| abstract | - London was burning. London was falling. This is the end. Darius was breathing heavily, out of breath he reached for his weapon. The Avenger rifle was red-hot, he barely had any thermal clips left. To his left, a turian was firing his Phaeston outside toward a group of husks attack the Mako. The company was being swarmed by Reapers. He could hear his men being torn to shreds. The unearthly sounds of bone being crushed and flesh being ripped made Darius want to throw up. But he remembered his duty, what he had to do. Their mission was to escort a couple of trucks equipped with Thanix missiles to destroy the nearby Reaper that was guarding our last shot at defeating the Reapers, the Conduit. But the convoy was ambushed. Husks, cannibals, marauders, banshees, brutes, ravagers and harvesters all attacked and surrounded the convoy. By the time Darius got a hold of the situation, half the company was already dead. “Turian! What’s our situation?” Darius called out. The Turian fired off more shots from his Phaeston before taking cover again, “It’s bad, Ravagers are still hitting our Makos, one of them is disabled and can’t fire its turret. Husks, cannibals and brutes keep rushing our location but we’re holding for now. But if this keeps up, we’ll all be dead soon. We need air support, sir.” Darius checked his Omni-tool to see if any Kodiak shuttles were nearby to provide aid. “This is Captain Darius Calder, 127th Marine Division, Alliance Navy, does anyone read?” A Ravager barrage fired on the floor below him, no doubt killing more of his men and destroying the barricades they hastily built to keep out the Brutes. “Our convoy was ambushed and we have Reaper forces closing in on us. Requesting immediate fire support, danger close! We have Ravagers bombarding us across the street in the bombed out hospital. If any Kodiak pilots are still in the area, we need immediate support!” Communications chatter remained silent, Darius began losing hope when he could hear his men being torn apart by brutes below him. And then the omni-tool lit up a brilliant orange of activity. Someone had responded. “This is Lieutenant Henry Hopkins, I see you down there. ETA thirty seconds, mark your locations to minimize friendly fire. Hang in there.” Darius could hear the rumble of the Kodiak’s engines as it came closer, he looked up out the window and saw at least ten Ravagers inside the burned out hospital. Finally, they took notice of the approaching Kodiak, but it was too late. The shuttle came in right on top of them and unleashed its payload. The strafe killed all ten Ravagers, and sent what was left of the hospital crashing down, killing more Reaper forces that had been fighting beneath it. The Kodiak came back around, and fired on the Brutes. The shuttle’s guns cut them apart, and the Makos managed to get off a few shots too. With the Reapers dead, London fell silent. A strangely peaceful sight. Finally, the battle was over, but the casualties were too high. “Lieutenant, do you think you get some of the dead and injured out of here? They’ve seen enough for one day.” Darius said, still out of breath from the fighting. His armor was a charred black color, the visor on his helmet was cracked and was covered in ashes and dirt. He hated seeing his home like this. He was born in that very same hospital that was infested with Reapers. “Yes, sir. I can put her down in the hospital parking lot. We gotta make it fast though, that Reaper Destroyer is on the move. It looks like the advance teams didn’t make it. Their attacks did nothing to the Reaper. Are your Thanix missiles still operational?” Darius had almost forgotten about the missiles. One of the trucks was overturned, and the other was burned out. Out of the three Makos, only one was still operating. “Our last truck is overturned but I think we can still use it. The other one was shot to hell.” “Damn. Shepard and Anderson better have a plan. We need to end this damned war. The entire left flank was wiped out. We only have a handful of Thanix missiles left. I also heard that the center was overrun but Shepard and his team are there now. We just need to put our faith in him to get us through this.” The wounded and KIA were loaded onto the Kodiak shuttle. Only sixty-nine of a 120-strong company survived the ambush. The shuttle took off and returned to the Forward Operating Base. The Reaper destroyer had moved closer to the center postion and fired its main gun at the HAMMER forces in that area. “Alright men, we still have a job to do. Get that truck turned back over and get it into position. We end this war. Today. For Earth. Palaven. Thessia. For the galaxy.” Darius and his men encountered resistance along the way. Every now and then husks and marauders would come spilling out of the ruins of London, the company held them off one after another. But the previous fight and constant ambushes began to break down the company. One Alliance soldier was completely shellshocked after chasing after retreating husks in a destroyed office building. Chasing after him, we found the poor soldier standing in front of a pile of bodies. Men, women and children, burned alive and discarded like a glove. He was motionless, his eyes were dead, locked forever in his mind with the images he saw. We had to restrain him in the Mako and stripped him of his gun. We didn't want him getting any fancy ideas. The company finally made it to their destination. The Reaper was right on top of them, waiting for Anderson's signal to fire the missiles. A couple other companies rendezvoused with us and we dug in, waiting for the hordes of husks that lay ahead. Wave after wave if husks battered against our lines, but we held. Our Thanix missiles were aimed and ready and Anderson gave the order. Darius saw two Thanix missiles launch and impact directly on the Reaper's main weapon before it could close its protective shell. With the Reaper disoriented, what was left of HAMMER launched all their missiles at the Reaper, causing heavy damage. The Reaper could no longer control itself, lost its balance and fell over dead. Darius heard the various battle cries and victory chants from human, turian, asari, krogan and more. They had killed a Reaper, but the war wasn't won yet. The Conduit still remained, and there was word that several Reaper ships were breaking off from the battle in space and were converging on London. “Captain? Captain Calder, do you read?”, Anderson said over the commlink. “Yes sir. This is Calder, all of HAMMER is with me. I don't see any other officers here.” “You're the last one, Captain beside me, Shepard and Major Coats. I'm splitting HAMMER in two. I'll be taking command of half and we'll assault the Conduit. I need you to take what's left of HAMMER and hold off any Reaper reinforcements that will try to follow us past the Conduit. We can't risk any surprise attacks once we're on the Citadel. Whatever you do Captain, dig in fast. Multiple Sovereign and destroyer-class Reapers will hit this area hard. This war is almost won, just hold the line for a few more moments.” Anderson said. Darius just now saw his convoy moving past the dead Reaper and regrouping with what was left of HAMMER. “You can count on us, Admiral. We'll hold the line.” Darius said. Half of HAMMER and Anderson's convoy headed out for the Conduit, “You heard the Admiral men, this is where we hold the line!” The other half of HAMMER under the command of Calder dug in, and waited for the Reapers. Above, he saw several Reaper ships coming down from the blackened sky of London. One of them, the biggest one with haunting yellow "eyes" landed next to the Conduit. It fired on the half of HAMMER assaulting the Conduit. Calder could hear the screams of men and women behind him, being decimated by the Reaper. “Captain, sir! Multiple Reaper signatures! Closing in fast!” Reaper ships spotted what was left of our "army" and attacked. Hordes of indoctrinated slaves crashed upon our lines like a wave upon the Cliffs of Dover. The sound of Makos, Hammerheads, rifle fire, biotic artillery and fighter-bombers fighting to the last man was a breathtaking sight. Again and again the Reaper attacked us, but we didn't give up a single meter of land to them. Never again, Calder thought. It ends here. The demoralising roar of the Reaper ships echoed across all of London, and they charged up their main cannon. In an instant, tanks were overturn and burning and soldiers, turned to ash and dust. Major Coats suddenly showed up right behind Darius. “Coats? What the hell are you doing here? Where's Anderson? Shepard? Did they make it past the Conduit?” “They... our... our assault was a failure. The Reaper... Harbinger...” Coats was out of breath, barely able to speak. “I don't think anyone made it past the Conduit. I saw Shepard, he almost made it. But that Reaper, it fired right on top of him. And Anderson... I don't know what happened to him, but he was right behind Shepard. He might have made it through.” No. This can't be it. We came this far. We can't lose now. Darius Calder turned back toward the frontline, it was crumbling. The Reapers were on the offensive again, and several ships were moving in to deal a final blow. The men were still fighting with every drop of blood they had. They still believed someone made it to the Conduit, and would end this war. Telling them now what happened would only make things worse. Darius picked up a Phaeston from a dead turian. It was the same turian that was next to him in the building across from the hospital. He hadn't even got to learn his name. Darius moved to the frontlines to join his men and fired his weapon at the incoming Reaper horde. If this was the end, Darius wanted to die fighting alongside his men. For what seemed like forever, Darius fought. Wave after wave of Reaper forces, driving them back, calling in support strikes. No matter what we did, they just kept coming back. The men to his left and right fell one by one during the battle. But Darius kept fighting. Grabbing as many thermal clips that he could. Then, Darius found himself all alone. With more and more Reaper forces moving on his position, he looked around him and saw his men dead. Sprawled out all along the ground. Darius was so caught up in the fight he didn't realize what was going on around him. Then he ran. He ran toward the Conduit, believing he himself could end this war. Then something spectacular happened. In a flash, a wave of red zoomed across London. Darius turned back around and saw Reaper ships, dead and lifeless falling over with a loud thump. He couldn't believe it. Had someone actually reached the Conduit? Have we won? The next thing Darius thought of doing was making contact with anyone that survived. “This is Captain Darius Calder, can anyone hear me?” All he heard was silence. “Anyone? Please.” And then, just like that a Kodiak shuttle appeared on the horizon and landed in front of him. The pilot, Henry Hopkins had informed him of what had happened. The war was won. And Commander Shepard and Admiral Anderson made it past the Conduit and activated the Crucible. The Reapers were destroyed. But all Darius cared about at this moment, was to sleep on a warm bed for the first time in months.
|
