Hurricane's comin' better pack your shit up
Lost in the storm and you're runnin out of luck
Fight for your life as you breathe your last breath

Chapter 25

The Best Way Out...

Shepard slammed a salarian with his foot knocking him out of the window sill into the street below. The mercenaries had long given up trying to take Shepard and his squad out with long range and opted to try hand-to-hand. Something they were very quickly paying the price for it. Two humans grabbed Shepard as an asari pulled her pistol.

A purple explosion tore out of the right side of her head as a sniper round bore through her killing the merc. Her death reflex squeezed the trigger on her M-3 killing the merc on Shepard's right. With his free hand he struck the other with a closed fist then open palm to her nose and face to get his left side free. Still refusing to let go of him, he grabbed her by her shoulder armor and threw her over onto her back. He slammed his artificial hand onto the merc's chest and initiated a high-powered electric pulse frying the nerve fibers.

"Thanks!" He hollered. He wasn't sure who gave him the opening but wasn't going to fret over it. Especially when there were still neck deep in mercenaries trying to kill them.

He picked up the merc's M-4 Shuriken. In his consideration, it was a piece of crap weapon. It had terrible recoil, low stopping power and small clips for the burst size it fired. But it had three things in its favor right now: it was light-weight, it had a quick reload and he could kill mercs faster with an SMG and an omni-tool than with just an omni-tool. He would have preferred an N7 Eagle, but it was better than nothing.

He managed to squeeze two six-round bursts off before the thermal clip was hot and popped onto the ground. Another clip automatically fed in replacing the spent clip and started unleashing bursts into the growing army that surrounded them. He could hear Ashley still trying to hold off attackers down on the first floor.

"Garrus, you up here?!" He yelled as he squeezed a burst into a pair of Eclipse that were running up the stairwell. A round stuck the lead merc in the throat causing him to gag and choke on his own blood as he rolled back down the stairs and died.

Garrus popped up from the far side of the second story firing two Viper rounds into the mercenaries on the first floor. "Still alive but I'm running low on ammo!"

"Need you to cover me!" He waited two seconds before jumping over the ledge onto the first floor.

Slamming down he spawned three combat drones. He had affectionately named them "Dewey", "Cheatum" and "Howe" when used in this fashion. Hewie glowed blue, Cheatum was red and Howe was yellow. The only way he could keep track of them was to refer to them by color. When he used the three drones in concert the processing power they had to go after hostiles along with their shields were severely hampered. But direct offensive action wasn't the reason for their use; the trio was to cause chaos. One or two hits after their shields were depleted the combat drones exploded in a power-based shower of colors associated with the color of the drones. Red was incendiary, Yellow was an electric overload and blue a cryo blast.

Dewey and Howe headed for the main entrance while Cheatum went for the door to the basement. After a few seconds Cheatum exploded causing the door to slam shut due to the power failure. He worried about Sirilia for a moment before seeing someone throw a merc across from the side of the room that was overlooking a drop off to the more slum-like areas of Omega.

"Didn't even check to make sure I was out?" She said over the gunfire.

"I can't run three drones at once!" He hollered back as another burst ripped the armor of one of the lower ranked merc's armor apart. "Ash, you still with us?"

He was the last one of the assault group. For that wave anyways. He alone had to have expended more than twenty thermal clips, most of which belonged to weapons of dead Eclipse members.

There was no response from her.

"I'm out of ammo up here!" Garrus yelled.

"Catch!" Shepard grabbed one of the mercenaries rifles and threw it up. He didn't even bother checking what kind of rifle it was or how many were in the clip but a sniper rifle with no rounds was useless. He was pretty sure it was a Vindicator but things were too blurry for him to look back.

Sirilia had moved out of sight. "I don't see Williams anywhere." He heard her call from the front. "But there's another wave of Eclipse coming."

"Jen dao mei..." He sighed out collapsing in a slouch.

Tali, James and Javik returned to their shuttle only to find it abandoned. No sign of Cortez, no spent thermal clips or scorch marks from weapons fire. It was as if he just disappeared. None of it made sense to James but he had to focus on Shepard and the others. He resigned his rage against whomever assaulted Cortez to the farther back portions of his mind but ready to beat the beat the bastard out of this life and the one after it at a moment's notice.

"Everyone strap in tight." He said sitting down in the cockpit.

"What about Cortez?" Tali said.

Javik offered his usual practical but still cynical outlook. "We will return for him if he's still alive."

"Hey man just shut it!" He said initiating the startup sequence. Cortez said he was going to keep the shuttle ready to run but someone had shut it down. Why was it cold now? There was an uncomfortable knot in his gut he couldn't just explain away.

He was about to fire up the engines when he realized what it was. The entire shuttle had been turned off but the doors were wide open.

"EVERYBODY OUT!"

James tore out of shuttle like an extremely large bat out of hell, Tali and Javik barely keeping pace ahead of him.

They made it ten steps out before the Kodiak exploded sending them flying into other parked vehicles. Groaning, all three stood back up slowly.

"What happened?" Tali asked. It took him a moment to know why her voice was distorted: his eardrums had blown out from the soundwave.

"Uuuurrgh." He gripped a skycar to steady himself.

"The shuttle was rigged." Javik said. "Likely by the same person who killed the pilot."

"He's not dead." James spat back. His vision blurred red. It was blood running down his forehead. He wiped it away, the hard and cold of the armor sent a pained needle through his head. There was probably a concussion but he'd deal with it later. "Tali, can you hotwire one of these?"

"I uh, I-I think so. Just, give me a second."

"We do not have it! Any decent assassin would remain nearby to make sure their intended target was killed. We need to leave before he tries to finish the job."

"You heard him. Just pick one and get started. We'll cover you."

Shepard's body was moving slower and slower. Every time an Eclipse was knocked out or killed another took the place of the fallen. The adrenaline that had been coursing through keeping him standing was waining. His hands were glistening in blood. He couldn't tell what amount was his own or that of the various mercenary species. The last thermal clip had been expended several minutes ago by Sirilia who had wanted to try and save what little ammunition they started with.

He heard an enraged grunt before a fist slammed into his forehead just off of his eye socket. The blow sent Shepard slamming into the ground. He tried pulling a second wind, sweeping the Eclipse's legs. It worked but only to a certain degree. The mercenary fell down like he wanted but fell on top of Shepard. With the amount of exhaustion he was experiencing this could easily end up a fatal accident.

The merc sat up from him. They were both a little dizzy from the blows to the head but still focused on one sole purpose: survive. The traded a few blows before a hail of gunfire erupted dropping the remaining mercenaries including the one on top of Shepard.

'Oh thank god...' Shepard thought, completely drained. Even if he had been able to deal with the one that knocked him down, more were sure to come shortly after. And after being hopped up for over nine hours straight on adrenaline, ten before that of mind numbing screen-watching, he was truly drop dead tired.

His head dropped to the floor simply relieved to have a break from the constant fighting. "Tali, I must say your timing is perfect babe." Shepard said.

"You're welcome Shepard, but don't ever call me 'babe'." A raspy voice said.

The voice was that of a batarian. 'Fuck. Me.' There were hundreds, likely thousands who still wanted him dead despite the fact that he was leading the charge against the Reapers who rolled rough shot over millions of their people. The new batarian government was showing a new willingness to cooperate with the Council races, even trying to offer an occasional olive branch (weak as they may have been) to the Alliance. That didn't mean that a rogue individual would try and take it upon themselves to kill him.

The voice was familiar but the fact that nearly every encounter Shepard had with batarians involved them shooting at each other the implication wasn't good.

The batarian rolled the dead merc off of Shepard. The batarian grabbed Shepard by the arm and pulled him up. His armor was decorated with blood red and black. He was escorted by five others in the same color armor each of the same color, each with a white circle painted on the chest: Talons mercs. Two were turian men, a krogan male, a batarian man and a salarian male. The turians had red facial paint and the krogan's headplate was painted an equally bright red.

He lifted his hands up slowly, wiping away the multicolored blood that made his face look like a sadist's rendition of a Jackson Pollock painting.

"I give." He said. "You got me. Just let the others go. I surrender." It was all he could think of to spare Garrus and Sirilia. With Ashley missing he only hoped that they might be able to find her somehow. He also hoped that Tali could understand why he didn't and wouldn't hate him too much for it.

"Like I told you when you were last here Shepard," The lead batarian said. "There's a few batarians out here who don't want you dead."

It clicked who the batarian was. "Bray." He collapsed into him with a hug. "You're a goddamn life saver!"

"Let's get you out of here before the Suns get involved. We've already cleared the way out."

Shepard stepped back and turned to Garrus and Sirilia, the former staggering down from the second floor. "You got my signal then." He had taken a quick look at the escape routes from the command center and a merc group to place someone by the entrance and given them a set of code signals to look for should something go wrong. The bum he got the cigarette from was a Talon, a short then long exhale followed by two quick ones from the same breath told him that they had been compromised and to head for the abandoned base.

"Go help them." Bray said to his men. Four of the five went to help Garrus and Sirilia while the krogan hefted Shepard onto his back.

"We'll take you to the docks. Another team from your ship has been tearing through looking for you."

A weak grin came over Shepard's face. He knew Tali would be at the head of the group. "That's my girl." He wheezed.

"Another fifty meters." EDI said over the suit's helmet radio. She had been directing James who was flying the stolen skycar at beyond lethal speeds.

"You've reached the LZ." He slammed the brakes and dropped the shuttle down for an almost crash landing.

"Any more word on what happened?"

"My cyber warfare suites can easily hack the station's security but information on Omega is more word of mouth."

"In other words, 'no'." Tali re-checked her shotgun. There was a fresh clip in it, her omni-tool was ready to remotely hack any suit VI program and overload a small army's worth of guns and shields and she was more than ready to fight her way through that army if it was needed.

"There are more skycars." Javik said pointing to four heavily armored vehicles. All with a painted white circle and a red symbol overlaying it.

"Probably a hit squad." James said. "Advance by leapfrog, covering rotations."

Advancing only two at a time they moved to cover while whoever was taking up the rear made sure no one was following. It was an old military maneuver for operating in hostile environments and on Omega paranoia on this level was healthy.

"Proceed up the stairs and take the first right."

"Thank you EDI, I can see it." James said. She was helpful of course, but his biggest concern was any ambushes. "Just let me know if there's any hostiles in the area."

"Attempting to process..." The AI went silent for several seconds before she responded. "I am currently able to track several individuals near Shepard's ID tracker. I suggest you hurry. His suit's health monitor suggests he is in near-critical condition."

Tali immediately ran ahead from her position in the middle of the trio.

"Sparks wai—aw dammit."

She couldn't lose him again. She couldn't. Not when he was so close.

The layout had a slight zig-zag pattern to it, half deconstructed barriers and sudden turns made her nearly run into the walls when she changed directions. She had returned the shotgun to the small of her back and pulled her pistol.

"I still don't understand why you're covering my eyes." Tali said as she walked into their bedroom. Shepard was immediately behind her, his hands covering as much of her mask as possible.

"It's an old human tradition." He explained. "Could you indulge me for like ten more seconds?"

"Okay."

He walked her slowly down the stairs, worried that a misstep would send them both tumbling to the ground then a trip to medical and an embarrassing explanation to Chakwas as to how they were hurt in the first place.

"Now turn around." He removed his hands and took a few steps back to by his desk.

"Do I still have to keep my eyes shut?"

"You can open them now."

Opening her eyes, she saw a wooden box with a cloth folded on top of it and several vases of flowers around the cabin.

"Shepard... what is this?"

"Happy anniversary Tali." He said.

"Anni what?"

"Anniversary. You know, since we first started dating. It's been a year. Well, year and a half. This was the first chance we've really had to sit down for a while."

"I've only been back for two months."

"No I mean since we first started dating. So what do you think?"

"It's beautiful. But you didn't have to."

His tone changed to a more somber one."Yes I did. I should have done this weeks ago. I should have made the time for you but I kept saying that there wasn'ttime for something like this; that there wasn't time for the two of us to have time together like this."

"You were right. We've been running ourselves tired trying on the front lines."

"Then let's take a break shall we? Come on." They sat down on the couch in front of the picnic basket. A picture of a tree was overlaying on the glass where Shepard kept his model ship collection.

"How does this work? I didn't see anything like this when I was reading about human courtship rituals."

"It's a little more rare nowadays it's very old Earth family tradition. I barely did it with my own family. We just moved around too much. As for what we do, it's pretty simple. We just sit and enjoy the food."

He took the blanket off and covered the coffee table with it.

"I've got some dextro fruit. They look like strawberries. I'm really hoping it tastes the same or at least similar." He said pulling out a box of blue-green fruits.

"And with strawberries, chocolate is pretty much required. Well, chocolate or whipped cream but I couldn't find anything close to it. I've also got some Soviyen wine. Garrus said a couple female officers he served with said it was good." The cider was a gray liquid in a glass bottle with a black and gold print on it showing the date it was bottled; 2087. He was completely clueless as to whether or not dextro-based wine aged like levo wine, but was hoping it was.

"I remember seeing a bottle like this on the Citadel the last time we were there."

"Same one. I called them a few hours later and bought it."

"You said it was two week's pay."

"For you, it's well worth it." He popped the cork and poured her a glass.

The picnic proceeded exactly as he planned. It was a nice, calm, uneventful day with the woman he loved.

"That *hic* was so sweet what you did what you did Shepard. We should *hic*do it again tomorrow. Ooh! We should do this tomorrow. No! Every day!" She hadn't even drank half the bottle and was already drunk.

"It's not over yet. Though I probably shouldn't do this with you being drunk and all—"

"I'm not drunk. *hic* I'm just a little *hic* bubbly right now."

"Well then, there's one last thing I have planned."

"Oh? Really?" Her eyes lit up like a child on her birthday. "What is it?"

"A little gift I got for you. You mind if I get up to go get it?" Her head had been resting in his lap for the last several minutes. He had been feeding her the strawberries with her head resting on his lap leaving him pinned.

"But I'm comfyyyy."

"Well I can't reach your present from here."

"Oh fine." Shepard wiggled out from under her. A 'whump' told him that her head fell back onto the soft, warm leather couch. It was a testament how well the couch had held up. Considering that Wrex had sat on it without a single strained creak.

"Okay." His hands were hiding something behind his back as he side-stepped down. She sat up wondering what it was he got her.

"Here it is." He revealed a box wrapped in a deep, soft blue paper that had a shine of a polished glass surface.

Handing it to her, she tried to carefully unwrap it. It would have been tricky under normal circumstances with her large fingers, but buzzed? It was a herculean task.

After a few seconds he told her that she didn't have to be so careful with the paper. She wanted to save the paper, maybe use it for something else. A few old habits from living in the Fleet for her whole life still clung to her. Chief among them was to never throw anything away. They simply couldn't afford to waste anything.

When she unwrapped it she saw a shimmering M-358 Talon pistol. There were a few in the armory that had been taken from dead Cerberus soldiers, but they didn't fit Tali's fingers as well as they did Shepard or Liara's. It was polished chrome with a dark gray grip. The thermal clip cylinders and barrel had a pattern etched on it similar to her hood.

"I know you've been wanting to try it out a bit. I had it customized to fit your hand, included a Ladar guide to focus on targets farther away. I also tweaked the heat sink so it can take an extra round or two before discharging a clip. I know it's not the best gift for someone you love,"

"Shepard."

"But I engraved it with our names on it and the date we met."

"Why would it have the date?"

"Because if it weren't for you, I'd be an absolutely insufferable SOB."

The pistol Tali was drawing as she ran down the Omega streets was the same M-358 pistol he had given her for their anniversary. She took it with her on every mission since, all the way to Earth. She used it exclusively rather than a combination of pistol and shotgun. It was quite elegant in its efficiency.

Jumping over the last barricade she fell into a combat roll as her feet hit the floor. Coming back up she saw several red-armored mercenaries carrying Garrus and Sirilia with a krogan carrying someone else on his back. It took her a moment to recognize who it was from all the blood covering him and the hump in the way.

It clicked who the krogan was carrying. Her eyes went wide, pulse skyrocketed and heart jumped into her throat in fear.

"PUT HIM DOWN!" She screeched. The M-358 was pointed directly at the krogan's head. He was twenty meters away but the Ladar range-finder was linked to the weapon's choke tightening the barrel down. The krogan might as well have been standing right in front of her with the stopping power it had.

The one batarian that wasn't carrying someone raised his own weapon to her. "Out of our way kid. This doesn't concern you."

Somewhere in her she found a calm in what was about to happen. "He's my husband. Put him and the others down or I kill you all." She said cooly.

Shepard was fading in and out of consciousness every few seconds. Something that in his condition, was extremely dangerous.

He could hear a voice. "That's my husband. Put him and the others down or I kill you all."

"Wai—put me down." He wheezed. He tried rolling off the krogan's back but could move anything except his mechanical fingers.

Bray didn't hear what Shepard said. "You mean the turian? He's under our protection too. Orders from the passed out human."

"Lower... your..."

"I meant the human. The turians are coming with me too." He heard two more soft whumps. It must have been the others who came with Tali. Which two came with her?

"In my cycle we did not make idle threats. Do not cross us primitive. You disgrace all quadr-visioned races."

'Javik. I'll be damned.'

"Hey culos, put them down before you get put down."

'And James. Who else would be crazy enough to come with them. Oh god!' His mind raced back to Ashley who was missing. Another dead friend because he failed. Because he wasn't fast enough; didn't figure out what happened to the command center in time.

He wheezed a few words out again. "Bray... let me... talk..."

The krogan finally heard him. "Hey Boss, think he wants to say something."

"Look, let's just everyone lower their weapons for a few seconds okay?" Bray said. "Let the Commander speak his piece."

The krogan knelt down so Shepard could stand up, though the hero did so slowly.

Tali's first instinct was to grab Shepard, Garrus and get the hell out of there. But if she did, it's likely the mercenaries would kill her and Shepard right then.

"She's my fiancée. You can trust her." Bray and the other Talons put their weapons down. "Tali, Bray just saved all three of our asses. He's a good guy. Actually, he's the only Bat I'd trust with my life."

"Don't ever call me that Shepard."

"Just emphasizing a point."

Tali lowered her M-358 with James and Javik following suite after a second.

He was still weak, but was still determined to find a way to make Kirby pay for Ash. "Okay, now that we're not all about to kill each other, what happened?"

"Cortez is missing and our shuttle was bombed."

'GOD! DAMMIT!' Now he got Cortez killed. He didn't deserve to die like that. Ashley AND Cortez. And Kirby wasn't even in custody. Now though he fully intended to kill Kirby. Painfully so. Before it was professional but killing two of his friends made this very personal."

"So what's next?" He asked.

Shepard's omni-tool opened with a scream. "I think I have your answer Slayer."

"Kee'lah! What is that?"

"It's quite simple dog-legs." It was Kirby. How he managed to hack Shepard's omni-tool was something he'd have to look at when they were done.

"I'm giving ol' Mr. Hero-man here a choice. Either he shows up or I kill his little minions," The camera adjusted to show a badly beaten Cortez and Ashley tied to chairs. With explosives placed underneath. Gags in their mouths prevented them from speaking. "In a magnificentBOOM! So how about it Shepard? I'm rather impressed you managed to make it out alive.

"More than a little depressed that you needed to use more mercs to get anything done. You were a hyper-badass survivor! Then you became just as weak as the rest of the galaxy, not able to do anything yourself."

"Funny, I didn't see your face in that horde."

"Honestly Shepard, you need to open your eyes. Who do you think was the one who took little miss marine here?"

James was seriously pissed. "If you hurt her-"

"Be gentle? Like I was with your shuttle pilot? Say hello Cortez."

Kirby took the gag off of Cortez's mouth. "Shepard just forget about us! Don't come near him!"

"WRONG ANSWER!" Kirby moved in almost a blur. He pulled Cortez's sidearm and shot him in the foot. "This, is what happens when one of you defies my orders. Do you understand Shepard? If you defy me again I turn your friends into instant wall paint."

"Kirby, I was just going to kill you. But now I'm going to do it slowly."

"You don't get to talk to your betters like that Shepard. Apologize or the marine will become a cripple."

Shepard hesitated unsure on what to do. His first instinct was to not give Kirby any form of satisfaction. "... I'm sorry... sir."

"That's a good start, but how about you try 'master'. After all, I amin control of your actions."

His teeth were grit so tightly he was starting to chip them. "Yes... master." The others could only watch on in stunned silence as the galaxy's savior was all but on his knees begging.

"Good. Now that you know your place, here's the arrangement. Pick one of them. Wait, I want your steroid infused marine to do it. He's close with both of them isn't he? He'll pick which one stays and which one goes."

"Quit with the games already! Let's just get this over with. You and me. No one else."

"What is this, the 'you pick the time, I pick the place' kinda thing? We show up, I ask if you brought any friends with you. You'll say 'no, that was part of the deal'. Then you ask me the same thing. My response is 'of course! I'm a man of honor aren't I?' Then we both start fighting while our snipers line up shots the whole time, waiting for the right moment."

"No, I mean the three of us. Bring some one if you want for a witness."

Kirby thought it over for a minute. "Okay, sounds good. Shuttle bay four is still a wreck from my last little soirée. You have twenty minutes. Should be enough time to put some tape on your broken armor; make it look all nice and pretty again."

"Plenty of time." The channel closed.

Tali was the first to speak up. "Markus, you can't meet him alone. He'll kill you."

"I don't intend to do either of those."

"So what is the plan? Something loco huh?"

"That's one way of putting it. I'll need a few patches James. Tell me you brought a medkit."

A/N: This is the last chapter I'll be doing for a while. I want to switch to 'Rubble & Ruin' and need to focus on my classes.