Chapter 4: For Fools Rush In...
We made it back to the shuttle and back to the Normandy without any other incidents. Which, for me, is saying something.
Man, do I lead a sad life or what?
"Why don't I find you a place to sleep?" I asked after we landed.
"Thank you Shepard, but that isn't necessary," Liara declined. "Like I said, it won't take us long to get to the Shadow Broker's base, and I have too much on my mind to sleep anyway."
I should explain that.
Sekat's data indicated that the Shadow Broker's main base of operations was a ship that hid amidst the atmosphere of Hagalaz, a planet located in one of the systems of the Hourglass Nebula. "Get something to eat, at least," I pleaded.
"In time," she said, waving me off. "First, I need to visit your tech lab. And your armoury."
"'Tech lab'," I echoed. "What for?"
"I want to see if Dr. Solus has any biotic amp schematics that I haven't come across," Liara explained. "Anything better than what I have, that is."
"And you want to see if the armoury has any better weapons," I guessed.
"I know it does," she replied. "I saw the Locusts you were carrying."
That's right: back on Illium, she was packing a Tempest. A very good weapon in general. Heck, I would've used it if I hadn't picked up the Locust—which had better long-range accuracy and virtually no recoil—first. "And then you'll get something to eat," I pressed.
"Of course," Liara said. "I can't kill the Shadow Broker on an empty stomach."
Of course.
Most of the squad had left by then, but Miranda and Samara were still hanging around. I tilted my head towards Liara, who had just left the cargo bay. "Thoughts?"
Miranda frowned. "I sensed a certain desire for vengeance when she... retrieved your body. It's a bit alarming how quickly that desire has grown." (1)
"She does have a certain intensity about her," Samara agreed. "A need for vengeance, yes, but also atonement. In many ways, she reminds me of myself when I first began my training to become a justicar."
"Is that a compliment?" I asked.
"An observation," Samara replied. "And, perhaps, a cautionary note. The path of a justicar is a noble road, but also a lonely one. Liara is walking a similar path, but without the benefit or comfort of the Code."
So even our resident justicar was concerned about Liara's present state of mind.
Wonderful.
Liara was right. Once we exited the Hourglass Nebula mass relay, it only took seven or eight hours to reach the Sowilo system, and another twenty minutes to reach Hagalaz. There wasn't much point in having a formal briefing before our departure, so we just held an impromptu one in the shuttle instead. "We all know why we're here," I started once we left the shuttle bay. "Unfortunately, there's a lot we don't know. We don't know the layout of the place. We don't know what kind of defences the Shadow Broker has. We don't know how many guards he has."
"But given that this is his primary base of operations, from which he commands his entire network of spies and operatives, it's safe to say there will be a lot of guards," Miranda said.
"Don't forget all the mercs we faced on Illium," Garrus added. "At least that gives us some idea of what we might be up against."
"Agreed," I nodded. "We won't be going in completely blind. Plus, Liara and EDI have managed to dig up some intel on Hagalaz. Liara?"
"Hagalaz: a second-tier garden world that had a brief surge of mining activity in the early to mid 2000s."
"Only a brief surge?" Tali asked. "What happened?"
"It is known for the intense heat on one side of the planet and extreme cold on the other. As a result, the oceans boil during the day, then snap-freeze ten minutes after sundown. Needless to say, mining activity petered out as other planets with more accessible resources—and less hostile environments—were discovered."
"The Shadow Broker lives in this?" Jacob marveled.
"He does," Liara confirmed. "The temperature differential creates a constant lightning storm where the hot and cold air collide. That's where the ship is located, following the sunset. It's completely undetectable in the midst of the storm, unless you know where to look."
"Now that's a cool security system," Kasumi declared.
"Glad you approve," I said wryly.
"How do you propose to get inside?" Thane asked. "Can we gain access via the shuttle bay?"
Liara shook her head. "No, the shuttle bay is locked down via a stand-alone terminal that's isolated from the rest of the mainframe or the extranet. We'll need to land on the ship and hunt for an access hatch."
"So I hope the mag-locks on your boots still work," I added, "'cause we're going EVA." (2)
"But we'll have to hurry," Liara warned. "The lightning storms would make it unwise to stay outside for long."
"No sightseeing. Got it," Kasumi quipped.
At that point, the shuttle touched down. I got up and opened the hatch, motioning for the squad to get out. Once the last squadmate disembarked, the hatch closed and the shuttle lifted off, returning to the Normandy.
Liara was already scanning our surroundings. "It's hard to pinpoint in all this lightning, but I'm picking up signals from a communications array near the back of the ship," she reported.
That might be a good place to start, I thought. Given all the lightning and strong winds blowing about, there was bound to be an access hatch near the comm array. Besides, it would be easy to orient ourselves in the right direction: the majority of the ship—or base or whatever—was relatively flat. The aft section was configured in a roughly concave shape, flaring above and below the rest of the ship. So all we had to do was move towards the ersatz cliff face looming over us and we'd be more or less in the right area.
"I don't suppose there's another access hatch around here somewhere?" I asked hopefully.
"Already checked," Zaeed butted in. "Nothin' round here but maintenance equipment and other crap. Best bet to get inside is to head aft."
"Aft it is," I decided. "Let's go. And keep your eyes peeled: someone could detect us at any time."
I soon discovered that the first obstacle we faced wasn't a pack of mercs, but the unevenness of the 'terrain.' While there were areas built into the ship's hull for people to travel, they weren't exactly set up in nice, straight lines. I led the squad aft for a bit before reaching a large, ersatz cliff that I couldn't climb over. Looking around, I had a choice of heading to port—where a set of large panels, crackling with energy, were wobbling perilously—or starboard, where a declining slope led towards a flat section of the hull that led aft. Not surprisingly, I chose the latter.
We had to clamber over a curved hull plate, but otherwise it was smooth sailing. Until we ran into the drones.
"Combat drones," I warned as they floated towards us.
"No, they're maintenance drones," Liara corrected me.
"Then why are they attacking us?" I asked, after receiving a very unpleasant shock.
"They must think we're debris from the storm!" Liara hypothesized.
"And their idea of clearing debris was to zap it to death?"
"It would appear so."
"Swell."
The only consolation was that the small swarm of drones, and the one we bumped into a minute later, didn't put up much of a fight. We didn't even have to waste that many bullets. Plus, I managed to salvage a few conductor components after the last drone went kaput.
After that little bit of looting, we headed up a ramp to a catwalk. The catwalk had railings on either side with at half-walls protruding out at regular intervals. What caught my eye were the two large structures at the end of the catwalk, one on either side. As we watched, a lightning bolt struck the ship. Specifically, it struck the structures, which suddenly started crackling with energy. I belatedly realized that they were capacitors of some sort, designed to absorb any stray lightning that hit the ship.
"Careful," Liara warned. "Those capacitors might be delicate. The slightest impact could discharge whatever energy they absorbed."
Something else caught my eye. Or, to be more precise, someone. "I'm more worried about those mercs than the capacitors, to be honest."
We found whatever cover we could find and opened fire. The Shadow Broker's mercs did the same. Something was bugging me, though. I couldn't put my finger on it until one of the mercs ducked in time to avoid a burst of gunfire from Thane: the mercs were taking cover behind the capacitors. Just how delicate were they?
Following a hunch, I pulled out my submachine gun and carefully fired off a single shot at the left capacitor. Sure enough, it discharged all the energy they had stored with a loud snapping noise; unleashing it on anyone unfortunate enough to be close enough. That would be the mercs, whose shields took a serious pounding. Another shot caused the right capacitor to unleash all its energy. A single EMP from Miranda and Liara's singularity quickly rendered the lot of them helpless. Then it was a simple matter for Mordin and I to light them up.
Once the burning cinders of the mercs had been carried away by the surrounding winds, we moved forward. And by forward I mean to the end of the catwalk and down a ramp to our left.
"Excuse me."
LOKI mechs. Eight or nine of them. "Zaeed, Mordin; on my mark. Tali and Legion; follow up."
I counted down from three before launching another ball of plasma. Zaeed tossed an inferno grenade a split second later, followed by Mordin and his own fireball. Our shots hit the mechs in the middle of the pack, clearing the way for them to get hacked. Then we just sat back and watched the mechs tear each other apart. Though, just for fun, we might have fired a judicious shot or two.
After the last mech was blown to smithereens, I exchanged looks with Miranda. "Second group of bad guys in two minutes."
"Four if you count the swarms of maintenance drones."
"So either the Shadow Broker has a lot of security patrolling the hull..."
"...or he found out about the uninvited guests scurrying around and is trying to do something about it."
"Until then, all we can do is keep going..."
"...see how much opposition we face..."
"...and adapt accordingly."
Liara looked at Garrus. "Do they know that we're right here, watching them do that?"
Garrus shrugged. "They do that all the time."
"Really? Fascinating."
Wonder what she meant by that.
The next group of mercs bumped into us a minute later. It was like these guys were on a schedule or something. Much to my surprise—and delight—there was another pair of capacitors, sizzling with energy and waiting to be released. Yet another sign that the universe has a love-hate relationship with me. Or maybe that's hate-love.
I motioned for the squad to stop, lifted my submachine gun—why waste a sniper round and the thermal clip it would use up when I could use the same thermal clip multiple times with my submachine gun instead?—and fired a shot. The sudden snap, flash of light, discharge of energy and chorus of screams told me my little tactic worked.
"One of them is using a combat drone," Liara warned.
"Legion," I grinned, "show Liara what we think of that."
Legion promptly hacked the drone, who abruptly turned around and charged the closest merc. Meanwhile, Garrus dropped an EMP on a couple mercs who were late to the party. One of the mercs promptly took several concussive rounds to the face and dropped like a rock. The other one was yanked off his feet by Jacob's biotics. He went up, up, up...
...and then a gust of wind caught him and yanked him away. We watched him grow smaller and smaller, before an errant lightning strike hit him.
"Okay, we've gotta remember that for the next time," I told the squad. "Why waste ammo when—ooh! Capacitor's stored another lightning strike." I lifted my submachine gun and fired another shot.
"Argh!"
"Not again!"
Hee, hee.
Samara took out the last merc. I motioned for Team Two to stay put while Team One check things out. (3) We looked around, but there weren't any other mercs in the area. There wasn't anywhere else to go either.
"Over here!"
"Control switch for the lightning rod," Miranda explained when we joined her, pointing to a rather large and pointy apparatus towering above. I assumed that that was the lightning rod.
"Great," I enthused. Then I paused, before admitting "I don't get it."
She rolled her eyeballs before reaching down and pulling up a bulky, cylindrical control. With a hiss and a whirr that was somehow audible over the cacophony around us, the lightning rod retracted, clearing a path for us.
"Sweet!" I approved, leaning around Grunt and motioning for Team Two to join us.
"Miranda figure it out?" Tali asked.
"Hey!" Garrus protested, coming to my defence. "It might've been Shepard."
"It was Miranda who figured it out," I admitted. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, though. That means a lot."
Tali turned to Garrus and wordlessly held up a hand. Shaking his head, Garrus dug out a credit chit—ten credit denomination, at least—and dropped it in her palm.
"That... not so much," I sighed. Garrus might've said something, if it wasn't for the mercs who charged in. I wasn't sure whether to thank them or not. So I ducked, waited for the mercs to get closer, and shot up a capacitor instead. Miranda and Kasumi zapped a couple shields. The mercs were smart enough to separate so some of them could escape Liara's singularity. Unfortunately, Samara was waiting for them. She pulled them off their feet and let the winds do the rest.
I was about to send a fireball at the mercs caught in Liara's singularity when a bright light caught my eye. Ducking just in time, I watched as a fireball wooshed by overhead. Popping back up, I glared at the merc who'd launched said ball of plasma. "Hey!" I yelled. "That's my shtick!"
That merc couldn't respond. Partly because Garrus had damaged another capacitor before frying the remnants of his shields. Partly because Mordin had set him on fire. "Apologies, Shepard," he belatedly said. "Was not aware you filed patent."
"I didn't and it's okay," I replied. "I'll give you a pass."
"Very generous."
"I thought so." (4)
Any hopes of continuing this scintillating conversation were interrupted by an alert on my HUD. I'd set my sensors to constantly scan for anything in my immediate vicinity that had shields, biotic barriers or even an unusually high amount of armour. They were detecting someone closing in who enjoyed the protection of barriers. It didn't take long to see the culprit: asari, armed with a shotgun. No doubt hoping to sneak in and unleash a world of hurt.
Before I could do anything, everything exploded in a blinding blaze of light and deafening roar of sound. Another flashbang, courtesy of one of the mercs. I blindly fired a couple shots back, hoping that a) I hit the capacitor and b) the capacitor had a fresh dose of electricity ready to unleash on the mercs.
For once, the universe smiled on me. I heard the loud snap that I had already come to associate with the capacitor taking a hit, along with several cries of dismay that also followed such an incident. My eyes cleared up quickly—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say my ocular implants cleared quickly. Either way, I saw two mercs stumbling around; one human, one asari. Activating my cloak, I took out the human merc. A flash exploded around the asari as her barriers were abruptly ripped to shreds, courtesy of Miranda. Garrus and Grunt were quick to fire several shots at her before blowing her head with twin concussive rounds.
I checked my HUD, but it didn't look like there were any more bad guys in the vicinity. "Take a minute to catch your breath and scrounge for thermal clips," I ordered.
"Shepard will use that time to scrounge for salvage, credits or other valuables," Garrus quickly added.
"Hey!"
Insults and slander to my character notwithstanding, it didn't take long before we were on the move again. And, sure enough, it didn't take long before we ran into more company. This time, it was a baker's dozen worth of LOKI mechs. Miranda and I exchanged knowing glances before letting off a biotic blast and a plasma burst at two of the rear mechs, respectively. Tali and Legion hacked the mechs, co-opting them into shooting their comrades in the back and forcing them to split their fire. With a complete and utter lack of shame, we took advantage of this distraction to pound them with gunfire. Jack finished off one of the mechs with her shotgun before releasing a biotic shockwave. It hit the lead mechs, sending them flying back into their buddies and knocking them all over. Garrus and Kasumi dropped a pair of EMPs on them, blowing up several of the mechs and severely damaging the rest. Liara grabbed the survivors in a singularity, which Thane kindly detonated with his biotics.
I was about to head out when my sensors detected something. Quickly veering to my left, I started struggling with some conductor components. (5)
"Some things never changed," Liara laughed.
"But it's the kind of thing you have to see to believe," Jacob chuckled.
"Done," I interrupted, hoping to stop all the fun they were having at my expense.
"Twelve seconds. Very impressive. Sign of practise," Mordin stated.
So much for that idea. "Are you done now?" I asked.
The squad looked at each other. "For now," Miranda replied.
"Since you asked," Kasumi chimed in.
Suppressing a sigh, I let the squad enjoy themselves. The things I do...
"Okay," Liara said shakily. "Looking down was clearly a mistake."
Our progress had taken us down the side of the ship. Literally—if it wasn't for the mag-locks on our boots, we would have fallen straight off. Below us, all we saw were lots of clouds and the occasional lightning bolt, masking any sign of what might lie below.
"Just breathe," I suggested over the howling winds. "Slowly," I added a second later.
Liara was unable to take my advice until we reached a more-or-less horizontal catwalk. I paused, ostensibly to recalibrate the sensors to track that comm signal Liara had picked up when we first arrived. Once Liara's breathing had slowed, we continued.
"Ten credits say we're gonna bump into mercs next," Kasumi piped up as we walked along the catwalk.
"Ten says it'll be mechs," Zaeed said.
"You're both wrong," I told them, squinting ahead. "It's both."
"Nuts."
"Damn."
"Woohoo!"
That last one was Grunt.
About six or seven mercs popped out of a large recess in the ship, followed by three LOKI mechs. I quickly issued my orders amidst all the ensuing gunfire. Miranda, Garrus, Kasumi and Tali zapped all of the mercs' shields while Jack, Jacob, Samara and Thane rushed into the recess. Before they could do anything, Jack and Jacob had lifted the mercs up into the air. Samara and Thane patiently waited until they were high enough before sending them flying outward with their own biotics. Any merc that didn't get caught by the prevailing currents and swept away wound up plunging into the crowds once the biotic field they were caught in wore off.
Meanwhile, Mordin, Zaeed and I had hit the mechs with hot, hot plasma. Legion quickly hacked one of them. As the hacked mech turned on one of its former compatriots, the other one was knocked off its feet by Grunt's concussive round, hit the rail and toppled over.
I would've been content to wait for the mechs to duke it out, then finish off the survivor. Liara wasn't so patient. She blew the hacked mech apart with a biotic blast, then emptied the rest of her heavy pistol's clip into the last mech.
After a quick search, we soon found out that the only way to our destination was up a ramp and through what appeared to be a monitoring station for power distribution or engine function. Whatever its purpose, it meant that we could take shelter inside the ship for a few minutes.
Several members of the squad cleared their ears once the doors closed. I couldn't blame them—the winds were kinda loud.
"This ship is incredible," Liara marveled, temporarily putting aside her need for vengeance. "It must have taken decades to build in secret."
"That is no small feat," Tali agreed. "Especially since it doesn't appear as if this ship was designed for spaceflight. I would say that it was either built somewhere on Hagalaz or constructed in space and slowly lowered into the atmosphere."
"I find it impressive that it can fly constantly in the midst of all these storms," Miranda said. "Navigating through the winds and cloud and lightning must be brutal. If the ship's engines stop even for a moment..."
"At least the Shadow Broker would go down with us," Liara offered. Her smile was just a tad vicious, I thought.
Jacob frowned thoughtfully. "I wonder what happened to the contractors."
"I think we can guess," I snorted.
Tali quickly took the lead as we walked through the room. Whoever built it obviously didn't care about interior decoration. Everything was gunmetal grey. The support columns. The catwalk. The only things that weren't grey were the light panels interspersed throughout the room and the lightning, which was crackling across a deranged giant version of an organ.
I quickly moved ahead, spotting something that looked a little more interesting. Sure enough, some lazy merc had left some palladium and a couple power cells lying around. It never ceased to amaze me how people would just leave things lying around for anyone to find. (6)
We started towards the exit once I'd tucked the latest loot away. It was a good thing I did a headcount though, because we were one person short. Or, to be more precise, one quarian short. "Tali!"
"Look at these motion-dampeners!" Tali cried out excitedly. "I bet you can't even hear the storm from inside the ship. Even in here, the sounds are muffled!"
"That's swell, kid," Zaeed rasped. "Now if you're done ooh-ing and aah-ing, we got a drell to rescue and a Shadow Broker to whack."
"I'm coming, I'm coming," Tali grumbled.
Tali might have gotten a bit distracted, but she had a point. The moaning of the winds grew a lot louder once we got back outside. Ignoring the antennae from some piece of equipment, and how wildly they were swaying, we went along a catwalk. The discovery of a med-station and the medi-gel inside provided a nice distraction. For me, anyway.
Then we went up a ramp, up another ramp and up the side of the ship itself. Judging by the steady rate of her breathing, Liara didn't look back down. As we climbed, a lightning bolt struck down, hitting another capacitor. The light from the stored electricity revealed some very interesting things. "Mercs," I warned. "Let's see if we can sneak around them and get the drop on—"
"Watch out!"
So much for that. ""Take cover!"
Miranda immediately fried one of the mercs's shields. I would've followed up with a strike of my own, but I was busy swapping out the disruptor mod on my sniper rifle with my warp mod. So Samara and Grunt took him out with a biotic hit, a concussive round and a couple bullets. While Garrus and Mordin dealt with another merc, I was sweeping the battlefield for—yes! This pack of mercs was, in fact, led by an asari. Activating my cloak, I aimed my sniper rifle and prepared to take her out.
Funny thing: she vaulted over a rail just as I squeezed the trigger. Instead of landing a headshot, I wound up shooting her in... well... in the crotch. Oops. Her barriers took the brunt of the damage though, and she wasn't encumbered by a certain anatomical part, so she managed to duck back down. Before she could thank her lucky stars for such a clean getaway, Zaeed lobbed an inferno grenade right on top of her. While she was flailing away and trying to bat out the flames, Legion fired a shot. Their headshot landed on target.
Meanwhile, Tali and Kasumi had stripped four mercs of their shields. They quickly found themselves floating above the hull of the ship, thanks to Jack. Thane and Liara blew up the biotic field, taking out all four mercs. Nice feat of synchronized biotics, I thought.
"Is that all?" Grunt asked, sounding morose.
A rocket whistled by overhead.
"Negative," Legion replied.
"No," Kasumi said in mock surprise. "Really? What was your first guess?"
"High-yield mass accelerator round fired our way at extreme velocity."
"Sarcasm just flies right by you, doesn't it?"
"Enough talk," Grunt barked. "Time to fight!"
We were already doing that, actually. The merc who tried to blow us up had just lost his shields, thanks to another one of Miranda's EMPs. Before he could do anything, I lit him up. His buddies—who had also lost their shields—hastily stepped away, not wanting to get burned to a crisp. Unfortunately, they weren't paying attention to their surroundings. Otherwise, they might have realized that they had just moved close to a capacitor—one that I promptly discharged. Screaming, they stumbled away, taking a couple hits here and there as they tried to recover from the electrical shock. In their daze, they retreated towards another capacitor, which I also discharged.
Another pair of mercs watched as their compatriots collapsed, twitching and jerking madly. They looked at each other, nodded and promptly found cover. I decided to mix things up a little: "Zaeed, Jack, Grunt; why don't you go over and pay those guys a visit? We'll stay here and keep their heads down."
Win-win situation as far as I was concerned. I got to stay back and fire pot-shots at long-range like the sensible soldier I used to be while the more combat-loving members got to indulge their inner bloodlust and the mercs… well, the mercs got a nasty surprise. (7)
We bumped into another half-dozen mechs. Nothing special, though the prospect of trying to fight on the side of a ship—which meant shooting and running at a 90-degree angle to gravity—was a little disconcerting. Almost reminded me of zero-gee combat training.
The next group of adversaries were a bit more challenging, in part because we were trying to climb up the side of the ship and get back to something a bit more horizontal. You would think that that would give the mercs a decisive tactical advantage. I certainly thought so. Turns out that even the best of tactical situations can be turned on its head if you get carried away.
Case in point: the asari who was first into the fight. First to fire her shotgun. First to get her barriers torn apart and her blue ass set on fire.
"Team One's gonna move up," I said once the asari collapsed. "Team Two, cover us."
I led Team One up, weaving in and out of the many obstructions scattered around the hull. For a ship designed to operate in an atmosphere, it sure wasn't very aerodynamic. (8) Three mercs popped up, unable to resist such a tempting target. They lost their shields almost immediately, courtesy of Garrus and Tali. Jacob hauled them up into the air with his biotics. As I recall, Mordin burned one of them to a crisp, one of them fell victim to mass gunfire and the other got pulled away by the winds and vaporized by a lightning bolt.
Finding cover behind some kind of exhaust vent, I quickly poked my head out and scanned the area with my ersatz eyeballs. Recon done, I ducked back down before I could intercept a rocket with my face. I was in no hurry to compare scars with Garrus, after all. I opened the squad comm channel and reported my findings. "Team Two, come on up. Don't worry about the mercs with the rocket launchers and the itchy trigger fingers."
Garrus obliged, leading Team Two to join us. Miranda and Kasumi fired off a pair of EMPs, timing things so they landed just as the mercs were lifting their rocket launchers. Samara had them floating in the air before they could even think to duck. Grunt hit one of them with a concussive round, unfortunately—I say unfortunately because he spent the next five minutes talking about how far the merc went. Thane and Legion took out the remaining mercs with their sniper rifles.
Meanwhile, I was busy scouting around using my cloak. Damn thing still shut down after six seconds or so, but that was enough time for me to find a control switch. The one that would lower a couple solar panels and clear a path for us to continue.
We couldn't all go around shooting mercs, after all.
The next pair of mercs to cross our paths went down without much of a fight. At first, I thought it was just yet another sign that practice made perfect. Then I noted something. "Hold on, everyone," I cautioned. "Maybe it's just me, but—"
"—we're picking up a sensor echo," Miranda interrupted. "And the signal's—"
"—too irregular to be background static," I agreed.
"Besides, it seems to be originating—"
"—right over there where the mercs fell. Wait a sec. That's—"
"—an open comm frequency. Those mercs were talking to someone else—"
"—who now know where we are." Damn it.
Miranda quickly triangulated the signal. "Got it. At least a dozen mercs. Probably closer to… fifteen, I'd say. Lying in wait for us."
"And is that a cluster of capacitors I see?" I asked, somewhat rhetorically.
"I believe it is."
"I think the mercs are in for—"
"Please don't say 'shocking surprise' or some similar electricity-related pun."
"Fine. Spoilsport."
Having agreed on a course of action, Miranda and I turned to the squad. For some reason, they had a mix of confused looks and amused grins on their faces.
Thankfully, I managed to channel all that amusement into frying random capacitors and electrocuting all the mercs who thought it would be a good idea to hide in their midst. We managed to reduce their numbers from fifteen to three, and all it cost us was a grand total of thirteen shots from various submachine guns. That's just under one shot per merc, and we didn't even break out the sniper rifles once. Pretty good, if I do say so myself.
We headed for the remaining mercs, being careful not to trip over one of the many bumps or protrusions. I led the squad up a slight ramp, around a capacitor…
…and almost bumped into an asari.
At first, she thought I was all alone. One-on-one odds, and all that. A smile spread over her face as she lifted her shotgun. That smile became a little more uncertain as I returned her smile.
Her smile abruptly vanished as the rest of the squad trotted into view.
Three biotic blasts, one biotic shockwave, three concussive rounds turned that formerly-confident asari into a very messy and bloody smear along the hull, the capacitor...
...and the boots and legs of four mercs who stumbled out from behind some big metal doohickey. They froze as the asari's innards splashed them.. We froze, mostly because we'd been a little too focused on killing the asari.
We stared at each other.
"Um... wanna surrender?" I asked at last.
The mercs started to look at each other, stopped—probably because they were smart enough to know how big an advantage they'd hand us by looking away—and stared at me with varying degrees of incredulity on their faces.
"What? Stranger things have happened," I pointed out.
"You gotta be joking," the lead merc snorted. "Our boss would kill us."
"You won't have to worry about him after we're done with him," I replied.
The leftmost merc—our left, not his left—laughed. "Don't know who you are, son, but no one tangles with the Shadow Broker and lives."
"We did."
"Not the Broker himself," the rightmost merc corrected. "Just guys like us. You cross him? In person? Only way you're coming out is in a body bag."
"Or in a bucket."
A clatter of footsteps heralded the arrival of another pair of mercs. "Why aren't you guys fighting?" one of them asked.
Someone from the first group of mercs—the one who hadn't talked yet—filled them in. They also laughed. Bitterly.
"We could knock you out," I added, hoping to sweeten the deal.
The mercs looked each other. One by one, they all shook their heads. "Don't think so. I know the odds are two-to-one. I know you're trying to let us live—first time that happened. But we can't take the chance that we'll get caught. He's scarier than you guys."
"Then... that's it, I guess," I sighed.
"Yep."
"Uh huh."
"'Fraid so."
The mercs raised their guns in unison. Unfortunately for them, they were just a little too slow. Miranda, Garrus and Kasumi had already launched their EMPs to fry their shields. Not to mention Liara's singularity, which was already in place. All but one merc got sucked in, spinning helplessly before Mordin, Zaeed and I set them on fire. Thane finished them off by violently collapsing Liara's singularity.
And the last one? She'd been getting knocked this way by Grunt's concussive round, knocked that way by Jack's shockwave and smacked back by Samara's biotic pulse. Before Legion or Thane could get to him, she tapped her rocket launcher. At first I thought it was a nervous twitch. Then I heard a beeping noise. Accompanied by a whining noise that was steadily growing louder.
The sharp tingle against the back of my neck clinched in. "Run!" I yelled.
We got clear just before the rocket launcher exploded, taking out the merc. Slightly dazed, we picked ourselves up and looked back. A pile of ashes and embers, still glowing from the heat, were lazily whirling around.
I thought about the Shadow Broker. How he'd built his own private army to enforce his empire. How he'd scared that army into following his orders and attacking his enemies, even when they outgunned and outclassed them. How each and every member of that army would rather die than go back and admit defeat.
Yeesh. What kind of guy were we dealing with, exactly?
We had to get past one more lightning rod, which was easy once we found the control switch. Then we headed into what felt like an artificial canyon, what with the way it was so deep and narrow. Good thing there weren't any mercs overhead—it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. (9) I was also thankful that no one was claustrophobic.
Though if any squad member was claustrophobic, at least they wouldn't have to wait too long before escaping those tight confines—we emerged into what was basically a bridge after six or seven seconds of jogging. It was only a couple metres from the bridge to the 'bottom,' so the drop wasn't so bad—if you didn't mind all the lightning that was crackling and writhing along its length.
Tali flinched as a particularly vicious arc of lightning flicked upwards and snapped. "Maybe we should be careful and watch our step," she smiled nervously.
"Yeah," I agreed. "Especially since there isn't even a guardrail to prevent a fall." I frowned as something occurred to me. "In fact, we haven't seen a single guardrail. Not even a bolt anchor to attach yourself to. I bet the Broker's agents just love patrolling the hull."
"At least the view is nice," Miranda offered.
"When you're not looking down," Liara shuddered.
Quickly—and carefully—we made our way across the bridge and up another ramp. It was a bit steep, but not as bad as climbing up the side of the ship. We emerged in a relatively clear part of the hull. Well, clear aside from the shallow cavities, oddly-placed protrusions and capacitors that dotted the irregular surface.
"There!" Liara shouted, pointing to a hatch at the far side of the... clearing? Courtyard? Space? Whatever. "That hatch leads directly to the communications signals I picked up when we were dropped off!"
The squad quickly raced for the hatch. The control panel was glowing red. A clear sign that it was locked. I tried to bypass it, but I had no luck. I couldn't even establish a connection. Tali and Legion were about to try when Liara pushed them aside.
"Hang on," she said. "I've got a bypass shunt program that can crack it."
She raised her omni-tool and activated it. The characteristic yellow-orange glow surrounded her forearm, accompanied by a dotted white line that wrapped around like a ring. Or bracelet, considering how big it was. To our surprise, the same white bracelet-ring appeared on the hatch's control panel. About two to three seconds later, five red light panels extruded from the ring to form a larger circle. Each of them was the same size, with an exclamation mark flashing in the centre.
"Firewalls?" I guessed.
"Precisely," Liara nodded.
"How long will it take?" I asked, nervously looking behind us. Cracking five firewalls sounded like it could take a while.
Liara shrugged. "I don't know, Shepard. I've never broken into the Shadow Broker's base before. Well, not this one, anyway," she amended.
"Enemies!" Miranda warned.
We quickly sought cover as Liara's program got to work. Tali zapped a merc's shields. "Jacob, preparing to fire high-impact shot" Garrus prompted. Jacob quickly lifted him up in the air. Garrus tagged that merc with a concussive round and sent him flying into the storm.
One down and… ulp. Several more to go. "Liara?" I called out. "You sure that shunt will work?"
Liara paused to launch a singularity. "It's illegal even on Illium," she responded as Miranda fried the shields from two of the mercs, leaving them open for the singularity to draw them in. "It didn't come with a warranty."
Raising my omni-tool, I fired a burst of plasma to set the floating mercs on fire. "But you tested it, right?"
"Here come more of them!" Liara said instead. Grunt and Zaeed fired concussive rounds of their own to disrupt an asari's shields.
I had a bad feeling about this. "Tell me you tested it!" I snapped as Mordin barbequed the asari.
"No time to talk!"
So we were stuck babysitting an untested program that might or might not work, while every merc crawling in or on the ship came storming our way. Miranda and I exchanged glances. "Situation normal…" she started.
"…all fucked up," I agreed.
I automatically raised my submachine gun and fired a shot, disrupting another capacitor. While the mercs nearby twitched and jerked around, Kasumi fired off an EMP at the closest merc. Samara and Thane hit the asari next to him with their biotics.
Jack looked around eagerly, letting out a curse with each turn of her head. It took me a second to realize her cursing was due to the fact that none of the mercs were close enough for her to knock over with her biotics. Even her shotgun—chosen for its unusually tight spread at long range—wouldn't have quite enough bang for her. She eventually gave up, grabbed her heavy pistol and opened fire.
Legion was about to follow, when a pair of rockets whistled down from overhead. The first one knocked out their shields—already weakened from some previous assault. The second one...
...well...
...kinda went right through them.
Specifically, it whistled right through the hole in their chest. Legion lifted their sniper rifle, took out one of the rocket-toting mercs, then turned to me and gave a remarkably human shrug. "This platform has discovered an unanticipated benefit to its current configuration," they offered.
"Looks like," I replied, aiming my omni-tool at the asari Samara and Thane had attacked earlier. A single tap sent a fireball her way. Confident that it would find its target, I switched focus to the second heavy support merc. Couldn't quite get a bead on her, but there was a nice big capacitor that was conveniently nearby. One shot ensured that there wouldn't be any rockets raining down from above any time soon. Then I turned to another merc who was limping for cover. Until he took a couple shots to the head, that is.
Time to check my HUD, I decided. Looked like more bad guys coming from... behind us, actually. One more in front of us and one above and to our left—those two would be from the first group. "Team One, split up," I barked. "Kasumi, Legion, Liara, come with me. Everyone else, prepare for more hostiles inbound from your six." (10)
"I have command of One-B," Miranda confirmed.
I should explain that.
There were two reasons why I established a leader and second-in-command for each team. One was so the team wouldn't be completely left in the lurch if something happened to the boss. The other was so the team could split into two smaller fire-teams for added manoeuvrability and tactical flexibility. For convenience's sake, I'd labelled them 'A' and 'B'.
I hadn't really formalized who would be in One-A and who in One-B (or Two-A or Two-B, for that matter), which was why I had to state who'd be following me. As One-A headed out, I began making things up on the spot: "We're going to take out the merc at twelve o'clock before turning around and eliminating the heavy trooper."
Speaking of which, the merc in front of us popped up. Just in time, as the capacitor charged up again. One shot got the capacitor frying the merc, one more shot—from each of us—dropped him like a rock. "No time to dawdle, though," I continued, as if I hadn't been interrupted. "We have to claim the high ground before the Broker's backup shows up. Legion and I will help everyone down below by sniping targets of opportunity. Kasumi and Liara; keep an eye out and make sure no one tries to sneak up on us."
By this point, we were heading up to the 'high ground.' The last merc from the first batch readied her rocket launcher. Before she could pull the trigger, Kasumi fried her shields. Liara knocked him against a bulkhead with her biotics, which meant that I couldn't get a bead on her to pop her head or light it up. So Legion had to finish things off with a far-too-cheerful combat drone.
I quickly swept the area for thermal clips and handed them out. Any spare clips were tossed down to the squad below, to supplement the ones that Thane and Mordin had scrounged up. "Oh, one last thing," I added, suddenly remembering the most important order of all: "stay away from the capacitors."
Liara and Kasumi shuddered before nodding in agreement. Legion just looked at me as if I asked why they were carrying around a chunk of my old N7 hardsuit.
With that taken care of, Legion and I crouched down and pulled out our sniper rifles—just as the second wave of mercs arrived. I centred my scope on the lead merc—an asari—briefly considered switching to my warp mod, then dropped that idea when I realized I wouldn't be able to drop her anyway. Not with one shot. So I tagged her so the squad members down below would know to prioritize her—just in case they needed a reminder—and switched to another target. Activating my cloak, I let my scope track just a little bit ahead of him, let out a breath and squeezed the trigger.
The merc's head vanished in a puff of helmet shards, blood and bone. "Liara?" I prompted as my cloak disengaged. "Are we done yet?"
"I'm sure it won't be much longer!" Liara assured me, just before she launched a singularity to ensnare a couple mercs. They'd lost their shields, thanks to... well, somebody.
After checking the door—still locked—I turned my attention to my omni-tool. Still charging up a dose of plasma. "You know," I groaned, "this makes me miss the old days. You remember the old days, right? When you could just slap omni-gel onto everything?" (11)
"That security loophole was fixed one year and two weeks ago," Miranda called out. Either I'd left the squad comm channel open or her genetically enhanced hearing had paid off once again.
"Which made a lot of people unhappy," Liara added.
"Lazy, untalented amateurs," Kasumi sniffed, sending an EMP to fry a pair of mercs that were trying to crowd in on our perch. One of them had a rocket launcher, I saw. And my omni-tool was ready to provide another offering of fiery goodness. How convenient.
I launched my fireball, then switched to my sniper rifle. The merc I'd hit was too busy flailing around in a human-shaped conflagration to bother aiming her rocket launcher. The other one only had a few flames to pat out. He'd be my target, I decided. I checked my HUD as I lifted my sniper rifle. Nope, cloak was still recharging. That was okay: the Widow was more than capable of taking out a lowly, everyday merc. I aimed, breathed and fired. One shot. One kill.
Seeing that things were under control, Legion had turned their attention to the battlefield down below. They deployed a combat drone to stall a trio of mercs, then began firing shots at their leader. Took a couple headshots, but they finally managed to drop her. Before her buddies could respond, Tali drained their shields. The squad fired several shots to knock them off-balance and set them up for Garrus and Grunt, who finished them off with a concussive round.
Meanwhile, Miranda had launched an EMP of her own at two mercs, supplementing its effect with a single, well-aimed shot to a nearby capacitor. The mercs dropped down, partly to avoid any more gunfire, partly because they were busy shaking and twitching on the hull. Unfortunately for them, Thane hauled them up and back into view. They each took several hits before Samara blew up Thane's biotic field. One of the mercs went flying into the capacitor in front of me. The other flew up into the sky and intercepted a lightning bolt. Both of them were vaporized by the sheer amount of voltage.
A brief flit of movement caught my eye. One lone merc was trying to sneak up and get the drop on us. Before I could swivel around, Kasumi and Liara hit him with a rapid onslaught of EMPs, biotics and gunshots. Guy dropped in a matter of seconds.
"Alert: multiple targets approaching from the bow," Legion warned.
Liara identified them first as they flew into view. "Rocket drones!"
What little cover there was up here was adequate at best against infantry, useless against flying drones. There was only one option: "Jump!"
The four of us promptly jumped down to the hull below and rejoined the squad. "Back so soon?" Miranda asked innocently.
"And you brought friends," Garrus murmured.
"How thoughtful," Tali chimed in.
I glared at them. "Shut up and shoot something."
Without further ado, I assigned a rocket drone for Fire-Teams One-A and One-B. Garrus did the same with his fire-teams. Kasumi whipped off an EMP before raising her submachine gun and joining Liara, Legion and I in spraying the drone with bursts of gunfire. It wasn't easy, mind you, what with the way the stupid drone kept weaving and dodging. Not to mention all the rockets that kept whistling down at us. Naturally, Legion was able to extrapolate the pattern behind our drone's supposedly random movements and keep their assault rifle firmly centred on target; all while monitoring any inbound rockets and ducking or dodging as needed. Needless to say, they got the last shot.
That left a couple more drones to take care of, plus one that Liara had trapped in a stasis field at some point. We chose another drone to pick on and quickly dispatched it. By that point, there was only one more drone, struggling free from a rapidly dissipating stasis field. Four EMPs and a hail of gunfire sent it plummeting out of the sky.
Remarkably enough, we had a full five seconds to catch our breath and restock on thermal clips before the next wave of mercs arrived. Liara shook her head as the first ones popped into view. "Look at them," she said. "Their attacks are so disorganized, the way they sent a dozen mercs here, a handful of drones there. They'd be more effective if they all attacked at once."
A collective groan rang out. "Please don't give the mercs ideas," I pleaded.
"Sorry."
Stifling another groan at Liara's ill-considered words, I knocked out two capacitors and shocked the hell out of the latest band of not-so-merry mercs. That bought me enough time to check the bypass shunt program—two more firewalls to go. Good grief, this was taking forever. Rather than depress myself with that, I did a quick scan of the battlefield. We were up against sixteen mercs, three of which were trapped in a singularity and burning away. That meant the odds were virtually one-to-one. Numerically. (12)
You know there's something seriously wrong with your life when your first response to that is 'That's all?' Especially after scolding another squadmate for saying the exact same thing out loud.
Shaking my head, I snapped off a shot at one of the capacitors again. Liara might have jinxed things, but she had a point: you'd think the mercs would've figured out by now the perils of walking near the capacitors. They had been patrolling this ship for who knows how many years before I stumbled in. Yet here they were, blithely walking by a clear and present danger.
Sure enough, the capacitor gave several of the mercs a rude shock. The mercs who might have been straggling behind came to a sudden halt, not wanting to get hit by any errant lightning. That just left the three mercs who were a bit too eager for a fight and the veteran merc who didn't let a little thing like getting electrocuted stop him from firing a bolt of plasma our way. Ducking the fireball, I activated my cloak, raised my sniper rifle and fired at the pyromaniac. To my surprise and disappointment, he survived, thanks to his shields and helmet. Thankfully, that meant there was nothing left when Legion fired his sniper rifle.
As for the other mercs who had charged into the fray, they were quickly learning the error of their ways. Kasumi had stripped them of their shields with a single EMP. Before they realized their vulnerability, Samara had them floating in the air. Miranda hurled a shimmering sphere of biotic energy at a nearby asari while taking out one of the spinning, screaming mercs with her submachine gun. Thane gave the same asari a biotic smack to the kisser before taking out another merc. Grunt and I finished the asari off with several bullets, a concussive round and a lot of yelling. The last two, needless to say, did not come from me.
Meanwhile, Team Two was having fun tangling with a group of five mercs. They were smart enough to scatter after Garrus and Tali dropped a pair of EMPs on them. That just meant that more people got to have some fun: Mordin set two of them on fire, Jacob hauled one into the air and Jack got the last two hovering above the hull.
Team One was busy pinning the last four mercs down while Team Two took out their five mercs quickly with gunfire or slowly through hot plasma. Under my direction, Miranda, Grunt and I took out one mech. Kasumi stripped two more mercs of their shields, then let Samara, Legion, Thane and Liara have some fun. The last one decided to stay down. At first, I thought he was cowering in fear.
Then I saw a series of red blips—so many, they looked like one big blob—appear on my HUD. "Company!" I yelled, deliberately raising my voice. Sure enough, the merc who had been signalling his buddies took the bait and popped his head up, no doubt hoping to get the drop on us. Unfortunately for him, I had my cloak engaged and my sniper rifle raised.
As the merc dropped back down—minus his head—I took another look at my HUD. The blob had resolved itself into at least twenty mercs. Plus several rocket drones. I turned to Liara and gave her a pointed look.
"The next wave looks like a big one!" she tried.
"You just had to give them tactical advice," I grumbled.
"But now there'll be fewer left to deal with inside," she said brightly.
A bitter laugh escaped my lips. "Keep dreaming, Liara." I would've said more, but I had to make up some semblance of a plan to get us out of this latest pickle. "Miranda, Kasumi, Garrus, Tali; fry as many shields as you can. Then I want to see those mercs floating around or burning up. After that; Team One tackles the drones and Team Two keeps the remaining mercs at bay."
The way I saw it, this group of mercs had two things going for them. One, they had a numerical advantage of almost two-to-one. Two, those rocket drones—and any infantry toting a rocket launcher—gave them a very scary force multiplier that made them significantly more effective. If we stuck to our previous tactic of ganging up on hapless mercs and taking them out one by one, we'd be swamped before we knew what hit us. The only way we could survive is by taking as many mercs out of play as possible, then gang up on everyone else.
And why did Team One—and, by extension, myself—get the dubious privilege of dealing with weaving, dodging, emissaries of death-from-above? Because Team One had eight members, which meant two more guns than Team Two.
Before the mercs got into firing range, a thought crossed my mind. "Skip the lead mercs. Disable the mercs behind them." That way, the eager beavers itching for a fight would continue advancing, unaware that their backup had been sidelined. It's an old trick, mind you, one that doesn't always work. But it was worth a shot. Besides, if we sidelined the first few mercs, then the rest would just wait around until their buddies came back. Then they would come at us in force again, which would just be delaying the inevitable. Unless the followers got it in their heads to flank us—which would be even worse.
The squad complied, passing over the first three mercs and hitting the five behind them. Oddly enough, the guys spinning around in Liara's singularity or floating onwards and upwards tried very hard to avoid the guy who spent more time running around screaming than putting out the plasma burning on his backside.
While all that excitement was going on, we moved onto the next phase of my made-up plan. Technically, both teams had a two-to-one numerical advantage over their targets. Only difference was that Team One was tangling with rocket drones while Team Two was trading bullets with mercs. All things considered, I think Team Two got the better deal.
I gotta give my team credit, though. They didn't complain about having their shields pounded by rockets. Or suffering flash burns. Or the occasional bout of blunt force trauma. Nope, they just buckled down, gritted their teeth and got rid of every last drone.
"Garrus," I said once the last drone dropped out of the sky, "we got rid of four rocket drones. You only got rid of two mercs. Someone's been taking it easy."
"The last merc is a very slippery asari," Garrus retorted.
Easy. Slippery. Asari. The joke kinda wrote itself. Of course, one of the asari tagging alongside liked helping people find peace by killing them, while the other had a penchant for flaying people with her mind. Instead of opening my big mouth, I just rolled my eyes and fired off a bolt of plasma. "Satisfied?"
"Almost." Garrus aimed carefully and fired a concussive round at the burning asari. The impact sent her flying backwards and into two more mercs—whose shields had suddenly disappeared, courtesy of Miranda.
"Nice," I approved.
"I thought so."
Zaeed added to the conflagration with one of his inferno grenades, finishing off the asari and those two mercs. That left fifteen to go. "Same plan as before," I decided.
So we repeated our earlier tactic. Skipped a couple mercs, sent the next batch spinning, floating or burning. The mercs we skipped looked at each other and promptly ducked for cover. Activating my cloak, I stuck my neck out and saw them crawling back towards their buddies. "Will wonders never cease," I marvelled. "They learned."
"Perhaps they were listening to Liara," Garrus suggested.
"She did give some excellent advice earlier," Miranda agreed.
Liara glared at the two of them. "Not funny," she declared.
"Well, it was kinda funny," I hedged.
Liara turned her glare on me.
"But we can debate that later," I wisely decided. "Kasumi, Legion; follow me. Everyone else might as well entertain themselves with the mercs we sidelined."
While the rest of their squad slowly took out the four mercs, Kasumi and Legion followed me. We spent a couple minutes creeping away from the squad before turning around and taking a very lengthy detour. Legion figured it out first. "Shepard-Commander; you are planning to flank the enemy."
"Yep," I confirmed. "Figure you and I can have some more fun sniping them. Kasumi can sneak in every once in a while under cloak and sow a little chaos."
"Sure thing," Kasumi agreed happily. "Flashbang here, stab in the back there. All good... as long as I don't get hit by friendly fire."
"That would suck," I agreed amiably. With a quick blink, I opened the squad channel. "Listen up, people; I have a plan."
"Oh my."
"That's never a good sign."
"Shut up and listen," I snapped.
"Language!"
"He used to be such a good little boy."
Maybe I taught my squad a few bad habits. (13)
After they finished getting their kicks—and taking out another two mercs—I laid out my plan. "Here we go," I finally said. "Three... two..."
On 'one,' Legion and I took out two more mercs. On 'zero' or 'go' or whatever, Kasumi decloaked and delivered a devastating blow to the rearmost merc. All the surviving mercs in between were thus stuck with the dilemma of whether to try advancing again or continue their retreat. They only paused for a few milliseconds. Maybe less. However long they froze, that was way too long.
"There!" Liara said as the last merc collapsed. "The hatch is open!"
She was right: all the light panels were green. I checked my chronometer: four minutes. "Wherever you got that shunt program from, Liara, I think you got ripped off."
"Actually, four minutes isn't bad," Kasumi said thoughtfully. "It's not great, but it would've been more than adequate if it wasn't for all the mercs."
She had a point, I guess. So, rather than belabour the point, I got the squad scrounging for thermal clips. Then it was time to head inside. Finally. Grunt looked at Liara as we walked towards the hatch. "Dr. T'Soni?"
"Yes, Grunt?"
"Ask for more mercs to come so we can stay out here and fight some more."
"Don't listen to him!" the rest of us yelled.
"Awww..."
(1): Miranda's recollection of how much I had changed is accurate. Her reticence in mentioning my mission to find Shepard—and, ultimately, his body—reflects her concern for Shepard's feelings, a marked change from the Miranda I first met.
(2): Extra-vehicular activity, which would denote anything done outside a starship or space station, beyond a planet's appreciable atmosphere.
(3): Shepard had placed me in Team One. He said that Garrus already had Tali, so it was his turn to have someone on his team from the old days. I suspected it was because he wanted to keep an eye on me. When I asked him about it, he denied any ulterior motives, claiming that Miranda would kill him—or worse—if he 'kept an eye' on anyone else.
(4): Both Shepard and Mordin had straight faces during this exchange.
(5): One of Shepard's custom modifications to his sensor algorithms was to scan for components that would be easy to remove and could be sold later on for extra credits. Naturally, he admitted this with a complete lack of shame.
(6): Not that locking them up like a more responsible person would deter Shepard.
(7): From where we were stationed, we could hear a lot of shouting and several horrified screams that were abruptly cut off. When we passed them, all we could make out were the charred remains of something that might have been beheaded, dismembered and eviscerated.
(8): During Shepard's recollection of the mission, he called it a ship. He later referred to it as a base, or the more ostentatious title Shadow Broker Base, on the grounds that no 'ship' worth the name would be so 'damn bumpy.' I found that amusing, considering how many times those 'bumps' saved our lives.
(9): A human idiom stemming back to the days before humanity possessed basic refrigeration. To prevent catches of fish from spoiling, they would be kept alive in large barrels. Since those barrels would be packed to the brim, anyone who fired a shot at the barrel would be guaranteed to hit at least one fish. Though I've yet to find a human who could explain why anyone would want to shoot at a barrel of fish in the first place. Perhaps they needed a way to pass the time.
(10): Following Alliance military shorthand, this meant that further enemies were closing in from behind us.
(11): Omni-gel was obtained by breaking down unwanted or non-essential items—such as weapons, upgrade modifications and even hardsuits—into a composite of common, reusable industrial plastics, ceramics and light alloys that was significantly lighter and easier to carry. It could be used to construct small three-dimensional objects, thus facilitating modifications, upgrades and repairs on the battlefield. However, someone with enough omni-gel could also use it to hack or bypass containers, crates and safes—no matter how sophisticated the locking mechanism. While this might seem like a glaringly obvious security flaw, it wasn't until 2184 that the first security updates that prevented the use of omni-gel were introduced. By 2185, such updates and precautions were widespread and standard.
(12): According to the timestamps on our hardsuit sensor logs, two minutes and eighteen seconds had passed since the shunt program had begun. As for the three mercs who had been incapacitated, Zaeed had hurled one of his inferno grenades in their midst after I had captured them in a singularity.
(13): Or this was a sign of their competence and morale, even under such trying circumstances. Or both. Just saying—oh dear. That last sentence would be something Shepard would say.