Chapter 9

Don't Blink

The first floor of the Kaliar Apartment Complex was far more crowded than Kevin had initially expected. Turians of many different walks of life had gathered here either to get away from the reapers, or to protect others from them. All of them could fire military grade weapons with sufficient competence, but few of them actually held one to shoot. Those that didn't were trying to find other ways to make themselves useful for the collective group gathered here, either by providing medical care to the injured, cooking and distributing the limited food available, keeping the soldiers' equipment clean and ready, or watching children so others could assist.

Kevin had counted over one hundred and fifty turians in and around the building, and that didn't include the Sphelix Legion, scouting parties, or anyone on the many floors above them. Rooms all around had been repurposed to fit the needs of the situation, reflecting on the commonplace military background of every turian above the age of fifteen. The largest and closest of the rooms besides the main lobby was turned into the med-bay, while other smaller ones had been altered to become easy-access storage rooms for military equipment, a mess hall, and a makeshift kitchen for making food away from equipment and injury; all of this done within the time span of the five hours or so since the start of the attacks. Kevin had to admire the efficiency of turian culture.

Senik had been gone for nearly ten minutes by this point. When they'd arrived at the complex, it was quickly determined that Senik had the most command experience and he'd essentially been drafted into the role of commanding officer for the compound due to the number of turians without sufficient contact with their normal branch of command. Some of the turians had some reservations about cabalists in the ranks and a few more about being commanded by one, but Senik made sure to establish that he wasn't fooling around. This fight had no place for whispers and superstitions. Once his leadership had been determined, Senik asked for a brief tour of the building to assess what he was commanding and what could be done while they waited to get in contact with the AHV fireteams. Marksman Squad had been called up to the higher floors during this time and hadn't been seen since.

The tension in the air was thicker than mud. The sounds of combat surrounded them utterly and were still quite audible inside the building. Soldiers were rushing this way and that as they continued to try to keep the complex safe from threat. Above all, the crushing oppression of the reality around them was omni-present and stifling. Even the state of the complex contributed to the stress that all had to endure. The building still had power thanks to a local generator, but the connections had taken some damage from the surrounding fighting and each nearby explosion caused the lights to flicker and dim as if to announce the fact that they were anything but safe. This made things difficult, as the inside of the building was nearly pitch black without the lights as windows were lacking.

Kevin, Maela, Liam, and Targold, in the meantime, had regulated themselves to the quietest corner of what used to be the lobby. The arrival of the Sphelix Legion was met with uncomfortably varied responses once the local public had been informed they were a cabal legion. Kevin and his alien group were met with outright suspicion from the start, and while the Sphelix Legion and Telius had managed to integrate with the other turians rather well by now, their non-turian group of misfits was little trusted by the rest. Kevin got the worst of it. Typical.

Liam and Maela had sat back against a wall, both looking exhausted. Liam, physically. Maela, emotionally. Targold, practically high as a kite on all the combat chaos, was standing with Kevin in front of them. No one said a word for several minutes, allowing themselves a moment to breathe. They needed that moment. The march here was hard and heavy in more ways than one.

Kevin eventually sought to lighten the mood with some conversation. "You two going to make it? You look beat to hell."

Liam lifted his head up to look at Kevin, looking quite as Kevin described. "I'm not made for war, boyo. These bones just can't keep up with…" He waved his hands around in a large sweep. "…This."

Maela, for once, seemed to agree with Liam. "I'm with McRoilie on this one. My element is experimentation, terminal screens, and pissing off the galaxy notables with sketchy ethics. Not this war shit." She lets her head fall back against the wall, eyes shut. "And watching that damn kid… Ugh. I just can't take this bullshit anymore."

Kevin could understand. His life was based around shadows, intel, the games of underground politics, and finding creative ways to kill individuals. He never quite settled into the role of a biotic soldier back in the Systems Alliance, and even the skirmishes he took part in with the Xelvas'taersh were localized, if intense. "Yeah, I feel you. War isn't my thing either, but we all made it alive so far."

Liam didn't seem convinced, and he slid armored hands down over his drawn face. "I should have died four separate times today. I don't know how I'm still here."

"Gets your blood pumping, doesn't it?" mused the krogan as he smacked his fists together.

"Yeah, that's called 'fight or flight', Targold," Liam shot back. "That's not the kind of adrenaline I want pumping through my blood, run thick with the very idea of 'I'm going to die'."

"Ahh, you just need a bigger gun," said Targold. "Always makes me feel better."

"You're bloody crazy," Liam mumbled as he let his head fall against an arm.

"Not all of us can be made for war, big guy," Kevin said to his massive friend with a half-smile.

Targold shrugged. "More for me, then."

Kevin sat down next to Maela to get his own breather and the asari immediately leaned over to rest her head against his shoulder.

"Why are we here again?" she asked him.

"We were here to see the quarians. I don't know if we can do that anymore." He drew in a deep breath and let it go slowly.

"We should have just stayed on the Citadel," Liam commented, head still down against an arm.

Maela nodded weakly as if she were falling asleep. "You should have just stayed in my room, Kevin. Things would be so much better for both of us if we'd just spent our time in the Presidium in bed together. What I'd give for a quiet room and a warm bed right now…"

Kevin disagreed, but he did so silently. He looked over to the other turians in the large room, most of them conversing about one thing or another to ease the tension. Others were checking equipment and cleaning their gear. Others still were running about trying to help whoever needed it. Through the crowd, Telius materialized and made his way over to the misfit group.

Kevin looked up to him. "So are we still going to try and get to those quarians?"

Telius absentmindedly ran the back of his armored fingers down one of his mandibles. "To be honest, I don't even know if any of them are still alive at this point. Everything's such a damn mess…" He turned to look at a noisy group of young turian kids as they ran by playing some sort of children's game, blissfully making the best of the unusual scenario and killing off tension their own way. "But yes, I still plan on trying to find them. If any of them are still alive, my objective is to make contact and get them off this planet—however impossible that might seem. A turian does not back down against any odds. This isn't their fight either way and I'm sure kebalim Corvallus would agree."

"As do I," Kevin concurred. "Their fight is probably wherever the Migrant Fleet is parked right now. If the reapers haven't found them yet, they will."

Telius nodded and placed his fists at his hips as he looked to the ground with a quick sigh. "For now, however, it looks like we're going to bunker down here until we can get in contact with the AHVs. Kebalim Corvallus has been trying to assess the best way to do this since the blanket-jamming is still in effect. He has Haekas working on our best solution, but the idea I heard is chancy at best and will only work if the AHV teams come within range of the low-level broadcast. The rest of the legion will be assigned to keeping an extraction zone clear around the building along with colonial forces. It's only a matter of time before one of those reapers heads this way, though…"

"Then we'll just poke its eyes out," chuckled Targold.

Telius eyed the cocky creature. "Hope you still have that enthusiasm when we're staring down reaper lasers, krogan."

Haekas and about half of the colonial infantry that had left with Senik returned just then. Telius flagged the comms engineer down and he approached after a few last words with the others.

"How are things looking out there, Tolensen?" Telius asked with arms crossed.

"Quiet—for the moment. That skirmish we ignited the whole way here drained the area of enemy troops and they haven't been reinforced sufficiently to make another push yet. What stragglers we can find are either being picked off by infantry in the safe corridors or by Marksman Squad. Those that escape all seem to be heading for some area to the east. Senik will explain that later."

Telius nodded in understanding. "What's the kebalim up to?"

"Still getting debriefed and working on some plans of action with other members of the colonial infantry. They've been holding this location for hours, so they must have been doing something right. It's a mess out there, though, and without any way to directly contact the AHV teams, we have to essentially wait for them to come to us before we can broadcast anything. I can't find a way around that damn jamming outside of the cycling local ad-hoc comms we've been using. Every time we open up a new broadcast channel, it gets jammed within the minute."

Kevin shook his head. "Damn. And we don't even properly know if they're still functional out there."

"The kebalim already suspected the AHVs being disabled as a possible scenario. He'll probably put a time limit on our operations here, but I doubt we'll hear about it until he decides we've been here long enough. In the meantime, I set up a beacon on the roof that sends bursts of data across the city. It only focuses the data burst in a narrow slice of space, rotates slightly, then sends the next. I've programmed it to target the reapers and avoid broadcasting in their direction. Hopefully we'll get word to the AHVs sooner this way."

"Impressive," Telius praised with an approving nod. "And a better plan than the last."

Haekas looked around and flicked a thumb behind him. "I should probably mingle. I'm getting stares of doom from the citizens."

"Wait, Haekas…" Kevin said as he shook his shoulder to get Maela's attention, only to realize she'd fallen asleep on him in her exhaustion. He gently removed her head from his shoulder so he could stand then lowered the asari's head to the floor on her arms so she could continue to rest. "I have a request."

Haekas propped up a browplate and flicked his fingers for Kevin to continue.

"Well, I, uh… That thing you all can do. That short-range biotic teleport thing…"

Haekas laughed. "Teleport? No no no. That's physically impossible. It's… a shaved-down version of the mass effect corridor technique that vanguards use in their charge, nothing more."

Kevin looked off to the side for a moment. It made sense and he could see how it would work, but without any actual knowledge of the technique, he couldn't perform it. "Would you mind teaching me the biotics behind this? I want to be able to do that. It would make me more useful to Core Squad."

"Now?!" the turian replied, nonplussed. "You do realize we're in the middle of a critical defense op, right?"

"Just teach me what you can. Soon as Senik comes back and rallies everyone to move, feel free to stop. I just want the basics down. I can iterate and improve after that on my own. Can we agree on that much?"

Haekas scratched the top of his headplates with a pair of armored fingers as he weighed the pros and cons. "Normally I'd tell you to eat shit—I generally don't believe anyone can handle new biotic techniques in such a short time—but… you've helped save our asses a few times and your charge on that brute was encouraging." He flicked his head to his right and started off that way. "Alright, come on. We'll need more empty space than this."

Kevin eagerly followed the turian away from the crowds of people into larger room where less than half was full of closely-grouped beds pulled out of the apartments for the injured. Temporary equipment was monitoring their vitals and a few turians acting as nurses or field medics were chatting casually on the edge of the group of beds while they waited for the next pass to come up. The half that Kevin and Haekas entered on was otherwise empty.

"What do you know of mass effect corridors, human?" Haekas asked as he stopped and turned around.

Kevin shrugged. "I know how they work, but I have little experience with the technique. I wasn't trained in the vanguard branch of military biotics."

"Alright, then this will be easier to comprehend. Most 'vanguards' have trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that you don't need a corridor to travel with biotics. Comes with having the techniques drilled into their heads, I assume." He took two steps to the side and brought his hands up to gesture towards where his head had previously been. "It's actually rather simple if you're familiar with non-targeted distortion placement. For instance, the place I'll drop my blink field is here."

"Blink field?"

"That's what the kebalim calls it, so naturally that's what we all call it. Biotic Blink. The distortion field you place in order to perform the blink is called the blink field."

"Okay, I got it. What is the blink field, biotically?"

Haekas rubbed his chin for a moment as he worked out the best way to explain it. "It's a large, targetless field of as low a mass as you can manage. Think of it like a bubble you jump through that functions similar to how a relay corridor works for vessels. With such an absence of mass in that bubble, you move through to the other side in the blink of an eye. Like all mass effect-related physics, your momentum is maintained through the field, and with your mass dropping to almost nothing, your sustained momentum is blinding fast. Once you exit the field, you continue to retain your momentum but your mass returns and so does your initial speed."

Haekas gathered dark energy to himself and released it in a super-low mass bubble next to him. Kevin could see the shimmering air as it was affected by the coursing dark energy, looking a large pocket of extreme heat. He jumped into it and seemed to teleport a meter or so away in the same direction, similar to how Senik and other cabalists had done in the past. "See?"

Kevin was impressed and he nodded. "Bubble of ultra-low mass. That makes sense. I wonder why they didn't include something like this in the new biotic training regimens back home."

Haekas scratched at a mandible. "From what I've been told, humans are still trying to figure out their amps and implants, nevermind train biotic techniques that require this much finesse. Your kind is better off just learning to control combat-useful biotics than trying to experiment with formulas that might render you over-exerted. Or dead. Additionally, it's quite exhausting if done in rapid succession, especially if you forget to drop the field quickly after you're through."

Kevin rolled his neck in a circle. "Alright, let me give it a try."

Haekas nodded and moved off to the side to casually lean back against a wall. "You'll literally move faster than your mind can comprehend, so the first several times will disorient the hell out of you. Try not to puke. Also, be sure to make the field big enough for your entire body or you'll pivot on whatever part of you that poked outside of the field. Hitting the floor or ceiling like that is painful as hell. You've been warned."

Kevin nodded once as he began to gather dark energy to himself. A few seconds later, he released the field in front of him. It was large—overly so—particularly due to his focus on making sure it was, indeed, big enough for him to get through entirely. He'd work on refining it later, though he instantly understood why they always tucked into a tumble when they blinked. A smaller body meant a smaller field was needed, and that meant less exertion.

His first attempt at it included no such finesse. He simply gave himself a small running start before he leaped through the field, lifting his legs in reflex as if hurdling over a wall. It was over and done with so fast that Kevin hardly even knew that he'd gone through the field. There was not flashy entrance or exit, no visual cues, not even a fraction of a second of vertigo. His only way of knowing that it worked was by realizing, after the fact, that he'd landed over a meter further away from where he should have.

That was the toughest part to get over, though. There was a fundamental disconnect between his mind and reality as a result of the technique. He moved through the field too fast for his mind to comprehend it as a linear path from point A to point B, so his brain frantically tried to make up for that lost time and space. Quite simply, his mind's expectation of where he should be and where he actually ended up was so inconsistent that it became incredibly jarring to his sense of spatial perception.

The moment his feet touched the ground, he felt dizzy and nauseous. He didn't believe the turian when he first warned about trying not to puke, but the reality of this was quickly rushing to make itself known. He managed to suppress the vomit, but his equilibrium's inability to handle what his brain was suddenly trying to tell it made it difficult to walk straight. "Oh God. Please tell me this goes away."

Haekas was putting forth an honest effort not to laugh his ass off. "Eventually your brain will learn to filter out the inconsistency as irrelevant. Until then, again, try not to puke. It'll take several practice runs before that happens." He was finally able to push those laughs away and he crossed his arms. "At any rate, you did very well for your first attempt. You didn't smack the floor or any other surface and nothing exploded, so everything after this point is practice and refinement. Best start with cleaning up that field, though. You were practically lifting half the room with a distortion that size."

Kevin swelled with pride at having his technique complimented on by a cabalist, but he made sure to take the turian's words to heart. He had no intention of letting pride or ego get in the way of his perfecting this biotic move. "Thanks a million, Haekas," he said as he began to draw more dark energy to himself. "I owe you one."

"Consider us even, then," the comms engineer said gracefully. "I do, however, need to link back up with the squad to let them know what's going on, so if you'll excuse me…" He was heading for the door before Kevin even had a chance to breathe another word of thanks, then soon around the corner and out of sight.

Kevin drew in a deep breath and threw down another mass effect field to practice more at handling the blink. He decided to limit his practice to four or five times to avoid exhausting himself before they head out to run cleanup patrol outside of the complex. His only error was on his fifth, and last, attempt. His objective was to minimize the dark energy footprint he needed to expend in order to perform the blink, and the best way to do this was with a smaller field. Too small a field, as it turned out, and he ended up spiraling half-way through his jump because his right knee had fallen outside the blink field. He hit the ground hard, awkward, and sideways and even bounced to land a second time. Haekas was right—it was painful as hell. He was lucky he had his armor on over his quarian suit or he might have dislocated his shoulder at such an impact.

It took him a solid three minutes to steady the daze from his eyes before he sat upright. He rotated his arm a few times to ensure all worked properly and he looked over towards the side of the room that had been converted to a makeshift med bay. The three turian nurses there were staring at him, but at this distance, it was hard to tell whether they were amused, irritated, or bored. They looked ready to chuckle before a machine began to hum a funny tone and they broke off their stare to see to an injured soldier.

Kevin sighed and stood to his feet once he felt his equilibrium normalize. That'll do for now, he thought. At least I know I can do it and how to refine it later. The biotic technique was fairly simple, as Haekas had mentioned, though it wouldn't have been for anyone who wasn't familiar with placing mass effect fields in empty space. He stretched and rolled his head on his neck, tubes and conduits rattling behind his head as they warped and bent against each other, to work out the bit of soreness that was creeping into his muscles from the hit. Without any further ceremony, he strode out of the room.

He returned to the misfit's corner to find Liam and Telius conversing casually in low tones, Targold cleaning his Scimitar impatiently, and Maela still wistfully asleep. Despite the desperate situation they were all deeply enveloped in, Kevin couldn't help but smile at the asari, passed clear out from the intensity of everything around them. There was something about the innocent solace on her face, the quiet bliss that kept her as she slept that made him want to hold her tight.

He was about to go sit next to her again when Senik and a number of colonial infantry that had left with them returned. Marksman Squad, however, remained absent. The kebalim moved to a central location and the room and addressed all within. "Sphelix Legion! To me!" When Kevin and the others in their respective corner hesitated to join them, he flicked his head for them to approach as well. "Move it."

Kevin squatted down to shake Maela's shoulder to get her attention. It took a good few shakes to get her to respond. She must have been exhausted. How often does a lab tech like her play at war? She crushed her eyelids shut before blinking them open and groggily looking up to Kevin. He offered her his hand. "Maela, wake up. Time to get back to work."

She shifted to a sitting position as she rubbed the tiredness from her eyes then sluggishly stood using Kevin and the wall behind her for support. Targold stepped up to Liam to offer a hand up, and he took it gratefully. All standing, they made their way over to the gathered group of cabalists to listen in on what Senik had to say, anxiety already on the rise.

"Listen up, Sphelix. Marksman Squad has noticed a shift in enemy troop movement since we've arrived. While the reapers themselves don't seem to have any interest in our efforts, reaper ground forces have been redirecting our way and harvesters are dropping localized squads just outside our effective perimeter. We're about to get hit, and hit hard." He folded his hands behind his back and started to pace in a circle to visually address each of his legion members. "Our current objective is to keep this structure intact and free of all hostiles until the AHVs arrive for exfil. Each squad will have assignments based around this objective. I'll address each squad directly momentarily."

Senik stopped pacing to open up his omni-tool and display a wireframe render of the Kaliar apartments complex and the immediate surrounding area—a large square of land to the east devoid of buildings, yet surrounded by other tall structures; and war-torn urban landscape to the north, south, and west. Several brightly colored arrows pointed towards the Kaliar building from various combinations of easterly approaches.

"With the changes the colonial infantry has made, this position is very defensible from all directions but one—and that's where the enemy is looking to make their push. This large flat area to the east is the result of a building that collapsed under fire. Due to the structure's resulting rubble, the approach has all manner of short cover but doesn't force them through a door. This will slow their advance by a small margin, but ranged combat will be ineffective and they'll have too many approach vectors for my liking."

He tapped on his omni-tool's interface a few times and the render of the surrounding area zoomed in to focus on the area just outside the eastern entrance of the Kaliar building. "Shield Squad—your focus will be here. You're going to act as the apartment complex's barrier generator and last line of defense against any hostiles that make it through the others."

Another few taps brought the view to the roof. "Artillery Squad—this is your zone. Your task will be to ensure none of those drop pods make it to the ground inside the extraction zone in one piece. You may be called upon for sweeps if things get too messy on the ground. Marksman Squad is also currently up there, tasked with keeping an eye out for special targets, thinning the approaching troops, and providing precise support to ours on the ground."

The render zoomed out this time and Senik highlighted multiple points in the buildings surrounding the flat area east of the Kaliar complex. "Heavy Squad—your objective is to forge a path through these surrounding buildings and patrol this perimeter. You'll watch for concentrations of enemy troops and preemptively obliterate them before they can engage the rest of the zone. Vanguard Squad—your task is to be mobile support and prevent your fellow squads from getting flanked or overrun. Core Squad—you'll be in the thick of things. Your task is to act as the main counter to hostile incursion within the extraction zone. Seek and destroy. Leave the surrounding buildings to Vanguard and Heavy squads. Sphelix Legion, am I clear?"

"Yes kebalim!" replied those that surrounded their leader.

"What do we know, Sphelix?"

"Power in the immaterial!" the legion fervently replied with a collection of salutes.

"You have five minutes."

Immediately the legion separated and each cabal went to gather their equipment. The turians watching from the sidelines seemed to gain a measure of morale from that display and were visibly encouraged even after the legion had all melted away from the center of the room. A hopeful murmur had picked up after the shuffle of soldiers had faded. Kevin moved back to his previous corner with Maela, Liam, and Targold and they formed a small circle there after picking up their guns.

"Separated again," Kevin remarked with a sigh. "Hopefully those AHVs will show up soon so we can get a move on. The longer we sit here, the higher value this place will be to the reaper troops."

"I'm sure they're aware," Maela noted as she holstered her temporary pistol in favor of the Phaeston she'd picked up on the way into the apartment complex. She looked to Kevin for a short while then sighed.

"Something wrong, Maela?" Liam asked. "I mean… more than what's already wrong."

The asari looked between Liam and Targold. "Kevin, can you come with me for a minute?"

Kevin looked at Maela, then the others, then shrugged. "Sure, I guess." He got odd looks from Liam and a nod from Targold as they turned to meet up with their respective squads. Meanwhile, he followed Maela down a nearby hall and around a corner into a little-used room. It was empty when they walked in. Immediately, Kevin leaned back against the wall just inside the door and crossed his arms. "What's the matter, T'Vess?"

Maela set the Phaeston on the floor and looked Kevin in the eyes through his visor, hers full of weariness, caution, and some significant sort of insecurity. "I have a bad feeling about this operation, Kevin. Something's about to go terribly wrong. I can feel it."

Kevin didn't say anything right away. He couldn't tell her it would be fine—he felt the red flags as well even if he had no logical reasoning for them yet. It was that feeling in his gut again, the same kind of knots he got when he first heard about the geth surrounding the Melkanis relay. Yeah, I don't like where this is going either. We're stalling too much; we'll miss the Xelvas'taersh…

"I know what you mean, Maela. I wish there was something we could do about it, but if we detach from Senik's legion, we'll get overwhelmed no matter where we go."

Maela hugged herself. It was rather visible just how much stress this was causing her. "Ugh. I fucking hate this shit. We need to get out of here."

Don't I know it. "Come on," he said as he pulled her in for a hug to help her shake off the feeling of dread. "Let's get this crap over with. The sooner we get this handled, the sooner we can find someone with a ship to get us out of here."

Maela reciprocated the hug quite eagerly and let out a long-held breath. "Alright. Yeah. Let's get this shit done. I fucking hate it, but I don't have any more choice than those kids did."

Kevin broke the hug, but held her by the shoulders at arm's length. "Tell you what. Once we get the hell off of this planet, I'll give you a neck and shoulder massage to work off the tension. How's that sound?"

Maela lifted her head, her interest suddenly piqued and energy rekindled, and she looked Kevin in the eye with a wry smile. "Make it a full body massage and it's a deal."

Kevin smirked despite himself. "Alright, I can handle that. You've got a deal." He reached down and handed Maela her Phaeston and she took it with some of her confidence restored.

"And if there's no happy ending to go along with that, by the Goddess, I'm going to fucking choke you."

Kevin laughed. "Save that kind of passion for the reapers, T'Vess."

They rounded the corner to rejoin the legion, Targold and Liam watching them return as they replenished their stocks of thermal clips with the rest of the legion from a small cache gathered by the colonial forces. The drastic change in Maela's composure was acknowledged by a raised brow from the Irishman and a grin from the krogan. Maela ignored them both.

"Four minutes ago little blue was about to shove off for home," Targold commented, tossing Kevin one, two, three, four thermal clips. "Now she looks ready to take on all the troops herself. What the hell did you do to her, Folner?"

"I have my ways, Targold. I have my ways," Kevin said with a grin as he walked by them to rejoin his squad while fitting the extra clips in his many suit pockets.

"Damn, you'll have to show me those ways sooner or later. Pep talks like that can really help a krogan win over his clan."

"Might not be the best means of clan inspiration," Kevin replied, laughing, before he joined up with his circle of turians. "I'll tell you later, Targold." The krogan simply nodded back before reconnecting with his team as well.

"The hell do you think is so funny?" Madeen asked Kevin, words dripping with hostility and sucking all of the lasting mirth from him.

Kevin raised a brow at the woman. "Nothing that you need be worried about. Calm your tits."

Madeen leaned her head in, a slight look of confusion mixed with insult. "My what?"

Kevin glanced at her armored chest and suddenly remembered. They don't have those. Right. "Nevermind, let's just get moving."

Before everyone began their march out, Kevin spotted Senik back with Shield Squad talking to Liam. It wasn't an exchange—it was a stern set of orders, as far as Kevin could see. He saw Liam nod, frown, and then turn to step away from the squad he'd been attached to up until this point. By then, Senik had already returned to the front of the legion.

Up front with the kebalim, Core Squad relayed the order to move back down the line and the entire legion moved outside, back out into the chaos and death and smoke. Little had changed from before they'd stopped inside, as near as Kevin could tell, except that the smoke-obscured sky was beginning to darken as night began its slow approach. Kevin cursed. A night mission will go badly for all of us. We can't risk using lights or we'll be easily spotted by the enemy, and I'm fairly certain quarian helmet visors don't nightvision…"

A few meters from the building's entrance, Senik threw a hand into the air above him to signal the legion to move to their respective areas with a simple gesture. The crowd of cabalists broke apart into four groups with Shield Squad hanging back, Heavy Squad heading north, Vanguard Squad heading south, and Core Squad following the kebalim east and right into where the thickest fighting would be. A quick look back over the shoulder revealed the silhouettes of Artillery and Marksman squads shifting atop the building, and for a split second Kevin could see the pinpoint bright orange glow of massive fires on the far side of the city reflecting off of one of the marksman's scopes.

Out in the middle of the rubble, Core squad took up a line formation to cover as much distance as they could without losing sight of another squadmate. Kevin ended up having to manage the rightmost flank and Haekas was the next turian in the line north, followed by Madeen, Senik, Takrien, and finally Tycus on the furthest side. Kevin took up an advantageous position in fallen debris that gave him a commanding view of a relatively empty swath of space from the buildings to his right to an outcropping of scrap off to his left. The thick metal and stonework was shaped just so to give him almost ideal protection from that entire side, like a naturally fallen bunker.

Straight ahead to the east was what seemed to be a collection of small structures, broken from one mishap or another. Kevin figured it for some kind of imitation urban playground for children or military simulation sports. Beyond that was the far side of the flat zone, with a long, wide building similar in height to the Kaliar apartment complex taking up most of the eastern view. Roads on the southern and northern sides were easy to watch, but allowed open and unrestricted flow of enemies. Kevin first thought it might be better to choke the enemies at those points, but the madness passed quickly. Too many ways for them to get around. We'd hold them for a while, sure, but we'd get flanked quickly and caught in deadly crossfire. Better to stonewall them here as best we can while we have friendlies at our flanks.

Whenever that would be. Ten minutes of tense waiting passed. Twenty. Thirty. The waiting was chipping away at his sanity, making him wonder if the enemy hadn't pre-empted this and went around to the western side to face the colonial infantry's defense grid. He was about to make a comment around forty-five minutes when he spotted a large flow of ground troops moving through the roads and entering from building entrances.

"Sphelix Legion, make ready. Hostiles on approach from the east," Senik announced over ad-hoc comms.

To the left and right, on top of the buildings, Kevin spotted Vanguard squad watching the battlefield from on high. Not more than a few seconds after the kebalim's announcement, they vaulted into action and began to charge around to match Heavy Squad's movements. Kevin peered down the sight of his Phaeston at the southern road as more and more hostiles came pouring through. Lots of cannibals and turian hybrids. No sign of any brutes, thank God. Hopefully we won't see much more of them.

Just then, huge explosions lit up the northern and southern roads right in the middle of the inflow of enemy troops as planted explosives were remotely detonated. A substantial number of them were killed outright, and the ones around the outside of the blast zone careened through the air either to smack into a structure or crash to the ground.

"Nicely done, Heavy Squad," Senik said, sounding no more congratulatory than as if they'd just remembered to breathe.

"Thank you, kebalim," replied Artemis Tenrek with some amount of urgency immediately sapping the brief victory from his voice. "I'm afraid that's all we can do for now. Vanguard Squad reported a harvester on its way here, likely to drop troops. We're moving to intercept."

The explosions did quite a number to the vanguard of the hostile push, but it did little to slow the rest of them down. Within the minute a fresh wall of enemies was bearing down on them, and within five, they were getting close to firing range. Marksman Squad was doing their best to thin the ranks and Kevin watched as unshielded cannibals were picked off one by one, their heads exploding from the power of the rounds.

"Alright Core Squad, it's game time," called Senik. "Hold them here. We do not move from this line, understood?"

"Yes kebalim!" Kevin shouted back with the rest, a vigor growing in him purely from the kebalim's words.

"Marksman Squad will keep our rear flank clear. Focus on that tide and stop it."

Kevin watched this 'tide' lazily flow forth around the miniature structures of the playground. So many of them… The only sound he could hear was the pounding of his racing heart as he waited impatiently for the order to engage. They hadn't spotted his squad yet, and were pushing forward without any attempts to fire on them. Too much longer and they'd be too close to stop. Just as he completed that worrying thought, the order came.

In an instant, the silence he was drowning in exploded into gunfire and chaos, explosions and death. The entire world shrank down to the line Core Squad made and the vast horde of enemies before them. Kevin prioritized his targets based upon their proximity to his bunker and he joined in the carnage.

Things seemed happen in the blink of an eye over and over. One moment he was sighting on a cannibal and letting fly a volley, the next it was dead and he was already aiming for the next. Hostile fire came flying back at him from several directions, most impacting the metal and stone of his bunker. He could hear the battlecries of his squadmates as they mowed down enemy after enemy and ducked into cover just in time to avoid a collection of shots from multiple sources at once.

The world continued to shrink until it was just him, Haekas, and the killing ground before him. He could almost hear himself process his thoughts as they happened.

Left side. Got it. Turian center. Few more shots, damn those kinetic barriers. Down. Two cannibals at right. One shot off a grenade—it'll fall short. Got 'em. Eject heatsink after one more, a cannibal at the left. Done. Three pushing center, take out the turian first. Missed a few shot, need to burst more and full auto less. Got him. Another grenade coming, it'll bounce off my bunker. Two cannibals left, three turians right. Damnit, too many at once. Two turians down, eject heatsink. Last turian down. Cannibals dangerously close, but one handled by Haekas. Got the last one. Now four cannibals pushing right. Two down, but three hybrids pushing up—can't get them all in time. I need dark energy, just in case. The cannibals are down, probably Marksman Squad. Thanks guys. Haekas takes out one turian, I got the other two. More cannibals, looks like four. Grenades everywhere—

Kevin watched wide-eyed as one well-placed grenade shot from a cannibal bounced off of the inside of his small firing window and rattled to his feet. For the briefest instant he thought of picking it up and tossing it away, but he knew he didn't have the time and that such an action would only end up in the loss of his entire arm followed quickly by death. He knew there was plenty of cover all around him that he could hurdle over and duck behind for cover from the blast, but there was no way he could physically manage getting there them in time.

Or was there?

Kevin had just enough dark energy built up. He could do it. Without wasting another fraction of a second, he threw down a super-low mass effect field directly behind him and jumped backwards into it. He did his best not to care about where he was and he ducked low the moment his feet touched the ground. He couldn't afford the cognitive dissonance, and there was no half-way point to whether or not he made it. Either he made it and would live, or he failed to place himself properly and he would take a grenade explosion to the face.

He heard the loud, snappy blast from the cannibal's grenade thunder around him, but he was unhurt. Knowing there was no time to spare, he stood immediately to get his bearings. It took him all of a second to realized he'd landed behind a downed thick central support beam and he peered over to where he was previously standing. The ground and walls of his vantage point bunker were scorched black from the blast, but lacking significantly in Kevin-bits. Smiling to himself at having just cheated death with a biotic skill he learned only a little over an hour ago, Kevin hurdled the massive beam to return to his post while quickly reflecting on the necessity of always having a small pool of dark energy ready to spend at any second.

He caught Haekas looking in his direction between volleys and he gave the turian a thumbs-up to indicate that he was fine. Haekas returned a slow nod—a nod of approval more than a nod of acknowledgement.

The reaper forces understood what had happened, though, and were running straight for the sides of his bunker in anticipation of the fact that the grenade had killed him, or at least flushed him out. He looked to Haekas who signaled that he would handle the forces trying to get around his left. With a concentrated effort, the cabalist deployed a biotic singularity right in the choke point of their intended flanking path. Kevin didn't have time to thank Haekas and turned to engage the troops breaching his right flank. He ran for that corner in order to get a slight spatial advantage just inside the corner they were trying to come around, and even out here he could feel the pull of gravity behind him.

The first cannibal started to round the corner just as Kevin was half-way there. He slowed his run to a few calculated steps as he sighted on and shot down the invader, then broke out into a run again once he was sure the shots connected. He arrived at the corner just as the second cannibal was hurdling over a fallen chunk of debris. For this one, he was close enough to save his heatsinks and reached for his blade. It came out of its sheath singing and hungry for blood, sweeping through the air in a blur as Kevin swiped at his foes.

The many long hours of practice and life experience with a blade made his strikes efficiently lethal, even on something as alien as these reaperized variants. Like the husks any adventurer knew, the cannibals and turian hybrids' weakest point was the head and Kevin was quite practiced with his precision and aggression. There were four cannibals that had charged the corner, and it only took Kevin ten long seconds to kill them all. They were slow and lumbering up close, and the high amount of adrenaline pumping through his veins made them seem even slower and clumsier. The moment the last one had taken the killing blow to the face, Kevin had sheathed his dripping blade and pulled out the Phaeston before that same cannibal had even hit the ground.

There was good reason for this. Hot on the heels of the cannibals was a pair of turians charging the flank to back them up. Kevin ducked behind the corner for cover, peeked out to take aim, and let fly a series of burst-fire volleys. The hostiles lost their kinetic barriers and fell as holes bloomed grey and blue in several areas of their torsos.

Upon returning to his post with haste, Kevin found Haekas having a great deal of trouble keeping the choke point between their standing grounds clear. It seemed a pair of hybrid turians had managed to get around his left flank and he was dealing with them in close quarters. Meanwhile, the singularity that he'd placed had vanished in his loss of concentration and several hostiles were creeping through looking to take him from behind. There was no time to warn him so Kevin gathered up as much dark energy as he could and launched a pull field to nullify at least a couple cannibals. There were three of those plus a turian pushing through, and two had been caught, floating helplessly as a result.

He wasn't done, however. As the others ducked underneath the useless amalgamations, Kevin pushed out a heavily concentrated warp field right around the two. The two biotic fields clashed, destabilized, then violently exploded with such concussive force that the cannibal and turian that ducked underneath were flattened while the two that were floating were sent flying upwards. They landed in the killzone in front of Kevin's bunker with a splat audible over the chaos of combat. Kevin looked to his left guard to ensure he was okay, and just after he'd put down the last of his close quarters foes, he turned to Kevin, gestured that he was okay, then picked up his rifle to continue.

Sometime later, two brutes were pushing up between Haekas and Kevin's holdouts. Kevin knew neither of them had the firepower, weaponized or biotically, to stop them here. Just before Kevin could call out to the kebalim for help, however, Vanguard squad appeared in the field and started distracting the brutes. Immediately he switched his focus to downing enemies as soon as he could see them to keep Vanguard Squad's fringes free from hassle, and he noticed Haekas doing the same. They didn't appear to be doing more to the brutes than harassing them, making them spin around in place as they tried to keep the turians in sight.

"Haekas, Kevin! Danger close!" called Artemis over the comms as Vanguard Squad abandoned their task of harassing the brutes, biotically charging off somewhere far away and out of sight.

Oh bloody hell.

Out of the corner of his eye Kevin caught sight of a fast trail of fire shooting down from one of the higher floors of a building off to his left. It flew so fast that even from that distance Kevin almost didn't have time to duck into cover. Somewhere on the other side of his protective bunker wall, a massive explosion rocked the entire area, even sending huge rocks and debris over his head. It was deafening, and he rightfully feared that his holdout wouldn't keep together.

By some miracle, it did, and when Kevin stood to look at where the brutes had once been, he found little more than a smoking crater that cleaned out the entire killzone.

"Spirits," Haekas gasped over the comms. "Thanks. Kevin and I were in quite deep for a moment there."

This style of fighting had gone on for something like an hour before their formation became useless and each member of Core Squad had to go mobile in order to assault the oncoming forces from multiple angles. Hostiles were starting to trickle in from the north and south through the buildings now, as Vanguard Squad and Heavy Squad could no longer keep up with fighting them off at the perimeter.

"Kebalim, we need to relocate!" Madeen called out, breath coming heavy. "We're getting flanked too hard out here!"

"I can confirm!" agreed Tycus, sounding like he'd taken a hit. "We'll be overrun completely in a matter of minutes!"

Kevin couldn't deny it. Even with how stalwart their efforts had been, with how staunch their resistance was, they were losing ground. Kevin was already hard-pressed keeping the incoming enemies in his sights to avoid getting boxed in. He didn't need to voice his agreement, though. The battlefield screamed it.

"Core Squad, regroup," the old turian commanded, calm as a still pool of still water. "Reform the defensive line thirty meters back. We will not form another line after this, am I clear?"

"Yes kebalim!" Kevin had resounded with the rest as he turned back to hop over a large piece of rubble.

A few squads worth of colonial infantry and Artillery Squad had joined in on the ground fighting, Kevin saw. Core Squad had regrouped half-way back to the apartment complex to reform a defensive line as commanded. With the additional help from the colonial forces, the tactic had begun to shine. They began to stonewall the heavy waves of enemies there and the fresh troops made a huge difference keeping eyes on their openings. The enemy forces were dwindling fast. They were pushing the onslaught back! Slowly at first, but their momentum was building and the fight soon turned into a murderous charge as turians overwhelmed the stragglers.

Suddenly, a colossal blast and what felt like an earthquake, originating somewhere just outside the building ahead of them to the east, caused the entire battle to come to an ominous halt. This was not an explosion, at least, nothing like the ones caused by the demolition troops they'd been battling the whole way here. This was an impact of some kind, like a frigate had dropped out of the sky.

With the reaper troops routed, everyone had the freedom to stop and focus their attention on the tall, long eastern building that obscured their view. Huge clouds of dust were kicked up and the whole eastern sky vanished behind a creeping, dark curtain.

"What the hell was that?!" Madeen exclaimed over the comms.

"I want eyes on," ordered Senik. "Vanguard Squad, take point. Get me some details."

As the dust approached the eastern building, Vanguard Squad could be seen charging to the roof to get a look at what happened. They'd only been up there for about thirty seconds before a blindingly bright, crimson beam carved its way through the building from the other side, slicing off the entire top floor to collapse into the next few floors below it as explosions followed the beam to wreak further havoc.

"Oh shit! Vanguard Squad! Relissi, no!" cried Valina back at the base of the Kaliar building.

Core Squad immediately regrouped just south of the central rubble, all staring with controlled, yet mounting dread at the half-destroyed building as the dust began to envelop it. Kevin felt a deep sinking in his stomach as he watched and a tingle of fear crept up the back of his neck under the tightness of his suit. The cabalists around him were silent with anxiety, browplates pressed hard together. Everyone knew—whatever it was, it was very, very bad.

What is it? Kevin wondered. It can't be a reaper, all the others were shooting their beams downward at the ground, leveling buildings and taking out heavy troops and vehicles. This beam shot upwards at the roof of that building…

Senik casually strolled up to Core Squad, eyes darting about the buildings surrounding them. "There," he said gruffly with a northern point of an armored finger.

It took Kevin some time to break his eyes away from the ominous cloud, but when they finally followed the direction of the kebalim's hand, he spotted the tiny dots of distant cabalists. "Vanguard Squad?" he asked, seeking confirmation of his hopes.

"Yes," Senik said, voice gruff and hard. He activated the ad-hoc comms and addressed the survivors. "Vanguard Squad, full report."

Vanguard Squad didn't have any time to frame a reply, however. Another crimson beam burst forth from the lower levels, aimed down, to hit the ground just beyond and swept across sideways to slice the building. Explosions rang through the entire square, angry and deafening. All at once the building came crashing down in a loud and steady roar that reminded Kevin of the overwhelming sound of rushing water at the base of a massive waterfall. Hot air and choking dust billowed out from the base of where the building once stood, adding to the gargantuan, threatening curtain that was still encroaching on them from the earlier impact.

Something was moving inside that cloud. Something huge. It had legs that spread out wide at its base and it was stepping right over the freshly fallen building as if it were a mere hill in the sand. Each step it took shook the ground. Towards the top, a red circle shone through the obscuring dust like an angry luminescent eye searching for prey.

"What the fuck…" Madeen muttered, stunned as the rest of them.

"Kebalim Corvallus!" crackled Tauria over the comms, her voice cracking under the frantic urgency in her tone and stuttered by coughing. "No casualties and only minor injuries, but I have a situational suggestion! We evacuate the area, now! Now!"

"Just relax, Mencius," Senik sent back as a massive black, segmented metal leg stepped out of the dust and into view. It was half as tall as the surrounding buildings alone.

"Oh shit…" murmured Tycus and Takrien in almost perfect tandem.

One more step brought the massive thing into view, emerging from the shawl of dust like some great beast breaching the surface of the water. The entire creature was made of the same black metal as the four legs that supported it, and the red circle three-quarters to the top did indeed seem like a ferocious and all-seeing eye. At first Kevin didn't know what to make of the mechanical monstrosity—it had the familiar metal exterior of a reaper, but he'd never seen any that took on this shape or small enough to walk between buildings. Then again, he'd only seen two reapers in his entire life, and only one of those was up close. It baffled him for a few seconds, but it took only one ear-shattering roar to understand what it really was.

"Damnit!" Kevin shouted into the comms, bordering on panic. "It's a reaper! A reaper!" We're going to get annihilated out here! his tone underlined.He suddenly felt… very tired. It was as if all of the exhaustion that should have been racking his body had finally caught up with him in his moment of fear.

As if to signify and confirm Kevin's announcement, the red eye glowed bright for a fleeting second before spewing forth a deadly beam down at the ground, sweeping it so close him and Core Squad that they all were thrown by the concussive force of the explosions that followed it.

Kevin was lucky enough to avoid landing on any sharp metal extrusions, but the wind had been sufficiently knocked out of him and his ears rang. He didn't give his eyes time to bring the world back into focus before he fought to find his feet, struggling to get his breaths to catch up. He found his rifle and scooped it up, then stumbled sideways using his hand to steady himself against a huge building block. He looked up to see the rest of the squad getting to their feet and a massive pointed leg stomped down barely thirty meters away, shaking the ground viciously and putting a small crater in the dirt and cobblestones.

It took him some time to hear it, but the comms had exploded with Sphelix and colonial chatter, all frantic and none of it helping anyone. Each transmission was spoken so quickly and so close to the one before it that he had trouble identifying who was behind each.

"We need to pull back! We can't fight a reaper!"

"Shield Squad stands ready!"

"Get the citizens out of here! That thing is headed this way!"

"We're not leaving! We have a job to do!"

"We don't have the means to take it down! We need to get everyone out of here!"

"Shut the hell up, all of you!"

"Damnit. Damnit!"

"Shit! More harvesters incoming! I think they've got more troops!"

"Fuck this shit, we're taking the kids and getting the hell out!"

"Marksman Squad stands ready!"

"Don't you fucking dare! The kids stay with the rest of us!"

"We're pulling back to the complex, we—"

The last transmission was cut off by the high-pitched and unique DYAAAHHH of the reaper's next attack, which swept up the northern side of the field of battle. Kevin knew there was a collection of colonial squads in that area and suspected the worst. Clusters of enemy troops were dropping all over the place courtesy of the harvesters that flew in during the lapse of attention caused by the reaper's appearance, quickly turning a single hopeless battle into several.

Kevin found the kebalim quiet and still as stone, staring right at the reaper with a predatory fury. He didn't look at the reaper and see an unstoppable force that was going to crush them all; he saw his first actual challenge since they joined the battlefield. A challenge both physically as well as strategically. Kevin's mounting panic halted in its tracks upon seeing that turian's incredible resolve, and he had to wonder just how long it had been since he'd considered something a challenge.

After what seemed like an eternity of panic and chaos, the kebalim finally broke through with his first single word. "HEY! Get your heads back in it, all of you! We're turians, not frightened piece of shit mercenaries! We're not here to lose our shit and cut and run at the first sign of trouble! We're here to handle it! Am I clear?"

Silence fell over the comms. Even through transmission, Senik's commanding voice felt like it would punch you straight in the face if you so much as looked in the wrong direction.

"Colonial infantry! If any of you are still standing and haven't shit yourselves, regroup back at the Kaliar building! You're our new last line of defense against enemy troops! Sphelix Legion, you have a new target and new orders!"

"Yes kebalim!" the legion shot back in varying levels of confidence.

The enormous boom of the reaper's next step caused Senik to pause. "Shield Squad! Biotics at the ready! No matter what that black fiend throws at that apartment building, you are to stop it!"

"Understood!"

"Heavy Squad! It's time to bring out the real guns! I want you to hit that reaper hard and fast, then relocate! Your job is to draw its attention away from the Kaliar building and clear out each time before you can take a hit!"

"You got it, kebalim," Artemis acknowledged with Targold roaring enthusiastically in the background.

"Marksman Squad! Keep those new ground troops under fire! Thin them out before they can reinforce and keep them off our squads at all costs! You will need to relocate off of the Kaliar building to reduce the threat there!"

"Yes kebalim! Relocating!"

"Artillery Squad! You're to support Shield Squad! You can bet your ass those newly dropped shock troops will be heading straight for the Kaliar complex!"

"As you say, kebalim!"

"Vanguard Squad! Assist Heavy Squad in harassing the reaper! Do whatever it takes, but don't do anything stupid!"

"Yes kebalim!"

"You have your orders! Get moving!" Shutting off his comms, the kebalim turned to those who stood with him. "Core Squad, you're with me. We have the most difficult objective." He turned to look at the reaper out of the corner of his eye as it shot another beam at some targets somewhere to the northwest, the brightness of the thick crimson-white line turning Senik's form into a dangerous silhouette. "We're going to kill ourselves a reaper."