บท 137: Chapter 135

The Citadel was filled with the sounds of alarms and red warning lights flashing ominously. The Councilors were forced to retreat from their chambers, moving towards the docks so that they could escape aboard the Destiny Ascension.

"Start the evacuation protocols," Valese ordered, her voice loud and clear as she saw the battle occurring outside the window. The Citadel fleet was being overwhelmed and wiped out without much resistance.

Their kinetic barriers did not offer much in the way of defense against the Ascendency energy cannons nor did their weapons do enough damage to take down a ship one on one.

Even the Destiny Ascension, the Asari Dreadnought, widely considered as the most powerful ship in the Council fleet, did little to turn the tides in their favor. The Ascendency's ships were bigger and more powerful making the Citadel defense fleet no match against the Quantity and Quality that the Ascendency fleet had.

The Infinity was at the forefront of the battle with thousands of ships to its left and right as it moved forward towards the Citadel fleet. Each shot from the ship's cannons penetrated the kinetic barriers of the Council defense fleet and turned the ship into floating debris.

Within his command center, Axel had watched the battle progress as they close in on the Citadel. Once they were close enough and the number of council ships had diminished, he ordered ground troops to deploy to the station and secure it.

Ground troops were carried inside transports as Omni hacked into the Citadel docking controls to keep the docking ports open for the ground troops. At the same time, he had prevented C-SEC from closing the arms of the Citadel to completely secure it.

Axel only gave the ground troops one command, which was to "Capture Councilor Katius alive."

As the transport ships arrived at the various docking platforms of the Citadel, the Ascendency soldiers encountered heavy resistance from the defending forces.

This stalled the advance of Ascendency forces for a few minutes, before the more Elite and armored soldiers arrived to punch through defenses.

Amid this chaos, Councilor Katius tried to escape. Accompanied by a small group of loyal Turian bodyguards, he made his way through the labyrinthine passages of the Citadel, hoping to find a way out before he could be captured.

Meanwhile, even as Valese and Tivus were making their way towards Destiny Ascension, they kept a vigilant eye on the holoscreens that displayed the ongoing battle. They watched in grim silence as their forces were being overwhelmed by an enemy far more powerful and technologically advanced than anything they had ever faced.

Despite her blue skin, Valese appeared to be pale as her eyes reflected a quiet desperation. "We need to warn the other races," she muttered. "The Sovereigns...the other Ambassadors..."

Tivus nodded, his expression grave. "We need to find a way out of this."

Back in the fray, Ascendency soldiers finally managed a breakthrough, decimating Citadel's defenses and advancing towards their primary target: the Council Chambers. As the Ascendency soldiers advanced deeper into the Citadel, they had passed thousands of civilians from various races making sure not to harm them as their mission was to capture the Turian Councilor, not to take over the Citadel.

As the Ascendency forces got closer to Katius' location, his bodyguards engaged with them in firefight, trying to buy him enough time to escape. However, outmatched and outnumbered they were quickly eliminated, and Katius was surrounded.

Katius stared at the encircling Ascendency soldiers, his mandibles twitching in fear. He held up his hands in surrender, realizing the futility of further resistance.

"I... I yield," he stammered, dropping to his knees. An Ascendency soldier approached him, cuffs in hand.

Meanwhile, Valese and Tivus had finally reached one of the docking ports that was clear of Ascendency soldiers. However, this was done on purpose by Axel as his main target was the Turian Councilor.

Taking one of the shuttles within docking port, the Councilors had made their way into space and towards the Destiny Ascension. Axel had made sure not to focus fire on the Destiny Ascension too much so that he would offer the Asari Councilor and Salarian Councilor a way to escape and out of his respect and relationship with the Asari and Salarians.

Compared to the Turians, the Ascendency had very good relations with the Salarians and Asari as well as their councilors, but his good relationship wasn't going to make him act soft towards either race when it came to the matter of an attack on his Empress.

Katius was escorted to one of the captured docking ports and escorted back to the Infinity where he was placed in a detention cell. Once he was onboard Axel and all the troops on the station were evacuated, the Ascendency fleet had jumped out of the system.

Councilor Valese and Tivus, was surprised at this sudden retreat by the Ascendency. If anything, they were winning the battle by a large margin and could have taken the entire Citadel if they wanted.

However, Axel wasn't interested in claiming the Citadel. He had sent a forceful message to the Councilors and other races, while also achieving his goal of capturing Katius.

The Ascendency fleet left as abruptly as it arrived, leaving behind a Citadel that was battered but still intact. However, their method of leaving had also raised a lot of questions. From the Councilors' perspective a few of the Ascendency ships had appeared to move forward at what appeared to be faster than the speed of light, while a few of them had entered large portals and disappeared.

The Councilors could only stare in stunned silence at the eerie spectacle. Some of the remaining Council fleet, too, watched in disbelief as the Ascendency fleet seemed to break the laws of physics with their departure methods.

With Katius captured by the Ascendency fell to Valese and Tivus to attempt to pick up the pieces. They had started with updating the other races on what had just happened with the Ascendency fleet.

The Asari councilor shared a weary glance with her Salarian counterpart. "We have a lot to do," she said as they received reports of the damage that was done to the Citadel and the Citadel defense fleet.

They had also started to investigate the evidence that Axel had provided them to verify whether or not the attack was warranted or if the Ascendency was a galactic threat that they would need to deal with.