Author's Note: Hello! I'm back! new goodies for you guys. Things should move along a lot better now. I'll do my best to be more regular.
Enjoy!
...
Hefting her hunting knife, the only weapon provided in her survival pack, Shepard crouches low in the bushes at the very edge of the clearing waiting for Lin to make her move. She prays the Trickster that this does not go haywire and that the three of them make it out of this alive. To pull off neutralizing these eight men, eight men armed with guns, versus them with just their knives is going to be a trick and a half to handle.
Seeing Lin entering the clearing, all nonchalance and cocky, has Shepard on edge. To see her love going into unknown danger is nerve wracking. They pulled straws for this, they all could pull it off, Lin won.
"Well, well." Lin struts up to the first shuttle, placing her hand on it and leaning casually against it, "Am I really the first to reach the rendezvous?"
At the sight of her, all the men stand from their various crouched or seated places and raise weapons, seeing her as one of the recruits. Shepard can see smirks cross a few faces as they relax their stances and lower some of their weapons. But not fully Shepard notes, these are definitely not Alliance. None of that is Alliance behavior, even undercover Alliance doesn't give off those tells so easily. She can see Lin notices this behavior as well, her only tell is a slight stiffening to her shoulders.
"Impressive." A man steps forward, a pistol in one hand as he extends his other towards Lin, "What's your name recruit?"
Lin hesitates to shake his hand, "You in charge here…?" She leaves her question open for him to give rank, hoping to draw him into catching a lie.
"I am." He nods, "I can relieve you of your pack. That shuttle over there is the rally point."
Shepard frowns and growls in her throat, knowing now that these are certainly mercenaries. She picks up a stone by her side and gives it a light toss into a brush pile behind her, her signal to Deunan of confirmation.
Lin forces a reassuring smile, "I can handle it, it's alright." She looks back toward the forest, "Hey, I gotta take care of some nature business, I'll be right back."
As she turns to head back into the forest, the merc grabs her by the strap of her pack, "I'm afraid we can't have you leaving the rendezvous once you've arrived." His tone and solid grip raise red flags for Lin, she knows she has to get out, and now.
"Sorry bub." She says firmly, "I don't think so." She twists around swiftly and delivers a fierce punch to his face. Hearing his nose crunch, she wastes no time slipping out of her pack and bolting towards the forest. Hoping against hope she can make the treeline before the rest can make out what happened and start shooting.
"Not quite." She whispers as she hears the crack of rifles going off, bullets begin whizzing by her chipping off of the tree trunks and chewing up the undergrowth.
Then she hears the man she punched yell something that startles her, "Stop firing! We need them alive!"
She takes the halt in the firing to leap over the brush line and into bushes and grasses. Rolling ro fetch her back up against a tree trunk, putting the tree between her and the clearing.
"Find her. Now." The man's voice is heavy and thick, no doubt from blood flowing from a broken nose, "Be aware, there could be more of them. We can't get paid for slaves if we kill the product trying to catch them. Shoot to immobilize only."
Lin purses her lips and looks around her surroundings critically, trying to get her bearings. Hearing a hiss, she looks down and peers into the thick foliage of the bushes and grass beside her. She can just make out a pair of deepa amber eyes and a shock of red hair peeking out of the mud.
"You might want to join me down here." Shepard whispers softly, "Getting good and muddy hides better than up against a tree."
Lin gives her love a dark look, then crouches and works her way under the bushes prone beside Shepard. Doing her best to cover most of herself with fresh mud, "What now? Where's Deunan?"
"Deunan is in the clearing, she went in after they all scattered." Sheparad murmurs," I was just getting ready to follow. We need to disable those shuttles."
"We need to not get caught." Lin interjects. "Shepard are you going to-"
"I'm fine." Shepard interrupts , her voice harsh and deadpanned, before she continues in a more serious tone, "Those shuttles have to be our main objective. And right now is our prime opportunity to get to them. C'mon." Without waiting for a response, she crawls forward and rolls to her feet, sprinting into the clearing.
"By the gods." Lin swears before following Shepard into the clearing.
As the two women enter the clearing and reach the first shuttle, Deunan jumps out of the doors, looking at them, "You two gonna tango in the mud more or help me?" She smirks, raising an eyebrow.
Shepard punches her in the shoulder, "Smart ass." Shepard looks up to the remaining three shuttles, "Alright, each of us gets one. Do whatever you need to to keep these birds on the ground, meet back at the clearing we found each other at. That should be far enough away these bozos won't search that far."
Deunan barely nods before she's off to the next shuttle. Lin opens her mouth to speak.
"Save it." Shepard says, not unkindly, "Speed is of the essence here." She gives Lin a quick kiss on the lips then darts away herself to the far shuttle, leaving Lin to the nearest.
Coming to her shuttle, Shepard swears, "Of course mine would be locked." She wrenches the omni interface panel off to expose the raw wiring underneath. Not having an omni tool herself, she can't hack it her usual, faster, way. This will have to be old school.
It takes her longer than she'd like, but she finally gets the right wires cut, crossed, and spliced that allows the door to chime and slide open.
"Bingo." She cheers quietly as she jumps up into the shuttle, darting to the cockpit controls. Once again, she has to rip away the omni interface parts to expose the wires. She begins pulling them and cables out of their housings, cutting them with her knife, and smashing boards with the pommel of her knife. Doing her damnedest to do as much irreparable damage as fast as possible to this console.
"Whoever you are," a deep voice gets her attention, causing her to freeze in place instantly, inwardly cursing herself for taking too long, "I wanna see your hands as you back out of there, slowly."