The former Ravenor shaman Krell had been tracked to a Blood Pack base on one of the moons of Vaul, the sixth planet in the Aralakh system. The Deserts Tears (along with several other mercenary ships) had ferried close to three hundred Ravenor warriors to the large, dusty moon of Jurge. Karla was honour bound from asking for payment as she was part of Brek's Krantt but Kelron, Claire and Shrub had all been promised a not untidy fee for their help. The crew of the Tears had their first mercenary contract.
One of the larger merc vessels had placed a small cluster of interlinked prefab units on the moons surface which quickly became command HQ.
Initially the arrangement had been rather straight forward. The chief (who's name Karla still hadn't learnt) had wanted to simply roll up to the gate of the Blood Pack's bunker and start shooting but had quickly amended that plan when his scouts told him about the turrets and landmines.
That had been seven hours ago and the Krogan were starting to loose momentum even as the mercs began to loose interest.
The chief had been holed up with his Krantt and several mercenary lieutenants for much of that time, it was nothing that Brek or Karla could get involved in.
Eventually the word came through: apparently while they had been sitting around twiddling their thumbs the Ravenor scouts had been busy blowing up turret emplacements and disarming landmines. They were finally ready to head out.
Karla sucked in the first breath of cool, clinical, air from her hardsuit tanks as she secured the neck seal on her TACC death mask.
Next to her Claire and Brek were doing the same with their helmets.
She checked the load on her vindicator assault rifle for a third and finally time: ammo block loaded, warp ammunition applied, redundant heat sinks installed. Satisfied she turned to Claire who was securing the safety on her predator pistol.
"Are you sure I can't get you something heavier than that?"
Obviously Karla couldn't see Claire's expression through her helmet but she could hear the nervous smile in her voice.
"Not unless you have a mantis sniper rifle hidden under that jacket." She said, pointing to the green leather jacket that Karla was stubbornly wearing over her hardsuit.
"I don't see any pockets in this armour so where else am I going to keep all my grenades?"
"Are you sure it's safe to carry that many grenades, what if you get hit in the pocket?" This was clearly not the kind of thing that would ever bother Karla as she answered: 'Die in a really spectacular way.' No doubt Claire had more reservations but she would never get a chance to air them as at that moment Shrub entered the cramped airlock chamber they were all currently crammed into. Karla left her and bounding up to the gasmask wearing Salarian.
"Shrub do the thing." Karla said and stuck her arm at him.
"The thing?" He asked wearily.
"Download Athame from the ship to my combat drone."
Shrub sighed, took Karla's arm and began fiddling with her Omni-tool.
After several seconds a life size orange holographic human with a punky hairdo and a pair of welding goggles materialized before them.
"What's up boss?" It said.
Karla ignored it, giggling excitedly.
"Alright everybody ready? Let's go." At her word Brek hauled the hatch aside and they stepped past him into the airless plain beyond. Other than brown dust the only thing between them and the horizon was a makeshift landing ground housing all the motley shuttles and gunships that the Krogan strike force had been able the muster up. Kelron was waving from the hatch of their nimble Dar'shi about a hundred metres away. Upon walking up to him they found three fully suited Krogan already there.
"Friends of yours?" Asked Kelron dryly. Brek stomped up to them and began exchanging greetings, as did Karla, grunting with the best of them. Kelron walked up behind Shrub and Claire, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. They nearly jumped out of their suits.
"Don't worry so much you two, me and Karla are here to do the heavy lifting, just stick to your areas of expertise. You will be brought forward if we need something hacked or to be hold where to go, in the meantime try to keep your heads down and kill the odd krogan."
"Thanks Kel." Said Shrub with a pained wince.
The assault began at thirteen hundred hours. The mercenary ships in orbit pooled their firepower to punch through the shield blanketing the enemy base. At thirteen eleven a group of rag tag transports, each carrying between ten and thirty Krogan soldiers, swooped down on the base from the west.
The transports disgorged troops onto the Blood Pack's doorstep while laying down withering covering fire. A team of elites under Battlemaster Norn braved the gun slits at the entrance and detonated shaped charges that completely destroyed the main gate. Norn's team suffered no casualties.
Kelron brought the shuttle banking around at a height of about five metres as Karla hung perilously out of the back hatch, spraying obscenities and cluster grenades out onto what was quickly becoming a pitched battle below.
"Bring us down we have to get into the base." No sooner had they touched down then shots began pranging off of the shuttles kinetic barriers. Karla didn't wait for the others to unbuckle themselves, she hopped out of the hatch almost before it touched the sand. She riddled first Krogan she saw with warp rounds from her rifle, shunted a pair of Vorcha aside with a biotic throw then sprinted for the gate.
"Captain wait!" Kelron shouted after her but she was gone."
Karla wasn't worried. Kelron could take care of himself and he would die before letting any harm come to his crewmates.
She streaked through the chaotic melee, zigzagging frantically until she reached the decimated gates. Similar to the Ravenor fort on Tuchanka a square tunnel sloped away from her. Krogan and Vorcha bodies littered the tunnel floor, Norn's elite squad had been through here. As she set off down the passage a couple of heavy, low velocity bullets pinged off her barrier. Expertly combat rolling to the side she retreated to the shelter of the archway and keyed her Omni-tool.
"Athame hold them off." The artificial woman nodded cheerfully then turned towards the battle outside, firing incapacitating overload pulses at anything that came its way. Confident that nothing was about to shoot her in the back again she continued on into the belly of the bunker.
Following the grizzly signs of Norn's passing brought her to the end of a broad corridor where Norn himself was ordering his men to affix chunky demo charges to a set of imposing blast doors blocking their progress.
"Norn. You've been busy." The Krogan with stripes painted on his upper arm turned towards her and laughed harshly.
"These Blood Pack whelps are pathetic, barely worth killing. This Krell though he's dangerous. Too cunning. A shaman should be a conduit of bloodlust."
"Is he back there?" Asked Karla, nodding towards the blast door.
"Uh huh, not sure what he's planning. One of my men is ex Blood Pack and he says that there's not much back there so there's a good chance he's alone."
"Well lets get in there and kill this guy then." She could almost hear Kelron's voice in the back of her head warning her not to be overconfident but she didn't care. Besides she planned on keeping Norn between her and Krell if possible.
"Breach!" Warned one of the Battlemaster's men. Karla ducked behind a support strut an deactivated her death masks audio sensors. The vibrations of the blast sent flakes of paint and small chunks of concrete tumbling from the ceiling. It also caved in the half metre thick metal doors, creating a path to the inner sanctum. Norn's team fanned out into the chamber with Karla following behind.
The room was low ceilinged and perfectly round with more than half the circumference being given over to glass plating that gave a sweeping vista of Jurge's surface. Presumably shutters where meant to be drawn over this observation room but the fighting hadn't spread to this side of the hill. A thick pall of smoke could be seen from the direction of the battle however.
A lone figure was silhouetted against this gloomy backdrop. Krell was sitting cross legged on the floor at the centre of the bare chamber.
"On your feet traitor!" Barked Norn. Krell rose slowly as the other Krogan encircled him.
"I know you Ravenor Norn, I presided over your rite of passage, let us be allies against the Reapers." Krell's voice was so deep that it was actually a little hard to understand.
"I won't go along with any plan that involves killing our chief and attacking our strongest enemy before we have built up our strength. That's just stupid."
Krell glowered, lowering his green head plate in Norn's direction.
"Dresh was acting short sighted, just like you. Please Norn do not take the side of the machines against the future of the Krogan people."
Norn said nothing for a long moment then:
"Take him."
Before his men could obey Krell flexed and sent out some sort of biotic burst that pulled them all towards him. Norn and Karla resisted with their own biotics but both lost their weapons to the pull field. Instinctively Karla threw out a biotic attack of her own.
"No! They're primed!" Yelled Norn desperately.
In that fraction of a second Karla's minds eye was pulled back to miss T'relar's applied biotics class some three hundred years ago.
'And remember that certain biotic fields can react violently to fields of differing alignment.' She had said.
"Oh fuck." Karla whispered as her attack clipped one of the tumbling soldiers.
The resultant biotic detonation was even more violent than the explosives they had used to gain entry. As she had not rushed to surround Krell Karla was the furthest away and so took the least of it, even so she was thrown against the window hard enough to crack the glass. More than a little dazed she looked up to see that Krell was still on his feet, swaying but awake. How strong had his barriers been? Of the Ravenor warriors only Norn was still moving and by the time he was up it would be far too late for him to help.
Robbed of her precious vindicator Karla lunged with her knife. She concentrated and used her biotics to increase the force of the blow to something on par to a charging Elcor on steroids.
Krell didn't even try to dodge he just pushed forward into the thrust and let the eight inch blade bury itself in his abdomen. A gush of orange ichor sprayed onto Karla's jacket before the Krogan slammed into her and sent her flying.
She impacted the already weakened Plexiglas of the window for a second time and didn't stop. Strangely crashing through the glass didn't hurt much, smashing into the sand on the ground outside did. The winded Asari barely had time to sit up and brush the glass shards off herself before Krell came thundering out after her, crumpling the remaining glass before him like tinfoil. He was seemingly oblivious to the toxic air.
There was a glazed look in his grey eyes that filled her with genuine fear. 'Blood rage.' She thought.
Extending her right hand she threw out a glowing blue projectile that curved in the air and caught the enraged Krogan mid-charge, blasting him to the side.
Having bought herself a brief reprieve Karla took a few seconds to try and formulate a strategy. Trap him? Bait him with taunts? Contact the Deserts Tears and have an airstrike called down? None of them seemed like particularly good ideas.
Krell had regained his feet.
"I'll rip out your spine and shove it down your throat!" He frothed.
'Right, all or nothing then.'
Again he mindlessly charged and again she marshaled her biotics, throwing out the strongest warp field she was capable of. He roared as the blue flames engulfed him, pealing off layers of skin and corroding his dermal plates. It wasn't enough.
Karla backpedaled madly but he was on her.
He punched her in the sternum and she went down. Something was broken.
Snorting like a deranged animal he pulled the knife out of his own stomach with a grunt and advanced on her squirming form menacingly.
The warp field was still doing its gruesome work on his body, his skull was now visible under his skin. If he survived this he would need some serious surgery.
"Kill you!" he slurred having lost the use of his lips.
He brought the knife down in an arc. In that moment Karla's survival instinct overrode the pain in her chest, she grabbed Krell's wrists and they began a silent struggle for dominance. It wasn't really a contest. Krell weighted as much as three Karlas and was powered by his blood rage. Slowly she started to loose control. Her arms began to shake and it inched towards her face.
Finally her elbows buckled and the blade plunged down, burying itself in the right eye socket of her helmet even as Krell crumbled in a charred heap on top of her.
She screamed, balled until her lungs were raw, but heard nothing.
Darkness enveloped her as completely as the shadow of death.