Part 10

The SF-2 used their advanced tracking mechanism to detect Emi's shuttle. It had not yet reached the Migrant Fleet - due to the fact that it was propelled from the Cerberus base without any activation of the engines. It was just drifting.
When Emi walked through the shuttle bay of the Falcon she and Thomson embraced.
"... I... I thought I lost you..." she said, her glowing eyes inside her helmet blinking rapidly - probably in an attempt to clear tears from her eyes.
"I thought I had lost you too... I love you," Thomson replied, kissing her helmet, "More than everything in the entire universe."
Her helmet moved against his chest. He cuddled her tighter.
"... So is everything finished?" Emi asked softly, "... Can we have a holiday or something? ... All this violence is a bit... much..."
He kissed the top of her helmet, "Yes. We can go wherever you want. Renswick is dead and the Cerberus plans are in ruins. There's no way they could have tracked us. As soon as we get to a Mass Relay we can jump."
"Sir," said Max over the intercom system, "We have something weird on radar. We're running scans. We need you up on the bridge."
"Roger that," he said back, then turned to Emi, "Sorry. It'll be nothing. I'll be back in a moment. Love you."
He ran to the elevator and activated it with his Omni-tool. A moment later he stepped out into the cockpit of the SF-2 Falcon. Thomson admired the range of holograms that were used to control the ship. They were bright enough to make sure that the cockpit needed no other lighting.
"Max," Thomson said as he approached the end of the bridge that connected the cockpit to the elevator, "What is it?"
"To be honest Lieutenant I don't know. The scans are ninety percent completed and so far we have nothing. It's some sort of ship - it's too large to be anything else. I've checked them against Asari, Salarian, Turian, Quarian, Human and Krogan specs... nothing so far. But they're inbound to the ship. Unless they change course they should hit us in a few minutes..."
There was a beeping noise.
"... Oh shit," Max finished, "Scans completed it's... a Reaper. There's a bloody Reaper after us!"
"Turn around and hit it with the particle beam," Thomson suggested, "All weapons systems. The particle beam, the plasma cannons, everything. Just blow it up."
"Roger that."
There was another beeping noise. This one lower in pitch.
"Secondary scan completed..." Max pointed out, "It activated automatically when it realised it was a sentient being... it's a DNA scan... but it's registering as human."
"... Oh fuck. It's the Human-Reaper... they must have found someone to power it... shit."
"What should I do?" Max questioned.
"Sound the alarm. Get all crew to battle stations. Full armour. We need anyone who can fire a gun ready for an attack. We need to spin this ship around and try and kill it before it reaches us."
"Yes sir."

The Falcon did a one hundred and eighty degree turn so it was facing the incoming enemy. The Human-Reaper was in its sights, a large dark mass that drifted towards them.
It was exactly like a Human-Reaper sounds. It had a roughly human body, but it was the size of a Reaper. It didn't look to have any skin - the muscles and bones were visible and its head looked more like a skull. It had two giant orange eyes and instead of a mouth it had a large red rotating disk, similar to the disks that fired the energy beams from a normal Reaper.
The underside of the SF-2 folded inwards with a slight whir, revealing several cannons. There was a high-pitched whine as each powered up, starting to glow blue. The particle cannons fired at the same time, aiming inwards at the same angle. The individual blue beams of energy formed a single one and jetted towards the Human-Reaper at a frightening speed.
The beam hit the Human-Reaper directly in the forehead. But nothing happened. It was not ripped apart. It still continued its path towards the Alliance frigate.
The particle cannons sustained the beam as rapid-fire plasma guns fired from the middle of the SF-2. But they did as much damage as their first attempt to take it out.
The Falcon did not have time to perform evasive manoeuvres. The Human-Reaper raised its thick arm and gouged a chunk of the ship's armour from the top. It then grasped the wing and thrust its hand into one of the engines at the rear of the SF-2. The engine exploded, piercing the inside of the ship even more. Anyone who had been on the Engineering level had been killed instantly.
The Human-Reaper tore chunks out of the advanced armoured plating that covered the ship, then fired a red energy beam from its mouth. Orange, almost flame-like energy flickered across the remainders of the armour as it tried to put up a good fight, but eventually submitted to the powerful mouth-cannon.
It sustained the red energy beam and dragged it across the top of the ship, leaving black scorch marks and several places where the hull had been penetrated.
Then the Falcon crew decided to act. The ship's remaining engines started glowing brighter as it accelerated and shifted from side-to-side, in an attempt to shake the Human-Reaper off. But it knew they could not go faster than light - the hull had been breached. It would kill everyone in the entire ship if they decided to find a mass relay. And it could not be shaken off, either. It had its hand firmly lodged into the underside of the ship. If not for the lack of gravity it would have been dangling.
Smoke was pouring out of the Falcon at an alarming rate and the weapons systems were offline. It was defenceless against its attacks.

"Fuck!" Thomson shouted as the ship sustained more damage than it had done in its entire twenty years of service. Explosions were audible throughout the Falcon. "Max!" he barked, "How far away are we from Earth?!"
"About five minutes at full speed, thirty seconds FTL. For fucks sake why?!"
"I have an idea! Just set a course for Earth! I'll try and distract that thing! Do not go FTL whatever happens!"

A single shuttle exited the docking bay of the Falcon as it accelerated to top speed without going faster than light. It just managed to keep up and turn so it was facing the Human-Reaper. The large creature barely noticed it.
But then it turned its lights on. The Human-Reaper's face lit up and it made a groaning noise before trying to cover its face.
A giant hand tried to swat the shuttle away but Thomson manoeuvred it safely out of its reach.
"Thomsonnnnnn," a voice hissed through the intercom system, "I bet you didn't expect me to be alive, did you? After you shot me..."
"Renswick?" he questioned, "... How?"
"The same operation that they wanted to conduct on you was the thing that saved my life... and now I am going to take yours... "
A red energy beam flew at the shuttle but Thomson did a barrel role to avoid it. Luckily the shuttle was a lot more nimble than the SF-2 Falcon.
But then the weapon traced back to his position. He tried to avoid it but the beam scraped along the engines. Smoke and fire poured out of the rear of the shuttle and he began to lose control. It was shaking and no matter how hard he tried to steer it away from crashing into the Human-Reaper - Renswick - it seemed as if it had set a course and would go on it no matter what.
The creature's large hand came from nowhere and snatched the shuttle from the blackness of space. The interior rocked as Renswick shook the ship. Thomson secured a breather helmet on to his head.
"I'm going to crush you," the Human-Reaper hissed. Claws suddenly penetrated the shell of the shuttle as its hand squeezed. When it withdrew them, the air hissed out of the shuttle, leaving everything eerily quiet.
Then it ripped the shuttle in half. Thomson looked up into its large orange eyes, which were full of hatred and rage. And then tried shaking him from out of the cockpit. He managed to grab a single M-8 Avenger rifle from a rack.
He took a running jump. Thomson drifted through space for a moment, almost as if it was in slow motion. Then he crashed down on the top of the damaged Falcon. He quickly used his biotics to make sure he stayed in place and didn't drift off anywhere.
Renswick raised a giant muscly fist.
"You do not have any weapons strong enough to defeat me," the creature pointed out through the communicator in his helmet as Thomson emptied magazine after magazine into its face.
Then it turned around. Earth was looming in front of them. A blue light amongst the blackness of space. Fires still dotted the surface of the planet and the Reapers were visible, even from such a distance.
"What are you doing?!" the creature growled angrily.
"Unfortunately," Thomson responded, "I can't tell you that. I don't have the authority to discuss our operations with someone like you."
The Human-Reaper screeched and fired its red energy beam at him. He threw up a quick mass effect barrier which halted the laser, but he felt it weakening second by second. They entered Earth's atmosphere and raced down to the surface. Towards a specific point. In a specific city.
London.

A single Reaper had been appointed to stay in London whilst the others moved to the other cities of the planet. It continuously fired its energy beam, slicing through buildings and roads like a knife through butter.
Incoming transmission.
There was radio chatter above the Reaper.
"I do not have the weapons to defeat you," a male human said, "But maybe they do."
The Reaper turned and moved its large metal legs so it could face the sky.
SF-2 Falcon - Alliance Frigate. Crew: 30. Destroy.
Then it saw the large creature on top of it.
Undesignated organic creature: destroy.
It fired its energy beam at the creature. It was thrown off the frigate - which managed to manoeuvre its damaged shell back up into the atmosphere.
The creature hit the ground with a large bump, which threw up dust and debris.
Just to make sure, the Reaper fired again. A thirty second long beam of energy that ripped its body to pieces.
Target destroyed. Chances of survival: nil.
If the Reaper Destroyer could have felt annoyance, it would have been annoyed. It should have taken time to assess the situation before firing. If it had taken down the ship, both targets would have been destroyed. But it would have cost time. Time it did not have.
Oh well, it mused, bundles of code forming together to become thoughts, It'll get taken out by someone else.

Thomson swung back into the SF-2 via a hole in the cockpit.
"Right, Max. We need to get to the Citadel and make a lot of repairs," he said.
"Uh... I hope you understand that it'll take a few hours without a mass relay..." Max responded, "And how did you know that would work?"
"Well... I didn't. But I thought that the Reapers would think that the Human-Reaper would have been destroyed and maybe deleted it from their systems or something. And if it hadn't, Cerberus had implanted a human mind into it. I didn't think it'd show up on their systems as an ally. And it seems it worked."
"But how did you know the Reaper would have shot the Human-Reaper and not us?"
"That's something I didn't know either. But I figured that we'd all be dead anyway unless we got it off. Just please get to the Citadel. I'll look for Emi."

The shuttle bay had numerous hull breaches. In fact there was little of the walls remaining intact. He was glad that Emi's suit had its own respiratory system or she would have been killed. Good thing the artificial gravity was still working on board the ship, too. Otherwise Emi would have been sucked out into space.
"Emi?" he called.
"... Thomson?" her small voice was audible in the darkness, "... You said it'd be nothing..."
She stood up from behind the Falcon's shuttle. Her body was shaking slightly with fear.
"I'm so sorry... I didn't think it would be..."
"... What was it?" she asked, "... There were explosions and fire and..."
"I know. Cerberus had implanted Renswick's brain into the Human-Reaper and unleashed it on us. Everything is fine but we're extremely damaged and lost quite a lot of our remaining crew. As far as I can tell we're down to about thirty. That's enough to get us to the Citadel but nothing more. We need repairs. I'm sorry..."
She put her head on his shoulder and he wrapped his arms around her waist, "... I love you, Thomson..." she said softly, "... I'm so glad this is over now..."
"So am I. But god I'm tired. Fighting Cerberus and Human-Reapers is so damn tiring. I think I'd like to go to sleep before we reach the Citadel."
"... I didn't sleep either... Not whilst I was in the shuttle anyway... I wanted to be awake in case of a rescue... I'm tired too."
"As far as I can tell my quarters doesn't have any holes in. We can rest there."
She nodded, "... That'd be nice... I'm close to dropping..."
"Oh, and Emi... I'm going to make it up to you. All this fighting. It's been horrible and I'm sorry."
They walked to the elevator, holding hands.