Sarr gawked as he looked over the devastation laid before him.
Narn's ideas on "shock and awe" hadn't come close to what the older Krogan would've expected. Mass destruction of infrastructure, sure. Taking no prisoners, sure. Had it come to it even civilian casualties could've been used to scare the population and he would've stomached it. But suicide bombings…
Comparatively, it was one of the least reprehensible methods he could've thought of, a Vorcha pilot, strung on psychoactive drugs but just lucid enough to hit a building with a skycar at full acceleration. Incredibly powerful, surprisingly cost effective. But he hadn't expected what something like that would look like.
The large refinery that had stood in more or less the center of the district had, from appearances, seemed to be an important target, the building had been refurbished several times to line it's outer walls with reinforced metals, and the outer perimeter had been maintained by guards and sentries, as well as even turrets, nested in chokepoints and possible flanking routes. The humans were smart, but they weren't nearly prepared to counter the fighting potential of half a thousand battle-hungry krogan, and three times as many Vorcha. They had swarmed the turrets through sheer force of numbers and overwhelmed the defenders stationed there.
The building itself had been hit hard by the Skycar, hitting only slightly right of center, the resulting explosion ballooned out to encompass several floors beyond what the car hit, and once the supports were gone the building's right side crumpled into itself, struts snapped like bone as bits of the building fell off to crash onto the streets below. The resulting billows of dust throwing several blocks into a gray haze.
The Vorcha screening and suicide attack had paved the way for a proper assault with the Krogan heart of the army. Which Narn led personally. He thundered up along the ranks, beating his fist against his blood-red combat armor as he quite literally chest thumped for his vanguard, his heavy rifle lifted high above his head in bloody salute to their anticipated victory.
"I promised you victory! I promised you death for our enemies! Today, I fulfill my promise! Go forth!" And with a triumphant cheer, the Krogan charged into the hailstorm of gunfire that awaited them.
For a moment, Vendrix had thought death had finally caught up with him, what else could that massive explosion be but the sound of his own skull shattering as the bullet ripped through it? But then he realized that it wasn't him who was slanting to the side, but the building.
He flailed around, the adrenaline that was pumping through his veins dulling him to the ache of his leg brace as he sprung up and took a hobbling lunge at the guard who was struggling to stabilize himself, only looking up to Vendrix by the time he was already atop him.
The two men collided together in a mess of limbs and cursing, Vendrix's hands scrabbling to pry the rifle from the human's grip, he knifed his elbow into his throat and swung the knee of his good leg into the gut of his would-be executioner. His hand clamping down around his wrist as he slammed the man against the wall, his hand clenched and loosed a burst of gunfire which clattered and ricocheted off the walls of the room, throwing everyone to the ground once more as they ducked.
Hammond and his Lieutenants had exploded into a riot of mad chattering and curses, thrown into one another as the headquarters shifted, they struggled to pick themselves up as the building groaned and slowly slouched to one side, scrabbling for stable ground after the attack.
Hammond shakily rose to his feet and grabbed at a pistol, Vendrix pulled the stunned human off the wall, interposing the guard between him and the lieutenants as he continued the struggle for his rifle.
The sharp pops of gunfire landed with wet, nauseating thwacks they hit the human in the back, the less well protected rear of his hardsuit only absorbing the first few shots before the rest tore through the armor and shredded his back, he jerked with each shot as his mouth frothed with blood, the grip around his rifle growing weaker and weaker.
Behind him, he slammed the door open and stepped through, finally prying the rifle free and letting the dead guard fall to the ground with a heavy thud. His eyes lingered on his body for only a moment before his hobbling shifted into a lumbering dash, turning his body to keep the muzzle trained on the door, squeezing off a burst that shredded the wall adjacent to it.
"You fucking cocksucker!" He could hear Hammond screaming, accompanied by several other panicked voices, their voices were a maddening buzz that he could only pick a few words out of: Krogan...Attack….Suicide attack. But Hammond's voice cut through them all, coiling around Vendrix's heart.
"I'll mount your head on my wall, Turian! Right next to that fucking bitch, Quinnus!"
The sight of a muzzle poking out the door he had just left from was enough to send Vendrix breaking into a desperate run. The clunk-step, clunk-step of his boot and foot seeming to reverberate into a booming echo as bullets sparked against the walls and struck the ground beneath his feet, he threw himself down another hallway and he swore his heart was going to burst from his chest. He felt over himself, breathing a sigh of relief as he realized he was still miraculously in one piece.
While his mind was swimming he still knew he had to think of something, he was always the one with the plan, the one who knew what to do. He remembered the path they had taken from the cells up to here. From this hallway he would need to take a right to get around the door, another right, go straight, take a left and take the elevator. There he'd get the twins and they'd all find a way out.
Easier said than done. He thought, his head whipping from side to side. He could hear voices from either hall, militiamen mobilizing to try and fight off the Krogan, he realized that at this point they'd be too preoccupied to invest much effort in looking for survivors in the left side of the building, where the skycar had crashed, so it would be his safest bet to stay in that side of the building. The side that was more likely than not going to collapse. Between the certainty of being shot to death versus the near-certainty of being immolated or crushed under rubble, Vendrix was forced to go with the latter.
The rattle of gunfire down the hall sent Vendrix squeezing up against the wall, clutching his rifle across his chest.
"Come on out, Turian!" Kleinfeld said in a low voice, chuckling darkly as he fired another burst which raked up the side of the wall he was pressed up behind.
"The Boss wants to make amends. Just come out and we can end this."
Despite the numerical superiority of the Krogan and Vorcha, the Humans had quickly coordinated to focus down a small group of targets, prioritizing the Krogan with a barrage of firepower that not even their heavy armor and natural resilience could withstand for long, meanwhile the turrets prevented the Vorcha from closing in, where their shotguns and crude scrap-metal blades would be most effective.
The fighting was fiercest down the promenade that led to the main entrance of the Human's fortress, overlapping fields of fire provided by the remaining turrets and the dozens of militiamen that mounted positions behind metal barricades and stone fixtures, not to mention those shooting from the building itself.
What was worse was the incendiary ammunition they had armed themselves with. Kinetic barriers would've deflected the flaming bullets. But there hadn't been the time or resources to provide enough barriers for every soldier, not when armor was more cost effective and easier to craft (they could always hastily weld some scrap metal into the shape of a vest or helmet and call it a day). The Vorcha fared only marginally better, their hyper-adaptive physiology and tough outer dermis allowing them to weather the incendiary payload slightly better than the Krogan, but they were still being shot, falling in twos and threes as they attempted to maneuver away from the turrets, only to be caught by fire of the militia.
Sarr ducked behind his cover, his rasping breaths reverberating inside his helmet as he pressed his rifle up to his chest, his hearts pounding as he glanced out to spot a duo of Krogan firing haphazardly towards an enemy position, attempting to take out a turret on the leftmost side of the makeshift ramparts the Humans had thrown up, they had the right idea, if they could neutralize the turrets the Vorcha could get in close, and after that the battle would be as good as won.
Narn, naturally, had barreled straight through the center with some of his closest followers, smashing his mix of Krogan and Vorcha followers against the heaviest concentration of Human resistance, the gunfire came down on them like hail, sparking off their heavy armor. Sarr watched the incendiary rounds catch on the tremendous bulk of Narn's chestplate and helmet, the flammable tracers sticking to his armor until he seemed as if he were a living torch; the delude of gunfire didn't slow them, even as the Vorcha and some of the Krogan fell besides them.
"No mercy! No survivors!" Narn bellowed, the call echoed by his men.
Sarr watched as they smashed through the human line, the Vorcha dispatching the militia in their immediate proximity as one of Narn's krogan smashed his rifle down into a turret pivoting to face them.
The tremendous boom of a grenade launcher filled the din of battle as that same krogan flew back, now missing a significant chunk of his abdomen, he tumbled down the stairs and crumpled into a bloody heap less than a dozen feet away from where Sarr took cover.
Overhead, the roars of the armored skycar ripped through the air as the chatter of its main gun raked across the Human lines, weaving in and out between the missiles that occasionally screamed skywards to shoot the van down, at some point one had hit, leaving a black puff of smoke in the air and a scorch mark seared into the side of the black and red skycar, the red all but faded under the hails of scorching gun and rocket fire.
The Humans had fallen back once again, Narn and his remaining troops had thrown themselves into cover, dodging another volley from the grenade launcher, Sarr took a breath, said a little prayer, and charged.
Vendrix's heart was pounding so fast and so loudly in his own ears he swore Kleinfeld was tracking him just from the sound it made.
With a desperate rush and a wild burst from his rifle he had escaped the Human and had hobbled a path halfway to the destroyed section of the building, looping around from the left and proceeding down a long hallway as he followed the signs of devastation and panic. When he had spotted wounded or coughing Militia, he had either tucked himself close against the wall and waited for them to pass or went around them, heading in the opposite direction they were all coming from.
"I've been counting, bird!" Kleinfeld barked, his voice echoing down the halls as Vendrix ran for dear life. "Every minute you waste is just another minute I'm going to spend teaching you discipline! Do you wanna know what you're up to right now!?" He howled with laughter as Vendrix scanned the doors and hallways frantically, the stress fractures and rent metal guiding him ever onwards.
Finally, he reaches a door, opening it up to be greeted by a thick plume of dust and rubble that reeked of death, one breath of it was all he could manage before immediately breaking into a hacking cough.
Debris, discharge from the sky car's engine and fuel tank, rubble from the building, charred bodies and Spirits know what else. He thought, squinting his eyes and pulling his shirt up around his nose and mouth as he pushed onwards.
Navigating the ruined section of the building reminded him all too well of an exchange he had with Thomas once concerning the Human concept of Hell. It was a twisted, ash strew maze. The hallways and original layout of the building had now more properly resembled a sheet of paper crushed into a ball and then folded out again, columns fell across the archways that they had meant to support, metal blackened with the burning of dozens of small fires, and occasionally he could hear the faintly audible groaning of somebody trapped under rubble.
That last part was the worst. To hear the footsteps approaching and to think it was one of your comrades coming to save you, only to hear them grow fainter and fainter, he couldn't help them, Vendrix told himself, he could only focus on helping himself. The cries of the damned. He thought, gritting his teeth as he limped through the ruined building.
He had nearly stepped through a door and had fallen straight through a collapsed floor, catching himself and stabbing out a hand to grasp a crag of wall to spare him from a fall. A supportive column had fallen through the floor as it had given way, creating a diagonal bridge from the floor he was on and down to the next, with a small sigh Vendrix had slowly dragged himself along the edges of the room and what floor still remained until he slowly sat atop the pillar and slid down, groaning as he tried to spare his booted leg from the shock of the landing.
In the end he came down on his hands and knees, coughing as he rose to his feet again. Down here the heat seemed to envelop him, flanking him on several sides were some of the fires burning across the building, blazing in spite of the fire suppressants that sprayed a thick, smothering foam across the area, the scent the burning foam created was acrid, and even with his face covered by his shirt he still broke into coughs.
"You think I'm afraid of a little fire!?" He heard Kleinfeld's voice echo from behind, once again propelling Vendrix into a lumbering rush as he turned left, now in desperate search of the elevator which would take him down to the sublevel where they were keeping Antus and Anyo.
Right, left, down a hallway, past a flight of ruined stairs. It seemed hard to keep a grasp on what direction he was going in, if his mental calculations were right he would reach a service elevator, hopefully deep enough inside the building to maintain power, barring that, he could take the stairs, but in his condition that was just as likely to get him killed as the human pursuing him. He hefted up his rifle as he heard a voice down the corridor.
"Come on, Ramos. Just a little bit farther." A female voice said.
"C-can't believe they fucking kamikaze'd us." Another voice replied through ragged coughing, this one belonging to a male.
Vendrix tried slowing himself, hoping he could evade them like he had the others. The sight of the elevator however had killed any notion of caution, in 20 feet he would be inside and safe, at least for the meantime. And behind him the sounds of Kleinfeld's approach grew louder. He broke into a hobbling dash, the clunk-step, clunk-step banging through the hallways.
"Who's there!?" The woman said again, and from their footsteps Vendrix gauged they were coming closer, and closer, he could see them emerge from around the corner…
The woman had been supporting the man, the latter limping his way along, injured by the suicide bombing. Vendrix had depressed the trigger for only a second, but it was enough. The pair of humans had been caught in a hail of gunfire, with no time to correct their momentum and turn back around the corner the bullets shredded suit and flesh equally. In their final moments the woman had pivoted to put herself between the gunfire and the man she was supporting. It wasn't enough.
They fell together, the blood already beginning to pool beneath them. He took long strides to avoid staining his shoes, not wanting to give Kleinfeld an easy way to track him.
Entering the elevator he finally allowed himself to take a breath as the door closed, it was only when he reached out to press the button that would take him to the sub levels that he realized his hand was shaking. Without a word, he pressed the button, the elevator letting out a droning chime before it lurched and began to descend.
Shrieks, gunfire and explosions echoed through the main promenade, the Krogans had pushed the humans back, their final position before the compound proper marked by a thick line of barricades, everything past that line was reduced to smoldering metal and bloody corpses.
Narn was in his element, Sarr had only watched as he tore through the militia, some had been shot as they retreated, others had been bludgeoned with his rugged assault rifle, the majority of the turrets had been destroyed, the last of them being studded along the final line of fortifications.
There were still a considerable number of them firing down from windows and catwalks jutting out from the old industrial building, occasionally a rocket or grenade launcher would come screaming down and blow a group of Vorcha or even one of the Krogan to pieces, but their gunship, despite the black smoke trailing from it, was still operational, and it was still savaging the human forces with high velocity mass accelerator rounds.
The Krogan had pressed up tight behind a now ruined kiosk, bullets shearing off bits of metal, he peeked out to fire off another burst. The humans were buckling, just one more well timed push would be enough to force them to rout. His communicator buzzed in his helmet.
"Grah! Sarrrrr." Came the growling voice of Bark, the Vorcha co-pilot of the armored shuttle, the comm awash with static and background noise.
"What happened to Gatatog Grune?" Sarr yelled over the din of fighting, calling for the Krogan pilot, the normal skycars could be trusted to the Vorcha, but only a fool would leave their flagship attack craft in the hands of their feral, aggressive and frankly stupid race.
"Grrrune is dead, a human rrrrrocket hit the canopy, his instruments electrrrrrocuted him!"
Sarr cursed under his breath, the news revealing why the maneuvers of the shuttle had suddenly taken a strange, reckless turn. Just then the armored shuttle boomed overhead, making a sharp turn as it veered away from a near-hit with a nearby building.
"Damnit, Bark. Why have you called me!? What is it!?" The older Krogan's voice roared with frustration.
"The scanners are screaming! Enemy craft approaching quickly! Wanted to let you know!" Bark hissed, another stream of mass accelerator fired down from the shuttle, past his cover, an explosion rocked Sarr and a turret and the militia close to it were now a pile of scrap metal and limp bodies.
"Enemy craft!?" The words jolted Sarr straight up. These Humans have no air power, and we're far outside of Eclipse or Blue Suns territory. He thought, his head went up to scan the skyline, frantically searching the air.
In the distance, the faint shape of a Mantis Gunship was growing closer and closer, thrusters roaring blue and angry, clad in black ablative armor. The wings folding over and giving the ship the appearance of a swooping bird of prey, coming with its talons out.
"Engage, Bark! Engage!" Sarr could only scream as the Shuttle made a lurching turn, by then it was too late.
The mantis was a blur, a faint black shape carving it's way across the sky, compared to the shuttle it was like a falcon tearing apart a pigeon. The tremendous BRRRRRRRRR of its main gun was deafening as the gunship tore the shuttle apart. Bark's cries of pain in his ear were the last thing Sarr heard before the shuttle exploded, showering the battlefield overhead with flaming wreckage.
The Humans roared with joy, the Krogan and Vorcha roared with anger. Narn's voice was louder than it had ever been, yelling orders, threats. Sarr couldn't hear any of it, all of it overshadowed by the rushing sound of blood in his ears as he watched the Gunship cut into a powered hover, disgorging a team of soldiers clad in midnight-black armor.
The prison cells were blessedly empty, there hadn't been any captives besides him, Antus and Anyo. It seemed that Hammond's people had much more pressing concerns rather than guarding a few turians. The keys to the cell laid on a table besides a set of cards, their players having gotten up to fight off the Krogan, even before he unlocked the door, his companions had known the sounds of his gait and came running up to the narrow viewing slit.
"Vendrix!" Anyo runs up as Vendrix slides the slit open, smiling as he thumbs through the keys.
"You're alive!? What's going on up there? It sounds like all Hell is breaking loose!" Antus exclaims.
"It is, trust me." Vendrix merely replies, undoing the locks with a heavy ka-chunk. "Now, I know it sounds bad, but I couldn't find any other entrances or exits apart from the main one we took coming in, now I'll see if I can find-" anything that can help. Would've been what he was going to say, but he turned away just in time for the stock of a rifle to smash into his nose, sending him crashing down to the floor.
Pain erupted in a blossom that spread from his now bleeding nose all the way to the back of his skull, his vision was clouded and unfocused and he had ended up landing awkwardly on his leg as he collapsed on his back. He sat up, his eyes widening as he saw Kleinfeld looming over him with abject murder in his eyes.
The human was panting, his face red and angry, the ashes from the flaming section of the complex flaking off him with each step in a dirty snowfall he left in his wake. "You made me run down so many fucking flights of stairs…." He growled.
Vendrix could only frantically crawl backwards, kicking his one good leg against the floor as he tried fruitlessly to get away, his eyes scanning desperately. His rifle had flown out of his hands when Kleinfeld had hit him, and the human was now firmly between the two. He took note of the blade on his hip, long with a serrated blade. So that's what happened to my knife. He thought, trying to focus on anything other than his imminent death.
The cold concrete sent a shiver down his spine as he finally felt his back pressed against it, there was nowhere left to go. Kleinfeld smiled as he took aim straight at Vendrix's head.
"I'm gonna like you a lot more dead than alive."
With his eye down the sights, Kleinfeld hadn't realized that Vendrix had already unlocked the cell, the two Turians crept up on him, Antus on one side and Anyo on the other. In a blur the two turians descended on the human.
Vendrix rolled to the side as Kleinfeld cursed and fired off a steady burst that pulverized the ground where he had been a heartbeat before, a trail of bullets walked their way across the wall and tore holes in the iron cell doors, Anyo had leverage on the assault rifle, fighting to keep it's barrel pointed away from Vendrix or himself just as much as Kleinfeld was fighting to point it at either of them. Antus flanked his other side and reached his hand around to the blade on his belt, pulling it free and slashing the Human's throat in one smooth, continuous motion.
Kleinfeld's eyes bulged from their sockets as his grip loosened, then fell away from the rifle, hands suddenly going to his neck to stop the delude of blood spurting from his throat in a messy geyser, it painted a deep red stripe down his armor as he stumbled back before falling. His mouth opened and closed and a low gurgling emerged as he fruitlessly struggled to breath, his face twitching as it twisted up his scar into a lightning bolt shape before his face finally grew still and placid.
Anyo stood with the rifle cradled in his arms, a dumb look on his face as he stared down at Kleinfeld. Antus bent over and wiped Vendrix's blade clean on the dead man's pants before turning it over and offering it hilt-first.
"This belongs to you, Boss."
Victory, Narn believed, was determined by the losses you could inflict upon your enemy, whether it be material, territory, or people. Anything that you could take from them, without losing more in return, was a success.
By that metric, he was losing.
Impossible! I can't lose! Everything was going so well, those Human cowards were running, RUNNING! Just a few minutes before, we would have WON!
Narn was barreling down through the militia lines, the bullets sparking off him as he collided into what was left of them like a living wrecking ball, bodies flew apart under withering fusillades of gunfire and gore was splattered against his already red armor, but he was losing. His men died around him, that damn gunship that had torn apart their shuttle was swooping in around for another attack, he was screaming and bleeding from a dozen bullet holes, the armor on his right shoulder and arm were blown completely to pieces.
He reeled up to headbutt an unfortunate human and the man's skull caved in with a wet, glorious crunch. He swung around his gun-arm wildly to loose another torrent of gunfire, a few Vorcha had followed him in on his momentum but they were being picked off, the Krogan were holding position, but had no intentions on pushing forward, with a wild swing of his head he could catch a glimpse of Sarr's own armor, poking out behind his piece of cover.
"Coward! Cowardly dumb pyjak, I should have killed you! Kill you!" He screamed incoherently, bull-rushing one of the black-clad soldiers.
The Human beside her called out. "Cayne! On your left!" to Narn, it was just another noise.
The woman turned just in time, her biotics flaring out to lash against Narn, throwing him off balance, his bulk colliding with a wall and cracking it. He wheeled around with a reckless fury, sense and reason faraway concepts now that he was in the heights of his blood rage. His right arm dangled at his side, broken and useless. The left made desperate swats as he rushed again, the Asari just always out of reach, if he could get even one hand on her head he could crush her skull, if he got her neck he could snap it like a reed, like he had with Pughnoh. So close, she was just barely out of reach.
She finally stood still, only one final charge and he'd have her, his legs thundered towards her, and in half a heartbeat she held her rifle down near the ground, Narn never felt the quick burst of bullets that took his foot off at the knee, only faintly recognizing that he was now quickly falling, caught by his own momentum.
He collapsed with such force that even the black-clad soldiers took a step back, after a few futile attempts to raise himself back up on his good arm he lay still, and through his quickly fading vision he could see men running. His men. He could have mourned, his great krogan nation carved from Omega's flesh would never be, another attempt to salvage his species doomed to failure, but with his last conscious thought Narn wished he had found Sarr, wished he had torn his throat out with his bare hands.
Finally, there was silence. Falling across the open plaza, between the last of the Human militia, utterly decimated by the fighting, their headquarters still smoldering behind them, a few raised their arms in apprehension, unsure whether the black clad soldiers were friend or foe, the Asari woman that seemed to be the leader simply took off her helmet and flashed the humans a toothy smile, flaunting her unnatural alien beauty like the sirens of ancient earth mythology.
"Hello. Is there a Mr. Hammond present among you?"
The Humans looked at each other, none of them speaking a word, until finally, a man from the rear ranks stepped forward. His eyes glimmered with amusement and he smoothed back his hair. Casually stepping over the bodies of the men and women that had given their lives to defend his fortress, he finally came face to face with the Asari, a small smile creasing the corner of his lips as he rested besides a wall scarred with bullet holes
"That would be me. Now, how can I pay back your lovely gesture of swooping in to save my little community?" He never broke his courteous smile. He had little doubt in his mind that these were Quinnus' people, she 'saves' him from the Krogan with her little band of heavily armed goons and he returns the Turians, hopefully the other two Turians in the cell were still alive, and he could always say the Krogan had killed Vendrix. Already he was concocting a story about how he had done his best to save the alien's life. I did everything I could, he died in my arms. I'm so sorry…
The confident, self assured smirk was still on his face after the Asari had produced a pistol and put a bullet dead-center in his forehead, his brains splattering against the wall as his body went limp and slumped down against it.
The militia leveled their guns back up in an instant, Cayne's team leveled their rifles in response but the Asari only holstered her pistol and held her hands out.
"Now, now, that's all, that's all." She said in a calm voice. "He merely violated a contract with our employer, the rest of you are perfectly safe, that's all." She gestured for her squad to lower their weapons and they did, and slowly the remaining militia did as well.
A lingering step-clunk, step-clunk thudded against the ground, followed by more footsteps from behind.
"C'mon Vendrix. I can see light."
"I-ah-landed on my foot, Anyo. I think I've broken it all over again."
"Hold on, we have company."
The trio of Turians emerged from the front entrance. Vendrix slung his arm over Anyo as Antus took point, they seemed a bit taken aback by the killing field they had walked straight into. A few of the militia looked over to them, dumbstruck. Cayne only pressed a pair of fingers up to her comm.
"Secondary targets identified, moving to extract."
The black clad soldiers walked in formation, creating a perimeter around the Turians, Antus leveled his rifle at one.
"Stay back!" He yelled, to his credit he didn't let his voice break, nor did he seem to falter in the sight of the soldiers or the militia that either stood by to watch the show or were preoccupied collecting their dead and looting the dead Krogan and Vorcha scattered across the plaza.
"We're with Quinnus, same as you, darling." The Asari said, stepping in between two of her men.
"We're gun-runners, you're a full-blown death squad. I hesitate to believe she sent you for us." Antus replied, now taking sight at the Asari.
Anyo tugged at his twin's shoulder. "Antus, do you really wanna play the hardass with all these guns pointed at us. Please." He pleaded.
"I'm inclined to agree with your brother." Vendrix added.
The tension building in Antus' shoulders said enough, but with a sigh he lowered his gun. "Just take us home." He says in a small, tired voice.
"You three have been through quite a lot, haven't you?" The Asari said with a light, airy laugh. Turning and beckoning for them to follow.
Slowly, the three followed, it made Antus a bit more comfortable that they hadn't moved to take his rifle, but from the way he held it by grip alone and leaving it dangling by the wrist he had little intention of using it at this point.
Anyo couldn't help but gasp as his foot brushed against the foot of one of the dead humans, and Vendrix's eyes widened as he looked at Hammond, slouched over and with a small smile still pulling at the corners of his mouth. He looked absurd, nothing like the man that had threatened him, abducted him and the twins and lied to him moments before trying to have him killed. A part of him wanted to slit his throat like Antus slit Kleinfeld's, but he was already dragging his feet away, the former leader of the human district growing smaller and smaller in the distance.
They walked until the Asari sat them down at a sidestreet, sticking out her arm and hailing a Cab for the three of them as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
As they piled in the woman leaned in through the passenger side window and gave them all a smile.
"You boys get home safe, and make sure you thank Mrs. Quinnus when you do."