The frigate burst out of the mass relay, slid past a lumbering container ship, and, building speed, raced toward the planet, coming onto its orbit at the steepest permissible angle.
"Commander, we're 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 put the Normandy on an attack run. "Bill, in thirty seconds I'll be at the firing point. Firing point!" Moreau exclaimed.
The frigate's strike was terrifying. Swallowed by flares of radiation generated in emergency modes by dozens of the nearest energy accumulators, weather stations, and emitters, the two-kilometer alien ship shuddered, trying to tear free of the tightening cocoon.
Everyone aboard the Normandy—and many on the planet—saw, on screens, through viewports, and with their own eyes, the "shrimp" trying to force apart the huge armored shutter-doors over its main emitter.
At the moment the first blood-red spark flashed deep inside the black throat of the emitter, signaling the activation of the pumping system, a salvo from the main guns of the reconnaissance frigate—the Thanix cannons—slammed into the lens. Two seconds later a second salvo followed, and then a third roared out.
Every member of the Normandy's crew watched on their screens as, at the moment of the three hits, the tension rose on the energy circuits that had wrapped their tendrils around the uninvited guest.
The alien giant reeled even harder, began to list. And in that instant Bill drove three salvos into the "shrimp's" tendrils, forcing the alien's armor plates to bow at impossible angles, shredding actuators and shorting out energy circuits.
Several significant breaches opened in the giant's body.
All of it happened at the maximum permissible distances between the ships. Jeff even held back the Normandy's slide toward the giant slightly. In that moment of closing distance, Bill outdid himself: in a matter of ten seconds he managed to set up 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 grind of metal structures bending under the radiation, under the groan of the attacking frigate's POINT defense lasers, the "shrimp," jerking all four legs, crashed down onto the monorail structures leading to the reserve spaceport.
Contact with the monorail's live power components predictably caused additional damage, finishing off the alien ship's systems.
The Normandy swept over the dying giant from its tendrils to its crown, rolled, flew back to the tendrils, rolled again, and froze in place, holding the shrimp in the sights of the main-caliber guns and the POINT lasers.
"Commander, the alien's defenses are down. I have two signals indicating sentient organic life on board that ship," Ingvar reported. "Classifying… asari and turian, sir. They're alive, but in deep shock. Their vitals are… suppressed," the specialist уточнил.
"Commander." Moreau squinted at the screens. "I see geth dropships, sir. Three of them. They left the shrimp's hull through 'portals' and are now trying to get away from the position of the fallen giant, sir. Permission to open fire to kill?"
"Granted," Anderson said. "Bill. Make it so we won't have problems with them."
"Yes, sir." Deep satisfaction rang in the senior gunner's voice. "We'll do it!"
A few salvos forced all three geth dropships to crash onto hastily prepared metal launch platforms at the giant's feet. Hardly anyone but machines could have caught the moment when those platforms appeared there.