10. Run And Gun

Returning to the landing bay, each with a Turian rifle in hand now, Shepard's eyes went straight to the shuttle parked in the middle of it. It was their way out, and she knew Tali would be able to bring down any security that tried to keep them grounded. One of the dead guards had also possessed an omnitool, and though not up to the spec and standard of Tali's confiscated own, she would be able to work enough magic with it to engineer an escape. Hopefully. Probably things would be a little more tricky up in the air, but that was a different bridge. This one had to be crossed first.

Tali knew what Shepard was going to do, and without waiting for any indication, she ran softly across the pad to the rear of the squat shuttle, a dark navy beast with white Turian markings on its sides. Two dorsal fins protruded from the rear of the craft, above a single cone engine, itself above a letter-box entrance to the ship's interior. There was no way in from the fore, where the thick stump of an unaestheticly pleasing nose would conceal a small bridge deck. A large circular plate in the middriff showed where the fuel was pumped in, but currently it was closed with no pipeline to be seen. That should mean it was ready to fly.

When Tali reached it, she looked quickly inside the ship, falling to a crouch beside the entry ramp to conceal her presence from anyone inside. No sound could be heard from within however, and so carefully she hauled herself up and went inside. Shepard watched, stomach tightening a little. She never liked it when there were plenty of enemies around but none visable - other than dead ones.

Tali's voice crackled in her ear, bringing some relief.

"The ship is locked down by a combination of docking bay safety guards, seperating us from the outside via kinetic barrier, and standard ship autoclamps. Four of them. And... four crew on the roster... somewhere. Get over here Shepard, before we get some more company. I'm sure someone's noticed our get out of jail show."

Shepard ran to the ship, hearing Tali's omnilock singing an electronic song of digital code dispersal as she arrived. Tali looked up, peering over her shoulder at a clamp activation screen that was blinking red. The welcome red letters "Disabled" told the story.

"Nice one, Tali, can you get the ramp up?"

"That, you can do. It's that big white button here," Tali jabbed a square LED beside the clamp lock screen, "But I'll do that too."

"Hey, I don't just shoot things. I can press buttons too you know." Shepard smiled, then heard a faint click a few meters away. She brought her head up, saw the Turian crewman levelling a Banshee, and put him down before his finger could touch the trigger. Another turned up right behind, even as he fell. She blazed a clip straight through him too.

"Two smoking turians, Shepard. You were just saying?"

"Sometimes I have to pull triggers as well as press buttons, that's all. Now, there's two more somewhere. You pick up any lifesigns further forward?"

Tali took a look at her omnilock, then picked up her rifle, which she had set against the wall. "We only have this this hold and an operations deck above us. The bridge is fore."

Shepard nodded, hearing the ramp whirring up behind them as it lifted off the deck. As she and Tali stepped over the Turians and started carefully up a short series of black metal stairs, she heard it clang shut. And fancied faint voices outside.

The top of the stairs found a T-junction. To the left, Shepard could see a pair of doors, the colour of rusted metal, marking a small armoury and utilities room. She nodded to Tali to investigate. Tali approached slowly, but the doors did not open, so she went to the lock, built into the material of the left wall. Shepard watched her stay her hand just before entering the final command to disengage the lock. After a souple of seconds, she nodded back at Shepard, who gave her a thumbs up and fell to one knee, steadying her rifle.

Tali jabbed a thin finger and the doors opened. A Turian, this time an officer, wearing the same grey uniform of Arturus' faction, sent several volleys of incinerating ammunition over Emily's head. A shimmer of orange rippled across her red hair as it did so. Then she put two single shots through the Turians chest. He opened his mouth, but dissolved into a bright cloud of orange before he could cry out. A couple of seconds later a pile of amber and white ash was smouldering where he had been standing.

Shepard looked at it, then her own rifle. "Thermals. They're not messing around, huh?"

"One more to go, Shepard." Tali pointed down the other corridor. Maintaining the same degree of cautioun, they each advanced down it, finding that it began to curve around, and then another door, this time clearly labelled as the bridge.

"It's unlocked," Tali said.

"Open it. Then go low and try and get a bead on them. I'll cover you."

"Got it." Tali ran to the right of the doorway, Shepard to the left. A meter short of it, the door rushed up into the ceiling with a hiss and cloud of steam. Shepard ran straight through, though, and as soon as she did, registered a figure a few meters away, across the other side of the room, rising from a position beneath a central desk. A series of bright blue pistol shots sped past and fried something, because sparks and material cascaded across Shepard as she sprawled down to a cold, hard floor. Shepard winced, seeing a new scar appearing across her brow in the reflective surface beneath her. Too many of those these days. She got up and returned fire, simply spraying the area around her enemies' position, giving Tali time to flank them. And then there was another blast of gunfire a few meters away, out of a swirl of smoke. Something thudded behind the desk. A gun clattered out of hand. Some footsteps padded around towards what was a last dead Turian.

"Clear," Tali said.

Shepard stood up straight and waved away the smoke and steam that was just starting to clear. She saw Tali looking down, and joined her. Behind what was a Control and Command desk, with astrological map hovering above it in hologram, was the Turian, this time with a badge of Captaincy. As far as Arturus really commanded any official unit.

Tali looked at the hologram. This is a chart for somewhere on the far edge of the Attican Beta. An area of, well, nothing. No one has ever charted that part of space entirely. Not that far rim at least."

"Arturus wanted to go there," Shepard stated, "so the relay's there."

A loud siren began to wail outside.

Tali looked at the other consoles around the bridge, one against each wall - none with a seat; too much of a luxury for a Turian. Each glowed a dull blue, on standby. In the end she came back to the nearest, at the front of the ship, and activated it with a quick swipe of her hand. Another swipe illuminated the scene outside, the ship's visor blinking to life. A large group of soldiers were swarming them, many with omnitools of their own. They looked frustrated and as though they were bickering amongst themselves.

"I put a virus in the access codes. The ramp won't go down, but their systems will," Tali said lightly.

"I think we'll be going, then. I expect they'll just resort to guns."

"Shields," Tali said, just before they did so.

"Engines online." Shepard looked around the fringes of the CAC desk and saw what she wanted. She jabbed a green Turian symbol, for "Life".

The engine on the ship fired scarlet and they felt it lift off the ground, clamps retreating into the underbelly with a heavy metallic thunk. Outside, most of the soldiers were vapourised by the sudden ignition.

"Is that barrier down, Tali?"

The Quorian prodded her omnitool. "It is now."

"Let's go find a relay, then." Shepard pressed another Turian symbol, this time meaning Light, and the ship blasted out of the bay, taking any remaining soldiers out along with them.

As the Mata faculty fell away below them, and they exited Vana's atmosphere, another warning alarm sounded, this time a high pitch pinging.

"Three fighters inbound. All Turian. Palaven Class, ten times faster than us. I haven't got an answer for that, Shepard." Tali was studying another console, this time showing up radar and their significant lack of firepower.

"God damn it. Open com-"

As Vana vanished, so the three pursuers appeared on screen, opening up from Aces high, making the ship shudder and drop, its shields taking more punishment than they had ever been designed to.

"Is Joker around somewhere?" Shepard shouted, "because we won't be able to get a lock on these things."

Each of the fighters exploded, quickly replaced by their favourite pilot's grinning face. He then offered a condescending frown. "I heard that, Commander. You just need a bit more patience, you know that? Now follow us out of here to the position I'm transmitting. You can transfer back to the Jeeya there. Send any data you want back to me."

"Thanks Joker. I... forget myself." Shepard mock bowed. "We'll see you soon. But I'll hang on to the intel we got. I don't want anyone hearing it that's not in crew."

"Cool. Later."

Joker's face blinked off and the Jeeya showed up in front of them. It accelerated away, and they went with it.

Aboard the Turian shuttle, Shepard and Tali collected theselves and began to organise all the intelligence they had collected into a single file, to be fed onto a data pad.

As they worked, Shepard looked at Tali and nodded at the Turian CAC she had operated. "You see, Tali, I pressed buttons right there. Two of them."

"You press a lot of people's buttons, Shepard."

Shepard laughed. "That I do."