Chapter twenty five
Liara instinctively throws up a barrier sphere, hoping to block the bullets and minimize the force of the shock waves. Even with it, they all go sailing up and back some fifty feet away, and spread out through the orchard.
Shepard comes crashing down through the branches of an orange tree. She lands solidly on her back, the wind knocked from her again. Oranges rain down on and around her. Each jarring where it connects with armor. Two catch her square in the face, one to her left eye, the other her right temple. Growling she kicks herself up and turns to look for Vega and Liara. Vega groans standing up a few feet away.
Shaking his head he looks to Kelly, an orange had struck him on his forehead and cracked open. He wipes it away and cracks a cheeky smile at her, "Always said I had a hard head. You alright?"
"Yeah, got a shiner, nothing more. Liara!" She calls out stumbling to her right, she should be right around here.
Liara slowly gets to her feet, surrounded by oranges, she was hard to spot. "I'm fine."
Kelly looks at the oranges spread neatly around and under where Liara stands. She raises an eyebrow. "Had time to make your own bed?"
"I'm resourceful." She turns back toward the house. "What's your plan, Shepard?"
"Take cover behind the trees. Liara can you take those asari?"
"I think so. Might be tricky."
"So says the woman who just made a bed as she fell twenty feet from the air." Vega chuckles.
Shepard looks to him, "Please tell me you have some grenades."
He hold up a bandoleer that was strapped around his left thigh. "Never leave home without them."
Shepard smiles wanly. "Right then. I'll lay down some covering fire, draw them a little closer. Get your grenades into the pack. Take out as many as you can."
"Aye Aye Ma'am." Vega sounds downright cheerful.
She shakes her head. "I'll lay out a turret, get Riley out into the field. See if we can't decrease their numbers before they get too close." She takes a quick look around the tree. The Cerberus troops are spreading out into four squads, fanned out in a crescent slowly pressing forward. "Ready, break!" she hollers as she lobs her turret as far and fast as she can. It lands ten feet in front of the two squads facing her way. A biotic stasis takes one commando by surprise holding her fast. The other recovers fast, throwing up her barriers and deflecting Liara's warp attack. Vega grins like a maniac as his grenade lands just behind his squad and detonates. Ten of the fifteen Cerberus troopers go sprawling forward, their backs and legs riddled with shrapnel. Vega then unloads his assault rifle in full burst, catching the last few across their heads. Laying them down for good.
Grinning like a fool he sidesteps to the right, out of cover, to get a better angle on one of squads Shepard is targeting. He takes two down with his rifle before a round rockets into his shoulder. Spinning he goes down. He quickly recovers, turning slapping the ground as he falls he twists back to his knees, fires a three round burst. Then rolls to the side, taking cover behind the tree next to Shepard.
"Hey, dumb ass." Shepard barks at him over the gunfire and snaps of bullets hitting trees and bark. "Rolls are better than jumping out saying 'Hey look a me!'" She reaches across the short gap and cuffs him soundly on the back of his head. "Keep your head and body low. Now,get another nade into that fray, and lets give them hell."
The battle lasts a good twenty minutes. The few forces that made it into the trees they quickly dispatched. Vega with brute force, literally cracking heads together like eggs, and laying about with his fists, and rifle butt. Liara uses her singularity and warp to blast multiple enemies at once.
Shepard does what she does best, overloading their suit shield generators she pops them with her pistol. Ruthlessly killing with one shot to the head, leg and thigh shots to incapacitate, and using her considerable leg and arm strength to punch and kick opponents down.
Turning to survey the damage she feels a pang of sadness seeing the majority of the trees in a fifty yard radius are decimated by bullets, biotics, and scorched by grenade blasts.
Shaking her head ruefully she looks to her team. "Status?"
"Five by, Ma'am." Vega reports. "Bumps and bruises. No bleeding."
"I'm fine. A few scratches, nothing serious."
Shepard checks her own body. A knife slash caught her between the grooves of her armor at her elbow. A shallow cut, not very deep. She ignores at and looks back to her team. "Alright then. Let's get back to the house. I doubt this is the end of the fighting." Stepping out of the tree line they see the remnants of the troops they dispatched. Shepard looks up to see Cato still on the porch, cigar in hand. He is still glowing faintly blue.
"Impressive sis." He steps forward, coming down the stairs. His air and demeanor is that of a king approaching his subjects. Pompous, overconfident, arrogant. "I thought you might defeat them, but I held out hope." He stops on the ground in front of the stairs. Taking a long drag from his cigar he grins wickedly at her. "Maybe you'll find these more challenging." He elevates himself biotically and floats backward onto the porch again.
Five asari commandos and an Atlas mech walker come into view around the house. The mech raises its arm and a rocket jets out to them.
"Shit, shit, shit." Shepard swears as she dives to the right. She tries to roll as the shock wave of the blasts hits her. She tumbles forward a few yards before getting to her feet, ears ringing. She sees Liara gracefully lowering herself to the ground from the shock wave knocking her flying, wreathed in biotic fire. Vega stands shakily and shakes his head. Barely a breath of time passes before the commandos close in. Sprinting and rolling Shepard evades the mech's machine guns and the commando's attacks. She is vaguely aware of Liara and Vega's conflicts as she is forced to dive again. She keeps backing up, trying to get to the relative safety of the orchard. The asari's attacks keep pushing her forward, not back. Toying with her.
Frustrated, Shepard lobs a turret behind the asari and blasts her with an overload. The asari's barriers flicker as she tries to dodge the turrets deadly accuracy. The bullets chew through her final barriers as Shepard gives her the coup de grace to the head. Another asari steps in quickly. She lifts Shepard fast off the ground, suspending her ten feet in the air. Shepard struggles madly, trying to orient herself to fire down at the asari.
Seeing a blue mass of biotic energy heading her way she swears. "Oh fuck." before her world explodes in blue white agony.
Liara finishes off her second commando with a biotic choke. She turns toward Vega to see he's handling his commando with brute force. Cutting in close so that the asari can't use very much force with her biotics. Instead they fight hand to hand. Turning away from him, he can handle himself, she sees Shepard get lifted off the ground ten feet in the air. Her mouth drops open as the biotic warp collides hard. A sound like a sonic boom echoes across the field as a white star ignites where Shepard was.
Tears stream down her face as Liara rushes madly towards the last commando. She lashes out a biotic whip that lances across the other woman's face, leaving a welt behind. Followed by a biotic shove that sends her to the ground. Liara lifts her into the air and slams her hard down to earth. She hears the dull thunk and crack as the asari goes limp. Without a glance at the woman she killed, Liara runs to the limp form of Shepard. Grasping the scorched armor of Shepard's shoulder she rolls her onto her back.
She gasps as she sees Shepard's skin is scorched nearly black in places, and red in others where some of her still working nanites are repairing the damage. Tears of relief spill down her cheeks when Shepard moans and her eyes flutter. She quickly spreads medigel over the burns on her face and neck.
Pain returns to her senses first. Which is good and bad. Pain means you're alive. But she feels like she just got blasted by a dozen suns at once. The skin on her face and neck sting like the worst sun burn in history. A persistent itch creeps along the surface of her face, at the edges of the painful places. Her entire leftt side is numb. That's not good.
A groan escapes her as she is shifted, she feels her back against the ground. The pressure raises more itching along her spine. Grass tickling? No, she can feel her armor. Perhaps she has burns under her suit too. She flutters her eyes, trying to orient herself. Blue sapphires are gazing at her, ringed in tears.
"Oh, hi." She mutters passed cracked, dry lips.
Liara helps her sit upright. More groans of pain escape her. "Ouch." She mutters, still blinking spots from her eyes. Something is off with her left, it's blurry and white haze drifts in it. "Got any water?" Her head is still dizzy, ears ringing, echoes sounding in her head.
"Here." Vega appears and presses a canteen to her lips. "There ya go." Full awareness returns as the water eases her aching throat. She takes the canteen and upends it over her face. The cool water is a relief to her burns. She looks to Liara.
"How bad?"
"Not as bad as you at your worst." She weakly jokes.
Shepard chuckles as Vega helps her to her feet. The world spins briefly. "Why hasn't the atlas attacked?" She asks, turning around to look back towards the house.
She sees the smoking ruin at the same time Liara says, "Apparently Vega, grenades, and mechs do not mix well."
"Did ya know they keep a fire extinguisher under the belly hatch?"
"Oh gods." She whispers, "What did you do?"
"My asari got a lucky punch on me, her biotics pushed me under the atlas. I couldn't resist when I saw the 'In case of Emergency' hatch with the extinguisher icon on it. One nade, wedged tight, and a tease to the Asari got her running at me and me sprinting as fast as possible the other way."
Shepard shakes her head at Vega's audacity but claps him on the shoulder. "Well done." She looks up at the porch and sees Cato looking down at her, barely suppressed fury on his face.
"What?" She leers at him, "No more back up?"
"Well, paint me green and riddle me with envy. You are one tough bitch."
She grimaces in pain, her left side still numb, and the itching across her right side is driving her crazy. "I'd like to say it runs in the family, but I can see it doesn't."
He grasps the railing on the porch tight, his knuckles going white. "It would seem I'm going to have to finish you myself." He vaults over the railing and lands in the grass. Standing he looks at her with disdain, "I almost feel bad for taking you out while you're crippled. Almost."
She shrugs Liara's arm off hers and steps forward, assuming a fighter's stance, ignoring her aches and burns. "Are we done dawdling? I don't know who you are, or where my brother went. But I'm done playing games. Fight me, and I'll wipe that greasy smile off your face."
His grin turns to a snarl as he rushes forward. He blasts Liara and Vega with a strong enough force to launch them backward. They lay stunned and unconscious on the grass.
Shepard barely has time to look at them as Cato lunges in, his fist drawn back shimmering with blue fire. She sidesteps the rush and takes two quick jabs into his kidney. He flinches away, and spins into a roundhouse kick. The heel of his boot connecting with the numb left side of her face. She twists around, star bursts blossoming in her vision. She ducks his follow through punch, and stands up inside his guard. She punches twice. One an upper cut to his chin, the second a full power punch to his nose and forehead. He rocks back away from her. Stumbling he looks up, rage contorting his features. Blood pouring from his nose.
He shakes his head and wipes the blood away. "Cheap shot." He taunts as he dances in close again. He fakes a punch toward her face, then comes in under with a biotic punch to her gut when she blocks his upper punch. She skids away on her back, dazed and fighting to keep control of her stomach. He launches in on top of her, pinning her legs with his knees, her right arm is twisted under her, he's got her left pinned with his right hand. He hauls his free hand back to slam her with biotics.
Knowing that this is going to hurt a lot, she leans as far into the ground as she can, until she has enough leverage to swing up, hitting him with as much force as she can muster. Her brow connects solidly into his already broken nose. She hears the wet crunch of her own nose breaking. She quickly breathes through her mouth as she rises to her feet, blood pours down her throat gagging her. She shakes it from her mind and looks to Cato. He is on his back, on the ground. Fighting not to puke as more blood runs freely from his nose, the corner of one eye, and a cut over his right eyebrow. She can see the slight dent she made on his forehead, it's pale purple blue, and his eyes are glazed over. She kneels down in front of the man who used to be her brother.
He looks at her, all the pain and anger draining from his face. She is looking into the youthful face of her brother once more. She cradles his head in her left arm as she draws her pistol with her right.
She lightly presses the muzzle to his chest, right over his heart. Her amber red eyes meet his glazing amber eyes and she smiles at him. "I love you, find peace with the gods." She whispers, then pulls the trigger. Knowing his death was instant. She pulls him close as tears stream down her cheeks. Truly allowing herself to mourn for her lost brother.