He was twenty-six and death was no longer a stranger to him. He danced with it, he dealt it, it had become a friend to him.
'Breathe.' He heard his uncle's voice whisper in his memory as he squeezed the trigger again and again, reloading lightning fast to bring the next head into view. The pirates below his nest scattered before the onslaught of his team. His team, the thought made a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. He'd just gotten his own team, his own ship even, one of the small Mark II's that had replaced the old Raptors. Idly, he watched his soldiers clear out the rest of them now that the rocket launchers had been taken out.
His chest swelled with pride as he watched his brother, Paulus, unload his entire shotgun payload into one pirate. His brother, who he'd tapped as soon as he found out he was going out here with his own team, he was the reckless brilliance to Marcus' careful tact, the fire to his ice and they made a fantastic team in and of themselves, but they couldn't do it all, hence the rest of their team. They were fast making a name for themselves in the Vagabonds, with their devastatingly successful attacks on this large criminal organization.
He stood as the last red dot on his visor winked out, marking the unfortunate end of these pirates who'd grappled with what they thought was a damaged cargo freighter, but was in fact a trap, they found out to their dismay. Slowly, carefully, he wandered through the corridors and checked every body there, double tapping them with his pistol as he went to make sure. In his mind, the memory of the first assignment he'd ever been on reared its ugly head, he'd been careless and they'd almost died, he and his brother and that, that was unforgivable. They wouldn't be flanked by these particular pirates.
"You keep stealing my kills, Marcus." Paulus chided as he came upon the group that waited for him at the airlock.
"Well, if you didn't insist on being only ten feet from them before you shoot them, maybe I wouldn't need to. That assault rifle on your back is starting to gather dust." Marcus thumped his brother on the chest armor, noting with pride how the emblem of their unit lay there, still shiny and new. "Why do you even have it if you're not going to use it?"
"For looks, of course. Nothing grabs the ladies' attention like being fully armed and ready to go." His brother grinned and flexed for the one female on their team, vulgarly thrusting his hips. Another turian, she looked on with amusement. Marcus caught her eye and rolled his comically which prompted a chiming laugh from her, which, although he didn't show it in any way, caused his heart to flutter madly. His brother continued, "Whaddya think, Aleia? Hot or not?"
"Not, Paulus. Definitely not." She shook her angular head on her long, graceful neck. She was dark, almost chocolatey in color with pale elegant stripes on her face and shoulders, which were exposed in the light armor she chose to wear today. Purplish light still flickered around her form, the afterimage of the biotic shield she had on for battle. His mouth dried and he looked away from her shapely collarbones.
Marcus laughed lightly at the downcast look on his brother's face and said with cheer, "Don't worry, Paulus. The girls at Omega will love you no matter how armed you are. So long as you got creds enough to keep them happy."
"True, true, how bout you, Sanders? Up for a game of Skyllian-Five?" Paulus draped an arm over their engineer, an older human male with a vicious scar that ran the length of his face from the corner of his mouth well into his hairline, giving him a twisting smile that with a few twitches became a leer of greed.
"You're not tired of losing your money yet?" The human laughed, "You ain't got cunning enough to take me."
"Someday, Ralph. Someday I'll know all your little tricks and then we'll see who takes whose money."
The salarian specialist on their team followed bemusedly in their wake, shaking his pronged head, "Gambling seems a waste of resources. Resources we could be using for mods and upgrades."
Sanders waved his hand dismissively, "Lighten up, Ergot. Unwind once in a while, it'd be good for you."
Marcus smiled into the salarian's disapproving eyes, "It's true, old man. Now let's get some drinks, first round's on me."
They cheered as he led them back into their ship and he dropped his kit in the lockers where they'd be serviced by the mech they had for that purpose and Marcus ran up into the cockpit where his pilot was blasting music and thumping the console with his fingers, keeping rhythm with the violent beats. He reached over and muted it and the quarian scrambled in surprise, mask an impenetrable fog, then the pilot settled back with a sigh, "How'd it go, LT?"
"Good, good, five pirate ships are space dust. That's a good week's work, I think. Time to treat the boys to some shore leave on Omega." He nodded to the map on the console and watched those gloved fingers fly over the controls, "Kinz, how's Ushal liking the new ride?"
"Ask him yourself." The quarian gestured to the bright orb that was nestled in the ship's AI input socket.
A male voice rolled over them smoothly from the comms above, "I like it very well. The ship is fast, it is a good fit. It does not fight me like that old cruiser did."
"You sure you don't want a shell, too? I'm sure I can get us one." Marcus passed a hand over his fringe, feeling slightly guilty for recruiting this piloting team out from under his old commander's craggy hump, but not enough to warrant giving them back. They were a great team and they were being wasted in the armada. This is where they should be, on the frontiers, doing valuable work.
"I have no desire to go on ground missions with you, CO Vakarian. My abilities are more suited to flying this ship with Creator Kinz'atol." The geth in his ship asserted and Marcus nodded, relenting the point. He had a fine crew already, well rounded, ready for anything.
Omega was still a dung heap, or rather from the stories he'd heard from before the Unification, it didn't seem much different. There was refuse piled in every corner, it stank of too many bodies crammed together with not enough air filtration. He wondered briefly if the CO2 scrubbers were down, surely they'd fix that, wouldn't they? It would mean certain death to leave something like that unfixed.
Marcus moved in that practiced swagger that screamed merc to any who happened to notice their little party wandering around the station. His armor was a mismatched ragtag mix of older models, or at least that's what it looked like. It was deadly effective for all its obvious flaws. His whole squad was decked out in this fashion, from an outsider's point of view they would probably seem to be a small street gang looking to get hired as a group. They'd gotten quite a few leads in exactly that way.
Afterlife was booming and they made their way over to a private booth, ordering drinks on the way. Asari dancers writhed on the dance floor directly opposite of him and he watched them for a moment over the rim of his drink, always surprised at how flexible they were. His brother and Sanders were arguing about gun stats, they both favored the shotgun over any other weapon but they didn't agree at all on what mods to use, what ammo. Paulus turned to him and said, mandibles flicking in annoyance, "What do you think, Marcus? Cryo or AP?"
"I think Ralph should stick with his turrets and you should actually use special ammo once in a while, instead of forgetting to switch." He smiled to defuse his harsh words as his brother ducked his head in chagrin. Ergot snorted a laugh, which caused some of his drink to come out of his nose, much to the amusement of everyone at the table.
Marcus smiled as he watched them, his brilliant soldiers as they laughed and drank. They were his and he would kill for each and every one of them, unto his last breath. The female next to him shifted and he, while seeming completely lost in the sight of the dancers, was very aware of her gaze as it swung to him. Aleia's voice rolled over him and he suppressed a shudder, "The dancers are very good, aren't they?"
He nodded dumbly, swallowing back a knot in his throat as he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Her mandibles were slightly stretched in amusement as she looked back at him, her elbows on the table before her, hands holding the slim neck of her glass, it's shimmering green liquid sloshing slightly from one side to another. She sighed and leaned back, arching her back slightly, which made his mouth suddenly parched like a desert and he took a large gulp of his drink, trying to bring back some moisture, anything to keep his tongue from sticking to the roof of his mouth as it seemed suddenly to want to do.
She leaned toward him to purr, "You think I should go up there? I wonder if I could be just as good."
He closed his eyes at the erotic imagery that pounded through his vivid imagination, and suppressed a groan as his lower plates shifted just a bit. He cleared his throat before responding, "I, uh, think you'd be better."
She laughed delightedly and he flushed under his plates to hear that clear sweet sound, "What a...politic response. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were just humoring me."
He shook his head in a negative, words abandoning him in the wake of his desire. She touched his leg under the table and even though he couldn't feel it through his armor, he swore that a heated tingling originated from that spot to travel up his thigh to where his loosening plates loosened even further and he had to squirm a bit to adjust his lower armor to accommodate his emerging manhood. She smiled wickedly as she watched him lose even this small measure of control and the blood rushed through his veins at the arousal in her sky blue eyes.
She leaned even closer and he smelled her intoxicating perfume, a musk of woodsy pine and spices. He gulped reflexively as she filled his whole field of vision, her voice a throaty velvet tingle on his skin, "Maybe we should go back to the ship...?"
Marcus stood abruptly, almost upending the table, much to his own embarrassment. Paulus watched him knowingly as he made his exit, with Aleia in tow, a laugh on his lips. The couple made their way out, threading through the crowds of partygoers and predators who watched them leave with a speculative glance, he snarled at them and their gazes drifted on, looking for better targets, easier targets than two obviously armed and armored soldiers.
She flew at him in the airlock, scrabbling for the seals on his armor and he lapped at her neck, his hands everywhere, touching every part of her that was exposed. She groaned into his neck and he hissed as he felt her teeth dig into him just a little, but his blood was pounding now and nothing was going to stop him from having her.
They made it to his small cabin and flopped in a heap onto his cot, limbs tangling in their fervor. His armor flew off now that they were both working on it, scattered to every corner followed by her clothes. Soon they were blessedly naked and she reached down to tug on his cock, making him arch into her uncontrollably with a loud groan at her neck. He ran his hands over her plates, wonderingly, they were so silky, as silky as the first time they'd done this and he stopped to relish it every time. She was so beautiful under him, with her angles and curves and her mouth half open in a pant of desire.
His blood raged to take her and he ran his hand down to the junction of her thighs, where her plates were just barely open. He teased the tender flesh there with his fingers, running one blunt talon around the edge, making her quiver in need. He knelt down and flicked her opening with a slow swipe of his tongue, smiling to hear her moan wantonly. He ran his flexible tongue around her lower plates before plunging it in, past the plates, into the molten hot core of her and she arched under his other hand where it rested on her plated belly and his eyes rolled back up into his head at the taste of her, like ozone and musk.
He massaged her flesh as he slowly devoured her, making her gasp in ecstasy. He met her gaze with all his intense desire for her just as she peaked and she writhed on the cot. Unable to wait any more, he rose over her and plunged into that place that had so recently held his tongue and cried out at the feeling of her depths gripping him, the plates at the outset of her opening pleasantly rubbing the underside of his shaft as he moved in and out of her. He was trying to hold out for as long as he could when he felt her hands come up and grip him by the waist almost painfully and he bucked without restraint over her at how sinfully erotic the feeling was. Her talons dug in and he cried out above her as he felt his issue leave him in a glorious rush of pleasure. Limply, he let her flip them and she rode him hard, taking her pleasure from him almost violently, her eyes glittering in the low light of his bunk.
The tip of his cock was so sensitive, it was driving him mad. Helplessly, he held her around the waspish waist and she hissed with approval, so he gripped her tighter and she threw her head back as she bounced on him, soft cries flying out of her mouth. She tilted her face back down at him and moaned, "More. Harder."
He panted as he started delving roughly into her from below, gripping her waist even tighter, feeling the climax just out of reach as he pounded her ruthlessly. Her hands clawed at his sides and he grimaced at the pain that was also driving him on to even greater heights of pleasure and returned the favor, digging his talons into her sides cruelly. She cried out loudly and quivered, calling out his name in her fulmination and hearing it, he swiftly followed, almost biting his tongue in half as the waves of heat broke over him, leaving him a shaking wreck, utterly without a thought to spare for anything other than the glorious creature that was even now collapsing onto his chest.
He sighed as his heart swelled, feeling her closeness like this. The shape of her nestled against him. She echoed his sigh as his member slowly retracted from her and he rumbled at her affectionately, nipping her mandibles, rubbing his hands all along her back plates soothingly. She relaxed into him and was soon asleep. He watched her face relax out of the corner of his eye and his heart thumped with more than just the effort of their physical activity.
He was twenty-six and he was pretty sure that he was in love.