"Stay back! Or I'll... I'll." The girl looked exhausted.
"She doesn't look so good." Tom said.
"Seanne, can you hear me?"
"How do you know my name?"
"I saved your brother, he's with Kahlee Sanders at security, can you make it back?"
"Yes, I can, thank you for helping me, I'm just going to rest for a minute."
Kahlee Sanders contacted Shepard as soon as he exited the hallway where Seanne was.
"Shepard, can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear."
"I just received an emergency message from the students holed up in Orion hall, an instructor is with them, but they won't be able to hold out much longer."
"We're almost there, we'll be able to assist soon."
An intercom activated and instead of the Cerberus announcer who's announcements were getting increasingly annoying Kahlee Sanders was on, which was likely to give the students a beacon of hope. The next door actually was the entrance to Orion hall, which was convenient since Shepard had no idea how close he and his squad were to said hall.
"Jack?" Shepard asked, surprise evident in his tone, of all places this was the least likely place Shepard would've expected Jack to be.
"Shepard?" Jack was about to say more, but she had to rush to another student who was about to be shot by a Cerberus Atlas.
"Everyone get up stairs this thing's outta your league, Shepard keep this thing off us!" Jack as she ran up the stairs along with three other students.
"Garrus, Tom, Kaiden use overload on that Atlas!" Shepard shouted before gunning down a Cerberus trooper.
The combined efforts of three overloads at once effectively halved the shield strength of the Atlas, but then it retaliated by firing a missile which pinned down Kaiden and Tom.
"Kaiden, keep that Atlas distracted, I'm going to cloak and flank it!" Tom said.
"I got you covered!" He shouted back before hitting the Atlas with another overload.
Kaiden did a pretty decent job distracting the Atlas, so the Cerberus guy inside didn't notice when there was one less guy in cover.
Tom had a pretty devious plan. His cloak lasted just long enough for him to get to where Garrus and Shepard were, they were both pinned down by an engineer with his turret and several Centurions.
"Hey uh, Shepard can I borrow a grenade?"
"Why do you need a grenade?"
"You'll see in a few seconds, just please give me one, I assure you it's for a good cause."
"I don't doubt that, I just don't want this grenade to be wasted."
"It won't be, you'll see, bye!" Tom cloaked again after that statement. He ran all the way across the battlefield and got behind the Atlas mech, the machine's shields had finally gone down after four overloads from Kaiden, making it easy for Tom to pulled the pin on the grenade and stuff it in the power generator thing on it's back. The resulting explosion was huge, creating a massive fireball.
The fight immeditely tipped in Shepard's favor after this as the turrent the engineer had set up couldn't shoot two groups of people at once and, after about twenty seconds got destroyed because it couldn't take the combined fire of four hyper lethal soldiers. The engineer and two Cerberus troopers that were still alive were easily killed when their fire support was stolen from them.
Right after that a door opened on the left and several more Cerberus soliders piled on into the room, the reinforcements had arrived a little late to help their friends, there were no Centurions among them, which made them easy pickings for a skilled sniper, and everyone in the squad except Kaiden was armed with one, so you could image how the resulting firefight went.
The Cerberus squad got slaughtered, their squad was destroyed slowly as the troops died one by one, most of them died by sniper rifle head shots, but Kaiden did sneak a kill or two in there, Tom was glad when it was over, he was low on ammo.
"Kahlee said she was putting out an SOS, and I didn't think the king of the boy scouts would show up." Jack seemed very happy to see Shepard, she didn't miss a beat with her students though. "Alright, amp check! Prangley those fields were weak! Cerberus is going to lie down and let you take them like the girl you took out to prom. Now grab some juice and an energy bar, we move in five." Jack jumped off the balcony after that and went up to Shepard, and then she punched him in the face.
"This is what you get when you trust Cerberus, Shepard."
"You think I didn't notice Jack? I was only working with Cerberus, not for them, and Tom here would vouch for me secretly not trusting Cerberus, believe me when I say that me and him have had several discussions of why Cerberus is a terrible organization."
"I kinda will vouch for him, still good to see you though, Jack."
"Oh hey Tom, still hiding behind on those fancy gadgets that make you useful?" Tom inwardly sighed, but hey, this was to be expected, Jack hadn't changed a bit.
"Anyway, right now all I care about is getting my guys out of here."
"Your guys?"
She chuckled. "Yeah I guess so."
"I guess it's nice to see you've turned over a new leaf, did my leadership rub off on you?" Shepard smirked at the last part of that sentence.
"Well, while you were off playing hero the Alliance brass sought me out, they offered me this position after I demonstrated what I was capable of, and apparently my students responded well to my teaching style."
"The psychotic biotic." One of the students said cheerfully.
"I will destroy you!" Another one said.
Tom wasn't listening however, Section had just decided to start talking, he still hadn't gotten a synthesized voice yet, but that was partially for the best, it would be a little hard to explain to a passersby if his Omni-tool suddenly started talking.
You know, if you could get some medigel I could help gradually introduce it into your body if you were shot while your shields were down.
Tom muted the microphone on his helmet, he didn't want to sound insane to his fellow squad mates. "I might be able to get some, but only if no one else needs it since I don't want to take some if Shepard can get his hands on it since he would probably do more good with it then I would."
You would only need a four vials of it to stop a body wide injury. I searched the extranet and it seems that even a small vial can stop the bleeding of a wound that is significantly bigger, so do try and find some if you can.
"We'll see Section, you were a little quiet on my last mission, were you uh, thinking or something? I don't know how you 'think' so don't quote me, what were you doing?"
I was running extranet searchs, deliberating with EDI an-
"Wait a second, you were having a discussion with EDI? How the hell did she even know that you were on my Omni-tool?"
It was simple really, she sought me out after our discussion with Shepard in the cabin, it's fascinating to meet another AI, it was nice to talk to someone that wasn't slow.
"Hey! I'm not slow, I'm a prodigy in computer sciences, don't call me slow."
Well, you organics process things much slower then that of an AI, that's not teasing, it's a fact.
"Well that may be true but don't be snobbish about it like that, I understand that it is actually a fact, but it's an organic thing, I would've considered that an insult, search that up real fast and you will know what I mean. This converstation is over anyway, Shepard just got done talking to Jack, and I'll see if I can get some medi-gel, alright talk to you in a bit."
Tom un-muted his microphone right after that. He also found four spare thermal clips lying around from some dead Cerberus guys.
"Alright gentlemen, our job is to get these students out of here, but I'm sure you've already heard me talking to Jack so I'll skip the details, just stay here, I'm going to go re open the door you see behind me." Shepard jogged upstairs where he released the lock on the door.
"Shepard, we'll go up above on the catwalk while you draw their fire down there, you better do your jobs too or I'm kicking all of your asses!" Yep, classic Jack. Shepard came back downstairs quickly after that.
"You heard the lady, let's move!" Shepard could really be a drill Sargent sometimes.
The next room was a pretty neat looking one, it was huge in scale, it look like a park on Earth or something, complete with grass, several walkways and a small river that cut off the room into two sections, although there was a smaller room on the side that connected the two parts of the bigger room. Tom hated this part of the mission because the Atlas on the other side of the room would have you pinned down while the Guardians would close in on you from both sides, fortunately Shepard was using his head.
"Tom, activate your tactical cloak and flank those Guardians, Garrus keep their heads down with that sniper rifle of yours, and Kaiden... on me, now get into position people!"
The tactical cloak was a huge help in killing the Guardians as they couldn't see Tom at all, and it was easy as pie to get back stabs since the Guardians only had a pistol and not an assault rifle so they didn't put as many rounds down range as a standard Assault trooper did, but he still avoiding sprinting right in their line of fire as their pistols were deadly at close range. He killed around 4 Guardians and an Engineer, he could only get stab kills as using a gun would break his cloak, and although he got a pretty significant damage when breaking from cloak to attack he would be right in the line of sight of the Atlas so he didn't risk it, Garrus got several head shots and got a lucky kill on a Guardian because the guy was stupid enough to walk over a proximity mine.
Shepard and Kaiden were a really good team as they had all the powers at their disposal, Kaiden had some tech and biotic powers while Shepard had all the guns, there was also the added bonus of Jack's squad of students who would be able to throw an occasional warp down range which would force some troopers to combat roll out of cover where they were easy pickings for Shepard, Kaiden or Garrus.
The battle took a lot longer then a lot of the previous ones, mainly because the Cerberus soldiers were at near platoon strength, but half of their squad was at the unreachable other side of the room so it was easier then expected.
"Great job team, now let's get to the other side of the room and deal with those engineers and Atlas mech." Shepard said.
Inside the small room were a couple of things, some computers, an armor piece which Shepard made a beeline to almost immediately and a box containing medigel.
"Is anyone taking this?" Tom said out loud.
"I've got a full capacity of medigel, you can take that." Shepard said.
"Thanks." Inside were three vials of a blue gel, and another vial with a white fluid inside of it.
Insert the vials in these sections of your body, I've highlighted them on the diagram on your HUD.
There were two slots on the sides of his legs, and two on his back. They fit in the slots easily as Section sealed the medical injection points.
If you are shot I can now provide a dose of medi-gel to various parts of your body, headshots are still lethal however, you are not invincible.
"Tom cloak and scout ahead, I have no idea what they've set up out there." Shepard ordered.
"I'll check now, someone here has to exit with me however, because a door opening and closing would seem pretty suspicious.
"I'll roll into cover as soon as the door opens." Kaiden offered.
"Good idea, keep your tech armor up, I don't want any casualties, I'd rather put my own life on the line then any of yours." Shepard said.
"I'm ready when you are, Kaiden." Tom said through the comms."
"I'm opening in 3...2...1...NOW!"
Kaiden got into cover immediately, but even in that one moment his shields got cut down by 20% as several turrets honed in on his position, his cover was pretty solid though, so he was safe, for at the moment at least.
"They've got like three turrets and an Atlas mech, but they don't have any Centurions, they have one Guardian and several Assault troopers, and a a lot of engineers, plus they can shoot you from a level above so be aware of that, Kaiden you're still fine however as they can't get a good angle since a guard rail is blocking their line of sight."
"Copy that Tom, your orders are to cause chaos on the upper level and prevent them from gaining a height advantage." Shepard commanded expertly.
"Will do Commander, I'm moving now."
It was very easy to get to the second level as everyone was focused on Shepard, Kaiden and Garrus as they laid down suppressing fire and kept most of the troopers from focusing on anything else.
He killed three soldiers with back stabs before anyone even knew he was there, the remaining engineers fought back, and Tom found himself pinned down right at the entrance to the next hallway. He killed one while the guy was setting up a turret with an overload which caused the machine to blow up in his face, the second guy died to a Widow round to the face and the third guy wasn't watching his flank and got shot by Garrus who capitalized on the engineer's exposed backside.
There weren't any troopers left after that last engineer, there was just one turret and the Atlas which was taking heavy fire. Tom easily dealt with the turret as he had Section hack the thing to turn it on the Atlas until it severely damaged the mech, and then Section set it to self destruct.
"Good work team, let's keep moving, we're doing great so far." Shepard said.
A/N: I actually loved the Grissom academy mission, it's probably one of favorite missions in the entirety of the series, I hope the people that enjoy the action got a kick out of this chapter, as there's more of that coming! I decided to start including Section a bit more because he's a bit of a wildcard, and I like writing about those kinds of things. This is an early post because I feel like some of you guys just can't wait for the next one, I hope you enjoy this chapter, as I've got lots more coming.
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