When Shepard, Kryik and Vakarian heard gun shots on the other side of the doors, they assumed that meant Jack was caught in her escape and fighting her way through the remaining guards. The sight that met their eyes when the doors slid open was not something any of them had expected. Warden Kuril was gunning down his own guards in some kind of rage as most of them just tried to run away. The last of those that had arrived thus far met his end quickly with a bullet through his temples. He had been one of the few to take cover and wait for a chance to either get away candidly or make an attempt at the warden. His mind registered the fact that he lay in a pool of his own blood before thought processes shut down and his body slowly followed his brain's death.
The team made a run for cover, but Kuril spotted them, not hesitating to fire at them. He missed, lucky for Garrus, who was nearly the accidental target.
"You're valuable, Shepard. I could have sold you and lived like a king." Kuril called to her, growling his displeasure.
Shepard wondered how this factored into his 'protecting the galaxy' bull shit, seems how she was one of the few doing so. She also wondered who the fuck was in line to 'buy' her. The Collectors were the first to come to mind. The Illusive Man had told her that the Collectors often took small samples from slavers that had rare genetic differences, usually flaws. She was genetically rare because of her hair pigment, or rather the lack of it. It was a possibility. But why did the Collectors want oddities?
"But you're too much trouble! At least I can recapture Jack." Kuril taunted her and took another shot at the crate she and Kryik hid behind.
"Not happening." Shepard called back. "You're a two bit slave trader and I don't have time for it."
"I do the hard things civil governments are unwilling to do! This is for the good of the galaxy!" Kuril shouted.
"How the fuck is capturing me and selling me off for the 'good of the galaxy' when I'm one of only a few who are actually fighting to protect the galaxy? How the hell does taking me out of the game help in any way?"
It seemed she got the opportunity to ask the questions that had been gnawing at her. The answer she received where less than satisfactory.
"I suppose you're right, Shepard." Kuril seethed. "It doesn't help the galaxy. But it sure as hell helps me!"
More guards entered the room. Under the impression that the dead bodies were Shepard's doing, they attacked her and her team. Meanwhile energy beacons rose from columns throughout the room, providing electrical arcs to Kuril's position creating a force field to protect him from attack.
"Damn coward." Shepard muttered.
Kryik silently agreed. This turian had no honor in him. His intent with this prison ship; a farce. Every word from his mouth should be heard as a lie, even if it was truth. A bare-face never tells the truth unless there is something to gain by it, or manipulate it to his benefit. Growing up around mercs had taught him had taught him that if nothing else.
Eliminating the first wave of mercs had not been difficult. A concussive shot from Garrus dazed three of them long enough to take them out. The remaining two were less of a threat without the others. The second wave came from the exit on the far side of the room. Shepard and Kryik took the bridge to the second energy beacon. Vakarian used an overload signal to destroy the first, then took the opposite bridge to flank the incoming reinforcements. This proved to be more difficult.
There were groups of divider walls, like parts to a maze tossed were oddly placed throughout the space as if this were a combat training room. Shepard took cover behind the nearest divider wall. One side was open to Kuril, but the force field worked both ways. Her fire couldn't get in, and his couldn't get out. Kryik joined her seconds latter. He had strategically placed grenades around the beacon. The explosion took out the column as well as several mercs running in from the cell blocks. Kryik leaned out of cover, firing his pistol into the chests of his targets. Shepard assisted Vakarian's fire on those playing a deadly game of hide and seek in the labyrinth of walls opposite her. When the last of the mercs finally fell to the floor, the team took cover to take down Kuril. Garrus overloaded the last beacon from his position behind a wall. All three of them fired on the turian merc. His body convulsed with the impact of their fire, his finger reflexively pulling the trigger on his own gun and firing at the ceiling. As his body tumbled into the groove made by the wall and the large crate he'd taken refuge atop, his last words were drowned out by the blood filling his lungs and gurgling in his throat.
Some movement above them in the glass tubes they had walked as they came in caught their attention. It was Jack, and she was making a run for it. Shepard didn't stop to issue orders or make smart comments. The transition from battle to running for the exit was seamless. The boom of biotics and gunfire missing it's target echoed through to them from the walkways. They had to get to her as fast as possible.
Shepard rounded the corner in time to see Jack, pacing the halls wildly and screaming in frustration. Beyond her a lone merc pointed his gun at her. Shepard took aim and fired. The mercs body joined those of his brothers on the floor. Jack turned to her, surprised and ready to fight. Though the look on her face was one more akin to shock that someone had just helped her out, or so it seemed to Shepard. Kryik and Vakarian flanked her a few steps behind her. It was an imposing sight to see the armed human with gun barrel smoking and two turian's armed to the teeth at her side.
Jack took a few steps back when the woman didn't fire on her, and steeled herself for anything that may come. They were probably the ones who'd come in the Cerberus ship. She wasn't going to go with them willingly, but she was unsure if she had the strength to fight them after the battle it took to get this far. She didn't know how long she'd been in cryo, but it was long enough. She was weak, and tired, but she couldn't let it show. She did her best to look threatening, glowering at the Cerberus operatives. It was confusing to see the turians with the human. Cerberus was a pro-human group. Had things changed so much in her time in cryo? It didn't matter. She needed to get the hell off this station and Cerberus had the only way out. Fuck!
"What the hell do you want?" Jack asked with as much venom as a desert viper.
"I just saved your ass!" Shepard shot back. Jack was already pissing her off. This was going to be fun.
"He was already dead, he just didn't know it." Jack said with a confidence she doubted if she could back up if needed. She paced the hall. "Now, what the hell do you want?"
"We came for you, Jack." Shepard answered.
" sound like a pussy." Jack spat. "I'm not going anywhere with you. You're Cerberus."
"I'm not Cerberus. I'm Commander Shepard, Spectre for the Citadel and a member of the SDA." Shepard said proudly, hoping that her other affiliations were more to Jacks liking.
"You show up in a Cerberus frigate to take me away somewhere," Jack said, glancing at the Normandy out the window. "Do you think I'm stupid?"
"Yes, if you think there's any other way off this station alive." Shepard shot back.
She wasn't going to take this kind of shit from some bitch who obviously didn't realize she was being offered a helping hand. Behind her, Garrus took a step forward.
"We could knock her out and take her." He suggested.
"Or shoot her." Kryik added. He thought that might be easier. It would certainly be faster.
"I'd like to see you try." Jack threatened.
Either option would be an easier and faster solution to the problem, but that wouldn't be a good way to get Jack to want to work with her. No, there had to be some other way. Shepard knew Jack wasn't this stupid, simply because she was still alive. There had to be something Jack wanted. She was just playing tough and holding out for the offer.
"Look, we'e trying to help you. We've got the only way out and there's a seat on board with your name on it, but you're arguing." Shepard said, and crossed her arms. "Word of advice; you won't want to be my enemy."
"They tend to end up dead." Kryik said, with a low sinister tone. His hand rested on the butt of his pistol.
Jacks eyes flicked to the gun then to the fiercely cold green eyes boring into her from behind the white painted face. His gaze un-nerved her, setting a knot in her gut. She'd never felt a star like that. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep her focus. They wanted her, and she wanted information.
"Look, you want me to come with you?" Jack said, taking a few casual steps forward. "Make it worth my while."
"What do I have that you want?" Shepard said, matching Jack's strides.
"I'm betting your ship has lots of Cerberus databases. I want to look at those files, see what Cerberus has got on me." Jack crossed her arms and shifted her weight to her hip. "You want me on you team? Let me go through those data bases."
"Fine by me." Shepard answered. "Miranda's going to have a cow." She thought.
"You better be strait up with me!" Jack threatened with a finger in Shepard's face.
Shepard was tired of the attitude. She grabbed Jacks finger and pushed it out of her face, letting the blue flames of her boitics flare in a display of dominance. She narrowed he eyes at the ones glaring back at her from within their own flames.
"You'd better recognize!" Shepard spat, her street days on Earth sifting to the surface in the face of such angst. "You need to rectify your attitude before I do it for you!"
Shepard held her ground as Jacks biotic display faded to nothing. It was either because she was yielding, which wasn't likely, or she was too exhausted to keep it up.
"Move out!" Shepard shouted in order in Jacks face.
The girl unconsciously blinked, but she didn't flinch. Shepard brushed passed her. At this point, Shepard didn't care whether the bitch followed her or not, but the count of foot steps echoing behind her suggested that Jack had not stayed behind.