Chapter 32c: Noveria pt. 3
The fight was quick and bloody. Sterling was on the floor bleeding with Shepherd standing over her. He crouched down with a smug smirk on his face; there was no pity for the dirty cop.
"So you might be thinking now, 'was the money worth it?' Shepherd said.
Sterling gave a murderous gaze. "You little shit..." she gasped. "What are you waiting for? If you're going to kill me, get it over with." She coughed up blood; Sterling wasn't going to make it after this.
Shepherd gave cruel smirk. "Nah, I wouldn't waste my time or my heat sinks on a little bitch like you"
Sterling eyes widen. Gone was the defiance and the misplace bravery in her eyes, only fear took its place. "Y-you just going to leave me here to bleed out" she said in fear.
"Yep, think of it as a nice way for you to reflect on your life, just before you lose it, See ya" he said. Ash couldn't help but shudder as he said those words. 'They don't call him the Butcher for nothing' she thought. "Let's go" Shepherd ordered.
Sterling cursed at the top of her lungs as Shepherd and team walked out. They made their way back to the hotel. Parasini was there.
"Ah I see you're back" Parasini said sipping her cup.
"I got your evidence, now the garage pass" Shepherd said.
Parasini wagged her finger. "Now you just need to get Qui'in to testify" she said.
Shepherd glared at the woman. "That wasn't part of the deal, I got you damn evidence, anything after that is on your ass." He said.
Parsini rolled her eyes. "As long as I have the pass, you can't go and do your little mission, now do as I say and get the turian to testify" she said. Ash palmed her face. 'This is not going to end well' she thought.
Shepherd's eye twitched and he lifted the woman with his biotics. "No you listen to me you conniving little bitch, I don't take orders from you or your little board, you keep this up and I will show you why a spectre is above the law, got it?" he said. Parasini nodded her head quickly. "Good" he said.
Shepherd dropped her hard on the floor and Parasini gave up the key. The team left the shaken woman. "Was that really necessary?" Liara asked.
"No, but it was fun" he said. Liara and Ash glared at him. Shepherd sighed. "Fine, if I ever see her again I'll buy her a fucking drink."
"Tali have her hands full" Ash said.
Liara nodded. "I agree"
Shepherd rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah" he grumbled. The team made it to the garage; it was quiet, too quiet. "Stay close, I have a bad feeling about this" he said. A mechanical sound caught everybody's attention.
"What is that...?" Ashley muttered. A further sound, all too familiar, answered the question: The distinctive cackling of geth platforms, Two Geth Destroyers, a Geth Ghost, a Geth Stalker, a Geth Rocket Trooper, and a Geth Shock Trooper will attacked. A destroyer charged at them. "Shit!" Ashley blurted out. Everybody drew their weapons.
"Liara, Stasis!" Shepherd ordered. The destroyer froze in its tracks. The team took cover, Ash Tried to blast the ghosts, but it was too fast, unknowing to her, a second destroyer charged at the gunnery chief. "Ash, behind you!" Ash looked back too late and was on the floor with a rifle staring at her. Shepherd overloaded the destroyer and pushes it back with a throw field, when he got to her they were surrounded by shock troopers.
"Sorry, skipper, I got careless…" Ash said.
"Happens to the best of us, don't worry about it" he said. "But I do wonder how are we getting out if this?" Ash looked around the room, and saw a whole bunch of canisters littered around the garage, this place was bonfire waiting to happen, which was perfect for getting rid of annoying geth.
"This place is full of flammable material, it would be a shame if it caught on fire, Skipper" Ash said with a smirk. Shepherd smirked back, the spectre called Liara to run interference of the geth, the asari glowed blue and trapped them all in a huge singularity field. The agile ghosts and stalkers tried to escape, but even they were trapped by field. Near by the swirling vortex had picked up several canisters.
"Buh-bye, bosh'tets" he said. Shepherd sabotaged the canisters and it caused a huge explostion, so huge in fact, that Alarms started to sound. Several guards came in to investigate, one of them had black hair, Matsuo.
"What the... What are these things?!" Matsuo asked in alarm. "Fan out and secure the area! No one gets in or out!"
"Shit! Time to go!" Shepherd shouted. "Head for the Mako!"
"What about the guards?" Liara asked.
"Let them play clean up, let's go" Ash said. The team ran for the Mako, but Matsuo had seen them, she had ordered them to stop, but they kept going. They then had to dodge hail of gunfire. "That bitch is actually shooting at us!"
"Well she did say no one leaves" Liara said. The team had to use the Mako as cover when the gunfire became too much, the Matsuo and her men were hot on their heels, they needed to end this chase and soon. Shepherd got out a grenade and set it on the lowest setting so he wouldn't hurt them and threw.
"Watch it, explosive!" As the explosion got ERCS guard attention, the team went into the Mako, and drove into the white wilderness. Once they left the Mako, gave a notification of a Level 1 Cold Hazard; limiting the teams exposure to the outside until they reached Peak 15. The ride was not to be uneventful, however as they approached the first tunnel; the geth have placed a turret here, which were reinforced with Shock Troopers, Rocket Troopers, and Troopers. In addition, the geth have deployed personal shields near their positions.
Shepherd groaned. "I should've known they wouldn't make it easy for us" Shepherd search for a safe place to attack, going in blindly was going to get them killed. Ash activated the main gun and entered sniper mode. The soldier was able to take out the two turrets, before it could lock on the tank.
"Geth incoming!" Liara said. Ash switched to the machine guns, and mowed down the geth. Some of the geth set down personal shields to the block the guns of the Mako, as they counter attacked. Suddenly the tank shook slightly by the rocket troopers, Ash switched back to the main gun and the geth went flying, some off into the ravine. The Mako went on ahead; about halfway down the tunnel are four Geth Rocket Troopers. They were all shooting their rockets at the same time so it makes their shots easy to dodge. Thanks to the crazy driving of Shepherd, the rocket troopers were run over before they could get in another shot.
When they were out of the tunnel, a Geth Armature was waiting for them, and it had also has some Rocket Trooper friends. This was a tough battle, when the rocket troopers weren't pounding them, the armature was.
"Shields at fifty-two percent, Shepherd we can't take much more" Liara said.
Shepherd nodded. "Ash, take out the Rocket Troopers then focus on the Armature " he said. Ash nodded and mowed down the rocket troopers with the machine guns. The Armature fired at the Mako, and the tank shook hard. "Status!"
"We lost twenty percent, were at thirty-two!" Liara said. Shepherd maneuvered around the Armature dodging siege pulse fire until the tank got behind it. Before the Armature could turn, Ash blasted it with the main gun, and pelted it with the machine guns, after a while the geth succumbed to the damage and fell. They moved on until they reached the next tunnel, which was defended by more geth which were wiped out quite easily.
Now nearing the Peak 15 research facility, the only enemies were three Geth Turrets. As the Mako made the first turn around the cover, was the first turret, if they were not careful the turret's missile would knock them off the cliff. Shepherd drove dodging the missiles with Ash fired on the turrets, the spectre was lucky Ash was such a good sharpshooter, because after the gunnery chief destroyed the first one, the second fired about halfway down the path from the first to the last turn. The mako jumped, dodging the missile, Ash fired the main cannon, the tank's missile enters the nozzle of the second and was destroyed from the inside. The mako was then hit on the side; alarms were buzzing and beeping loudly.
"Shields at twelve percent, one more and we're finished!" Liara said. "The third is above and to the left, on the mountain!" Ash targeted that position, and before the turret could fire once more, she pelted it was a barrage of machine gunfire, the turret exploded. The path to Peak 15 was cleared.
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