Vido and Zaeed stood in front of a desk, both of them slouching. "I've heard about you two," the asari said. "Survived that Cohort disaster. Which shows you were at least lucky, if not good." She looked down at her terminal and typed in a few things. "Alright, you're hired. We're shipping off in two days, protecting a HE-3 plant from batarian raiders."
"Alright, what's the catch?" Vido asked. The asari stared at him, clearly amused.
Finally, after about fifteen seconds of silence, she relented. "It's a volus refinery. Outside of our living quarters, full enviro-suit is mandatory, and we'll all be on four-on-four-off the first couple of days until we're more familiar with the peculiarities of the terrain." They both groaned at the thought. "And now that your names are already on the roster, report to our barracks." She sent them an address in the warehouse district next to the spaceport, and they set out through the run-down parts of Illium.
The two days passed in the sort of peculiar boredom that every fighting man claimed to hate. They played cards against a collection of asari, salarians, and humans, winning a tiny amount of credits. They watched Fornax of every variety they could think of (and some they hadn't and didn't want to, such was life). They slept as much as they could and checked all of their weapons. It had been almost nine human months since Caudi split up his group, and freelancing sucked.
Crowding onto a trio of Kowloon transports, they joined the other two hundred mercenaries in cramped bunks. Crates full of replacement parts for their weapons and armor took up most of the room, while the other two ships were full of food. Volus might have been just as levo as them, but they damn well couldn't eat the same food.
The station itself was, aside from being over-pressurized to their peace of mind, was almost familiar in layout and details. Lots of pipes, electrical conduits, and several dozen tubby volus waddling around with no suits on. That was the weirdest part to see – even Fornax didn't have exposed volus, not that Zaeed had seen, thankfully. They reminded him of one of those hairless, super-wrinkly dogs, but with these weird star-shaped snouts. Their hands didn't have fingers so much as really short tentacles, and in their own atmosphere, they were faster and more graceful. Not that that was saying much, of course.
Their barracks were on one side of the compound, several cargo containers connected together and reinforced to withstand the crushing pressure without. Vido and Zaeed quickly took their bunks in one corner, near the exit, and didn't bother taking off their armor. They had been among the lucky ones to draw the first patrol.
The station was, essentially, a set of several rings, each one connecting to its neighbors at two spots like a badly drawn figure eight. There were six of them in a row, and they had to patrol the whole area. The Pink Lagoon (which sounded like a goddamn porn star to Zaeed, but he wasn't going to mention that to an asari with three hundred years of combat experience on him) company had four fighters, which would also be patrolling in pairs, along with a couple of sensor sats in orbit. All in all, it should have been a goddamn milk run.
To his surprise and mounting paranoia, the first two months went by with no incidents aside from a drunken salarian merc trying to proposition a volus female (or as Vido joked, he hoped it was a female), and committing suicide-by-atmo. His much smaller body was shipped off still in his armor. After the first week, the watches had been changed to six-on-six-off, which at least gave them closer to a decent amount of sleep.
Vido and Zaeed were just getting their armor on in preparation for their next patrol when the proximity alarms from the satellites started broadcasting. The two fighter pilots not on patrol were out of their bunks and armored up in two minutes flat, aided by several other mercs nearby – everyone was of the same mind, the more raiders who could be shot down or blown up before they landed, the better.
They crowded into the airlock with Anaran, Bob (a salarian; they still didn't understand the name), Bob (a human), Porin, and Nimue. As it cycled, the whole structure jerked sharply, and when the outer door opened, they wasted no time in stumbling out, weapons ready. "Holy mother of God," human Bob muttered, causing them to turn around and look behind them.
The middle of their three cargo barracks had been blown nearly in half, the back one dangling in place by a couple of metal braces. A few mercs, fortunate enough to be in armor, could be seen struggling to climb out before it fell into the far more deadly atmosphere below. "We don't have time to worry about them now," Zaeed said practically. "Vido, pull up that hack."
Scowling, his partner turned on his omni-tool, accessing the wholly-against-contract sensors that the Pink Lagoon leadership had carefully posted around the facility. "Three inbound ships." A sudden burst of light came from above and to one side of the facility. "Two. One of them is landing on ring four."
The split up quickly, Porin joining Zaeed and Vido. The other four, with Anaran leading, took off to the far side when they reached ring two. By the time they had made it the kilometer to ring three, the second ship was landing on ring six. Sporadic gunfire could already be heard, as the mercs on patrol had closed in and started firing on the invaders.
Vido sent the info to their HUDs, and Zaeed motioned to Porin, the asari nodding. They moved up behind one of the large pieces of equipment, and Zaeed and Vido opened fire, taking down the shields of three of the batarians, allowing her to biotically toss them off the open walkway to fall screaming into the amber depths below.
The other six opened fire back at them, and they popped up just enough to keep them off balance, Zaeed managing to take out one with a lucky shot to the knee that sent the batarian tumbling into an exposed electrical conduit. Then the other squad, led off by both Bob's overloading their shields, opened fire on their flank and killed another two of them.
In short order, the outnumbered batarians were taken down. "Good job," Zaeed shouted. "Three more batarian squads are over on ring five, they took out our guys and are emptying the HE-3 tanks into their ships. All the fighters are down, so it's up to us."
"Why the fuck should we care?" Nimue spat. "Let the ugly fuckers kill each other off, this contract is finished anyway."
"Don't you still want to get paid?" Vido said. "Because I sure as fuck do."
"What he goddamn said. The closest group is only four of them. If we're lucky," he glanced around, "they haven't killed everyone yet. Let's move."
They swept quickly down the ring, moving in twos and threes, until they saw the first group of batarians. The raiders were holding a dozen volus at gunpoint, with one of their number slapping restraints of some kind on the refinery workers. Zaeed motioned with economy, and counted down.
Two overloads, a burst of gunfire, and three biotic blasts took out all four batarians before they could fire a single return shot. "Bob, get those restraints off," Zaeed shouting, already moving to collect the fallen weapons. "How many of you goddamn pushballs can fire a goddamn weapon?" he shouted at the volus. Two of them raised pudgy tentacle hands, and he promptly sent assault rifles skittering across the metal plating to them. "Right. Any other batarians show up, get behind some of this equipment and open fire."
"But, this equipment is incredibly delicate!" one of them protested, sounding incredibly weird without the usual pressure suit to attenuate his native language.
"Your body is far more delicate, and less easy to repair," Nimue muttered just loud enough to be heard.
"Just goddamn do it," Zaeed yelled again, and they set off. The next batch of batarians numbered over a dozen. Outnumbered two to one wasn't how he liked his combat. But it wasn't as though he had much choice, if he didn't stop them now, he'd end up facing even worse odds later.
They were somewhat spread out, which would help. He'd also picked up a sniper rifle – a shitty one, of course, it was batarian manufacture after all – but he was a decent shot. He motioned to everyone, had his omni-tool count down, and when both Bobs lit off their shield overloads, squeezed the trigger. He didn't hit the batarian in the head, but in the neck, tearing out his armor and punching into the shoulder of the one behind him.
Everyone else had also opened fire, and two corpses were already floating in the air courtesy of Nimue's singularity. The remaining batarians had turned, grouping up and getting behind cover. The resulting firefight took nearly five minutes to settle, with Anaran dead before they could finish taking out the eight batarians left from their opening shots.
By the time they were ready to move on, the third batarian raider was already retreating, tanks full of stolen fuel and looted equipment. It was a hell of a victory, but at the end of the day, Zaeed Massani was still alive, and that was what counted.