Captain Nilaya Kangis, Shadow Broker agent, asari cruiser "Storm Dance".
The white-blue field vanished with a flash as the red Mass Relay spat out the Citadel ship group. Directly into a ship graveyard—a massive debris field.
"Maneuver! Evasive action, now!" the asari captain demanded.
The ship lurched as debris scraped against the hull. Several minor impacts echoed through the decks. The hull pitched up, letting a large fragment of an ancient dreadnought—or was it a cruiser? A station?—pass beneath. The jagged piece of metal, with exposed ribs and deck sections nearly a hundred meters long, tumbled away.
"Hull status?"
"Armor held."
The captain exhaled, looking around. The dense debris field wasn't actually as dense as asteroid belts are usually portrayed. Thousands of years of collisions had shattered the largest and densest clusters. Smaller fragments were being vaporized by the GARDIAN laser point-defense system, which was firing continuously. Still, here near the Relay, the wreckage was thick. The captain checked the external camera feeds.
Yes, there had been a nuclear clearing of the area, but apparently, some debris had been missed, or large pieces had simply been shattered into smaller ones. In any case, the result was only partial. Ships, after all, do not handle collisions well.
It was she who was transmitting the image to the Shadow Broker via a quantum channel. The information on how to reach the Collectors had also come from him. The captain had worked with him for years, buying intel for her frontier raids. She would fulfill the contract for the assault recordings. Staring into the void ahead, the asari shuddered.
"Goddess."
Ahead, on the horizon, was a red-orange star—a red giant girded by a dust cloud. One could assume there was a black hole nearby, as a very characteristic glowing disk sat at the base of the giant. The star's matter was being slowly pulled into the black hole, creating a glowing ring of superheated substance along the edge.
Debris hung around the Relay, the station ahead, and likely around the black hole itself. Vast amounts of wreckage, ranging from the size of a few steps to entire ships in various states of being ground down. Ahead, against the backdrop of the debris and the black hole, the cylinder of the Collector Base protruded from an asteroid.
"Large amount of shrapnel ahead, Commander. I recommend keeping the interception systems on high alert," addressed the first officer, appointed to the position by the Council of Matriarchs just before departure.
"Reasonable," the captain said, then immediately looked at the ceiling as a long, screeching sound rang out.
It made the asari flinch. But the hull held once more. Such proximity to a belt of space junk was no less terrifying than the black hole on the horizon. The captain knew what a black hole was—how its gravity could swallow entire stars, let alone ships. Being this close... it was frightening. Get it together. A captain must be stoic and serious.
"Casualty report."
The subordinate reported:
"We've lost one light cruiser and a carrier; four more sustained damage from collisions. The field is extremely dense."
Bad, but not yet critical. There were still tens to thousands of kilometers between the larger fragments. The number of damaged ships spoke to the field's density. Perhaps the proximity to the Relay caused this concentration. Intruders were destroyed right here. Perhaps they would learn more in the future. In the distance, at least one intact Quarian ship was visible. If they could study its logs, they might understand more later.
"Enemy?"
"None yet."
Whether that was good or bad remained to be seen. The Shadow Broker's information was holding up down to the smallest detail. But the captain continued to peer into the distance.
"Launch fighters. They must have noticed us by now," she ordered, continuing to scan the debris field.
This was a ship graveyard. Fragments, pieces of identifiable and unidentifiable vessels. Known races and designs, and completely incomprehensible mechanisms. Containers, sections, and relatively intact ships. For example, a Quarian ship drifted directly on their course; by its dimensions, it was clearly a cruiser. It looked very much like a ship of the Migrant Fleet, but not covered in containers—perhaps a vessel from before the Morning War. Beside it, packed tightly as if on a vast battlefield, were the husks of ships of all shapes and sizes. All of this against the orange light of the star and the disk of the black hole that would, one day, pull them in.
Her gaze settled on the Quarian ship. It was close enough and looked far too intact. There might be small punctures, but no large holes, and no power. How did it get here? Was it a Fleet scout or a victim of the Collectors? Who knew...
"Is it from before the war with the Geth? We'll need to send scouts."
But she was distracted by a report from one of the operators.
"Captain! Multiple contacts! Strike Craft. Launching from the debris."
The captain shifted her gaze to the scanner. Moving dots began to detach from the nearest ship husks. First from the closest, then further and further out. It seemed these ships had clung to the wreckage and waited. A lot of ships.
"GARDIAN system to battle stations! Destroy them!"
"Command order: formation—Umbrella."
"Execute."
The ships damaged by debris stayed behind the main formation. One of the light cruisers had exploded from an impact, adding itself to the debris field; the others were scarred and damaged, and they would hold a tight defensive group near the Relay under the cover of interceptors. That was the plan. Who leaves debris at a Relay exit! It's suicidal. Or, for the ships that reside here, it's not a problem. Too much shielding or armor. It was hard to say which was worse.
In any case, the asari focused on the Strike Craft swarming from all sides (literally, including from the debris they had already passed). And they were strange. They managed to get an image from the interceptors quickly. The only reaction was:
"What is that thing? And where is the pilot? Or are they machines?"
A circular ship with a red "eye" in the center, surrounded by metallic structural elements and two stabilizers on the top and bottom. And that "eye" fired a crimson laser. Or not a laser, but it looked like one—it didn't matter. Everything was exactly as the Shadow Broker had said.
The Citadel Strike Craft moved to intercept. Many of the machines were equipped with recording gear. According to her employer, these "Oculus" interceptors were used by the Reapers as well, and this was a rare opportunity for the fleet to gather intel that would be useful in the future. Specs, capabilities, combat methods—everything.
The contact revealed several things. On the bright side—the Collector Strike Craft had no missiles, none at all. The first attack between the closing swarms went to the Citadel, essentially a one-sided affair. Hundreds of dots struck the Reaper machines and they... held. Not all of them—about half the dots that took damage went dark—but the rest answered with crimson laser flashes.
Citadel ships would have been guaranteed destruction from such a hit. But these, even after losing parts of their structure, continued the attack. Those who couldn't fire simply rammed the interceptors. And they survived it.
A literal slaughter began. The not-too-bright AI of the synthetics was compensated for by their durability (an Oculus could withstand a fair number of hits; the armor was thick, systems reliable, on the level of landing shuttles or assault gunships) and lasers that always hit with high precision. Since Citadel Strike Craft almost always relied on maneuverability, a laser that hits its target instantly proved extremely effective. As did the necessity of holding a course to punch through the Oculus armor.
The situation was only slightly stabilized with the help of the larger ships and their GARDIAN systems. The lasers were powerful enough to burn the enemy interceptors with a good hit. But by swarming in groups, the Oculi—even if not on the first try—burned through the armor of a Frigate. They simply sliced the ship apart.
Several Reaper machines burned holes in a hull, penetrated those holes, and a report came over the comms:
"Enemy on board, attempting to contain. Enemy boarding party on deck. Taking casualties, their weapons are too powerful!" Then the ship shuddered, and the power went out. One could only hope they would manage.
There was the answer to why the Quarian ship had no serious damage. These Strike Craft had punched through the hull, depressurized it, and exterminated the crew. And no one had come to their aid.
"Three targets detaching from the station," the operator reported, forcing a distraction.
The multi-kilometer cylindrical mass of the station was lost against the backdrop of the blindingly bright star ahead. A combination of rings, cylinders, and something resembling an insect hive on the walls of the structure. And all this glory protruded from a rounded asteroid. Three ships slid out of openings in the bottom of the cylinder. The captain sighed. It was starting.
"To all ships: three Collector Cruisers ahead. Their weapons are analogues of our Thanix Cannons. Intercept," the order came over the comms.
"Acknowledged. Engaging."
Even if the Strike Craft hadn't been cleared yet, something had to be done about the Collector Cruisers. Massive, much larger than Citadel ships, incredibly heavy cylinders with various mechanisms, and armed quite impressively. They didn't look familiar; they didn't look similar. They were alien ships.
"Evasive!" the captain barked as a glow appeared simultaneously on the bows of the enemy ships.
Yellow beams struck out from the Collector ships toward them. Four per ship. A beam, ignoring shields, ground away one of the wings of a brand-new Turian Auxilia-class ship without meeting resistance. The return fire from slugs was, conversely, taken on the shields.
"Main guns are ineffective!"
The captain grimaced; she could see it herself. But the Thanix, according to the SSV Normandy records, should work. Additionally, reinforcements of enemy Strike Craft were trickling in from more and more distant debris. They were holding them off; the ships were creating a decent density of anti-air fire.
For now. Just now, two ships were simply destroyed by the Collector Cruisers. Sliced into pieces, their sterns exploding—likely the reactor. The second managed to launch pods before it too was destroyed, a second hit shattering the hull.
"In space, no one can hear you scream," the maiden-gunner muttered.
The captain sighed.
"Cease the panic, we're still alive. Continue firing."
And yet, the Thanix cannons were working. The light cruisers, using their mobility, went into a dash, flanking the enemy. Moving to where the Collectors' main gun could no longer reach. The Collector ships began to turn, but the much more compact Turian light cruisers continued to "circle" the enemy, shelling them from the most advantageous angles.
Finally, the first, then the second and third cruisers—sliced, covered in furrows of boiling metal, and breaking apart—exploded. And around them were the wrecks of Citadel ships that had sacrificed themselves for this. On them, it was clear just how powerful the Collectors' weapons were. The ships were simply chopped into pieces, as if by a vast and sharp blade.
The captain recalled seeing the work of asari huntresses who enhanced their swords with biotics. It seemed like a cold weapon, a bygone era—what was the point? Ceremonial weapons, nothing more. But if one could get close and strike, that sword cut through armor and flesh without noticing it. The huntresses' swords themselves were quite heavy so that the effect of the mass field would be stronger. One strike, and a target could lose a limb or fall into halves. Goddess... No distractions.
The enemy Strike Craft attack was being held; the interceptors had adapted to the tactics of these "eyes" and stayed within the radius of the GARDIAN system, which increased survivability against the very accurate and constantly arriving enemy machines. Losses were still high, but the objective was being met. The Collector Cruisers were no longer firing, only disintegrating—excellent. It seemed they had fought them off, though at a high price.
"Targets destroyed."
The captain nodded.
"Good. Begin shelling the station. Inform the other side that landing operations can commence."
From the red Relay, after some debris clearing with a second blast and bombardment, came the troop transports and a new batch of Auxilia-class ships from those who had stormed Omega. They offloaded the landing force and came to their aid. Apparently, things were going better there than here.
The captain caught herself starting to whine. It wasn't that bad. The first part of the attack was going according to expectations, although a third of the strike group was combat-ineffective, and losses among interceptors were significant.
No one rushed the landing. First, the shelling of the station, the suppression of resistance.
And it wasn't easy. The station itself was half-embedded in an asteroid, from which a cylinder girded by two cylindrical structures protruded. The ships had emerged from the bottom; the docks were clearly located there. And the kinetic shields had to be quite serious.
"Shell the upper part of the station. Aim for points where weapons might be located."
The heavy ships, stationary at a safe distance, opened fire. Flashes of impacts appeared almost immediately, but with no visible effect at all. Shields, as expected.
Yellow beams struck back. Extremely fast yellow beams. The captain flinched when the carrier next to her took a hit directly in the bow. And yet... it seemed distance dissipated the hit; the ship's bow was effectively turned into a glowing, ground-up mess, but the ship itself didn't lose control. A Collector Cruiser from a third of the current distance would have sliced the ship from bow to stern.
"The Serentia has lost its main gun and bow hangars," the operator reported, "they can continue the fight as a carrier."
Which meant the hangars were, at least partially, intact. That was a relief. At least her wingman was still whole. Correct—her ship was supposed to cover the Serentia, and it had. But the hit had been too fast.
"Have them move to the rear," the captain ordered, "calculate the firing point, suppress it."
Sending ships forward while the base was firing back was risky. Light cruisers could, albeit with damage, evade a volley by flying between the defense systems. After all, these guns had a downside—there was about a two-second charge-up before a shot. Enough for a mobile ship on maneuvering thrusters to move aside.
So while the cruisers and other gunships distract the defenses and shields with fire, the Auxilia-class ships would move closer and slice into the station, destroying the guns. But even the large ships shifted in bursts, evading hits with pulses of their maneuvering thrusters.
The latter solution had been borrowed from the Humans. Their ships, even large cruisers, have powerful maneuvering systems, allowing the ship to move in three dimensions without turning the hull completely. On Citadel ships, such equipment was usually not required. Previously not required. It had been installed on these ships, causing the usual trajectory of these light cruisers to "drift" as the machine accelerated, turned itself ninety degrees with the main engines off, and gutted the enemy hull with a Thanix Cannon located along the side, before leveling out and moving on. The whole thing took seconds. At distances where shields were ineffective—practically point-blank.
The clearing itself took several hours of provocation and picking off identified guns, all while having to perform these dances to reach the enemy. All this time, they had to maneuver around debris, perform ongoing repairs, and rescue surviving pilots and crews of damaged ships. Long, slow, but absolutely necessary. Parallel to this, on the other side of the Relay, the battles for Omega continued. Slow, heavy, but the very possibility of victory kept them going. Omega had to be retaken, and the dark corridors—not always lit after the battles, the looters, the lack of repairs, and soaked in blood—were illuminated by the flashes of gunfire. The Covenant stood to the death, Vorcha crawled out of vents with flamethrowers and grenades, and some passages collapsed simply under their own weight.
Those who had already managed to settle in under the new regime defended themselves fiercely. And yet, the process moved forward. Both there and here. Omega, and now the Collector Base, would sooner or later be returned.
Transports with landing forces, including outright freighters, arrived in the system one after another. After all, capturing a station the size of Omega or the Collector Base required thousands upon thousands of soldiers.
Finally, the resistance from the Collector Base ceased. Twelve long hours of continuous clearing of the outer perimeter. The captain, already exhausted, exhaled.
"Begin landing. To all crew—my thanks."
The task force continued to keep the station in their sights, fearing the enemy might not have used all their weaponry. But no, there were no more problems outside the station. They began immediately, inside.
First, the very first images of the corridors made them grimace. And no, there were recordings, again from the SSV Normandy. But it was one thing to see a recording, and another to see it through the cameras and Omni-tools of the landing force. A combination of metallic corridors made of dark metal and organic matter growing over them. Smooth dark metal floors combined with walls of something resembling hives. All of this created a simply revolting look of a hive grown onto a metal frame. Even on the recording, it was disgusting; one just wanted to wash after looking at those yellowish growths. Only parts of the floor and doors were not covered in... this. Even through the cameras, it looked vile.
Second, the locals. The corridors were simply filled with all sorts of creatures meeting the marines. First to flood the decks through opening doors were swarms of small insects, the size of a fist. There were so many that the defenses simply failed; the crews of several landing ships were instantly placed in stasis. Just a wave of shifting wings, bodies, buzzing, humming, the scuttle of numerous legs.
Where there were biotics, it worked better. Biotics established barriers, and flamethrowers and biotic shockwaves were put to use. In the confined space, the insects had nowhere to go; they were quite fragile. One problem—there were a lot of them.
And even where there was protection, the small ones broke through. But the small ones were far from everything.
Not only insects went on the attack. Swarms of insectoids with beam weapons crawling on walls and ceilings, monsters in which the representatives of the Citadel races were immediately recognized.
The asari captain watched with outright horror a recording where a three-meter tall, gaunt asari figure, holding a Turian by the neck and using him as a shield, teleported into the ranks of soldiers and attacked them with biotics.
Warps, throws, shockwaves—and all with one hand, while with the second she used the Turian as a club. At a certain point, the desiccated body was tossed aside and the asari let out a shriek that coincided with a biotic blast, knocking the soldiers off balance and allowing the infantry forms of these monsters and the ceiling-crawling, beam-firing insectoids to enter the formation. The recording went dark.
The asari sighed, knowing she could not help. Her task was to provide cover for the landing, driving off the laser-firing drones. The soldiers on the station had to manage on their own. Likely, the enemy was using large forces for containment; once they were ground down, it would be possible to move further. Considering the swarms of small fry, the four-eyed Collectors crawling on the ceiling, and the distorted, altered, blue-purple-growth-infested representatives of the galactic races with glowing blue eyes running across the surface.
"Are these not the inhabitants of Omega?" asked one of the asari ship's crew.
The captain remained silent, thinking the same thing. Likely, many of the station's inhabitants had been captured during the retreat, and now all of them were moving to attack through the corridors of this base. Or rather, their distorted, altered likenesses. Husks, shells. The asari had been given gaunt and tall bodies, covered in a large amount of synthetics, cables, and channels, and at the same time looking as if emaciated from hunger. The Turians, fused together with armor and weapons into a living combat mechanism coordinating the actions of others.
The Batarians had not received serious protection; their bloated bodies looked like hideous sacks of flesh, and their arms had been turned into weapons. The Salarians, on the other hand, had become even more gaunt, flying into the ranks of marines with long jumps of ten meters and creating chaos with rapid strikes. And after death, their bodies exploded, dealing damage to everything around.
"Are the recordings being made?" the asari clarified just in case.
"Yes, Captain," the subordinate nodded, "all recordings are being made and collected; they will be transmitted to the other side when ready."
A decision supported by everyone. If on this station they saw creatures they might encounter again in the future, they needed to gather maximum information. Thanks to all these monsters, the first wave of the landing force effectively could not get onto the station; the pressure was too great. What became of those caught by the insects was anyone's guess. Biotic barriers, flamethrowers, and established heavy weapons managed to push the enemy back somewhat after the initial chaos. At the cost of several transports whose signals were lost, the situation was stabilized. And this was just the very, very beginning.
Further—more. Further—worse. The marines began to penetrate the station when heavy turrets installed in the passages pushed back the enemy, over the bodies of friend and foe alike. But the fierce resistance of the station's defenders did not cease; it only grew stronger. Biotics flew from the galleries, monsters rushed through the corridors with screams, and Collectors flew, taking the best positions. A creature called a Praetorian—an insect larger than a Krogan, attacking with purple beams from its eyes and withstanding light small arms fire. And yes, in close combat, the beast struck with scythe-claws and biotic waves that broke soldiers, friend and foe alike. These creatures knew no compassion.
And all this despite the fact that sending a landing force to intercept or support other teams was difficult, as in any more or less large hall there were insects, immediately putting marines with jetpacks into stasis. Or defenders, monsters, Husks.
"Captain! Look!" the operator shouted in shock, almost in panic.
She was at the operator's side in a couple of jumps, looking at the monitor of the operator who was saving and reviewing recordings from the station. And she very much wanted to both swear and pray to the goddess. Simultaneously.
On the screen, the marines were attacked by creatures—humanoids of an unknown species whose bones and frozen skin were connected into complex mechanisms by tubes and unknown implants, with sacks on their necks and behind their backs. Two types of creatures: the first fired spikes using biotic bursts, the second sought close range, like a shock trooper. Both types were quite tough, and the way their flesh caught fire from hits by incendiary rounds did not bother the creatures at all.
Moreover, both creatures possessed biotics, and the close-combat creature knew how to apply Stasis. When it closed with a marine, it bit the victim, and he fell to the floor, shaking and wheezing. The monster itself rushed to attack the next target. The combination of rapid strikes and biotics allowed the monsters to exterminate the shock troopers one by one. The screen went dark when one of the monsters appeared next to the operator.
The captain sighed.
"How is the evacuation going?"
The operator checked the tablet.
"With difficulty. Many squads are still in stasis; the retreat is being hindered by these... creatures. The marines are trying to recover their colleagues; it doesn't always work. I'm afraid we're only increasing the casualties this way, Captain."
As if confirming the subordinate's conclusions, General Solvuris spoke over the general channel:
"All units, retreat. Three minutes to clear the blast zone; the charges will be detonated regardless."
Yes, a neutron charge would deal a serious blow to the internal systems of the base, and some information would be lost. But some of the monsters would also die, and the landing force would gain a bridgehead and be able to continue the attack. Because right now, it was just a meat grinder at the very edge of the station, the grinding of infantry from both sides.
It would be better for everyone. No one knew how many more monsters were ahead and of what kind, and the landing forces were limited. No, to achieve victory, they would have to sacrifice a little. As the Covenant had shown, victory in this war would simply not accept anything less. In the near future, control of the station would pass to the Citadel. And the next step, the next hotspot, the next place of slaughter, would come. Erinle.
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