.” Shepard turned to the rest of us. “I’m going to need an extended perimeter from here over to that power socket. Ash, Liara, you’re already hurt. I want you to fight from cover here, and retreat into the shuttle if you have to. Garrus, get up on top of the shuttle and set up a sniper’s nest there. James and Javik, you move with me as we carry the power cells over to the socket.”

  At least the tactical plan seemed sound. I exchanged glances with Shepard for an instant, all my concern in my eyes. Then I placed myself behind cover with Ashley, and began to watch out for Reaper troops.

  Much to my surprise, the plan worked.

  The Reaper continued to salt the derelict’s hull with more troops, but with a defined perimeter in place we could fight much more effectively. Ashley, Garrus, and I did our best to keep the enemy’s attention on the shuttle. Cortez joined in while he wasn’t pulling out power cells for Shepard’s team.

  With most of the Reapers watching the shuttle, Shepard moved three power cells over to a socket and managed to open the deployment bay. Once he climbed into his chosen mech, he found its onboard weaponry in working condition. Soon he was able to slam into the Reaper flank, auto-cannon and incendiary rockets blazing.

  Before long, we had a clear hull. We knew the Reaper itself still lurked far above, concealed now by dense clouds, but it seemed to be thinking over its options. For the moment, we could act.

  Shepard walked the mech over to our position. I stared as he approached, seeing nothing but the years-old, poorly maintained piece of machinery to which he intended to trust his life.

  It had rust on it.

  “All right, Commander, open her up,” said Cortez. “I need to do a systems check before you even think about starting a dive.”

  Shepard obediently popped the mech’s hatch and climbed down. I stepped close and opened my omni-tool, scanning him and querying his hardsuit’s onboard computer.

  “Commander,” murmured Javik. “Risk is rarely a hindrance, but this plan? Even I would hesitate.”

  I was too busy examining Shepard’s vital signs, otherwise I would have stared at the Prothean.

  Is that genuine concern I’m hearing?

  “We’ve come too far to stop now,” said Shepard. “The way home is through Leviathan.”

  “Then you need to let someone else take this dive,” I told him. “Shepard, you are badly injured. Your pulse and blood pressure are far from optimal. Riding that mech down to the sea floor is going to be a fiercely stressful experience, even if you don’t find anything too challenging down there.”

  He looked at me, as soberly as he could with only one eye in good order. “Doesn’t matter, Liara. My mission, my responsibility, and no one else here has a better chance to succeed.”

  I glared at him, long enough to realize he was prepared to be stubborn, and the only way to stop him was to incapacitate him. It took about three seconds. I knew my bondmate too well.

  “Then you had better come back in one piece,” I challenged him. “Otherwise I am going to kill you.”

  He chuckled. “It’s a deal.”

  “Okay, the seals check out,” said Cortez. “Oxygen pressure is nominal. All systems are green. It’s as ready as I can make it.”

  Shepard nodded, turned and climbed back up into the mech. “Let’s go.”

  “Take care down there, Commander,” said the pilot, all his cold professionalism suddenly fled.

  Shepard nodded. The hatch closed.

  “Engaging systems,” came his voice over the comm. I could see him performing a sequence of pre-dive checks. “Ready.”

  “Testing comm link,” said Cortez.

  “I read you five by five. Here goes.”

  The mech turned, clumped over to the edge of the derelict’s hull.

  “Beginning dive in three, two, one!
”

  Shepard leaped over the side, into the inscrutable ocean.

  We waited, for one minute, then another.

  “Suit holding up, Commander?” asked Cortez.

  “Looks good so far.”

  I had a moment’s hope that things might go well. Then Cortez frowned and began working with his omni-tool. “Good. I’m getting some comm interference on this end. Hang on.”

  “. . . copy that.”

  “Commander, can you read me? We’re losing your signal. Something is blocking you. Please respond.”

  Nothing but a wash of static.

  Then: boom-boom-boom. Crimson light blooming once more, out on the wreck’s wallowing hull.

  “Reapers!” shouted Javik, with some satisfaction.

  I stared for a moment at Cortez. He frantically tried to reach Shepard once more, without much success.

  Then I turned to go with the others, and make a last stand.

  Chapter 30 : A Fish-Hook for Leviathan

  22 May 2186, MSV Monarch Wreck/Despoina Surface

  Twenty minutes passed.

  The Reaper still refused to come close enough for a direct attack. We saw it once in a while, when the storm clouds above parted for a few moments. We heard its monstrous horn. Nothing more.

  We saw plenty of its troops. It deployed husks, cannibals, marauders, and the occasional brute, monsters of every kind and in every possible combination. It tried to overwhelm our position over and over.

  Several times it almost succeeded.

  Ashley went down, knocked out by a cannibal’s grenade, and had to be pulled back into the shuttle for first aid from Cortez. James vanished for an instant under a swarm of husks, coming up growling, hurling the monsters to all sides with sheer strength. Javik remained cold and collected, firing his ancient particle rifle at the monsters. Garrus continued to pick off the enemy with headshot after perfect headshot, until his Mantis suffered mechanical failure and he had switch to his assault rifle instead.

  My biotics simply failed about ten minutes into the fight, refusing to function no matter how much I tried to ignore the spike of pain in my skull. Soon afterward, I gave up on my little Shuriken as well. Instead I pulled a full-scale assault rifle out of the shuttle’s weapons rack. The rifle felt unfamiliar, but it put out a very comforting amount of firepower when I held its trigger down and waved it at the enemy.