This is one of those things I could never get right even if I spent five days on it. I'm not spending five days on it lmao. I apologize bc its rushed and indugent and scattered and probably barely coherent bc my brain is absolute applesauce BUT i needed this over with. Please feel free to get my characters to fluff land ASAP.
“Hey Darlin.” Ryan’s smile echoed through the comms and he closed his eyes to the sound of Luca’s shaky gasp.
“Blake. I- This is- What if-“
“Hush now, love.” The pilot’s smooth accent didn’t betray the furious flurry of his hands over the Berlin’s complicated console as he turned off every bit of tech that wasn’t necessary to forward more power to the ship’s shield generators. He'd been sitting, they all had, for way too long now. Blake Ryan was more than ready. He was born for this.
“One last run and then I’ll kiss you in the sunshine, aye?” He wondered if he shouldn’t have said it when Luca only sobbed softly. Another heartbeat later, he smiled at the sound of Luca’s shaky, steeling breath. He could so easily imagine the way Luca's fiery determination pushed down his quivering anxieties, easing the tension across his flawless features as he readied himself.
"You’ve got this, love. There’s nobody that can do this better than you. I’m right here with you, okay? We’re gonnae do this together, Luca.”
“S’okay, love.” Some dark corner of the back of his mind registered the way Marie and Ajax watched him, the tension in their bodies as the hum of the Berlin’s drivecore began to vibrate through the floor at their feet. “All you need to do is hit the target, my boy. Let me worry about the rest. I’m so fucking proud of you, okay?”
They all slowed to watch the dot in the sky become the Berlin as it burned through the colony's atmosphere, not quite covering but certainly distracting from the smaller, bare bones bomb they'd rigged out of the old batarian ship. It got the destroyers attention only long enough for the ground teams charges to blow on either side, half a minute too early. Their retreat was still too exposed as they rushed from the wide open spaces of the worst destruction to the maze-like residential district just on the horizon.
It was good to know the charges were enough to leave only shattered pieces of the processing center and reaper transport but their timing certainly could have been better.
Isaac's suit display gave him a 360 view but he didn't need that to know the reaper had turned it's red eye on their desperate escape. He scooped Kio up and threw him over one shoulder the second time the engineer's legs gave out underneath him in their furious retreat.
Isaac slid them both into cover behind a section of an apartment building that had an entire side missing, slowing his quickened breathing before calling Eva back over group comms. "Can you take him?"
"You're coming," she told him as she wrapped her arms around Kio. It wasn't a question.
"I'm right behind you." His gloved hand rested on top of hers for a heartbeat before he clapped Kio on the shoulders and stepped back to ready his shield a sthe bay doors on the reaper opened at his back. "Go. Now."
"I can take you both-" she protested, planting her stubborn feet.
Isaac could hear the hum of the weapon firing up. His suit display showed him the way the weapon built to a focused point before it blasted and knew that they were only moments away. "Damn it, Eva. That's an order. GO NOW." He didn't breathe until she disappeared in a flash of blue.
The paladin grunted with the effort of his omnishield deployment. The servos in his armor kicking in to let him plant the shield a few inches into the concrete. He tucked himself behind it and popped every cooldown in his arsenal with a prayer as the weapon fired.
The distraction worked until it didn't. The twin-timed blasts went off before the package was in range for delivery, alerting the reaper to the ground team's retreat. Ryan's blood ran cold a heartbeat before he heard Marie curse over his shoulder. The destroyer turned away from them, it's red beam still fizzling in sparks across the Berlin's heavy shielding.
There wasn't any time for orders. For intellect. It was pure instinct that told Ryan what he had to do next. "Marie. Come here." His hands only stopped moving over the console to gesture to the chair beside him. It felt like an hour before she settled, wide eyes looking at the same old console in a whole new way, but had only been moments and he wasted no time. "To your left. You see the red numbers? Starts with two zeroes?"
She nodded, hand hovering above the dials and inputs as he guided her eyes.
"Okay good. I need you to flip the yellow switch, then the green switch above that, then turn that same yellow one off immediately after you flip the green, okay? Just as soon as humanly possible." He snapped a hand behind him in the general direction of Liuetennant Davis. "Get on the wire and tell everyone to find something to hold onto."
"Just tell me when." Marie's resolute confidence was unspeakably assuring.
It was a manuver he had not attempted since he was just out of flight school and definitely not in an Alamo class frigate. "Do it." the whole ship lurched forward as they cut the main engines, firing the rear thrusters and throwing the pitch of the ship to make a sharp turn. With as much speed, they reversed the process, sending the Berlin hurling toward the reaper.
"Ajax. Now!" Marie called over comms, giving Maddox the green light to use the ship's javelin torpedo launcher while the Commander took control of both the ship's guardian turrets and rapid fire mass accelerators in hopes of at least making the reaper mad enough to change course for the few final moments until the slower bomb ship could get into range.
Maddox only knew the ship had taken a hit because his viewfinder glowed red before the boom. It was another few moments before the tech started to glitch. He hadn't gotten his mouth open to check on Marie before the second boom came, and so much louder. It shook the ship and the echo of creaking metal rolled through her boones.
He was out of the tiny torpedo targeting station and sprinting back to the cockpit when the lights flickered to red. Tiny emergency lights lit the corners of the hallway paths and it only made him faster.
"GODSDAMNIT!" The pilot cursed, swiping away at a screaming alert on his console. The thing lit like Christmas, beeping and chiming and flashing all sorts of colors.
Marie sat, a little disheveled but adorable as ever, still strapped in and just a litlte dazed, staring out the large view window at the steaming reaper remains.
"I guess it's a good thing the city was already leveled," Maddox offered unhelpfully. "Did it kill the ground team?" He asked with a mild disinterest. It wouldn't have killed Archer because he was too smart and too fast. But wait. He was also a heart of gold idiot with a savior complex who would die for any nobody if he was able to convince himself it was important. And this was important to all of them - well almost all of them. He sighed, suddenly irritated with his new concerns. "Well? Has anyone reported in?"
"Maddox." Marie didn't say his name as much as she breathed it. She didnt say anything else until he looked her way and then she gestured out the window. "Look closer."
They were tiny, covered in dust to the point it almost camoflauged them in the rubble. But the rainbow hues of his brothers in arms stood out even with their dirty coating. No one was being carried or on the ground and none of the body languages showed anything leaning toward devastation. Mostly, they all looked too tired to be relieved and that was relatable.
