Author's Note: Whoah, this is my longest chapter yet. Because it has a BATTLE in it, and combat scenes are some of my favorite ones to write, yay. This one's kind of herky-jerky all over the place. Hopefully it isn't too hard to follow! Sometimes it's difficult to out yourself in the shoes of the reader, with no knowledge of what's happening and why it's happening. If it turns out to be confusing, let me know. I tried to explain any shifts in time, and tie together any shifts in perspective.
Even though this marks a turning point in the current course of events, this fic is not nearly over. I have a lot in store yet!
This chapter also introduces our villain. I intend to have fun with our villain. Mwahahaha. They're fun to write for. Anyway… yes. Let's get rolling. Thanks again, as always, guys, for your support. YOU GUYS'RE TOPS WITH ME. /stanleypoole
/Chapter 5 - Midnight Special
"It looked as if a night of dark intent
Were coming, and not only a night, an age."
-Robert Frost, Once by the Pacific
It was the sixth day since an alien vessel had gone down on Shasta Trinity. In a narrow, long room, the overhead lights were off.
The windows that had been built into this room were large enough to let the afternoon shine in, thickening the air into a soup of floating dust and grey light. A human sat in front of a flickering orange viewscreen, watching the tiny motes drift in and out of the glow of his console. He looked bored. He yawned. He glanced over his shoulder at the human sitting behind him, who was facing the opposite direction. That man's attention was directed, also rather boredly, at his own screen.
The room was small, low-ceilinged, and narrow. The door at the far end opened straight to the wilderness outside. Their "office" was really more like a trailer, and the complex it was a part of was more like a sprawled camp. The builders of this place had not tried to fight the rugged wilderness of the moon yet. Instead, they had built around it, lulling it into a false sense of security, waiting for the day when the uneven jagged slopes would be leveled and the occupants would enjoy the finer luxuries of dependable heating and proper air filtration. Until then, they were roughing it.
The man glanced back to his screen, saw a bright yellow blip on the map that had not been there before, and, failing to immediately register it, looked away. Then he did a double-take. "I'll be damned."
His companion didn't turn around. "What?"
"Distress signal. Bet it's our new friends." The first man grinned and reached out, tapping at his console's rectangular keys to pull up a more detailed description of what his computer had found. "Yep. It's a big signal, too. Probably from the crash site. Man, if they got something like a downed ship up and running, we must have a whole nest of the buggers."
"Hell, if they got a signal like that up and running here," his companion added, "they're a nest of expensive buggers."
"Yeah." The two fell into contemplative silence. "Well, might as well let the boss know. I'll do the honors." The first speaker stood and stretched, yawning again. He lazily recorded the coordinates with his Omni-tool. "I can't believe we beat the trackers. I thought for sure they'd find the quarians before we did. Man, you know, one of them offered to put money down on it? Shoulda taken him up on his offer."
His less talkative partner nodded absently. He paused. "You know, the trackers might have found 'em. Half of the shit they sent us here doesn't even work right anyway. Maybe they couldn't send a signal back to us. Maybe they're why the quarians sent up a distress signal."
"Could be." The first man chuckled. "I dunno, though. The boss got a little slap-happy with the one we let go. Maybe he didn't make it."
"Twenty credits says he did."
The first speaker blinked, grinned, and waved to his partner as he strolled out of the room. "You're on."
/
The evening before, Kal had nearly made it to dusk before he awoke, irritated to be allowed to sleep so late. Half of the work of fortifying the camp was already finished, and, he discovered as he inspected the impromptu barricades, finished well. Okay, so maybe they didn't need him to hold their hands to make sure they got the job done, but he still didn't like it.
Veetor had left by the time he awoke, so it was up to Kal to look for him. He eventually found Veetor working with the team that was repairing the signal, so the marine had spent the rest of the day further improving the camp's meager defenses. The last thing he wanted to do was sleep once night rolled around, but after a little tossing and turning, got some shuteye.
The morning of the sixth day, the camp was a hive of frenetic activity. The wounded were moved to the most stable section of the ship to protect them from the worst of the battle. Soldiers grouped together, discussing tactics and rallying points throughout the camp. Engineers were exchanging hacking subroutines and putting their combat drones through simulation runs. Then, the scouts sent out the previous dawn returned to camp, and all work stopped. These quarians were carrying a few new weapons with them. That meant two things. Firstly, they'd obviously conquered whatever resistance they'd run into and scavenged their weaponry, and secondly, that they had run into resistance, after all. The captain met them outside, in front of the entire camp, to relay the news to all the quarian refugees simultaneously.
The scouts had come across a three-man tracking squad composed of two humans and one turian. The squad had immediately opened fire on them, and one of the scouting party's number had been wounded. In the end, though, the trackers had paid for it with their lives. The three scouts still seemed to be stunned that they'd managed to take them all down. "But the weapons'll be useful, at least."
Work picked up again, this time with more energy than before. Kal only took a moment to rest when he grabbed a quick meal. It was more by luck than effort that he caught sight of Veetor just as he finished, and the two immediately gravitated towards one another.
"You holdin' up okay?" Kal asked.
"Yes, I'm fine," Veetor assured him. He looked nervous, which could have been due to a lot of factors. The increased activity in the camp could have been a part of it. Perhaps the fact that they were potentially about to be attacked and might, in mere hours, be fighting for their lives was also a contributing factor. "I'm going to help keep the wounded safe. I… I want to help fight, but it doesn't always work when I try to… to…" he trailed off helplessly.
"Wouldn't want you to put your neck on the line, Veetor," Kal assured him. "You can kick ass when you need to. But we're soldiers. We're trained. Nobody's going to blame you for staying out of the fight."
Veetor nodded. The two of them stood there for a moment longer, both feeling the tug of their duties elsewhere, but not quite willing to leave the other just yet. "Be careful." Veetor said quietly.
"I will."
Another pause.
"Kal, before you go-I might not be able to talk to you again before we fight, and, and I wanted to ask you… everything that you've done for me. Well. Not just you, but especially you. But everything that everyone's done for me-Elan, Tali, Shepard… I just want to know why."
The question caught Kal off-guard. He blinked. "Why?"
"Yes. Why have you helped me so much, Kal?"
Kal shifted his weight from foot to foot. Well, that was… an interesting question to ask. Of course Kal would help a fellow quarian. Tali would, too, and the human Commander had a penchant for turning a kind eye to those in need, if her reputation was to be believed. He knew that thought this was a right answer, though, it wasn't the right one. It was true, but it was not the most true. "I'd say it's because you're worth helpin', Veetor."
"Really?" Veetor asked.
There was a tentative hope in his voice that tore straight through Kal'Reegar's then-dormant kinetic barriers, passed unheedingly through the battle-worn ablative coating of his armor, and hit him straight in his unprotected heart. He stood there for a moment, reeling under the assault and unsure what to say. His mouth worked silently behind his helmet. Speechlessness was not a sensation familiar to the indomitable Kal'Reegar. Finally, he said, "Yes." After a thoughtful pause, he added, "Hell yes. Don't let anyone tell you different, either."
"O-okay." Veetor remained still, staring at Kal, and for a moment there was a sort of perfect peace between them, despite their surroundings and the threat of imminent danger looming on the horizon. It was very quickly lost as both men began to feel awkward, and with a nod, Veetor said, "I… thanks again, Kal. But I should go now."
"Yeah, me too. I'll see you, Veetor."
Veetor nodded, and they parted ways again. Kal was still a little uneasy from the way his heart had skipped a beat there, but he didn't have time to worry about it. He could fight his inner battles later. It was the outer battles that he needed to concentrate on right now.
/
Afternoon came, and the Kildeira hummed to life. Running lights flickered, piercing points of color that punched through the moon's oppressive grey atmosphere. The hum and throb of the power systems seemed to echo off the trees. Nobody had realized how quiet this place was until they'd filled it with such noise. The inside lights in parts of the ship still intact enough to have them flickered, flickered, and then shed their steady glow on the interior.
It was something of a moment of triumph, but nobody celebrated. They all knew the sobering implications of what they had just done. In the command center, the captain and his team activated and relayed the signal. It rose, searing and insistent, into space, and appeared as a blazing yellow blip on an orange viewscreen miles away. The quarians readied themselves, settled down in position, and waited.
They would turn out to be doing a lot of it. Hours passed, and nothing happened. If their unseen enemy had any kind of monitoring devices on the planet, they had to know that the quarians were there. As the afternoon wore on, the defenders struggled with the hardest part of any battle: waiting for it to begin. Everyone was tense and vigilant.
Evening approached. Still nothing. Throughout the camp, the soldiers shifted uncomfortably and the defenders relayed food packets out to the men and women waiting outside. Night came and began to deepen. Once again, nothing. The wounded were bunkered still securely inside, as well as the few noncombatants. The command center of the downed ship was being used to monitor any sign of rescue. They had been unable to bring up many of the other systems, so they were not able to use any kind of scanning technology to warn them of their enemies' approach.
Kal waited at the easternmost barricade. The past six days of his life had been dominated by a single man's presence. He had fought the hardest battle he'd ever endured with Veetor and brought the other safely through to the end of what might have been the darkest days of the quarian's life. Whatever these unseen adversaries had to offer, it couldn't possibly be a challenge compared to the war he'd just won and this knowledge filled the marine with tense, humming violence.
He would fight like a demon today, especially when he had so much at stake for this battle. He almost felt sorry for whoever was going to be foolish enough to be on the other end of his rifle when the shooting started. Almost.
The evening wore on, so that it perched on its axis, balanced precariously on the apex of deepest night and the beginnings of morning. The quarians had expected the standoff to last a while, and began to rotate their shifts. Soldiers came and went, moving quietly and stealthily through the camp. The atmosphere of their makeshift settlement, though strained over half a day's wait, was no less wary for it. Indeed, everyone seemed even more on edge. They had to force themselves not to jump at the soft sounds of nocturnal life. It was possible that they simply weren't going to be attacked yet. Kal suspected that their enemies were fully aware of their position, and were simply waiting. If they were smart, they would let their foes stew a while before they struck. Being alert for so many hours was tiring on the body as well as hard on the nerves. Really, their attackers had almost every advantage that could be asked for.
Kal resolutely held his position. As advantageous as it was, they were risking a lot by waiting too long. The distress signal might have given away the camp's position, but it still served its intended purpose, as well. It was possible that rescue might arrive before this whole situation could dissolve into violence.
On the heels of that thought, a figure strode into the clearing. Immediately the barrels of six assault rifles were pointed at it. It held up its hands. "Please. I was wondering if we could discuss this like civilized sapients?" The voice was a curious double-tone to it, a flanging effect that told Kal it was a turian. The higher, musical quality of the voice told him that it belonged to a female. The calmness in her voice told Kal that she was not at all afraid to be on the receiving end of so much firepower. This could either be because she didn't know what sort of danger she was in, or simply that she was not afraid, or it could be a bluff. All of these analyses ran through his mind in a single fishtail-flicker of thought. Kal exhaled slowly and held his gun steady.
"We're listening." The captain's second-in-command had been stationed near the south side of camp. Kal hadn't heard him move closer to his eastern position, but he was now only about twelve feet from the soldier. Kal was quietly impressed.
"Why are you on our moon?" the unnamed turian asked.
"First of all, this moon is officially listed as uninhabited, so if you have some kind of authority here, it is not recognized by any government we know of. Second of all," the quarian continued in his clipped, accented voice, "even if it is, we have no interest in it. We just want to leave."
"What a coincidence. We want you off."
Kal could just see the gleam of the gas giant's blue reflection in his comrade's helmet as the second-in-command shook his head. "That's what we want. Are you telling us you plan to let us leave, no harm, no foul?"
"Why wouldn't we?"
"Well, for one, you kidnapped our people," the second-in-command snapped back, "And killed two of them!"
The turian cocked her head. Kal could just barely make out her features in the darkness; she was on the lighter-skinned side, and the shape of her face was broken up by the darker markings of her tattoos. She was an impressive specimen of her species, which were already known to be larger than quarians. This turian was certainly taller than any of the defenders of the camp. For a moment, she was silent.
"Guess that puts a stop to your little ruse, doesn't it?" the second-in-command barked bitterly.
The turian waited a little bit longer to reply. "It would appear that we don't have anything left to say to one another," she agreed in an incongruously friendly tone of voice, shrugging. She began to turn, apparently satisfied by her endeavor, when the second-in-command called out again.
"Wait! We just… why are you doing this? We have no quarrel with you. We didn't even mean to be here. Why would you attack us? What do you have to gain? We only want to leave. You can see we're willing to fight you off if we have to. Surely whatever you want is not worth a confrontation like this."
She turned to face him fully. Turians did not smile like a human or a quarian would, but there were subtle signs of mirth that the skilled could track, such as the way their mandibles flared or the narrowing of their eyes. "Did you really just ask me that?" Her tone had gone from conversational to coldly amused in an instant. "First of all, you seriously overestimate your ability to fight us. You're not nearly as much of a threat as you think you are-trust me. Second…" She chuckled lowly. "You're in the Terminus systems now, little quarian. Everything is worth taking from someone else. Quarian slaves happen to pretty popular these days."
She glanced over the camp. "Especially the female ones."
Kal felt his fingers tightening on his rifle. Anger bubbled in his stomach and rose to tighten his chest. He could see his comrades seizing up in similar muted expressions of rage. He tried to calm down. Surely she'd expected this sort of reaction. What was she getting at? Showing herself like this was a bad tactical move for anyone. Kal began to suspect she was bluffing. Either that, or she was up to something else...
She turned her back, which, even for bluffing, was just plain stupid in Kal's opinion. "It's getting late. We'll give you another few hours to decide to surrender. We will see to it that your wounded are nursed back to health if you stand down." She had started to walk back towards the enveloping dark of the woodlands.
There was a pause, and Kal heard an angry female voice shout somewhere at the back of the camp, in explicit detail, just where their turian guest could shove her proposal. He grinned despite himself.
The turian outright laughed. "Very well." She took a few more steps, and the quarians tensed themselves. She paused after a moment, and then said, so softly that only the soldiers closest to her could hear, "Really?"
She half-turned. "Really? You quarians-you're not going to shoot me in the back?" She shook her head. "Wasted opportunity."
It was a few moments after what passed for midnight on the little moon when she said this. There was a sudden bright flash, and on the seventh day since crashing to the surface of Shasta Trinity, a flash of burning brilliance screamed somewhere out of the sky and streaked down, blowing up half of what remained of the grounded Kildeira.
"Quarians are too easy." The turian's shields were immediately assailed by projectiles, but in another instant she was already gone, and several more obviously armed hostiles were taking her place. While she had been negotiating, her men had been taking their positions, to obviously devastating effect. Kal glanced once back at their refuge in horror. The wounded had been in there. The non-combatants had been in there. Veetor had been in there. He didn't know if their signal was still operational, or if anyone had survived the blast. He didn't even know what manner of weapon had even caused the explosion yet.
He didn't have time to worry, because the advancing line of armed enemies was demanding his current attention, and if there were any lives left in that burning husk of a ship, it was up to him to defend them. He leaned out of cover, squeezed the trigger, and got to work.
/
Veetor had been thrown aside when the explosion rocked the ship, and now stared in horror at the flames billowing into the corridor and out of the ragged hole in the ship's side. It was all chaos now, all smoke and unbearable heat. His comrades were struggling to move the wounded, scattering in all directions like a nest of upturned ants. He saw a small male quarian struggling to drag away another whose leg was in a cast, and Veetor wordlessly moved to help.
Outside, the air sizzled with gunfire. There were shouts and bangs and flashes of light too bright to look at. Confusion had permeated the sanctity of the ship and surrounded it in a cloud of violence. Everywhere he turned, there was some new, horrible calamity to confront. He struggled to hold on, not to let himself retreat away from it, because he had enough presence of mind to know that he would probably die if he did that. Fear kept him lucid. He failed to appreciate the irony of it.
Some of their comrades had been killed in the blast. Veetor froze when he saw their twisted bodies, and he shivered, turning away to help move the wounded to a more secure location. When he leaned down over the quarian with the broken leg, he recognized the older fellow he'd helped days earlier. He saw that his facemask was cracked. "Oh, no."
Another explosion knocked him off his feet, and he tumbled over the ground. Scrambling up, he looked back to see more of the ship had been reduced to molten slag. Someone must be firing some kind of… of rocket launcher or something. They were taking away their last place to hide! Veetor felt his thoughts tightening and tunneling, but he resisted. These people needed him. "We have to move him!" he shouted at the smaller quarian that had been helping him pull his charge.
But the smaller quarian was dead. He had been caught in the blast, and now lay against the side of the ship with his neck twisted at an awkward-looking angle. Veetor quailed in fear. There was no-one here to help him. There was no-one here to help the old man! With a strength born of desperation, he grabbed the unconscious quarian and began to drag him off.
/
It wasn't a battle. It was a disaster.
The ground troops were unprepared for the ferocity of the defenders, that much was true. Kal notched up three kills before the soldiers finally got wary of him. Someone managed to stick a grenade on the first barricade, and Kal and his comrades barely had time to scramble back to the next bit of cover before it blew, sending lethal shards of shrapnel singing past their heads. Then it became a tense game of "I shoot, you shoot" while the hostiles used what was left of the cover they had just destroyed.
A flash of lurid orange light caught Kal'Reegar's eye. He saw a streak of smoke, and a blossom of fire. The ship had been hit for a second time. They had someone in the trees. That someone had a grenade launcher. Shit. They were destroying the heart of the camp, the signal, and the best cover the quarians had to fall back on. His heart sank when he saw the destruction caused by the second blow.
No way anyone caught in that would have survived it.
A wave of rage and sorrow hit him hard, and he turned his attention to the trees. They had to take that one down as soon as they could. "I'm going to try and pick off their man in the trees," he shouted to the quarian next to him. "Moving north. Cover me!"
He didn't wait for a response, but instead dove out of cover and made for the next barricade at a flat run. The configuration of his legs allowed him to move closer to the ground than was comfortable for a human, batarian, or turian, and within moments he was back in cover without so much as a stutter from his shields. Before he could even slow down, he noticed that the quarians that had backed up here were dead. A humanoid soldier in full armor was crouching by them. He saw Kal and raised his weapon.
Without breaking his stride, Kal leapt at the man and caught him in his midriff. He knocked him off-balance and used the momentum of his sprint to take his adversary out. They tumbled together for a moment. In that single instant, Kal realized that the man's shields hadn't yet regenerated from his assault on the quarians he'd just killed.
Kal hit him against the side of the helmet with his rifle. The man grunted and heaved Kal off of him, using his superior bulk to force Kal away. It was an instinctive move, but the wrong one. The new distance gave Kal enough room to aim and shoot, which he did furiously. The soldier was thrown jerkily back in a spray of red mist, and finally went still. Kal hurriedly moved back to the shelter of the barricade, popping a thermal clip as he did. He quickly searched the dead soldier for additional ammo.
He found a sniper rifle folded against the man's back.
Keelah, I couldn't really be this lucky. He pulled it free, triggered its release, and watched as it unfolded neatly before him, sturdy and ready for use. Kal eyed it appreciatively. I guess I am.
/
The noncombatants had moved the wounded-whose ranks had now swollen thanks to the assault-to the side of the ship facing away from their unseen grenade-launching assailant. It was a temporary solution, and they all knew it. Veetor hurriedly went back to the burning ship to search for more, and found nothing but the dead, and was soon forced back outside by the heat. He stared for a moment at the burning wreckage, an oddly unconcerned and thoughtful figure in the middle of the crouching, snarling mass of fighters scattered all around him. He studied the hole torn into the side of the ship, still glowing with heat.
His focus tightened.
He saw the impact on the ground, the angles at which the dirt and floor had been disrupted and scattered. His mind made a few quick calculations and he turned to the trees. He brought up his hand, his Omni-tool glowing against his arm, and tapped rapidly on it as he turned his gaze back and forth between it and the wreckage. It was sheer luck that kept him from getting hit as he stood by the flames. Finally, he pulled his gaze away and upward. Someone was out there. Now he knew where they were. Possibly, they knew where he was, too. He quickly cast left and right, saw the telltale glowing sphere of a combat drone, and hurriedly made his way towards the engineer he saw commanding it.
"There's a man in the trees with a rocket launcher!" He shouted.
The engineer looked back incredulously. "I noticed!" he squalled back.
"I have his coordinates. Overheat his weapon!"
The engineer looked down between their glowing Omni-tools, still a little startled by the sudden appearance of the quarian he didn't recognize. "You sure this is where he is?"
"Yes! I studied the wreckage! He'll fire again!"
There was no authority Veetor's voice, but there was conviction. The engineer looked to the trees. The position that Veetor had given him might very well be out of range, but if he had half a change to sabotage the bastard with the rocket launcher, he would take it. He nodded, tapped in the coordinates, and waved his arm. There was a tell-tale flash and plume of smoke. "I'll be damned! Got him for now!"
Gunfire forced them to take cover together. Veetor realized that, in his haste, he had very stupidly ran into the middle of battle. He still had Kal's pistol. He took it from his belt and held it uncertainly as the engineer returned his attention to the fight and cheered his combat drone on.
/
Kal had moved closer to the general area he'd seen their airborne assailant fire from. He wasn't going to be able to take him out without some covering fire at least. He crossed two more barricades before he found any other quarians. The sight was disheartening. The attackers were pushing them towards the center of camp, where they would be forced to die or surrender.
Kal readied the sniper rifle and, paired with a soldier that agreed to be his spotter, crouched and waited. They didn't have to wait long.
"There!" Rather than give him a direction or degrees, the spotter simply grabbed the barrel of the rifle and pointed it towards the target. The eyepiece banged against Kal's faceplate, but he saw a flash of light and a burst of smoke through the scope. He grinned to himself. Someone had just sabotaged their grenade launcher-wielding friend. He silently thanked them.
A single well-placed shot knocked the unfortunate batarian clear out of the trees. Kal heard the satisfying whump of his body hit the ground even from that distance, and over the gunfire. He would have liked to have tried to recover the launcher, but they'd have to leave cover to do it. It would be suicide.
He pulled the sniper rifle away and noticed something glowing and red moving swiftly towards the gathered soldiers from the trees. A FENRIS mech!
It wasn't the only one, either. Several more red lights were swarming across the clearing, moving low and swift, their ghostly white armor reflecting the wan starlight back. "Looks like they just sent in the second wave. Shit," Kal switched his assault rifle out for his shotgun and waited for them to come within range.
The FENRIS wave turned out to be part of a simultaneous assault coordinated on several fronts. Their foes had limited manpower, and knew that they were dealing with tech specialists, so they had sent in their best soldiers first to wipe out resistance and pick off any engineers they spotted. The quarians would not be as prepared to deal with their mechanized forces that way. The FENRIS broke through on the south side, forcing the quarians to fall back and rally their forces to this new assault.
Kal'Reegar's team had little trouble dispatching the three that rushed up. One was expertly shot at range. The other two were dealt with by Kal's shotgun and another quarian's assault rifle. The explosion of the last one's passing was impressive indeed. "Time to fall back. They need us on the south side."
As the soldiers carefully made their way, they ran into LOKI forces already moving in. One or two of them were able to be hacked, but against the sheer number of the remaining mechs, it was hopeless. The fighters were split up and disorganized. The wounded were compromised. The center of the camp was in flames. Kal just bore down and fought harder.
Another explosion rocked the sad remains of the Kildeira and nearly knocked Kal off his feet. He'd seen that rocket-propelled projectile enough to know what it belonged to. He turned and saw the slowly-advancing shape of a YMIR mech, advancing with a pack of lethal mechanical dogs at in its wake.
/
Veetor's engineer had been attacked by one of the FENRIS mechs. The thing had skidded around a corner, startling both quarians and knocking the engineer to the ground before either could react. A single jolt, and its stunner had rendered the man helpless. His combat drone angrily buzzed over, shocking the FENRIS and drawing its attention. Without thinking, Veetor shot at the mech.
He missed. The FENRIS turned its broad flat head towards him. The combat drone zapped it again, and it spun to face it instead, lunging. Upon impact, the drone's outlined flickered, died, and then it exploded, knocking the mech of its feet. Veetor fired again, and this time hit it twice in quick succession, which caused another explosion. He stared incredulously at the blackened pile of debris. He'd done it!
His engineer friend seemed down for the count, though. He grabbed the other under the arms and began to drag him away when their abused ship was assaulted for a third time. He crouched back down under the wave of heat, balking in horror, and peeked out from behind his cover. Oh. A YMIR mech. That was great.
It was distressingly close, too.
Veetor immediately crouched down and pulled his Omni-tool online. It was no small feat for it to wirelessly seek out the mech, but he paused before he tried to hack it. It would be in the camp soon. It could be a danger to his own people even if he did hack it. No. It had to be stopped and destroyed here. He typed furiously at his Omni-tool with two fingers, trying to infiltrate its system.
It had newly-installed advanced security protocols. I did that, he thought to himself as his mind rapidly processed and dissected the lines of code flashing in front of him. They did that because of me. The thought instilled him with a bit of confidence. This mech had been defended against Veetor. It was his.
He peeked out again and saw that it had an advance guard of FENRIS mechs. Immediately an idea came to him, and Veetor got to work. He broke from cover, side-stepping quickly while he tapped at his Omni-tool. He'd only meant to draw attention away from the unconscious engineer, but to his horror, the YMIR had already raised its weapon, and did not hesitate to fire. He dove for cover, ducking down and frantically typing. There.
A single FENRIS mech turned and flung itself at the YMIR, nearly causing the larger machine to lose its footing. It was quickly dealt with. It exploded.
The FENRIS mechs were easier to hack, and they could be used like four-legged guided missiles. Veetor needed to switch positions again, because the YMIR was getting a little too close for his liking. To his surprise, it suddenly turned as someone opened fire on it from across the camp. Veetor remembered with a start that he wasn't alone. There were other quarians here. They could definitely do this if they worked together. He quickly shuffled to a proper barricade, typing as he went, and sent another FENRIS snapping at the heels of the YMIR.
Veetor felt the last vestiges of his fear draining, and he surrendered to the straining flex of his mind. He let it tunnel itself, let that cold hand grip his thoughts. He was all around the YMIR. He was in and out of cover, his movements quick and precise, his hacking lethally fast. He did not look like a soldier as he distracted and attacked, wreaking his havoc from the glowing orange gauntlet on his hand. He looked like an artist.
One of the attackers' bodies had ended up propped awkwardly against the ruined rubble of one of the barricades. He had a recording device built into his helmet, and it logged this prolonged struggle with the YMIR from the beginning to the end. Later, it would be recovered and someone would watch it. Specifically, someone would watch Veetor. For now it was ignored. It was just a corpse on the battlefield.
Another FENRIS exploded. The mech's deep synthesized rumble began to stutter.
/
Kal moved with the soldiers towards this new threat immediately. They didn't have time to study it closely as they moved, only watching for obvious changes in direction or intent, and as such Kal was quite surprised when he saw that it was opening fire on one of the FENRIS. Good for their engineers!
At about that time he heard shouting over the radio. "We have lost all engineers in this sector. Repeat, all engineers in this sector are gone. There's some… some quarian down there with a pistol and an Omni-tool taking care of the mech on the northwest side of the camp. Any remaining engineers, get down there and help him! Soldiers, cover him! Keelah, who is this guy?"
Kal covered one of his comrades while she used her Omni-tool to overload the shields of the beleaguered mech. The machine was being distracted by the assault, being attacked on so many fronts that it barely had time to turn before it was forced to pivot again. The quarians' luck didn't hold out forever, though-soon the LOKI security mechs moved in, and they had to be dealt with. They were backed by the remaining soldiers.
"Shit. Should we move to another position?" One of the team asked Kal.
Kal'Reegar shook his head. "We stay here and cover their asses while they deal with the YMIR! Won't take us long to deal with these bastards."
His team nodded, and then dug in, tearing into this new assault force. The fighting had tightened to two focal points-here, at the feet of the mech, and back to the south side of the camp, where the last defenders were holding off enemy forces from their wounded. During a break in the fire, when the quarians had downed the last LOKI, Kal glanced back to the YMIR, which was being attacked by yet another FENRIS. A lean figure darted away from cover and began to tug at a quarian on the ground.
Kal did a double-take. Wait.
It was Veetor!
/
The last FENRIS had finally been dispatched against the YMIR, which was beginning to show damage for all its trouble. Veetor had done what he could, but he needed to get himself and his engineer out of here while he could. He wasn't a fighter, and he knew it. As Kal was realizing the identity of the YMIR's tormenter, Veetor was struggling to move his comrade.
Unfortunately, the YMIR had spotted this movement, and as he started to pull the groggy and barely-conscious engineer to his feet, it fired.
The blast of the rocket sent them both sprawling. The barricade exploded and went spinning in all directions. The YMIR staggered back, stunned by the shrapnel flung back at it. Veetor shook his head and grabbed the engineer, stumbling to his feet. He tugged. The YMIR raised its right arm. The engineer began to stumble. "Whoah, what-"
The YMIR opened fire. The engineer's shields stuttered, but held. Veetor's shields had been depleted by his earlier dance with the team of FENRIS mechs, and did not hold. His knees buckled. He screamed.
The engineer, galvanized either by the humming of his shields or the cry of his kinsman, grabbed Veetor and tackled him into cover. The YMIR advanced on them both.
/
Kal had been readying his sniper rifle. It had only been mere seconds since he recognized Veetor. He aimed for the YMIR'S head. Its shields were down, and its armor was depleted. A single shot was all he needed. He heard a hoarse cry. He recognized it. He felt a cold weight, like a stone, drop in his chest.
But he was a soldier, and he did not pull his helmet away from the eyepiece. He steadied his arm, watching the flashes of the YMIR's gunfire reflected on the mech's dented armor.
The mech slowly closed the distance between the two quarians crouched in cover. A shot was fired. When the sound faded, the mech had no head. It stumbled, stuttered, and fell. Kal pulled his face away from the scope to see the engineer scrambling towards them, dragging Veetor with him. They both hit the dirt when the YMIR exploded.
Kal snapped his sniper rifle to his back, unfolded his assault rifle, and leaped out of cover, running towards them. He wasn't thinking. There was no room in his mind for thought. There was only anger. He skidded to a stop by them and helped the engineer bring Veetor to cover. There was blood on his front, Kal realized with horror.
"Keelah, Veetor, you trying to make me look bad? Taking down two YMIRs by yourself?" Kal asked as they set the quarian down. Immediately his Omni-tool flashed, dispersing medi-gel to his wounded friend.
Veetor laughed softly. "Not by myself." He seemed to be having trouble catching his breath. "Hi, Kal."
Kal'Reegar swallowed with difficulty. "Hi, Veetor."
They were finished. These people weren't going to stop, and there was no way they would last until morning, not with their sadly-depleted numbers. He looked to the engineer, who hefted his shotgun purposefully. He looked to his comrades, who nodded tersely at him. He looked to Veetor who, to his surprise, seemed to have picked up on the mood and was gamely holding Kal's pistol. The sight tore further at the soldier's inadequately-protected heart.
"Looks like this is it. Let's give 'em all we got," Kal said.
As it turned out, such was unnecessary.
The sky ripped open, apart, flooding the ground with blinding white light. Everyone turned away from it, or crouched, stunned, under the force of the glare. The quarians' visors immediately darkened to deal with the sudden brightness, and a few of them even looked up.
A ship was slowly descending over the camp. There was a high-pitched whirr, and then the sharp retort of gunfire. Dirt and detritus rose in a line at the perimeter in the camp. LOKI mechs were shattered. Slavers were shattered-though their resulting explosions were less flashy and a lot wetter. The ship lowered further. It was old, its hull patched over in places, overlaid with many flat layers of metal in an oddly feather-like design. Once, it had been turian.
"This is the scout ship Yagangar of the Migrant Fleet." A female voice boomed over an exterior-mounted amplifier. There was a pause while the crew inside apparently assessed the situation. "Woah." An eloquent quarian curse preceded the ship opening fire on the treeline again. The air rattled with bullets, sending a clear and eloquent message to the remaining hostiles gathered around the camp.
This siege was over.