Past Mistakes
Chapter 1
"Four in hard cover on the right Commander!" yelled out Tali during a brief lull in the gun fire.
"Got it!" he replied whilst punching out a spent heat clip, "Jack, spook them. Now!"
"Give me cover on 3," Jack called out in acknowledgement, "1, 2, 3!"
Shepard sighted his rifle over the top of the cover and started to lay down a blizzard of covering fire, the sharp staccato punctuated by the deeper thump of Tali's shotgun as both weapons peppered the crates on the far side of the room. Jack gathered herself and flung a shockwave of biotic power towards the crates, violently scattering them and the 4 guards that were using them for cover. "Die bastards!"
Whilst the guards where disoriented the team mates split for new cover, Tali and Shepard firing into the slowly stirring guards whilst on the move. Two of the guards managed to survive long enough to get to their feet and dive behind the remains of one of the crates and started firing blindly back at their attackers.
"2 down, 2 in cover," called out Shepard, "Jack?"
"Do it yourself!" yelled back Jack, who was breathing hard behind what looked like a ornamental planter, blood running rather too freely down her arm.
"Shit. Tali, Jack is out, flank them on my call!" called out Shepard.
"With you Commander" she replied.
"Now!" Shepard slid out of cover on his knees and took a swift clean shot at one of the guards that had exposed himself whilst searching for a target. Tali leaped over her crate gracefully and sprinted along the wall and into cover on the flank of the remaining guard who stood and spun to face her, leaving Shepard with a clean shot from his position.
"Clear" called out Shepard as the last guard collapsed.
"Clear." acknowledged Tali as she moved out of cover to confirm that the guards were no longer a threat.
Shepard stood and ran over to Jack. "How bad?"
"Bad? Fuck, I bleed for the fun of it Shepard," said Jack through gritted teeth, "Son of a bitch that hurts."
"Tali, medikit asap!" called out Shepard. Tali came running over and unhooked the kit from her suit. She pulled Jack's hand away from the wound and applied some rapid set coagulant spray over the area to stop the bleeding.
Jack gritted her teeth and nodded her thanks to Tali before addressing Shepard. "Where to now Commander? I want to get the fuck out of here and find him, it's gone beyond personal now."
Shepard nodded to the lift at the far end of the room. "Up I think. That lift seems to be the only way out of here other then where we came from."
"Lets go then, I want to kill him and soon." growled Jack.
On the way to the lift Shepard picked some unused heat clips from the dead guards and passed them out to Jack and Tali, clipping the rest onto his armour just as the lift activated.
"Did you do that Tali?" he asked, nodding at the lift.
Tali shook her head "No Commander."
"You don't supposed he is coming down to surrender do you?" asked Shepard as he replaced the heat clip in his rifle.
"More fool him if he does, he is a dead man either way" replied Jack, a white wash of biotics flowing over her.
"Yeah, unlikely," agreed Shepard, "Cover everyone!".
The team split and ran into cover, watching the lift as it descended from the top floor down to their level. A soft, gentle, harmless chime signalled its arrival and as the door opened they all heard the faint buzz of electronics warming up and then out stepped a huge mechanical horror all resplendent in its clinically white armour.
"Mech!" shouted Shepard as he fired off two rounds from his rifle that pinged uselessly against the Mech's shields. As he dropped his rifle and unclipped his rocket launcher he shouted across to his team mates, "Tali, I want those shields down now! Jack, distract it!"
"Sure! I'll just tell it a joke shall I?" Jack yelled back as the YMIR Mech unleashed a hail of shells against Shepard's position. "Oh fuck it!" she sighed before leaping out of cover and firing at the Mech, "Over here you bastard!"
The Mech rotated around its waist, its shells tracking across the room towards Jack as she dived behind the taxi they had arrived in only a few minutes ago. Shepard stood up from behind his cover as the Mech was turning after Jack and fired off 2 rockets, both of which flared brightly as they exploded against the Mech's shields.
"Tali! The shields damn it!"
"Working on it! Keelah, they are rated beyond anything I have see Commander" came the replied, "Hang on!".
Jack swore loudly, throwing herself over a low wall as the taxi she was sheltering behind disintegrated thanks to the 3 rockets the Mech fired into it. With surprising speed it turned back to towards Shepard and unleashed another volley of rockets, catching Shepard in the blast and throwing him 15 feet through the air.
Jack flung her arms out and threw a shockwave at the Mech, stunning it briefly and distracting it from Shepard's body on the floor. "Tali drop it's shields for fucks sake!" she screamed.
"I'm hurrying! Hang on... its coming up... there got it!" Tali stood and threw a massive overload at the Mech, "Handle that you bosh'tet!" And with that the Mech's shields suddenly flared and faded from view.
Tali raised her shotgun and pumped shot after shot into the side of the Mech, hearing the shells chipping away at the white armour as it began to turn back towards a barely conscious Shepard, the sound of its guns cycling up pierced the fight as Jack aimed her weapon at the Mech firing repeatedly into it, desperate to distract its attention away from Shepard.
"You leave him alone you junk pile of crap!" yelled Jack as she jumped over the low wall and hit it with a biotic pull, stopping the Mech in its tracks. Taking advantage of the stunned Mech Tali lowered her shotgun and launched a drone while Jack fired more shots at it. As the drone flew towards it sparking and arcing menacingly the Mech stirred shrugging off the biotic attack and turned back towards Jack who was standing in the middle of the room.
"That's right you bastard, just you and me." she growled as its arms came up, guns readying.
She crouched and was about to throw herself at the Mech to keep it from Shepard when it suddenly exploded in her face, the detonation knocking her heavily onto her back. She shook her head and swore as she lifted herself up onto her elbow and looked over at the Mech. Behind what was left of the it she saw Shepard sitting up on one knee with the rocket launcher held up to his cheek, a trail of smoke coming from out of the barrel.
Tali and Jack both hurried over to him, Jack reaching out and pulling him up to his feet. "Fuck Shepard, sleeping on the job or I'll kill you myself next time".
"Are you hurt Commander?" asked Tali.
Shepard shook his head, "My ears are ringing but I'm fine otherwise, come on lets move."
As they approached the empty lift Shepard looked over to Jack. "Thank you Jack."
"Fuck you Shepard, you can't die until we finish this." she replied gruffly, but none the less she still gave him a small smile.
Once in the lift Shepard checked over his weapons and reloaded the rocket launcher as Tali busied herself applying a field patch to cover the wound on Jacks arm. Stowing away the launcher Shepard looked over to Tali. "What happened with the shields Tali?"
She shook her head, "I have never seen shields like that before Commander, that wasn't a standard issue Mech. Someone had attached a massive discharge sink onto the Mech that was capable of absorbing any overload attempts thrown at it."
"Oh yay." grumbled Jack.
"Agreed," said Shepard frowning, "so how did my little tech guru manage it then?"
Shepard was sure Tali was blushing underneath her mask and he smiled as she replied, "I didn't target the shields, there was no way I could have dropped them. I manipulated the Overload to target the control circuits of the new discharge sink instead. I was hoping that who ever installed them was so worried about managing the overload from the shields that they didn't think about protecting the sink itself. So when I overloaded the controlling circuits of the sink, instead of just draining any excess overloaded energy from the shields, the sink drained all of the shield's energy instead."
"Nice work kid." said Jack approvingly.
"Is this going to cause us problems if there are more of those up here?" asked Shepard.
"No Shepard, my omni tool is configured to target the discharge sinks now and in theory it should cause the shields to drop faster then an overload can traditionally manage."
"Excellent Tali. Now does anyone have any thoughts as to what we are going to find when this lift arrives? This upgraded Mech stuff isn't comforting, where did he get equipment like this?"
"Does it matter? Anything that tried to stop us we kill it, and then we kill him." replied Jack.
"He didn't have any resources like this last time we met, just some Blood Pack mercs so that means he has most likely teamed up with someone else and I don't like surprises." Shepard replied.
"You should have let me kill him last time." grumbled Jack.
As the lift slowly ascended up the interior of the building Shepard figured he had time to see how the other party was going, "I had better check in with Miranda at the bomb site," he told the others, reaching up to his ear to enable his comm system, "Miranda, status report."
"Under control Commander. Illium security arrived a little while back and got in everyone's way, but Samara scared them off. Grunt, Garrus and Jacob think they have cleared all of the survivors out of the wreckage and Mordin is stabilising the worst of them," reported Miranda over the comms, "most will survive I think, but there are still over two hundred dead here so when you find who did this make sure they know that."
"Understood, Shepard out." He turned to face Tali and Jack, "you heard?"
Tali nodded and Jack clenched up her fists and punched the lift wall, "Fuck it Shepard I should have killed him, they are dead because of me!"
"Stop it Jack, you did the right thing, he did this not you!"
Jack punched the wall again, "Fuck, he is so dead this time! Don't you dare try to talk me out of it Shepard."
Shepard swallowed any reply he might have had and looked over at the lift's display, "Two floors to go, ready?"
Both girls nodded, "Ready."