Chapter 25

"Seems like Shepard made the right choice in bringing everyone down here." Ashley told Holt as they were taking cover behind a short wall. The geth had almost literally started raining down upon them as they got to the port. The Normandy had to leave them down here on their own to avoid being shot down.

"I'm just glad that I brought my rocket launcher this time." Holt told her as he tried to get a look over the wall but several shots kept him down. "But I'm pissed off that I'm not getting a chance to use it!" He yelled at the geth.

"Are you guys alright up over there!?" Shepard's voice sounded over the comm. Holt and Ashley had gotten quite cut off from the rest of the team it seems.

"We're fine for now but the geth got us pinned down. Any chance of getting covering fire?" Ashley responded.

"We're trying but their numbers make it difficult to- Damn it!" Shepard got cut off by an exploding tank nearby.

"Sorry!" Tali quickly apologised.

"Just stay put Holt and Ash. We'll open up the left flank!" She said and Holt saw her together with Liara and Kaidan move forward as best as they could. It was still impossible for Holt and Ashley to move though.

"Can't you just cloak or something?" Ashley asked as she turned her attention back to Holt. "Cloak and run up to disable them or some shit?"

"Cloak makes me invisible, not invincible."

"That's what your shield is for, isn't it?" Holt answered that by picking up a metal plate that had been blown off from some container earlier and held it over the cover for a few moments. When he brought it back down it was just about completely shredded. "Fair enough."

"Don't know why you're so eager to get back out there. We got six others out there dealing with the situation as we speak."

"I don't like sitting on my ass while other people are risking their lives!" Looked like Holt had struck a nerve or something. She took a deep sigh before continuing. "On Eden Prime I lost my whole squad because of these fuckers." She said while nodding back towards the geth. "Now I'm just sitting behind cover and waiting for..." Was all she managed to say before she struck the wall in anger.

"Alright then, let's see if we can contribute." Holt said as he brought out a flash grenade. Ashley eyed him curiously. "We got four of 'those fuckers' to our current left. I'll flash them and that should buy me enough time to aim a EMP charge in their... faces?" He said while preparing his omni-tool.

"And then we give them a taste of their own medicine." Ashley finished, nodding at Holt to begin.

"Just remember to watch your shields. We're probably gonna be under fire from the other 350 degrees we're not attacking." He said with a smirk.

"Got it, let's end these fuckers." She said, eager to get it started. Holt armed the grenade and throw it over the wall and brought his omni-tool up. As soon as the bang was heard he rose up from behind the cover and shot the EMP charge in the direction where five geth were now standing. Their numbers really were increasing by the minute.

"Go!" He yelled at Ashley and she followed him up from cover, rifle soon shooting towards the stunned geth. The two of them were getting shot from other locations but the shields were able to hold off this amount of pressure for a while at least. As soon as the geth were down they ducked back into cover, waiting for the shields to recharge.

"Thank you." She suddenly said while checking the other side for any hostiles.

"For?"

"For giving me a chance to get back at these fuckers." She said while turning back towards him.

"Oh, I have a feeling you'll have plenty of opportunities to deal some damage to them down here." He laughed before they were interrupted by Shepard over the comm.

"Holt and Ashley, are you two okay?" She asked with ragged breaths. Seems like they had seen more action than Ashley and him.

"We're okay. Would be super if you could take care of the last group shooting at us though." Holt answered. "They got high-ground and unlimited ammo. Add that to the fact that they have no need for food, water, bathroom breaks... Well, you get the idea."

"A simple 'help please' would be enough, Holt." Shepard sighed but he could tell that she was doing it was a smile.

"You and skipper seems to get along well lately." Ashley after a few silent moments. Well, silent if you don't count the constant barrage of geth fire but that was mostly background noise nowadays.

"Yeah, she's a fun one to be around." Holt quickly answered but could guess that this was turning into an interrogation. Ashley looked at him from the corner of her eyes.

"Are you honestly following her because of Saren alone?"

"You make it sound like it's not a valid reason. I would've thought the fate of the world was important."

"I'm interested in the reason to why you want to help save the world." A loud explosion followed by a manic krogan laugh was heard. Wrex seemed to be having fun. As the sound of gunfire stopped the two of them could finally get out of cover for the first time in what felt like forever. "The aliens on the team all have their reasons for why they wanna go after Saren."

"Wrex?" Holt asked with a raised eyebrow.

"He's a krogan, they don't need a reason to heading into a fight." She said with a bit of venom in her voice.

"Fair enough. And the reason for you Alliance soldiers?"

"I want to get revenge for my squad..." She quickly answered as they walked towards the rest of the group. Shepard was yelling at Wrex about how explosions near squad members are bad. "Kaidan I think just wants to follow Shepard." She said in a lower tone now that they were within hearing range of the others. "And Shepard just seems to be the kind of person that's meant to be the hero of a story. The good against the evil." Holt nodded in understanding. From the very first time he had met Shepard back on Eden Prime he had felt this aura around her. Something about her just made people follow her.

"I know what you mean." He whispered back. "And that's the very reason to why I'm following her. I don't know what kind of future I'm building for myself but I have a feeling it'll be a better one than if I chose to go against her." Ashley smirked back.

"And it has nothing to do with credits?" She asked with a hint of humor in her eyes.

"I have this great plan to be the one to take down Saren by myself at the end of all this." Holt said while trying to paint a picture for her. "He and me all alone at the top of he Citadel. Every human, asari, turian, salarian, krogan, quarian, drell, elcor, hanar, volus, batarian and vorcha being glued in front of their televisions, watching the fight. No guns or armor, just four fists hitting the sweat soaked faces of each other."

"What the hell are you going on about?" Kaidan asked as they had now reached the rest of the group. Holt ignored him and continued.

"The fight will last for hours and no one will be able to predict the outcome. That's when I shout out some sort of battle cry, which I haven't decided on yet, and charge him off the top of the Citadel Tower. The gasps of everyone around the galaxies can be heard as they see their hero fall down to certain death together with the bad guy." They were all actually listening to his ramblings.

"What happens after that?" Tali asked, completely sold on the story.

"You see, that's where my plan comes together. I'll make sure to fall into water or something and quickly go into hiding. After a couple of months I'll start spreading rumors about my survival. Then when the story has enough hype I'll come out of hiding and sell the interview rights to every single tv-station around the worlds." The rest of the ground team were all standing there being stunned silenced.

"You almost made that sound believable." Shepard chuckled.

"Up until the point where you sacrifice yourself." Kaidan added.

"You think I'm gonna let you steal Saren's death from me?" Wrex asked as they started moving after Shepard as she made her way towards Zhu's Hope.

"You got the thresher maw, Saren's mine."

"Why can't you both take down Saren?" Liara asked.

""That's just stupid."" Holt and the krogan answered at the same time.