John cursed and fired three shots in quick succession as Tali dragged him further. They broke the shields of one of the mercenaries, but then the third one didn't have enough power left behind it to break through his armor, merely giving the Batarian a mean kick in the chestplate. At least he stopped coming after them and hastily took cover.

Their escape had gone to shit almost immediately after they'd crawled out of the sewage. The Blue Suns had evidently noticed him being gone and either quickly deduced where they'd go, or simply send out enough men to get lucky. Either way, the bastards had beset them as they had still been collecting themselves, Tali talking to Garrus over the radio and him trying to find a way to stand stable with his wounded leg. John suspected the only reason he wasn't dead yet was that the mercenaries were trying to capture him rather than kill. Tali had no such luxury, but her shields held up easily against the mediocrely aimed fire of the four guys chasing them – in fact, they probably could've made a stand and cut them down relatively quickly.

But there was no time. There was no way of knowing how many more pursuers would be able to join the hunt, or when they would get there. So the two of them retreated through the undergrowth, firing off quick series of shots to keep the enemy at bay. They were moving far too slow for John's liking, but he still couldn't walk properly; in fact, he could barely stand.

Off to the half right, in some distance, he could see flashes of white and blue behind the foliage. He frowned; there they were, as he had feared. Moments later, someone opened up with an assault rifle the sound of which John was very familiar with.

At least Garrus is close.

Tali fired her shotgun to his left, and he turned to snap off another round of shots until he was interrupted by his quarian friend pulling him hard.

"Quick John! We can't go around!"

Even though he knew not what Tali was talking about, John gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the pain as he forced his leg to perform well above what it was fit for right now. A moment later, a branch snapped into his face, giving him a painful scratch on the forehead, and they broke free onto a clearing.

Goddammit!

As much as he tried, his leg was giving out quickly. It took everything he had just to not lose speed even faster. And the clearing was wide.

We won't make it like this!

The situation felt familiar in the worst way. But this would not happen again. He wouldn't let it. And so he ignored the rising panic and quickly yet methodically scanned the area for a good way forward or at least some cover, until he found both in the form of a dry streambed to the half left that offered the only protection to be seen. He pulled on Tali and shouted over the noise of the fighting; somehow, she understood and together they made good speed towards the protection of the ditch. Dirt and small stones were flying around everywhere when just as they reached it, their pursuers broke through the treeline behind them. Tali and John jumped inside.

Are they actually trying to kill me now? , he thought – and then he thought nothing for a second as the impact made the pain in his leg explode with terrible intensity. He fell on all fours and groaned.

John hated leg wounds.

Tali's shotgun barked, and the sound helped him to push through. Teeth gritted, he threw himself onto the bank and opened fire. One Blue Sun was lying in the grass already; Tali's signature combination of an Overload and a doubled up shotgun blast, he reckoned. Her pistol in his hands had not quite the same punch, but was still a Spectre grade weapon, and so a quick succession of five shots broke through the shields of the Batarian he was gunning for and killed him with the last one, popping his head like a melon.

Two and a half seconds had passed since they had jumped into the ditch. There were only three enemies left immediately in front of them. A grim smile spread on his lips.

It turned into a snarl a moment later when he recognized one of the men as the Salarian, who as soon as he had closed in to about twenty meters unleashed a wave of biotic energy that forced them both into cover. When they came up again, Tali was greeted with a furious fusillade that made her shields light up like a christmas tree, and John saw another biotic warp come straight at him.

He threw himself to the right; as he fell, the world appeared to slow down around him, as it sometimes did in combat. He could see Tali perform an Overload and then hectically bring up her gun. Too hectic. He just knew that she wouldn't land a good hit. As John's right buttcheek impacted the dirt, he began to aim; before he could fire he began to roll over, pushed by the kinetic force of the tiny biotic explosion unleashed where he had just been. By the time his gun was on target, he was upside-down. It was an impossible shot.

He nailed it anyway, and the Turian he'd been aiming for died before his body hit the ground. Then he landed on his left leg and the pain made him almost black out. But John was furious, and his rage carried him through it as he pushed himself off the ground and turned to face their enemies, only to barely dodge the butt of an assault rifle. Instinctively, he moved in and wrenched the thing out of the assailants hands. He was met with the ugly grimace of a Batarian rushing at him. They fell backwards onto the other bank; the impact pushed the air out of John's lungs. John somehow managed to evade the wild haymaker the big alien sitting on top of him threw at his face and it connected with the grass next to his left ear with a loud thud. It was the kind of miss that would have broken the wrist of anyone who wasn't a Turian or Krogan – but the Blue Sun was clad in a full combat suit. It made the big bastard even heavier than he already was and it's edges painfully pressed into his groin and lower abdomen. His own hands were naked, so if he punched the squint, he'd break his fingers. In the background, he could hear the repeated crack of a very familiar sniper rifle.

Another punch came in and he barely stopped it with both hands. Immediately, the Batarian's other fist slammed into John's ribs and he coughed.

I'm losing!

In the corner of his eye, there was frantic movement. Tali was fighting the Salarian.

John snarled and rammed his knees- both of them – into the alien's ass as hard as he could. The pain was indescribable, but he succeeded in throwing the man off his hips and the Batarian fell forward, catching himself with one arm. The other came down as a fist, but it was a poorly aimed punch with no force behind it. John easily caught it with his left.

With his right, he pulled the mercenary's knife from the sheath at his upper left leg and buried it in between his chestplate's collar and the lowe edge of his helmet. Then he slipped it out just as the shocked mercenary pulled back and clutched his neck. John used the opening to stab him twice more, this time into his left armpit. Warm blood was running down his hand when he finally dropped the weapon to try and push off the dying Batarian who had gone limp by now and fallen forward. Past the stinking head of the mercenary, John could see Tali still fighting the Salarian. None of them had a firearm, but Tali was wielding her knife. She sliced and kicked like a maddened fury, but the Salarian was even faster. John could see Tali's left arm hanging a little, and in between her attacks, she was hit by two quick jabs in the short time it took John to free himself of the dying man on top of him.

He looked down for a moment to pull out his right leg; just as he did so, there was a yell and a hiss, and when he looked back up, it was just in time to see Tali get hit by the dark energies of a biotic blast. She was thrown through the air with a shriek and hit the ground hard a meter to his right, her helmet producing a distinct, ugly crack as her neck snapped back and her head impacted a stone.

The Salarian had retrieved his weapon and stood there with such a disgustingly smug attitude that John could think about little else than to tear his face off. On his cheek there was a deep, bleeding gash. Tali's knife lay at his feet.

"Close combat adequate, Mrs. Zorah. It was my pleasure."

He lowered the gun, and the smirk on his features transformed into the cold stare of a seasoned killer. As the weapon came close to pointing at Tali's head, John's world slowed down again. He could see the situation - how it would play out and what he could do about it - with complete clarity and with what felt like all the time in the world to make his move.

After what had, in truth, been perhaps the tenth of a second, John acted. It was an easy decision. Ignoring the protests of his left leg one last time, he put every ounce of strength he had left into a desperate lunge.

Next thing he knew, he was lying on his side in the dirt. With his last strength, he rolled himself on his back so he would be able to see something. The Salarian just stood there, looking genuinely surprised for the first time since Shepard had known him. Garrus was still shooting somewhere close.

At least I wiped the stupid grin off his face for a moment.

Tali came into view now; she knelt at his side, touching him frantically, eyes wide behind her mask. She said things, but John barely heard anything. The Salarian was still standing there, but he was no longer looking down at them. For some reason, this intrigued John enough to keep watching the man, even though the pain in his chest that was now setting in was making it difficult to focus on anything, and Tali taking up half his field of view didn't help.

The Salarian's eyes widened and he snapped into action, forming a barrier just in time to not get torn into pieces by a savage warp slamming into him. Before he could recover, his shields came under fire from an automatic weapon. He returned the fire with his pistol, but only shortly. Then he had to fend off another biotic attack. A moment later, a black and white blur appeared from the part of his vision that was taken up by Tali and came down on the Salarian with a vengeance. He performed a spinning kick of impressive speed that sent the woman's – it was a human woman – gun, it looked like some type of submachinegun, flying, but payed for it with a punch taken to the chin; if he hadn't taken it there, it would've crushed his windpipe.

This person was good.

The Salarian staggered back and tried to bring up his pistol, but his opponent grabbed his hand almost casually. She twisted her body, spinning into him, and then rolled the alien over her hip and shoulder. He hit the ground hard with his back first, and his own gun was now pointed at his face.

A shot rang out, but somehow the Salarian had manifested a barrier at the last instance. In a move John had never seen before, he focussed the barrier into an outward blast that knocked the human backward and on her behind. The pistol went flying.

Both fighters were up in less than a second. They circled each other now, the Salarian panting and bleeding. The woman was just breathing a little heavier and her long, black hair had gotten somewhat messy; beyond that, there was no sign she had physically exerted herself at all. Her face exuded determination.

For a couple of seconds, nobody committed. The woman flinched and the Salarian took a step back, than he feinted right and she evaded; but no punches were thrown.

Then the little hearing John had left with all the blood rushing in his ears was blown away by the noise of an assault rifle being unloaded at full auto mere centimeters from his ear; Tali had retrieved the gun of the Batarian he had killed. He groaned and weakly tried to cover it, but the barrage had already stopped, Tali jumping out of the way of a warp with a yelp.

Her interruption had been all that was needed. When John got his eyes back on the fight, it was all but decided. The woman had to have landed a good hit somewhere on the alien's body, because he was hunched over and his movements had slowed down. There was no more aggression from him, he could only defend himself from the lightning fast series of strikes and kicks coming his way.

The Salarian managed for all of four seconds. Then a heel connected to his temple and sent him into the dirt. To his credit, he immediately tried to get back up; but his opponent did not give him the opportunity. She finished it with a stamping kick on the alien's throat.

John relaxed and let his head sink back onto the ground. The wound in his right chest hurt bad now, and every breath was agony. Breathing also got more laborious with every time. He coughed, and blood came out with it. His mind was working slowly, but he still understood what was happening; the shot hat hit him in the right lung, and now there was blood both inside the airways and in the pleural space – and air too, potentially. If he wasn't treated soon, his right lung would gradually collapse under the pressure to make way for the blood and air. Then his heart and the blood vessels would be pushed into the left pleural cavity; at some point, the two large veins would get kinked, blood supply to the heart would stop, and he would die.

He found that he didn't care as much as he would've thought. The bastard was dead, and Tali was safe. He could see her again now; she was bending over him, their savior next to her. He took the opportunity to muster the woman; she was of stunning beauty to the point that it seemed strange for a fighter of this caliber. She wasn't thin, but thinner than someone with this kind of strength should've been. Perhaps she used biotics to power herself up...

He scolded himself for wasting what might well be his last thoughts on such fruitless nonsense and rolled his head to the right to look at Tali. Her frantic activity had stopped, and she was simply looking down at him now. John looked back and smiled lopsidedly. He tried to say something, but no words would come out. All he could do was to lift his right hand, and not even that went as he had intended; he had wanted to cup her mask, but all he managed was to limply drop his arm into her lap.

Then he felt a sting in his glute; shortly after, there was another one in his chest. The pain in his chest began to wane, and his world rapidly turned into a blur of deep purple, and then nothing.

Authors Note:

An appropriately badass entrance for our favorite Cerberus bitch, I hope.

Many thanks for 101 favs and more than 130 follows! Knowing that people actually like reading this is what makes me go on, because I do have to admit, i sometimes feel a little silly to be writing fanfiction as a grown man.

And also thanks to whoever added this to that 'A Quarian and her captain' community :D