Sparks struck the wall near her bald head, with a curse Jack turned and threw a Shockwave in the general direction of the shot's origin and was forced to jump back as gunfire chased her behind a large metal crate that was nearby.
"Fucking robot." she whispered vehemently.
Behind her, she looked again at Legion, the "good-guy-geth" that Shepard's bleeding heart had decided should tag along with her on this mission, was firing his pulse rifle towards a lone collector trooper who was already missing the lower half of its body.
She yelled back to Legion, "Hey! How about some cover over here so I can, ya know, NOT DIE!"
Legion turned towards the small, cowering woman with a machine code blurt, and called out, "Affirmative." He reached over his shoulder and in a moment of robotic precision, used one hand to swap his pulse rifle for the sniper rifle that was his only companion during his time aboard the derelict reaper that Shepard saved him from mere days ago.
Damn flashlight face better make this count. Jack thought as she prepared to make a run for cover near the geth.
"You ready yet!?" she called.
The small metal sections that served Legion as "eyebrows" of a sort, twitched slightly as the rifle raised to his single eyepiece. "Momentarily." he said at half volume.
The rifle spat a ball of fire out of its muzzle and by the time Jack had blinked the purple after-image out of her retinas, thunder rolled again and her ears began to ring.
"Move up, Jack madam!" Legion called out as he reloaded a new heatsink into the breach of his rifle.
Breathing deeply, Jack pushed more energy into her barriers, stood up, and began to run. Legion looked down the barrel of his rifle towards the small, tattooed woman and took aim.
Well shit Jack. The convict sarcastically thought to herself, You're running towards a fucking geth that is aiming right at your face, you're gonna lose your head over this one sweetheart. Isn't it just great working with a team?
With a roar, the rifle fired its payload just over Jack's left shoulder, the supersonic crack pounded into the side of her head and she screamed, clutching her ear, as she stumbled, then fell more than lept, down into the cover that Legion had just crouched behind.
Holding her ear with her left hand the furious biotic yelled, "That fucking HURT you psychotic robot!" Without reacting to her, Legion reloaded his sniper once again. Frustrated and in pain, Jack reached out with her right hand and punched Legion in his chest plate.
"OW FUCK!"
As the convict shook her freshly scraped fist while still holding her left ear, Legion looked over at Jack and asked politely, "Jack madam, are you well?"
Jack turned and, giving the geth a look that could have boiled lead replied, "I thought I told you stop stop calling me that metal-face."
An explosion nearby sprayed clumps of earth at them both and Jack made a face as she spat a wad of grass out of her mouth. Legion's omni-tool glowed burnt orange as the machine turned and fired a combat drone towards the collectors coming up behind them. "I would advise continuing this conversation in a different location." Legion said matter-of-factly as the drone began to engage the collector troopers.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, lets just get out of here and meet up with doctor crazy at the dropship." Jack replied. "I'll toss 'em and run, you pick off the floaters, and then I'll cover you from up ahead. You cool?"
Legion turned the head of a running collector inside out with a shot from his sniper and ducked back down beside the biotic to replace the heatsink. "My internal temperature is well within optimum operating levels, Jack madam."
Power began to flow across Jack's skin as she muttered, "Whatever." The blue glow emanating from her began to grow and cast strange shadows across the ground. "Here we go!" she cried as she stood and unleashed her pent up energy with a violent upheaval of her arm and a wordless cry of aggression. The biotic field exploded just before her feet and continued rippling through the ground, detonating every couple of meters, tossing any collector near the detonations high into the air. A dashed, pale green line etched its way through the sky with an odd, high pitched chirping noise as Legion engaged the thrown enemies with his pulse rifle to ensure that after gravity brought them back to the ground, they would stay there.
Jack turned and ran past Legion, assault rifle fire flickering around her, just in time to see the final pieces of his sniper fold into place on his back. Damn, robocop sure does swap guns in a hurry. She thought as she passed the machine.
A few dozen meters ahead she turned and drew her old, battered pistol to cover the geth as he followed her run. She squeezed the trigger with reckless abandon, spraying the area around the geth soldier. Apparently her somewhat crazed gunfire was good enough cover fire as no collectors decided to come out from hiding and give chase. Well thats fine by me, I'm fucking tired, she thought as Legion passed her on the way to more cover further on.
She thought back to earlier in the day when Shepard gathered his team of so-called "specialists," in the conference room of the Normandy, and told them about his plan to take out an Eclipse outpost that was causing trouble for nearby human colonists. The Eclipse group is a fun bunch, Jack had thought with a grin. Nothing beats winning a fight against another biotic. Shepard decided to split the specialists into three separate teams of three. Leaving a squad of three with the ship just incase anybody needed backup. Shepard took the Zaed and Grunt for the assault on the front doors of the facility. The cheerleader Miranda deployed with Thane and Kasumi to sneak in the back and cause some chaos. Mordin, Legion, and Jack were given the "hold the landing zone" job. I hate being left behind the fight. Jack had thought at the time, only to be sorely mistaken about her role later on. The good doctor Mordin had flown everyone down in the dropship and the teams went their separate ways upon landing.
Soon after the teams separated, Legion noted that he was detecting an odd signal in the vicinity and went to go investigate its source, taking Jack in tow. What the pair found was a group of collectors and the convict and the machine had been fighting for their lives ever since. Now why the collectors happened to show up at an Eclipse base was anyone's guess, but Jack had a sneaking suspicion that whatever brought Shepard, had probably attracted the collectors as well.
"Hey metal-head!" Jack called out while exchanging her old pistol for her much newer shotgun. "Can you raise Mordin yet?"
"Negative Jack madam, the collectors are still somehow blocking my communications. I would suggest retreating to the dropship to confer with him in person." Legion replied
"Well isn't this just dandy." Jack muttered unhappily to herself. Raising her voice so the synthetic could hear her he called out, "Alright robobuddy! Back up some more to draw them in and see if I can't get closer to 'em. I'm shit at long range."
"Affirmative, Jack madam." Legion called back and stepped out into oncoming fire, shields flaring, and fell back to cover behind a wall a few meters behind her.
"I swear to God I'm going to kill that robot." Jack said under her breath.
Back on the Normandy, when Jack first met Legion, she had thought it would be funny if she told the geth that she was "Madam Jack," and that she was going to punish him if he was a bad geth. The machine never got the joke, and quite possibly did not even know what a dominatrix was. Perhaps for the first day it was funny, a robot calling her madam, but now, the stupid thing wouldn't quit calling her "Jack madam," like it was some grand rank, and it had really begun to annoy her.
The middle of a firefight is probably the wrong time to care what the stupid thing is calling me, but hey, its been a weird fucking day. Holding in her disdain over what hopefully wasn't about to become her permanent nickname, the small woman checked to ensure that her shotgun was fully loaded and ready to go.
The insect-like chittering of the collectors came closer and closer as Legion continued to engage them at range with the assault rifle. Then suddenly, a dull thud came from the other side of the shipping container she was hiding behind and the barrel of a collector rifle began firing just above her head. With a grim smile Jack closed her eyes and placed her hand against the side of the container and began to focus her energy around her hand. A small handprint began to burn its way into the container and the human biotic opened her eyes and thrust her hand forward.
A sharp pang rang through the air as the pulse from her biotics utterly destroyed the metal shell of the shipping container. Razor sharp shrapnel, and what appeared to be parts for an automated grass trimmer, were thrown away from the convict in a cone of destruction as the container and its contents were violently cast forward on a bow-wave of energy.
The small, tattooed woman came striding through the dust like Death's mistress. Tendrils of blue energy surrounded her as she poured power into her barriers once again and she ran past, and through, a few dead collectors and rushed towards the first intact enemy she saw. It was pinned to the ground by a shard of metal from the container and was making an odd shrieking noise. A blast from her shotgun silenced the keening noise and splattered her pants in gore.
Thunder erupted from behind her as Legion once again exchanged his pulse rifle for his sniper and began methodically picking off enemies that she had missed.
A beam of sickly yellow light cut through the air nearby and the biotic leaped to the side as the energy weapon played across her barriers. The collector assassin fired again, then turned and grabbed an odd looking backpack, stood, and began to run away from her as she reloaded her shotgun. Thats right, Jack thought to herself, run away while you still can you alien pussy. Then she heard a loud call from legion.
"Jack Madam." Legion called at his highest vocal setting while firing at another collector who was trying to flank her. "The assassin class collector is carrying a pack. This pack may be what is disrupting my communications array, we cannot let him escape."
Robocop almost sounds worried about this stupid pack. Ol' well. Jack thought, Time to show flashlight face what an organic can do.
With a grim smile, Jack simply reached out a hand and a sharp blue tendril shot out of her palm and snared the collector with the pack. Yanking back her hand, now a clenched fist, the collector followed the motion of her hand and was violently yanked towards the small woman as she raised her shotgun once more.
Can't have you running away from a fight now can we? Thought humanity's strongest biotic, as she aimed at the figure flying through the air towards her, and pulled the trigger.