Chapter 7: At Knife's Edge
In shield fighting, one moves fast on defense, slow on attack. Attack has the sole purpose of tricking the opponent into a misstep, setting him up for the attack sinister. The shield turns the fast blow, admits the slow kindjal!
-Gurney Halleck, "Dune"
It took Shepard all of about 7 minutes to realize they were being tailed. The Turian following was, if nothing else, professional about his work. There was nothing to be seen to the untrained eye other than a random pedestrian going about his business. But Shepard had seen, fought, and killed more than a few children of Palaven in her time, and knew better than most the walk, stride, and look of one moving with a purpose. Poor timing this one, she hadn't expected for their location to be found out by the Hierarchy for at least a couple more days, time which she was hoping could be used to gather more supplies and meet another contact.
Ever the master of the inward scowl, Aliya forced her expression to remain unchanged as she discretely signed the new problem with some discrete motions of the hand. Her two compatriots, quite familiar with the subtle communication signals being sent their way, nodded reluctantly, realizing that their commanding officer was once again disregarding the fact that she had subordinates to delegate tasks to and was going to more or less handle this situation by her lonesome. She did, however, bring herself to assign Mr. Taylor one task. Carefully removing a small, cylindrical object from his bandolier, Jacob applied a very small, almost unnoticeable amount of biotic energy to it and slowly sent it floating through a nearby crowd, unseen as it made it's way to the intended target.
It was slight, almost unnoticeable, but Garrus saw it. He had been found out. This trio, despite their outwardly unremarkable appearance, clearly were at least perceptive (dare he say trained) enough to notice his pursuit of them. A disconcerting turnaround to say the least. The Spectre was renowned for, among other things, his skill at stalking and tracking his target, pursuing his prey like a vengeful spirit whose work was not yet complete, all the while remaining unnoticed to the poor sap(s) he was following. To have been discovered, especially in such a brief span of time was most dissatisfying. However, more importantly, it put his mission in jeopardy to say the very least. Realizing that this situation was likely to turn south at any minute, Garrus Vakarian slowly reached for the pistol holstered on his hip, all the while maintaining an even pace and constant line of sight with his target.
In an instant, his world erupted in noise and light. A powerful explosion suddenly rocked a nearby apartment complex, sending passer-by's flying from the shock wave and others lying on the ground, screeching in agony. Garrus himself was taken slightly by surprise, the flash and sound of explosions and terrified voices filling the air all at the same time left him slightly disoriented. Quickly righting himself and regaining his bearings, he attempted to reacquire line of sight, only to be denied by the panicked mob now rushing and jostling around him. Frantically glancing about, the Spectre desperately tried to regain control of the situation when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted her. The presumed leader of the group, now dashing towards him, certainly hoping to clear the at least 50 meter distance between them, moving gracefully through the frightened crowd and denying Garrus his shot.
Fighting between the Humans and Turians had always been a bit of a coin-toss. The descendents of a long-extinct bird of prey who's next step was to gradually make the transition to land-dweller, the Turian eye was unequaled in keenness of vision, able to see at distance more than a half greater than that of a human eye, as well as a superior capacity to track rapid movement. Though it was rumored that some infants of the new generation had closed some of the gap thanks to new advancements in in-vitro genetic engineering, the vast majority of humans were thoroughly outmatched in visual prowess. While it made little difference in duels between snipers (those battles involved technology that allowed one to see distances further than ANY species could discern), Turian rifle-men had always possessed an advantage at the distances now experienced by Garrus Vakarian and his opponent. Urban warfare however, was a different animal.
Though the Turian eye was unequaled in distance, the transition to land-dweller had not been completely kind. With a shifted perspective to that of their ancestors and a new imperative to focus on tool use, their eyes evolved to focus in on objects closer to themselves, causing a substantial, long-term decrease in their field of vision for modern Turians. Thus, it limited their situational awareness compared to that of an average human, whose eyes had a visual field of 200 degrees on monocular vision and 120 degrees of binocular vision (compared to 160 degrees and 105 degrees for the Turians), giving the Humans a distinct advantage in city combat, where where visual distances were shortened by artificial constructs and being able to see threats coming from the side a second sooner meant the difference between living and dying.
This disadvantage now began to work brutally against Garrus. The explosion had sent the crowd of pedestrians into a frenzied panic. With no way of knowing the cause or direction, a mob of gradually ascending chaos had begun to rush around him, quickly allowing his quarry to become lost in a haze of fleeing bodies, jostling him about and limiting his vision even further. Suddenly, a pair of gunshots rang out. Distracted though he was by further screams, he took note of the flecks of mortar that speckled his eyes a moment, signaling that the blasts had nearly grazed him and made contact with the wall behind him.
Suddenly, in his narrow peripheral vision, he spotted her again. Rushing towards him quickly, darting through the crowd. Raising his pistol to attempt a shot, she dove behind a piece of rubble several meters away just before a new rush of bystanders shifted his position. Suddenly, through the thinning flood, he caught movement again. Turning to face it, the gun was swiftly knocked from his hand. A pistol was raised between the corner of his, and acting on instinct his hands rose swiftly and knocked away his opponent's weapon as well. The two swiftly moved into fighting stance, giving Garrus a split-second to really take in his adversary.
His enemy was indeed a human female, if the borderline creepy similarity to an Asari was anything to go by. Though few Turians could tell one human from another, there were some features Garrus could determine. She had dark skin, was probably a dozen centimeters shorter than him, and had short black hair. Her eyes were unusually striking though, carrying a steely determination and an unmistakable edge of hate, a trait not uncommon in many human eyes as they gazed upon the sight of their mortal enemies. No doubt a trait shared by a great many of his own people, each side having slain more parents, lovers, and friends than there were stars in night sky. His musings were brought to an abrupt end however, by the tell-tale glow of her rapidly forming omni-blade. Quickly shifting his stance and attention, Garrus gracefully extended into a modified combat position, his own omni-blade coming to form.
Omni-blade combat was tricky business. Originally, they had only been intended as a quick "stab-and-dispose" weapon, until someone had the bright idea to tie the blade's power-source into secondary capacitors hidden on the greaves of armor hard-points. As a result, the weapons could now last up to thirty minutes until the mass-effect field collapsed. They were rather awkward, being wrist mounts and all, but the "blades" were virtually unbreakable and the searing hot silicon-carbide could slice through armor with the same ease as Salarian flesh. A fact Garrus kept well in mind as his adversary's illuminated carbide weapon sliced towards him in a swiping motion.
The two thrust and parried for several minutes. Garrus' height, and subsequent reach, exceeded the female's by a fair margin. However, his human opponent was clearly well-practiced, with what seemed more than a fair amount of experience battling Turian enemies in melee combat and substantial flexibility and agility to back it up, allowing her to move fluidly inside his reach. Their personal kinetic barriers only complicated the situation further, as the mass-effect fields in which the blades were suspended would slow down the movement of their weapons if they made contact with the shields at too high a speed, breaking the rhythm of their attack at a vital moment.
Nearby, the sound of sirens rapidly approached. The authorities, no doubt summoned by the deafening explosion which rocked the area, were making frantic pace via air car. However, between the panicking crowd and general confusion, odds were good that they were still about 10 minutes away. He'd have to end this swiftly. Spectre or no, Illium authorities took a rather conservative line when it came to punishing those it viewed as criminals.
The situation was getting quite a bit more desperate than initially anticipated. Ducking underneath a quick swipe of her enemy's weapon, she took note of the increasing intensity of the noise from the local sirens. The police would be upon them soon, and she had the sneaking suspicion they were going to make some kind of issue about her decision to have her Master-at-Arms biotically fling a grenade at a nearby apartment complex to distract her unwanted follower. Spinning to avoid her foe's next jab, she analyzed her options. Odds were good that her officers had already made it back to the ship and told everybody to haul ass and prepare for a quick take-off into the final frontier. All that was left for her was to end the distraction and piss off when she had the chance.
She quickly analyzed her adversary. A tall bastard, like most Turians, it was a good bet that he was also considerably heavier than her. Rather than trying her luck in a grappling match with what was no doubt a Spectre moonlighting for his home-world on the side, she quickly decided upon a course of action both impressive and insane. As his omni-blade came down upon her, she quickly raised her own in a parrying motion. The turian sped up the pace of his weapon, no doubt expecting to make contact, only for Shepard spin out at the last moment. A feint! Realizing his error too late, her enemy lost balance slightly, over-committing to the thrust and subsequently thrown off by the omni-blade's mass effect field making contact with her kinetic barrier at a relatively high speed. Using the momentum from her motion, Shepard continued her spin and lept into the air, smashing her enemies arm against the weight of her leg and greaves with a fierce side kick.
Crying out in shock and pain, the turian hesitated a moment before the Aliya proceeded to follow up with a devastating right hook to his jaw, damaging one of the mandibles and knocking the Spectre to the ground. Seeing her chance, Aliya Shepard deactivated the mass-effect field and allowed the blade to drop off, dissolving almost instantly as the field was no longer available to contain the intense heat. With that, the Cerberus captain disappeared into the crowd.
"Shit."
Really, there was no other thought Garrus could verbalize to accurately sum up his day. His target escapes, he has a barely functioning arm and mandible within a hair of being broken, and local authorities arriving mere moments after it all happened, with him at the scene of the crime, meant almost 36 hours of intensive non-stop questioning. Always the same things being shouted, "We're not a Council world," "Limited jurisdiction here," "Respect our laws," "8 killed, dozens wounded," the usual song and dance local cops gave him every time something went wrong. All he ended up getting for all his trouble was a further blow to his pride when he was informed that the vessel he had been trying to find had escaped the dock's lock-down order in the nick of time, and in the confusion slipped out of the system.
Finally given leave to go after the officers reluctantly acceded to his point regarding technical Spectre immunity (Council treaties could be a real bitch to local cops), he wearily trudged his way back to his little headquarters. He was not looking forward to the reports to be made tonight: losing his target, civilians killed, and a potential interstellar incident between Illium and Palaven to boot. Hard though it was, Garrus made some effort to find a silver-lining in all this. He now had a ship, information on what they were gathering and how they were gathering, and face without a name. That would have to be enough to tide him over for now.
One thing was clear now though: whoever this human was, she had just caused a major pain in his ass to develop. As far as Garrus was concerned, that was more than enough to make this personal...
"Well, that went pretty well if I do say so myself!"
Joker glanced at his commanding officer, an upturned eyebrow his only response.
"Uh...captain. You do realize that we had to cut our trip short by about 3 days and slink away from Illium security forces with our tail between our legs right?"
Shepard waved a dismissive hand in kind.
"You always worry too much Joker! A set-back nothing more, that situation could have gone much worst."
Her helmsmen merely sighed in response before turning his head back to the view screen.
"That's not exactly a rousing endorsement of the outcome Captain."
A slight pause filled the room, giving the acerbic pilot a small amount of concern before his captain responded in an even voice.
"Joker, I have had a very long day. If want to look on the bright-side of this situation, that is my right as the goddamned Captain. And as your Captain, I'm giving you a standing order to smile and look at the silver-lining this instant. Understood?"
Slightly terrified, Joker quickly plastered a forced grin on his face before swiveling his chair completely around.
"You know me captain! Always ready to look on the bright side of life and all that."
A small grin adorned Shepard's face in response.
"Excellent, I knew I could count on you to help maintain crew morale! Carry on Mr. Moreau."
Shepard made a leisurely retreat from the cockpit. When the door closed behind her, Joker slumped back in his chair and heaved a sigh of relief. Friends though they were, Joker knew better than most how terrifying Shepard could be when she perceived others as making an annoying day worst.
End Chapter.
AN: I'd make an excuse for why this is so late, but I don't really have one except for the fact that I'm lazy and I drink a lot *wink *wink. Hoping the next update won't be so long (I actually have some ideas for moving on from here, so hopefully writers block won't be an issue next time). Leave reviews loyal readers (and disloyal readers as well ^_^)!
