Cayden hops off the shuttle and onto the landing pad in the Zeta District of Omega. The air is thick and hot, but he fills his lungs anyway, reflexively. Instantly, he regrets it, and begins coughing uncontrollably. What the hell is that taste? Instinctively, he produces a cigarette from behind his ear and lights it, taking a long, greedy drag. Anything is preferable to whatever is floating in the air here. As he steps forward, his boots thud against the metal floor, kicking up small clouds of red dust. Churchill, Katsumi, and Lia hop off the shuttle behind him in quick succession.
"What the fuck is that smell?" Katsumi exclaims, wrinkling her nose with a disgusted look on her face.
"If I had to guess," Churchill surmises, "I'd say a bloody skunk died in a trash compactor months ago and they used the liquid remains to scrub the walls around this shitehole."
Lia looks at them both smugly. Of course, her air inside the suit is filtered. "Never thought it would pay to be a Quarian," she says proudly.
"I've half a mind to rip off your helmet and give you a whiff," Churchill threatens emptily. Cayden can't see the bottom of her face, but if he had to guess, she's sticking her tongue out at him.
"You just try it, old man," she snaps back at him confidently, "I'll pull your spine out through your asshole."
Katsumi snorts. Churchill smiles at her like a proud uncle. "Lia," Cayden calls to her carefully, "you're scaring me." The three of them laugh at him as they follow him off the landing pad and down a narrow street that is bustling with activity. A human man pops his head out from a window at street level and scans the group. His eyes settle on Cayden's N7 stripe and his eyes grow wide. Cayden smiles at him, tossing his cigarette to the ground and stomping on it without missing a step.
"The goddamned Alliance is here!" the man exclaims back into the domicile. Cayden laughs as they continue. He looks back at Lia, who is wringing her hands together as she dodges any kind of contact with the rabble in the street, providing a stark contrast to the confident striding of her squadmates. He winks at her and she seems to settle a bit. As the four of them pass an alleyway, Cayden notices a human getting beaten by a gang of three turians.
Churchill snorts. "Nice place. I think I'll take my next shore leave here." He briefly stares at the spectacle. Katsumi looks at Cayden expectantly.
"None of our business," Cayden tells her confidently. She nods and the group continues. He silently continues down the street with the squad following close behind him. They seem to have tightened up a bit after that spectacle. Not sure Katsumi is used to that sort of situation. She probably came from some kind of privileged family.
They turn down a street and reach a large open intersection area that forms a sort of makeshift courtyard. There is a large planter in front of them with concrete barriers on either side next to the other street entrances. Across the yard from them is a large bridge with several sets of stairs and two sitting areas on either side. The bridge is currently retracted across a large gap. On the other side of the gap stands a large cylindrical warehouse that stretches up into the sky and down into the abyss of the station.
The receiving mechanism on Cayden's side is flanked by two batarians in high-end combat armor with assault rifles. Cayden scans the immediate area as he moves around the intersection carefully. The batarians glare at them menacingly. The streets that empty into the intersection from opposing sides are bustling with civilian activity, but there are several batarians in the same combat armor flanking each street.
Katsumi suddenly starts giggling uncontrollably. Cayden jerks around just in time to see Lia cross her arms defensively. "What?" she asks Katsumi with a sneer.
"Oh, nothing," Katsumi answers, snickering. "If you stared any harder, he'd have a hole through his ass." Lia scoffs dismissively.
Churchill sighs wearily. "I'm surrounded by goddamned teenagers," he growls.
Cayden reaches up to his ear with deliberate avoidance. "Sephora, in position?"
"Waiting for your signal, Commander," she chirps back.
"Snipers?" Cayden calls. There's a click of confirmation. The batarians begin to stir at their presence. "We're going to need you here asap," Cayden commands.
"Working our way across the rooftops," Jason's bored-sounding voice comes back. In the background, Cayden hears Adam yell, "PARKOUR MOTHERFUCKER!" There's a brief silence before Jason adds, "We're looking for a good vantage point and definitely not treating this important mission like a bouncy castle." Cayden gets the distinct impression that was directed at Adam.
"What's a bouncy castle?" Lia asks quizzically.
"You know," Katsumi begins, "Life on the armada sounds really fucking depressing."
Dozens of batarians begin pouring out from the warehouse and onto the ledge across the gap from them. Cayden looks to his left and right to see dozens more herding the civilians into buildings and deploying barriers. Apparently, they seem to have triggered some security measure. Cayden vaguely notes all of them are wearing full-face helmets.
"You better find your vantage point quickly," Cayden threatens calmly into the comms.
"Copy," Jason responds quickly. Cayden draws his shotgun and his squadmates draw their weapons in response. They leap into whatever cover they can find close to them as the batarians open fire.
"About fucken time!" Churchill yells, firing back. Cayden returns fire, as well as Katsumi and Lia, shooting from behind their cover on the other side of the intersection.
"Cover that street!" Cayden yells, motioning to his left. Churchill nods and begins to fire at the batarians attempting to flank them from that direction as Cayden kills one of the two in front of them. He checks on Lia, who is firing down the opposite street. Katsumi throws the second batarian in front into the chasm, then winks at him. She then joins Lia and fires down the opposite street.
Churchill let's loose a battle cry, then charges down the street he was firing into, turning his shotgun barrel into doorways where their enemies are taking cover. Cayden curses him in his head, then chases him down the street. They run a short distance with Churchill maintaining several strides of a lead as Cayden mops up some he had missed. After Churchill passes one building without so much as glancing inside, a batarian pops out and fires his rifle at Churchill. The round finds its place in his thigh. He collapses in mid-sprint and Cayden repays the favor by blowing the batarian away at point-blank range. He quickly dashes to Churchill's side.
"Still alive, old man?" he asks, dragging Churchill into an empty alleyway. Churchill responds with what Cayden assumes is a series of inaudible curses in an increasingly thick Scottish accent as he grasps at his thigh with both meaty hands. Assured that Chuchill is out of immediate danger, he returns to the mouth of the alley and fires several more shots as he kicks Churchill's shotgun to him. Churchill finishes applying medi-gel to his leg, then grabs it gratefully and hobbles back toward Cayden to help return fire. Cayden checks back down the street just in time to see several batarians file out from the street they followed and into the intersection. As they reach it, they turn towards Katsumi and Lia, who are covered, but seemingly oblivious.
"Don't die," Cayden commands authoritatively, winking at Churchill. The old man smirks, then fires down the street.
"Go get 'em, Dandy," he responds.
Cayden, taking a graciously given opportunity, makes a break for the intersection, firing his shotgun and yelling incoherently to draw attention away from the girls. The batarians who had been close to completing an unseen flanking maneuver on them turn back toward him as one of them falls dead. They begin to fire at him, alerting Katsumi and Lia, and prompting them to turn to face them. As Cayden draws nearer and breaks into the intersection, gunfire whizzes past his ears. He methodically and skillfully guns them down one-by-one. His shotgun begins to overheat and he unceremoniously tosses it to the ground.
One batarian left.
Cayden pushes his stamina into a ferocious charge and tackles it to the ground.
The two of them crumble to the ground, fighting for control of the batarian's gun. Cayden manages to kick it away as he pummels the alien with his fists. They roll around trading blows until, finally, Cayden manages to rip its helmet off. He clasps his hands together and raises them above his head. As he begins to bring them down, the batarian punches him squarely in the jaw, sending him reeling. The batarian tries to get to his feet, but as it begins to move, its head explodes into a red mist.
"In position, Commander," Jason says over comms. "Nice punches."
"Noticed" Cayden responds, his vision blurred. He feels himself being dragged along and swings his arms and legs frantically, trying to get loose.
"Stop it, you bosh'tet!" Lia's voice screams at him through the haze. His vision gradually clears and he sees Lia standing over him with a hand on each of his shoulders. She drops him to the ground as Katsumi fires her assault rifle from behind her.
"Sorry," Cayden responds sheepishly. Lia looks at him for a moment with a smile in her eyes, then produces her pistol and begins shooting with Katsumi while Cayden gets himself back together. That batarian clocked him hard. Katsumi, now with Lia covering them, walks over to Cayden, who is seated with his back against whatever it is they took cover behind. She leans down to him and pulls his gaze into hers by grabbing his chin with her left hand. Her expression goes through a gamut of emotions, finally settling on something between anger and worry. She slaps him across the face.
"Are you fucking crazy?!" she yells in his face. "You should be swiss cheese!" He pulls himself to his feet and Lia looks over at him. He glances over her shoulder. It seems like the firefight is dying down for a moment. Suddenly, Lia's hand rips across his other cheek.
"Don't ever do anything like that again!" Lia says, waggling a finger in his face. He smiles at her, then looks down the street he came from. Churchill is slowly ambling across the intersection towards them. Cayden surveys his surroundings, but the sniper fire is clearing them. Cayden walks out and retrieves his shotgun, then ejects the spent thermal clip. They regroup behind a large planter in the center of the intersection.
"How are you doing?" he asks Churchill, who raises his hand into an 'okay' sign. He looks at Lia, who is furiously staring at him. Katsumi cracks her fingers, then picks her rifle back up into her grip.
"That could've went better," Katsumi announces.
"Could've went a lot worse, as well," Cayden contests. "I'll take no casualties any day."
"This really the best plan you could come up with?" she prods him. Cayden shrugs.
"I'm not sure what we were expecting, just walking up to the place like we own it," Lia adds. Churchill snorts, grasping his thigh with his left hand and his shotgun with his right.
"You alright?" Lia asks him.
He nods. "Not the first time I've been shot and won't be the last, I'm sure."
"Ready when you are, Commander," Sephora's voice buzzes at them across the comm line.
"Give us a minute," Cayden chirps back. He looks around the rooftops as the other three await his instructions quietly. "Jason, Adam," he begins, "you got a good view of the other side of the bridge?"
"You betcha," Adam slurs back. Cayden sees a gunshot hit the door of the building on the other side to punctuate their claim.
Cayden turns his head. "Katsumi, get the old man back to the shuttle," he commands.
"Like hell!" Churchill protests.
"You heard me, old man," Cayden sternly reprimands.
"Like hell!" Katsumi echoes.
"I'm not losing a soldier today," Cayden answers, staring them down intensely. Both of them sigh in unison, then nod.
Katsumi looks at him with an intensity he's not familiar with for a long moment. "Fuck!" she exclaims dramatically. "Don't fucking die before I get back," Katsumi commands them. She puts her arm under his shoulder and rips him off the ground.
"God bloody dammit, woman!" he protests.
"So we can die after you get back?" Cayden teases. She shoots him a dirty look, then hobbles back towards the shuttle landing with Churchill.
"Looks like it's just you and me," Lia tells Cayden with a sultry wink. He smirks back at her.
"Sephora, do it," he commands. After a short delay, the bridge across the chasm begins to extend towards them. Cayden and Lia take cover behind the large planter, keeping careful watch down each of the streets around them. A couple batarians emerge from the large warehouse opposite them, but are quickly picked off by the sniper team.
"ETA ten minutes," Sephora calls over the comm line.
"Ten minutes?!" Lia says in disbelief.
"We had to go a lot deeper into the station than we thought to find a back door," Sephora explains calmly. Lia shakes her head at Cayden.
"Why didn't you just hack it from here?" she asks expectantly.
"What makes you think I could do that?" he responds to her question with caution. She just narrows her eyes at him suspiciously.
"Come on, don't play coy with me," she says confidently, "I've spent enough time around you and in your cabin. You're either insanely lucky, or a secret genius."
"Thanks," Cayden replies with finality. This conversation is getting a little too close for his preference.
Without his blessing, she continues. "You have some mystery around you. No one seems to know much outside of what's public knowledge."
"Been checking up on me?" he asks.
"Well, I tried talking to you, but you always evade questions," she rationalizes.
"Let's discuss this later," he responds. Maybe she has a point. He shoulders his shotgun and takes one more quick glance at the batarian he fought with, which turns rapidly into a stare down. The batarian's four eyes have blue lines running vertically across them and the pupils are mechanical-looking. There are more lines forming digital cracks along the sides of his head. "Looks cybernetic," he mutters.
"Not like any cybernetics I know," Lia answers unexpectedly. He looks over at her. She is staring at the batarian with a similar intensity. "Maybe…no….maybe…." she stutters.
"What?" Cayden asks.
"Well," she begins hesitantly, "it looks…similar to the tech from the vids of the attack on the Citadel."
"Like, the thing with Shepard?" he clarifies.
"Yeah, yeah," she answers quickly. "You've seen the footage, right?"
"Well, hasn't everybody?" Cayden answers. He hesitates, but decides to share. "I've done more than seen the vids, I was there." She looks up at him and blinks rapidly.
"So, you know what I'm talking about. Isn't it similar?" she asks.
He studies the batarian a bit more. She's right. It's very similar to the husks created by the geth. The resemblance is definitely striking. "Yeah," he answers cautiously, "it looks like what happened after the geth put people onto those spikes."
"Right," Lia nods. "This looks like the same kind of tech…just….less." The bridge hits their side of the chasm and locks into place.
"Well," Cayden begins, "Let's go ask them about it, shall we?" The two of them begin walking across the bridge towards the large building.