Sharjilla was a world that looked and behaved like hundreds of other unpleasant terrestrial dustballs: ugly, uninhabitable to serious colonization, and ideal as a hideaway for the criminally-minded. This planet's particular claim to terrible was intense atmospheric pressure that forced anyone setting foot on the planet to equip specialized armor or shields to handle the environment without being crushed. A cake-like, yellowish dust covered the darker brown-black rocks of the world's surface, and a similarly-colored sky stretched overhead. It was local midday, so the light was easily bright enough to trigger automatic visor opacity.
For the human who lay prone atop one of the jagged, rocky ridges overlooking this valley, the unbreathable atmosphere and literally crushing environment was all in a day's work. Hell, he'd seen worse when working as a commando for semi-legitimate militaries.
"Alright, you guys reading me?" the commando asked as he trained a set of sensors down on the camp in the valley below.
"Loud and clear, Loco," replied the deep voice on the other end. Human, male, a tinge of Earth Hispanic accent - a mutt of a dozen different South and Central American accents blended together. He heard James Vega working some machinery on his end. "I got your feeds. Point-to-point transmitters working. Engines are hot, for when you screw this one up, bro."
The commando's name was Axton, and he had once been a professional wetworker for the Dahl corporation. Now he did wetworks for his bank accounts, and today was another day where the scum of the galaxy would contribute to his earnings.
He crawled away from the sensor and down the side of the ridge opposite the privateer camp he was reconnoitering, and rose into a crouch once he was low enough that he could do so without revealing his position.
"Overwatch on station?" Axton asked as he crept along the ridge, chunks of yellow cake-soil cracking and falling away under his boots. Microcameras on the front of his hardsuit's blank metal faceplate fed him a detailed, high-resolution wraparound view of his surroundings, which let him appreciate the terrible, ugly conditions of this terrible, ugly planet that would be the grave for a lot of privateers soon.
"No contact with Eyes yet," Vega replied. "Dropped off and ran out of line-of-sight ten minutes ago. Said he'd be on in six at marker two-three-one. Both him and the bird are suited up."
Axton paused to check his local map and terrain plot, picked the marker, and oriented toward it.
And then a bullet slammed into his shield, punched through it, and exploded against his hardsuit's torso plate. The ground beneath his boots dropped away, and he was sent tumbling back. The sky spun, traded places with the ground, then retook its place, and then an impact ran through his back. He bounced once, twice, three more times, rolling again with each hit on the caked yellow soil, and then came to a halt at the bottom of the ridge.
"Ow." He started to sit up, ignoring the variety of pains affecting his everything. The bullet - a modded high-explosive round, he guessed - had thrown him all the way down the gentle slope, leaving him sprawled at the base of the ridge.
"Vega," he called, coughing. The pain was worst in his chest, where the blast from the high-ex had hit him the hardest. "Taking fire!" He glanced around, and spotted his assault rifle - a Dahl weapon, camouflage-painted to match Sharjilla's distinct soil coloration - lying a few meters away. He rose and took a step toward it.
The roar of aircraft engines hit him as he reached the weapon, and Axton pivoted, raising the rifle. His left hand went to the flat, rectangular pack on his back, and he started to draw the weapon inside.
A shuttle - nothing massive, little larger than a typical Alliance Kodiak - leapt over the top of the ridge and swung toward him, the guns mounted under the shuttle's chin and on its flanks extending and pointing toward him.
He froze, and knew that if that thing wanted to fire, he was dead. He wasn't packing the kind of shields or armor that could let him take that kind of firepower.
A couple of seconds passed, and the shuttle's side doors slid open.
"Well, crap," Axton murmured as pirates began to rappel down. Depending on the attitude of these bastards, either this would be an opportunity, or he would have preferred to get shot to ribbons by the shuttle's guns.
Most of the shuttle's troops were humanoid, but one was a humpbacked krogan toting a shotgun. He loped toward Axton while the rest pointed their weapons at him. The commando slowly lowered the rifle and pulled his hand out of the pack, raising them over his head.
"Hi guys," he said as the krogan approached. "Got a hilarious story for you."
"Don't worry," the krogan grunted. "I already know the punchline."
An armor-plated fist shot up into Axton's face, and everything went dark.
Chapter Seven: Angels
Roland kept calm, mentally steeled himself, and took stock of the situation.
Inside the bar: one well-trained mercenary, armed with an SDU full of guns and a decent Atlas-issue shield. Twenty-three assorted sapients, including Moxxi. Outside the bar, unknown hostile(s). Inside his ECHO, a weird-looking woman warning him about the previous, but also warning him to not talk to her for clarification. His closest allies were on the other side of the spaceport.
Going by what this strange ECHO hacker was saying, the enemy had him under observation, and if he did anything to indicate that he wasn't alone here, they would burst in and damn the collateral. Whoever they were, they wanted Lilith, the beacon, or both. Or they could be Atlas assassins. Or Hyperion assassins. Or someone he pissed off while working for Atlas. He didn't think that any enemies he'd made could get a team out here this quickly, but assumptions led to corpses.
That was, going by the weird ECHO hacker's words. He wasn't sure if she could be trusted; hell she could be working with the assassins to keep him in place, if there even were any assassins.
Tough call. Who to trust?
The answer was obvious: his own guns and his own head.
"Gonna empty my tank before I get moving," Roland said to Moxxi, who nodded. He rose off the stool, but then paused. He couldn't just leave; not with unknown hostiles potentially about to break in. "You know, after all this time, I think I got a guardian angel or something looking over me." Moxxi raised a curious eyebrow - or, well, whatever the things that asari had over their eyes were. "She always tells me when there's trouble."
Moxxi shrugged, which did interesting things.
"Ain't that the truth, sugar," she said, and one hand drifted below the bar. He heard the very faint sound of something charging up, which meant she had something big under the counter if he could hear it. "We all need a little angel keeping an eye on us, don't we?"
Roland gave her a quick nod and turned to leave, confident that the matriarch at least knew that something was up. Asari at her age could kick a lot of ass, in his experience, even if they were civilians. And Moxxi didn't strike him as a mere civilian.
He moved quickly toward the bathroom, but tried to keep from moving too fast and tipping off whoever was watching him. As he weaved between the tables, the image of the ECHO hacker reappeared briefly.
"A salarian seven meters to your right is transmitting to an Eclipse assault team on the floor above you," she said. "I read six of them. Three asari, two salarian, one human. They are heavily armed and preparing for an assault. I see a single mech with them. They also have a lift truck hovering outside the building. I do not know the cargo, but I'm getting enough thermal bleed that whatever it is is packing heavy firepower." She paused. "There is an asari getting up to follow you now. She is also Eclipse."
Roland entered the bathroom, his pulse racing as he passed through the doors. He accessed his SDU and pulled up a Dahl pistol; the low recoil and excellent stability would be necessary inside an area heavy with civilians. He drew it as soon as he broke line of sight and entered the bathroom, and it burst into his hands in a cloud of blue motes and lines. He glanced around the interior as he pressed himself against the wall next to the door. Standard polished tile dark enough to hide stains, metal urinals, white lights bright enough to let drunks see where to aim. No one else present.
"Can you give me a way out?" Roland asked as the door closed. He would worry about things like "who are you?" or "how did you hack my ECHO?" or "Can I be sure you're not trying to kill me?" when he and the people in the bar were not in (apparent) danger.
"Working," the woman said, anxiety creeping in her voice. "The two from the bar are following you. They're armed. You have three seconds."
Roland backed a bit further from the door and raised the pistol. He exhaled, forming a plan in his head. The only way to keep Eclipse from killing everyone in the bar was to take the fight outside. Outside, or maybe . . . .
The door hissed open, and both undercover Eclipse mercs rushed into the room, pistols in hand. The salarian was closer, and turning toward Roland as the asari covered the other side of the room. He flinched slightly as he spotted Roland, pistol tracking toward the former Lanceman.
Roland shot him between his bulbous eyes, the pistol launching a four round burst. The first three rounds hit the shield, but the fourth punched through and struck the salarian just above his nostrils, rocking his head back and sending him tumbling to the floor. The asari spun with all the inhuman grace and agility and sheer speed that they were known for, and Roland shifted his aim as she coiled her legs and started to leap aside.
Then a narrow bolt of shimmering dark blue light struck her in mid-leap. The asari went from leaping to blurring across the room, smashing headfirst into the wall with a bloody, wet sclurch. Roland blinked for a heartbeat as the shattered corpse slid to the floor, and then Moxxi calmly stepped into the room, dark energy rippling around her.
"No one starts a fight in Eternity," she growled, and glanced toward Roland and the dead salarian. "Eclipse, right?"
"Six-man team upstairs," he said, straightening. "Truck outside. They want me."
"Well, that's no good," Moxxi spat, and the energy wreathing her intensified. "Do a girl a favor and take that trash to the street before they come down here and shoot up my place?"
Then she gestured overhead, and a surge of biotic power roared off of her. Gravity rewrote itself overhead, and the ceiling exploded upward with a deafening scream of broken ceramics and twisted metal.
"Yes ma'am," Roland said with a nod, and leapt up toward the gap overhead. He reached up with one hand and grabbed the edge of the hole, while with his other he returned his pistol to his SDU and drew a Torgue-Urdnot shotgun: a massive, triple-barreled weapon painted with pattern black and white checkerboard pattern. No time for subtlety now. "Sorry to-"
"It's insured, hon," Moxxi called as he lifted himself into the room above. "Gotta have it when humans are around. Good luck!"
Axton's eyes opened, and through the red haze of pain and copper blood in his mouth, he could see the barrels of half a dozen weapons.
Brown eyes peered through the high-resolution image projected onto the interior of his hardsuit's faceplate. A legion of redundant microcameras mounted on the gray metal of the helmet rendered an image of extremely clarity, while allowing him to zoom in or out and adjust the magnification and focus of particular targets. It let him note every detail of the seven armored sapients looming over him: four human (three male, one female), a male turian, a male krogan, and an asari. The former six had assault rifles or shotguns, while the latter regarded the human with a relaxed posture, arms crossed over her chest.
"So," the prone human said with a smile that he knew wasn't visible. "How'd you spot me?"
While he spoke, he checked his surroundings. He was lying where they'd jumped him moments ago. He spotted some potential cover: a rise in the earth a few meters to his immediate six, and an outcropping in the ridge that he'd been knocked off ten meters to his nine. Couldn't reach either without getting shot to ribbons, though.
"Drones," the asari replied. She glanced down at the dropped assault rifle, as well as the human's SDU pack, sidearm, and other equipment pouches. They'd stripped him of anything useful. Smart.
"I became suspicious when I saw that flare in orbit. Thought it was the Alliance coming for us, and both my fighters are down for maintenance. I didn't expect someone would drop a scout for foot recon. Or at least," she paused, glancing around at the jagged, rocky landscape. "I did not expect someone would trudge through twenty kilometers of this to do foot recon."
"I like to surprise people," Axton replied.
"Indeed," the asari said with a nod. "What's your name?"
"Axton," the human said. He clasped his raised hands together and tucked them behind his head, so he would at least be comfortable while being interrogated.
"Where's your team?" she asked.
"Oh come on, I just introduced myself, lady," Axton said. "Fair's fair, right?"
"True enough," the asari replied, her tone amused. "Dahlia Dantius."
The pirates were probably confused when Axton began convulsing with surprised laughter. The pirate boss' relaxed posture faded, and she crossed her arms in annoyance.
"Something did not seem to translate," Dahlia grumbled, and then gestured with a sharp, vicious motion. Blue light swirled around her and dark energy twisted at the asari's command. Axton was yanked off the ground and hauled up into the air in front of the asari, and she drew a pistol from her SDU and jammed it under his chin.
"Right," Axton said. "Guess not." He frowned, picking his next words carefully. "I was sent on a rescue mission. Me and my whole team. Lots of guys." He kept his voice carefully neutral, wondering if the asari could catch his lies through the environment suit and helmet.
"Really now," Dahlia said, leaning a little bit closer in. It might have had more effect if lethal atmosphere and heavy plating and ballistic weave didn't separate them. "Who were you sent to rescue?"
"Uh, actually, you," Axton admitted. "Your sister hired us. Said you were kidnapped by slavers and they were holding you for ransom."
Now it was the asari's turn to burst out laughing, and a couple of her pirate buddies joined her.
"Right?" Axton said with a grin. "Hilarious, ain't it?"
"Oh, that it is, dear," Dahlia said. "That's so Nassana. I send her a little blackmail threat, asking for some money and maybe some favors, and she sents a hit squad to kill me, and disguises it as a rescue! No doubt you were supposed to charge into the base and effect a daring rescue, only to kill me in the process."
"Yeah, we were getting ready to do just that," Axton said with a shrug. "But I thought that we should reconnoiter first, you know? Identify the hostage ahead of time, so we could rescue her when the shooting started."
"That's adorable!" Dahlia said with another laugh. "Oh, Nassana, you're just too smart for your own good sometimes." She shook her head. "Well, this is an excellent opportunity."
"Yeah? How so?" Axton asked, tensing. He adjusted the camera view on his faceplate, noting that his SDU was too far away to reach, but that his backpack was a little closer, and its contents had been spilled out onto the dirt, including a flat, rectangular box that looked like an ammunition case.
"Well, my sister is far more likely to pay up if I send the heads of her pet mercenaries back to her," Dahlia said and pressed the pistol against his forehead.
"So, I'll start with you and then work through the rest of your team. Sound good?"
Trade on Illium never stopped, and thus the crowds around the spaceport trade kiosks never let up. Lilith pushed through the collected aliens, mostly made up of asari, volus, and salarians, but there were enough humans present that no one really noticed the Siren or her companion.
"Hey, Lilith, if you don't mind me asking," Conrad said as he kept pace with her wake through the capitalism-induced crowd. "Why do we need more people to help us shoot up the-"
"Shh," Lilith said, waving a hand quickly. "Too many ears."
"Oh, right," he said with a dopey nod. Lilith wondered whether it was real or part of some extremely subtle act. "But why do we need help?"
"I may be a one-sapient wrecking crew," Lilith said with a shrug, "but I'm not unstoppable. This is a . . . high risk proposition. We'll need some backup."
"But I watched you on the video feeds," Conrad said. "Those Lance troops never stood a chance against a S-" He cut himself off. "Um. I just-"
"I bleed just like anyone else, Conrad, and we're talking about Maliwan here," she replied. "Besides, these guys are reliable, and they've got a decent streak to them. They'll cover our backs. Probably."
"Probably?" Conrad asked. "You . . you're talking about those Lance deserters, aren't you?"
"Yep."
She increased her pace as the crowd lessened near the actual docking cradles, and Conrad had to speed up to keep up with her. Within a few moments they were free of the crowds and walking down the dock walkways, which were empty save for the occasional asari mechanic. The battered Hyperion shuttle sat in its berth, and the door remained sealed and locked. No signs of tampering. That likely meant no one was aboard. Lilith unlocked the door and went inside, Conrad close behind her.
"Hey, guys, you around?" she called. No one answered. Unsurprising, but a bit worrying, especially after getting ambushed by Eclipse in the alley. Lilith drew her pistol, just in case.
What she did find was a datapad left in the bunk section, with a big, bold "For Roland" on the screen. There was an audio file ready to play, and because she was nosy Lilith went ahead and played it.
"Hey Roland," Ashley's voice called out. "If you're getting this, after drinking yourself dumb at Eternity, then me and Reiss are on the SSV London. Getting acclimated and checked out. Captain Anderson says we'll need to go through some paperwork and training to become proper Alliance Marines. But its better than Lance paperwork and training, you know? We'll swing by later on once we've gotten situated over here. Keep in touch, okay? Let us know if you get a job, or if you have to leave in case, I dunno, you get attacked by mercs who want to use you to get to Lilith or something silly like that. Take care of yourself."
Right. That explained where everyone went. She relaxed and holstered the pistol.
"Okay," she said to Conrad. "We might not have as much backup as I thought, but this is manag-"
That was when the shuttle's automated emergency alert started beeping from the cockpit.
She dashed up toward the pilot's chair, leaving a startled Conrad behind her. Her fingers flowed over the haptic display, bringing up Nos Astra's automated alert system, and a moment later the emergency details appeared in the air before her eyes.
Gunfight and explosion at the Eternity bar at the main Nos Astra spaceport. Police and emergency services en route. Possible corporate military presence, everyone should evacuate, blah, blah, blah.
"Great," Lilith muttered, and began going through the shuttle startup sequence. She overrode most of the safeties, and forced the docking cradle to begin releasing the ship. She skipped the preflight checklist as well. She guessed she could maneuver the shuttle well enough; they'd need Claptrap to help them leave the planet, but for now she wouldn't have trouble flying it within an atmosphere.
"What's going on?" Conrad shouted as he ran into the cockpit.
"Trouble, and an impending shootout," Lilith said. "Get strapped in back there. This is going to get bloody."
Roland hauled himself up to the level above with one hand. He knew he had only a few seconds before the Eclipse troops reacted to Moxxi's floor-busting display of biotics. Worse, he didn't know how Eclipse would react; Maliwan's mercenaries were deadly but notoriously undisciplined. They could opt to bug out, or they could decide to go ahead and massacre everyone in the bar for shits and giggles. The only way to stop the latter was to keep them fighting up here.
The room above the bathroom was, shockingly, another bathroom. His ECHO displayed a map of the area outside the bathroom as he transitioned levels, showing that the level above Eternity was some kind of office section for the spaceport. A public advisory indicated that the floor was evacuated and undergoing emergency maintenance; Roland didn't know if it was just coincidence that the Eclipse had taken advantage of or if they had paid someone off to give them working space.
Either way, the shooting lanes would be clear. It was just Roland, his turret, and Eclipse.
He dashed through water jetting from pipes burst by Moxxi, and reached the door. It automatically slid open, but Roland did not leap through, as the map told him that a hallway ran past outside. More importantly, his ECHO picked up movement and element zero cores a few meters down the corridor.
Instead, the cylinder carrying his Scorpio led the way, tumbling across the corridor to land opposite the door.
"Turret!" an asari voice shouted. "Eclipse, find cover!"
As it hit the floor, unfolded, and swiveled toward the enemy, Roland checked his ECHO's schematics and confirmed the layout. There was no way he could move up the corridor without getting torn apart by Eclipse. He would need an alternate route.
Roland hefted his massive, three-barreled weapon, and pointed the Torgue-Urdnot shotgun at the wall.
He pulled the trigger, and a deafening explosion echoed around the bathroom. The shotgun's recoil was tremendous, nearly knocking it out of his hands. Each of the trio of barrels spat out a quartet of gyrojet rounds that splayed out in an unpredictable pattern. The gyrojets activated a few centimeters out from the barrels, sending the high-explosive rounds screaming into the wall. The gyrojets' spike-tips embedded into the tile and metal, and a heartbeat later exploded with savage fury. The rounds' explosive charges were shaped to direct their force forward, and the detonation blasted a ragged hole in the wall, hurling shrapnel and debris into the room beyond, a cloud of choking smoke chasing the remains.
Torgue-Urdnot. Because fuck subtle.
Roland pumped the shotgun as he leapt through the gap, and his Scorpio opened fire, trading bullets with the Eclipse troops up the corridor. He emerged into a small office area, and leveled the shotgun at the wall again. The mercenaries were in cover further up the hallway, sheltering behind doorways and around corners, according to the layout. Roland blasted apart the next wall with the shotgun, and leapt through the smoke and debris to flank the Eclipse troops.
The office he burst into held one of the salarian mercenaries, who was clad in their typical suit of yellow and black armor, glowing lines along the chestplate tracing out a yellow sunburst, and more lines running up and down the armor making him look less like a soldier and more of an advertisement for sleek, trendy warfare. The salarian was pivoting to bring a submachinegun to bear, but Roland's weapon was already up, and more importantly, it was a Torgue-Urdnot. The shotgun thundered, and the spray of gyrojets hammered the salarian.
The detonation of a dozen miniature missiles in the Eclipse merc's torso and hemet plating sent a spray of dark blue blood, armor plating, and miscellaneous limbs tumbling into the hallway beyond.
Roland pumped the monstrous shotgun one last time as he ran toward the doorway, and fired a blind shot into the corridor beyond, before collapsing the spent shotgun back into digistruct space and drawing a heavy Vladof assault rifle, all polished synth-wood and sleek machined gun-metal that could empty its generous magazine in a split-second.
The Eclipse mercenaries were still reacting; two of them, a human and an asari were firing toward the Scorpio, which kept up a constant barrage to pin them down. The human was pivoting toward Roland, while another asari was diving for cover, blood pouring from a couple of craters in her armor. A second asari lay dead on the floor, gaping holes in her armor telling that the Scorpio had scored a kill.
Roland's rifle barked a barrage of bullets, a stream of bullets that blended together into one prolonged howl. The barrage tore into the human merc before he could open fire, and he fell in a spray of blood. The ex-Lanceman spun away from the dying Eclipse trooper and sent another burst after the fleeing asari. Rounds smashed into the wall and doorway she was ducking into, and he spotted a couple of bullets skipping off her armor, but she didn't fall, instead screaming for help into her radio.
He chased after her, ejecting the spent magazine and slamming a fresh one into the weapon. He rounded the corner, rifle ready, and spotted the asari as she fled into a cubicle farm. His finger tightened on the trigger, but not before she spun toward him and pointed. Blue-white lightning flared around her, and a discus of shimmering blue energy screamed toward Roland.
He ground to a halt and started to leap aside, but the biotic throw struck him in his upper right chest. The shield disrupted most of the blast of dark energy and the resulting gravity shift that would have slammed him into the wall behind him, but enough bled through that he was launched into the air and sent tumbling back through the doorway. Numbing pain rolled over his chest, but Roland grit his teeth and scrambled to his feet before the wounded asari could turn back and finish him. As he rose, he caught a pair of contacts on his ECHO directly to his right.
He spun, weapon rising toward the two remaining Eclipse mercs, and spotted them down the hallway: male salarian and the last asari. The former was firing a submachinegun at him, hyper-fast motes of green-tinged rounds indicative of a corrosive weapon smashing into Roland's weakened shield. The latter was collapsing a weapon back into digistruct space and bringing something else out: an enormous mass of blue motes and twisting geometric lines that resolved into a massive shoulder-mounted weapon with glowing red lines running down its curving length.
A Maliwan incendiary rocket launcher.
Roland had barely recognized it when the launcher erupted with a tremendous plume of smoke and belching fire. He dove again, back through the door he'd been launched through a moment before, and the missile streaked past, exploding somewhere behind him. Shrapnel, heat, and concussive force slammed Roland as he went through the doorway, and he was sent flying end-over-end. He smashed through a cubicle wall, right hand briefly going numb as it hit something, and his rifle fell from his hands.
Roland was already kicking back up to his feet, adrenaline surging through him, and he fought back the pain with anger and determination. He drew the first weapon he could find from his SDU - the same Dahl pistol he'd used downstairs - while checking his ECHO. The wounded asari was hurrying down an aisle between the cubicles toward him, while the other two Eclipse mercs were closing in from the hallway outside. And more troubling, his shields had collapsed, and his Scorpio's limited power supply had run out, sending it collapsing back into digistruct space; it would be at least a couple of minutes before it recovered enough charge to be redeployed.
No time. No help coming. Time to soldier up.
Roland drew a grenade from his SDU. It was a standard-issue, spherical model that mass-produced by nearly every corporation in the galaxy. The kind that could be altered with any of a hundred commercial mods, thanks to its adaptable nature. Roland's grenades weren't modded, so they only packed a standard high-explosive micro-shrapnel payload. That was fine as far as he was concerned.
He hurled the grenade over the top of the cubicles toward the asari. She halted immediately, letting out a yelp of surprise and terror, and jumped back away from the explosive. At the same time, Roland jumped out from the wreckage of the cubicle, pistol ready and set to burst-fire mode. He caught her as she was ducking into another cubicle, and squeezed off a burst. Over the drawn-out crack of the pistol's burst, he heard her cursing and shouting for help - a shout that turned into a cry of pain as two of his shots hit her in the hip and sent her stumbling into the cubicle. Roland drew a second grenade from his SDU and hurled it after her.
The first grenade detonated down the aisle, blowing apart cubicle walls but not hitting the mercenary. The second, however, was on-target, and the Eclipse trooper let out a scream just before it blew her apart.
Roland whipped around as the other two Eclipse troopers stormed into the room, the one toting the launcher standing just behind her companion. The launcher twitched toward Roland as he brought the Dahl pistol up.
He didn't aim for the asari holding the weapon. The pistol couldn't punch through shields fast enough. Not to both break the shields and penetrate her helmet. Instead, he aimed for the one thing that the shield didn't cover. It was a crazy shot, requiring exceptional skill to pull off, and Roland wasn't sure he could hit the target. But what the hell.
He sighted and fired, rounds erupting from the pistol in a precise burst.
Two of the four-round burst went down the gaping barrel of the Maliwan rocket launcher, striking the ammunition and ricocheting about within the weapon, smashing barrel components and denting the rocket itself. It didn't set the launcher's ammunition off, but it did ensure that when the Eclipse soldier pulled the trigger . . . .
Well, "misfire" just didn't have the right gravity to describe the ensuing fireball or the thermal shockwave that sent charred mercenary pieces hurtling around the room.
Roland checked his ECHO as he hurried through the burning remnants of multiple cubicles, pistol low by his side. Foul water poured down from the sprinklers overhead as he moved carefully around the blackened remains of the dead Eclipse. No fresh contacts appeared, but the ECHO did start to ping an unusual signature down the hallway; the mech that the hacker had mentioned, perhaps? He started toward it, and then came to a halt as he heard a familiar voice.
"Hello? Are you still there?" a high-pitched electronic voice called, and Roland sighed. At least now he knew why the Eclipse troops had fixated on him. He started down the hallway to another office section.
"I know you guys told me to 'be quiet or we'll burn you inch by inch,'" Claptrap called, "But that sounded like an awful painful explosion. I'd really not like to get burned alive, and I'm actually risking being burned alive to make sure I'm not burn-"
"Claptrap, it's me," Roland said as he entered the room. It was a larger office area with lines of open desks. In the middle of the room, a bunch of desks had been moved to create an impromptu surveillance station where several haptic-display computers had been set up with video feeds into the bar below. From what he could see, Eternity was clearing out fast due to the multiple explosions and gunfire.
Another section of the room had been cleared to make space for Claptrap and the wheel-lock mechanism that wrapped around his lower body. It was a single heavy metal plate with clamps that locked the robot's wheels and frame in place. Heavy tape coiled around his upper body, locking his spindly arms inside their sheaths within the frame, and more tape covered his eye lens.
"Roland? Woo-hoo! You're the last organic I expected to see! Relatively speaking." The robot quivered in his restraints as he babbled. "I thought for sure I was headed to the scrapyard!"
"How did those Eclipse grab you?" Roland asked as he crouched next to the lock. It was a fairly straightforward setup. He didn't have a key, and he suspected any key he did find on the Eclipse bodies would be mangled beyond use. Shooting might damage Claptrap, so he instead pulled out an assault rifle of sturdy Dahl design, flipped it over, and started smashing the restraints.
"Well, I was taking my share of the paycheck to go buy some upgrades. Bolt-on rocket launcher frame, baby!" Roland shook his head as he smashed part of the restraint. "Plus a flamethrower! And maybe a Typhoon. I went to the local Gateway weapons outlet, but I was halfway there when these jerkbags in the yellow armor just came out of nowhere. I fought back with legendary heroism-"
Roland suppressed the skeptical grunt that that statement brought up.
"-but they used all their best hacking tech to overwhelm me! Next time I booted up, I was on a cargo hauler, I think. They were asking me all these questions about you and Lilith and the Eridian device, but I resisted with all my might!"
Meaning Claptrap started talking before they even finished asking their questions.
"Then they blinded me and brought me here. Something about using me as a bargaining chip to get you to surrender, and maybe capture Lilith, and-"
"Right, hostage situation," Roland grunted as he broke another component of the restraints. Claptrap started to wriggle free, and Roland drew his knife and started cutting away the tape.
That was when the weird image of the dark-haired woman suddenly reappeared at the top of his head-up display. Her expression had not changed, but her tone was a different story.
"Oh dear," the hacker murmured as Roland cut away the tape.
"What's happening?' Roland hissed, peeling the tape off and freeing Claptrap's arms.
"Incoming! Hurry!" the woman called over the ECHO. Roland glanced up as he raised the rifle again.
Outside, the hovering cargo truck trundled up into view, and turned toward the shot-up office. The rear doors opened, fanning out to show a cargo compartment and a pair of looming figures in Eclipse gold, blue and green lines running up and down sleek armor plating. Roland glanced at his HUD and saw that the Scorpio was finished recharging.
"Yay!" Claptrap shouted as Roland freed his eye from the tape. He spun around several times in place, arms pumping with synthetic elation, ignoring the fact that Roland was already tossing down the Scorpio's base. "Free again! Thanks to you, friend, I'm safe now, and forever!"
Roland grabbed Claptrap by the top of his eye-mounting and threw him down behind his Scorpio as it redeployed. A heartbeat later the glass shattered under a torrent of gunfire, sprays of blue-white lightning and splattering, green corrosive compounds pouring off the bullets from a pair of heavy autocannons. Masonry and plastic burned, sizzled, and flew as the guns raked the room, and Roland's Scorpio returned fire a second later.
"Oh, crap, no I'm not!" Claptrap screamed in absolutely predictable terror.
The former Lanceman felt as much as heard the impact as the two Eclipse troopers leapt through the broken glass and hit the floor, their shields shrugging off the first couple of bursts from the turret. The Eclipse troopers' armor hissed and whirred as they rose, shouldering their weapons, which glowed with the sharp, bright lines of Maliwan weapons - lines reflected in the powered armor they wore. Dense black artificial muscles shifted under the sleek armor plates, and their sweeping, curved helmets sported glowing visors and optical clusters. They had a vaguely feminine shape to their artificial muscles, and the helmets extended backward much further than they would on a human suit, indicating that the operators were asari.
"Lightsuits," Roland muttered, and with his free hand, he snatched Claptrap up and hurled him behind the nearest wall.
"Target acquired," a female voice said, her smug tone filtered by the helmet's speakers.
The Maliwan-engineered cannons lit up, glowing with blinding brightness as they charged, and sprayed a river of elemental rounds at the pair.
Illium traffic control was screaming at them, but Lilith didn't care. She glanced idly to the mounting list of traffic laws and spaceport infractions she was accumulating, which the shuttle's VI was helpfully tallying. At least forty-seven so far, half of them citations for ignoring the traffic controller herself as she kept howling for the shuttle to set down.
Well, the asari can shout all she wants, 'cause she's muted.
"Oh, man, what are doing? We're going to get killed!"
Less easy to ignore was Conrad, strapped in behind her.
"Relax," Conrad," she offered as she lifted over Nos Astra. "I've got the shuttle transmitting an unspecified catastrophic emergency beacon. That will keep the police off our backs for a bit, at least until we get to where-"
Bullets flashed past somewhere below, erupting out a window in the spaceport's entertainment sector. She could see hundreds of people fleeing that section of the complex below, save for some particularly insane traders on the selling floor, who had simply activated stationary kinetic barriers and continued business while safe in their blue domes.
"Alright, there it is," Lilith said, checking the area on her scanners. She spotted a hovering cargo hauler outside one level of the building, which with a quick double check of the layout, was one floor up from the Eternity bar that Roland had been at. Sensors tagged four contacts and a lot of thermal emissions from fires, plus miscellaneous organic debris that was likely corpses. Two of the contacts were fast-moving signatures with a lot of thermal emissions bleeding off of them, firing some kind of heavy weapon with elemental loadouts as well. Eclipse Lightsuits, maybe?
"Conrad, can you fly a shuttle?" Lilith asked as she brought the craft close to the windows.
"Um, well, a little," he said. "I played a lot of Spacefree, but I don't-"
"Good enough, just keep the autopilot in Dumbass Assist Mode and you'll be fine," she said, and leapt up from her chair as soon as she brought the shuttle to a hover. "Keep the shuttle stationary." She drew her submachinegun from her SDU and opened the shuttle's loading ramp.
"What if something goes wrong?" Conrad called as she dashed down the ramp to the loading bay.
"It won't," Lilith replied with a feral grin.
Axton's high-resolution display showed him a really interesting view of Dahlia Dantius' pistol as she pressed it against his helmet. Really, really interesting.
"You sure you want to shoot me?" he asked. "I mean, there's still time to, I dunno, interrogate me. Or torture. Right?"
"Please, dear, I'm no human bandit," Dahlia said. "I make it quick."
"Crap," Axton muttered. "Uh, well, how about I pay you not to shoot me?"
"You couldn't possibly offer me enough," Dahlia replied. "Besides, I'll just shoot you anyway after I get the money."
"You are the most honest pirate I have ever met, lady," Axton said, glancing about quickly, noting the other pirates' positions. Two of the humans were laughing and joking quietly while Axton and Dahlia bantered, while the krogan's posture indicated boredom. Another human was digging through his backpack, not two steps from the rectangular box.
"I try to be consistent," Dahlia said with a shrug. "Goodb-"
"Look, I can pay you a lot," Axton said quickly, and he hooked his head toward the flat box nearby. "I've got a decent amount of cash. Don't trust banks. Plus the half that Nasanna paid us up front for this job!"
"Really," Dahlia replied, the pistol wavering. She glanced to the backpack. "In that little box there? That an SDU like your weapon pack?"
"Yeah, except it's got credit chits," Axton lied through his teeth. "Enough to maybe buy me enough time to get back to my shuttle and feed my team false intel so you can kill the rest, right?"
"It would indeed," Dahlia said.
The pistol jammed into his faceplate hard enough to force Axton's head back a bit.
"Leaving aside the fact that my dearest sister never pays mercenaries half up front," she said, her voice as polite and sweet as ever. "I recognize a Dahl Sabre in collapsed, ready-to-deploy mode. You would have had me press the panel on the top, yes? And then dove for cover while it shot my men and I to pieces?"
"Um." Static pulsed steadily over his ECHO.
"Thought so," Dahlia said with a sigh. "A point for effort, though. But I'm not human enough to fall for that trick. This has been amusing, but I think that this exchange is over. Farewell."
And then Dahlia's head exploded, in the way that only hypervelocity rounds loaded with high explosive ammunition allowed for.
Axton was already leaping away from her as her helmet and cranial matter expanded at terminal velocity, and he slammed into the startled pirate standing over his backpack with his shoulder leading. The pirate stumbled backward, and Axton snatched the barrel of his rifle, while kicking the top of box that had been dumped from his backpack.
The box unfolded in a heartbeat, a trio of sturdy legs snapping out and locking into place, lifting the rest of the Sabre off the ground. The top two-thirds of the box rose up, panels folding up. A cylindrical section extended from the center of the device, and continued unfolding to form a gun with a barrel as wide around as Axton's fist. Gunbelts snapped into place from an autoloading mechanism in the turret's base, and a laser and optical array slid out and activated alongside the gun.
The turret spun toward the nearest scrambling pirate, and blew apart his shields and torso armor in a single burst of booming firepower that left clouds of rising yellow dust raining down from the ridge overhead.
Axton whirled, clutching his stolen rifle, and sprayed the pirates while backing away. He dove over the side of a rockfall nearby, mass accelerator rounds whipping past.
"Chew 'em up, baby!" the commando shouted while firing. As he hit the dirt, Axton keyed his ECHO. "Took you long enough," he grunted.
"You had the situation perfectly under control," replied Eyes. "Now sit back and let me take care of these pyjaks." The deep echo of a high-powered rifle rolled across the valley, and another pirate went down, nearly decapitated by the high-explosive round that blew apart his throat. "Up until she decided to not fall for your favorite trick."
Axton fired a long burst at one of the pirates, cutting apart the armored thug's legs. He fell to the dirt, and then the Sabre turret pivoted and pounded him to pulp.
"Had to grow a brain sometime," Axton muttered.
Engines roared overhead, and the pirates' shuttle leapt up into the sky, before wheeling around the bring its guns to bear.
"Ah, well. Crap."
Roland put a wall between himself and the Lightsuits as they dashed across the remnants of the office, their mechanized legs barely making a sound as they ran. The jets on the backs of the suits pulsed and thrummed, letting them leap back and forth, and they strafed the Scorpio gun as it blazed away at the frighteningly-fast suits of powered armor. The Eclipse troopers manning them ducked and weaved, jumped and dodged, and generally behaved like they were in some gravity-fu sensory movie.
But the Scorpio was a tough weapons system, and its barriers protected it as a river of shimmering green corrosive rounds and sparking blue electrical bullets struck it. The turret kept firing, buying Roland enough time to toss Claptrap behind the wall and into the corridor outside the room, where he would be safe.
Roland switched back to the Torgue-Urdnot shotgun, knowing he needed to fight these speed-demons with brute force. He raised the shotgun to his shoulder, thinking furiously in the few moments his turret had given him.
Maliwan's Lightsuits were their answer to the heavy, humanoid armored platforms other corps used. Atlas deployed their Crimson Lance Devastators. Hyperion had their heavy, badass Loader variants. Maliwan's powered armor favored lightweight, speed, and grace over the heavier, clunky war machines of other corporate armies. Hence the name "Lightsuit." But that meant that the Lightsuits were less heavily-armored; there was a reason why they dodged the fire from the Scorpio instead of relying on the armor to blunt the bullets.
Roland had fought and killed Lightsuit pilots before, though as part of a squad. He'd never taken them on by himself, but he and Claptrap were dead if he didn't take them down.
He leapt out of cover as one of the suits - the shock-equipped one - leapt over a burst from the Scorpio. The moment it hit the floor, Roland leveled the enormous gun. The shotgun thundered, and a massive volley of gyrojets screamed toward the Eclipse trooper. Roland thought he saw a heartbeat of frozen terror in the suit's posture as the pilot spotted the massive Torgue-Urdnot shotgun pointing his way, and then the suit blurred to one side. Rockets slammed into the suit as it dodged, and Roland saw the shield collapse, but it kept moving, weaving and jumping.
The other Lightsuit shot through the air, corrosive cannon blazing, and Roland threw himself to the ground. Bullets slashed past him, a couple shattering against his shield, while the majority impacted the wall and sent splatters of green chemical across the surface. Wherever they touched, they began eating away at the metal and ceramic masonry. As he hit the floor, Roland rolled over, pointing the shotgun at the green-lined Lightsuit, and he fired a second blast. The gyrojets streaked toward the armored mercenary, blasting apart the carpet and office equipment around it, but only a couple of them struck the dodging suit itself.
The shock Lightsuit charged, a jittering blur as it bounced around the desks and debris in the way, its cannon firing bursts at Roland's turret. He kicked up to a kneeling position, pumping the shotgun, but even as he emptied the last of the shotgun's magazine Roland knew he was too late. The shock Lightsuit juked as the gyrojets ripped toward him, the explosions tearing up chunks of armor plating when they punched through the shields, but the cannon poured bullets into the Scorpio's own barriers. A dozen direct hits overloaded the turret's barriers and blew it apart.
The Scorpio's component pieces vanished in a storm of digistruct motes, and Roland knew he was alone.
The corrosive Lightsuit hit the floor half a dozen meters away and blurred toward him. He collapsed the empty shotgun and whipped out a submachinegun of Hyperion make. Roland raised the weapon toward the charging suit and started to fire, only for it to abruptly change direction before he could land more than a couple of hits.
Roland hear a hollow explosion somewhere distant, and then caught the shock Lightsuit streaking toward him out the corner of his eye, its cannon venting coolant and glowing red-hot. The off hand was extended out, and a long, narrow blade of bright blue crystal as extending from the forearm, sparking with electricity.
The former Lancemen knew he wouldn't have time to deflect it or dodge, and he couldn't kill the Lightsuit before it sliced him apart, but he turned and opened fire anyway. Rounds slammed into the Eclipse power armor, and he thought he saw a splash of blood as the Lightsuit filled his vision, looming over him, and the blade rose.
Noise. Force. Pain.
Roland blinked, and found he was sitting on his ass, and the Lightsuit was tumbling overhead in a graceless cartwheel. Lightning flashed past him, gouging holes in the walls and floors and sparking off his shields. A flare of red-gold light erupted before him, wreathing around a feminine silhouette clutching a Maliwan submachinegun, and golden eyes peered down at him.
"'Sup."
The blazing light faded from Lilith's shoulders.
Roland managed a grunt of acknowledgement, and then jumped to his feet. He spun around as the shock Lightsuit clambered up as well, the asari pilot shaking her head.
"I got this one," he snarled, and Lilith chuckled.
"Right then," she said, and turned toward the other suit. "Guess I got the green one then. Let's take 'em."
The pirate shuttle's guns turned to bear on Axton, and he dove for cover behind the same rise that had shielded him from the other pirates. As cover went, it was totally shit, but he didn't have much of a choice.
Machinegun fire tore into rock and dirt, the roar filling Sharjilla's atmopshere, and black rock and yellow dirt went flying. Axton knew he had seconds before it chewed through the rock, and he quickly pulled up the targeting interface for the Sabre turret and reprioritized. A heartbeat later, he could hear the Sabre turret's heavy cannon smash into the shields of the shuttle even over the machinegun's thunder, and the aircraft's fire shifted toward the turret.
"Good girl," he muttered, and Axton jumped up the instant the fire was pulled away. He dashed toward the rocky outcropping ten meters away, but small arms fire slashed toward him, bouncing off his shields. He sprayed blind return fire, emptying the rifle's magazine. Another deep thoom sounded over the landscape, and one of the pirates' weapons cut out with terminal abruptness.
Then the feed from the Sabre cut out, and he snarled a curse. It wasn't lost permanently - even now the gun was deconstructing into digistruct mores and returning to his SDU where it could be recompiled - but the shuttle was whirling back to fire on him now that it had taken out the Sabre.
"Air support inbound," Eyes called over the radio.
A blur of gleaming metal and sparking electricity shot down out of the sky, burst through the shuttle's shields, and tore apart one of the shuttle's guns. Axton managed a smile beneath his helmet as he ran. Overhead, the winged shape that had just hit the shuttle banked and flew up, releasing a mechanical howl, and dove again, slashing into another gun turret.
"I gotcha, Loco!" Vega shouted over the comms, and a new engine howl rolled over the yellow-dusted landscape. Axton dove behind the ridge as the shuttle started to fire, and then a tremendous, bone-rattling crash of ceramic and metal plating struck him. Axton rolled to his feet, reloading, and a moment later the ground shook as both aircraft slammed to the surface.
"That's one way to provide air cover," Axton grunted as he poked the rifle around the side of the ridge.
The pirate shuttle lay in flaming ruins, but another, larger shuttle, painted blue and red, hovered overhead. The painted was scratched and burned, but the heavy ramming prow bolted onto its front was otherwise undamaged. It turned, shields flickering as small arms fire fromt he remaining pirates bounced off it. Another thoom from Eyes' sniper rifle dropped one of the shooters. Only a couple were left now, and they turned to flee back to their outpost.
The winged figure of metal and lightning lanced down from the sky again. Razor claws struck, and the screaming, crunching sound a chainsaw tearing through armor erupted. Both pirates fell, one decapitated and the other twitching violently from the electrical burst that had cut through his body.
The mechanical bird swooped down again, this time more slowly. Axton could see the metallic wings of the deceptively fragile-looking bird of prey, as well as the metal claws and beak that hid armor-piercing drills and chainsaw blades. It cried out, a warbling, mechanical cry of victory.
Nothing moved on the ground, save for the twitching corpse of the last pirate, and the trio's shuttle came around, carefully landing in a somewhat flat spot. The shuttle door hissed open, and a tremendous slab of armor plating that had been sculpted into a humanoid shape tromped down the ramp, holding a Revenant-variant light machinegun in one gigantic hand. The armor was painted a dark blue, but the plates had been scarred and notched, and a hodgepodge of jury-rigged repairs and modifications made the suit look more like a metallic hedgehog covered in scrap than the military-issue hardsuit it had been in a former life.
The bruiser-type human's helmet peeked left and right, then nodded toward Axton as he jogged toward the shuttle.
"Loco, you hit?" James Vega called. Axton shook his head, and then pointed to Dahlia's decapitated corpse.
"That's our rescue objective," he grunted, and started recovering his dropped gear.
"Think we gotta work on our hostage-rescue technique," Vega mused as he walked over and grabbed the body with one hand. He hefted the body as if it weighed nothing and carried it back onto the shuttle. Axton finished grabbing his gear and snatched up a few of the pirates' weapons that his head-up display tagged with green markers, indicating they were more valuable than standard-issue weapons. He collapsed them into the SDU and hurried back onto the shuttle, taking the pilot's chair.
"Hey, I thought I was flying?" Vega asked as he dumped the corpse into the cargo compartment.
"We need to pick up our bird-loving sniper, not ram him," Axton said.
"Oh, haha, Loco," Vega said with a shrug that creaked and clinked a dozen plates together. "Saved your ass, didn't I?"
"And nearly crashed the shuttle too," Axton said, and gave Vega a thumbs-up. "That's what I like to see. We'll make a proper commando out of you yet."
"Its why you hired me, eh, Loco?" Vega said, plopping down into the copilot's chair. "Let's get Eyes and get paid."
"Roger that," Axton said, and the shuttle lifted.
The Eclipse pilots were good, and their Lightsuits were fast, but Roland had hurt them more than he'd thought. The shock-suit's pilot was bleeding, her onboard medical systems were fighting to keep her conscious, and some of the movement and artificial muscle systems were malfunctioning.
And now they were fighting a goddamned Siren.
Roland fired and moved, submachingun blazing out a constant stream of rounds. The Hyperion model was an odd design, but deadly-effective. It used some kind of stabilization technology that absorbed recoil, resulting in the weapon becoming more accurate as it fired. When the shock Lightsuit rose and started to retreat, he caught it with a couple of rounds in the left leg, which caused the suit to stumble. The next twenty-odd bullets hit home, hammering the arms, chest, and legs, and then narrowed their cone of fire to hammer the suit's helmet, neck, and chest.
Blood flowed from punctured plating and rent mechanical-muscle groups, but the moment the weapon's magazine ran empty, the Lightsuit's thrusters fired and it lifted, skittering to one side.
"Beware, corporate dogs! For I, Claptrap, have arrived to-"
And slammed right into Claptrap as he wheeled into the room to join the fight. Both power armored asari and hapless, annoying robot went tumbling, and Roland swapped out magazines with practiced speed as they fell. He ran over to the Lightsuit as the pilot tried to stand, and the ex-Lanceman opened fire into the side of the helmet at less than half a meter.
He held the trigger down, and blue asari blood erupted from the opposite side of the helmet almost instantly. Roland kept firing until the armor collapsed completely.
Claptrap, rising to his wheel, was buried under the dead Lightsuit.
"Oh, come on!" he whined, and began a futile struggle to force the heavy suit off of him. "I just got free and overrode my self-preservation coding with vengeance algorithms to-"
Roland ignored the robot's complaints, instead turning back toward the other, less-damaged Lightsuit as it dueled with Lilith.
It was a constant blur of jetpack plumes and blazing lines of green bullets. It crashed through cubicle walls and vaulted over desks, firing constant bursts of scorching corrosive rounds wherever Lilith appeared. The Eclipse trooper in the Lightsuit was agile, skilled, and desperate; the asari piloting it knew what she was up against.
Lilith didn't have the raw firepower of the Lightsuit, but she had the advantage of being able to ignore irrelevant things like the laws of physics. She blasted her way out of this dimension half a dozen meters away from the Lightsuit, and reappeared an instant later next to it, surrounded by a blast of lightning and force. The Lightsuit leapt away, shields blazing as lightning washed over it, cannon spraying. Lilith was already dashing away, bursts of red-hot incendiary ammunition chasing the juking Lightsuit.
They bounced and blasted around the office, and Roland's sights pursued. The submachinegun burned through ammo, hammering the suit's shields whenever it held still for even a heartbeat. The asari didn't give him much of a chance, but only because Lilith kept the explosive pressure on her.
The Lightsuit launched over the top of a desk, kicking it toward Lilith. She vanished in another burst of Siren bullshit superpowers, and reappeared next to the suit. The asari hurled herself back and up, swinging her cannon around to fire, and Roland led the Eclipse trooper's leap. The submachinegun chattered out thirty-plus rounds that tore through augmented muscle fiber and heavy plating. Asari blood sprayed out of the suit's exit wounds.
She hit the floor and rolled, armor slick with her blood, and Lilith closed. Fire erupted around her body, stretching back over her shoulders like a pair of wings. Dark energy poured down the Siren's off hand, and she pumped it through her fingertips into the back of the Lightsuit's helmet.
The Lightsuit toppled and rolled away in a clatter of battered ceramics, the operator's head little more than a bloody smear.
Lilith stared at the corpse for a moment, and took a long, sharp breath, before chuckling to herself, the flames burning around her dying away. She turned toward Roland and gave him a thumbs-up, and he only nodded. His adrenaline was still pumping from the battle, but he knew he'd feel the exhaustion the moment it vanished.
"Roland, you hurt?" Lilith asked, and he shook his head.
"We'd better get out of here," he said. "How did you-"
The shuttle they'd arrived on trundled down into sight, scraping the wall near one of the windows the Lightsuits had smashed through.
"That's my ride," she said. "Made a friend while I was out. He's got an interesting proposition for us."
"Let me get Claptrap and we'll head out," Roland said, one part weary and another part interested. A job, already?
"Clappy's here?" Lilith asked, and he heard both comprehension and apprehension in her voice. Couldn't blame her for the latter, but they owed the little bot for helping them get this far. He crouched next to the prone, struggling robot and hauled the suit off him.
"You have my eternal thanks and favor, friend of friends!" Claptrap cheered as he hopped back up onto his wheel. Roland nodded, still confused as to precisely how Claptrap could be so maneuverable while still being this clumsy.
"Let's get on board before Illium police show up and start asking some serious questions," he told the robot.
"Righty-o!"
The trio clambered onto the lowered ramp of the shuttle, and it peeled away with only a few terrifying lurches, carrying them away from the smoldering ruins of the office above Eternity.
Bloodwing followed the implanted tracker in her skull, navigating through two kilometers of broken Sharjilla hills and plains, the shuttle following her back toward her partner.
"So, where we headed?" James asked over the radio as the cybernetically-augmented bird of prey descended, her electrical generators retracted into her body. An arm reached up, and she settled lightly onto the thickly-armored limb.
"Illium," Axton said. "We're supposed to deliver Dahlia back to her sister."
"Minus her head, huh?" Vega asked.
The figure below collapsed the heavy Jakobs sniper rifle back into digistruct space and ran a finger on his three-digit hand across her back. Tactile sensors in her own augments would translate it into a scratch, and the cybernetic bird let out a pleased warble.
"My fault," Eyes replied. "But I gather we were supposed to do that anyway."
"Hey, you could have shot her anytime," Axton said as she shuttle descended and the ramp opened.
"Exactly," Eyes replied with a chuckle, and started up the ramp. "I had to judge just when to shoot her. Pick the wrong time, and it just wouldn't be dramatic enough."
"Heh," James cut in. "Thought Loco here was about to piss himself when she had that gun to his head."
"Besides," Eyes added as he sat down inside the shuttle, and the doors sealed. "It wasn't my terrible plan that nearly got me shot in the face by our mark." He glance dto Axton. "You had to figure someone wouldn't fall for the 'Open the box of candy' plan at some point."
"Right, right," Axton said. He glanced at the screen. "We're still clear. They haven't launched yet. Dahlia was telling the truth when her fighters were down for repairs." The pressurization light went on, and they started taking off their helmets while ascending into the sky.
Axton had brown hair, sculpted good looks, and dark brown eyes. A rank implant was installed just above his left eye, showing a triangle over two bars, indicating that he'd been a sergeant before Dahl decided he was too crazy even for their Marines.
James Vega, despite his looming physique, looked surprisingly normal, not possessing the grotesque features that most abhumans possessed: strong features, maybe even handsome if one looked past the myriad scars, with a large nose, black hair, and slashing tattooes cutting up the sides of his neck.
The turian peered at the two humans with cold blue eyes, dark blue markings running down the cartilage of his face just below his eyes and mandibles. The turian's skin was the typical gray-green tint of their species, and he wore a visor over his left eye, partially shielding it from view. Bloodwing took up a position on his shoulder, the seals on her own armor popping out and retracting to expose the feathers of the parts that were still flesh and blood.
"Besides," Axton said, "Don't tell me you didn't think this way was a lot more fun?"
"I wish the ops were planned better," Garrus Vakarian said, scratching Bloodwing again. "But I work with a pair of humans, so I suppose I get what I deserve."
"I'm hoping we actually get paid for this run," Vega said, nodding toward the compartment holding the corpse.
"Oh, we're getting paid," Axton said. "One way or the other, Nasanna Dantius is paying us back for this."
"And then we raise a few on a planet filled with asari, right?" Vega asked.
"Damn straight."
"Okay," Roland said. "So I think we can agree on two things: Maliwan has what we need to find the actual Vault, and they want us all dead."
A chorus of agreements sounded around the shuttle's cargo bay. Roland looked over the eclectic bunch: crazy Siren, crazy Siren-and-Eridian obsessed scientist, and mentally-unstable robot. He suppressed a sigh; he really wished Ash and Reiss were still here.
Lilith had given him the short version on Conrad Verner's plan, after he had given them the short version of why he'd been in a lunatic gun battle with a full squad of Eclipse thugs.
"And those thugs were almost certainly Maliwan sanctioned," Conrad said. "Lightsuits are restricted to Maliwan security. They could be stolen, but no Eclipse team on Illium would operate them without Maliwan approval. Not if they didn't want to get crushed by Nassana's biotics and stuffed into a jar to be put on her desk."
"How . . . how many jars of biotically liquefied people does she have on her desk?" Lilith asked.
"You know, I never really counted," Conrad said with a thoughtful frown.
"Back on subject," Roland said. "Lilith, were you seriously thinking of hitting Maliwan's labs for this Vault intel?"
"Sure," she replied. The air heated up around her by a fraction, and her smile was positively vulpine. "I was going to see if you guys were interested in coming with."
"I've got nothing to do now," Roland said, and paused. It was true, but did he really want to go Vault-hunting? For theoretically massive amounts of wealth and technology, to become legendary and famous across the galaxy? More likely than not, he'd get killed on some backwater hunting a myth, if he didn't get shot down here on Illium going up against Maliwan.
But he really didn't have anything better to do. Hell, Atlas already wanted him dead, and he'd bet that Hyperion had it out for him too after stealing that beacon. Maliwan already wanted to kill him too, and that just to get to Lilith. Might as well take professional enmity and turn it personal.
"Man, this is a screwed up situation," he murmured.
"What?" Lilith asked.
"I'm in," he said, much more clearly. "But there's just you and me, plus Claptrap and Conrad." He crossed his arms and shook his head. "We'll need help."
That was when all of their ECHO devices flickered, and displayed the black-haired, odd-looking face of the hacker who had saved him at Eternity. Or at least, Roland guessed they saw her, because he saw everyone flinch or raise their eyebrows in surprise - even Claptrap jerked and let out a yelp.
"I can help you with that," Roland's guardian angel said.
On the opposite side of the galaxy, "Handsome" Jack Harper threw back a glass of brandy, settled back into his chair, and started laughing.
Codex - Weapons and Technology - Turrets
Personal turret systems are automated, semi-intelligent, VI-driven weapons platforms designed to be deployed tactically by individual soldiers to provide fire support and protection on the battlefield. The majority of turret systems are designed for short-term operations, and due to their compact nature they have limited ammunition and power supply. Turrets are often limited to specialist units, although certain forces have made lighter, inexpensive variants standard-issue among their infantry.
Most turrets use digistruct technology, residing within a specialized storage deck unit until deployed. They are also specially keyed to the storage deck unit, so that when critically damaged or destroyed, the SDU will automatically break down the damaged system, transport it back to digistruct space, and effect immediate repairs. For this reason, most turrets are designed to be as simple as possible, expediting the reassembly process. Some turret systems, however, are flash-fabricated by omnitools. These "fire-and-forget" turrets use mass accelerator technology, and are usually highly compact and can be deployed in very cramped spaces, at an even greater expense of firepower and longevity.
Turrets are typically carried only by specially-trained engineers and commandos. The precise capabilities of these turrets vary from one military to another. Hyperion soldiers use lightweight turrets loaded with disruptor and shock elemental rounds. Crimson Lance engineers use simplistic Scorpio turrets that have an integrated shield system, and some variants include Insta-Health deployment systems, or linked SDU ammunition supply capability. Dahl Corporation Marines employ the heavily-armed Sabre model, which can mount "longbow" spatial displacement technology, shield systems, attached secondary guns or missiles, or even a nova system to clear an area immediately upon deployment. Alliance Marines favor omnitool-forged turrets that can be thrown like grenades, giving them greater tactical viability.
Author's Notes: I decided that, hey, why can only Hyperion and Atlas be badguys, when the setting already has all these other jerks to shoot? So, after some speculation, I went with Eclipse/Maliwan, especially considering that we're already on Illium. All of their equipment is highly speculative, of course, but i decided to go with something sitting somewhere between a Tau battlesuit and the nanosuits from Crysis. The Lightsuits are essentially the elite infantry of the Maliwan forces, akin to something between the Lance's Badass troopers and their Devastators. We'll be seeing more of what they can do in upcoming chapters. Also, I made Bloodwing cybernetic because it would actually give Bloodwing the ability to be deployed on hostile worlds, on top of actually giving her a good reason to employ elemental tech. Plus the possibility of eye lasers.
Until next chapter . . . .