Firebase Ghost, Benning
Day 1, 1100
"This is Alpha, checking in. Two minutes to target."
"This is Charlie, checking in... err... one and a bit minutes to target."
As the shuttle began to rattle, and lurched ever-so-slightly, Saffiya took one last look around at the crew packed within. Her own team consisted of two other biotics sat either side of her – a fellow asari, Rafea, and an eager-looking turian, Manado. Much to Saffiya's disquiet, the latter of her two squadmates had yet to see combat, a prospect which hardly inspired her with confidence...
Charlie team looked formidable, at the other end of the shuttle. Tyco was already familiar to her, bulky and black-armoured, and looking rather nervous about having his own command. To his left was another human, Vimes, a former C-Sec sniper, and opposite them were a third human, a female who she didn't recognise, and a quarian, who was dually examining Mantis and Mattock rifles, one in each hand.
A loud jolt brought her attention back to the mission, and slowly, subtly, she began to feel the shuttle decelerate and drop.
"Goddess be with you all," she murmured, rather quietly – not quietly enough, however, as Tyco still heard it, and looked at her as if surprised at the concern.
"We'll be waiting for you to clear the LZ," he muttered, as the shuttle lurched again. "Good luck."
With that, the shuttle swung again, the door raised skyward, and Saffiya found herself rushing towards the door, silently beckoning for her team to follow. She leapt from the edge, drifted down on a current of biotics, and took a quick look back – Rafea and Manado were both behind her, ready to go.
They had dropped onto an expansive landing pad on the edge of a rooftop. As they advanced, Saffiya could see, to the right, team Bravo deploying in the apartments above – through an open doorway, she saw the drell Mac'Tir grab a Cerberus trooper unawares, and garrotte him with a steel blade. The vanguards of Bravo were moving room by room, it seemed, preparing to strike from above.
"Up there!" Manado hissed – the turian's cry brought Saffiya's attention back to the matter at hand, and she was rather grateful. Sure enough, two Cerberus troopers were stood ahead of them, inside one of the modular colony buildings. The two men were staring out of a window, and Saffiya was amazed neither of them had spotted the approaching biotics – a single glance to the right would have revealed them, and surely they had heard the shuttle land?
Nonetheless, the two men seemed blissfully unaware as Alpha approached. Saffiya was already preparing biotics, her fingers rippling with energy, before she realised she had two biotics at her heel, ready to help. It was novel, after working alone so frequently.
"Stasis fields," she whispered, trying not to alert their targets. "Rafea, hit left. Manado, right. On three... one, two... three!"
For possibly the first time in her life, Saffiya put her trust in her subordinates' biotics, and lunged at the two men. To her relief, both of them froze long before she reached them, and the stasis fields held long enough for her to obliterate one trooper with her own biotics, before dragging the other to the floor. A quick blow to his throat from the heel of her boot, and the man slumped dead.
"Good work," she nodded, feeling rather strange as she said it. "Move up, stay quiet..."
They did just that, creeping through the room the two troopers had been occupying – it was empty, aside from the two corpses, and as they paced through, the only defenders Saffiya could see were a Centurion and several troopers in the next pre-fab block. Perhaps, if they were quiet enough...
Any hope of stealth, however, soon went out of the window. On the other side of the base, a dreadful din rose up – Bravo, it seemed, had launched their attack. The loud cracks of biotics and gunfire mingled, and the Cerberus squad Saffiya had been watching all turned to follow the din.
"Open fire!" she spluttered, hoping to exploit what little surprise they had left on their side. She launched a spitting biotic fireball through the window and into the next block, reducing the nearest trooper to dust. Moments later, Rafea and Manado sent their own warp-shots towards the enemy, pulverising building and occupants alike.
The returning volley of fire, however, had them all ducking for cover. At least two of the Cerberus troopers had survived, and the whip-crack of shots on the far wall made Saffiya's instincts hurl her towards the window ledge, ducking beneath it until the firing stopped. She popped up, blasted another shot at the offending parties, and was rewarded by the scream of a disintegrating trooper. Before anyone could deal with the Centurion, however, they were suddenly and inexplicably blinded in a thick grey haze.
"Smoke!" Rafea yelled, answering the unspoken question in Saffiya's mind – what the hell was that?
Before she quite knew what was happening, a hefty kick caught her side, and her stomach dropped – the Centurion had waded through the smoke to flank them, and the most she could see of him was a dull form amidst the haze. The justicar lashed out with a flare of biotics, and the hefty trooper staggered back.
He kept staggering right into Manado's path – even through the smoke, which was now beginning to thin, the turian managed to lunge out, take a swing with her omni-blade, and cut a clean stroke through the trooper's back. Another stab, to the middle of his spine, and the Centurion dropped to his knees, then to the floor, quite dead.
"Thanks," Saffiya coughed, picking herself up. Despite her training, surprise still found a way to mess her up – the kick to the ribs had winded her, and she was still half-blind in the fading smoke.
"My pleasure, ma'am," the young turian replied, rather more brightly than the justicar expected.
"Now move!" she continued, sprinting out of the room quite gladly – the smoke was playing hell with her eyes.
As they burst out into bright, precious sunlight, another group of troopers was just arriving, rushing through the adjacent chamber – the colony pre-fabs, which all looked identical, were toying with her sense of direction – and taking aim. Before any of them could fire a shot, the justicar scattered them with a furious shockwave, hurling men left and right until all four of them hit the floor. Two of the men were instantly bombarded by biotics by her two squadmates, the other two were finished off by pistol shots.
With a chance to catch their breath, the three biotics paused, still casting around with their weapons – pistols for the two asari, and a lethal sniper rifle for the turian.
"Bravo, come in," Saffiya muttered, into the radio. "How's it going over there?"
"Just fine," Mac'Tir grunted, and the justicar could have sworn she heard the sound of tearing flesh in the background. "Troopers keep on coming, how's it on your end?"
"No contacts left," she replied. "You need a hand?"
"No, but if you want to get some kills in, I won't stop you..."
With a slightly resigned sigh, Saffiya beckoned to her two companions, and set off at a run through the pre-fabs. Ahead, and slightly above, they could hear the clash between Mac'Tir's vanguards and the Cerberus troopers – the troopers were dug in to a series of office buildings just a ladder's climb above them, so close that a discarded thermal clip rolled over the edge and dropped past Saffiya's head.
She pressed a finger to her lips, praying the gesture translated to turians like it did to humans, and leapt onto the ladder, scaling it in a couple of seconds and crouching low as she reached the top. A desk lay between her and at least half a dozen Cerberus gunmen, who were all so focused on Bravo they didn't spot the justicar approaching their rear.
Once Manado and Rafea had joined her, Saffiya let her own biotics flow to her fingertips, took a deep breath, and leapt over the desk – her first shot went off like a cannonball, slamming into a trooper's back and causing him to slump dead against the wall even as his body dissolved in a blue haze. A second later, Rafea had torn another trooper apart, and Manado had whipped a third off his feet, subsequently blasting him out of the air with her sniper rifle.
The Cerberus troopers seemed divided, unsure which set of opponents to aim for, and the biotics exploited this instinctively – the first two men to turn and shoot at them were hurled through the window by another of Saffiya's shockwaves. As more turned to attack, the trio unleashed everything they had. The barrage was quick and messy – within a few seconds, every trooper in the room had been pulverised by biotics, and the three of them were standing, panting, in victorious silence.
"Reinforcements, on the roof!" Mac'Tir cried, through the radio – because of course, nothing could ever go quite to plan, could it? Sure enough, the blare of jetpacks and the clatter of footsteps rang through the ceiling. The vanguards were shooting up at them, but nonetheless a few troopers made it past their fire and dropped through the windows – Saffiya sent one of them hurtling back through it with a wave of her hand, and watched as Manado slashed another across the chest with both omni blades, killing him instantly.
Behind the troopers, however, came a dreadful sight – a lithe, hissing form swung through the window in their wake, and Saffiya could barely register just what the hell it was.
"Phantom!" one of the vanguards yelled, but that didn't really answer her question. What did answer it was the figure's sudden cartwheel across the floor, as it launched a kick at Manado's head.
The young turian fell back with a cry as the Phantom's leg cracked against her brow – a moment later, the hateful figure had drawn, as if from nowhere, a short-barrelled pistol. Acting on impulse, Saffiya lunged out, and watched in satisfaction as the pistol ricocheted away off the wall. The satisfaction was short-lived, however, as the Phantom drew a shimmering blade from its hip – her hip, maybe? The thing looked slightly female...
Only indecision saved them, the justicar would later conclude, in hindsight. As the Phantom tried to decide whether to stab at her or Manado, a dull rush filled the air, and seconds later the room exploded with biotic thunder. Mac'Tir had lunged through the door with a formidable biotic charge, knocking the two other biotics back and tackling the Phantom. The two broke apart, and to Saffiya's amazement the drell was facing his opponent, blade drawn.
They came together in a mess of hissing and clashing steel – the Phantom's first two blows were parried narrowly away from the drell's throat, before he sidestepped, dealt her a crack across the temple with the hilt of his blade, and then drove it deep between her shoulder blades. With an inhuman shriek, the thing fell to the floor, dead, as Mac'Tir pulled his blade out and wiped it casually on the trail of his coat.
"Amonkira guides my blade, it seems," the drell murmured, in a tone of contemplation.
Saffiya nodded, still slightly dazed. Her brain, already beginning to tire from such vigorous use of biotics, was still trying to work out just what the Phantom was. Eventually, she came to the conclusion that she was better off not knowing.
"That's all of them," one of the other vanguards sighed, as he walked into the room. "For now."
"Charlie," Saffiya called, into the radio. "We've pushed them back, you might want to set up positions before reinforcements arrive."
"Got it," Tyco muttered. "We're on our way."
