Brothers In Steel Part 25: Coup Part 2
After fighting through several groups of Cerberus cannon fodder, the team came up a flight of stairs and took cover behind an unlocked door. John and Shepard got into cover on each side of the door, while Liara opened it with her fist. Then Shepard went in first, John following behind. The room they entered was littered with dead Salarians and Humans in navy blue C-Sec uniforms, the smell of charred flesh poignant in the smoky air. Papers had been spread about on the floor, and an overturned desk had been smashed in on the left side of the room.
"Bailey," said Shepard, "Looks like they got the Executor, and two Salarian bodyguards."
"Damn. All right keep searching. If you don't see the Councilor's body don't count him out yet."
John walked up to the window. Below was an office area, tables and chairs the only witness to the carnage earlier. John saw one of the windows move though and a shimmering of light. A Salarian in a blue hooded cloak, with light blue facial tattoos rose up from under the table.
"Commander," said John, "Is that him?"
"Found him, and he appears unharmed."
"Get him somewhere safe!" ordered Bailey.
John watched as a figure dropped down from the ceiling, landing right in front of the Councilor, who backed off in fear.
The Commander has his back turned. John saw an asian man, with strange goggles, wearing jet black armor that matched his ponytail, and carrying a sword.
John quickly shot the window with his Carnifex pistol and jumped down with a thump. Liara and Shepard followed, backing up John as the strange sword-wielding man kept the Councilor at bay with a yellow and purple light emitting from his hand. Whatever it was, it was going to put some really damage on the Councilor.
"Don't even think about it," warned Shepard, raising up his own pistol.
"Shepard!" hissed the Salarian Councilor, "He's going to kill us all."
"That remains to be seen."
"No! I mean Udina. He's staging a coup. He's got the other councilors now, going to hand them off to Cerberus."
John remembered the name "Udina", it might have been something he had read, but he couldn't place it.
"Three on one pal," said Shepard, "Its over."
"No," the sword-wielding man said cockily, "Now its fun."
John's fingers started to itch, wanting to shoot the bastard. A standoff lasted for a fews seconds that seemed like an hour, then the Salarian Councilor raised his hands and shimmering lights enveloped him, hiding his body. But the Cerberus swordsman was too fast and shot a bolt from his hand, creating a dark purple stain of blood that dripped onto the linoleum floor.
John didn't even need to react, he immediately started pumping rounds at the Assasin, whose shields ruptured, but managed to get to cover in time. John ran after him, his Spartan speed allowing him easily overtake the swordsman. The swordsman did a barrel roll and landed onto a flight of stairs below. John chased him and Cortana yelled, "He's running towards the edge!"
"I know." he said calmly and ran at the swordsman. The man managed to jump off the edge. John could hear Shepard yelling in the back but ignored him and jumped too.
For what it seemed, the hover car was not that far below.
Both of them were able to get up and stand, but John was slightly put off balance as the hover car started to take off. The swordsman got into a ready position, but John wasn't having any of it. He threw his pistol away and took out his assault rifle, firing shots at the swordsman.
Whoever was driving however, knew what to do and swerved at an angle to try and shake John off. John quickly pulled out his omni-blade and sunk it into the chassis of the hover car, hanging on for dear life as the scenery around him flashed by in blurs of white, blue and green. Sparks rained down from above.
The good news was at least the swordsman was thrown off as well, and was also clinging as well on his side. The car righted itself up and John had a more firm grip, allowing himself to pull up onto the car.
"Get in the cockpit, push the driver out and take over!" yelled Cortana.
"Easier said than done," retorted John, but he complied. With one punch of his Spartan fist he broke the glass. A woman was inside, dressed in a skin-tight black suit. And John got inside, pieces of glass streaming around him.
The woman tried to pull out a pistol, but John quickly back handed her and knocked her unconscious. Immediately the hover car began to lose altitude and careen at a diagonal descent.
John managed to unclip the woman's seatbelt, then lift her up over him, awkwardly shuffle into her seat, and then set her down on his side. Then just as he got done with that, the hover car crashed into a Presidium lake.
Having armor that weighed half a ton was often a nuisance when it came to operating in water. After escaping the crashing hover car, John slowly sank to the bottom of the lake, his metal boots clanging against the lake bottom, which was not made up of any kind of silt or sand, just whatever material the entire Citadel was made of. Thankfully for John, there was a fifteen minute supply of oxygen in his suit, which would give him enough time to find a way out of the lake, hopefully.
"Cortana," he said, "How do we get out of here?"
"I would assume there has to be some way out, maybe there's an area where you can rise above the water? Like a shore? I don't know, do you know if these things go swimming here?"
John had no answers so he said nothing. He continued to walk forward though, noticing that the water level was indeed growing shorter with each step.
Eventually, the water level became low enough that John's head rose over the top of the water line, at least putting his oxygen problems on hold. "Now lets get out of here," he said.
He walked along the edge of the lake until eventually he found a ledge low enough for him to climb up. He managed to pull himself up and mantle over the top, lying on the Citadel ground for a few seconds to recuperate. Then he got back out again and said, "Now we need to find that Swordsman. Otherwise this will have all been for nothing."
John only had one weapon left; his shotgun. He wasn't too far from where the C-Sec headquarters was. The area around him was quiet, there was nobody around, and there were no visible signs of battle.
A group of human C-Sec Officers were taking cover behind a parking lot of hover cars, when John walked near them. They looked at him with dumbstruck faces and asked, "Who are you?"
"Alliance. I was with Commander Shepard when we tried to retake C-Sec headquarters. You wouldn't happened to see an Human Asian Male, carrying a sword around would you? I'm kind of trying to uh...apprehend him."
Their lead officer was still staring at John but managed to blurt out a comprehnsible answer, "Oh right. Yeah, we saw him. Took cover behind here because he joined up with a group of Cerberus soldiers too big for us to take on our own. Headed in that direction," the man pointed into what as far as John could tell, was north.
A beeping noise sounded out from John's omni-tool and he picked it up. It was alerting him that he had over nine missed calls, and now a new one. John picked it up and said, "Lieutenant Spartan reporting."
It was Shepard, and he didn't sound happy, "John where the hell are you?"
John put the omni-tool down and asked the Turians, "Where are we?"
"Shalmar plaza," they answered him, and John told Shepard.
"Oh," said Shepard, calming down considerably, "That makes you right beneath us. Where's Kai Leng? We got the Council to safety, did you kill him?"
"No sir," said John, wishing he had gotten the chance.
"Then I guess you did the right thing, jumping after Leng. C-Sec took back their headquarters, we got to the Council before Cerberus did, and took care of Udina. Most of Cerberus is on the run now, so I'm guessing that's what happened to Kai Leng."
"That's it?" asked Cortana, "Seems too easy."
"Well this is the Citadel," said John, "There was bound to be more C-Sec all over the 'wings'. Cerberus would have complete control if they had the Presidium, and they don't so, I guess that means we won."
The C-Sec officers looked ecstatic, and started to cheer.
"Where should I RV with you guys?" asked John.
"Take the elevator upstairs, then we'll meet up at the landing pad, and take a shuttle back to the Normandy."
"Looks like we saved the day again, Chief," said Cortana proudly.
"Looks like it," said John.
And with that, John led the C-Sec officers to the elevator in triumph.