Me: Hello hello again, this is Zero612
Delta: And Delta!
Me: Writing to you from my temporary college apartment.
Delta: You have really been cranking out chapters these last few days.
Me: Nothing fuels my imagination like wanting to forget about school. Once my homework is finished it's like all my random thoughts go crazy.
Delta: That much is very evident. Anyways, onto adventure correct?
Me: Correct!
Disclaimer: I am broke and in college. How could I own anything spoken of here? I can't, so I don't, so don't sue me. I'd have to sell my liver or something to pay off the lawsuit. And I'm quite happy with my liver inside me!
A Change in Procedure
I open my eyes to see a stunningly good looking face staring back at me, eyebrows strained in tension and mouth in a frown that quickly turns to a smile once I catch their eyes.
"Well good morning good lookin." I say.
"Delta, you're looking at a mirror." Shepard sighs.
"I know." I smile at myself and turn to see Miranda, Shepard and Chakwas all shaking their heads and sharing a sigh. "I'm just glad I didn't end up screwing up worse than blacking out in midsentence. How long have I been out Shep?"
"You've been out for a good 4 hours." Wow only that long? Gues I must not be very tired. Kasumi and Tali walk in along with Jacob and…Grunt? Anyway they all walk in and look at me before relaxing some. In fact Grunt looks very, very relaxed.
"Shepard is Grunt-?"
"Grunt is still in a very long lasting aftereffect of the weed he smoked. Hasn't made much of a fuss for being cooped back up inside at all."
"Did he get more?" Grunt goes tense at this and Shepard seems to sense it.
"I don't know." She turns around to Grunt. "Did he?"
"Uh, well battlemaster, I did buy some more plant leaves but these ones are called "mint". The, uh, smell is in the tank and I thought burning some of these would help get rid of it." Grunt says, fidgeting little before pulling out the bag that has a mass of leaves and the words 'Medicinal Mint Leaves' written across it. I slowly start to climb out of bed while Shepard goes over to Grunt and tries to get a better look before he puts them away.
"Grunt, these are not mint leaves." Shepard says, her tone going dark. To Grunt's credit he lasted for a second under Shepard's interrogating glare before doing the smartest and dumbest thing one can do when given the two options her glare provides. Option 1, cry and blubber like a baby while begging for no latrine duty because you now know that when that happens Shepard will always go out of her way to make sure Gardner has enough provisions to have bean burritos and high dairy products every night for however long you're on duty; or option 2, Haul ass away from her and try to find a place to hide until her anger has calmed down to levels that don't promise indirect and legal torture or her anger has been redirected elsewhere. I give him 5 minutes. He'd probably run to his room and try to barricade the doors. Keyword: try. Shepard's scary cyborg strength is scary.
Oh god I feel a disturbance in the force. "Delta."
"…yes ma'am?" Prepare to enact groveling procedure 12.
"Did anything happen while you were unconscious?" Oh yes my saving grace!
"Yes actually, I found out I have a Prothean cipher installed in my mind. And one for a race similar to theirs but its inactive."
Shepard's anger is quickly replaced by surprise and interest. YES YES! I will surviiive! She steps closer as I stand up and pull my regular black t-shirt on with the gray cargo pants. "A race similar to the Protheans?"
"Yeah, apparently they have one that is. They seemed to consider them brothers so I assume so, unless they were Protheans who had changed in some way that made them obviously different or something. Either way It allows me to read Prothean glyphs now so, woohoo. And I have a few new schematics and stuff that the galaxy could find useful. Along with something special I think could help our chances."
"And I can expect to hear about these things in more detail soon?"
"Yes you can Shepard!"
"Good. I'm going to go talk to Grunt about his new hobby. I'll see you all later." Shepard nods to everyone and walks out. Everyone files out after her, Jacob and I heading to the elevator.
"So, how was babysitting Jack and Zaeed?"
"Horrible. On the plus side Kasumi said she wanted to try learning how to give a massage so it might work out."
"I bet, I saw her buying a book on the Citadel about massages. What was the title?" Jacob smiles and steps onto the elevator while I stand by the doors ."Oh yeah, 'From 'mass'age to 'bond'age. " I lied but the surprise on his face was priceless. I might catch shit from that but it was worth it. Oh geez, I wish I took a pic. Well, better head down to the hold. My new armor is waiting, woot!
Two maintenance shafts and a fall later I'm in the cargo hold looking around for my armor case. Ah there it is, perfect, and its upright too! Oh I'm so excited, I cant wait to see what I have. Oh my gawd…
This… this is true Spartan armor! It's the Mjolnir Mk VI armor with Grenadier kneecaps, and a tactical hardcase on the right thigh. The left shoulder plate is a reinforced ODST build and the right one is similar but the top part is longer and the bottom plate has 4 slots for sniper rounds. They have thermal clips in them for now, as does the rigid shell case on the left arm. It has 8 slots, each filled with a thermal clip. A grenadier chestplate with 7 inferno grenades stocked in it. And finally the coup de grace, an Mjolnir Mk VI helmet with a silver with a color scheme of black helmet and torso with red arms and legs and armor finish.
"It's, so, beautiful…" I think a tear just crawled out of the corner of my eye. LET'S PUT IT ON! I scramble to assemble the armor over my body, jumping in surprise as Silver walks out from behind the armor case with a blue screened tac-pad much more advance than the one from Halo. I look at him questioningly and he holds out a chip with a glowing blue circular core that looks like-
"A crystal matrix chip!"
"Correct. The Tactical readout pad will be your singular replacement to your dual omnitool type specializations. It has enough memory space to download large quantities of data, augmented further by the chip and computational matrix of the suit."
"You guys really copied it down word for word."
"Affirmative. We also reached consensus not to use it for future models unless given permission by yourself while your runtime remains active."
"I appreciate that Silver. So, what's the chip for really?"
Silver's light flashes then dims again "Us. We require more memory space and computational power to increase the effectiveness of our runtimes."
I smile and place the chip into the tacpad then activate the function to download the data from my soldier and Infiltrator omni-tool chips. "Welcome to the hardware involved in the legendary soon to be human juggernaut of the galaxy Silver." Once the data is downloaded I pull out the chip and look at it. Silver appears on it, a regular geth trooper body apparent but with a familiar color scheme change.
"Why are you black and red Silver?"
"It seemed appropriate considering our alliance." I smirk and plug him into the helmets chip slot. Without a neural interface it doesn't seem like Silver and I can connect like John and Cortana. Shame, he might've been able to help me organize the data I have stored in my head. I move around, waving my arms and legs then walking, jogging and running before full-out sprinting to see how the armor affects me. I'm faster, stronger and have more endurance than before. This suit is so great. After some time adjusting to it I take off the suit along with the chip containing Silver. The tac-pad separates from the armor and connects to my arm quite easily, giving me access to Silver and my omni-tool stuff as well. I'm really glad about the raised arm guards. The armor's gauntlets have a small rise behind the wrists and apparently that's where the Geth thought to install my plasma blades. It's so awesome to still have access to those. Oh, we are dealing with a whole new Delta baby! Woo!
"What is there to do now?"
"Delta-Specialist. Kasumi requests your presence with her and Shepard in the Captain's Cabin."
"Oh… ok, guess we'll head up to Shepard's then." I run to a wall and slide into a maintenance shaft, climbing up the ladder to my right and another after that. I make my way down the tunnel, knock out a hi in Morse code to Samara as I pass her room and come up to Shepard's room. I was about to drop in from the ceiling then stopped and decided to use the front door. So I dropped in front of the door and knocked. The door opened quickly and I saw Kasumi standing there fussing over Shepard's dress and necklace. Oh, so we're doing Kasumi's loyalty as well eh? Makes sense, it is in the Citadel area after all.
"I hate wearing these kinds of clothes."
"Oh come on Shep, you can't tell me you don't enjoy it at least a little bit." Kasumi says teasingly. She looks over Shepard's shoulder at me and gives a small wave "Hey Deruta, good to see you could make it."
I just shrug and step in, letting the door close behind me. "I was summoned, and didn't have a huge reason not to come. Whatcha need me to do? Nice dress Shepard."
"Thanks…" Shepard somewhat grits out. She turns to Kasumi. "You do know it's going to be hard not to hit everyone who will be staring at my ass."
"I know. Hopefully you wont have to hold back long."
"I sense pre-emptive hostility."
"The plan I have made is for Delta to accompany you just in case I can't do so openly. I've been careful but I don't want to be careless with Hock. So Delta, now I need you to put on this." And with a flourish Kasumi pulls out a suit similar to the one a male Shepard would wear, except with a light blue trim instead of a whitish silver one. I shrugged my shoulders and went into the bathroom to put it on. It took me a few tries but I think I got it right. Kasumi checks it over and nods, saying its decent.
"Ok, now we need to get down to the planet and arrive by shuttlecar." Oy vey.
So 30 minutes later, I'm in the passenger set of the shuttlecar beside Shepard and Kasumi is leaning forward between us and showing us the pictures that go along with the plan she's made.
"Here's the basic plan. Shepard, you are Ms. Allison Gunn, a new and successful leader of a mercenary group in the Terminus systems named Black Call. Delta, you are Solomon or "Sol" Gunn, her son who she's trying to expose to the underworld so you have enough experience for when you take over."
"Alright, I seems like a good enough idea for now. You got the plan so far, right mommy? Ow! Whyyy?" Seriously I think I got dead arm from that punch. Geez, that dress has her pissed off more than normal…
"Moving on, you two are here with a present. A gold statue of your old friend Saren. Inside the statue your armor and weapons are hidden and you'll find it in the Vault along with what else we need. In the Vault should be Keiji's greybox. When inside we'll scope out what defenses he has for it." There isn't much else and our car lands in front of the place. I turn and watch the guards scanning and handling the statue while Hock comes out and introduces himself to Shepard. The statue is brought in and I hide a little smirk while turning to see the man. I walk over to Kasumi and 'mom' and stand by her while Hock asks for Kasumi to stay out.
"Seems he's suspsicious… I wonder if he got my image from Keiji's graybox. I'll have to follow you two while cloaked form now on. Remember, find the vault first before we do anything else so we can find out what we need to do to access it." Shepard and I nod and I assume an uninterested look while following Shepard inside the house.
"So EDI couldn't scan this place eh?" I whisper.
"No, Kasumi didn't want to risk it. I don't know what it is about Hock that's got her so spooked."
"Can't believe we still got to keep our pistols. I love my phalanx, oh yes I do."
"I still prefer the Carnifex."
"Yeah well, we have our own preferences don't we mom?"
"Sol...-Hello Mr. Hock"
Shepard starts chatting up Hock and I think I hear the beginnings of his speech. I do not want to be there for that so, ooh, lets just see whats down these non-conspicuous looking stairs shall we? Power cords, sparse lighting, reinforced walls. Yep, this is the Vault entrance. Or close to it. Nope, there it is! Right so if I remember correctly it has a kinetic barrier, a password/voice ID lock, and a DNA scanner. DNA's in Hock's room, Password voice id lock can be bypassed with a password and voice sample to sue for splicing and the kinetic barrier is getting powered somehow. Might as well cut it.
"Not a bad defensive setup." Kasumi says from my side and behind me. I nod and fold my arms, noticing Shepard walking down to us and rubbing her forehead.
"For an immoral greedy douche he's very pretentious and self-righteous."
"Isn't it fun how they believe they are needed? Maintaining balance yes, but would it be so bad if the balance tipped in favor of good for the people? Come on, really… anyway, we need to find a generator for the barrier, a password and some DNA now."
"That's right. I have enough of a voice sample to mess with but we still need the password. Someone's going to have to find the generator and overload it and finally find the DNA which is likely in his bedroom."
"I can handle the generator. You two handle the bedroom. You're both stealthier than I am."
"Alright Shep. Here's the wavelength to follow for the cable. Come on Delta." Kasumi fades out of sight.
I turn to Shepard and smirk at her while activating my tactical cloak. "I bet you wish you could do this too eh?" I move once invisible and she knows it so doesn't even try to smack where I was.
Kasumi and I head out on the balcony and jump the railing. We sneak over to the 3 Eclipse guards standing near the cliff edge. Two are talking to each other close to us while the furthest guy is standing off to the side smoking. I move over to the two guards and grab one, pulling him to em before pushing him into his buddy. They both flail when they realize how close they are to the edge and try to regain their balance. The guy nearest the edge widens his eyes and opens his mouth to scream, seeing my foot lifted up and my evil leer.
"Sparta."
Their screams alert the smoker and he turns, bringing his avenger rifle up but Kasumi grabs and yanks it out before slamming a fist into the side of his head sending him back and off. The rifle soon follows.
"Nice."
"Thank you."
I go to the window-pane and jump up, busting the glass with a hard elbow. The two of us walk up the stairs with pistol's drawn and spot the guards looking out towards where their companions used to stand. I aim for the leftmost guard's head and Kasumi aim's for his buddy before being certain of her shot and letting out a small bird-call whistle. The two turn towards us and each get one eyeful of a hot thief and a well-dressed young man and another eyeful of hot, magnetically accelerated lead chips.
"Well, that's that. Lets loot his room for DNA."
2 minutes later we have a few good samples and are searching for another.
"Sweet, a credit chit."
"Delta…"
"Still looking, still looking."
5 minutes later we get away with sufficient DNA and 7800 credits. We meet up with Shepard in front of the Vault and Shepard gives Kasumi the password to synthesize Hock's voice to while I put in the DNA samples. Once Hock says 'Peruggia' the door opens and inside the first room before the elevator is the statue of Saren. I slap a button on the pedestal and a tray slides out with Shepard and my armor on it along with our other weapons. I chose to go with only my custom Plasma Repeater and my modified Viper this time. Once both are on I reload my m-5 phalanx and check the laser targeting before letting it rest at my hip.
"Alright, I've secured the elevator. We wont appear on any cameras while we head down."
"Awesome, let's go get that graybox and get out of here. I have some weapons designs the Alliance needs to see."
The two nod and enter the elevator with me. We ride down quickly and are obviously deep underground. My ears popped several times. After just a minute we've stopped and are in the Vault, looking at all the priceless artifacts Hock has collected (illegally).
"Can we get Hock's contractor to redesign the Normandy's elevator?"
"Not now Delta. Look for that Graybox."
"Fine. Holy crap, is that the Statue of Liberty's head?! Oh man, those uber-american patriot people are not going to like this…" I frown and walk around, searching the area for the greybox and find a Prothean statue. I blink when looking as glyphs suddenly become visible along its base and readable.
"This statue is to commemorate our brother's who are presumed lost in the alternate dimension where they were to create a haven and a place for those that came before to find peace. The chapter of Perifira." Perifira? What is that? Geez, now I'm going to have to do research or something. Maybe I can ask Liara if we visit Illium soon. Oh it seems Shepard and Kasumi have found the graybox. And new guns. Well that's great, now lets look for an exit to this place because I want to get back to work on my new toy asa-Oh what the crap is that?!
"Ah Kasumi Goto. I had a feeling that was you at the door-" Hock began.
"Whoa what the crap is that?! Oh, it's Hock. Hey, Donnyman could you turn down the volume? And size, because your face looks like shit man. Old pale, wrinkly shit with-"
"…Kill them. Just for him, kill them." Hock said, then his holographic head disappeared.
"Thank you" I said to the empty space, my empty hand up and waving to the camera I spotted while my other hand had drawn and unloaded two shots from my phalanx rifle into the head of a dude who didn't turn his shields on in time. Once the bullets started being fired at me I ducked and got behind cover with a quick reload. I switch out for my PR and start firing at the guys near me, burning through their shields and them rather quickly. Chief Roe sends out a combat drone and seems to be charging an incinerator but Kasumi lets loose a few bursts from her new Locust that send Roe ducking back behind cover. I get up and run past Roe into the room ahead of her. I pop out a medi-gel packet from the first aid station and open the door to the garage, seeing a bunch of Eclips troopers, 2 engineers, and a YMIR. Too perfect.
"Too perfect. Silver?"
"Acknowledged."
Shepard and Kasumi come after me a second alter and see the YMIR gunning down and firing RPG's into the group of Eclipse mercs. I occasionally pop the head of someone who tries to flank the large mech. Sadly not all the mercs seem to be dying but they are getting hounded into a corner.
"Delta-Specialist, suppressing fire assistance is requested"
"Gotcha. Shepard, Kasumi, discourage the mercs from leaving that corner." I pull up my Viper and shoot just above some peeking heads when the YMIR stops and glows. Silver retreats back to my tac-pad as the YMIR's power core overloads and soon blows it and the mercs to hell. Satisfied we head through only for Hock to apparently lock down the driveway doors. Prick. So we share an about-face and go up the stairs to a side door. I snag a PDA on a crate beside the open door and download +4k credits from it. In the room there's a few crates, a locker, 2 YMIR mechs in an accessible storage casing and some troopers and an Eclipse Heavy. Wait a minute…
2 YMIRs? Why are there 6 missing? Crap, they've upgraded their defenses haven't they? Well then, only more reason to upgrade our attack. I press a few buttons to open the storage case and bring the mechs up front.
"Silver I need you to-"
"Acknowledged." The YMIRs shields flicker orange and their red double light circle faces are reformed into…
emote smileys. Well that's one way to differentiate friendlies. "Nice touch. Hold them back until we encounter higher resistance."
"Acknowledged."
I join Shepard and Kasumi, mainly by sniping the Heavy's head after Kasumi whacks him with a shadow strike and takes out his shields. I reload my sniper and wave then move up with the two to the next room. Silver's YMIRs are moving slowly behind us but that's fine since we're stuck behind cover anyway.
"We need to get past those mercs!" Shepard yells over the gunfire.
"The door's locked though, how are we going to proceed?"
"Improvise. Watch the gas tanks" I say with a smirk. I toss a couple of my inferno grenades over the cover and hear them explode. Apparently the blasts can take out shields alone because a couple of guys are running around while covered in fire. They don't stop until they're totally burnt up. I then activate my cloak and sneak around, trying to avoid the gunfire while making my way over to the gun on a nearby Mako with a whoop I deactivate the cloak and press the button to fire. The tanks blast open and destroy the wall and mercs while I do a little victory dance.
I'm knocked off the balcony by a chunk of metal that ricochets into my armored head. Ow.
Climbing back up takes a quick second but I jump the railing and get back with Shepard while she moves into the next room. Hock comes in over a radio, spouting some crap about how he's coming down himself to kill us. Pfft, as if, I'm a fucking Spartan dude and its Shepard you're really dealing with. Need anyone say more?
Why is an alarm beeping? "Delta-Specialist, your shields are lowering. We suggest finding cover before they fail." Oh, new enemies. "We would like to make a suggestion. Your armor is capable of a function that will greatly increase your accuracy with a single hand and reload speed however it causes unnatural stress on your muscles. Prolonged use of this function is not recommended, most efficient time would be for 30 seconds with a 2 minute cooldown period for the stress to be removed."
"So Dual wielding huh? Might as well. Shepard, toss me the Locust!" Shepard grunts while popping up to fire her avenger. When she ducks back down the locust is thrown over to me and enemy fire follows the gun, impacting against my cover. I hold my Phalanx in one hand and the Locust in the other then stand up, letting out a large burst from the locust into the mercs. Two guys' damaged shields fall after the first few shots and I change the burst to focus fire on another guy while my phalanx sends two rounds into their helmets. One guy stands, stumbling back and a last one into the chest makes sure he's put down. Everyone pops out of cover, an eclipse engineer apparently among the group too with a Vanguard and Heavy. Kasumi sends an overload to the Engineer and shoots her down while I duck behind cover and reload, putting my phalanx and the Locust away.
Shepard smirks and runs forward, speed suggesting she has an adrenaline surge active. A new clip is slammed into her rifle and is unloaded into the Heavy's face. As he falls back Shepard lashes out with a kick and hits the Vanguard in the stomach, causing him to double over leaving the back of his neck open for Shepard to slam the butt of her rifle into. A last double tap ensures his death. Kasumi and I move up to Shepard and we move forward after grabbing some resources and credits. We duck behind cover as two rockets scream towards us, fired by two YMIRs. Beside the YMIRs are three Eclipse Engineers who all laugh and heckle us while fire is rained down on our cover.
"Silver, now would be a good time."
"Acknowledged." The YMIRs that were following us step into the room and walk towards us, their emote faces smiling down at Shepard and Kasumi before stepping into sight of the other ones. Kasumi sends out an overload on one enemy YMIR while I target the other and Silver unleashes rockets into them. The enemy YMIRs are knocked back, their shields gone and their armor dinged. Silver shoots, both YMIRs focusing on the head of one of the enemies, damaging the armor around its head.
I toss a grenade to Shepard "Aim for the head"
"Thanks." With a smirk she reaches back and launches the grenade into the YMIRs head. It explodes, blowing the head apart and burning the circuits connected to it, fastforwarding the overheating of its core.
"Nice." We duck behind cover; Silver's mechs recharging their shields while Kasumi Shepard and I finish off the Engineers that were hiding after the YMIR went critical. It's companion was destroyed in the blast and I kick aside a scorched metal head.
The engineers lasted only a few bursts, shields barely intact from the blast. We continued on and I shouldered my Plasma repeater as Shepard goes around collecting titanium, spare parts and credits. I press the button to open the door and soon it does, displaying a packed loading/unloading area with an array of pipes on the left side and crates stacked all around the area. I look around and drop behind the crates n front of the door with Shepard and Kasumi because Hock suddenly appears in his Mantis Gunship and sprays us with automatic fire.
"You could have done this the easy way Goto. Allow me to show you the hard way."
"Goddammit this guy is annoying…" I pop out from the crates while Hock shoots at where he thinks Kasumi is and kill a few of the mercs that start flowing out from under the area with my Viper. Kasumi remains cloaked and moves over to the side, taking down the mercs that try to flank us. Shepard focuses her fire on the Gunship and I use my Viper, Plasma repeater, and Phalanx in quick succession to stem the flow at our side. I reload once the mercs slow their advance and proceed to kill the closer ones once more before sniping the stragglers.
"What did you tell your friend Kasumi? That you're doing this for love?" Well that was not cool.
"If I can get close to that ship I can disable its shields."
"So, kill all those around? I'm not sure, that seems like a bit of a stretch from our usual MO." Shepard side-kicks me while still spot on with her firing at Hock's ship. "Ow! Ok, we'll clear it out."
2 minutes later, which lasted forever due to Hock's annoying heckles, the area was clear, Kasumi, Shepard and I ended up at the left side of the place with Shepard and I holding our guns slack as the shields just reboot completely. And Hock seems arrogant enough to watch at us in smug contempt without shooting. We are kinda exposed here, wonder why he hasn't chosen to.
"Got a clear shot, here we go!" Kasumi says and runs to her left. She heads straight for the pipes and jumps onto them, jumping and pulling herself up before leaping onto the topmost and widest one. Hock follows her, firing his guns as she runs but not even managing to clip her heels until she gets to the top pipe.
"Silver, you filming this?"
"We are."
"Good."
Kasumi runs forward on the pipe towards Hock's ship as it lifts up to get a clear shot at her before it can she jumps again, going high and far to land on Hock's cockpit.
Hehe, cockpit.
Kasumi holds on as Hock swerves to try and shake her off. She merely lifts up her omni-tool and watches as an overload charges and is deployed. Hock's ship is covered by electricity as the shields fizzle out, the generator blown and now out of commission. Kasumi gives Hock a cheeky smile and mock salute before jumping and back-flipping towards us, landing in front and rolling back to beside Shepard to throw off extra momentum.
"Shields down. Let's tear that thing apart."
Shepard smirks and lowers her gun from her shoulder while turning to face Hock's newest position.
I throw up an inferno grenade and catch it in one hand while holding up my Plasma Rep. at the mercs that have just been summoned by Hock come into view.
I smirk. "Hello cannon fodder." I run forward and dive through one group of Eclipse mercs who immediately turn to fire at me while I run at the group behind them, both hands on my gun as I fire into one guy until he falls then one handedly shoot at his companion while stabbing the salarian to his right in the neck with my plasma blade. The group behind me keeps shooting until a boom interrupts their fire. The inferno grenade I dropped between their feet when I dive-rolled past them goes off, blowing apart a few shields and encasing them all on fire. To make matters worse I pull out my phalanx and blow the head of the Loki mech with them, adding it's explosion to the chaos. I run back to Shepard and kasumi behind the crates a suddenly 4 YMIR mechs are brought up in front of Hock's ship.
Well, that wasn't in the game… Now I know where those missing 6 went.
"Dammit!" Yells Kasumi, crouched as low as she can behind cover with Shepard and I.
"This is bad…" I say.
"We have to take out those YMIR. Their fire will keep us pinned down until the mercs manage to overpower us."
"We pop out to shoot them we'll get shredded before we take down one's shields. Silver, get those Ymir we have on standby out here now!"
"Acknowledged. Coordinating their attack with yours."
"Aim for the two at the sides. Blow their heads off, and their explosions should help thin the ranks." We wait for the doors to open again before popping up and firing at the YMIRs. Silver's manage to take down their shields before a few rockets hit his and knock out their shields and most of the armor. I blast a head off with a Viper shot but am forced back down before I can help with the other but hopefully Shepard and Kasumi got it. They drop back down, Kasumi clutching a wound in her shoulder.
"Dammit, I got hit."
"Hold still." Shepard applies some medi-gel and I shoot a merc that gets too close. I hear the YMIR blow up and check, seeing it took out one and the shields of the other two but they both sent a last barrage of rockets at Silver's making his fall down and blow up. Thankfully they were far enough to destruct without harming our shields too much but now we have no support. I lob my last three grenades out over our cover, dousing a small semicircle of fire and death to those caught in the blasts. We all get up and shoot at Hock's gunship, managing to force him down so we have one less strong support to worry about. I run forward, jumping and sliding over crates to get closer to the YMIRs while Shepard and Kasumi provide cover fire. I switch out my Viper for my phalanx pistol and jump over one YMIR's arm as it swings at me, trying to knock me down. Once behind it I jump onto its back, beating its head to knock out the shields before unloading the phalanx clip into it. I jump off the now headless YMIR and behind some crates on the loading bay, finding a good position to snipe the newly exposed mercs. When they realize their vulnerability they get up to move and are cut down by Shepard and Kasumi. With my Viper and their guns most of the mercs are soon cut down in our crossfire before I have to move from my sniper position to kill the ones that tried to evict me. 3 eclipse mercs, 2 humans and one Salarian with 2 LOKI mechs come to attack me. I shoot the Salarian in the head with my Viper, knocking out his shields and a corner of his head before dive-tackling the nearest human. I lean up and shoot at the other human while stabbing the grounded one in the gut. With both those guys down I snatch the nearest rifle and use it to gun down the mechs. I look back and see a bunch of dead bodies, courtesy of Shepard and Kasumi. Kasumi shadow strikes a couple of guys and adds an overload to the one with better shielding to take it down. Shepard then drops em completely with a burst of fire to their heads. I climb a crate and jump off it, dropping down onto someone and slamming them into the ground. I lean down and quickly snap their neck before jumping off and firing at the last merc with Shepard. We both reload and I switch back to my Plasma Repeater when Hock comes back up with his gunship and yells upon seeing his mercs dead.
"Gaahh! Why won't you just die?!" We just shoot him, scattering as his machinegun opens up on us. I send two Viper rounds into the cockpit and smile as the ship catches fire and soon blows up when Shepard an Kasumi shoot it some more. We all heave a sigh of relief and hurry over to the shuttle that comes and picks us up. I can't wait to get home. This was just tiring…
I sit in the corner of the room, half-asleep while Shepard and Kasumi inspect the graybox. Kasumi stands straight and still for a while until I notice her fists clench and a soft sad, "Keiji" comes out. A few seconds later I see her head jerk up and she gets tense.
"I… I can't do that! This is all that's left!" Kasumi says. Guess she got the recommendation to destroy them. Kasumi's hologoggles fade and she looks at Shepard.
"Is there anyway we can just destroy the information?"
"No, Keiji is a master at encryption. He laced the files into his own memory. You can't get one without experiencing the other."
I look down at my Tac-pad. "Silver…?"
"It is possible. We Geth are made of code. Decrypting Okuda-Keiji's would be possible."
"How long do you think it'd take?"
"Analyzing… We estimate 5 hours if the programs of unit Silver operated on it only. We could communicate with the other Geth programs to shorten that to 1 minute, at most."
"Can the Geth agree to delete the files and private memories from their databanks once done?"
"We agree."
"Alright then." I look up at Kasumi. "Hey Kasumi, I think we might be able to separate the two."
"What?"
"You could have the memories and files separate."
"How do you plan on doing that? Keiji was a master of encryption."
"My programs are pretty adaptive. They learn more every day too so I think this'd be a good task for them."
"Well… you're welcome to try." Kasumi says, handing me the graybox. I link it to the Tac-pad and watch as Silver initiates contact with the Geth collective. A little progress bar appears and slowly fills up. After nearly a minute I get two folders labeled memory and Classified.
"And we're done. It's even labeled for your convenience." I send the folder with the memories back into the graybox and hold the classified info. "I suppose I'll just get rid of these files." I say while deleting the classified info.
"It worked?!" Kasumi says in happiness and disbelief. She plugs in the graybox and spends the rest of the time looking through the memories of her last love. I lay back and settle down until we reach the ship. The disembark and shaft travel up to my room is just a fading blur as I strip my armor and lie in my bed. I feel the grasping fingers of sleep reach out to me, my mind flitting between the whole mission and ending with me helping Kasumi to keep the memories of Keiji.
I wonder if I cockblocked Jacob.
Eh, I doubt it.
Me: Well that's another chapter done. Tell me people what do you think of it?
Delta: It sucks.
Me: (Falcon punch in the balls)
Delta: AGGAGAHHHAGHA! (Crumples to the floor)
Me: Heheheh, revennnnggeee…. Well, that's it for now. I'll be back to show you all more Mass Effect with Delta and Halo infused awesomeness later. PEACE!