Chapter Eight: Enemy Of My Enemy

Tali'Zorah vas Neema cracked open the access hatch and poked a fiber-optic cable through it. It opened into a maintenance gantry overlooking the bay where mass transit cars docked to pick up output from the factory; the gantry ran across the bay to another door that, according to the schematics, would lead up to the main warehouse area.

She stared at the screen, tapping her foot in anxious worry. The bay was open to the rest of the warehouse, which meant anyone inside would have a clear shot at her the moment she stepped out onto the gantry, and there wasn't much cover. But it was the least secure approach to the rearmost warehouse area and the offices beyond where Kal was being held. There were likely other hatches further down, but they would either be more secure or didn't show on her schematics.

Nothing ventured, she decided, and quickly opened the hatch the rest of the way. She stepped through.

Without warning, the factory shook violently, and she tumbled through the hatch. Heart shooting up into her throat, Tali activated her cloak and scrambled sideways before she'd even found her footing again. She dropped into a crouch, scanning the warehouse, and could hear warning klaxons overhead. Her suit sensors picked out at least two dozen mobile element zero masses and power sources overhead, rushing toward the far end of the factory, and she could detect local fire alert warnings in the factory's automated emergency-response systems.

In the distance, she heard gunfire and explosions.

Someone else was attacking the factory. She didn't know who or why or how long it would take them to break through, but her experiences thus far told her not to trust anyone on the Citadel. She had to reach Kal'Reegar before they did.

Tali rose and moved as quickly as she could to the door without compromising her camouflage.


Zaeed Massani rampaged into the chamber beyond the entry dock. That wasn't a verb normally reserved for movement, but the term was applicable when one stomped forward through fire and bullets, blasting away with a multi-barreled mass accelerator and periodically launching rocket-grenades. The floor shuddered under the pounding feet of his Wolverine as he thundered into the room, picking up a couple of armored targets twenty meters away, fleeing for cover behind a piece of heavy manufacturing equipment. He targeted and triggered the guns, the mech shuddering under the force of its own hypervelocity fire. Their shields lasted for a second and a half, while their armor didn't last a third that long.

The room beyond the entry was the typical factory setup, lined with machinery along the walls, cranes overhead to transport refined goods, and flatbed conveyers to move incoming materials to the machinery. Storage would be deeper in, and that was where the quarian would be stashed.

He'd just have to murder and explode his way back there and pull the poor bastard out.

Zaeed stomped into the factory area, sensors tracking half a dozen hostiles, all armed with small arms. They appeared on his display as red wireframe circles around either their visible shapes, thermal overlays, or VI-generated humanoid markers, and all of them were scrambling for cover. He could pick out bursts of signals as they communicated back and forth via radio, no doubt trying to coordinate a counterattack.

Bullets pinged off his armor as the mercenaries sprayed blind fire around corners and over machinery. It wasn't intended to actually stop him or even damage his mech, but rather wear down his shields; continuous small arms fire would steadily drain shields that could resist anti-tank munitions if enough bullets were fired at them.

He snorted. One couldn't wear down shields if the kinetic barriers weren't programmed to activate in response. His Wolverine's shields were modified to ignore small arms unless the incoming round was about to hit something sensitive, like one of the clusters of microcameras or other sensors mounted on the hull. Zaeed came off as a brutish thug at times, which concealed his other attributes; one didn't survive in this business as long as he had without knowledge of weapons tech and the minutiae of the same. He'd reprogrammed the shields on his mech personally, and fine tuned it, his armor, and personal weapons for maximum efficiency. It, coupled with sheer cussed determination, gave him the edge to survive a career fraught with explosions and miscellaneous injuries.

A gleaming red "Missile lock detected" flashed across his screen as he crossed the manufacturing area, and Zaeed sneered. About damned time they woke up.

A quartet of rockets screamed toward him from across the room, big ones fired from shoulder launchers. Zaeed sidestepped, the deck pounding under his feet, and the active defense system mounted on his walker spat hypervelocity rounds at the incoming missiles. Two of them exploded before they could reach him, and another was clipped and went careening off to the side to explode against part of the assembly line. The fourth hit his shields, a mass effect field springing up right before impact and detonating the rocket, deflecting the shrapnel and kinetic force away. The mech shuddered but otherwise remained stable, and Zaeed bit out a laugh.

His sensors had backtracked the launchers to their source of origin, a platform across the manufacturing bay. He picked out a collection of mercenaries among the heavy crates and shipping containers and leveled both his mech's guns at them.

"Have to do better than that," he snarled, and returned fire.


"He's cutting a hell of a swathe," Kaidan noted as

"Your grasp of the obvious is inspiring, Lieutenant," Shepard said as she advanced down the corridor. She checked her omnitool as they paused next to a sealed hatch. "This access takes up to the loading lift in the third warehouse section. The office section is just beyond."

"On it," Kaidan said, stepping past her and firing up his own omnitool. Garrus and Shepard took opposite ends of the corridor.

"Okay," the mutant Marine said after a moment. "Bad news. That friendly fellow in the REV12 up top has triggered a total security lockdown. This hatch is part of it."

"I hope there's good news," Shepard replied, and Kaidan grunted.

"More bad news first. Our friend who came in ahead of us went through here first. That triggered a flag and heightened security on this hatch. Local VI is watching it." He paused.

"The good news . . . is that . . . ." There was a beep, and she heard hydraulic pumping. "That VI isn't quite good enough."

The hydraulics hissed and the hatch began to slide open, the separate door sections sliding up and down slowly. It got wide enough that Kaidan could angle his body through when it suddenly stopped and a harsh buzzing sound rang from hatch's panel.

"Dammit!" Kaidan hissed and grabbed the top of the hatch as it started to close again. He planted a boot on the lower half of the door, and with a snarl, he tightened his muscles and stopped the door cold.

"VI's locking it down! Get inside!" the mutant bit out, and Shepard hurried through the opened doorway. Garrus followed as she swept the room beyond: a maintenance gantry overlooking the bay in the warehouse floor that transports would rise up into to dock and load. As Garrus pushed through the door, she could hear Kaidan snarling, and turned toward him.

The door was closing slowly, despite his inhuman strength, and Shepard realized that Kaidan wouldn't be able to lever himself through the door at the rate it was shutting.

"Alenko, wave off," she ordered. "Find another entrance. You're no good if you get crushed in that door!"

"Aye, ma'am," Kaidan growled, and released the door. It hissed closed as he backed away into the corridor as it descended. "I should be able to get in through another entrance!"

"Understood," she said. "Report when you get through." She turned around, sweeping the bay, and gestured toward a door at the far end that the schematics said would run up to the warehouse.

"There," she said, and Garrus nodded in turn. They started bounding toward it, Shepard in the lead with her heavier armor, and Garrus behind her, covering her rear with his long sniper rifle shouldered. They charged down the gantry, the metal ringing under their boots, and Shepard caught a flicker on her sensors-

Garrus' long rifle pounded behind her, and she distantly heard a choked cry of pain and the wet impact of a round punching through body armor and the flesh underneath. On her sensors she saw at least two other contacts appearing above, at the edge of the bay. The air overhead erupted with gunfire.

Shepard looked up as she ran for the door - less than twenty meters away now - and clenched her left hand. Dark energy swirled around her as she picked out a target. There were two mercenaries, one human and one turian, wearing the same color armor as the men they'd killed in the tunnels. They crouched at the ceramic railing overlooking the bay with weapons shouldered.

Shepard's hand pumped. Gravity pulsed around her and a blast of force rocketed out away from her arm, hurtling up at the human. He ducked behind the solid railing, but the biotic throw curved slightly en route and slammed into the mercenary's upper chest and head as he dropped behind cover. The impact snapped the man's head backwards and sent him tumbling away, unconscious but alive.

The turian mercenary's rifle barked out several quick bursts, hammering her shield and punching through the metal of the gantry. She raised her weapon to fire, and then the merc's head snapped sideways and dark blue blood and chunks of helmet flew up into the air on the opposite side of his helmet. The report of Garrus' rifle echoed around the bay.

"That was impressive," she murmured as she reached the door. It slid open as they approached.

"Took too long to line up," Garrus replied over the comm. "But they know we're here. We need to finish this fast."

The factory shook again, and a long, savage roar of heavy mass accelerator fire sounded from the entrance to the structure. Something else exploded, and more gunfire echoed through the warehouses.

"I think they're going to be a little busy," Shepard said as she ducked through the doorway, and Garrus followed her.


Whatever it was he was shooting at, the enormous mound of machinery didn't like it, and expressed its displeasure by exploding violently. Zaeed had to take a few steps back lest the walker tumble over. Metal shrapnel deflected off his shields. He glanced at his status display and bit out a curse. The active defense system had taken a hit and was malfunctioning.

The enemy infantry were still firing at him from multiple directions. He ignored the small arms fire, hunting for heavier weapons that posed a real threat to the walker. The hull continued to ring from bullet impacts and the periodic flash of the shields deflecting incoming shots at vitals. He stomped forward, pushing through the smoke and chaos and fire, rounding the burning pile of slag that was once factory machinery.

The onboard VI highlighted a pair of thermal signatures, one on either side of the factory, high up. He looked up on his holo-display, and spotted the two mercenaries on catwalks overlooking the factory about twenty meters up. He saw one with a missile launcher and another setting up some kind of heavy cannon, likely anti-materiel. He targeted the missile launcher, his autocannon rising, but the enemy trooper beat him to the shot.

The missile erupted from the launcher and screamed toward him, smashing into his shields. The mass effect barriers shuddered under the impact and the walker stumbled backward and sideways. Zaeed snarled and bit out a couple of curses as he steadied the walker, and the impacts of small arms fire intensified as the infantry saw his moment of weakness.

His eyes flicked to the walker's internal displays. Shields were out, recharging. It would take a few moment for the launcher to reload. But with his shields down-

"Clever bastards," he bit out while pivoting toward the opposite end of the factory, raising both cannon and missile launcher. He sighted and fired both weapons at the anti-material gunner. The mercenary was still lining up the heavy long-barreled rifle at the mech when Zaeed's cannon fire washed over him in a stream of armor-piercing hypervelocity rounds. His shields held against the first dozen impacts, but the next hundred ripped through his armor and tore him apart. The micro-missiles followed a heartbeat later and blew the remains to vapor and smashed the cannon to pieces.

Zaeed backpedaled, mostly on instinct, and pivoted toward the launcher. His internal status displays were flashing some yellow lights as the weight of enemy fire was making itself known; a dozen men with assault rifles couldn't seriously damage the walker, but the bastards were persistent and with his shields down some shots were hitting the few parts that were exposed and vulnerable.

The mercenary up high had reloaded his weapon, and the launcher fired again. Zaeed kept retreating backwards, pounding over the deck, and dove sideways, triggering his thrusters to give him a boost. The walker slammed into the floor and rolled in a hellish cacophony of grinding and scraping metal, and the missile smashed into the floor a few meters away. The explosion gouged a several-meter-deep furrow in the factory floor.

Zaeed scrambled to his feet, the mech standing up only a little bit more awkwardly than a man in full body armor. He checked his systems as he rose, and saw that for the most part they were undamaged, save the still-unresponsive ADS. The missile, like most non-mass accelerator projectile weapons, had been an anti-armor device intended to penetrate ceramic and metal plating with a directed shaped charge. It wasn't designed for anti-personnel work, which ironically had saved Zaeed from taking further abuse thanks to hypervelocity shrapnel.

As he stood, Zaeed sighted the asshole with the missile launcher, who was frantically reloading his weapon. The old mercenary snorted and leveled his own launcher. The four rocket-grenades that impacted the gantry made sure he'd never get a third shot off.


Tali crept along the lines of crates along the storage bay, her attention divided between half a dozen tasks. In one corner of her helmet she had data feeds from her suit, giving her information on the power draw on her shields and stealth systems. In another there was a local terrain plot from her suit's sensors, feeding her a plot of the piles of hovercar crates and machinery superimposed over the factory schematics. Three separate windows were open in another corner, tracking the movements of each of the groups of intruders in the factory: the insane mech pilot in the manufacturing bay, the human and turian in the same storage area as Tali, and the lone human in the tunnels below the factory, looking for an entrance. Other data feeds were scattered around her HUD: hacked internal cameras tracking enemy troops, status displays of the active intrusion runtimes she'd inserted into the local systems, and updates from her other hacking programs attempting to gain further access to local systems.

It would have been far too much data for anyone lacking a mind-machine interface to understand - unless they were quarian. Tali's earliest memories were from behind the helmets every quarian wore, and like all of her species, Tali had become accustomed to being surrounded by data displays and constantly-shifting information. She navigated the dizzying array of ever-changing input without even really thinking about it as she crept through the warehouse.

She kept adjusting the parameters on her hacking programs while watching for possible enemy contacts on her displays; she had to be cautious lest she alert the already-wary security VI, which was almost as well-designed as a quarian-coded unit. Popular misconception held that quarians were somehow naturally superior to others when it came to technology, including coding their security systems. The reality was simply that quarian culture was steeped in technology and a quarian was surrounded by complex machinery from birth; a human, turian, or batarian who was born and lived on a constantly-repaired battleship three centuries old would get just as much technical expertise as any quarian. Very few did, however.

She looked over the three sets of intruders - not counting herself, of course - and wondered who they were. Two of the humans wore GDI-issue Intervention armor and the mech was a REV12 Wolverine, but the turian was an anomaly. Were they some other group of mercenaries who had managed to acquire GDI gear? Or were they actual GDI troops? It seemed too chaotic and uncoordinated for a GDI raid, and they would have been expected to use a lot more firepower. Or was it someone else? Shadow Broker? Blue Suns or Eclipse in disguise? Brotherhood of Nod was possible, too. Pheonix Group? She considered the possibility that it was a joint GDI/Citadel operation, but dismissed that as ridiculous. The Citadel would never permit them to operate on the station.

Tali shook her head. She didn't have time to figure out who was attacking. She was close to the office section, which was located on the far wall of this warehouse section. She could see a control room about ten meters up and thirty meters away, and two figures in armor, apparently conversing on the other side of the plate armor-glass. She zoomed in on them and activated a small laser on her omnitool. With a gesture she activated a laser microphone program on her omnitool. Seconds later she could hear the figures inside talking.

"There. I've sent the alert up the relay," said one voice. He was young, male, human, anxious.

"Good," replied the second. Older, certain, definitely batarian. "Seal the outer doors and bring Fourth back to deal with those two in the warehouse. We'll set the heavies in Third, Fifth, and Sixth inside the first warehouse section once he breaches those doors and blow him to hell."

"On it now," the human replied. She could hear the beeping as he hammered away at a haptic interface. "Sealing the doors and recalling the squads. Orders are out. Aines and Houg Balu are mobilized and moving out."

"Have Aines help kill those two in the warehouse," the batarian said. "Houg Balu will help kill the mech."

"Yes sir," the human said. "Orders acknowledged."

"And grab three men," the batarian added, "Keep the quarian under guard. If anyone approaches, kill him. The boss won't like it but we can't risk him escaping and alerting GDI or the Citadel."

"Yes sir," replied the human. Tali's heart shot into her throat again. She had to get to Kal'Reegar before the mercenaries killed him. The others in the warehouse would distract them, but . . . .

She switched over to her hacking runtimes, and checked to see what they had access to. On the internal cameras, she could see that the mech was inflicting all manner of explosive gruesomeness on the troops retreating from the manufacturing section, and the doors connecting that section to the first warehouse were steadily closing in the ponderous manner that countless engineers across the galaxy felt was appropriate. She looked over the access she had inside the warehouse and selected door controls.

Tali paused, considering. The local VI would detect anything overt she did immediately; passive access to cameras and internal sensors and wireless communications was one thing, but outright manipulating the interior of the facility would set the security on her and make things a lot harder.

Nothing ventured, right? And if you have to reveal yourself, make sure you do so in the most devastating way possible.

Tali accessed the security system and announced her presence to the VI by issuing a blanket override that opened every door in the factory, then locked it completely out of that subsystem. Every door inside the structure, from the restroom stalls to the heavy factory doors, began to trundle open and lock in place. An instant later the security VI began squawking and started tracing her connections inside the factory's network, but it was too late to prevent her from unsealing all accessways inside the facility.

She started forward again, under the cover of the mech pilot's renewed assault as he stomped across the threshold into the warehouse and the mercenaries suddenly found their jobs tenfold more difficult.


Shepard remained in the lead as she and Garrus moved between two lines of shipping crates, the turian Spectre covering her rear with his long-barreled rifle. The weapon thoomed behind her as she reached an intersection in the warehouse and checked her corners. Her sensors showed some contacts close by, but not many.

"Hostile down," the turian murmured, and she grunted in acknowledgement. She checked a superimposed schematic with the real-time map her suit's sensors were assembling. They could have moved faster, climbing on top of the containers with Shepard's jetpack, but that would have exposed both of them to fire from multiple directions. The container-corridors were safer, if slower.

"Moving, my left," she said, and stepped into the intersection, spinning in that direction. Garrus was right behind her, covering the right.

"How far?" he asked as they moved between the crates.

"Right, ten meters," she said. "Open loading area. It'll give us a straight shot toward-"

Three contacts suddenly closed in, dead ahead.

"Two low, one high, fifteen," she barked, dropping to one knee. Garrus spun around behind her, rifle pointing over her head. Fifteen meters down the container corridor, two mercenaries swept through a gap in the crates, rifles shouldered. Garrus and Shepard fired at the same time, the Spectre's shot hitting the leftmost mercenary in the throat and punching clean through his shields. He jerked back, blood fountaining from his ruined neck, and toppled. The second traded a pair of five-round bursts with Shepard, but his shots were wild and thrown off by his movements and the sudden death of his companion. Shepard's rounds were dead on, with eight of the ten bullets impacting the hostile's shields around his head and collapsing them. He ducked back behind cover as Shepard triggered another burst, catching the mercenary in the gut. He was spun around by the impact, blood spraying, and went still.

Both Spectre and Commando immediately shifted their aim up as the third mercenary, a turian, appeared on top of the crates, firing down toward them. Shepard's shields flashed as they deflected the incoming bullets. Her Werewolf battered down the merc's shields and Garrus caught him dead center in the chest before he could drop into cover.

"Down to thirty percent," Shepard reported on her shields.

"I'll take point," Garrus said, and slid past her. She didn't argue, spinning around to cover his rear. The turian started down the container passage, but then halted. Shepard's back bumped into his, and then she saw what had given Garrus pause on her sensors.

Two major power flares had appeared on their sensors, one heading toward the far access door and the other heading straight for them.

"Mech!" she warned, and could hear the hissing of the thrusters the approaching heavy armor suit needed to launch itself across the warehouse toward them. She looked up, spotting the bulky two-meter-tall armature as it landed on a container twenty meters away, the pilot raising both of the walker's arms to fire.

Garrus and Shepard reacted at the same time. His omnitool flashed and a microgrenade hurtled out toward the walker at the same time as Shepard twisted dark energy around her arms. The gravity throw she launched at the mech hit it low in one of its legs. It didn't have enough force to knock the mech down, but it did force the mech back a step. Garrus' ECM grenade hit an instant later, and every weapons system and safety feature on the walker went haywire as the microgrenade triggered overheat alarms.

It bought them a bare few seconds, and Garrus took them, charging down between the looming containers for the gap Shepard had specified, and she chased him. He reached the corner and dove around it, and she leapt after him.

The corridor behind her exploded as hundreds of hypervelocity rounds and three rocket-grenades ripped along the metal floor, gouging furrows and hurling shrapnel. Shepard's shields beeped insistently inside her helmet, warning her that they had been blown out, and pain flickered along her legs from ruptures in her suit.

She scrambled to her feet, her suit pumping medigel into the minor shrapnel wounds. Garrus helped her rise and handed her the Werewolf she'd dropped during her dive. He didn't say anything, instead chopping a hand down the passageway between the containers. She shook her head as the walker fired another couple of bursts at where they had been.

"We have to kill it," she shouted over the din, and he nodded. He slid a canister out of one of his armor pouches and tapped a couple of buttons on the side of his rifle, while Shepard switched her Werewolf over to grenade launcher mode. She glanced back to him as he ejected another canister from his rifle and slid the new one in.

"Tungsten rounds," Garrus murmured, and she nodded as he modded his rifle. Within seconds the weapon would be reconfigured to fire the new ammunition type.

Then the walker's thrusters fired again, and it launched itself over the containers to get a better firing angle. It came crashing down on one of the adjacent metal structures. They raised their weapons and opened fire as it came down.


Jacob jumped from data feed to data feed, trying to see what was going on inside the factory. Fire and smoke were pouring out of the front entrance, and both C-Sec response units and fire and rescue were likely going to be responding at some point. Spectre authorization would slow down the response, but wouldn't hold them off forever. In the upper right corner of his helmet's HUD was a running status report from his VI as it traced the frequency used by those scout drones he'd detected earlier. If his hunch was right, they belonged to the lunatic in the REV12 walker that was shooting up the building.

"Sir," Lieutenant Durant called over the radio. "Do we go in?"

"Standby," Jacob said, shaking his head. He couldn't see anything inside, and the sensors in his suit couldn't pick up anything with all the usual ECM associated with any raging battle where everyone had omnitools.

"Taylor!" came a sudden call over the radio, and he winced.

"Admiral, this is Taylor, go ahead," he replied.

"What the hell's going on down there?" Admiral Parker yelled. "Is that a Wolverine I see stomping through the front doors? Why didn't Shepard tell me she had a Wolverine on standby?"

"That's not ours, sir," Jacob replied. "Trying to figure out what's going on now."

"Well, C-Sec's going nuts, judging by the radio traffic," the Admiral shouted. "They've got response units arguing with their dispatchers over that Spectre's orders! We don't have time to waste or this thing will go to shit! Get in there!"

"The Commander hasn't called for help yet," Jacob replied, doing his best to keep his voice reasonable and level. That was how you dealt with the mentally unstable and flag-level officers. "Sir, we need to keep those C-Sec response units from coming in and fouling things up. Last thing we need is paramedics and fire units getting caught in the crossfire."

"Lieutenant, I'm not going to have Marines open fire on Citadel personnel, if that's what you're suggesting."

Jacob's heart nearly stopped.

"Uh, sir, that's not what I was suggesting at all," he replied.

"Oh. Well. Sorry. Maybe I should call them up and try to explain," Parker added.

"Maybe leave that to the Ambassador, sir," Jacob suggested. If Admiral Parker started talking to C-Sec and telling them there was a Spectre-authorized GDI raid ongoing, they might start calling in frigates and cruisers. The Citadel knew of Parker's reputation.

"Good idea, Lieutenant," Parker said. "I'll call Udina and sort this out so we keep the police off your backs. In the meantime, get in there and pacify this mess!" The channel closed, and Jacob let out a sigh of relief at the defusing of that particular tactical nuke.

I am not being paid enough to be a negotiator, Jacob thought as he switched channels.

"Commander, this is Taylor," he called. "Do you need us in there?"

A moment of silence passed over the radio.

"Commander," Jacob called again, "Do you-"

"Killer mech, can't talk!" Shepard suddenly shouted over the radio, followed by a crashing explosion. The line went dead.

"Uh," Jacob said, and made a split-second command decision. He switched channels while reaching for his Werewolf. "Durant, this is Talyor. Admiral's given us orders, we're going in! All squads move in!"

He fired up the hovercars thrusters and swung it around, lifting out of the airborne parking space he'd taken and diving toward the entrance to the factory. As the vehicle descended, the VI flashed a message to him that it had managed to get through the countermeasures around the drones' frequencies. He brought up the communications frequency and keyed it into his radio. The VI hadn't broken the encryption between the drones and the mech driver, but he didn't need to know what they were saying to one another.

"This is First Lieutenant Taylor, GDI," Jacob announced over the radio as the car dropped toward the factory receiving docks. A half-dozen other cars descended around him, carrying the rest of the platoon. "Acknowledge."


The mercenaries' resistance lightened up dramatically as Zaeed blasted through the first warehouse section. He'd been worried for a moment when the doors had started closing, and had been preparing to set his armor's VI to hack the doors when they'd unexpectedly begun to reopen. He'd initially suspected an ambush, but the way the mercenaries had started flat-out fleeing and hiding told him that the opening blast doors were just as much a surprise to them.

That meant someone else was in here. And if someone was opening the doors for him, it meant they had a vested interest in making sure he did his job. And that told Zaeed that someone was using him to their own ends.

Zaeed didn't like being used.

He was most of the way through the first warehouse with only a few of the enemy thugs shooting back at him when his VI flashed that he was receiving an incoming radio message. He flicked it on, and what he heard next didn't terribly surprise him.

"This is First Lieutenant Taylor, GDI," said a young man's voice. "Acknowledge." Zaeed grunted and flicked on his transceiver with one hand while blowing up a mercenary with the other. He was an old hand at multitasking.

"GDI?" he asked. "I thought this was a Citadel op, to be honest."

"Identify yourself," Taylor demanded. Reasonable request from the lad.

"I'm the bloody Grim Reaper," Zaeed replied.

"Well, Mister Grim Reaper, you're in the middle of a joint GDI-Citadel operation," Taylor continued without missing a beat. Zaeed liked him already.

"You asking me to leave?" Zaeed asked. A trio of micro-rocket grenades caught two more optimistic mercs as they emerged from cover to fire. Messy.

"I would hate to be forced to open fire on you," Taylor replied. "Check your fire and we won't need to shoot at you."

"That's how its going to work then?" Zaeed asked with a grin. He activated his thrusters and leapt forward fifteen meters, clearing some containers. He could see the second door up ahead, and on his trackers he could pick up maybe half a dozen mercenaries still in this section of the factory. Almost none of them were firing now, and he let them be.

"Lieutenant, you know the first rule of infantry interactions with vehicle-mounted weaponry, right?" Zaeed asked. A moment of silence followed. "Infantry are infantry. Without proper IFF you're all targets."

"I'm not giving you GDI IFF codes," Taylor responded, and Zaeed nodded.

"Well, that's just sensible." He gunned down another optimistic mercenary and stomped through the second set of double doors. "But don't fret, Lieutenant. I was a Marine too."

He tapped a couple of keys on his haptic display as he moved through the doors, sweeping the warehouse beyond for hostiles. He spotted several enemy mercenaries getting into elevated positions. The second warehouse area was wide open, with tall stacks of containers on either side of the chamber; perfect for setting up a crossfire. There were a few containers and some loading equipment scattered around the area, abandoned in the wake of the sudden attack, maybe. The stacks of shipping containers made for an excellent killing ground.

"You're still using Mark VI Intervention, right? Hanhe-Kedar standard-issue, modular template?" he asked.

"Why?" Taylor asked in turn.

"Because if you are, that makes programming my armor to recognize you a lot easier," Zaeed said. he checked the container stacks again, but the mercenaries up there seemed content to leave him alone as they regrouped. They were planning another ambush.

Or were they? His eyes narrowed as he thought carefully about this warehouse and what the enemy would be doing. They were almost assured to try to hit him in a crossfire here. Cover favored them far too well. But they had to know that he knew that, and they were still reeling from his assault through the first warehouse.

"Yeah, Mark VI suits," Taylor confirmed, after a few seconds of consideration. "No Zone armor, just Marine units."

Zaeed tapped a couple more keys and then linked his camera feeds to the outgoing transmission.

"Got you," he said, and spotted more than thirty highlighted contacts, most at the entrance to the factory and moving in. "And a bit of cheer and goodwill for you, too, so you know what I'm shooting at, eh?"

As he spoke, he advanced into the warehouse, weapons high.

"This means you'll cooperate?" Taylor asked.

"It means that we've got the same enemy," Zaeed said as he stomped forward into the oddly un-hostile warehouse. "Not that we're friends. You know the old maxim, right? The enemy of my enemy?"

"Yeah, is my enemy's enemy, nothing more," Taylor finished.

"Just don't touch the quarian," Zaeed added. He was ten meters into the warehouse, and no one had shot at him yet. That meant the ambush was pending and growing closer every second. "The quarian is-"

The enemy mech powered up and rushed the opposite door. It must have been in standby, because his sensors suddenly flared with the thermal signature and the active element zero core without any warning, and a heartbeat later it had leapt up on thrusters to vault over some intervening cargo modules on the other side of the far door. The walker hit the deck with a deafening crash of metal and ceramics and charged straight toward him, mass accelerators on the left arm and automatic grenade launcher firing. It was a tall, slender thing, not as squat and wide and squarish as the Wolverine. It had a sharp, angular design with longer legs and thinner arms; a turian Steelclaw walker.

At the same time, two cargo containers on either side of the room flew open and more than forty spindly, humanoid drones clambered out, armed with pistols and submachineguns. The head-shaped sensor units on their heads gleamed a bright red as they strode forward with mindless, machine determination.

Then the mercenaries on the cargo containers on either side of the warehouse leapt up and opened fire.

"And there's the rub," Zaeed said with a snarl. His accelerators and grenade launchers opened up, and he fired his thrusters to move sideways and forward, as a hundred hypervelocity rounds slammed into his shields and armor.


Tali found two ways to reach the offices from the warehouse. The first was an exposed stairway that ran up from the warehouse floor, while the second was an open elevator. The former would be covered by proximity sensors, and the latter would reveal anyone trying to use it. Neither option favored Tali's approach, so she did what quarians were experts at: improvisation with technology. She climbed the wall.

Her gloves and boots had mass effect field generators in them, which were nearly standard equipment for quarian engineers, who had to work in zero gravity. Under the cover of her optical cloak, she ran up to the wall and activated them, scrambling up the wall toward the offices overhead using the gravity field the gauntlets and boots generated. She couldn't use them for long; the power draw was enormous and would show up on any sensor pointed in her general direction, but they served to get her up onto the stairs' landing. She vaulted over the railing and dropped into a low crouch, drawing her pistol.

On her sensor displays, Tali spotted one contact inside the offices. It was the batarian officer she'd noted earlier, who was tapping away furiously at a terminal before him and snapping orders and an enormous heavy rifle leaning on the console beside him. The display before him flickered between a tactical map and various camera feeds from around the factory.

She paused to check her own, and grimaced behind her facemask. According to the data feeds, the madman in the Wolverine was currently engaged with another walker and about forty drone mechs, as well as overhead fire from multiple mercenaries. In the third warehouse section, another mercenary mech was leaping from cargo container to cargo container, firing down at someone below, likely the other two figures she'd spotted earlier. At the outer docking bay about thirty more humanoids wearing GDI-issue hardsuits and armed with Werewolf weapons were landing and advancing into the factory.

This were getting more complicated by the minute. She couldn't afford to wait around. She had to find Kal'Reegar and get the hell out.

Tali slipped through the office, unnoticed by the batarian officer as he worked, and headed for a wide doorway at the back that led to the rest of the office section. As she moved to the rear of the office, however, she caught sight of an open maintenance hatch on the far wall. Doublechecking the schematics she'd downloaded, it appeared that the hatch was a new addition. Her suit's sensors scanned the hatch and the tunnel beyond, and she realized that it ran down to the maintenance area below the factory.

Of course, she thought with annoyance. There had to be an easy route that would have let me bypass all this trouble that I overlooked.

But still, it was a lucky break for her, and she marked the hatch on her map. Once she got to Kal'Reegar and got him moving, it would give them a quick way out.

She slipped down the hallway beyond, pistol at the ready. Her sensors picked out several more figures, and they resolved into four more hostiles. On her schematic overlay, they appeared down the hall and to the right. She advanced down the passage, and as she drew closer to the corner, Tali's sensors picked out a faint fifth contact. The power source was weak but noticeable, and it was consistent with a quarian hardsuit.

Her heart began pounding faster, and Tali tapped her omnitool. On her helmet display she could see the keys on the omnitool's haptic interface without it having to light up, and with a couple of presses she had it assembling a tiny camera drone. A moment later her helmet confirmed the creation of the tiny device, and she shot it against the wall around the corner using the omnitool's launcher. It stuck to the wall, and its feed appeared on her HUD. She rotated the lens toward the enemy troops.

Four mercenaries, two turian, one batarian, one human. They were standing outside a single door to what looked like a storage closet, one turian facing down the hallway in her direction while the other three seemed to be talking quietly. The one looking down the hallway didn't seem to have noticed the tiny camera drone she'd used.

She came around the corner, and this time the turian on guard seemed to notice something. He started to raise his weapon at what he most likely saw as an odd disturbance in the air.

Tali's microgrenade struck him dead center and detonated, filling the air with ECM. Visors scrambled, shield emitters sparked, and weapons vented hissing gases while fooled into overheat mode. All four mercenaries stumbled in surprise. The turians recovered first, the one on guard dropping his malfunctioning rifle and unfolding a shotgun, and the other drawing a pistol.

Tali sighted the nearest turian and squeezed her pistol's trigger. There was a whining howl, and the turian's helmet exploded as a bright red laser beam sliced through his head. The second turian was spinning toward her, raising his sidearm, and she put two more laser beams through his chest. The human and the batarian didn't even get the chance to really respond; before they could recover and grab at their sidearms, Tali sent four more beams down the hallway, drilling both mercenaries twice in the chest. They dropped, armor clattering to the floor, and Tali dashed down the hallway. No other contacts appeared on her sensors.

She stepped into the closet and paused.

Kal'Reegar was slumped in a chair, hands cuffed behind his back. A spindly automated medical drone hovered next to him, a pair of IV lines running from the drone into his left arm's medical interface slots.

"Kal," Tali breathed and ran to his side. She decloaked as she did so, and his head perked up.

"Tali'Zorah?" he mumbled, his words slurred. Tali opened the kit she had at her side and drew a trio of autosyringes. She pulled the IVs out of his suit and slipped the first one into his suits interface.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, and he grunted.

"Bastards had me swimming in some nasty crap," he said. The stimulants started working their way into his system, and she injected the painkillers and medigel. "No food or water. Damn drone jolted me everytime I fell asleep." He shook his head as the drugs took effect. She steadied him with one hand and gave him the third injection, this one of antibiotics. Only the most meticulously sterilized needles were safe for a quarian, and she didn't trust these mercenaries' medical skills.

"Don't move yet," she said. "Give it a minute to get into your blood." She crouched beside him and checked the cuffs. They were simple plastic zip-ties; she pulled the knife she kept on her boot and cut them free.

"Can't sit around," Kal muttered, shaking his head again. He brought his hands up, flexing his fingers. She activated her omnitool and connected to his suit. Unsurprisingly, most of his systems were locked down, and she quickly unlocked and rebooted them. "How'd you get in?"

"I snuck in," she said, glancing to the door, and frowned. They didn't have much time, despite her advice to Kal. "Nevermind, can you stand?"

He started to rise, movements wobbly, and Tali got a shoulder under his arm and helped him stand. They started out of the closet.

"Just need a gun," Kal said, and she nodded. Tali opened her mouth to speak, but then froze.

Multiple contacts were closing in in the corridors outside. She looked up just in time to see the batarian officer she'd passed come charging around the corner, that enormous heavy machinegun in his hands. He shouldered it, and the weapon began thundering.


Tech Sergeant Richard Aines piloted his Steelclaw over the cargo containers, sweeping for the two infantry below. His shields had been depleted to seventy percent by the initial exchange a few moments ago, but were strong enough to survive a few more exchanges. Unlike his targets' hardsuit shields, though, the Steelclaw mech's shields would require a few seconds longer to initiate recharging because of all the other power draws pulling at the walker's generator.

The Steelclaw was a turian design, and while Aines had been a Wolverine pilot in GDI for six years, it still took some work to get used to turian notions regarding "personal ultra-heavy powered armor units." Unlike the Wolverine models, the Steelclaw was designed for medium-range combat, with hardpoints to mount surface to air and anti-armor missile racks. Its shields were modified to have stronger emitters oriented toward the frontal arc, and its armor was lighter for improved maneuverability.

It was a solid design, and a good effort by the Hierarchy at implementing walker designs. The turians hadn't had an equivalent during the First Contact War and had suffered for it in urban combat. But Aines would have preferred the solid weight of his old REV7 Wolverine. The missile mounts were useless indoors (and thus hadn't been loaded), and the frontally-oriented shields made flanking attacks dangerous. But against light infantry like the human and turian beneath him inside the maze of cargo containers, he was confident that his rocket-grenades and mass accelerators would be more than enough.

Aines picked them up on his sensors just below, on the opposite side of a cargo container directly ahead. He hopped forward, not bothering with the walker's thrusters, and felt the satisfying crash of metal on ceramic as his walker landed. He stomped forward toward the edge of the container, raising the heavy mass accelerator on his right arm.

His displays flickered and washed with static as he reached the edge, and Aines snarled a curse, ordering a VI purge of the interference. The Steelclaw's VI moved to clear out the ECM greande's interference, and then his walker shook and a dull detonation sounded outside, the noise mitigated by his armor. He took a step back out of the enemy's line of sight, and sidestepped. Another grenade shot past him, barely missing his walker.

One of them - the turian, he suspected - had an EW-grade omnitool, and knew how to use the damned thing. The human had a Werewolf configured with a grenade launcher, and that was making things sticky, but not unmanageable. As his displays cleared, Aines stomped forward again, certain he could spot and target the pair before they could fabricate another ECM grenade.

The static vanished just in time for him to see the human, clad in GDI Intervention armor, shoot up in front of him, less than a meter away, riding a jetpack's thrust. Aines blinked in shock as the human's left hand snapped forward, tossing something small, flat, and disc-shaped at the front of his armor, before cutting thrust from the jetpack and dropping back down.

The charge detonated and blew Aines backward off the container, sending him and his Steelclaw tumbling backward to the floor with a crash of tortured metal and composites. His vision went black for an instant before he recovered, and he found himself staring up at a flickering holographic display, warning icons flashing that more than half his suit's systems must have been compromised. Every centimeter of his body was protesting, and a marching band with steel-shod boots was circling around on his brain.

Mag-grenade, probably high-ex mod, he thought through the haze of pain, and he started moving his arms, pushing the Steelclaw back onto its feet.

Then the armored human appeared atop the container, followed by the turian.

The human's arm left pumped, dark blue blurs curling around armored fingertips, and then a cloud of twisting blue light surged around Aines' armor. Vibrations ran through it, shivering the pilot, and he could hear metal and composite plating twisting around him. The warping field ripped and churned at his armor, cracking and breaking the composite layers that made it impregnable to small arms. Already damaged by the mag-grenade, the armor buckled and twisted like damp clay.

Aines raised his mech's arms, leveling his weapon at the pair.

The human's grenade launcher barked as the biotic warping field tore apart his armor, and his shields - now at twenty-two-percent - detonated the grenade. The explosion shook his armor and blew out the remainder of the Steelclaw's shields.

Aines targeted the pair and started to trigger his weapons when the turian's rifle thundered, and a tungsten hypervelocity round punched through the rent armor of his mech's front plate. It slammed through the inner armor and into the cockpit, before ripping into Aines' upper left lung and blowing out the other end of the Steelclaw.

There wasn't any pain, just a savagely hard impact in his torso, and a sudden sensation of empty numbness. Exhaustion swept over the startled tech sergeant, and his mech's arms locked in place as Aines relaxed and went still.


Jacob pushed through the still-raging flames around the entrance to the factory section, his Werewolf switched to shotgun mode. The Intervention armor could handle the heat. He emerged into the corpse-and-fire-strewn room, littered with ruined and burnt manufacturing equipment. The other thirty Marines in Durant's platoon were pushing into the factory around him, hopping over obstacles with their jetpacks.

"Commander, this is Taylor," he called as he triggered his jetpack and launched himself over a smashed conveyor belt. "We're inside the factory. No contacts."

"Taylor, repeat that," Shepard said, her voice strained. "Did you say you were inside the factory?"

"Yes ma'am," he replied. He heard a sudden shout to his right, and his sensors showed a possible contact. He pivoted toward the contact point, to see a Marine with his Werewolf leveled at a mercenary. The merc had dropped his weapon and had his hands in the air.

Not surprise there. If he'd just had half his fellows gunned down by a walker and found a small army of GDI Marines storming into his base, he'd probably throw in the towel too. The surrendering merc was forced to the floor by the Marine and disarmed, while the rest of the squad pushed on.

"Taylor, I didn't send a signal for you to move in," Shepard called over the radio, annoyance marking her words.

"Understood, ma'am," Jacob replied. "But Admiral Parker gave the order to assault."

"I see," Shepard said after a moment.

"We're securing prisoners now, no resistance so far," he added. "We've also made contact with that Wolverine pilot."

"What did he say?" Shepard asked.

"He's human, and he's not here for us," Jacob said. They were nearing the doorway for the first warehouse and could hear a savage exchange of gunfire ahead. "He agreed to hold fire on us until the mercs are dealt with. Enemy of my enemy, I guess."

"Yeah, except the enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. Know the maxim, lieutenant."

"He said the same thing, ma'am," Jacob acknowledged as he and a squad swept into the next warehouse section, searching for survivors or hostiles. They'd picked up another pair of prisoners, both wounded, going by the reports from the fireteam leaders.

"We're entering the offices now," Shepard added. "We should have the quarian in a couple of minutes, but be on alert for anything. I think our interests are going to conflict soon."

"Understood, ma'am."


The open section between the stacks of crates and cargo containers and the control room would have been easy to defend, if any of the mercenaries had been around to defend it. The gantries overhead and the elevated control room provided perfect lines of fire, but no one was shooting at them; the Wolverine pilot must have drawn off most of their manpower, before blowing it to pieces.

"You hear gunfire ahead?" Shepard asked, and Garrus nodded.

"Up there, past the control room," Garrus said.

Without speaking they bolted across the open floor toward the stairway running up to the control room. She kept an eye on her sensors, but there were no contacts visible; every hostile in the factory was apparently either busy shooting at someone else or busy being dead. Shepard's radio chirped as they ran.

"Commander, Alenko," Kaidan's voice called. "I think I found an access into the offices."

"Hurry up," Shepard replied. "I think someone's shooting up our package, and someone else wants to steal it."

"Yes ma'am. I'm on the way."

They ran up the stairway, Shepard leading and Garrus covering her back. She suspected there were proximity sensors in the stairs to warn anyone of intruders, but right now she didn't give a damn as she pounded up the steps, Werewolf raised and body pulsing with dark energy.


The enemy Steelclaw advanced, firing as it came. The spindly combat mechs did so as well, but their pistol rounds deflected off his REV12's armor plating. Zaeed kept his Wolverine moving, firing off a volley off rocket grenades at the enemy Steelclaw. It sidestepped to its left, thrusters firing, and only one of the missiles hit, skipping off its shields. Its return fire bit into his own deflectors, hypervelocity rounds hammering his barriers and sending a constant corona of swirling blue surging around him.

The mercenaries above kept firing down at him, half a dozen assholes with assault rifles pouring bullets down at Zaeed as he danced around the Steelclaw. They were largely ineffective, but the constant hammering on his armor and the warning lights from his external systems were troubling. He had to kill the Steelclaw fast, before one of them-

Instinct and a flicker of movement on his sensors sent Zaeed leaping aside, thrusters firing, and another anti-armor missile slammed into the deck where he was standing. He snarled as he felt the shockwaves of the detonation through his armor, and frantically moved to reacquire the Steelclaw. He spotted it just as it loosed another volley of rocket microgrenades, and he jerked in the opposite direction. Two missed, careening past him, with the third plowed into his shields. The vibrations from the detonation shivered across his mech, and he returned fire on the turian walker. His rounds scattered off its forward shields, and it came on, spraying bursts at his Wolverine to avoid overheating.

There was a sudden impact against his shields, and the mech's warning siren howled that he was down to less than twenty percent shields. Must have been another joker with an anti-materiel rifle. One of his sensor feeds cut out as enemy fire blew it apart. A warning light flashed on his grenade launcher indicating the loading mechanism was jamming. Another burst of enemy grenades sent him scrambling out of the way.

He was taking fire from all sides, outgunned and hilariously outnumbered. The only possible allies he might have would be the GDI Marines entering the factory, but they were too far away.

"The hell with it," Zaeed muttered as his shields kept dropping, and he disengaged. He backpedaled, sweeping his cannons up and firing suppressive bursts at the mercenaries on top of the container stacks. They dove for cover as his shots gouged lines of holes in the metal around them. He fired his thrusters as he retreated, giving him extra speed while running for the warehouse door. The Steelclaw pursued, the pilot sensing his opponent's weakness, and Zaeed managed a tight grin.

"Come get me, bastard," he murmured as he backed through the door into the first warehouse, and broke to the right. He got the massive doorframe between himself and his opponents, breaking their lines of fire, and stomped toward the cargo containers scattered around the corpse-strewn warehouse. He got one between himself and the pursuing enemy mech, and on his displays he saw the targeting marker around the Steelclaw suddenly shoot up into the air. Zaeed checked his thrusters, saw them mostly recharged, and nodded.

It leapt up, over the cargo container Zaeed was using for cover, intent on getting to an elevated position and finishing off its wounded prey.

Zaeed fired his thrusters and leapt straight into the Steelclaw's path as it descended.

The turian mech was dropping into the lower slope of its arc, having expended the immediately available thruster power available to it while running Zaeed down. It would take critical seconds to recharge the thrusters, and during that time it was a helpless captive of the laws of physics. The Steelclaw's pilot could only watch with sudden terror as the Wolverine shot up and Zaeed punched out with his grenade launcher arm, smashing into the lower legs and turning its graceful descent into a tumbling fall. A horrible crash of metal and ceramic screeched through the warehouse as they connected and went tumbling apart.

Zaeed's mech didn't escape unscathed, as the collision spun him around, but he still had a couple seconds' worth of thruster power, and he managed to turn his tumble into a rough, slowed fall. He hit the ceramic floor with his mech's legs bending to absorb the impact, and whirled on the Steelclaw.

The enemy mech was lying in a heap, facedown after an uncontrolled tumble into a forklift and a pair of smaller containers. It was starting to rise, but the pilot was clearly shaken by the unexpected impact.

He was shaken even more when Zaeed's two-ton walker crashed down onto its back. The heavier Wolverine pressed the Steelclaw into the deck, and he jammed his mass accelerator into the walker's torso.

It took four seconds, during which time about eighty armor-piercing rounds were fired at point-blank into the back of the mech. The metal deformed, twisted, and finally broke under the impact, and Zaeed sent a two-second burst into the exposed cockpit.

He hopped off the mech's back and turned, ignoring the blood pooling around the Steelclaw's corpse, and started back into the warehouse.

The subsequent slew of carnage took twenty-two seconds. All forty drones and five of the seven mercenaries within fell to his guns, and Zaeed pressed on.


Tali spun and shoved Kal'Reegar back into the doorway as the batarian's heavy machinegun sprayed incendiary rounds toward them. They hammered her shields as she dove back behind cover. Tali rolled onto her feet, drawing her pistol again, and saw Kal laying on the floor but pushing himself to his feet. Dozens of incendiary bullets pummeled the doorframe, throwing flecks of burning phosphates through the air like golden snowflakes.

"Enthusiastic sumbitch," Kal grunted as he got to his feet.

"I count three shooters," Tali added as she checked her displays, and he nodded.

"Scanners booting back up," he grunted. "Looks the same."

Tali wanted to glance out the doorway, but the machinegun fire was constant and intense. Every second a half-dozen bullets would hit the doorframe, deflecting off the thick metal.

"Suppressing fire," Kal said. "They'll move troops up under that and throw grenades in here until they see out suits stop working. Maybe take two or three to kill us. Probably take apart out gear to figure out where we're hiding the data, and then-"

"Kal, you're babbling," Tali cut him off, and he stopped. His helmet canted toward the dropped rifles of the four dead men outside.

"Stims, sorry," he said. "Should have grabbed one of their guns."

Tali looked at the door and her sensors. The trio of mercenaries were holding position right now, firing bursts at the doors. The corridor was not ideal for a fire-by-maneuver assault, as the suppressing fire from the batarian could easily hit one of the advancing troops. That might give the two quarians some time while they worked up their courage. Maybe she could hack into the lighting systems or fire suppression equipment to cover them? Without direct line of fire she couldn't use ECM on their weapons or shields. She knew that they had to get past that batarian shooter, as the control room outside was the only way out.

"Tali, I can buy you a few seconds once my suit's shields reboot," Kal said suddenly. "I can step out in front and use my barriers to stop them, then you hit them with a grenade."

"Kal, that's suicide!" she said, and he nodded.

"You got a better plan?" he asked. "We're pinned down and you can't take out their weapons with ECM unless someone draws their fire. And you're more valuable."

"I came here to save you," she said, "Not so you could throw yourself away!"

"Look, we ain't got time to argue," Kal replied, shaking his head. "Unless you've got a better plan?"

Tali froze, uncertain. She might be able to find another way out, but they might not have time. On her sensor display she could see the other two mercenaries starting to move up around the corner. There had to be another way to do this, a way that wouldn't get Kal killed.

Then the gunfire suddenly came to an abrupt halt, and she heard a shout of surprise outside. A heartbeat later there was a crack of a grenade going off, and her sensors picked up two more contacts close by.

Neither Tali nor Kal hesitated. She bolted up and swept around the doorframe, pistol up, and spotted the two turian mercenaries who had been moving up to flank them, frozen in the middle of the corridor and looking back. Beside her, Kal was scooping up an assault rifle and bringing it to bear. Tali got the first shot off, putting two beams into the nearest mercenary's back and sending him crumpling to the floor, while Kal sighted the second and put two bursts into his shield before he could turn. He managed to spun and raise his weapon before the shields collapsed, but by that point Kal put four shots into his faceplate and Tali shot him through the torso.

Down the hallway, they saw the crumpled body of the batarian officer, and sweeping around the corner were two more figures: the GDI-armored human and turian she'd seen earlier. They raised their weapons toward the quarians, and Tali nearly pulled the trigger, until the human halted and raised a fist.


"This is unexpected," Shepard murmured to Garrus.

"Someone broke in ahead of us and locked those doors open," he pointed out. "I'm not surprised to see a second quarian here."

To be honest, she thought the first quarian had just escaped and had been responsible for the chaos, but Garrus' suspicions were a lot more plausible. The female quarian in the dark purple and black armor stood protectively over the second one, a male wearing a red and white hardsuit. It was obvious which one had been the prisoner; the male was moving sluggishly, despite being larger and wielding an assault rifle, and the female was protecting him. More interestingly, the female's pistol was familiar; Shepard had seen the design used by Nod boarders during the Blitz.

Where did a quarian get Brotherhood weaponry? Man-portable laser weaponry was almost as tightly-regulated as tiberium and ion-based weapons systems. Or at least it apparently was.

Shepard lowered her weapon slowly, holding up her left hand in a placating gesture. She saw Garrus follow suit, his weapon dropping.

"I'm Commander Shepard, GDI Navy," she said.

"Garrus Vakarian," he added. "Citadel Special Tactics and Recon. We're here to get you out of here."

"How can I trust you?" the female quarian said, and Shepard scowled behind her helmet. For just an instant, she imagined sending a biotic pulse down that hallway and knocking the quarian off her feet so they could disarm her and talk without leveling guns at each other. The temptation was intense, but she held back. Instead, she lowered her Werewolf all the way, and opened the front of her helmet, showing her face.

"Listen, I know you're afraid," she said, keeping her words gentle. "I now what happened to your friends. But we're here to get you out. I promise."

The quarian hesitated, weapon quivering slightly, and Shepard knew she was thinking intently. Then the second quarian said something too quiet for Shepard to hear, and she went still. The pistol in her hand dropped.

"Okay," she breathed. Shepard could hear the relief in the quarian's voice. "Okay. Just get us out of here. Please."

"I've got an extraction force on the way, but we need to move," Shepard said. "What's your name?"

"Tali'Zorah," the female said, walking toward them. The male followed her, trying to hide his sluggish movements. "This is Kal'Reegar."

"Are you injured?" Shepard asked.

"Drugs," Kal'Reegar replied, his voice surprisingly strong. "Had me on some stuff to loosen my head and make me weak. Tali gave me stims. I'm good to fi-"

An explosion shook the floor they stood on, and Garrus and Shepard spun toward the corridor leading out of the office section. The control room's front windows and consoles had been blasted inward, shrapnel and debris crashing down and flying about the room. A couple of seconds later the REV12 Wolverine appeared in the gaping hole, flying through on its thrusters.

The REV12 was just over two meters tall, a chopped-down version of the primary model, designed for close-quarters work that let it fit down corridors. That fact did not make the metallic beast any less formidable as it stomped up to the hall, completely filling the doorway. Shepard could see fresh battlescars marking where countless hypervelocity rounds had scored hits upon it.

"Alright," called a sudden, gravelly voice, tinged with an English accent. "I know there's only a few of you in there. Bring out the quarian and no one gets splattered."

Shepard looked to the pair of quarians. Tali'Zorah was clutching her pistol anxiously, while Kal'Reegar had his assault rifle in hand. Despite his lethargic movements, he seemed alert and ready. Tali'Zorah was still partially shielding him with her own body; Shepard couldn't read quarian body language very well, so she didn't know if Kal'Reegar's slumped posture was due to weariness or annoyance at her protectiveness.

"Friend of yours?" Shepard asked, and Tali'Zorah shook her head. Shepard looked back.

"This is Commander Shepard, GDI Navy," she called. "We are conducting an operation critical to the security of both the Citadel and GDI. Stand down!"

"Sure, I'll stand down right now and let you walk away," the Wolverine's pilot replied. "Just as soon as I get the quarian's data. And for that I need the quarian."

Shepard glanced back to Tali'Zorah again, then to Kal'Reegar.

"I don't have it with me," she said, shaking her head. "Its secured."

"I opt-flashed my copy when they ambushed us," Kal'Reegar added. "Nothing but quantum junk data now."

"Which means he needs one of you," Shepard said.

"I'll need both, actually," the Wolverine driver added. "Yeah, I can hear you loud and clear, and I can see both quarians on my scopes."

"Why both?" Shepard demanded.

"Contract," he replied. "My employer wants exclusive access to the quarians' data."

"Meaning," Garrus hissed, "Once he has the data the quarians will disappear."

"Not happening!" Shepard called back.

"You really don't want to make me come in there, do you?" the pilot asked. "I've got plenty of grenades, and I can get what I need from corpses if need be."

"There's an entire platoon of Marines coming up behind you," Shepard shot back. "You won't escape if you open fire on us."

"Tell that to the fifty mercs, forty mechs, and the walker I killed to get here," the pilot replied. There was no boast in his voice, just calm, cold fact. "Your Marines are better-armed, but they're just foot infantry with nice guns. I'll go through 'em like butter. Hand those two over and this ends without anyone else getting hurt."

"Not happening," Shepard said. "I'm not going to let you make them disappear."

In the corner of her vision, Shepard saw Tali'Zorah's head jerk toward her in surprise.

"Well, that's not the way I'd prefer it," the pilot replied, and she heard a bit of weariness in his tone. His mass accelerator spun up, and he took a step forward.

Shepard shouldered her weapon and rose, switching to her grenade launcher and drawing dark energy around her. The others around her leveled their weapons too. She signaled Jacob with a quick flash on her HUD as his Marines surged forward through the last warehouse section, but she knew they wouldn't get there in time. In close-quarters combat with a REV12, it would be over quick.

One way or the other.

Then the Wolverine was surrounded by a corona of shimmering blue light, and started to lift up off the floor. Shepard blinked in surprise, and the Wolverine's pilot let out a shout and a curse. Then a figure shot across the doorway - a bulky human in GDI armor. He reached up and grabbed the suspended Wolverine by the leg, set his feet, and spun in place.

The Wolverine was effectively weightless thanks to the mass effect field lifting it into the air, but it still had inertia, and it took a lot of force to move two tons of inertia. The Marine swung the walker around like an enormous sack of ceramic blocks, and hurled it out through the gap it had blasted in the front of the control room. The Wolverine hurtled through the ragged gap, spinning end over end, until the mass effect field collapsed and it tumbled fifteen meters to the deck outside.

The Marine turned toward the quartet down the passage, and Shepard realized who it was.

"Commander, we've got to move!" Kaidan shouted, and she waved the two quarians forward.

"Alenko! It took you long enough!" Despite her words, she was grinning behind her helmet.

"Sorry, ma'am," he said as they entered the blasted control room. He pointed to the maintenance hatch they'd passed earlier. "That runs down to the maintenance tunnels. Took me forever to find it."

"Under the circumstances, Lieutenant, I'm not going to complain." Shepard keyed her comms. "Taylor, fallback, we have the package. We'll need extraction at our original drop off point."

"Acknowledged," Jacob called back. "We're disengaging."

"What about him?" Tali'Zorah asked, pointing out the hole in the front of the room. The REV12 Wolverine lay prone, and was slowly starting to stand back up.

"Leave him," Shepard said, shaking her head. "We're getting out of here."


Presence - query - enhance - observation

Request - Threat Potential - transmission - upload

Delay - observation.

Response - Communication - Verification (:saren) = Self-identification transmission - translation matrix initiated

Potential threat - observation mission detection possible:Maintainposition:Query - Unlikely maintenance covert presence?::Acknowledgement

:Query - threat covert observation high? - confirmation requested:

Upload received - sort (councilchambers/gdiembassy/turianembassy/csecheadquarters) - data distribution

Query - multiple targets insufficient forces?:Irrelevant.

Query - deployment unlikely survivors/recovery?:

Query - unlikely survival?:Irrelevant.

Delay

Acknowledgement

Weapons - Standby engage

Arm - plasma projector - confirmed - status nominal

Arm - kinetic liquid-ichor impactors - confirmed - status nominal

Arm - phase shift generator - confirmed - status nominal

Arm - interceptors - confirmed - status nominal

Arm - ion storm generator - confirmed - status nominal

Weapons - confirmation all weapons armed

Standby to engage:target:citadel


Codex - Ships And Vehicles - Wolverine

The Wolverine is a multi-purpose, high-mobility infantry fighting vehicle, colloquially referred to as a "mech" by humans, standing at between two to three meters (depending on configuration). It is bipedal vehicle piloted by a single operator that is designed to bridge the gap between an infantryman's mobility and an IFV's firepower, with historically variable results. Nearly two centuries of continuous research, testing, and combat have refined the Wolverine design into a formidable weapons system ideal for urban combat, particularly for building-to-building combat, boarding actions, space station assaults, and other rough-terrain combat.

The currently-employed form of the Wolverine mech is a jack-of-all-trades support/assault weapon, used alternately to support infantry in the field, to screen armor, or to launch close-quarters assaults in urban/space environments. Squads of Wolverines are often deployed as hunter-killer teams in urban environments, assaulting and harassing enemy formations and striking at targets of opportunity, and pilots are trained to be flexible, aggressive, and independent.

The Wolverine's greatest advantage is also its greatest weakness. As a jack-of-all-trades, it is a master of none and cannot provide the same level of fire support as a dedicated IFV or the assault firepower of a dedicated tank. It is also ill-suited for open field combat; outside of urban environments a Wolverine is little more effective than dismounted infantry, and cannot last long in a pitched battle against armor and air cavalry units. As a result, the Wolverine is generally restricted to urban engagements; most Wolverines are deployed via orbital drop pods alongside units of Zone Marines into urban hotspots. In boarding actions, Wolverines deploy with Zone Marines and light infantry to clear corridors and rooms, and are used to assault high-risk areas that are exposed to vacuum or radiation.

Advanced armatures and limbs allow a Wolverine a range of movement only slightly more restricted than that of an infantryman. Pilots are fully-sealed within the Wolverine, controlling it via a second set of arm and leg attachments connected to the primary arms and legs. External data is presented in a fully three-dimensional holographic display inside the cockpit, allowing the pilot a full-range of vision and input from multiple sensors, making it difficult to catch a wary pilot off-guard. The mech is powered by a sealed hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell and features a set of thrusters and an element zero core to allow for easier movement. Used in conjunction, the thrusters and element zero core allow the Wolverine to move with startling speed, approaching speeds of 115 KPH over one hundred-meter distances.

Like most GDI designs, the current generation of Wolverine possesses a highly modular construction. Weapons systems and other gear can be swapped out quickly and easily within a few minutes thanks to modern miniaturization, minifabrication, and omnigel technology. A Wolverine can switch from being an anti-armor ambusher with railguns to an anti-aircraft platform with guided missiles to an assault vehicle with grenade launchers and rapid-fire mass accelerators in the span of a few hours. This modularity came as a result of the Shanxi War, where the previous generations of Wolverines experienced rapid cases of wear-and-tear and were difficult to repair due to their specialized parts, resulting in "Frankenstein" mechs built from cobbled-together equipment.


Author's Notes: The big problem with this chapter was that so much was happening at once, and the chapter itself really got away from me. Also, vehicle combat, particularly mech combat, is something I have not written a lot of. The Zaeed scenes were the biggest challenge for me for that precise reason, but once I got the hang of it, and could figure out a reasonably plausible way for Shepard to deal with Zaeed without killing him, it became a lot easier.

There is a moment in this chapter where, if it were in an actual Mass Effect game, you would see the flashing interrupt prompt. I'll let you figure out where it should be.

To respond to a couple of points brought up in a review, the kinetic barriers in ME really can do what Zaeed programmed them to do, as the barriers are really an active defense system that detects incoming projectiles of a certain mass and velocity and creates gravity pulses to repel them. It is theoretically possible to alter the settings on your kinetic barriers to not repel incoming rounds that would do no damage to your armor. Similarly, the omnitool's haptic interface does not need a hologram to work; the hologram is only there to serve as a convenient interface, and a HUD would serve the same purpose. Tactile feedback comes from gloves or subdermal implants; there's no "hard light" involved at all. This is all laid out in the Codex entries in-game. I do my research. :p

Until next chapter . . . .