"Charges are set. I suggest you make haste on the way out." Saren's voice over the comm was emotionless as ever, but she didn't doubt that he was serious, and deadly so.

Shepard punched a few keys on the data terminal, sacrificed a few precious seconds until the download completed and the small data chip ejected, then she turned and ran for it. Usually she would have objected to blowing the science facility sky high - not that Saren cared one way or another about her opinion - but after seeing the sort of research that had been conducted in this place she really wanted it gone. There were some rare moments when she agreed with his disturbing approach that most problems could be solved with carefully executed violence, absolute lack of remorse and liberal application of explosives.

Her stomach still turned at the thought of what they'd found in there. So far, she hadn't even heard about an organisation called Cerberus, but human group or not, she was very glad that they'd actually hadn't been successful in taking one of them alive. Saren had been annoyed, of course, but she had felt nothing but relief. By now she knew very well what he was capable of when he was looking for information from someone he considered a criminal and expendable. She hadn't seen him interrogate a human yet, and she shuddered even to think of it. Given Saren's opinion of her species, he probably would be very creative in his methods. And after what she had seen in here, she was certain that she wouldn't even have made a token attempt to save any of them from the turian Spectre. She would have just stood aside. Hell, maybe she'd even helped. And that made her feel even more sick.

She raced along a corridor, made a turn, then another, very conscious of the time ticking away. Saren wasn't a believer in large safety margins, and her way out was considerably longer than his. They'd had to split up, him to set the detonation charges, her to retrieve what data she could from the main computer while the facility's VI was doing its damned best to get at the two of them with a small army of Loki mechs. She only hoped she had managed to disrupt the control unit for the mechs for long enough to make her escape.

Another turn, and she passed an inactive Loki, not even slowing down. A locked door barred her way to the garage which was her way out, and she wasted precious time in hacking its circuit.
After an eternity, the door opened and she started running again, eyes on the slowly opening hangar door that led outside. The garage was empty of vehicles, but there were a number of Loki mechs standing around immobile.

She was almost through the garage door as her brain managed to resolve the huge shape in the corner to the right of the garage door into something familiar. Ymir mech.
As she tore past it, she saw out of the corner of her eyes that it turned its head, its faceplate lighting up.
She didn't have the time to try and fight it or hide, so the only thing she could do was to keep going at full speed and hope. The only thing she could do was engage her kinetic barriers.

The terrain outside was just barren yellow sand broken by rock formations that weren't higher than her hip and worn smooth by wind and sand. There was no chance of her reaching their Mako rover in any reasonable time, so she dove behind the first of the small rock piles she came across and went flat.
Fractions of a second later, a rocket hit a couple of meters left from her, showering her with hot shrapnel and rock splinters.
Then came the sound of the Mako's gun, which surprised her. The turian had to be in there, and presumably was playing tag with the Ymir, but she wasn't about to lift her head to confirm.

And then the facility blew up.

Armoured suit or not, the sound was deafening as she as well as the pitiful cover she was lying behind were lifted and thrown, then the sky went dark as something came down on her, and then everything went dark.

She couldn't have been out for more than a few seconds, but the next thing she knew was that it was dark, she couldn't move, everything really hurt and the controls on her left wrist were flashing. She whimpered as she fought to lift a hand enough to punch the necessary controls to release her suit's supply of medigel.
The pain receded, but she didn't fool herself into believing that she was out of the woods yet. The control had changed to read that her medigel supply was empty, and that there was unspecified but severe damage to her right side somewhere between shoulder and hip. Very helpful, she thought grimly as she tried to sit up. She had lifted her head - or tried to - and encountered something solid.
It took her a bit to get the suit's flashlight up, but as she did, she wished for a moment she hadn't.
What was above her was as far as she could tell at least a large part of the garage door. The only reason she hadn't been utterly crushed by it was that there still was some stubborn parts of rock propping the thing partway up, leaving just enough room for her. She couldn't really move her feet, but she suspected that she wasn't stuck, there was just not enough room.

There was no way in hell she could move that metal plate on her own. And probably even less chance of rescue. They were too far away from any settlement or city. And Saren wouldn't bother to try and dig through this to find her. The most he would do was inform the authorities before he went offworld again and maybe have someone sent to dig her out, if he was in a charitable mood. Maybe not even that.
In the end it didn't matter, she probably didn't have that much time anyway.

She bit her lips, fighting down panic. This was ugly.
Her suit was definitely damaged, but she as she tried she couldn't tell whether comm really was down or whether she was just ignored.
She strained her ears, but there was nothing but the rush of her own heartbeat. The metal seemed to press down on her. She was very well that was an illusion, but that didn't help, really, and she had to force herself to breathe slowly.

She wasn't dead yet. An N7 didn't just give up.

Then the metal plate above her groaned with the typical sound of strained metal and shifted very slightly, and she was certain that that was it and she was done for. But the plate didn't slide to one side but upwards, in a very slow but continuous motion. Her hearing still was impaired, but she could definitely make out the hum of machinery now.

What the...

She rolled to her side as room became available and drew her legs in. To her relief she found she could move at least that much.
From the sounds above her there was now debris sliding off the slowly lifting plate, and she winced with every scraping sound. Fine debris rained down on her, getting into her mouth, nose and lungs, and she went into a coughing fit.

More scraping, this time from the direction of the rock she'd been pressed against. Then the boulder was moving aside, and she was suddenly face-to-face with Saren. She'd never been so glad to see anyone before, period. Right now, regardless of what he was, and was like, she could have hugged him in sheer relief, so it was probably better that she couldn't move.

Before she could properly decide whether she was hallucinating or not he had already hooked a claw into the neck of her suit and pulled. All breath went out of her, and she almost blanked out again, only dimly aware that he was actually dragging her out, with an efficient disregard of whatever sharp parts snagged and tore at her.
With a final sharp pull, she was aware of daylight, and she expected to be dropped, but instead he just kept his hold on the neck of the armour and stood, taking her up with no apparent strain like a man holding a kitten by the scruff of its neck. Apparently the intention was to set her on her feet, but her knees buckled, and she crumpled again, which caused him to slightly hiss in displeasure as he released her and stepped back.

She didn't hit the ground as she'd have expected to, but instead found herself sitting with something smooth and metallic and not quite steady at her back.
Risking a glance, she found herself resting against the leg of the Ymir. She was too exhausted even to try to draw away in reflex, but it wasn't interested in her anyway. It was in standby at the moment, still holding the fragment of the garage door up. The reason for its change of attitude was apparent enough. It had sections of its armour plating missing where the underlying machinery was visible. The covering of its main access port was missing, and wires and small extra parts were dangling from the opening.

Saren must have hacked the mech and then rigged something like a remote control to make it behave like that. That meant that he'd had to whittle its defences and weapons down first, without damaging the mech too much to be of use. It might have been dumb luck, of course, but she didn't believe this for a second. Saren didn't believe in leaving anything to chance. He was maybe one of the most arrogant creatures she'd ever encountered, but lately she was forced to admit he had some grounds for it. He was good, very good at what he did.

"Fix yourself up already so we can get out of this place. You can have your injuries tended properly at the spaceport if necessary." He looked even more sour than usual, probably due to the prospect of having to wait for her.
Okay, so she was going to skip the hug part.

"Out of medigel." she croaked, her throat too dry to speak properly.

Saren squinted at the controls of her suit, then snorted. "Doesn't look like that to me."

Automatically, Shepard glanced at the controls, and found that he was right, the gauge actually read almost full. That didn't seem quite right, but she was too fuzzy to give it much thought. Instead, she did as the Spectre had said, waited until the medigel had kicked in enough so her legs were able to support her once more, for the time being.

As she drew herself up, she found herself alone. The mako's engine was already running, a not-so-subtle reminder for her to get going. Shepard limped over and got herself into the mako, heaving herself into the seat.

Saren didn't even look at her as he kicked the mako into gear.

Shepard looked at him carefully, still amazed that he hadn't left her behind. "Thank you." she said softly.

The turian gave an annoyed growl. "Next time, run faster."