HOLOCAUST

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE:

SILENT MINES PART TWO

August 7, 2186

1038 hours.

Element Zero Processing Plant, Mining Sector, Dark Zone, Omega.

Second War for Omega, Operation: Light Prophet.

Captain Marcus Lee Shepard, Military Advisor Garrus Vakarian, Chief Engineer Tali'Shepard vas Normandy, Major Kaidan Alenko, Second Lieutenant James Vega, Second Lieutenant Imogen Keeling, Master Thief Kasumi Goto, EDI, Soldier Javik, Moses, Shadow Broker Liara T'Soni, General Nyreen Kandros.

Their approach was maddening...maddening in the sense that they were in the pitch darkness, with no reinforcements, most definitely surrounded by thousands of adjutants, whilst being stalked by one. Marcus couldn't help but clutch his rifle that much tighter, eyes darting between his motion tracker and his visor. His night vision paved the way, bright green outlines peeling away the veil ahead of them to provide a clear picture of their journey.

The metal gangway creaked beneath his feet, and he mused that Kasumi was right...the silence was so encompassing that one could hear the steady breaths of the group...and would notice when they fell quiet. He could hear the steady, but nervous, breathing of Tali beside him, the quarian being the only one not needing night vision due to her species' biological chemistry to that regard. Her glowing, blue eyes darted around behind her helmet, shotgun poised to every instance of a sound being made that wasn't theirs. The groan of aging structures in the distance, the low growl of the adjutant stalking them, and occassionally the occassional stutter of the drills in the other chamber, their ruckus so deafening that their operational hiccups were noted by the entire group, although not of their own free will. They were all on edge.

They had come across a few more dead Cerberus soldiers, but nothing else beyond that: it seemed Petrovsky's teams hadn't gotten any further than the intersection, and were likely set upon by the adjutants before they got any further. Marcus couldn't help but wonder just how successful the General had been in achieving whatever goals he had planned for the adjutants, as it was pretty clear the repeated attempts by the Cerberus teams leant some credence to the idea that they had enjoyed some small triumph. Not like it will matter in the end. We're going to bring his entire regime crashing down, an entire brick wall at a time. He won't know it's over until it already is.

"Is it much further?" James asked from where he was walking ahead, just behind Aria and Nyreen, who were in the front.

Garrus, who stood across from him, decided to lighten the mood, "Why, you scared, Vega?"

"Damn right I am, Scars," the marine readily admitted, not holding back any shots, "Haven't even seen the fuckers yet and they give me the creeps. Not looking forward to seeing one in person. Especially not this puta who keeps stalking us."

"That's probably the most mature thing you've ever said, Vega," Garrus shot back, sounding more serious and amused this time, actually respecting James' comment, "Still, I'm not particularly jiddy to meet this adjutant friend of ours, but I'm ready to kill it."

"Hope you brought enough bullets," Nyreen replied, calmly and factually. She didn't let fear seep back into her voice, meaning she had at least listened to Marcus to that regard, "Even then, it won't be enough. Maybe if they're explosive tipped, then you'll last longer."

Kaidan turned to Marcus, the N7 already knowing what the marine was thinking. He shook his head silently, motioning for Kaidan to not say anything: Nyreen was just stating facts. He just hoped they'd find another way to kill the adjutants in the mean time if they ever had to fight them: knowing their luck, they would, unfortunately. Marcus just couldn't help but look up at Moses, but more specifically, at the geth prime's powerful pulse cannon. Geth primes are walking tanks. Maybe Moses has enough firepower to reduce an adjutant to molten sludge.

A low hanging growl, this one much longer, sent chills up Marcus' spine, the special forces operative twisting on the spot and aiming with his rifle at the source, finding nothing but darkness. Shouldn't be surprised. Fast as a lightning strike, this one is. He turned back around, nodding to Tali that he was alright, and pressing forward. Their circle had loosened up slightly to make it easier to navigate, as the gangways were getting tighter and more narrow in some areas, barely wide enough to fit a krogan, and some were wide enough to park an Mantis gunship, wingspan and all...so formation reassignment was simply necessary, unfortunately.

"We're almost there," Nyreen declared, finally answering James' seemingly forgotten question, "We'll exit the eezo processing plant on the left, and proceed through the central mining sector, then it should be a straight shot to the reactor from there. A maintenance elevator will take us all the way to the bottom...right into the heart of the infestation."

"Oh, I'm just excited to wonder further into hell itself," Kasumi joked. After a period of silence, she spoke up again, trying to sound cheery, "Nobody? Just me?"

"Oh no, count me in," Garrus remarked dryly, sarcasm practically oozing, "I've always wanted to have my limbs ripped off while I slowly and inevitably transform into a purple, glowing krogan testicle. Just puts a real smile on my face."

"Keelah, now I've got to think about a giant, glowing krogan testicle stalking us," Tali groaned, shaking her head in disgust, "I'm supposed to be scared, but that thought just...argh."

"Yeah, doesn't exactly give off the vibe of something to fear, and more of something I'm going to puke just looking at," Liara added.

"Want to hear a joke?" EDI asked, her voice sounding remarkably happy and out-of-place.

Before anyone can say anything, Garrus' drawn out groan filled the empty chamber, "Do we have to? They make me cringe so hard I might just squawk."

"I'd pay to see that, Scars," James chuckled, the buff marine squaring his shoulders before gripping his LMG more tightly.

"I could do with the money," the turian retorted.

"A krogan's computer breaks down. He calls salarian tech support. Where can he go to look them up?" EDI proposed. The room was silent, nobody seemingly able to get where the joke was heading.

Finally, it was Keeling who spoke up, "If this is the lead up to a really stupid pu-"

"The genophages!"

Silence.

"Wow," Garrus blurted out after a long, tense minute, "Just...wow. I don't know what to say."

"You liked my joke?"

Marcus and Tali shared a look. In the end, Marcus just turned to the AI, trying his best to laugh, but failing miserably as he let out a series of pathetic guffaws desperately trying to sound genuine, "That was, uh, really funny, EDI! Really set the record for that one."

"I've learnt to identify fake laughing when I hear it: Jeff has provided me plenty of examples. Does my joke fail?"

"Yes," Kaidan spat out before anyone could speak, "Cataclysmically. You may have just killed that adjutant, the joke was that bad."

"I thought puns were funny?" EDI asked, the AI sounding confused, if not a bit deflated...the sound of it made Marcus feel more than a little bit guilty, "I researched it on the extranet. Puns are a source of human amusement that were extremely popularized leading into the 21st century."

"Really?" Tali asked, turning to Marcus. He knew she had an eyebrow raised quizzically, "Really?"

"It was, uh..." the captain fumbled for a response, shrugging, "...a different...time. Hey, that was over a century ago anyway! 22nd century human humor is far more complex now...or so I would hope. Is it? I've been out of touch with extranet memes."

"From what I've seen...yes," Liara piped up, "I've also heard an awful lot of...species...related puns. Most of them are...eccentric."

"Always knew humans were all racist," Garrus joked.

"Oh...shut up," he spat back, trying his best to imagine that he wasn't pouting, "...dino."

"Primate."

"I am the one who makes fun of primitives here," Javik finally spoke up, the prothean having remained silent during their entire back-and-forth dialogue, "And you are both primitives. All of you are."

"Thanks for the two cents, Javik," Kaidan replied, "We were all so lost without your guidance. I felt like I needed to be called a primitive at least once or twice before I could feel complete. Thank you so much."

"Is he always like this?" Nyreen asked, "Calling people primitives? What even are you anyway?"

"He's a prothean."

Nyreen just went quiet. Then she responded, "Right...I'm leading a resistance movement against Cerberus on Omega...being aided by the member of a race long thought to be extinct..."

"I could resurrect the entire species if you like," Marcus jested, "I have a knack for making impossible things happen. And for my next trick, I'll also dance the Reapers into oblivion, because that's a thing now."

For once, Nyreen actually laughed at that, "An army of protheans would be nice. The look on Petrovsky's face would be worth it."

Aria had her own thing to say to that. The asari turned to them, stopping in place as she spoke, "I'd rather see Petrovsky's face decorating the wall of Afterlife. Perhaps then his look of shock can be immortalized." The asari then turned and continued, her strides long and purposeful, shotgun checking every corner routinely.

"Well...that's messed up," Kasumi shrugged, "That was definitely messed up. Somebody back me up here. Fishbowl? Shep? Garry?"

Keeling moved past them, valkyrie rifle braced against her shoulder and centered downrange, "You probably haven't noticed, but the adjutant has stopped growling. My motion trackers are reading nothing, and I can't see anything around us. The adjutant has either left or is holding position somewhere. Neither are good, sir. I suggest we move, post haste."

"I'm with Lola," James reinforced the N7's point, "If it brings its friends, we're finished. If it's holding position...it might be finally ready to attack us. Orders, Loco?"

Marcus nodded, turning to Tali, "Tali, you and Kasumi move up and join Nyreen and Aria. Keeling, James, support them. Liara, Kaidan and me will use our biotics at the back if necessary, and Moses, EDI and Javik will stay in the middle. Move forward, and let's do it relatively quick. I'd rather not wait to see what this adjutant has in store of us. Double time it!"

The squad suddenly rushed forward, tossing caution to the wind as they realized they could be outflanked by the horde of angry, violent creatures. It didn't take Tali and Kasumi long to catch up to Aria and Nyreen, whilst Marcus joined Kaidan and Liara at the back, feeling the cool sensation of biotic energy building up within him. Now that he focused, he realized Keeling was right: he couldn't hear the adjutant anymore, and his motion sensors were silent. It's in here somewhere. Watching us, probably. Waiting for the right moment to strike...well, come on you ugly fuck. Attack. Attack and get it over with.

His mental goading produced no result. The adjutant must have been content with its position of authority: invisible to the naked eye, stalking its prey with the closest huskified equivalent to glee. However, it wasn't the single adjutant he was worried about. If it attracted its buddies...well, they'd all die if that happened. His rifle continued to scan the darkness, his night vision penetrating into the vast, unrelenting veil, but conjuring up nothing. Wherever the adjutant was hiding, it was doing a damn good job. That just worried him more. What if it's not here? What if its left to get reinforcements?

His squad wasn't waiting around to find out.

Suddenly, Tali haltered her advance, raising a single closed fist. Noticing, Marcus motioned for the rest of the squad to stop, eyebrow raised. His voice a bare whisper, he weakly shouted across the deck to her, "Tali? You see anything?"

"No," the quarian shook her head. A few more moments of silence, the engineer craning her head back and forth. She then lowered her fist, "No I...no, I thought I heard something. A bang."

"Well I didn't hear a fucking thing," Aria snapped, glaring at the quarian, "Next time, if you actually hear something, let us know. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut.. Fuck sake."

"No, she's right," Nyreen piped up, leaning over the railing, "I heard it too."

"Oh, so now everyone is hearing things. Isn't that just...adorable," Aria quipped, the asari waving her shotgun carelessly through the air in an exaggerated swing of her arms, "I guess I heard something too! Perhaps I heard the sound of Petrovsky taking a giant shit on his golden toilet in Afterlife. Maybe, if I listen just hard enough, I'll be able to hear the sound of Patriarch telling me what a gre-"

Marcus had enough. "Aria, do us all a favour, and sh-"

He needn't have bothered. Aria's mouth clamped shut while the entire squad witnessed a giant, black form land with a loud thud on the deck infront of them. The entire catwalk rattled violently from the behemoth's landing, metal creaking and outright screaming in some areas due to the strain and weight placed upon it so suddenly and without warning. Without their night vision, the creature would have been only illuminated by the bright, purple glow irradiating its form, outlining it in the darkness. With the night vision though, they could make out the gargantuan creature with little trouble: bulbous and disgusting, but tall and terrifying, its purple eyes glaring at them with what almost seemed to be hunger. Black viscosity dripped from its "mouth", coating the metal below it in a dark sheen. There was no mistaking it.

The adjutant had chosen to strike.

He did not fail to notice Nyreen freeze up at the sight of the adjutant: after all, she was terrified of them. The normally lethal biotic, stoic in battle and filled with determination, stood rooted in the spot, refusing to even raise her weapon. Aria, however, had no such tribulations, taking a step back and raising her shotgun in the process, "Well, our adjutant has made its appearance!" Before the adjutant could take a single step forward, the creature too busy standing up to its full height, Aria pulled the trigger on her weapon. The M-11 Wraith shotgun spat out its high velocity shell with what sounded like a sledgehammer slamming into a concrete wall...the shell exiting the barrel and breaking up upon leaving the barrel, splintering into tinier, equally deadly, fragments as it flowered towards her target.

The shot hit dead center, but the adjutant barely stumbled. Aria was so close that every fragment hit her target, and had this been any normal husk, it would have been torn asunder, its diseased and aching flesh yielding to the raw kinetic blast. But this was an adjutant...as such, the shotgun blast barely made it flinch, and the squad watched as it absorbed the shell, its flesh regenerating at a rate that would make most krogan blink. Marcus knew, in that moment, Nyreen had not been exaggerating when she said adjutants were nearly unstoppable. We're definitely not killing this thing with guns alone. We're going to need to get creative.

Aria, thankfully, thought the same. While Tali and Kasumi grabbed Nyreen and pulled her back, the turian Cabal snapping out of her terror temporarily, Aria lowered her shotgun and blew up in a blaze of cobalt fire. Her entire body glowed furiously as her biotics charged up, a viscious snarl erupting from her lips, a sneer coated with enough vitriol to burn through a warship's battle plate. With all the rage she could muster, the asari snapped an arm forward, sending forth a kinetic shockwave. The force was enough to cause the entire catwalk to shudder, its supports shuddering as the air was violenty dispersed around the shockwave site, but it had done the job: hitting the adjutant like a freight train, it was tossed back, hitting the ground like a brick. The creature rollled, landing on its front feet, largely unscatched, but it had been enough to push it back far enough for the squad to prepare a defense. The adjutant growled angrily: a low, barely audible sound. But Marcus knew its promise.

Liara did not wait, his asari squadmate bringing her own biotics to bare as she easily pushed it back even further. While this was happening, James, Kaidan and Keeling all emptied their rifles and machine guns into the creature, peppering it with as much firepower as they could manage. Liara moved to pick up the adjutant with her biotics, but as she did, the adjutant's feet grabbled onto the catwalk, holding onto it with an unbreachable iron grip. It was learning, and intelligent husks are even worse than normal husks.

As Liara released her biotic hold on it, the adjutant must have realized that it had to strike now before his squad could attack again. Whilst Kaidan, James and Keeling reloaded, the adjutant reared its back feet, ready to make a lunge. Marcus half expected it to charge the front of their line, attacking Aria or Nyreen, but instead, it jumped straight into the air, aiming right for the middle of the group.

For him.

He quite possibly only had a single second to react, so react he did. With his enhanced cybernetics, Marcus summoned his biotics and, with a grunt, peeled a biotic fist back and lurched it forward to meet the adjutant's face mid lunge. He impacted it in one of its eyes, redirecting its forward momentum so that it landed mere feet infront of him, dazed but not downed. Without hesitation, he quickly backed up, holstering his rifle as the rest of his squad surrounded the creature, ready to put it down. But the adjutant was nowhere close to finished.

It slowly struggled back to its feet, its belligerent behaviour driving it to continue forward no matter what damage it incurred. It seemed utterly unbothered by the fact it was surrounded, its aura of nigh invincibility giving it no reason to think otherwise. Marcus eyed the husk carefully, assessing its next move before it made it, and preparing for it. He knew his arsenal of weapons would be useless against it, although he imagined the stronger and more corrosive nature of geth plasma-based weaponry would be more effective than their bullets. Regardless, he did not move to equip his geth pulse rifle again, instead choosing to activate his omni-shield. If he could not physically injure the creature, then he could keep it at bay while his squad whittled it down.

I'm the matador, in a way. And the adjutant is the bull. Time to pull its horns, then.

His omni-shield glowed fervently in thre darkness, orange light wrapping around the front of his arm to provide a scutum-shaped shield of energy. The heat licked at his arm, intense enough to be felt through his armoured arm but not enough to wince at. It reflected off the levelled armor plating of his chestplate, illuminating the adjutant before him more brightly. The adjutant took note of this sudden display of bravado, and the N7, for a split second, swore it laughed, eyes boring holes through his skull as it glared at him. But what he heard was a squelch, more black ichor spurting from its mouth, one particular glob congealing to stick to the ground, hissing as it touched it...the superheated liquid glowing a very slight tint of purple before evaporating.

The adjutant wasted no time. It leapt at Marcus a second time, swiping at the captain with its claws. His lips set in a grim line, the Spectre turned at the last second and brought his omni-shield down infront of him, his legs set up in a battle posture. The adjutant slammed into him, causing his feet to skid at least half a meter back, only to stop as his stance remained firm. The adjutant flailed uselessly against his flash-forged shielding, rearing its claws back each time it did as the heat burned it. It began to pull back, and seeing his chance, Marcus brought the shield up, and with all the strength he could muster, swatted the husk straight in the face.

The beast yielded to the blow, head snapping back as Marcus hit it with the full force of his arm. The adjutant adjusted its weight so that it was not knocked over, but it was clear to the spectre that his attack hadn't even scratched it. Aside from a few burn marks on its chest and arms from hitting his omni-shield, he honestly couldn't tell if his attack had even winded the creature. As if in answer to his unspoken question, the adjutant turned around, snarling angrily, sending its black spittle spraying across his shield, and parts of his helmet. He blinked, before quickly using his other arm to wipe away the liquid from his visor, only to notice parts had dried already, sticking to it and slightly distorting his vision. The liquid that landed on the shield hissed angrily, evaporating immediately as the plasma liquified and melted it away.

It was clear he had only angered the adjutant, as he noted that its arms and legs were bristling, body shaking as it likely imagined all the ways it was going to tear his human prey limb from limb...that's if adjutants could think, of course. Although there could be no doubt that this creature had at least one goal in mind: to kill or transform its targets.

His squad fired at the adjutant, but it ignored the shots and shrugged them off, instead choosing to place all its attention solely on Marcus: that was good. A morbid smile graced his lips, holding his omni-shield to his side as he began to pace back and forth, prodding the adjutant into charging him. As it was, the adjutant simply remained on all fours where it had landed, choosing to simply watch its intended victim as said prey taunted it. Marcus' smile dropped, steeling himself in preparation for when the adjutant would lash out: his shield arm stiffened, ready for the right moment.

And then the moment came.

Howling, the adjutant stood up on its legs, arms raised and poised to strike. The sound was more like a Brute's roar combined with the sound of a dog being strangled, laced with the usual synthetic warble. The sound was terrifying, chilling Marcus to the bone, but he remained steadfast: a battle of who would win this staring contest. And from the look of the adjutant, it was fed up with such a notion. Marcus braced himself, ready to deflect whatever attack the adjutant threw his way, only to realize that he was too close to the creature...he was literally less than a meter away from it, well within arm length.

As the realization dawned on him, Nyreen shouted out confirmation of his thoughts, "You're too close! Back up! Don't let it scratch or bite you!"

The adjutant's right arm descended, its howl piercing his eardrums like a cacophony. He stepped back, bringing both of his arms up as he practically cradled the shield and pinned it to his side, biting down on his lower lip as he felt the heat bite into his leg. The adjutant's right-handed blow bounced harmlessly off the shield, the creature screeching its frustration. But by doing this, he had left his back exposed...something which the adjutant had not failed to notice.

He spun around, not knowing what else to do: he had already felt the next arm swipe coming before he saw it. The whoosh sound was enough of an indicator, giving him a split second to react: his shield too cumbersome, all he could do was spin. But he was too late.

He certainly heard the impact. The screech of claws scraping against battle plate, along with the scraping vibrations against his skin underneath, was enough to cause him to freeze in place, shuddering slightly. He kept his omni-shield raised, preparing to turn it into an omni-blade at a moment's notice, now close enough to slice the adjutant's offending arm off. He instead stepped back, taking a deep breath as he looked down at his side, expecting to see his blood leaking out, indicating that the adjutant had successfully infected him.

But he saw nothing of the sort. None of his blood poured, nor did he feel any pain. Instead, all he saw were three, long claw marks across the left side of his chestplate, tearing elongated gouges into the Terminus assault armor. He breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that the adjutant's claws hadn't breached his armor, and had simply grazed him. He continued to step back, further from the adjutant, his omni-shield deactivating as he reached for his pulse rifle.

That was too damn close. I can't be that bloody reckless.

As he expected, Tali was at his side in an instant, shotgun trained on the adjutant, which was slowly getting to its feet, while she checked the extent of his wounds. She gave a visible sigh of relief, before looking up to ask him the question of confirmation, "Are you okay?"

He nodded, "Didn't penetrate my armor. I'm not infected."

"You need to be more careful," Nyreen chastized, "I did warn you. That adjutant could have cleaved you in half if it wanted, and your armor wouldn't have stopped it." The turian was now on his left, her Pugio pistol raised and aimed dead center on the adjutant. The red indicator to the side of the weapon indicated she had switched to incendiary rounds.

The adjutant showed no signs of giving up, the creature standing back up, turning to Marcus and growling once more. It seemed to be utterly focused on him and nobody else: did it...recognize him? Was that even possible? The adjutants didn't serve Cerberus or the Reapers...so what personal vendetta against Marcus could they possibly have? It was a question that wouldn't get an answer anytime soon, as he watched the adjutant bracing to charge. He instinctively stood infront of his wife and squad, prepared to take the brunt of the creature's assault. Rifle raised, he aimed at what he presumed was its head, and prepared to squeeze the trigger. The adjutant charged, snarling the entire time, while Marcus held his ground, and prepared to open fire.

Marcus watched as Moses appeared from seemingly nowhere, charging into the adjutant from the left side. The creature obviously hadn't seen this coming, its focus entirely on Marcus, and thus it was unprepared for the brazen attack. It was thrown like a toy by the taller and stronger synthetic, slamming into the railing and thumping to the deck heavily, liquid frothing from its maw. Its eyes snapped to the geth prime that had assaulted it, the crimson titan unwavering as it equipped its Type-02 Spitfire directed energy minigun, and stomped towards the fumbling adjutant. It screeched blue murder at the geth, but found that its foe was not afraid of it, and thus its attempts to instill terror were lost on the synthetic.

Once Moses was in range, the adjutant lashed out, but the prime battered the arm aside like it was nothing, his brute strength overwhelming that of the belligerent creature. Grasping its arm firmly, he pinned the adjutant to the ground with his left foot, before raising his Spitfire and taking aim at the adjutant.

It uttered one last howl of defiance, the sound echoing throughout the mining chamber...uncomfortably loud.

Moses opened fire and meticulously tore apart the adjutant. High speed plasma rounds tore the diseased flesh of the adjutant to bloody ribbons, shards of cybernetics and fleshy pieces of skin flying all over the place. The adjutant ceased to make noise once Moses reached its head, blowing it apart like a balloon as slippery sinew splattered across its optics, black blood soaking the front of it. After half a minute of deconstructing the adjutant's vital organs and apparatuses, Moses released the trigger, the Spitfire's rotating barrels slowing until they stopped, red hot steam pouring from them due to the sustained plasma fire. The adjutant's corpse was an unrecognizable heap of flesh: steam hissed from the eviscerated body, its head melted and caved in, plasma eating away at its internal organs and destroying its body faster than it can regenerate. Moses had found the weakness of the adjutant and applied it: destroy it with such overwhelming and consistent force so as to overwhelm its regenerative capabilities. Not too bad.

The steaming hunk of flesh was a threat no more, that much was obvious. Marcus nodded to Moses in thanks, the prime simply returning to its assigned position to resume combat operations: it always came to the geth to be the most logical and blunt of the group. With the adjutant threat eliminated, the N7 turned to them, nodding his head as he made one last attempt to scrape the creature's viscera from his visor, but was once again met with little result, "Okay, let's keep on moving. Aria, I hope this entrance of yours is close by, because I'm beginning to get sick of-"

His order was cut off by the distinct sound of howling. It echoed across the chamber, loud and angry, the unmistakable sound of an adjutant's roar. But it wasn't alone: soon, dozens more joined it, howling in unison: their cacophony ruptured the silence of the chamber, filling it with the sound of approaching death. Marcus knew they had really stirred the hornet's nest now, and they were stuck right in the middle of it. Just as Nyreen had feared.

They had broken the golden rule: don't make noise. And the adjutant they killed had not died quietly.

The howls were reaching the hundreds: likely every single adjutant in the mining sector had now been alerted to their presence, and was now descending upon them with the intent to kill. Marcus began to back up hurriedly, holstering his rifle as he did: there would be no use for it against an army of thousands of adjutants. They were woefully outnumbered, and completely surrounded. There was only one thing for it.

He snapped to Aria, his tone unamused and to the point, "How far?"

The asari, thankfully, didn't give him lip this time, her vulgar and acerbic attitude squashed in her mind at the idea of being mauled by thousands of Cerberus' worst experiment gone awry, "400 meters, straight to the north."

"Then we run the rest of the way. To hell with silence," Marcus spat, turning to his squad. He began to run, tapping Tali's shoulder as he went passed to indicate for her to do the same, "You heard! RUN! FUCKING RUN!"

And run they did. Not a single one of them slowed down for a moment, even as the sound of angry adjutants drawn to the sound of their footsteps became louder and louder. Nyreen bolted ahead of them, the most desperate of them all to put distance between her and the Cerberus abominations, her strides long and less than graceful. Marcus wasn't far behind her, with Tali and everybody else just behind them. Moses was effectively running backwards, the geth's timed steps and vigilant gaze allowing it to make sure no adjutants snuck up behind them. Thankfully, the adjutants weren't that close yet. But Marcus also knew that if they caught up, his squad would be ripped apart. He couldn't let that happen. He wouldn't let that happen.

We can make it. We're almost there...just another 230 meters and we're there.

Those 230 meters might as well have been 230 kilometers.

"Its just around this next corner!" Aria shouted, pointing to it. Nyreen had almost gone past it in her mad dash to escape, but halted her advance the moment the asari finished her sentence, her clawed turian feet gripping onto the catwalk and allowing her to pivot, proceeding to run down the next corner, the rest of the unit in tow. There was only 200 meters left. Marcus could feel salvation was in sight, a reprieve from the adjutant menace. Deep down inside, he was beginning to regret coming down here...putting his squad needlessly in danger when there had been other alternatives. He had even brought his wife down here...

The mission comes first. If this strategy pans out, we can end this war with Petrovsky tomorrow...perhaps even today. Its my duty. We had to do this. Besides, they knew the risks coming in with me...they didn't care. They know the score.

He spared Tali a glance...he knew she must have been terrified, yet she moved with all the grace of a veteran: shotgun in hand, eyes fixed dead ahead. He turned to Garrus, who kept up with them with little trouble, showing no fear on his face. He smiled, turning back to the front, but quickly wiped the smile from his face. They know the score alright.

His mental conflict was quickly brought back to reality in a single instant. He watched as Nyreen suddenly skidded to the ground, landing on her back as she slid across the catwalk. Marcus didn't see why she had done this until a moment later: the entire unit stopped as three large figures landed on the catwalk infront of where they had to go, their forms looming over Nyreen with horrible malace.

The three adjutants growled.

Marcus, without thinking, equipped his pulse rifle and immediately opened fire on the lead adjutant, however the futile the gesture may be. Tali joined him, her geth plasma shotgun unloading bolts of energy into the adjutant's side, while Garrus took a knee, balanced his sniper rifle against his shoulder, and let loose. Kasumi, not knowing what else to do, joined him with her SMG.

Then they heard four distinct thuds behind them, metal creaking loudly and warping suddenly. Marcus whipped around, mouth dropping open and eyes wide in shock as he saw there were now four adjutants behind them as well, growling and hissing as they surrounded their prey. Moses did not hesitate, spitfire spinning to life as it unloaded a torrent of death at the first adjutant he had his sights on. Javik joined him, particle rifle slicing through the air to bissect one adjutant's arm off, causing it to hiss and howl, although not at all in agony. James wasn't far behind, while EDI and Kaidan fired on the fourth adjutant at the back. Liara just joined the forward line, trying her best to keep them back with a flurry of biotics and reserved SMG fire. But Marcus knew that no matter how valiant their defense, that the longer they stayed here would only allow the adjutants around them to catch up...and then they would surely die. It was inevitable.

He didn't stop firing. Lowering his rifle for a moment, he reached down to his belt, plucked a grenade and primed it, tossing it over his head towards the advancing adjutant trio. The frag grenade detonated directly underneath the first one, the concussive force of the blast sending it flying into the air, before slamming back down, its legs blown off, blood spurting into the darkness. This meant little, as the adjutant simply used its arms to drag itself forward, completely uncaring to its state: at this point, it really did seem like a cybernetic zombie, as it advanced without a care in the world for its own wellbeing. A creature designed to kill and do nothing but kill, whilst turning its victims into more of its own kind. The perfect killing machine. The ultimate weapon.

Yep. Definitely a Cerberus project.

Without even waiting to find out if the grenade did any damage, he raised his rifle once more and continued his fire, subconsciously moving toward the adjutants as he did, unloading every bullet he had. Steam coughed from the top of the weapon, indicating he had used up the thermal clip. Like a machine, he ejected the spent clip, slapped in a fresh one, and continued firing. It was then that he noticed the maintenance ladder in the distance, less than 200 meters away from them...behind where the three adjutants were advancing. If they could just reach it...

We're so close! I won't let us go out like this!

Aria practically had to drag Nyreen away, who was so frozen with terror that she found herself unable to even raise her damn weapon. It was only after the asari slapped her out of it (literally), that the turian finally raise her weapon and fire a few shots: however, most of these shots were of little value, most of them missing due to the turian's shakey grip. It was a terrifying thing to see: a special forces operative reduced to a terrified private. If there was a clearer case of PTSD, this was it. But he had seen Nyreen fight Cerberus, had seen her beat the shit out of Leng...she had shown no fear, no sense of backing down...she had been graceful and fluid, lethal and majestic...a fighter who could make her skills look like water dancing. And yet, when faced with an adjutant, she fell apart at the seems.

That was the kind of enemy they were dealing with. An unscrupulous foe with no ultimate goal, tactics or motivation. Just a need to kill everything in sight.

Once Nyreen was pulled away, Marcus was effectively the only left not retreating. He only realized this once he saw Tali moving with him, constantly at his side and shotgun barking off shot after shot.

The first adjutant had finally withered under the combined plasma fire, its corpse smoking and seemingly collapsing as its corrupted muscle and bone mass melted and peeled away, creating a fine mist of black smoke as the body stagnated within seconds. With one down, he turned to face the second, only for a hand to grab his shoulder, pulling him back.

"We need to pull back, we're getting too close!" Tali shouted, effectively ordering him to fall back.

He nodded his affirmation, and began to walk backwards, firing as he went, his quarian wife matching him step for step as they fell in unison, pouring hot superheated plasma straight into whatever adjutant was closest to them. Unfortunately, an already FUBAR situation was going to get much worse: additional thuds sounded ahead, and he imagined the face draining from both their faces as they saw three more adjutants appear.

They were soon going to be overwhelmed at this rate, but knew they had to make a break for that ladder. It was their only hope of escape.

"Captain!" Javik's thick accent travelled across the catwalk despite the loud reports of gunfire from all around them, mixed with the growls and grunts of adjutants arriving and attacking the group, "This position is untenable! We must retreat!"

"Retreat where, Javik!?" Marcus snapped back, noting that one adjutant looked to be getting agitated and approaching faster. He switched his aim to this particular creature, firing at what he hoped was a weak spot: the bulbous sack on its back, "We're fucking surrounded! There's nowhere to go!"

Except the ladder.

We'd never make it.

We can try.

We'll die.

Better than dying here.

He gritted his teeth, knowing that they really had no other choice.

He knew what they had to do, and they had only a short window from which to do it. He gulped unconsciously, before raising his voice an octave he didn't think he'd ever have to speak at, "Everyone, we're going to make a run for the ladder! Train your weapons and advance: kill every adjutant infront of you, but make sure you reach that ladder at all costs! GO!"

He didn't need to articulate his decision any further: his squad just accepted it. With Moses holding off the adjutants approaching from behind them, the rest of the squad turned their attention to the adjutants directly ahead, peppering them with weapons fire, explosives, biotics and whatever else they had in their arsenal. At least one adjutant wavered under this assault, cut to shreds by the intense firepower. Another was jolted by impacts so heavily that it actually fell off the catwalk, tearing off the guardrail as it plunged into the dark abyss below them. But even then, the adjutants just kept on coming, with four more waiting directly ahead, and likely more arriving behind them.

Marcus passed the broken guardrail, rifle peppering the adjutants near the ladder with what he could muster. He ejected a spent clip, reloaded, and kept going: there was no halting his movements. It seemed they may just reach the ladder after all.

He didn't hear Tali's scream until it was too late.

"MARK, LOOK OU-!"

He felt himself slammed into the ground in an instant, the wind forced from his lungs in a decompressive blast. He was unable to move his arms, and he knew from a quick glance that this was because the adjutant had landed directly ontop of him, its legs pinning him to the catwalk, claws digging into his armoured arm but not quite piercing it. Only his legs could move, and even then, he didn't see a kick doing much to faze a creature like the adjutant. The rifle was still held firmly in his grip, but with the adjutant saw this, planting its foot directly on the wrist so he couldn't raise it. He felt the black liquid from its gaping jaw begin to drip onto his visor, adding even more to what was already there: some of it even splattered across his collar. He groaned, unable to do anything but stare up into the adjutant's soulless eyes, realizing that he was ultimately defenseless. He hadn't even seen it coming: it must have dropped from the ceiling, directly ontop of him. His arms felt jarred, likely bruised heavily from the impact of the full weight of the gargantuan creature landing ontop of him.

The adjutant raised one arm, ready to tear Marcus' head clear off. Before it could however, the arm was blown off down to the stump, black blood fountaining from the newly created wound. The adjutant roared angrily, looking up to see who had committed this offense upon its form. The response it got was a plasma blast to the face, even more black fluid splashing onto Marcus' helmet in the process, soaking it. The adjutant flailed its head around wildly as it was temporarily blinded.

He watched as the leg pinning his right arm was blown off next, causing the adjutant to stumble backwards as it lost its right locomotion. Not wasting any time, Marcus released the grip on his pulse rifle and immediately activated his omni-blade, bringing the hand up to descend upon the adjutant's other leg. The swipe was clean and swift, chopping the appendage off at the ankle. He quickly dragged himself out of the way as the adjutant, now legless and lacking one arm, simply collapsed forward, landing where Marcus had been not too long ago. It snapped at him, desperately trying to bite him, but he simply dragged himself out of its reach, grabbing his rifle again as he stood up, black liquid dripping right down his chestplate.

He turned to his savior, nodding his thanks. Tali just nodded in return, and the two moved to continue towards the ladder, their weapons finishing off the adjutant at their feet before continuing. The two were inseperable as they shot their way forward, shotgun and rifle complimenting each other excellently like a pair of twin machine guns. The rest of the squad was struggling to move as far as they had, but were quickly catching up.

Marcus turned to the squad, motioning to the ladder, "We're almost there! Just k-"

He never saw it coming.

Everything was a blur. One moment, he was just shouting orders to his squad. The next moment an adjutant charged and slammed into his side, barrelling him aside like a rag doll. He was helpless as he felt his body physically leave the ground, rudely grabbed from the catwalk and shoved violently to the side. The wind once again exploded from his lungs, his body turning in mid air as he flew through the air: his eyes briefly met that of the adjutant that had attacked him, before he lost sight of it once more. He held onto the rifle in his grip as hard as he could, unwilling to lose it again, as he continued to fly through the air, no reprieve seeming to be yielded to him.

Once he saw where he was headed, he felt a lump in the back of his throat. The dark abyss reached out towards him, yearning to consume him in one fell swoop. All he could do was watch as he continued to fall, gliding past the broken guardrail to rapidly descend into the mines below. His night vision provided very little assurance, barely illuminating what was infront of him due to the powered down sections below him. He heard Tali scream something to him, but he couldn't make out what she said. He closed his eyes, accepting of his fate, helpless to do anything as he just continued to fall, air whipping at his helmet as he plummeted.

There was no end in sight.

{Loading...}

August 7, 2186

0948 hours.

Rear Entrance, Aria's Bunker, Tuhi District, Omega.

Second War for Omega, Rubicon Campaign.

Commander Walter Pike.

If one were to look at the current situation from an objective standpoint...they'd likely say that they were losing the war.

Sure, Aria's joint mercenary-UGC forces had dealt a crippling blow to the Cerberus army at the Battle of the Tuhi District...nearly 10,000 troops killed, along with over a dozen Atlases, and countless amounts of Rampart mechs. Suffice to say, the assault had been costly for the pro-human organization, but even with this success, they had suffered their own losses, and Petrovsky still held a position of superiority with the 30,000 strong army that he had left. The odds had been tipped, but not irrevocably in the UGC's favour. The only real advantage they held was naval superiority, but there could be no doubt that Cerberus reinforcements would arrive soon, trapping the UGC liberation force on the station for Petrovsky to pick apart piecemeal.

It took Pike a grand total of ten seconds to fully evaluate the status of the room. Arguments had broken out between UGC field commanders and Aria's lieutenants on where best to send troops, with Pike largely having to intervene to ensure fights didn't break out. General Zaal'Golo clearly disliked the company Aria kept, and while he largely maintained a professional relationship with Nakmor Dreg, the quarian held no reservations regarding Bray. Pike himself didn't like Aria's men on principle: being one of General Kandros' most entrusted confidants, she had told him everything Aria had done during her reign on Omega, and why Nyreen had eventually fled and taken control of the Talons. Pike was a man of loyalty: it was a trait his father and mother had instilled in him from the moment he hit puberty, his life defined by discipline, order and efficiency. As he rose in the ranks of the Talon drug cartel, he had earned himself the trust of his commanders, but not their respect: his militaristic attitude, combined with his prior service in the Alliance army, made him a topic of some mockery amongst his peers. Derius had gone so far as to nickname him the 'Postman', named for Pike's rather...unique way of delivering messages. The nickname stuck.

He had once been a thug. His sense of loyalty was so overly narrow-minded that it often led him to choose the wrong people to be loyal to. Derius had been a man without charisma: he imagined himself a womanizer, even though most women despised him. He considered himself a fighter, even though he almost never fought any of his own battles, choosing instead to give the dirty work to Pike. He considered himself an artist, even though one of his works was so bad that the one he had sent to Aria as a "gift of courtship" had been sent back torn to shreds. He even considered himself a crackshot, even though he couldn't hit the broadside of a mountain. If there was a profession, Derius had tried them all. And he failed at every single one except one thing: the drug trade.

His head turned in a mindless semi circle as he ponderously scanned the room, standing at the back of the garage with hands crossed behind his back: a habit conditioned into him from years of service to the Alliance. The hockey mask he wore occassionally grazed areas that ached or itched, but Pike paid it little mind: wearing the mask was a small price to pay for what lay underneath. He imagined most of his subordinates would rather follow a leader out of principle, and not for fear of the face that gazed back at them. Otherwise, the burned and charred parody of what resembled a human being may have caused them to defect, he imagined.

Through the slits that made up the eyes on his mask, he could see the disarray before him. Wounded piled in every minute, cuts and scratches patched up and their receivers sent straight back out to their respective combat zones, while broken legs and other appendages got what little rest they could in the cramped confines of what was being called the "medical bay" in the command center. Of course, the vast majority of the casualties were Aria's men: the geth, krogan and rachni were having significantly lesser troubles than everyone else, having worked out a way to combine their unique strengths to reinforce their weaknesses and triumph over their enemies. While it worked in some areas, they couldn't be everywhere at once, and where the UGC wasn't, Cerberus was winning.

The "Battles of the Rubicon" (officially known as the first phase of Operation: Dark Prophet), as they were being prematurely nicknamed, were a distraction. While Shepard's unit brought down the forcefields, the UGC and Aria's men would perform delaying actions across the Rubicon to disrupt and distract the vast majority of the Cerberus army. They were largely a series of brief skirmishes in somewhat random areas, produced through stealth offensives, followed by swift retreats: bug bites and pebble throwing. Neither side was suffering significant casualties, but Cerberus was devoting a significant amount of resources to that front: almost a full regiment of troops, in fact. Petrovsky wouldn't make the Tuhi mistake again though: there was no large concentration of troops dedicated to any one assault, and the skirmishes were largely firefights between small squads and the occassional Atlas or armature. Aircraft from both sides even engaged in small dogfights, but thus far, only one or two fighters had been shot down...all on Cerberus' side.

After all, Cerberus pilots were no match for quick and methodical geth interceptors.

Cerberus had won some minor victories, but nothing major. The UGC, as was their intention, largely finished engagements inconclusively: absolute bare minimum of fatalities on both sides. Pike knew Petrovsky would catch on sooner or later, so all he could do was hope that Shepard succeeded with his plan and managed to bring down those forcefields without potentially unleashing an adjutant horde upon the entire station. Regardless of what outcome occurred here, if that happened, both sides would lose.

As the shouting got louder and the casualties get streaming in, Pike found his thoughts to be clouded, wondering through a haze of murky ponderings. Paramount among these was Nyreen: and her recent decision to place her backing behind her daughter, Sata T'Loak.

He had yet to fathom the decision. We had first met Nyreen, she had seemed like the kind of woman was both broken and yet firm. The signs of her history as a special forces biotic operative were there, with one particular raid on a Blue Suns warehouse really showcasing to him how deadly she could be. But in that same way, he could see the mental cracks under that mask of hers: cracks that only hinted at her history. At that point in time, he was entirely unaware of her history with Aria...or her ambitions for the Talon organization.

He remembered when Nyreen had finally gathered enough loyalists to challenge Derius...and Pike, her commanding officer at the time, had foolishly challenged her. At the time, it hadn't seemed so foolish...after all, he was loyal to Derius, and Nyreen was a traitor who had to be put down. He had also felt betrayed: he had grown to respect Nyreen immensely, treating her as his de facto lieutenant, so her betrayal dug deep at the time. But when the dust had cleared, so to speak, and he was defeated: he realized he didn't care, and hadn't for a while. When Nyreen announced her intention to overthrow Derius, Pike hadn't resisted...he had willingly joined her after the fact, despite the permanent scarring done to his face: after all, it was her fault he was doomed to wear this mask for the rest of his life. And when Nyreen described her dream of transforming the Talons from drug cartel to respectable resistance force, he hadn't resisted that either.

Sure, there was some resentment: he had taken her treachery quite personally. And for the first couple of months, he had silently followed her orders without question, but silently hated her. But after he saw what Nyreen had done to the organization, his attitude changed: she had flushed out all the undesirable scum from her ranks, leaving only loyalists and respectable foot soldiers. All of Derius' loyalists had been banished or executed, and Nyreen had declared war on the drug trade, using the Talon's status as a mercenary superpower on Omega to make life hell for red sand dealers: and unlike the American analogue of the 21st century, she had succeeded. Nyreen had kept her promise: proven herself an effective leader, and worthy of the title of General. She had even begun recruiting disenfranchised civilians looking to settle a score with people who had wronged them in the past, whether it be the odd criminal or Aria's thug platoons. In the end, Nyreen had achieved what Archangel wanted to, but never could, because she had both the resources and tenacity to get it done.

That's when his opinion of her changed, when he finally banished his pride and asked her forgiveness. To his surprise, she gave it without question, naming him her second-in-command...or more officially, giving him the rank of Commander. He would have been at the forefront of her rebellion against Aria, ready to bring the whole matriarchy down to its knees...

...and then Petrovsky invaded. And the rest was history.

Nyreen had changed Pike in ways he never thought he could be changed. He had gone from a man without moral fiber, a tool of Derius' tantrums and drug-infused ambitions, to a man who was to lead a revolution, one that would topple the one rule of Omega itself, and bring down a pirate queen that had lasted over a hundred years. He was a changed man, and he owed it to Nyreen.

Which is why he had been so quick to accept Sata's place as Nyreen's successor, despite her questionable loyalties.

She barely knows the girl. Nyreen wasn't even present to raise the child, so how can she be so certain that she is a worthy successor? Nyreen is a proven leader...this Sata has yet to prove anything. For all we know, she could be mummy's girl. As loyal as I am to Nyreen, I'd rather not see the Talons handed over to a girl who's effectively the human equivalent of a small child.

He had to remind himself that asari aged differently than humans, maturing much faster than normal, and living well over nine centuries longer on average. Even still, he couldn't shake the feeling this decision would prove disastrous for the Talons, and the only way he could assuage his fears would be to evaluate Sata. To speak with her. Discover what kind of caliber she was, and whether she truly could be trusted. Until he did so, doubts would only continue to eat away at him.

He found himself robotically twisting on the spot to head up the flight of stairs heading into the command center, body moving on autopilot as he proceeded to search for Sata T'Loak in her last known location: Aria's personal quarters. Aria had left Sata behind when she left for the infiltration mission, although Pike doubted it was out of fear for her safety. The concept of "motherly love" didn't apply to all mothers, and Pike wouldn't be surprised if Aria, if given a choice between Sata or Omega, chose her precious slag heap of a station over her own flesh and blood. That's just the kind of creature Aria was.

Reaching the top, he hit the haptic interface and watched the door shoot open, the Talon commander stepping through. The war table looked unattended, with only Bray present as he looked over the combat reports whilst simultaneously relaying this information back to the quarian-geth/mercenary fleet in orbit around the station. The rest of the room, on both sides, was filled with people, armed soldiers and wounded alike. He noted that at least four of the guards wore the blackish armor of the Talons, accentuated by the bloody red T and white circle logo of the organization. He nodded to them, but only one nodded back, as at least one was tending to a wounded quarian engineer's suit breach with medi-gel, while the other two were facing the door exiting the command center. He paid them no mind, resuming his path to Aria's quarters.

He crossed the room, ignoring the brief look Bray had spared him as he quickly returned to his work. A few of Aria's men milled about: a pair of asari and a batarian mostly, their light armor looking dented and worn from combat, with one of the asari's shoulderguards completely missing. Puzzlingly, there was a single elcor situated at the back, his long, broad back suspended on four muscular legs. He seemed to be talking with someone on a terminal over a "couch" of some sort, but Pike could not garner much more from the conversation, nor did he care to do so.

He arrived at Aria's quarters, but noted with a raised brow that the haptic interface was bright red, signalling that it was locked. Reaching up one hand, he knocked on the grimy, chrome-coloured surface of the door three times, before stepping back and quietly waiting: he was provided no reply. He turned to the nearest batarian guard, who had been watching Pike the entire time. He needn't have asked his question, as the guard seemed to already know.

"You looking for Sata?"

Pike nodded.

"What business do you have with her?"

"Talon business," was his curt reply, voice raspy.

"Not good enough," he did not fail to notice the batarian's grip tightening on his rifle: a worn-looking BRK-II Barker. Pike gave the batarian his full attention, pivoting to face him fully, whilst remaining utterly silent as the batarian continued, a glare trying to pierce Pike's mask, "Perhaps you would like to elaborate, Talon."

"I would not," Pike rasped, hands remaining clasped at his back as if he was entirely undeterred by the batarian's threatening pose. After all, the batarian was armed, Pike was not. But the Talon commander could care less for the batarian's seemingly superior position.

"How about I make you?" The batarian spat, slightly raising his weapon.

Pike was unamused, "You could try, but I can't promise it'll end up the way you want. I wish to speak with Sata T'Loak. Whether or not I do that is not up for debate: whether you tell me or not is irrelevant. I will find her regardless."

"You don't scare me, human," the batarian coughed, wiping his lips as he leaned against the wall to his left, regarding him rather amusingly. But from what Pike could gather, the batarian was very much nervous, with his grip on his rifle nervously jittery. Perhaps it was the mask that unsettled him so, or Pike's confidence in a position where he lacked any sort of weaponry. The uncertainty must have eaten away at the batarian. But, such as is with batarian pride...

"Sata T'Loak. Where is she?" Pike reiterated, "I won't ask again." First, disable rifle. Next, break wrist wielding trigger. Third, incapacitate target. In just a few seconds, Pike had planned out exactly what he would do should the batarian be unwise enough to risk a confrontation...which he very much seemed unwilling to do.

A point that was quickly proven. The batarian stood up, gulping as he wiped his forehead, "Right. Whatever. She's in the fucking main garage if you want to see her so badly."

That intrigued Pike. What is she doing there? "That's the main entrance. Why would Aria allow her to go near such a sensitive area?"

"She didn't. The brat insisted," the batarian guard shrugged, clearly not being paid enough to really care about the everyday domestic politics of the T'Loak household, "Even asked me to give her a damn gun. I laughed, told her she was better off with dolls than a gun," he seemed to stutter, clearly embarassed. He then quickly changed the subject, "Anyway, she's in the damn garage. Just get out of my face."

"And you'd be wise to remain out of mine," Pike replied, "It would be bad for morale for me to have to put you in your place." Pike then turned and entered the forward garage, not waiting for the batarian's response.

There wasn't one forthcoming, the batarian staring at him completely dumbfounded.

It really didn't take Pike all that long to find Sata after that. Out of all the asari present within the room, she was the smallest, wielding a M-22 Eviscerator shotgun (likely commandeered from some deceased Cerberus soldier) tightly in her hands while leaning lazily against the wall sheeting behind her, casually lifting a cigarette from her mouth as she blew out a plume of smoke. She looked rather unamused, although the source of that lack of amusement likely came from the pair of vorcha currently hissing and snapping at each other just across from where she was. His target now in sight, he wasted no time in closing the distance with her, his pace steady and completed in long strides. In no time, he had closed the distance between him and her, narrowly avoiding the long line of prefab bunks along the wall, most of them now empty with the majority of the liberation forces out and about.

Alot more Talons milled about now, most of them from the reinforcements Nyreen had brought with her. Thanks to Pike, very few confrontations between them and Aria's men had broken out, which was good, because with morale as high as it was, nobody wanted something as petty as a political disagreement to get in the way of victory over Cerberus' oppressive regime. There goal was one in the same, even if their opinions on who should inherit the 'throne of Omega' differed.

Sata didn't seem to notice his arrival or pay him much mind until he stopped infront of her, remaining silent until she took notice. She must have seen him in her peripheral vision, because after a few moments, she tore her bored gaze from the fighting vorcha to face Pike, looking exasperated, "You've got something to say to me?"

"Yes," Pike stated, knowing that he could not tell Sata exactly why he needed to speak with her. After all, that wouldn't be revealed to her until after Petrovsky was defeated, and Nyreen deemed the time to be right. He knew there would only be one way to address this topic without unveiling the underlying intention behind it, "I wanted to appraise you."

Sata frowned at that, looking genuinely confused by that statement. Sighing, a long burst of smoke erupting from her lips, she dumped her cigarette butt on the ground and stomped it into a pulp, leaving it where it lay. She hefted her shotgun with an amount of professionalism he hadn't expected in her, yet she still held it rather sloppily: wise enough to aim it at the ground, but not wise enough to remove her finger from the trigger. He couldn't help but point that out, nodding at her lowered weapon, "Remove your finger from the trigger."

"Wha-?" Sata uttered, flabbergasted at Pike's apparent rudeness, but then she looked down and seemed to notice her mistake. She corrected it, electing to simply holster the shotgun on her back. She crossed her arms, looking up at him, "Happy?"

Objects to simple weapon etiquette. Not a good start. Despite this, Pike chose to continue, eyes boring into her, "What is your opinion of Aria T'Loak?"

Sata seemed shocked by this question, as if she hadn't expected it to be coming. She nervously licked her lips, as if afraid that her opinion may be heard by someone undesirable...or perhaps, even her mother in question. Despite this though, the asari turned to him, standing straighter, "My honest opinion? That's what you want?"

"Yes."

She nodded, leaning in to whisper, "She's a complete fucking bitch."

He was satisfied with that answer, but needed to know more. He needed to know to what extent this hatred ran, "Why do you think that? How has Aria wronged you to deserve this opinion?"

Sata just quietly laughed, rubbing the back of her head as her fingers played idly with the tentacles at the back of her head, "Don't play stupid, you know what I mean. She's tyrannical, she's impulsive, she likes everything to be her way...and she's so...self-absorbed. She hates Nyreen for no good reason, and constantly tells me how Petrovsky is going to pay for 'breaking the one rule'. I mean, seriously? You can't get more bitchy than that. She's a verified dictator," she sighed, leaning back against the wall again, "But if I was to get more personal...well, she hasn't exactly been the best parental figure."

Pike frowned at this, "Explain?"

Sata scoffed, giving a sideways glance, like she thought he was an idiot for not knowing every detail of her familial life, "Aria was never fit to be a mother, that much is obvious. When I was born, Nyreen had already left: that was already a recipe for disaster. She has absolutely no concept of motherhood: she practically abandoned me the moment I entered my first year. She had her goons home school me while she was off lounging in that stupid night club she's so intent on taking back. She cared more about her damn space station than she did for me: maybe she resented me simply because Nyreen left her, or perhaps she never really gave a shit. All I know is that my childhood was meaningless. Whatever friends I made were scared off when they learned who my mother was. I was a fucking pariah, and she didn't care. Not once did she ever show me any love. I was a nuisance: she kept me around only because she didn't want to risk Nyreen's wrath," finished her rant, she raised one eyebrow at the human, waiting for a reaction, "Is that good enough for you?"

She's certainly proven a lack of love for her mother: Nyreen was right about that. Aria has curried no favours within her own family, that much is clear. But I need to know she's of leadership material. Its one thing to hate Aria, and quite another to be a worthy replacement. "Almost. You said you were home schooled? What education do you have?"

Now Sata was truly confused, her posture seeming almost offended, "What the hell is with the interrogation? I don't know you...so what is compelling me to tell you all this crap?"

"I'm Nyreen's second-in-command," Pike stated flatly, feeling no need to beat around the bush, "She's placed an enormous amount of trust in you. I'm just here to make sure her trust isn't misplaced."

That caught her attention. "Nyreen...she talks about me?"

He nodded. It's all he could think of to do in reply to a question like that.

Frowning that she didn't get a more elaborate answer, she approached him, arms crossed, "What exactly does she say about me? Anything good?"

He didn't understand why this line of questioning was necessary, but decided it was probably best he answer her question anyway, "As I said, she holds you in high regard. Says you're a competent fighter, a kind hearted person and know how to use teamwork to your advantage. Which is why I'm curious as to what your education is."

Sata seemed satisfied, turning to walk back to the corner she had been occupying the entire time. He thought for a moment that she would just stand there to take in everything she had heard, only for her to suddenly speak up, as if knocked out of a day dream, "Yes, well, I had to do a lot of additional self-education on the side. The 'teachers' Aria had assigned to me were almost idiotic: had to learn most of what I know from extranet research. She wouldn't even let me use a weapon until she realized I just ignored her wishes, pilfered one from the armoury, and started training myself in its use: then she relented. That should tell you all you need to know about my education."

That impressed Pike. She learned how to use a weapon, competent teamwork skills and her biotics all by herself? Despite all of Aria's best efforts, Sata managed to make herself into something. I'm starting to see what Nyreen sees in this girl. Perhaps it isn't just parental bias...perhaps she really has that spark in her for leadership.

But there's more to a leader than the ability. You need the charisma. The motivation.

Pike knew what his next question was going to be. It was clear he had underestimated this asari, but he still wasn't sure that she had the capability that Nyreen had. It was one thing to lead, it was another to inspire people to follow you. Shepard was a prime example of that: a man who not only knew how to lead, but inspired loyalty in those who followed him. The Talons didn't necessarily worship Nyreen, but they knew that no matter what decision she made, it was done in the best interests of Omega, and she had their unwavering conviction. It wasn't clear whether or not Sata actually possessed any of that.

So of course his next question was inevitable, "You can command a team, but I somehow doubt they would die for you. Tell me, what makes you think you're better than your mother?"

Sata's frown continued to deepen, like she had been confronted with a crazed lunatic telling her the sky was falling, "I never once said I wasbetter..."

"Didn't need to. I can see it in your eyes and how you speak," Pike replied, deconstructing her poorly concealed lie, "Its clear you don't believe she should lead this station. That her control should be permanently denied to her."

She just shrugged, as if his point didn't really mean anything to her. To her credit, she didn't continue to perpetuate her lie, conceding his point, "So? It doesn't matter whether I agree or not: Aria gets what Aria wants, that's always been her mantra. This entire invasion was her idea in the first place. I only agreed with it because I knew Cerberus were the enemy. I don't care for her pathetic ambitions."

"Then why help her?" Pike rasped, "Why not stop her?"

"Because that would be foolhardy," she snapped instantly, cutting off all seditious thought from being uttered, "She has followers. Loyal lieutenants. Bray, Dreg, Ahz, Jarral...goddess, even Shepard, even if he's a reluctant ally. I have no one. I've got nothing that she hasn't already got."

Pike nodded, "No, you don't. But a leader has to earn followers first."

She laughed at that, the thought of leadership seemingly bringing her much dry amusement, "I'm no leader. I'm Aria's lapdog, unfortunately. Doomed to follow in her shadow. All I have is my father...and she barely has any time to speak with me because of this stupid war."

Pike didn't like this defeatist attitude, even if it was understandable. Defeatism never did any good for revolutions or wars, because all it did was fester and corrupt the cause from within. It sapped its energy, drained its reserves and left it a hollow shell, incapable of sustaining any motivation or ideology. Defeatism lost wars, "You say you lack followers. But you do not lack allies."

Sata gave him a sideways glance, unsure of what he meant by that, "Yeah? And what allies would those be? And why would I need them?"

Can't reveal that to her just yet. The time isn't right. But she will know...eventually. For now, Pike bit his tongue, choosing instead to be more vague, yet provide her the answer she needed at the same time, "There are those who hate Aria. Those who do not wish to see her reign supreme ever again. You may find you sympathize with them."

"You mean the Talons?" Sata replied, surprising Pike once more with how quickly she caught on, "I know all about my parents' fallout. I see them fighting all the time, like they never loved each other. Aria just sees an obstacle in her way, while Nyreen just sees Aria as some kind of monster. I chose a side a long time ago. It wasn't hard for me to do."

"So should the time come...?" he pondered.

"If you're asking if, should the time come that Aria gets overthrown, then yes, I'll side against her...Nyreen, despite never being there, did everything to look after me...she watched over me from afar. Mysterious gifts. Outsourced education. Bullies who suddenly disappeared the next day or apologized to me...I didn't think much of it before, but I know for certain it had to have been her."

Most of those bullies were of my doing...the ones that apologized were just the average schoolyard bully...but when Nyreen found out the history of some of the other, more mature bullies...well, the choice was obvious. I disposed of them mercifully, at least. But he needn't tell Sata that. It wouldn't help matters much anyway.

"I'm not an inspiration," Sata suddenly blurted out, the pair of vorcha to their side having ceased all sound as they finally backed down, skin slick with their own blood and viscera as their regeneration kicked in, leaving no visible wounds but plenty of dry and wet blood soaking their forms. They marched away in opposite directions, looking for more vorcha to taunt into battle, as if it was somekind of initiation ritual, "I don't lead troops into battle. I don't know how to settle a dispute. I wouldn't even know where to start with Aria. So if your question is that, when the time comes, I could lead part of that revolution, the answer is no. Because when all is said and done, I'm just an asari with a shotgun, nothing more."

Although she didn't know it, this brief conversation between them had given Pike exactly what he needed to reaffirm his belief in Nyreen's choice. No bravado. Self-doubt. Humble in her own abilities, but exhibiting a strength of character that should be absent from someone raised by a dictatorial pirate queen. If anything, this girl takes more from her father's personality than Aria. And she shows interest in bringing Aria down should the time come.

Just what we need indeed.

Sata was by no means perfect, and there was a lot of work to be done to make Sata a truly great leader. Of course, if things went according to plan, Nyreen would dethrone Aria herself and take over anyway, giving Sata plenty of time to prepare. But should Nyreen fall in combat...it would be up to Sata to take the mantle straight away. And while she was rough around the edges, Pike had the distinct feeling that she was quick to catch on. After all, anyone who can self-educate so efficiently and successfully has to have potential. Perhaps even more than that...

Regardless, he got what he came for. Perhaps in the end, Nyreen was right: Sata did have the spark in her for greatness. All she had to do was reach out and accept it. And now was not that time. First, they had a war to win.

Worry about winning one rebellion before focusing on the next.

He nodded his head, almost turning it into a bow, as he thanked her, "You've been most insightful. I will leave you to your guard duty."

Sata just laughed, this time an actual smile slipping along her lips as she plucked another cigarette from a packet in her pocket, fumbling for her lighter, "I'm not on guard duty. I got bored being locked in that bloody room all day, so I grabbed my shotgun and decided to make myself a guard. Really hate not being able to do anything. Not really my duty to do so."

She found her lighter, bringing it up to the end of her cigarette, now hanging limply from her mouth as she lit it. The end lit up a bright orange, before disapating as she removed it from her mouth, exhaling deeply. Noticing his look, she waved the object in question into the air, "I don't usually smoke, by the way. Its a bad habit I got from one of Aria's guards. Says it helps to relieve stress," she scrunched her face up, shaking her head, "Such a load of crap."

"Then why continue smoking?" he asked, curious.

"Better to keep up the illusion of stress relief than to have to focus on the fact that isn't helping at all," Sata shrugged, taking another puff of it, before lifting it away from her lips once more, "As my mother likes to say, 'we all have our delusions'. Probably the only thing she's ever gotten right."

Seeing no other reason to hang around, he simply nodded and turned to leave, walking back down the isle towards the command center, leaving Sata to ponder this encounter alone in earnest. If he was lucky, he had just laid the first seeds of doubt that would sprout into longer, thick branches. Branches that could make her into what she needed to be. For Omega.

Apparently though, Pike was not the only interested in why he had wanted to talk with her.

Waiting for him at the stairs entering the command center was the form of a large, blue-armoured krogan, his arms crossed and glaring across at Pike, clearly keeping an eye on him. On his right was a smaller, less imposing batarian, although he was the only one of the two that was armed, a simple M-3 predator pistol holstered on his left thigh. He too watched Pike with rapt attention, and the Talon had to wonder just how long they had been standing there. It was quite possible that batarian guard had told Bray the moment Pike had left, and that Bray in turn had left to inform Dreg.

Pike moved to ascend the stairs, but Dreg and Bray were blocking the way through, and they looked to have no attention of shifting to let him pass: this confirmed that they were definitely here for him. Instead of provoking them into conversation, he simply stood there and swapped looks with the two of them, daring one of them to speak up first, as if it had turned into a contest of who would break and be the first to begin the confrontation.

Bray broke first, barely six seconds later.

"Heard you talked with Sata T'Loak..." the batarian prodded, his own hands at his sides in an unthreatening position, entirely unlike Dreg, who looked about ready to tear Pike apart, "Want to tell us what you talked about?"

"Nyreen Kandros," Pike shot back without hesitation, focusing all his attention on Bray and ignoring Dreg's suspicious stare. He could practically feel the krogan trying to read his mind with just a look, even though he couldn't see Pike's facial features due to his mask, "I serve under her father, and wished to know about her relationship with Kandros. I was curious."

Bray shook his head, looking regretful, "I don't think you understand. Aria specifically ordered us to make sure none of you Talons interact with her daughter. Her instructions were very clear. Doesn't want them filling her mind with Talon propaganda."

"Afraid she may learn something?" Pike replied, cocking his head, "Sata's a grown woman by asari standards. She can handle herself."

Bray put a hand on Pike's shoulder, but removed it the moment the Talon snapped the arm a dirty look. Removing the arm almost placatingly, Bray was beginning to demonstrate that he was the more reasonable of the two: he seemed far less willing to be confrontational in this regard, raising his hands defensively, "Those are our orders. I suggest you take them in stride and just make sure not to let this happen again."

"Oh, it won't," Dreg finally spoke, his far more croaky voice standing in direct contrast to the wet, sinus-y sound of a batarian's voice. He krogan reared his head up, projecting his size to the human in a posture deemed to be intimidating. For any other human, it would be. For Pike, he could care less for the krogan's posturing, "Because if you do, I will personally rip your arms off. You've been warned, Talon. Stay away."

Pike just stared at the krogan, unimpressed. This was supposed to be Aria's wise counsel, a krogan of nearly seven hundred years and encapsulated with experience, but when it came to threats, he followed the same deviation that all krogan followed: use your size and appearance to scare those you don't like into submission. But it just wouldn't work on Pike: he had killed enough krogan and been injured by enough that he was entirely desensitized to it, "You would do well not to threaten an ally. After all, the Talons came to you in good faith."

Dreg just chuckled, "The Talons serve Kandros, and Kandros follows Aria. That doesn't make us allies."

"Funny, for a krogan, you lack very simplistic military understandings," Pike dryly retorted, "For instance, you seem to think that because you do not like someone, they stop being your ally. Yet we fight the same enemy, on the same side. I very much doubt the Council likes the quarians...and yet they are still allies, because they both fight the Reapers. Take this as a lesson, Nakmor Dreg...do not threaten your allies. You may find yourself in need for them one day, and whether they save you or let you die is all dependent on whether you threatened them or not."

Dreg's smile did not diminish. "Like that'll ever happen. The Talons are cannon fodder, nothing more."

"Funny, I thought that's what Aria's forces were supposed to be," Pike reciprocated, "After all, without the UGC or the Talons, your forces would have been destroyed already and Aria would be back to square one."

This seemed to anger Dreg, the krogan bristling as his smile gave way to a slight sneer, "We're just using the Talons to get what we want. We don't need you."

"Empirical evidence says otherwise, but that's irrelevant," Pike turned back to Bray, making a show to ignore Dreg, "I will not talk to Sata T'Loak again, if that'll satisfy her mother, but you would do well to learn from this."

Bray just frowned. "Learn from what?"

"Threatening me, and threatening your allies." He said no more, pushing his way past Bray and Dreg before they had a chance to conjure up a rebuttal. Moving through the door, he returned to the rear garage, pondering what had just happened the entire way, remembering what he had said to Sata, and what had been said to him.

Yes, Nyreen was right. No, Sata was not ready. But that could change, and if Nyreen truly meant to overthrow Aria the moment Petrovsky was defeated, then Sata needed to be ready. Hopefully his talk with her had sown the seeds of doubt plentifully, allowing them to grow inside her mind. The hatred for Aria was already there, they just needed to harness it: turn it from hatred for Aria into compassion for Omega. Because in the end, it wasn't just about overthrowing Aria...doing so was just one step in attaining their ultimate goal.

Saving Omega.

{Loading...}

August 7, 2186

1041 hours.

Element Zero Processing Plant, Mining Sector, Dark Zone, Omega.

Second War for Omega, Operation: Light Prophet.

Captain Marcus Lee Shepard.

Due to the darkness of the chamber, Marcus couldn't really tell if he was gaining consciousness, or if he was still unconscious. Such was the vast, dark blanket that presided over him.

The first indicator to him that he had been unconscious was the sudden stab of pain in his side. He could feel bruising beginning to take shape there, likely a result of him hitting something hard. It was a dull pain though, which told him that, thankfully, he hadn't broken anything. That was good: a broken leg or cracked rib was the last thing he needed right now when trapped in the middle of a hornet's nest of adjutant zombie creatures.

The second indicator to him was the sense of feeling returning to his body. He wiggled his fingers, and found them to be responsive, which meant he hadn't been unconscious for long due to the lack of atrophied muscles. He shifted one of his legs, and found that to respond just as well. No more pain flared up his body, confirming that he hadn't broken any bones. With that settled, all he needed to do now was open his damn eyes, and figure out where the hell he was.

He remembered falling into the darkness, and then landing on something...hard. It must have been hard enough for him to be knocked out, given his current drowsiness. His vision was slightly blurred and he felt the side of his head throbbing a little, but aside from that, no evidence of what had knocked him unconscious. All he knew was that he was very much alive, and that he was better off for it. Peeling his eyes open, he realized that his night vision was still active in his helmet, illuminating everything in bright, vibrant green. He took a moment to look around, groaning as he did, muscles aching from his fall.

Luckily for him, there had apparently been another catwalk running below the other one, as he had landed firmly upon it. He couldn't see much else from where he was, so he decided to begin the process of standing up. Feeling something in his grip, he looked over to find his rifle laying beside him, hand that gripped it lying gently ontop of it. Grateful that his weapon had not slid away, he gripped it firmly in his hand once again, and used his other arm to push himself up. He could hear something crackling in his ear, but he couldn't figure out what it was, his hearing slightly muted, but increasing with volume as he began to wake up. Now in a sitting position, he began the process of quickly standing.

He drank in his surroundings, arm twitching slightly as his vision spotted what looked to be a giant, black mass resting not a meter away from him, just behind where he had been laying. He raised his rifle, but knew the moment that he aimed down the sights that this adjutant was dead: the intense purple glow of the bulbous sacks on its back were dimmed to nothing, its body not moving at all: he could see that its body was charred black from repeated plasma bursts, solidifying in his mind its cause of death. He blew out a breath of relief, lowering his rifle as he confirmed that his life wasn't in any immediate danger.

Approaching the corpse, he nudged it with his boot, watching it peel away from the body with a black, stringey substance attached: he gave it a disgusted scowl, but made no effort to try and get rid of it, electing to simply edge his way past the dead adjutant, and move further down the empty catwalk. His vision was no longer blurred as his cybernetically enhanced eyes adjusted quickly, while his hearing began to catch up. The crackling sound was gone, although he made nothing of it. Now awake, he needed to make his way back up to the catwalk above him, and find out if his team is ok-

His team.

He stopped in his tracks, realizing that he had been seperated from them when he fell, and that the last thing he had heard was Tali screaming. Worry suddenly began to clutch at his mind, the N7 not sure what he was going to do. Luckily for him, the answer would come to him quickly.

He saw the muzzle flashes before he heard them. Orange and blue hues, briefly and lightly illuminating his peripheral vision from above. His eyes snapped up to look at where they had originated from and, sure enough, he could see the inconsistent flashes of weapons being fired, projectiles and plasma joining battle together to slice at their adjutant foes. The flashes were coming from different directions, which told Marcus that his squad was still alive and kicking, but he wasn't sure if anyone had been killed...

He growled in frustration, checking to make sure his rifle was loaded before turning and beginning to jog down the catwalk. I need to find a way back up there. If I can link up with them, we can push back towards that ladder and get out of here...but we'll need to do it before those adjutants really start to congregate.

After jogging a few hundred meters, the crackle in his ear returned, this time much louder due to his hearing having cleared up. And this time, he knew exactly what it was.

"Damn it Marcus, please respond," Garrus' flanged voice reverbrated through the comms, breathing heavy due to strenuous fighting, "If you're out there, say something. Anything!"

He smiled, activating his own side of the comm in response, "I'm here, Garrus! I'm alive. Was knocked out when I fell, just woke up. Where are you? What about the rest of the team?"

Garrus seemed just as relieved to hear Marcus' voice as he did, "We couldn't reach the exit, so we split up to distract the adjutants and stop them from bunching up and overwhelming us. I've got Kasumi and Moses with me. I can see gunfire from where I am, so I know there are others still out there."

Marcus gulped, not liking the sound of that. He didn't mention Tali. "What about Tali? Is she alright?"

"I don't know. Last I saw of her, she was with Nyreen, Aria and Liara, making a stand near the exit," possibly realizing that what he said wasn't exactly reassuring, Garrus spoke up again, standing more confident this time, "I'm sure she's fine, Marcus. Tali's a fighter. Besides, she's with a group of biotics, so I imagine she'd be doing better than most of us."

I hope so. Damn it, don't do anything foolish, Tali. Stay alive. That's all that matters. His thoughts fell on deaf ears, he realized, but he knew what Tali was like. No doubt she was searching for him, going catwalk by catwalk. He also knew that she wouldn't stop her search for anything, even if an adjutant horde was building up. And that's what worried him: that she wouldn't give up even when the odds became too great. If both of them died...no, he simply couldn't let that happen.

Junior can't grow up without parents. We can't do that to him.

"Where are you?" Garrus spoke up again, taking note of Marcus' silence to be that of concern, "We'll see if we can find you."

Marcus shook his head, "I can't tell, but I'd say I'm roughly two stories down from the original catwalk. I'm going to make my way up: don't make any active attempts to find me. We need to keep adjutant attention divided as best we can."

"Damn it Marcus, I'm not just going to-"

"Don't make me order you, Vakarian," he snapped, unwilling to compromise, "I'll be fine, but right now, you need to look after yourselves. If you can reach the ladder, do so. If you can't, then hold position. If you get attacked, relocate. Don't let them get a bead on you, no matter what."

"I-" the turian began, but cut himself off, sounding both annoyed and resigned, "Very well, Marcus. But you just stay alive, you hear me?"

"If I have anything to say about it, I'll live," he returned, holstering his rifle as he equipped his plasma shotgun, "I've survived a nest of thresher maws, Garrus. I'll live."

"Not exactly the same thing."

"Close enough," he replied. Before he cut the comms however, he spoke up again, voice softening, "And please Garrus, if you find Tali before I do...don't let her come looking for me. Have Moses restrain her if you have to. The mission...our kid, comes first. Promise me you will do this."

There was some hesitance, but he knew Garrus was aware of their secret agreement. It was one Tali was entirely unaware of, and one he would continue to keep hidden from her until necessary, "I promise."

"Good luck. Marcus out," the comm went silent after that, and he summarily disconnected it. Raising the shotgun to his shoulder, he continued the pace he had been going at. He had switched to his shotgun due to having noticed how effective Tali had been when using it against the adjutants. It was apparent that adjutant skin was resistant to bullets, but highly vulnerable to plasma or anything with corrosive properties. This made sense, as plasma dealt more damage to a target over time compared to a standard projectile, whose damage ratio was limited to its initial impact. With plasma, depending on the material it came into contact with, it could continue to burn and peel away at the surface it impacted for well over a minute after it slammed into its target. This made it difficult to regenerate wounds like that, and with the plasma shotgun firing two blobs of highly concentrated plasma, the attack would be enough to blow away large portions of flesh, whilst subsequently dealing more damage over time.

In short, the geth had unintentionally created the ultimate anti-regenerative weapon.

The weapon still felt alien in his hands, its bulky design and stiff trigger giving away just how much it was designed with geth in mind. The stock sat uncomfortably against his shoulder, while his left hand gripped the shotgun a bit too close to its secondary barrel. The shotgun had two modes of fire: single fire and charged shot, with the second proving to be devastating to adjutants in particular.

As focused as he was on analyzing his new weapon, it took a split second for the growl behind him to register in his head.

The moment that it did, he swung suddenly to the right, diving into a roll. He felt a rush of air batter his helmet where the adjutant had taken a swipe at him, missing him by a hair breadth: had he waited a second longer, its possible the adjutant would have decapitated him.

Emerging from his roll, he spun to face the new arrival. He hadn't seen or heard the adjutant coming, which only proved to be a testament to its predatory abilities. It growled at him as it turned to face its intended victim, surprised that he had seen it coming and avoided its blow. Gritting his teeth, Marcus wasted no time in answering with a retaliatory strike: he pulled the trigger on his shotgun.

It buckled heavily in his grip, as if it was trying to shake its way out his hands. A bolt of brilliant, white plasma erupted from the barrel, the heat felt through the gauntlet of his left hand, causing goosebumps along its ridge. His night vision registered the bolt as a great flash, which almost blinded him, had it not been so temporary. That initial flash was actually the barrel igniting the plasma within the chamber and firing it outwards: the actual bolt itself wasn't as intense in color. He barely got to see this though, as the bolt closed the distance quickly, blasting away at the adjutant's torso.

The adjutant roared angrily as the plasma immediately began to singe and burn away the surrounding flesh at the impact site. Black liquid spurted out, hissing angrily as it came into contact with the superheated material, some of it evaporating instantly. Marcus grinned at his handiwork, gripping the trigger again as he prepared for a second shot.

The adjutant didn't wait, lashing out in fury at the human. Marcus felt the shotgun slapped from his hands, landing several meters away from where he had been. Knowing that he would not be able to reach it in time before the adjutant was upon him, he chose to grab an incendiary grenade from his belt, holding it as he gazed back at the adjutant. The creature's eyes landed on the small cylindrical device in the captain's gauntleted palm, the surface smooth and coloured in contrasting red and yellow. Along the bottom, in small lettering, was 'CAUTION: do not prime until ready to use. Contains the highly flammable acids 'naphthenic' and 'palmitic'.'

Good ol' napalm. More specifically, this little brew was Napalm C: the Alliance's most modern form of the deadly substance. And this adjutant was about to get a face full of it. As Robert M. Neer called it, the "flames of hell".

His thumb brushed the detonator, and he tossed it in a wide arc, straight at the adjutant's face. Apparently it understood weapons, but not grenades, because it made no move to try and evade the grenade, simply staring at it like the human had just thrown a pebble at it. Not wanting to be near it when it blows, Marcus rolled backwards, putting as much distance between him and the creature. This time, he did turn off his night vision, switching to flashlights.

The adjutant disappeared as the darkness seemingly consumed all that was once illuminated, only for white light to push back some of it. He could just make out the outline of the adjutant as the grenade exploded directly infront of its face. There was a small flash for but a split second, briefly lighting up the adjutant's piercing glare...before the big explosion came. The creature was thrown back by the shockwave as the grenade blew up in full force, liquid fire obliterating its upper torso immediately as the highly adherent and virulent compound began to eat away at the rest, spreading like literal wildfire as it moved to encompass the entire adjutant's form, flames licking at every piece of exposed flesh hungrily. The shockwave shook the entire catwalk violently, and the sound echoed across the chamber, no doubt attracting the attention of many more adjutants.

Oh fuck.

He hadn't thought of that.

Not waiting to see the adjutant die, he turned around and grabbed his shotgun from the path, sprinting in the opposite direction. He could hear the adjutant's howls as it was burned alive, the napalm consuming it whole, flesh and muscle and bone. The creature was no longer a threat, so just ran as fast as he could, trying to put as much distance between him and its corpse as he could. He found the catwalk leading off to the right, where a stairway lead up to a second level of catwalks. An inactive eezo processing unit took up most of the far wall, and towered over him at 30 meters: a series of catwalks aligned with it, and he had no doubt that up there, was the ladder he needed to reach...and his squad.

Switching back to night vision, he rushed up the stairs, no longer caring for the sound it made or how much attention he was attracting. In large, upward leaps, he managed to tackle the stairs in less than three seconds, finding himself now squarely on the second level, just below the one he needed to get to. Taking a deep breath to calm his thumping heart, he did a quick scan of the area to make sure he hadn't been followed. While he continued to hear the distant screeches of adjutants everywhere, none of them were coming from where he had just been. Aside from, perhaps, the lingering groans of the now thoroughly incinerated adjutant he had napalmed not a moment before.

Plasma and napalm. Two things that can kill adjutants. Will have to keep that in mind.

He turned around quickly, making sure to never keep his back turned for too long, lest an adjutant sneak up on him again. He took a good long look at the eezo processing unit next to him, which looked to have been powered down for years, grime coating its exterior in a thick sheet. He sniffed, his olfactory filters detecting the powerful scent of eezo residue and molten sulfur. The smell was so overpowering he felt he had to switch off the filters before it became too much. Turning from the giant, abandoned machine, he proceeded around the corner of the catwalk, expecting an adjutant to be waiting for him.

There was. Luckily, it was dead already.

Its body leaned against the railing, crushing it partly underneath its weight. Surprisingly enough, the kill was recent, as steam continued to pour from the holes in its skin. There was a dim glow still pulsating from it, although it grew dimmer with every passing second. He swore he saw it flinch for a moment, his shotgun trained on its head in case it wasn't actually dead: a few seconds passed, and it didn't move. Convinced it was fully dead, he carefully approached it, finding that one of its legs had been severed down to the thigh, while one of its eyes was missing, the culprit tracked down to what was presumably a plasma burst that tore through the back of its head and out the other side. Just like all the other adjutants, it appeared it had taken every bit of firepower available to bring it down.

The adjutant stirred again, but Marcus realized this wasn't the creature itself moving, but something pushing it. Edging around the deceased adjutant's flank, he kept his weapon at the ready, only to slowly lower it once he saw what was waiting for him on the other side. The form of a red-armoured, oriental-in-style alien wielding a particle rifle was all too familiar.

"Javik," he spoke, just as the prothean turned to look at him, "Finally, a friendly face."

The prothean nodded stoically, before turning back to the adjutant. It was clear Javik was responsible for this adjutant's death, his particle rifle resting against the creature's side. Oddly enough, the prothean seemed to be examining its body, poking at it as he searched across its rotting form to find...whatever it was he was looking for. A weakness, perhaps? Or was it just prothean curiosity at work?

"Javik...what are you doing?" Marcus queried, swiftly turning to look down the catwalk behind Javik as he heard a loud growl echo across the chamber. He was definitely getting a bit too jumpy. Pitch black darkness and surrounded by hordes of adjutants that I can't fucking see. This isn't the perfect tactical scenario.

The prothean stood up, picking up his rifle as he did, ripping off a flap of aging flesh that coated the barrel, likely from when he had shoved the weapon into the creature's stomach, "These adjutants are unlike any other Reaper abomination I've encountered. Regenerative abilities of a krogan. Strength of a yahg. Reaction time and precision of a salarian. The pack mentality of a vorcha. This creature is an answer to those strengths."

That's a scary thought. "You're saying the adjutants were created specifically to combat the strengths of all these races?"

"No," the prothean replied, "I'm saying that these adjutants have evolved. They have absorbed the genetic material of those they have infected and consumed. They have then passed on these traits to other adjutants. They are not just husks: these are parasites."

"Well I'll be damned," Marcus exclaimed, realizing what the prothean was getting at, "Cerberus actually created something strong enough to take on Reaper ground forces and win. And there are thousands of these damn things?"

Javik shook his head, "I've told you before, this Cerberus is indoctrinated. They may think they created the adjutants to fight the Reapers, but in the end, the Reapers implanted that thought. The Reapers intend to replace most of their ground forces with adjutants once their evolution is complete. Which is all the more reason for me to help you destroy every single one of them. They are abominations."

Unwittingly improving Reaper military performance. How far has the Illusive Man fallen at this point? The galaxy's most advanced R&D...puppets of the Reapers they claim to fight. "You'll get no argument from me, Javik. I have no intention of letting these...things...escape Omega. I'll destroy the whole station, if that's what it takes." Hopefully it doesn't come to that...

That seemed to impress the ancient warrior, "That is good, captain. You are learning."

He just glared at the prothean, not giving him the satisfaction of an answer. It was also partly because the prothean may have been somewhat right. War makes people desperate. War makes generals ruthless. It all comes down to ruthless calculus in the end.

"We need to get moving and link up with the rest of the squad," Marcus declared, nodding in the direction Javik had likely come from, "Had did you get down here? We need to follow that path back up. Find the others."

"We shouldn't waste time looking for survivors," Javik retorted, "The mission must continue. Destroying the adjutants is more important, and if we-"

"Don't continue that line of thinking," Marcus barked, grabbing Javik by the shoulderpad as he roughly pulled him forward, "No man gets left behind on my watch. Especially not my squad. I will not willfully abandon them. We're going to find them. If you want to go and try to be a hero, go ahead. But I'm going to find my team."

The prothean seemed to struggle with that, teeth gritting together in a sneer, "That is a mistake. The adjutants have likely killed them already."

He was having none of it, his grip tightening on the prothean's shoulder, "I don't care. I won't just leave them to die. If its not my duty as a commanding officer, then it is my duty as their friend. I can expect them to die for me if I won't risk my life for them? Like I said: you can go if you want. Or, you can follow me and find my squad. Its your choice, Javik. But as someone who is the last of his species, I thought you'd understand the need for allies."

That last one noticeably bit deep, penetrating Javik's careless and cold exterior. The prothean glared back at him, but eventually blinked first, shaking his head, "Very well, captain. We shall do it your way."

Marcus nodded, loosening his grip on the soldier, "I meant what I said. I would risk my life for my team," he spared him once last glance, "...including you."

If Javik was affected by that comment, he didn't show it, "Soon, you will not have a choice. It will be your team or the galaxy. Remember: the graves of a trillion dead souls care not for your honor. They only care for vengeance."

Victory at any cost. Tarquin's words had become a mantra, one Javik had unknowingly taken up himself, "And vengeance they shall get. But not at the sacrifice of what I stand for."

"A foolish notion. Perhaps if you-"

He felt it again. A growl. This time, infront of him.

Shit!

Without thinking, he rushed forward, dropping his shotgun as he tackled Javik to the floor. The adjutant flew over them, its charge meeting nothing but empty air as it barrelled past. The creature roared its defiance, skidding to a halt behind them as it turned to renew its assault. Marcus knew if they didn't react quickly, it would attract even more attention to them.

"We'll discuss this later," he hissed, pencil rolling off of Javik to grab his shotgun, before shooting back to his feet. Javik made his verbal acknowledgement clear when he wordlessly stood up, particle rifle immediately taking aim and firing. A bright green lance of particle energy snapped from the barrel of his weapon and narrowly missed the adjutant, who rolled to the side in the instant it took for it to register the incoming attack. Marcus shot a plasma bolt in the direction it was headed, but the adjutant simply rotated its body to make itself a narrower target, the bolt hissing by as it missed by a milimeter. Apparently the adjutants were learning that plasma was bad.

Great. So they can adapt. Definitely superior to husks.

The adjutant roared, its war cry piercing their eardrums as it beat its chest like a gorilla, growling and hissing at them, pacing back and forth as if...taunting them? Adjutants can do that too?

We're learning an awful lot about these damn things.

"Javik, use your biotics!" Marcus barked, bringing his own forth as he prepared to unleash a shockwave on the adjutant. His body chilled, liquid blue pulsing through his veins, eyes watching his prothean squadmate as he too lit up in biotic flare, his green equivalent irradiating a sickly green, like a cloud of gas had enraptured him. Together, they let forth their respective assaults, his a shockwave while Javik distributed a torrent of repetitive warp fields, throwing one after the other.

The catwalk's supports groaned and screeched in complaint as the kinetic force of their biotics shook them violently, Marcus having to steady himself. He watched as the shockwave tunnelled its way towards his target, set to tear apart anything in its path.

The adjutant ducked and weaved through Javik's warp fields, despite the ferocity and speed at which they were thrown, the creature a blur as it dodged every single one, while getting closer and closer. However, once it turned to see Marcus' shockwave coming...well, by then, it was too late.

The shockwave slammed into the adjutant with unrelenting force, bashing it against the eezo processing unit behind it. The force was so strong that the adjutant left a massive dent in the machine, a cascade of dust and eezo residue kicking up into the air to surround the flailing adjutant. Disoriented, it was in no position to evade what came next. Rifle snapping up in an instant, Javik let loose a steady burst of particle energy, directly into the adjutant's torso. Simultaneously, Marcus began to charge up his plasma shotgun, watching the two barrels between to heat up rapidly as the plasma energy built up inside. He had to be careful not to overdo it: charge it up for too long and the heat risked compromising the chamber's casing, causing the shotgun to violenty explode, leaving Marcus with third degree burns...if he was lucky enough to walk away from it with his arms intact.

The adjutant had been trying to stand back up when the first particle beam hit it, tearing through flesh and bone to erupt out the other side, biting into the machine behind it. Almost literally impaled by particle light, the adjutant was helpless to defend itself as Javik continued to fire at every single inch of it: torso, head, arms, legs...nothing was left untouched. The adjutant let out one final screech before one of its arms was carved off, falling limply on the ground in a smoking pile.

By this point, his shotgun was fully charged. A blue indicator popped up on the gun's spine, close to the stock, indicating that the weapon was now 100% charged, and that any further charging would begin to damage the weapon. Without waiting to see if the adjutant was downed or not, he released the trigger.

He had felt recoil before, but he never got used to it. He felt the shotgun violently kick back into his shoulder as the twin bolts boomed from the double barrel, erupting in a brilliant display of heat, of which he could feel through his hardsuit. Lowering the smoking shotgun, he watched his handiwork close distance with the adjutant, who had now turned to watch the maelstrom of superheated energy race towards it.

The adjutant started to move, but it was too late.

The twin bolts made impact, and the adjutant's face immediately dissolved, strings of hot flesh blasted away in all directions. The creature slumped against the processing unit, completely limp as the plasma continued to eat away at its upper torso. Such was the intensity of the blast that some areas closest to the impact site caught on fire, but these were soon snuffed out. By the end, there wasn't much of the adjutant left except everything below its arms.

Javik approached the dead adjutant, nudging it with the barrel of his weapon to ensure it was deceased. Satisfied, the prothean walked back to Marcus, face devoid of emotion as it always seemed to be, "We must go, before more show up. And capta-"

"Don't say it," he cut him off, glaring at him once more, "My mind is unchanged. We proceed as planned."

Javik gritted his canine teeth, before finally giving a nod of defeat, "Very well." It was clear he had disappointed the prothean, but he could care less. He would either learn to get with the program, or be left behind. He couldn't abide by such ruthless disregard for one's own teammates. He considered many of the people in his squad to be family...Tali was his family. He couldn't, wouldn't, leave them behind. Damn the consequences.

Javik and Marcus continued through the darkness, their silent footsteps rendering their presence almost unnoticeable. Aside from the occassional bark of gunfire nearby, there was no evidence to suggest his squad was alive, but he would hold onto that hope no matter what. He had to believe that.

Please be safe.

As if in answer to his call, Marcus snapped up a closed fist, ordering Javik to hold position. He heard something.

He listened intently. Even though the sound was faint, it was definitely there. It sounded like...clanging. Metal upon metal. Consistent, like a drumbeat...

Footsteps. They were footsteps. People running.

Snapping up his shotgun, he motioned for his prothean companion to do the same. He could hear the footsteps coming from a nearby stairwell, and were approximately closing on their position. He motioned for Javik to take the left: if it was adjutants, they'd at least catch them in a crossfire. He crouched behind the railing, resting his shotgun on top as he prepared to begin charging a bolt.

He ceased doing so once the sources of the sound in question came into view.

He waved at Javik, making a hand motion across his throat to single for Javik to lower his weapon, "Friendlies. They're friendlies!"

There was four of them, and the lead one ceased moving, raising their weapon, "Who the fuck is that?"

"Shepard, Aria," he spat, standing up as he came around the corner, holstering his shotgun, "Lower your damn weapon. I'm obviously not an adjutant." Javik soon joined him, his particle rifle lowered but not holstered.

Aria, once she realized who it was she was talking to, lowered her shotgun, slowly approaching them. The three figures behind her quickly followed, their own weapons in their own forms of alert carry. As they approached, he remembered what Garrus had said...that Tali had been last spotted with-

The form at the back began to jog. Within moments, the distance was crossed, the figure holstering their shotgun as their arms opened wide. Despite wearing armor, Marcus still felt compressed as his wife wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly. Putting his own shotgun away, he returned the embrace in earnest, swearing he could almost feel her heartbeat through his armor, it was racing that fast.

Neither of them exchanged a word, breaking apart after a few seconds. Before she could speak, he held one finger to her vocalizer, interrupting whatever she was about to say, "You should know by now that a fall isn't going to kill me at this point."

She tapped her visor against his, springing herself up on her toes, "I knew you were alive. Keelah, I just knew it."

His warm smile turned grim, cupping her helmeted cheek with his left hand, "I was worried about you too, you know. When I fell, there were a lot of adjutants still up there."

She squeezed his shoulders, undeterred, "They never touched me." Noticing his look, she pulled away from him, arms spread out as if to demonstrate she was telling the truth, "Really, I'm fine! No scratches or suit breaches."

"Yeah, we're fine too, you know," Aria chastized, rolling her eyes. She moved up to the pair as they turned to face the asari, "And before we begin to celebrate this happy reunion, let me remind you we're still within a nest of hungry fucking adjutants who want to eat our flesh and turn us inside out."

Marcus sighed, waving a dismissive hand as he pulled out his shotgun, Tali doing the same, "I'm aware, Aria. I'm allowed to make sure my wife is okay," before she could speak further, he glared at her, holding up a hand to cut her off, "Which, mind you, is none of your damn business."

"We can bicker amongst ourselves, or we can keep moving," Nyreen piped up, having joined Javik in scanning the catwalk with her pistol, ensuring no more unwanted surprises sprung up, "The rest of your squad is still out there, Shepard. Best act fast if we hope to find them."

"We came down from the upper level," Liara spoke, having stayed at the top of the catwalk stairway to cover their flank, SMG in hand, "As far as we know, that's where the squad is. Aria, however, elected to lead us on a goose chase around the entire facility. Its a good thing we found you when we did."

Aria looked none too pleased at that comment, shooting the asari broker a glare of contempt, "We were being chased. It was run or die. I wasn't about to die."

"Well, we found each other, so its not that big a loss," Marcus added, trying to calm the situation before another argument broke out...something Aria seemed to have a penchant for, "Now, we go back and find more survivors. We need to get to that ladder. We do it quietly, but also quickly. It won't take long for the adjutants to find us with all these random encounters. I've killed about two adjutants already down here."

Nyreen stood up, walking back up the stairs to join them, "We didn't get too far. The stairs to the upper catwalk are about 400 meters that way," she pointed in the direction they had come running from, a catwalk that seemed to run the length of the chamber before wrapping around to the right, "As for adjutant activity...it was heavy when we left, but they've likely dispersed now."

"They could be waiting for us," Javik stated, still unconvinced this was a good plan, "The adjutants have proven more tenacious than we previously thought. A trap is not entirely beyond their sphere of intelligence."

As much as Marcus was getting sick of Javik's rhetoric, he had to admit there was some truth to what the prothean was saying. The adjutants could very well have pre-emptived an attempted regroup, and were lying in wait for them. But he also knew that was a risk he was willing to take for his team. He could not just abandon them. The concept was simply unfathomable to him. He turned to Nyreen, ignoring Javik as he nodded up the stairs, "Lead the way. We'll find the rest of the squad and press on to the reactor entrance. We've got people counting on us."

There were no further words between them except the ocassional order. They fell into a rhythm: Marcus at the front, Javik and Nyreen at the back, while Tali, Aria and Liara formed the center. They moved along the catwalk at a reasonable pace, but inevitably moved into a jog, finding the need for haste.

{Loading...}

August 7, 2186

1053 hours.

Element Zero Processing Plant, Mining Sector, Dark Zone, Omega.

Second War for Omega, Operation: Light Prophet.

Ruler of the Terminus Aria T'Loak, Captain Marcus Lee Shepard, Military Advisor Garrus Vakarian, Chief Engineer Tali'Shepard vas Normandy, Major Kaidan Alenko, Second Lieutenant James Vega, Second Lieutenant Imogen Keeling, Master Thief Kasumi Goto, EDI, Soldier Javik, Moses, Shadow Broker Liara T'Soni, General Nyreen Kandros.

What a merry crew Shepard kept around.

It had taken them very little time to link up with the rest of his squad. Garrus, Kasumi and Moses had apparently linked up with EDI, Kaidan, James and Keeling before they had reached them, the two groups confronting each other halfway to the third catwalk, where they had been split up to begin with. Finally 'reunited', the squad progressed at pace towards the ladder they had been tugged away from, desperate to escape the adjutant infested mining sector and be done with the horrendous creatures.

Of course, Shepard's insistence on finding his crew before proceeding onwards had been quite annoying. Aria had kept her mouth shut of course, having long reached the understanding that once the man's mind was set, there was no changing it. Apparently his prothean freak had voiced similar concerns, but had been brushed off by the human spectre. So instead of heading for the reactor as soon as possible, they had almost wasted time searching aimlessly for squad members that could have been dead anyway. What an absolute fucking waste of time.

Oh well, the more the merrier? Strength in numbers? Oh, what the fuck does that mean. We don't have the numbers...the adjutants do.

Aria gritted her teeth, finding the urge to shoot something. She turned to the human soldier beside her, the one named Keeling, and took note of the N7's almost disinterested look. The asari knew it wasn't disinterest though: to the contrary, the special forces operative was paying close attention to her surroundings, eyes darting back and forth while the two green lights on the sides of her helmet (her night vision) lit up the area infront of her. The soldier didn't acknowledge Aria, and so the asari turned back around, shaking her head.

Group of fucking nutjobs. You have jokers, and then you have...whatever she is. I'll never understand this man's petting zoo of a crew.

It certainly was an apt way of describing it. A turian, a quarian, an asari, some humans, a geth, an AI with a body, a prothean...it was like a walking museum. Aria's own entourage was far more simple: loyal-to-a-point batarians, turians, asari and the odd salarian.

Ah yes, far more simple. No need for attachments. They're loyal or they're not. They die for me, or they don't.

She knew Shepard hated her. That much was obvious in how he looked at her, and she didn't think much of his squad either. She had even tried to convince him to leave them behind, but the insufferable human had insisted. Said they were an 'operational necessity', and even went as far to bring his own fleet and army. And Aria had let him: there was a time where she would have told him to fuck off.

And there was a time where Omega was mine and no one dared cross me. Where the Patriarch was my toy...a symbol of my power, who I had killed to get it, and of the one damn rule you don't break. Perhaps when this is over, I'll keep Petrovsky as my new trophy...or I'll put him in charge of Omega's sanitary department.

That made her grin. Oh, how I'll make that piece of shit suffer. For taking my station. For taking my people. For taking what is rightfully mine. I'll strangle him with his own guts, the smug fucker. Or maybe, I'll keep an adjutant on the side and feed him to it when this is done...oh, there's an idea. What a delicious thought.

She must have sounded sadistic. Good. She had no time for the light hearted. She would take great pleasure in killing Petrovsky, and when it was all said and done, she would explain to Nyreen the one rule on Omega you didn't break. Her Talons would fall in line, or they would all pay.

Aria's thoughts were broken apart when she heard gunfire.

The entire squad stopped, Marcus raising a closed fist to signal them to cease movement. They heard gunfire again, followed by screams and orders being shouted. It couldn't have possibly been them, as everybody had been accounted for. It was then, with morbid amusement, that Aria realized who the culprits must be: Cerberus.

"Hostiles, catwalk parallel to us, at exactly 3 o'clock," Keeling stated, rifle trained on the source of the muzzle flashes and the sounds that accompanied them, "I see at least...fourteen Cerberus foot mobiles."

More gunfire. But it was becoming clear that Cerberus wasn't shooting at them. They would have been hit by now if that was the case, and Aria's own night vision wasn't picking up the telltale lines heading towards them that came with tracers. No, Cerberus was shooting at something else, and they all knew what it was.

"Fall back!" one Cerberus centurion shouted, mattock coughing and once again interrupting the silence of the chamber. Growls and roars answered his call, "Guardians, take the front. Engineers, scramble turrets! Everyone else, suppression fire! We nee-"

More flashes, and finally, the squad watched as the targets in question came into view.

Sixteen adjutants, all of them charging straight at the Cerberus formation, a seething mass of flesh and raw hunger that was descending upon the retreating squad, howling and hissing and spitting angrily. Bullets harmlessly slapped into them, bodies regenerating too fast for the attacks to have an effect. The result of this battle was all too clear.

Marcus lowered his fist, "Leave them to their fate. As long as those adjutants don't know we're here, we should be fine. Proceed."

And so they did, entirely unsympathetic to the Cerberus plight occurring barely 200 meters from where they were. Aria just continued to watch in sadistic glee as the first adjutant reached the Cerberus phalanx, landing ontop of a guardian's shield and pinning him to the ground. It ripped the shield off of him with enormous strength, tearing the arm holding it clean off in a geyser of blood. The guardian screamed in agony before the adjutant clamped its jaw over his head, pulling away as it decapitated him, the top half of his spine tearing away with it as blood spat out from the severed apparatus in long spurts. The rest of the soldiers continued to fire, but their fate was sealed. The adjutants were relentless, without mercy.

They howled.

"Come on Aria," a voice broke Aria from her gleeful observation of the grisly sight. She turned to see Nyreen waiting for her, urging her on, "We need to keep moving." The turian's stance said it all: she wasn't amused.

"Of course, Nyreen," Aria laughed, turning away just as an adjutant picked up an engineer's turret and proceeded to bludgeon him to death with it, "Was just enjoying the sight."

It was clear the ex-Cabal was deliberately trying not to look at it, Nyreen's fear of the abominations laid bare for Aria to see. It made her sick: this turian, all confidence and moral empowerment, broke down at the simple sight of an adjutant. It was pathetic, and quite frankly, Aria couldn't understand it.

"Get a grip," she spat, turning to join the squad as Nyreen moved alongside her, "Watching you mope around like a frightened volus gets old after a while."

The turian wasn't in the mood, her voice bitter, "Like I care what you think of me."

"There was a time when you did, Nyreen."

"When I was your pet, you mean," Nyreen shot back, glaring at her ex-girlfriend. Growling, she turned away once more, checking her pistol almost as an excuse to simply not lock eyes with the asari.

Aria just groaned, unimpressed. What a mess. "You're so fucking pathetic. You have no problem standing up to me, but an adjutant causes you to freeze in fear. You need to get a grip, Nyreen."

"You didn't watch your own squad get torn apart by those things!" Nyreen snapped back, "Don't you lecture me about getting a grip! Don't you dare! You're the woman who couldn't just roll over. Couldn't accept that Petrovsky beat you. No, you had to gather an army to retake this sorry excuse of a space station. So don't tell me about getting a grip."

The pirate queen laughed, slapping Nyreen on the back. The turian flinched away from the gesture, "If only you had the gumpton to use that anger to kill adjutants. You might actually be threatening."

"I don't need to justify myself to you."

"Whatever you say. Would it help if you thought of me as a heartless bitch?"

"It helps because its the truth. You care for noone but yourself. Couldn't even give our daughter the time of day long enough to care. Too busy sulking in your stupid fucking night club," Nyreen replied bitterly, mandibles twitching in barely contained anger, "I hope Petrovsky burnt it to the ground. And that couch you love so much."

Aria wasn't amused anymore. She spun to face the turian, belligerent that this turian could have audacity to accuse her in such a way that highlighted her own hypocrisy, "Says the one who ran away before our daughter was even born. You're just as guilty as me, Nyreen."

"I had to. To get away from you. I couldn't let myself turn into you," she replied succintly, like she had expected Aria's response, "You had me commit crimes I never have saw myself committing back on Palaven. My own cousin effectively disowned me. My family thought I was a disgrace. I had to save myself from you. And I never stopped caring about Sata. I provided to her what you couldn't: love. I was, and still am, a far better mother than you."

Aria was ready to hit her for that. Never would she have dared to say such things when she was ruler of Omega. Anyone else, and she'd have killed them on the spot, or had Anto shoot them or Bray flush them out an airlock. The asari restrained herself, biting her tongue as she turned and stormed ahead of the turian, heading for the center of the squad so as to maintain distance from her.

Nyreen had gotten to her, she knew that much, and she hated it. What she hated more was that she was right.

She was always the perfect one. 'Oh, we can try diplomacy! Why haven't we tried to think this through? Why must we always kill!?' The criminal life never suited her. She loves being the white knight. The purveyor of justice. She thrives on the thrill of saving lives. She's living a fantasy. Such a naive little cunt.

Flustered and irritated, the asari made sure she was nowhere near the turian, but at the same time didn't turn around to look at her: to let her know just how much she had bothered her with her statement. Cocking her shotgun, she licked her lips, once again focusing on the distant cries of distress as the rest of the Cerberus unit on the opposite catwalk were subject to a massacre. She closed her eyes, imagining their sawed off limbs, decapitated heads and their bodies as they were transformed into more adjutants, adding unto the army of dread. The thought made her smile, washing away whatever doubts Nyreen had planted within her mind.

"Wait, I recognize this area," Shepard announced, causing her to open her eyes and look straight at him, "This is the catwalk we were on when the adjutants ambushed us. We're not far from the reactor entrance."

Well that's a relief. Can't handle another second having to look over my shoulder. The darkness. The feeling of being watched. The sheer immensity of adjutants. I'll be glad when we can go back to killing Petrovsky's little foot soldiers. That'll be fun.

There was a noticeable increase to their movement, with the squad realizing that their goal was once more just within their grasp. They quickly broke into a jog, the prevailing opinion that they refused to be thrown off course again. Shepard seemed to be the one to trigger this decision, the N7 breaking into a light run before the rest of his team joined him. But Aria couldn't help but notice just how loud a sound they were now making.

Enough to attract a horde.

They ignored the telltale sounds of growling and hissing behind them, not as distant as they would like. There was banging as something landed on the catwalk behind them, causing them all to break into a sprint as they realized the adjutants were onto them. Aria couldn't help but turn to see what was behind them, doing so just as Nyreen, being at the back, primed a pair of element zero grenades and tossed them behind her, hoping it would slow down their pursuers. She never stopped running, her long strides allowing her to outpace the geth prime infront of her. The grenades detonated moments later in blinding balls of blue light, the explosion sends sheets of metal flying through the air as a hole was torn into it, shredding it and leaving a gaping hole in the catwalk.

It wouldn't slow them down for long.

They rounded the corner, Shepard staying behind as he took aim with his shotgun to aim down behind them. Moses and Javik joined him, weapons primed and readied to open fire. Aria paid them no mind, but couldn't help but turn to deliver a blow of her own, brimming with biotic light as she whirled to face her foe.

Around twenty or so adjutants awaited them, growing in number. They charged them, screeching and howling their demonic screams as they moved. Some of them looked brand new almost, their purple glow more intense than the others, their skin largely untouched by cellular decay or their black blood drying on their skin. It was then she realized those adjutants must have been the Cerberus squad that were slaughtered.

She snarled, sending forth the biggest pulse of dark energy she could muster, watching as her biotic flare snapped from her fist and headed straight for the lead adjutant. It impacted with a thunderous clap, the adjutant that was hit by it directly disappearing instantly in a blaze of fire. The sound and feel of the explosion washed over them, causing them to stumble slightly. Wasting no time to witness her handiwork, she turned and joined the rest of the squad, with Shepard, Javik and Moses already retreating to join them, whilst covering the flank.

But her flare had either done nothing to them, or they had simply been replaced. Because moments after the detonation, more cries joined those from before, engaging in a chorus of hunger and rage. They had simply pissed them off and awakened all of them.

The ladder was in sight, identifiable by the sixteen foot rungs that extended up into the air, ending at a large cylindrical apparatus attached to the side of the wall, a large 8 by 8, airtight door at the top. Part of the guardrail was missing on the left side: where Shepard had been thrown off by a charging adjutant. This was the place.

Keeling got there first, holding her weapon in one hand while using her other hand to climb each rung. Once she was halfway up, she turned around and wrapping one arm inbetween the rungs to hold her in place while she raised her rifle with one hand, essentially wielding it by the hip. She shouted across to them, "The door is sealed shut! Its too thick for omni-blades to cut through...we need a plasma weapon!"

"Here!" she heard Shepard's quarian wife shout out, "Have my shotgun!"

Keeling holstered her rifle just as Tali's shotgun came towards her. Keeling plucked it from the air, quickly turning to take aim at the door as she continued her climb. Next behind her was James, LMG holstered, the marine's pace fast and with haste. Garrus was not far behind either, the turian's legs making his ascent more awkward.

Reaching the top, Keeling braced herself against the ladder, aiming her shotgun directly at the center of mass. Charging it up, she then fired it point blank into the door, the N7 flinching back as the heat and blast almost consumed her. Once the immediate blast cloud cleared, they saw a clean hole through the door, the sides singed red hot as they cooled from the plasma impact. Dropping the shotgun back to Tali, who retrieved it gracefully as it fell, Keeling managed to squeeze herself through the relatively small hole, only just managing to fit. Meanwhile, gunfire from another direction piped up, Aria turning to watch as Shepard, Moses and Javik emptied what firepower they had directly into the adjutant horde that was approaching, doing everything they could to stem incoming onslaught.

Aria turned around just in time to watch as Keeling opened the door from the other side, sliding across to the left, out of sight. Keeling then appeared at the top, ushering people inside, "Now! Go now! Get inside, quickly!"

Nobody waited. James was already halfway up the ladder by the time she called out, and the marine darted inside. Garrus followed close behind, then Kasumi, and then Nyreen. Soon, almost everybody was inside, leaving only the three defending their rear, in addition to Aria and Tali.

The quarian was hesitating, eyes darting between the ladder and Shepard. Aria rolled her eyes, uncaring as to the quarian's dilemma as she rudely prodded her towards the ladder, trying to encourage the quarian to climb. All she did was glare at her.

"Well, climb!" Aria snapped, "Snap the fuck out of it!"

"You go first!" Tali barked in reply, stepping away from the ladder.

"Fine, whatever," Aria retorted, uncaring for Tali's dilemma. She grabbed at the fourth rung, quickly pulling herself into a rhythm as she ascended, one step after the other, not sparing a single thought for what went on behind her. She soon reached the top, pulling herself up and over the lip before rolling into a position where she could look down onto the area below. Compared to the darkness below, this place actually had some form of emergency lighting, making the need for night vision unnecessary, the asari switching them off soon after, eyes taking a moment to adjust to the lighting.

Much better. Seeing everything in green gets to be a pain in the ass after a while.

To her surprise, Tali was now climbing her way past the door, seemingly having abandoned her spousal duty to wait for her husband. However, this proved not to be the case, watching as Javik appeared, holstering his particle rifle as he began his climb. The final three.

"Hurry!" Shepard shouted, firing behind him at a foe they could not see, but could hear very plainly. Moses provided the majority of the suppressive fire, going so far as make sweeping lanes of fire so as to cover the waves upon waves of adjutant in hot, plasmatic death. It wouldn't be enough soon however, so they had to hurry. Javik was almost inside when Shepard turned and began to climb, leaving the geth prime alone to make a final stand against the adjutants.

Shepard was having none of it though, quickly turning to look down below him, hanging onto the rungs with one hand, "Moses, hurry up!" he looked back up, "We need supporting fire! Cover Moses!"

They all did just that. Javik turned and fired with his particle rifle, quickly joined by James' Revenant LMG, the sputter of Keeling's Valkyrie rifle, and the boom of Tali's plasma shotgun. Together, they emptied what they had into whatever enemies they could find, giving Moses enough time to fall back. Shepard was inside by the time the geth prime made its ascent. Its massive frame compared to the tiny ladder made it a particular comedic sight, but not one anybody was laughing at. It was a good thing the door was so large too, otherwise the prime might not have fit.

Even with their suppression fire, the absence of Moses' massive firepower didn't go unnoticed. The adjutants rushed forward, screeching and clawing for a chance to kill their prey. They slammed into the ladder, buckling it. Moses was just out of their reach, the creatures taking swipes at the geth, but to no avail. Soon, Moses was entirely out of their reach as it finally climbed the last rung and stepped into the room with them. With the entire squad accounted for, Keeling began to close the door.

The adjutants were quick, but not quick enough. Despite the ladder rapidly falling apart due to their mass straining and twisting its structure, they were able to climb up the walls to reach their destination, and their movement became like that of a whorlpool: decentralized in the middle, but rapidly ascending upwards along the sides as they clambered up the walls.

As it was, Aria just laughed as the door slammed shut just as the first adjutant reached it, slamming uselessly against it with a loud bang. Many more bangs followed, eventually erupting into a cacophony as hundreds of adjutants pounded uselessly against its surface. Keeling immediately locked it afterwards, ensuring nobody could open it again unless they chose to do so.

The entire squad took a moment to breathe. Shepard hugged Tali, the quarian reciprocating quite happily with a nervous laugh of triumph. Javik and Moses moved ahead to scout it out, while Nyreen simply stared at the door with wide eyes, like she had seen a ghost.

Aria just continued to laugh maniacally, like she had lost her mind. She just couldn't stop laughing, her amusement at the situation beyond her ability to comprehend. We came so close to death. Death reached out its claws to scratch us, and we just managed to escape its reach. So. Fucking. Close.

Aria's laughter didn't go unnoticed, the entire squad, sans Javik and Moses, turning to look at her as if she was mad. Shepard broke from Tali to look at the pirate queen, and when Aria noticed that he hadn't stopped looking at her incredulously, she finally ceased laughing, bringing it down to a chuckle, "That was fucking exciting."

Shepard didn't share her opinion, "We almost died. I fail to see what's amusing."

"That's right, Shepard. You fail," Aria shot back, giving another chuckle. She stood up, shotgun in hand, adrenaline filling her body with enough energy to take on an entire Cerberus regiment by herself, "This was nothing but fun. Nothing is more electric than running from a horde of flesh hungry monsters. Wouldn't you all agree?"

There was silence. Guess that was her answer.

Huh, I see. All banter and brains, but when the real excitement comes, they're scared for their lives. How thoroughly predictable.

"All who vote that Aria is now clinically insane?" Garrus joked, raising his hand. Virtually everyone rose their hand, including Nyreen. The turian grinned, lowering his hand as everyone else did, "Then I rest my case."

"So what now, sir?" Keeling asked, already standing at attention. The woman had consumed barely a quarter of a canteen and half a ration bar before she was on her feet and at attention again, "With the adjutant threat contained, I would think proceeding to the reactor would now be critical. We're behind schedule."

"Agreed," Shepard declared, grabbing the shotgun he had left leaning against the ground and holstering it, pulling out his pulse rifle instead, "Take a quick breather and then get ready to move out. It should be nothing but a simple walk from here. After all, this area is supposed to be abandoned." He then turned and edged past Tali to get an update from Javik and Moses, the quarian opening her omni-tool to check on something, likely her suit systems.

Aria just looked back down at the door, the sound of adjutants banging against it having been drowned out and muted by the squad. Aria didn't though. She focused on it. She slapped it firmly within her foremost memory. She wanted to remember what it was like to be chased by adjutants, and to not have been afraid.

She looked up at Nyreen, the pair locking eyes, like she had been reading Aria's thoughts. She smiled.

Oh no, I'm no coward like you, Nyreen. I face my nightmares. You run from them.

And that...is why you don't fuck with Aria.

"Now you're moving onto the reactor?"

- Reia'Inas pav Earth.

"Yes. It was supposed to be a clean path. Almost no enemy resistance whatsoever. I veritable walk in the park."

- Marcus L. Shepard.

"It wasn't like that at all."

- Tali'Shepard pav Rannoch.

"Nope. Not at all."

- Marcus L. Shepard.

A/N:

OOOOHHHHHHHHH HELLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

That's right, I'm back from the dead. Took a much needed break from this story so that I could focus on some other...more prioritized affairs. One of which was my brother dying in a buggy accident...so I hope you can understand why I've been absent for so long, as it was that, combined with a lack of motivation.

Funnily enough, I was content to let this story lie until I got motivation from reading a currently ongoing Mass Effect fanfic. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm referring to the Quantum Error: Patriarch by Rob Sears: an insanely talented writer, and one of my chief inspirations for dark content. I strongly recommend checking out his stories if you haven't already (don't worry, the majority is MShep/Tali pairings). Quantum Error is one of his more original fics, so while it may be difficult to get into initially, its well worth it.

For those who do know what Patriarch is and are thinking 'what the fuck has that got to do with Holocaust? They're two entirely different genres', I'll say that it was the dark and bleak outlook of Patriarch that really inspired me to return. So...yeah, thanks for that, Rob Sears.

Well, I've said enough. I'm back, and for the distant future, you'll be getting Holocaust chapters. Frequently? Nope. Reasonably soon? Perhaps. Will you get them at all? Fuck yeah!

Keelah Re'lai, troopers, and goddamn does it feel good to be back!