Kima District / Omega

"I'm sorry; you do not have the qualifications necessary for this line of work. For more contact information in regards to T-GES Mineral Works, please call—"

Rodriguez couldn't hear the rest of the message as he cut off the comm link, exiting the nearby kiosk in which he had applied earlier for multiple job openings: first as a heavy duty rig operator for this station's vast element zero deposits, and then as a security operator to help defend said miners against hostile incursions. Needless to say, it was totally a waste of his time. All in all, this was probably his seventh consecutive rejection, as he failed yet again to qualify for a job, and it wasn't exactly helping him resolve his shot-up nerves from calming down. He really had to find a job, and fast.

Next to his booth, Suzumi also exited from his own cubicle, with a crestfallen expression on his face as he went to meet up with him.

"I take it you didn't get the job?"

"No sir," the former corporal replied. "they said something about me not having the 'qualifications necessary' to work there." Rodriguez sighed as he led his subordinate out of the mining corporation's small office in the edge of the rundown district.

"Pretty much the same thing I got."

"What're we going to do now, sir?" Suzumi asked him earnestly as they walked on one of the narrow streets. "If we don't get any job openings soon, we're fucked."

"Let me worry about that, Rye. I'm sure we can find something. I hope…" He said the last two-word sentence mainly to himself, trying to help uplift his own battered spirits.

They passed through a neglected building that was on the verge of collapse, with a couple of the nightmarish vorcha standing guard on the front entrance, their blood red eyes eyeballing the both of them with hostile intent. After the incident earlier with the prejudiced batarian, the former colonel wished that he had some sort of weapon, to help reassure him that he was still safe and somewhat in control of any situation they could be in on. And so, for the nth time that day, he cursed himself in his thoughts for forgetting to ask Walters for the M3 Predator pistol before they left.

With the amount of rejections they were going through, he still didn't want to think negatively about their chances so far. Even though his logic would dictate that the odds were obviously stacked against them, he had to shelve those pessimistic thoughts away for Suzumi's sake, who was already about to give up and accept his newfound fate. It was just upsetting, to say the least, as one of the men who looked up to him for guidance and direction looked just about lost as he was.

He really needed to do something about that.

They were turning left just around the corner, with the former colonel just contemplating about how unfair life really was with a million and a half different reasons, when the former militiaman in front of him just stepped dead in his tracks.

"You hear that?" Suzumi asked as he instantly turned his head left. Rodriguez raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"Hear what?"

"Listen."

"Rye, I can't hear any—" Suzumi just shushed him out, raising an index finger to emphasize his point. Rodriguez just sighed as he strained his ears to pick up any traces of sound the former corporal was mentioning about, and it didn't take long before he could pick up the telltale signs of mass accelerators firing in the distance. And based on the amount of it firing, there were a lot of them.

Oh, you've gotta be kidding me.

They weren't the only ones who heard the gunfire, as the nearby populace all around them immediately caught wind of it and were quickly emptying the streets, taking shelter in their decrepit homes. In a matter of moments, the area they were in on was an instant ghost town, with no living soul in sight.

The rapid-firing gunfight was drawing closer by the second, and Rodriguez swore viciously in his mind. Out of all the times for a firefight to happen, it had to be now with him and his subordinate nearby and unarmed. They had to find shelter immediately, before they could get caught in the middle of this massive shit storm.

He grabbed Suzumi by the wrist and dragged him to a nearby modular prefab home, where he saw a middle-aged human couple go inside earlier from the populace's hasty departure.

"Open up!" Rodriguez yelled out as he arrived in the front door, hurriedly pressing the holographic doorbell a couple of times. "Please, let us in."

"Get lost, kid." The holographic doorbell—which, he just come to realize, also served as a two-way comm link—barked at them with a gruff tone. "We've got our own problems here."

"Please, I'm begging you. Let us—" The holo interface quickly changed from a friendly orange to a hostile red, indicating the link was now completely shut off. "Damn it!" A few bursts of what sounded like assault rifle fire echoed out loudly nearby, and he immediately threw Suzumi to the ground, covering his subordinate with his own body as he raised his head to look at the source of the constant chatter of gunfire.

Up ahead, at about a few dozen meters, three people—human males, by the looks of it—hurriedly ran as they cut a turn towards his direction, firing off a few potshots from behind them with their weapons. Two of them wore hardsuits of unknown make, while a third was in civilian clothing that looked awfully different from all those residing here in this hellhole, sporting a sports jacket, slacks, and a collared shirt.

"What's going on out there?" Suzumi inquired, unable to observe what was happening because of his current position.

"Just keep your head down, it's nothing."

The trio's pursuers finally came into view, as they rounded out the junction. They were a motley group composed of humans, turians, and batarians that sported the same blue and white armor, and they looked hell-bent on capturing the three humans, firing their weapons sporadically in every direction without a care in the world. No wonder the people in here packed up in a hurry. These idiots were shooting indiscriminately at everything in sight.

One of the hardsuit wearing humans collapsed, as an unseen round from somebody's weapon took him out in mid-stride, dropping the M8 Avenger he was wielding. The two remaining humans kept on running, undeterred by the loss of one of their own as they ran off like the devil himself was on their tail.

"Perry!" One of the pursuers, a batarian, bellowed out. "You can't run away forever!" As if it was trying to highlight the alien's statement, a sniper rifle went off, its loud bang clearly noticeable as it proceeded to blow the head off the last remaining armored human protecting the guy named Perry. Rodriguez watched in horror as the man's front face blew out in a shower of blood, brain matter, and pieces of the poor man's skull. He could feel his stomach twisting from the sight of the visceral gore in front of him, and even though he was a seasoned soldier, he'll never get used to seeing all that carnage.

Perry's eyes widened at the sight of his remaining guard's brains on the floor, but kept on running nonetheless, not stopping to grieve or collect any of his protectors' weapons.

"Sir, what the hell's going—" Suzumi tried to speak out, but a heavy amount of weapons fire just suddenly came out towards their direction, the rounds pinging closely overhead as they unexpectedly became the focal point of the blue-and-white armored mercenaries' attention. Rodriguez shielded his subordinate as they shrank even further on the ground, hugging the floor as low as they can with his kinetic barrier now coming to life from a few glancing hits from the incoming fire.

"We've got a few stragglers, men!" The batarian earlier, who looked like he was the one in charge, barked out. "Kill 'em all!"

"Rye, run!" Rodriguez screamed as he stood Suzumi up on his feet, the both of them displacing as more and more guns started opening up on them. A fiery explosion engulfed their old spot a few seconds later, and he could feel the heat wash over his back as he tried to put some distance between them and the bloodthirsty mercs, with his K-barrier shimmering as a few stray grenade fragments manage to find its way towards him.

The guy named Perry, who was just in front of them by a few meters, observed what was happening and without a second thought, turned around and proceeded to provide covering fire with his own weapon, which happened to be an M6 Carnifex. The massive hand cannon roared loudly, and Rodriguez saw three mercs go down instantly with huge, gaping holes in their chests.

"Come on!" Perry waved them over. Having no other alternatives left, Rodriguez obliged and led Suzumi to follow the man. The gun-toting stranger fired a few more rounds at the hostiles before his heavy pistol hissed out steam and beeped noisily, indicating that the weapon's thermal clip was thoroughly spent.

"Oh, for the love of…" Perry threw his weapon on the ground and ran accordingly in full sprint, with Rodriguez and Suzumi in tow. A few of the mercs' weapons' slugs impacted near their feet, and the metallic ground beneath them erupted in a few sparks. "Please tell me you fellas live somewhere around here."

"We're staying at an inn not too far from here, about less than a klick west." Rodriguez replied, slightly short of breath from the exertion. "We need something to lose 'em with, and fast."

"Yeah, I don't think I have one of those and—oh wait, yes I do." as if a light bulb just lit up on top of Perry's head, his expression changed, from a grim scowl to that of jubilant recognition. The stranger was fishing something out of his slacks' pocket for a few seconds, until he finally produced a circular device with what looked like retractable stabilizing fins on its sides.

"What's that?" Suzumi asked.

"Mark Fourteen multi-purpose grenade, Alliance standard-issue." Perry responded with confidence, as the group turned abruptly to the right to avoid a pile of large, abandoned shipping containers.

"Where'd you get that?" Rodriguez asked in incredulity. "I thought Alliance gear was—you know what, never mind. Just throw the stupid thing!"

"We need to find an open space first, it won't do jack shit if there's crap cluttered all around it when this baby goes off."

"We don't have much time, damn it. You need to throw it, right now!"

"I'm telling ya that—" A rifle round struck along Suzumi's shoulder blades, and the former militiaman stumbled in his advance as the kinetic barrier he had on automatically came to existence, going down face first on the dirt-riddled floor from the round's momentum. The mercs' advance team was already near them, firing their weapons with deadly precision. It was only a matter of time before the rest of those bastards would finally catch up with them. Rodriguez grabbed his subordinate through his arm pits and gave Perry a pleading look.

"For Christ sakes', throw the fucking thing! Throw it!"

"Oh, to hell with it." Perry reared his arm back and heaved the grenade towards the advancing merc vanguard.

A brief, brilliant flash of white blinded Rodriguez as he raised a hand to shield himself from the searing light. As it finally subsided, his eyes widened with the sight of nine mercenaries flash-frozen and helpless, perfectly still and peaceful. If only he had a gun to finish them off. And with that, he couldn't help but stare in awe at the prospect of having a weapon such as that at his disposal.

"Bose-Einstein cryo condensates," Perry informed the both of them a few seconds later. "pretty nasty stuff."

"I'll say." Suzumi croaked as he stood up straight, whose astonished trance mimicked the former colonel's own at the scene in front of them.

"I can't believe it worked, though." Perry gazed at his handiwork. "Usually its effectiveness decreases when it doesn't detonate on open terrain." Rodriguez snapped his gaze away at the frozen hostiles and went back straight to his current task.

"Come on, we're just a few more dozen meters away."

"Yeah, sure." The stranger replied before a wicked grin formed on his facial features. "Let's just make one more stop before we get there..."

"Where've you guys been?" Cortez was the first to voice out his concern when they finally arrived back inside the room, with his eyes narrowed cautiously at the sight of Perry. "And who is this guy?"

"The 'guy' happens to have a name," the stranger replied in an agitated tone, dropping three of the duffel bags he brought with him to the floor. "and it's John Perry."

"I'm guessing you all have something to do with that firefight a few blocks away," Johnson remarked with a neutral tone before breaking out into a wide smile. "you should've brought me with you, sir."

"It wasn't all fun and games, Al." Rodriguez rebuked the former cavalry officer with a stern tone. "We barely made it out of there alive, and if it wasn't for Perry here helping us out, we wouldn't be here breathing right now."

"Just happy to help." Perry remarked with a small smile.

"Why were they hell-bent on killing you, anyway?" Suzumi asked as he sat down on the edge of a nearby bed.

"Now that you mention it," the former colonel stated as he proceeded to take off his dirty leather jacket. "that batarian really wanted you dead. Why's that?" Perry's face changed into a sad downcast expression as he slowly walked towards the room's sole window to witness the view, sighing miserably as he tried to recall what had happened to him previously.

"I grew a conscience at the worst possible time, that's what happened."

"What're you talking about?" Walters queried.

"In my line of work, let's just say it requires a certain…detachment to things," He turned his head around, looking straight into Rodriguez's brown eyes. "to be morally ambiguous. In order to protect oneself, from all the blatant horrors of reality lying in wait out there, ready to bite me in the ass."

"What did you do, Perry?" The former colonel held onto the unfamiliar person's gaze.

"Let's just say, I sold a bunch of things to people I shouldn't have. When I found out what those bastards' plans were for the merchandise they bought from me, I blew it up right in front of their faces before they could use 'em."

Rodriguez thought about the advanced Alliance grenade he saw the man use earlier, and based on the story that Perry had just shared to the rest of them, it didn't take long before he had come to connect the rest of the missing pieces altogether.

"You're an arms dealer."

"Pretty much," Perry retorted with a miserable smirk. "the horrible things they were planning on doing to those poor innocent people, was just something I didn't want to help achieve. I honestly thought I was gonna die right then and there. I just…" The arms dealer looked like he was at a loss for words, breaking his stare away from the former colonel.

"Who were those two guys that were with you earlier?" Rodriguez asked solemnly.

"Dutch and Tanner, they were my bodyguards, and good friends of mine. They've been with me ever since I started this gig sixteen years ago. I can't believe they're gone…"

"I'm sorry…" Suzumi said sympathetically.

"Don't be, I should've seen this coming a long time ago." Perry said in derisive manner. "I guess karma's finally catching up with me now, for all the lives I've ruined with my business."

"What're you going to do now?" Walters inquired intently.

"I honestly don't know. After I blew that weapons cache to hell, I wasn't really thinking that far ahead. But enough about me, though…" He observed the rest of them thoughtfully. "what brings you to this glorified shithole?"

"We actually came here looking for a job." Rodriguez mentioned in a disdainful tone. "As much as we hate coming here, we didn't exactly have that much of a choice."

"Where you fellas from?"

"Well, believe it or not, we're from Ferris Fie—" A single high-velocity gunshot rang out, breaking the hard synthetic polymer windowpane into a million tiny pieces. Perry screamed out loud as the round went through his upper arm, with the arms dealer going down hard on the ground as he spun from the shot's impact.

"Snipeeeer!" Johnson yelled.

"Everybody down!" Rodriguez ordered as more shots followed through, shattering most of the items inside the room, which included the vases and other cheap house items meant to make this place more at home. All the men inside the room hit the deck, hugging the ground to make themselves disappear on the shooter's targeting reticule.

"Son of a—" a shot broke through Suzumi's water canteen, spraying everyone inside the room with…well, water. "Can you see the shooter?"

"Negative, negative." Walters replied, brandishing out the Predator pistol he was entrusted with. "I can't see him, he's got us pinned."

"A pistol ain't gonna cut it, sir." Suzumi cried out as he crawled to come get the squad's first-aid kit. "We need bigger guns!"

"The bags." Perry grumbled as he was lying down on the ground, a hand clutching on his bleeding wound. "There's guns and clips inside the bags."

The three duffels bags, the ones Perry brought with him from their slight stopover earlier, were just lying in the center of the room. Rodriguez tried going near them, but the sniper had him pinned on the crook of the room, cursing out loudly as he took shelter on the side of one of the beds.

"Johnson!"

"Yo!"

"Get those damn bags!"

"Are you crazy?" The southerner yelled out in disbelief as he took cover underneath the dinner table. "I ain't planning on dying just about yet, sir."

"That sniper's attention is on me, damn it!" Rodriguez shouted back. "Move, before he decides to blow your head off!"

"But—"

"Goddamn it, move! That's a direct order!"

"Fuuuuuck!" Johnson cursed out at full volume, as he finally stood from where he was and ran wildly towards the duffel bags. The sniper shifted his aim and began blasting at the running southerner inside the room. A shot from the enemy combatant's rifle blew one of the pillows into smithereens, with feathers flying freely into the air.

The former lieutenant grabbed the bags by the shoulder straps and rolled his body sideways near the edge of the room, his speed and momentum quickly carrying him towards their in an instant.

"Holy crap! I did it!"

"That's nice and all, farm boy." Suzumi called out in a semi-amused tone. "Now hand us those guns." Johnson seemed to ignore the former corporal plea, as he kept on his victory tirade and kept on gloating in the direction of the hostile sniper.

"Ha-ha, you suck! You hear me? You can't hit worth a damn, you stupid piece of—"

Just four inches above Johnson's head, the wall near him exploded in a vapor of sizzling sparks, with the vertical metal partition showing off a huge fist-sized hole. He immediately went down for cover, his hands above his head as he further protected himself from the sniper's wrath.

"Johnson!" Walters screamed out. "That's enough!"

"Okay." The southerner conceded in a submissive tone. "Shutting up now."

"Make sure Walters has a long-range rifle." Rodriguez instructed before facing Suzumi. "How's he looking, Rye?"

"His brachial artery was severed, sir!" Suzumi reported. "But I managed to stave off the rest of the bleeding with medi-gel." The former colonel nodded his approval at the young former militiaman and looked for his shuttle pilot.

"Cortez, you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." The ex-Alliance fighter jock replied, who was taking cover on the wall housing the shattered window. "I'll live, thanks for asking."

"Crap," Johnson swore as he looked at the opened duffel bags' contents. "these guns look all the same to me."

"Are they all folded and in their compact state?" Walters asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Grab one, and then read the tiny inscription on the lower right portion of the weapon." The former major instructed in a semi-patient voice.

"What's that got to do with—"

"Just do it!"

"Uh, okay." The southerner grabbed a black, folded gun from inside the bag and did what he was told, "This one says 'Hahne-Kedar N7 Valiant, Modular Sniper Weapon Sys—'"

"Okay, that's close enough. Just hand it over." Johnson obeyed the request wordlessly and threw the heavy shrunken rifle towards Walters's direction.

The former XO caught the rifle two-handedly as it was flung in the air, pressing the small button near the trigger-guard that immediately transformed the weapon into its sleek, uncompact form. Walters manually made minute adjustments on the weapon's scope to adjust for the rifle's upcoming shot, compensating for the lack of targeting visors, omni-tools and hardsuit miniframe computers.

"Where is he?"

"What?" Rodriguez asked, unable to hear Walters through the din of the sniper's fusillade.

"Where. Is. He. Sir!"

Rodriguez slowly peeked out of his cover, narrowing his eyes to ascertain the location of the shooter's position. He saw blue muzzle flashes, from the weapon's miniature mass accelerator lighting up after every shot, coming in from the…east, or north? He couldn't tell, and right now he had to improvise to help his subordinate line up for a shot.

"Walters! Target is on your…uh, two o'clock! On top of a refinery."

"Distance!"

"Looks like about five hundred yards." Walters peered over the edge of the destroyed plastic window and placed his rifle through, eyeing the scope.

"I see him. I'm going to need a distraction, sir."

"What?"

"I said I'm going to need a—"

Several of the sniper's latest shots impacted on the bed he was currently taking cover from, where Rodriguez dove in further on the side of the battered mattress as the rounds nearly took his head clean off. Multiple slugs mutilated the bed's innards as loose chunks of cotton and rubber foam joined in the latest fray of debris scattered all around the room.

Apparently, that was just the right distraction his XO needed, as he saw Walters calmly aim his bulky rifle towards his target, undeterred by the amount of chaos that was ensuing all over the place by the sniper's hand.

A single gunshot echoed loudly inside the messed up room, as Walters finally fired his weapon at his designated target. A few brief moments later, the enemy's constant assault thankfully ceased, with the former major removing his N7 Valiant out of the shattered window pane and putting it on top of his legs, just leaning his back and head against the wall as he took a breather.

"Target eliminated, sir." The former XO reported.

"Thank God," Rodriguez breathed as he finally stood up, dust and other minute form of debris falling off of him, as he went through Perry's side. He saw Suzumi try his best in stabilizing the wounded arms dealer, who looked uncharacteristically pale, compared to his colored features a while ago. They had to get him some real professional help soon; the medi-gel was only good as a temporary stop-gap solution, not a permanent one.

"Henry?"

"What is it, Steve?" Rodriguez looked up to see Cortez standing over the window, a grave expression on etched on his face.

"We got company; they're going inside the building." Rodriguez sighed as he faced Johnson.

"Looks like we can't catch a break after all," the former colonel said softly before hardening his voice and resolve. "Distribute the rest of those weapons and gear."

"What're we going to do?" Suzumi asked. Rodriguez just gave him a small smirk.

"We're getting outta here."