Extinction

by The 483

When a small crew of Mercenaries meets with a small team of Asari researchers, sparks fly. But soon, the Reapers emerge to enact their grim work upon the Galaxy, thrusting it into a war for survival. A character based story, trasitioning into a slight "Galaxy at War" tale, focusing on the people more than the war.

6. The battle with C-Sec

Mass Effect : Extinction

More of the same, and perhaps a little more. Thanks to anyone who looks this over, even if you don't say anything.

6:The Battle with C-sec

Mark ejected the burned out clip from his weapon, slotted another, and pooped back up over the lip of the overturned table just in time to see the last trooper retreat back through the doorway. He saved his ammo.

"Teal, plant a Singularity in the doorway, aim for duration rather than strength, I want as much time as I can get before the next wave pushed in. She nodded, popped up from behind a shot up potted plant, and moved forward, her pistol scanning. He was proud of how well she was handling herself, having never really been in this kind of combat. It was not unusual for a soldier to go through training without a hitch, and then freeze up the first time they had to go up against an actual blood and bone enemy.

"Jericho, Rae, comb the bodies, salvage what you can, pile it in the office here." They moved out.

"Sileen, you squeamish?" The Turian snorted back a laugh. "Good, check the bodies. Here," He unclipped a clasp in his armor, an slid an eight inch blade out of its concealed sheath and tossed it to her. She caught it deftly, and noted with satisfaction that the hilt was a good fit for her hand, unlike so many other human blades. "Any of them that aren't dead, make them so, no bullets. When you are done with that, spread them around a bit, making obstacles for the next wave." She nodded and hopped over the makeshift barricade. There was a sucking of air and flash of blue light, and a shifting singularity now covered the doorway, as Tealsa walked back.

"Snow." Mark said, and she faded into existence at his elbow. He sighed. "You're going to be doing that a lot, aren't you?" She hugged his arm.

"You have no idea." There was a smile in her voice.

"Ok, you and Teal, check our people here, and move all the living back into the offices behind us. If anyone needs to get carried, call Jericho and have him help. There was a Medigel dispenser in the break room, burn through that first, use your judgment on the dosages. If you need help gauging the Turians, call in Sil." Mark turned away, motioning for the two standing C-sec employee's he had with him, to follow.

"Armory." He stated, and the human, a little blond thing hoisting a Predator took the lead position, heading to the armory. The other, a Salarian, Mark got beside. "You know this place, go through, round up anyone else you can, have them rally here." The frog hesitated, and Mark gave him a slap on the shoulder and he got moving. Damned C-sec.

After the second explosion, and the gunfire, Mark and team had rushed to find out what was going on only to crash head long into a cluster of Cerberus troopers, the lead element of their strike force. Mark's hooked blade, which he referred to as "Throat Ripper" flashed out and snapped open,catching the seal at the first troopers neck line and tore a bloody gash in it as he used his weight to ride the trooper as it fell to the ground in the direction Mark desired. Sileen, who had been next on his heel, and being a front line veteran, reacted almost as fast, slamming into the trooper to the left of the confused pile with a tackle, and getting clear of Jericho's line of fire, who let loose a blast from his street sweeper as soon as Sileen was clear. As Sileen drove her curved omniblade under the ribs and upward into the chest of the man she had hit, the blast from Jericho's weapon had liquefied the trooper directly in front of it, as the cone of projectiles sliced into the two behind it, the force still sufficient in force to pierce their armor and shred their insides. The slithered to the ground, peppered with bleeding holes.

The action was so quick, it lasted about three seconds, and left 5 troopers dead. Snow had flashed out and caught the arm of the last trooper before it could get of a shot, gripping the gun wrist with her left hand, and striking upward, snapping the elbow and catching the Hornet as it bounced out of the troopers twitching hand with her right. He screamed as she twisted his broken arm behind his back, and forced him into the doorway the assault had pushed through, firing at the bulk of the force in the reception area as she went. Raeka followed closely, her Rifle barking, and somewhat more slowly by Tealsa. The trooper that Snow had absorbed the bullets for Snow, and Raeka let of and Incinerate and she dove and spun, bracing on the floor as she kicked over a low table and covered behind it. Tealsa had her Harrier leveled at a trooper, but hesitated. One of the others noticed this, and snapped his weapon up, popping off a three round burst at the Asari. She jumped as her barrier flared over her face, and her finger jumped on the trigger. The trooper she was aiming at fell, half his face blown away, and she snapped out of her shock. She switched targets, blew the front of the trooper who fired at her open, and hit a third with a throw that knocked it back with a flip into a fourth as she tucked in behind a decorative plant.

"Nice, Teal." Snow shouted, slapping a sticky grenade to the rear of the mostly pulped troopers corpse she was coving behind. She triggered her cloak and threw the corpse forward as she dove to the right, covering on the open doorway of the C-sec greeters cubicle. A trooper moved aside as the bloody body moved past, and the grenade detonated behind it, killing it and sending the body forward with a wet crunch. Snow saw somewhere in the range of 12 more troopers still trying to enter. A force this large could only mean that they wanted to neutralize the C-sec office before it could muster an alarm.

Snow had not had much chance to look, but there were at least 2 C-sec people returning blind fire shots at the Cerberus, although at least 3 of the bodies she saw were dead.

There was a loud pop, a sizzle, and rush of air, and Sileen came rocketing out on her booster jets, slamming into the lead element of the troopers trying to get inside, exploding in a wave of fire as the strike dumped a wash of exhaust over the procession. She landed an omnibladed blow to the left temple of a trooper, before triggering the jets back, and leaping clear. Lines of white vapor flew to the burning troopers as Mark advanced, each clunking shot of his Saber leaving a dead trooper. He hit the table and ducked to reload. And just like that, with a final burst from Sileen's rifle, the fight was over.

Mark followed the blond woman, who led him to a door locked with a palm print. She turned her light blue eyes to him.

"I do not have authorization." She said meekly. "You have to be an full officer to draw weapons. I am just the receptionist." Mark pointed to the pistol she had clamped in her hands. "I grabbed it when Williams was shot." She said, looking guilty.

"No worries then, you are doing real good for a non combatant." Overall, he was not surprised that most of the C-sec had been eliminated so quickly. After the Citadel had been attacked by the Geth (now confirmed that they were working for the Reapers) C-sec recruitment rates had spiked. This led to more civilians assigned, and a smaller portion of ex-military personnel.

"No surprise there. I grew up on Omega." That would explain it, Mark thought. Omega was a free place, and most of that freedom was geared to violence.

"Ok, that makes sense. Is our Salarian friend expected to find anyone else?"

"No, everyone I was familiar with is either out on patrol, or rushed out front when the corridor was breached."

"Does the Salarian have clearance." She shook her head. "Okay then. Oh, I forgot, what's your name."

"Myers, sir. Angela Myers." Mark made a face.

"Ugh. Not sir. Not for a long time now. Mark, Mark Dietrich." He held out his hand and the girl shook it, looking confused.

"But... you are Alliance, right? You all have dog tags, and were using our firing range..."

"Ah, you are sharp. I like that. I was. But that was years ago. Freelancing now. Me, the other humans and the Quarian, we all did Merc work while we lived on Omega, and we picked up the Asari and Turian during a job. But we got access, because the Fem human used to be C-Sec herself. Called in a couple of favors, that kind thing."Mark explained, and the girl looked as if she accepted the story. Which was good, because that was true.

"Ok, now, I am going to open the door, but if anyone asks, one of the dead officers did it, ok?" He did not want it getting out that he could crack the lock on a C-sec security door without needing to use an omnitool. It tended to lead to awkward questions. She looked at him for a long minute, then nodded. Mark pressed his hand on the side of the palm reader, established connection, and cracked the meager security in a handful of seconds without activating his omnitool. The door slid open. He gave the sad contents a brief look over, noting that the boxes of thermal clips and a handful of confiscated grenades were the only things that he cared about. As he pulled his head out of the room, Snow walked up with Tealsa, a Turian with a shot up shoulder supported between them. The Salarian followed in their wake.

"This is the only officer left alive in the building." Snow said. He was drowsy and had a quick patch over the bullet wounds.

"Alright. Set him in the lockup. Angela, Salarian, start unloading the thermal clips and grenades into here. Snow, get with Jericho, and start making cover in the entrance room, and send Rae back to have her show Tealsa how to set another line up in the office space." The two girls moved off after setting the Turian, who passed out against the wall, and Mark began carrying of boxes of clips and setting them up behind cover positions. In a matter of about 5 minutes, they had a defensible position.

Mark called over to Tealsa.

"Oi, how much longer will the Singularity last?" She looked over at it, pulsing away as strongly as ever.

"Hell if I know. It's lasted about 6 minutes longer that I have ever held one before." Mark blinked at her.

"It's only been up for about 6 minutes."

"Yeah. I know." She answered with a flat expression.

"Hmm, I don't really know much about biotics, but I think that is pretty damn good." She smiled back.

"Thanks." Mark clapped his hands together as he turned from her.

"Alright folks, I think we have done all we can for now. Snow, do what you do, everyone else, positions, be ready to fall back if it gets heavy. Start conserving when clip piles drop to half, we don't know how much they..." He paused as Snow fired a booming shot out the broken doorway, "... how much they are willing to throw at us." Angela, Estrien, come With me please." Mark lead the woman and Salarian back through the office and into the weapon lockup. "I am locking you two in here until this is over. I had one of the girls raid your break room stores, and got some food and water for you, and I am going to fix it so that even if we get wiped, the first Cerberus unit that tries to open this door will lose at least a hand." The woman and Salarian wished him luck, and thanked him for saving them, and he sealed the door with a fun little program that would cause some damage if it was forced. He returned, and took his place behind the busted reception window just as the Singularity faded, and Snow fired again.

"Two." She said. Mark sighed.

"Snow, I can still remember back when..." *BOOM*

"Three"

"... we first pulled your nicely built little ass out of the fire..." *BOOM*

"Four."

"... and you had never even fired a gun at another living thing before." *BOOM,* *boom* As Snow picked another out of sight target off with her Widow, Jericho shredded a trooper as he poked his head around the door frame.

"And now you're five up on me and they haven't even gotten to past the door yet."

"Pretty..." *BOOM* "good, inn'it?"

"Yeah, not bad at all. Can I have a Handicap?"

"Don't you have enough of those as it is?" She shot back.

He was saved from having to think of a retort. There was a series of popping noises and smoke blossomed in the doorway blocking the entire front of the building from view. Bullets began pouring their way, and Mark tossed one of the looted frag grenades into the murk, and was rewarded with a scream of pain after the explosion. Snow triggered the Explosive mod on her Widow, and waited, switching her view to the angle mounted Iron sight.

Two heavily shielded Centurions pounded out of the gloom, and Jericho was a hair faster than Snow, due to the lack of aim required on his part. The blast from his Claymore had scattered by the time it impacted, but still was sufficiently clustered to drop the shields. The explosive coated round from snows Widow struck, and the resulting bloom of carnage splattered across everything within 10 feet. Combined fire from Tealsa, Raeka, and Sileen burned down the second in no time.

Mark felt a brief jolt of pain behind his right ear, the sign that some odd electrical activity was going on in his pickup range. He pulled it up with a glace, and the word "UNKNOWN" flashed inside his eyes. A diagram of the activity built up, a glowing red device threading to a yellow square, and a orange horizontal cylinder perched over a pair of green motors. Mark compared it to his store housed knowledge, working out in a flash what the components were.

The Red was the power plant, the lines branching from it were power cable. The yellow had to be a computer board, and the green were pivot elements, and the orange had to be a firing mechanism...

"TURRET!" He yelled, just before it's software fired up and he got a dotted line appearing in his vision, leading from the source to a target as the programming engaged. "Rae, MOVE!" Raeka dived instantly, and the shooting started, bullets whipping out of the smoke and demolishing the cover she had occupied. Snow, seeing where the hail was coming from, fired, and was rewarded with a resounding clang as the armored turret absorbed the shot.

"Still up." Mark called, as 2 more signatures pinged on his indicator. "Two more set up, fall back." Rae lashed out, hitting the damaged turret with a Sabotage virus, and commandeering it as she fell back through the door, and Jericho followed, tossing and incendiary grenade into the smoke, where scream erupted. Sileen lobbed her own grenade, and followed the other 2, moving backward and firing as she went. Raeka turned the turret around in the smoke once she took cover in the adjoining room, fixing on the heat profiles the turret "saw" and ordered it to fire. The targeted turret exploded before the other was able to destroy Raeka's commandeered one. The disturbance in the smoke from the two exploding devices gave Mark the slightest glimpse of the last turret, and he fired a marking dart at it. The small bug stuck to the surface, and the target bloomed to a full image on his HUD. Snow didn't have her helmet on, so she couldn't see it through the smoke.

"Snow! I am painting the turret on your scope!" She switched her eye back to the scope, panned a little, caught the turret and fired once, twice, three times. The turret still stood. An engineer was nearby, safely concealed, repairing it.

Tealsa popped up, fired a Shockwave into the heart of the smoke, to no effect except to disturb the smoke, but at least she was trying.. Mark picked up the only other grenade he had looted, primed it with his omnitool, and chucked it.

The was a dull chunk noise followed by a sizzling crackle of electricity as it sent volts in a wide sphere, breaking the engineers shields and fizzling his omnitool. Two loud booms from Snow, and both were down, and the swirling smoke started to dissipate. Suddenly, and figure rushed through the smoke, it's lithe body low to the ground, a long sword in its left hand, held back, and it's right extended, palm forward. It was shooting something out of the palm of its hand, and Snow had to roll behind cover as her shields popped.

Tealsa stood an threw a Warp at it, and to everyone's amazement, the damn thing caught it in a shower of biotic sparks, nullifying the attack with a clench of its fist. The nimble assailant then moved fluidly toward her, planting it's hand on the edge of the flipped table a vaulting it with a summersault and lading in front of the shocked Asari. It swung it's blade in a flat arc, clipping her pistol in two and sending her to the floor with a spurt of blood. Mark watched as the fire from Sileen and Raeka bounced off its barriers, and charged it. He dashed in close, before it had a chance to react, wrapping his right arm in with its left arm, keeping it from bending and bringing it's sword into play. The things helmet rung with the force of the punch he then delivered, cracking the glowing eye ports and snapping it's head back. The punch should have snapped it's slender neck, or caved the skull so Mark was fairly surprised when it kept moving. It pressed it's right palm flat on his chest, and he felt the tingle even before it fired off its biotic attack.

Mark was thrown backwards, his shield popping with a loud crack. The noise came from the Phantom's arm; the way Mark had threaded his arm, coupled with the fact that it was made of metal and the force he was thrown away with served to shatter the enemies arm, all but ripping it from its shoulder. Fragments of bone stuck out from the spongy layers where breaks had occurred. Mark bounced once on the floor, getting a shard of the broken glass lodged in his side, before sliding into the base of the far wall, laying crumpled there.

The Phantom fired a few shots at the doorway where Raeka was again taking shots from, and struck the door control, dropping the emergency bulkhead and sealing her and Jericho and Sileen out in a shower of sparks.. Turning to Snow, it snapped it's useless arm up, oblivious to the pain, snatching the sword out of the air with its right and advancing. Snow tossed her rifle through the broken window into the greeters cubicle, and snapped her Shuriken to bear, loosing an accurate volley of 6-round bursts. Snow could feel the cold, reptilian hate radiating from the Phantom, and saw when it was about to strike, narrowly dodging the downward cleave, but was unprepared as it checked the swing and smashed her in the face laterally with the flat of the blade, breaking her nose and knocking her to the ground on her back. It moved up slowly, twirled the blade in its hand, point over Snow's chest, and moved to drive it down.

This action was halted as something blue and glowing wrapped itself around its neck, pulling the head back. Snow sprang up, pulling its arm to extension, before driving a small stiletto that had materialized in her hand into the crook of its elbow, causing the hand to spasm and drop the sword. It jerked its arm in an arc, knocking Snow to the ground again as it grabbed at the coil on its throat. With that, Tealsa, left shoulder bleeding from a deep cut, blood coloring her chest bandages, yanked the biotic whip and swung, hurling the Phantom with a wet crunch against a far wall, just as three final assailants entered the room. With earsplitting cracks, she brought the whip to bear on the three Guardians, and while their shields absorbed the force of the blows and they continued to advance, they could not use their guns. She continued to block them, until she felt her back bump against the bulkhead. That is when eight loud booms sounded, and the guardians fell. Mark, laying on his stomach, had emptied his pistol into the backs of the troopers, not rising due to the hand size shard of glass he guessed had to be resting inside his kidney. Tealsa, still amped up, moved toward the broken phantom, that still showed signs life despite the blood and broken limbs.

"Leave it." Mark called, and when she looked at him, her eyes were aflame.

"No!" She said, and for the first time in his memory, used a human swear word. "Fuck this thing!" She reached down, and pulled it up along the wall by its neck, cocked her right fist back, and it exploded into biotic fire, coalescing into a solid glove about 4 inches thick, and pulsing as if she had put her hand in a radioactive coffee can. She punched it in the center of mass as hard as she could, and there was a blinding flash and explosion of air, leaving her clutching nothing but a handful of ash at the throat of what looked like an angel silhouetted on the wall in burn marks, with a dent in the metal where its chest used to be.

"Damn!" Mark said, staring at her as she shook from the exertion. "You swore." She looked sheepish, and then smiled weakly as she fell to her knees, sitting on her feet, pale and winded. "Snow's bad influence, if I had to guess." Tealsa just smiled again, too tired to talk as she let he chin fall to rest on her chest.

Mark turned his head to Snow, who was getting slowly to her feet. "Oi!, woman. You want to maybe step it up a bit, or you want your girlfriend to bleed out and your idol to leak all his insulin out while you dither?" Snow hurried to Tealsa, knowing that Mark would have his senses on maximum and would know, now that the engineers jamming kit was down, if anything was approaching. She activated the med scanner she had in her omnitool and scanned him briefly.

"From the looks of it, that shard missed the kidney. And anyway, Insulin comes from the Pancreas, dumb ass." She moved quickly to Tealsa and scanned her. Her shoulder cut was deep, but not quite to the bone. In just one minute she had her shoulder patched and sealed with omnigel. She had fallen asleep while her shoulder was being worked on, and Mark was glad to note that while her biotics were immensely powerful, they still had a strong drain on her unconditioned body.

He was always worried about how she would handle such power without the learned discipline to not abuse it. He felt validated based on how well it worked out in this situation. Tealsa sweet and timid personality also helped allay his worry a tad. As he lay in the pool of his own blood, he reasoned that her outburst was just, seeing as she was not used to real combat, she got cut bad by the thing, and it had tried to kill her lover. If he remembered to think of her as the teenager she really was, it was a perfectly logical reaction.

"OW!" He snapped back to the present as Snow removed the shard of glass, and sealed the wound with medigel. She held her hand out and helped him to his feet. Her nose was still bleeding freely from the smack from the phantom's blade, and her "S's" came out sounding more like "B's."

"Hurry up and get that bulkhead open. Teal's back is bleeding again, and she fractured a few bones in her hand when she vaporized that thing. I need to wrap her hand and remove her chest bandages, but I need to move her somewhere we can secure first." Mark ejected the thermal clip from his handgun and slotted a new one before moving, and walked forward as he holstered it. He turned and tossed a ovoid object out the door, which unfolded itself into a hovering turret, complete with a camera, which he keyed to movement, and left the view pane open in the corner of his vision.

"Yeah, sure, miss bossy pants. Make sure these guys are all dead, and drag in the bodies from outside. Make sure to save me a pair with all their head still intact." Snow moved and retrieved her Widow and collapsed and stowed it as Mark examined the busted control panel. As he sized up the damage, Snow moved quickly, giving each corpse a quick burst from her Shuriken, before moving outside the building to drag in the remaining corpses.

The Phantoms shots had cracked the holographic display crystals, and shattered the manual override box. He pried the dented cover off, and a jumbled tangle of burned and torn wires. The terminal at the desk started chiming, and Mark instantly had his pistol up and pointed at it before it registered that it was harmless. He walked over and keyed it to sound only.

"Hey, who's there?" The voice on the intercom said. It was Raeka.

"It's Mark, Rae, everything okay on your end?"

"All good here, Sarge..."

"Don't call me that." Mark cut her off. She exploded, cursing in both English and Quarian. The translation appeared in yellow lettering at the bottom of his eye line, and it was extremely coarse. He wondered where she learned a few of them, and was surprised that it had set off her crazy. It was probably a result of the stress, and this was just her release. Either way, he was a little glad to be on this side of the bulkhead. After a minute, She paused, panting.

"You know, I am getting a little sick of this crap." Mark said in a tired voice. "First, I got Tealsa yelling at me. Then Snow calls me stupid. And now even Raeka is tearing me a new one. I think I am done with all these bossy broads. Jericho, what do you say, after all this business is handled, you and me take off, just you and me, just like the good old days." Mark linked the audio through his omnitool, and moved back to the door, and began clearing debris from the nest.

"Nah." Jericho said, after a short pause. "I remember it was kinda fun, but I don't think it actually started getting good until we picked up Snow and Rae."

"Pfft, whatever. I see how it is. What about you Sil?" He replied, pulling out a knife and cutting away burnt wiring.

"I thought you were tired of "bossy broads."

"Yeah, but you are a military woman, and if I am up on my Turian Hierarchy Military Insignia, a Captain at that, so you are the kind of bossy that I respect. Plus, that thing you did with your little booster rockets... that was probably the coolest thing I have ever seen." She was quite for a long moment.

"I would consider it." She said, surprising Mark so badly he looked up, stopping what he was doing.. There was a slight air of nervousness in her voice. "You're confusing, but not bad, for a Human." He chuckled, returning to his work.

"Aw, coming from you, that is a rare compliment indeed. For what it is worth from me, you are an exemplary Turian." There was quiet on the other end of the line, until Raeka spoke in a very meek voice.

"I am sorry, Mark." It pinched at his heart, and he felt bad for what he said.

"Aw, you don't need to be, sweetie. You know I would never leave you. You are stuck with me for as long as you want to keep me. Now, let's get this damned bulkhead moving so I can give you a hug and tell you I love you. You said something about a green wire in-between some of the more scabrous things you called me." Her voice was still a bit shaky, but not bad.

"Up in the wall about 2 feet, there should be a clustering of green wire, you have to reach up and pull it down. Done? Okay, dig out the one labeled "9dlr5" cut it, and do the same with "14jdt4". Strip about an inch off each, and braid them. Tell me when you are done. Ok, now, I need you to send a steady electrical current through the wires at 138 volts."

Mark was pretty sure Raeka had never done this before, but he was utterly confident in her ability. She had apparently grown up in a heavily engineering family upon the Migrant fleet, and had an intuition for this type of thing that Mark could not learn to emulate, even with half of his brain being a computer. But her mind had fractured so badly while she was experimented on, she couldn't recall any of her past before Mark found her mostly dead in that alley on Noveria most of the time. When she did, she recounted them as if they were something she had seen on stereo rather than lived.

He peeled a section of his skin back on his left underarm, and drew out a small wire with a tiny clamp on the end. He attached it to the bare wire, set the voltage by eye, and let it trickle into the wires. The door immediately began to rise, and Mark killed the comms, and waited until the door settled. Raeka moved out cautiously, and Mark pulled her into a big hug, and planted a small kiss on her faceplate where he imagined her forehead was. "You crazy. You know I love you, and I would never ditch you." She pressed into him happily,

"Jericho, ready for some fun? Good. Sileen, you have any objection to fear tactics?" She met his eyes, and he liked what he saw.

"Not even a little." She grinned a predatory grin, aided in menace by her pointy teeth.

"Excellent. Jericho, help Snow carry in the bodies, then heap the most of them in front of the door, so that they need to be walked over to get in here. Sil, find the two Snow wants put aside with intact heads, and remove the heads from the bodies, and set both aside for me. After that, you and Jericho can help Snow move Teal back into the firing range, and help her however she needs. Rae, you get to come with me." He took the Quarian's hand and walked her to the other side of the door into the offices.

"Okay, I want you to rig that bulkhead so that it cannot be opened from the other side. I want it just to open from this side, and I want the control for it slaved to my omnitool. Then, I want a camera or two, you can use my turret in the corridor if you need extra parts, mounted in the corners looking down on then reception room, as much coverage as you can get, slaved to my HUD, port O59896, password "Eagle."" He set it up while he spoke, using his eyes to do it remotely, and would lock it when she finished. He didn't like giving people access to his head, and he could tell by the way she squeezed his hand that she was flattered by it. "Finally, I want you to rig that reception terminal you called me on to project loud enough that anyone in the reception area would be to hear it. Slave that to me as well, port V22689, password "shout."" He set it up as well. All good?"

"Yes sir, Sergeant." She said, but softer this time. HE grabbed her in a one armed hug.

"You're lucky you're so damned cute, or I would have you busted back to the Navy." He said, and felt her bristle as he knew she would when she thought she was a Marine. "Now, hurry up with that. Get it done quick, and you can help me hang the decorations." She liked when they got to leave a message, and jammed her arm up into the wall. Satisfied that all was well, Mark moved as Jericho and Sileen carried the passed out blue girl past, before moving to the weapons locker to check on the C-sec personnel. Snow halted him with a tap on the shoulder.

"Here," she said, before spitting out a mouthful of blood onto the floor. "I need you to set my nose back into place, the damn thing won't stop bleeding."

"Okay, if that is what you want. Want something to bite down on?" She shook her head, but placed her hands on his shoulders. He place a thumb on each side of her nose, holding on to the sides of her head. "Ready?"

"Yeth." She grunted, squeezing her eyes shut. Mark shifted his hands slightly, and there was a wet pop as her cartilage was pushed back into its groove. She let out a high pitched breath, that turned into an agonized moan, her gauntleted hand pressing hard into his shoulders as tears streamed from her closed eyes. She took a deep breath and stepped back, spit out another wad of blood. "Thanks." She said, wiping her eyes with the back of a hand, before taking off after the people carrying the Asari.

Mark shook his head, and moved to the armory door. He placed his hand on the pad, and removed his protections, standing to the side of the door before he cycled it open. Nothing happened, but it never hurt to be careful.

"You all alright?" He called, and the female voice responded.

"Yes. Phew, when I heard the locks disengage, I feared the worst." Mark pivoted and looked in. The Turian was awake, and his arm was tended to. The Salarian was out, and the empty syringe made Mark guess that he was sedated. Angela was holding a shotgun aimed at the general area where Mark's chest was, and she quickly pointed it at the ground.

"Well, we got a few scrapes, and our Asari wore herself out, but we are mostly still in good shape. We cleared out the last of them for now, but there is no telling if more are coming. So, we discovered there is an emergency bulkhead, so we are wiring that up to seal us in until the situation is under control. So feel free to stir about, just avoid the entrance area if you are squeamish, we are doing so.. remodeling."

He turned away, felt a ping behind his right eye, and a camera feed fuzzed into life in the corner of his vision, showing Rae's faceplate. Say what you will, but the girl worked fast. He moved out into the reception area, where Jericho and Snow were piling the bodies in the doorway as if they fell while charging the position. Sileen looked up as she finished parting the head from a dead engineer. She had spread lines of blood on her face as a kind of war paint.

"Hey, Sil, is that human blood you are painting your face with?" She turned to slowly look at him, allowing herself a defiant look, the kind not allowed in the Turian chain of command.

"Yes it is. Is that a problem for you, little man?" Her eyes sparkled, and Mark thought he got a glimpse at something. She was being almost playful.

"Sileen... you really, really like this stuff, don't you?" She gave the Turian Equivalent of a smirk. "Okay, I think it is a problem for me. If you got cut on the face, and some of that dripped in, couldn't it kill you?" She looked at him for a long moment before his objection registered, and she shook her head, a little disappointed.

"No, it would probably burn pretty good, but it wouldn't do any lasting harm."

"Alright, then, have at it." She sighed.

"You are entirely too agreeable sometimes." Mark nodded, and Raeka tapped him on the shoulder, showing him that she had finished her assigned tasks. HE looked quickly around, found a damaged chair with a steel poled frame, and pulled it apart, handing two of the now 2 foot long poles to the Quarian.

"Here you go, do what you want." He didn't need to see her face to know the grin was there, and the tucked the poles under her arm and a dripping head in each hand. Mark then moved and helped nail bodies to the walls. In another few minutes, the entire office looked like 12 troopers had come in, exploded, and stuck to the walls and in one creative area, ceiling. Looking over the work one last time, he let his girls pass him in, then sealed the door to wait for when the wards calmed.

(...)

"Boss! You need to see this!" An overworked Turian C-Sec officer called. His lieutenant, a human female, looked back, and walked over, rifle raised due to his tone. He indicated that she look into the corridor he was supposed to have cleared, his face grim. She pushed her bangs out of her face and looked around the corner, then retracted her head and vomited. She steadied herself, hunched over for a second, before wiping her mouth with the back if her arm.

"Yeah, it's pretty bad, eh?"

"That's a word for it." She said, closing her eyes but still seeing the gore drenched station behind her lids. "This is worse than the last three we've checked. Damn Cerberus bastards, it's bad enough they hit us, but they didn't have to do this." The Turian looked back to her.

"Um... chief, take another look. Those bodies ARE Cerberus." She looked up, then cautiously looked back around the corner. The shock wasn't as bad now that she was braced for it. Sure enough, the bodies pinned to the walls, and heads mounted in stakes at the entry were indeed clad in Cerberus armor.

"Hey, lady!" The Lieutenant jumped as the voice came from the reception counter. The Turian behind her leveled his rifle at the source of the noise. "You don't look like Cerberus. Who are you?"

"Who the hell are you?" She shot back, her own pistol leveled at the unseen speaker.

"The guy who held out against a whole Cerberus strike force, and managed to keep 3 of the local C-Sec people alive in the process, then rigged this little display, which kept two other Cerberus sweep teams from trying to force their way in here after us. So, I believe the question would be, who are you, who comes to my area, and point guns at my setup?" The Lieutenant was still fairly nauseous from the carnage, and was rather pissed at being talked down to like this.

"I am Lieutenant Kristina Miller of Citadel Security." It took a force of will not to swear at the stranger.

"Oh, well why didn't you say that, come on back." There was a crackle of static as the mike cut out, and a hiss as the bulkhead's hydraulics released and is slid out of the way. She signaled for the Turian to stay and watch her back, and moved carefully forward slowly, not wanting to slip on the bloody floor. As she arrived at the door, she was hit by a wave of heat that almost rocked her back. She shook it off, and moved in, sweeping with her pistol, and stopped dead in incredulity at what she found. Sitting at a round table, she found a man who was sitting in his underwear, large white scars around both his shoulders. To his left, a little blond woman was sitting in a white bra, and to her left, a Turian striped to the waist sat. All three were sweating heavily in the heat, and playing cards. In the back of the room, a woman wearing nothing but a small pair of panties was wrapping a set of long white bandages around the chest of an Asari who was laying on the table. As the Lieutenant stood there, speechless, the scarred man turned to look at her, and smiled.

"I know that look all too well. Before you ask, when my Quarian friend was rewiring the emergency power to give us control of the bulkhead, she had to cut out control of the cooling systems, which just so happened to turn this place into a sauna. So, Loot, what the hell happened out there?"

"Wait, who the hell are you, and why are you in this office?" She was weirded out by the strangers calm, slightly jovial attitude. He turned to the blond woman.

"Sorry, Ma'am," the woman said. "My name is Angela Meyers, and I am the reception officer for this C-Sec station. This man, Mark, and his team were using our range to test and hone their equipment when a Platoon of Cerberus troopers stormed in and started killing everyone. If it were not for their intervention, I fear all of us here would have been killed, as Darnu here was already down, and the only other staff left alive are myself and the technician, who is still sedated and sleeping in the break area." Angela moved to her discarded shirt, and pulled he ID badge off and presented it to the superior officer. Mark, who was watching the pale Lieutenant carefully while the story was told, could tell she was very skeptical.

"How many are you?" She asked, her gun not quite aimed at him.

"Me, Snow, and Tealsa, here, "He motioned to the girls as he said their name, wondering faintly if Snow wished her armor had room to wear under clothes with it, but doubted she cared; Snow was comfortable in her skin. "Then somewhere in the back, resting or some such, there is the big guy, Jericho, a Quarian, Raeka, and a little Turian tart, Sileen." The Human cocked an eyebrow at the accounting, but not do to the racial content of the party, being C-Sec she was used to seeing a wide variety of races working closely. It was more that she had her doubts, based on the casual air the man wore, that any of them other than the Turian mentioned would be experienced enough to account for the body count she had seen outside.

"And you six managed to kill all those highly trained Cerberus troops that pretty much tore through all the C-Sec personnel they could find?"

"Well, we surprised them almost as bad as they surprise us, at first. Helped a little." She still looked obviously skeptical, and Mark Sighed. "Look, Ma'am, I can understand that you find this a little farfetched. Technically, I suppose we could be consider a small band of Mercenaries, though I prefer a term something more like "Civilian Contractors." I served a grip of years in the Alliance, Snow here was C-Sec for much longer than she'd care to admit, Jericho came from a pioneer world out in the Traverse, and Raeka lived with us working combat jobs out on Omega for the last couple years. Sileen was Career Military until some REMF-er cashed her chip for political reasons, and Tealsa, we, what she lacks in experience, she makes up for in moxie. We came to the Citadel to re-arm and try to enlist to join the war effort, so give us a break here, we helped you out."

Much as she disliked the way he spoke down to her, she did respect what he said, if it was true.

"And how do I know that isn't just a line of crap?" Mark sighed explosively, even as he registered that it was a valid response.

"Here, dossiers." He activated his omnitool and sent the files her had used when trying to get enlisted with his group. She opened her own, still keeping her gun pointed in his direction, and quickly skimmed the files. She finished, shutting off the display, and lowered the gun.

"Alright, that will do, I suppose. There was a major coup attempted pulled, and one of the council was killed. We can't afford not to be careful, you know." Mark nodded sagely.

"I can appreciate your position, Lieutenant." He clapped his hands together. "Now, how can we help?"

The Lieutenant and her compatriots waited while Mark and his crew re geared, and supplemented her workforce as they swept the remaining 5 outposts in their area, finding no other survivors. Apparently, once the attempt on the full council was thwarted, Cerberus made a full retreat, leaving gear and even wounded behind. After the sweep was finished, the six were given bunks in the communal barracks of the wards C-Sec offices, where they were more than happy to crash. As Mark was about to pass out, he felt the slight buzz in his skull, meaning he had received a message. He triggered it without opening his eyes, and read it on the back of his closed lids. Their orders had come through, and they would be heading to Menae upon the Glory Road in 2 days. He flagged a memo for the morning, cleared his display, an passed out.