"We're getting bogged down! The distraction teams aren't working!" Vasir shouted.
Samara barely heard Vasir over the Brute trying to smash her into jelly. The thing was massive, stank like nothing she'd ever encountered—perhaps a thousand years of a vehicle repair garage that had never been cleaned, with an attached public lavatory which had also never been cleaned—and if it couldn't charge a person and make contact, it tried to slam them into the nearest solid object. And it was much too fast for its size!
Sweat slid down her skin in a thick layer; she hadn't been in a muck sweat like this one since the Collector Base. She supposed that made sense; this was rather the Reaper equivalent.
She'd encountered Brutes before, but previous experience only helped her know what to expect from them. It didn't help as much as one might think in any practical fashion simply because they were so big. Even she couldn't just pick it up and throw it…well, she could, but not very far. For that, she'd need a long drop at the end of her biotic reach, at which point gravity could take over. Even Reapers had trouble fighting gravity.
"They're working! Just not well enough!" Aurelie shouted back.
Suddenly, the Brute jerked sideways, knocked off balance as Aurelie came to Samara's assistance. Between the two of them, one holding, the other pulling, they managed to damage one of its bandy legs at the hip, snapping the joint and reducing its mobility. Even Reapers had their weaknesses; if one was meant to go about on two props, it generally couldn't manage hopping on one foot. At that point, all it could do was crawl, which Reapers generally did. Dismemberment was not the most efficient way to deal with a Reaper, but it was one of the surest.
The thing bellowed, clawed as if to drag itself to them, then began to jerk as multiple weapons discharged pitilessly into its tiny turian head.
"I hate those things," Lysana shuddered. "I hate them when they're bigger than me."
"Keep walking," Lorella said, starting off at a brisk trot.
The others followed, leaving the scattered bodies of the heavy unit of Reapers in their wake. Brutes and Cannibals; were the Reapers aware of the Stiletto teams, or were these deployed to make their way towards the Wrench teams? It was impossible to tell. Surely a unit of asari, such as their Stiletto team, warranted so many heavy units…and yet she had the feeling that since it was only the one unit, perhaps the Reapers weren't aware of the Stilletos just yet.
She hoped not, prayed not, for the sake of the others.
"It doesn't bother me," Talassa panted, moving with some discomfort but still mobile. "The Code does not account for magnitude of an enemy."
That was true enough, and Samara had had reasons to bless the Code for teaching how trifling a detail size really was. If the mind didn't perceive difficulties between an enemy the size of an asari versus an enemy the size of a Brute, then there was less confusion, less fear, when the big ones showed up. One had more mental power to devote to tactics rather than inane shock about 'wow…that's big…'
"Yeah, but I don't have the firepower of a whole squad of Huntresses in my little finger," Lysana answered affably. Of the original sixteen asari assigned to Stiletto Two, only the four Justicars and the two Spectres remained. The two Huntresses with them had already been killed. Still, two out of eight wasn't terrible, considering the enemy and the terrain. And the beam was getting closer.
About the eight remaining Huntresses, she didn't know. Stiletto Two had split up early on; moving in a company that big attracted more attention than smaller units would, and while the master plan called for four Stiletto teams, the asari knew their own tactics, their own strengths. It was better to take two swings than just one, when one was built more for stealth and infiltration than head-on collisions.
Samara was sure Shepard would approve. That was why the Stiletto teams were only given the very broadest objective: so they could adapt accomplishing that objective to their own particular methods and strengths, retaining the familiarity of their own species' methodologies rather than trying to adapt to someone else's.
Vasir gave a hollow chuckle. "Nor I."
"Then perhaps you would prefer to remain behind?" Aurelie asked.
Samara knew Aurelie was merely asking for clarification, but the two Spectres didn't, and took it as an insult—an insult they had to swallow, because Justicars were always right, according to asari law.
Not for the first time, Samara wondered whether it would have been better to send the Spectres with the Commandos and keep the Justicars with their fellow Order members. "Aurelie is asking if you are in good stead to proceed," Samara declared, smoothing over the unpleasant moment.
"Of course I am," Vasir answered sourly, clearly chewing on something she would like to say, but which prudence forbade.
"I wish we had a rover," Lysana mused blandly. "Then we could just ram it the last few hundred meters to the beam. You know, like Shepard did with the Conduit? Resistance will be thickest there, and we're already bogging down."
They were moving more slowly than anyone wanted to admit. The radio silence of the Stiletto teams meant they only knew how Hammer One was faring, and they were finished.
"Do you really think we could get a rover over this terrain?" Lorella asked dubiously, glancing at the alleyway through which they were picking their way.
"There are plenty of thoroughfares," Vasir shrugged. "The problem is finding a rover in any condition to travel, and finding one close enough to the beam."
This was true enough.
Lysana sighed, shrugging, knowing as they all did that the most direct route was best traversed on foot. Any detours would only slow them down more.