Audax Novus

Chapter Twenty-Two:: Breakthrough ::

Shepard released a breath that he hadn't realised he'd been holding.

Their mission here was to determine if the Praetorians' plan had been successful, and if so, to what extent. He didn't need Joker or EDI to tell him that the success hadn't been as stellar as the destruction of the Alpha Relay, having already seen the holographic markers for Harsa's furthest outer planets.

But to see that at the very least, the Reapers had been denied their most convenient travel route was a win in and of itself.

It meant that the current evacuation of lesser populated planets currently taking place had more time than they'd feared they'd have and that the worlds that were being banked on being the most fought over had that extra time to reinforce and recruit.

"The density of particulates and their spread indicates that the Relay was detonated at the time indicated by the Rubicon's sensors. Given the readable amount of material in the cloud, I would speculate three Reapers were caught in the explosion." EDI explained coolly from the console.

Jeff's lips thrummed with the expulsion of air, and Anderson grumbled under his breath. Of course, they had been hoping for more. The plans best results would have meant the utter destruction of the system and all of the Reapers held within. Three from over a million was hardly the result that they had wanted.

"Better than none," Shepard found himself speaking up. The image of Sovereign still came to his mind's eye readily.

The living craft had torn through all its enemies as though they were nothing, so the idea of three near-identical craft being reduced to atomised particles was still a significant victory.

"True, true," Anderson agreed with a sagely nod. The dark-skinned man leaned forward to examine data visible only to him and Jeff. After several minutes, he leaned back, "Alright, Flight Lieutenant, bring us around and take us as close as you can to Khar'Shan. We need intel on how the Reapers go about their invasions and harvests, then we're to find probable routes for the Reapers that have left the system."

"Aye, Captain," Jeff groused while doing as ordered.

The view shifted again, and subtle inertia pulled at them while the Normandy accelerated to the fraction of C that their stealth system would still work at. Shepard and his entourage of soldiers remained silent for the next hour as they moved deeper and deeper into the system.

They grew increasingly tense as low powered sensor systems picked up Reapers in the outer planets and on asteroids. EDI speculated that the enemy was more than likely mining and harvesting raw materials to begin to replenish the forces that they had lost on Khar'Shan.

The thought made their minor and early victories feel hollow and unsatisfactory. Despite the hundreds of thousands of kilometres that separated them from the Reapers, the atmosphere in the cockpit grew more and more uneasy.

Jeff slowly pulled them back to fast cruise speed as Khar'Shan grew from a bright dot out of the blackness into a world with vast stretches of smoke rising from the surface in a multitude of locations.

"Passives only."

"Duh," Joker grunted instinctively and then winced with a glance at Anderson. "I mean, yes, Sir!" He corrected.

Anderson just raised a brow at Joker, and the snarky pilot smiled awkwardly while interacting with his console again.

While the pilot worked, Shepard and his team looked at the holographic data that EDI was feeding across the screen above the pilot's head.

There were still hundreds of Reapers in orbit and seemingly just as many on the ground. Detritus from orbital battle had been raked from space and collected into dense fields.