Strike on Eden Prime
The frigate burst out of the mass relay, passed the sluggish container ship, and, picking up speed, raced toward the planet, entering its orbit at the maximum permissible angle.
“Commander, the ship is over the planet,” Moreau reported.
“I’m observing our first coordinated strike on the guest.
The shrimp is wobbling.
It clearly doesn’t like it, but take off…
Gods!
It can’t take off!
Ingvar, I owe you one!” Jeff brought the Normandy onto an attack course.
“Bill, in thirty seconds I’ll be at the firing point.
Point!” Moro exclaimed.
The frigate’s strike was terrible.
Engulfed in flashes of radiation generated in emergency modes by dozens of energy accumulators, weather stations, and emitters nearest to the giant’s parking spot, the two-kilometer alien ship trembled, trying to break free of the strengthening cocoon.
Everyone aboard the Normandy, and many on the planet, saw — on screens, through portholes, and with their own eyes — how the “shrimp” tried to force apart the massive blast-shield doors above its main emitter.
At the moment when the first blood-red spark flared deep in the black maw of the emitter, marking the activation of the pump system, a salvo of charges from the scout frigate’s main guns — the Thanix cannons — slammed into the lens.
A second followed two seconds later, and then a third thundered out.
Every member of the Normandy’s crew saw on the screens how the voltage on the energy circuits that had wrapped their tentacles around the uninvited guest spiked at the moment of the three impacts.
The giant alien staggered even more, beginning to list.
And at that instant, Bill slammed three salvos into the “shrimp’s” tentacles, forcing the alien’s hull plates to buckle at impossible angles, crushing actuators and shorting out energy circuits.
Several significant breaches formed in the giant’s body.
All of this happened at the maximum allowable distances between ships.
Jeff even held the Normandy’s glide toward the giant back a little.
At this moment of the ships’ closing, Bill surpassed himself: in a dozen seconds he managed to organize and execute a third pass: three additional salvos, whose force proved unbearable for the intruder.
Under the bass hum of strengthening energy fields, under the screech of strained metal structures bending under the radiation, under the groan of the lasers of the pressing frigate, the “shrimp,” jerking with all four legs, crashed down onto the monorail structures leading to the reserve spaceport.
The contact with the current-carrying parts of the Monorail Road predictably caused additional damage, finishing off the alien ship’s systems.
The Normandy passed over the dying giant from tentacles to apex, turned, flew back to the tentacles, turned again, and came to a halt, training the main-caliber guns and the GARDIAN system lasers on the shrimp.
“Commander, the alien’s defenses are down.
There are two signals indicating sentient organic life aboard this ship,” Ingvar reported.
“Classifying…
It’s an asari and a turian, sir.
They’re alive, but in deep shock.
Their vital signs…
are suppressed,” the specialist clarified.
“Commander.” Moreau peered at the screens.
“I see geth dropships, sir.
Three of them.
They left the ‘shrimp’s’ hull through the ‘portals’ and are now trying to fly away from the position of the fallen giant, sir.
Permission to fire to kill?”
“Granted,” Anderson said.
“Bill.
Make sure we don’t have problems with them.”
“Yes, sir,” the senior gunner’s voice carried deep satisfaction.
“Will do!”
Several salvos sent all the geth dropships crashing down onto hastily prepared metal launch pads at the giant’s feet.
Hardly anyone besides the automatics could have noted the moment they appeared there.