The Annos Basin
Pranas System
Space around the mass effect relay distorted for a moment, as the rings within the center of the relay began to glow and rotate faster; within seconds they had spun up to maximum strength, and released their charge in a flash of blue light. The rings quickly began to slow down as the spacecraft they had transported across the galaxy arrived.
The Normandy followed standard procedures and immediately moved clear from the jump point, clearing the way for any traffic that might follow in their wake. Luckily, nothing hit them as they quickly sped away.
Commander Shepard directed Joker to guide them towards a group of ships on the other side of the sun Pranas, the diplomatic vessels they were to meet up with.
They were still out of communications range, being several light-minutes away, but the types of ships, and whom they belonged to could be easily observed.
Shepard was standing on his raised platform overlooking the CIC, holding a cup of half-empty coffee and stifling a few yawns. He had only woken up twenty minutes ago when they had reached the relay connecting to the Annos Basin, and was still pretty groggy.
Mess Sergeant Gardner had gone missing along with many of the former Cerberus crew members, so it had been down to Vega to make the coffee.
He made great food, sure, but either someone was trying to poison the crew, or Vega was awful at making coffee.
Probably both.
Shepard hit a control on the railing, and the galaxy map disappeared to be replaced with a 3-D globular display. He twisted it around with his omni-tool, and with his thumb and index finger selected a grid section and zoomed in on it.
When the view stopped moving, the various diplomatic parties were displayed before him, each group surrounded by squares colored according to their nationality.
One group consisted of angular bird-of-prey types, obviously the turian fleet. They were neatly arranged, and judging by their formation, were at least trying to keep things calm; they were in a tight box, getting as close to each other as possible to avoid violating anyone else's space.
The second group, by far the largest, was made up of smooth and rounded fish-like designs, the Salarian Union's representatives.
Unlike the Turians, the Salarians weren't trying to be diplomatic. Their ambassadorial fleet was augmented by several battle groups of their military ships, which seemed to be trying to surround the third group. They stayed just outside weapons range, but were still just close enough to be able to quickly move in.
The third group was a bit different from the rest.
Though they were arranged in perfect order, their ship designs were not uniform like the other formations; Some were long, thick, and extremely weathered, but had the same bird-of-prey shape that the turian ships possessed.
Others, the majority of the fleet, were similar to the salarian ships, but seemed to be of an older design and were in very poor shape.
Shepard noted that there were even a few Krogan-made vessels in the fleet; merchant ships, judging by their designs, but still emblazoned with the color and flags of the Krogan Empire.
Must have cost a fortune to get those up and running; let alone get them out here.
However, as they slowly came into communications range, a number of the messages bombarding them drew their attention to the lead krogan ship.
"What's going on?" Shepard wondered as he ordered EDI to enhance visual of that ship.
It was a very strange vessel that came into focus. Unlike those around it, it seemed to be much less sleek, and angular, and slightly resembled a brick.
It was long and straight, about three-quarters the length of an Alliance frigate; it lacked a spinal mass accelerator cannon, where that should have been were instead three tubes.
"Likely to be a type of missile launcher." EDI reported, still short and to the point.
Least we know something hasn't changed, Shepard reflected, thinking of EDI's new "mobile platform".
The commander continued to read the analyses on the strange ship.
It was very strangely designed, using far too much surface area than was advisable with mass effect fields.
Stranger still, the energy readings were much higher than what one would expect from a ship of that size; the Normandy could barely match that, and it had the most powerful frigate drive in the fleet.
They couldn't have gotten that from the Salarians, they wouldn't have brought it otherwise. Did the Krogan steal that thing from the Quarians? Tali was so fascinated by how we fit our engine into the Normandy, maybe they were trying to improve on the design...Wonder how they got around the surface-area problem though…
Shepard hesitated for a moment as Tali came to mind. She hadn't sent many messages in the first few days following his imprisonment, and they had soon stopped altogether two weeks in.
He shook the thought off and continued reading, telling himself she would be fine.
The immense power readings probably meant that the GARDIAN laser arrays noticeable across the vessel were extremely powerful as well.
Shepard then wondered what ordnance those two tri-barreled turrets mounted on the top and bottom of the ship fired; he shuddered as he imagined what the Quarians could have stuffed into those things, with that drive core.
Unfortunately the ship was the reason behind the commotion.
The messages exchanged between the ships from each fleet seemed to suggest that the salarians believed that the krogan delegation had stolen the starship from either themselves, or from the quarians.
Though the Salarian Union held little respect towards the quarians, they knew that the Migrant Fleet had become highly advanced over the years; and neither they nor the salarians approved of theft of highly advanced technology.
Thus they were determined to repossess it.
Shepard facepalmed, and wondered why anyone would panic about this in the middle of a war.
He decided that they needed to be the peacekeepers in this, as they approached real-time communications range.
They heard the voice of a salarian officer midway through an order.
"...ay again. Turn the ship over to us or we will be forced to destroy it. This is your last warning."
The gruff familiar voice of a certain krogan echoed through the CIC; unrelenting and powerful.
"And this is the last time I say it! Come and get it, if you've got a quad, pyjak!"
However, before Urdnot Wrex could destabilize diplomatic relations any further, or Shepard could interfere, there was an audible click.
For a few tense moments many thought they were going to launch an attack before a completely different voice came over the channel.
"This is Captain Alita Kyle, commander of the Mako to salarian fleet. This ship is still the property of its rightful government owners, and we are merely rendering assistance to an ally. We request that you pull your ships back, or we'll blow 'em out of the sky."
There was a pause as the salarians tried to process the polite threat.
"Identify yourself and your allegiance." The cool voice of the salarian officer said.
"I am Captain Kyle of the Cloud Defense Force, acting commander of the CNV Mako. We are providing assistance to the representatives of the Krogan Clans. Say again, pull back your ships or we will open fire. I will not ask again."
The voice was just as calm and collected as the salarian's had been.
"What is Cloud? That doesn't sound like a krogan colony…"
Shepard quickly hit a "send" key, "This is Commander Shepard of the Normandy. Cloud is an independent human colony that has been recognized by the Alliance. They are authorized to undertake diplomatic action, and they developed that spacecraft on their own. It is not stolen. Please pull back."
The powerful and proud voice of newly-made Primarch Victus came over the comms array as well. "The Turian Hierarchy supports the Alliance. Pull back your ships and deactivate weapons."
There was a muffled curse from the salarian end of the transmission, "Keep a better hold on your independents, Commander. They don't know what they're doing."
Nevertheless, the salarian ships stood down, and moved back a bit...But stayed just close enough to move back into weapons range if they needed to.
Shepard turned off his link to the comms array, and rubbed his eyes. And they say humans are immature.
Specialist Traynor reported from behind him, "Commander, the salarian dalatrass and krogan clan chief are ready to come aboard."
Shepard nodded, and went down the steps, headed for the elevator.
"Have them brought to the conference room."
He turned towards the open door, and hit the control mounted to its side for the captain's cabin.
"...And hope this doesn't start another war."
XXXXX
During the negotiations, Wrex demanded a cure for the genophage to help fight against the Reapers and be able to actually get into a military alliance. Despite the protests of the salarian dalatrass, the other three representatives' pressure forced her to relent, and Shepard's Spectre status allowed them to circumvent the red tape surrounding the STG facility on Sur'Kesh.
The commander noted how oddly simple it was to condense the whole thing down to one paragraph as he reentered the elevator, with Wrex right behind him.
It was a short ride up to Shepard's cabin, the most private part of the ship.
Shepard moved quickly across the room, tossing his dress uniform jacket onto the sofa.
"Nice place, Shepard. Better than mine at least." Wrex commented, as he uneasily followed through the door, and looked around at the study area, where a display of ship models sat in a right angle shape. a terrified little rodent in a cage hid as the krogan peered in.
On the same shelf, Wrex noticed six small figures, a bit bigger than his hand, standing in various poses. They each had one of six colors, with no shade repeating. They also held tools or weapons of some kind, none of which were duplicated, similarly to the color.
Wrex shrugged, guessing that they were Shepard's gods or something. Humans had a lot of religions, maybe each had more than one god?
"What are these, your meals?"
Shepard turned at the question, to see Wrex looking at his fish. With hungry eyes. "Is this related to when I had to tell that krogan there weren't any fish in the presidium?" Shepard asked as he entered a password into the display before his lockers.
He entered a few commands, and one of the lockers opened with a hiss; the door folding into the locker above it.
"...Maybe." Wrex chuckled in his own unique way, "He, he, he."
Shepard shook his head, and reached into the new hatch to withdraw a large crate, about a meter long and half a meter tall.
"So, why'd you call me up here?"
Shepard brought the crate up onto the raised area of the room, and set it down carefully. The thing looked a bit heavy.
Looking the human in the eye, Wrex could see Shepard was serious about something.
"Where the hell did you get that ship?"
Wrex growled, "We didn't steal it! I thought you understood that when-"
Shepard held up his hands, "Whoa, whoa, Wrex! I wasn't accusing you of anything! I meant, 'where did you get those friends of yours'?"
"...Oh. My mistake. Stupid salarians have got me hating a member of my krant!"
"My mistake too, should have worded that better."
"Not too big of a deal though. Offending someone is my way of exercising, the bruises are a good workout for your secondary nervous system!"
"Wrex, I told you…"
"Right, right. Gotta read up on human anatomy again."
"Please don't." Shepard was half serious, krogan were even more deadly with proper knowledge.
The old krogan grinned, and Shepard flashed back for a moment to the adventures they experienced together. Through thick and thin, Wrex had stuck by him, saving his life countless times. Now the commander was returning the favor.
"...Anyway, what did you say? Oh, ha ha! How those humans got with us?"
He roared with laughter, and noticing Shepard's trouble with the crate, picked it up with one hand and casually passed it back and forth between his hands.
"They have quads, I'll tell you that! So we're all ready to shoot down a few pyjak-shit-wannabe Reaper scouts, right? We've got one of those ancient nuclear missile silos working(ancients built those to last, you know)thanks to Clan Jorgal, and a planetary defense battery all ready to fire, when all of a sudden the damn targeting systems go haywire!"
They boarded the elevator, and Wrex was taking great pleasure in keeping Shepard's crate away.
"The silo's computer crashes(literally too) because there's a bunch of targets it's not ready for, and some stuff the tech explained that I didn't remember. The planetary defense gun's all screwed up cause it hasn't fired since before my father was lucky enough to be born, so it gets filled with warnings and errors when it gets a proximity warning because of the fleet that just appeared and it tries to fire…!"
He grinned at this part, "Both try to fire anyway,but then the silo explodes and the battery is knocked out permanently!"
Shepard raised an eyebrow. "What happened?"
"Those humans really know their guns. Apparently they plotted the wrong course or some crap like that, and their computers went crazy too, started firing at all our weapon signatures!"
He sighed with happiness, "Nothing like an attempt on your life to start a negotiation...They apologized a lot, but it was obvious what they were really trying to do. They were trying to show their dominance without offending us!"
Shepard didn't even bother trying to correct Wrex as the elevator door opened and the krogan finally released the crate. "We don't usually do that anymore, especially not with other species...but it's nice to know someone did their research."
The commander smiled, and moved to the primary armory in the shuttle bay.
He retrieved his old and battered N7 helmet, making a mental note to locate a replacement; too bad his death mask had been left on Earth…
Next, he cracked open the crate, and withdrew the brand-new Armax Arsenal shoulder pads, a much more bulbous variant of the standard pads; and a Kassa Fabrication chest plate, slightly less armored than the regular variant, but with five disk-shaped micro capacitors to either side of the centerline.
"So what made you ally with them?" Shepard asked, as he kicked off his boots and hurried to put on his armor.
"Apparently they had some pretty old records, they were expecting some empire or something, not a hunk of rock. They called us Grakaan...haven't heard that name in years."
At the commander's blank look he explained, "That was the word from an old language that meant 'krogan', no one uses it much now. Thought it was dead."
"They were a bit...disappointed upon not seeing the great Krogan Empire, but it seems they were desperate enough to ask for our help even so. And, being the gracious hosts that we are," his tone oozed with sarcasm, "We obliged, in return for some help with a few projects."
Shepard saw Wrex leer to himself as he spoke; thoughts of whatever terrifying remnant of the Krogan Empire would arise next filling both human and krogan heads alike.
"Those humans never told us how they ended up here, but it doesn't matter. They managed to intimidate some of us, the salarians, so in my book, they're worthy of killing."
Shepard pulled on his helmet, and switched it on as he nodded, then went across the shuttle bay to grab his new modified M-15 Vindicator.
Wrex eyed it with an envious look, and upon glancing at the labels for a few of the secondary barrel's ammo, he muttered, "Nice, a real male's weapon..."
Shepard motioned for the krogan to follow into the open shuttle nearby, where Garrus and Liara waited.
XXXXX
Some time later, Shepard emerged from the shuttle's cockpit into the troop bay, and saw Wrex checking his gun yet again. "This is the salarian homeworld we're headed to. They aren't used to seeing krogan here, so let's keep it simple."
Wrex didn't look up, now in professional mode as he shouldered his claymore shotgun and looked down the sights.
"We land, get the females, and leave before anyone changes their mind."
"I still don't trust a word they say…" Wrex muttered.
Shepard reached up for a handhold on the ceiling as he replied, "Let diplomacy play out, Wrex. You'll get what you want."
"These females are the best, and probably last hope for my people!" he said in an uncharacteristically quiet, and almost...anxious tone.
Liara moved into the compartment as well, clad in a new suit of armor from Rosenkov Materials. It was colored black from foot to waist, and the front of the chest, with the rest colored silver, and navy blue stripes that ran from the sides of her torso to the backs of her legs.
"We'll bring them back, Wrex. Don't worry." She reassured Wrex, in a professional and calm tone.
Wrex nodded to her, "I appreciate that, Liara," then his face grew into a massive grin from ear to ear, "Wouldn't want anyone else along for the ride."
There was the sound of an awkward throat being cleared; Garrus stood up, and raised his eyebrows expectantly as he smirked at Wrex.
Like Liara, he also wore a new suit of armor, this one from Hahne-Kedar, that was painted with a desert camouflage color scheme. To either side of his chest plate's power-absorption panel lay two downward diagonal bandolier belts, carrying concussive shot and spec-rounds(what the marines had been calling the specialized heavy barrel's ammunition), while additional clips of ammunition pockets clung to his shoulder and waist.
Several portions of the suit had scratches and nicks made by tools; he had bought it less than two days ago and had already been hard at work trying to improve it.
"I suppose I could make room for you too, Garrus," Wrex deadpanned, before laughing a hearty laugh.
"Figured you'd gone soft, sitting on that throne; forgot how to hold a gun." Garrus deadpanned in return.
The banter would have continued if not for Cortez reporting their ETA to the landing zone…
XXXXX
Newly promoted Captain Alita Kyle groaned as she leaned back in her seat on the bridge of the CNV Mako.
These Tolun-look-alikes were really starting to irritate her.
It seemed like every time their helmsman, Lieutenant Hart made a minute orbital adjustment, the salarians were upon them; they whined about proper flight plans and all that bureaucratic stuff few species in the known universe cared about.
The salarians seemed to be the exception to that rule; every other salarian they came into contact with seemed overly concerned with rules and regulations. The aerospace-traffic controller they had been talking to might have even put the civilian shoe clerks that used to work at Celeste's spaceport to shame.
"You can't deviate from your course," the salarian's almost shrill voice suddenly sounded through the cockpit, "You need to file a flight plan, and follow it! This isn't some krogan planet, there is a lot of traffic around here that you could crash into! Do humans just not have these rules, or was Earth's orbit so cluttered you just don't feel the bumps anymore?!"
Hart mimed banging his head against his controls, "I thought I got rid of him…" he muttered.
Guess Wrex hadn't been exaggerating… Kyle thought with a small smile, and reached for her own communication control.
"Mako to tower, we would appreciate it if you would take a more civil tone when speaking to a diplomatic party, but I'll let that slide in the interest of peace. However, we have not deviated from our flight course in any major way. Our orbit has only changed to avoid your satellites."
There was a wash of static as the two radically differing communication systems exchanged information, and the reply came, "Spare me the 'diplomacy' shit. You say that now, but you're just preparing to shoot at something when we aren't looking. You krogan-lovers are nothing but a bunch of warmongering fools."
The reason for the station's constant badgering suddenly became clear.
Kyle shook her head in disgust, and simply turned off the radio.
She hoped this whole thing would be over soon.
There was a sudden rapid beeping from several displays, and a moment later the Mako's basic AI, Maresal called out, "Alert! Jump signature detected in close proximity to CNV Mako."
There was a pause, as Kyle looked at her display in disbelief, "Update. Collision alert. Collision alert. Prepare for acceleration…"
The captain held on along with the rest of the crew as the ship heeled to port; the blasts of the emergency thrusters resounded through the hull with a sound like cannons as they evaded.
"Maresal! Status report!" Kyle called out, tapping commands onto her arm-top computer, and then activating her command chair's systems.
The simple AI in charge of the Mako known as Maresal could not make an avatar for himself -the old Piranha-class lacked that capability- but he still made his presence known audibly as the Bolos did.
Basic AI such as he lacked the capabilities of a Bolo, and his individual initiative and creativity were extremely limited in comparison.
Maresal and the other computer systems were only meant to augment, not replace the ship's crew.
"Ship status: Undamaged. No casualties reported. All systems nominal." His calm voice returned some of the quiet atmosphere that had once engulfed the bridge "Alert! Unknown contacts in sector 21, 18, and 15."
"Target the unknowns; but do not fire. We don't know who they are." Captain Kyle ordered in response, and looked to starboard, where the sector 15 contact floated in space.
It looked like one of the krogan military surplus vessels, with a long central beam housing a magnetic accelerator, and two wing-like panels angling down to either side. The wings stretched back to the engine housing, and were more rectangular aft than forward.
However, unlike the krogan surplus, these were brand new. Their orange and black highlights were shining in the light from the Pranas star, and their white paint contrasted greatly with the darkness of space.
A wash of static signaled the return of the salarian aerospace traffic tower. "Tower to Mako, what on Sur'Kesh are you doing?"
Before Kyle could answer, the salarian snorted, "I knew it. Prepare to be boarded, and power down your weapons. I knew we couldn't trust you."
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Kyle demanded, her patience quickly wearing thin "We nearly get run over by some yahoos, and your response is to arrest us? You yell at us for not filing a flight plan, then don't tell us about these guys?"
There was a pause. Not just because of the communication system problems. "...What ships? You're the only one...Wait a moment."
They heard him speaking away from the microphone, "Someone check the sensor logs again, and notify frigate squadron-29."
Maresal announced, "Analysis complete. Unknowns have activated a heat-sink stealth system. Standard Salarian Union sensors are unable to detect unknowns."
Kyle facepalmed, and said dryly, "Thank you, Maresal."
She hit the transmit control, "Tower, this is Mako. Are you sure you can't detect the ships that just ran us over?"
"Affirmative, but we're rechecking the logs."
"I can see three ships outside my window right now, that my AI says your sensors can't detect. He says that they've got some sort of heat-sink stealth system."
The salarian sighed, "Oh frell, frell, frell, frell, frell! I was right."
His voice sounded distant again, "Someone notify the fleet now!"
Light suddenly flashed in the windows that faced the other ship.
Outside, the ship had fired upon a passing communications satellite, and fired several times at a target on the planet below; the other two vessels began maneuvering downwards into the atmosphere.
Sensors reported that shuttles were leaping from the ships down towards a facility on Sur'Kesh. Straight to the one that Shepard guy had gone to.
"Go to red alert. Target the largest ship's engines, and prime the drop tubes. The diplomatic party has company coming, and they forgot the wine."
XXXXX
"Oh, crap…"
"Get back!" Shepard cried, as they turned away from the elevator and rushed away.
The red light on the explosive blinked green for an instant, before the detonation shattered the elevator, and threw Garrus, Liara and Shepard forward.
Liara slid along the floor and hit the wall with a crunch, Garrus flew through the air and bounced off the corner of the wall, landing in a heap; Shepard was tossed up in the air like a ragdoll, and came back to earth with a hard thump as the kinetic barriers surrounding his armor collapsed with a fizzing sound.
Shepard suppressed a groan as he got onto all fours, and rose to his feet, shields quickly flickering to life.
"Commander Shepard, are you alright?" A salarian scientist demanded, standing near the wall and helping up Garrus.
A medic rushed over to the unmoving STG trooper who lay prone near the burning inferno once known as an elevator, checking the connection between the neck and shoulder for a pulse.
"Yeah, we're fine. Is there another way out of here?" He demanded in return.
"Other side of the lab. Emergency exit. I can open it from here."
Shepard's suit radio crackled with Mordin Solus' voice, "Shepard, Cerberus forces trying to locate female!"
There was a staccato burst of fire, "Quarantine checkpoint under attack. Hurry!"
Shepard clicked an acknowledgement button on his helmet, and rushed for the door on the opposite end of the room.
It opened with a slight squeal, it clearly hadn't been used in a while.
The three moved quickly for the ladder, the commander taking the lead as Garrus and Liara aimed their weapons at the top.
As Shepard rapidly climbed, his radio spoke again, "Shepard, it's Wrex!"
There was a deep explosion in the distance, making the lights flicker as the sound reached Wrex's transmitter, "I took the shuttle! Do whatever it takes to get those females up to the landing pad!"
There was a burst of mass accelerator fire, "I'll try to make life miserable for Cerberus!"
The transmission was cut as another impact echoed through the facility.
"This looks worse than I thought…" Garrus murmured as he reached the top of the ladder; they opened the second door to reveal a crashed gunship across the way from their balcony. No one could tell if it was STG or Cerberus.
The wind was audible even through the helmets, and the setting sun offered an irritating glare to soldiers on both sides of the valley that ran through the complex.
Gunfire blasted away endlessly, as sonic booms echoed through the hills like some terrific beast.
The path led to the side, where half a dozen STG soldiers, armed with a variety of rifles were firing at various areas across the valley of metal. some were standing on the balcony's wide rim, to get a better angle at some target or another.
"Taking enemy fire from position Telsec-4!" one of the officers called out distantly, the gunfire nearly drowning out his voice.
"Direct reinforcements to that location and confirm!"
A unique STG trooper, his armor colored in olive-drab camouflage for some reason, with white highlights, appeared out of nowhere; his tactical cloak collapsed, and his purple kinetic barrier surged to life to replace it.
An infiltrator...Shepard thought.
He fired a burst with an M-29 Incisor, rewarded with two screams, and the proximity mine that followed destroyed the rest of the targets with roaring "applause".
Before the team could move forward to lend assistance, a shadow passed overhead, and there was an sudden explosion that threw the salarians standing on the edge off the balcony, and killed most of those who hid behind cover.
The infiltrator was thrown backwards towards Shepard's team, sliding to a stop at his feet.
The trooper rolled on the ground, clutching his eye, babbling incoherently.
His armor's kinetic barriers flickered and died, fragments of the generator crunching underneath.
Shepard grabbed the infiltrator by the shoulders and started to pull him towards cover.
An additional salarian survivor saw what they were doing, and leaned out of cover to fire at those who would murder his injured comrade; as there was a bang.
His head whipped back, as his arms went limp and he collapsed against the nearby pillar, dead.
Shepard pulled the remaining injured soldier back behind cover in the shade, as Garrus and Liara lay down suppressive fire on the sniper.
A concussive shot killed the Cerberus sniper, as Shepard tried to pull away the infiltrator's three-fingered hands to treat the wound.
The trooper moaned, and blind to anything but instinct, slapped the human hand away and reached for a control on his wrist.
A critically damaged tactical cloak attempted to hide the injured infiltrator, and with a shaking hand he tried to pull himself away. He didn't get far, and just started writhing to try and resist.
The cloak, connected to the shield generator, quickly failed, barely even covering anything beyond the torso before it did.
"Someone help me!" Shepard ordered, and Garrus held the salarian down, as Liara took cover near another pillar. The trooper ceased resisting, upon feeling hands similar to his own, instead of those belonging to a perceived hostile.
Shepard succeeded in pulling the salarian's hands away from his eye; and recoiled upon seeing a long thin cylinder of metal protruding from the eye socket.
Even Garrus gulped at the sight.
It was impossible to say whether the eye was salvageable; the metal rod didn't seem to go further in than the eye socket, but it was hard to tell. Shepard inhaled with a hiss as he realized that just applying medi-gel wouldn't do it.
The commander checked to make sure the infiltrator's built-in medi-gel systems were still online, then held him down and activated his omni-blade
"Get ready, Garrus…You're probably going to need to hold him down," The thin diamond-sharp blade labeled "EMERGENCY FIELD USE" in bright orange letters deployed.A bolt cutter might have been better, but one used what one had.
Shepard, holding the rod steady to prevent further injury, carefully positioned the blade; slowly, but efficiently he cut through the section of debris just above where it entered the eye.
It came off with a snap, and with the decreased weight, the salarian seemed to relax...or he'd passed out from pain and fear.
"Sorry, this is going to hurt some. I can't take it out here." Shepard quickly pulled out a dose of medi-gel, and stuck it onto the eye,stabilizing the impaled metal so that the surgeons could remove it out without the poor bastard getting an inadvertent lobotomy. "I'll need to cover the other eye too. Sorry." He had no idea if he was being heard, but they always said in field medic training to keep talking
"Why're you doing that?" Garrus wanted to know.
"Salarians have eyes like humans or Turians. Both their eyes track together."
"So?"
"So...if you don't cover both eyes, he can't keep the injured one still." As efficiently as possible he used a bit of gauze to make a blindfold. "Okay, I think he might live…" Shepard muttered as he reached for his weapon. "For whatever that's worth."
"No brain damage as far as I can tell. Still able to try and operate after a hit like that is a good skill. And he was doing pretty well before getting blown up." Garrus commented.
"We need people like this man. I do hope he can still fight, they might win us the war." Liara added offhandedly."We should assign another one of the wounded to sit with him, in case he wakes up. I can't think of anything worse than waking up alone and blind in the middle of a battle." Garrus suggested.
They just stared at the salarian for a long moment, as explosions and gunfire echoed in the distance. There seemed to be a lull in the fighting for a moment, Must be rearming and readying for another attack...Shepard mused distantly.
This was proven correct about 9.57 seconds later when the nearby roof that protected the room the balcony was attached to, collapsed in a small directed explosion.
Cerberus troopers dropped through the hole, firing jet boots with whining roars as their dark helmets gleamed in the sunlight, and they shouldered weapons while orders were given.
Shepard managed to get the Salarian infiltrator to safety with a handful of other wounded near the ladder they had climbed earlier, before joining the battle with his comrades.
He took in the situation as he rushed to the area near the balcony, and dove behind a barricade.
An engineer was setting up an automated turret, unlucky for him Garrus overloaded its systems; the enemy couldn't do much with it before the explosion took him.
The commander popped up out of cover, passing his rifle to his left hand as he did so, to summon a ball of dark energy, carefully collecting the energy as he had been taught.
He pulled his right arm back, then threw it forward again, the energy ball flying across the area as shining bullets whizzed by it.
The projectile impacted on an assault trooper squarely in the chest. He grunted in surprise as his feet went out from under him, and it seemed like gravity had failed.
Shepard used his HUD to direct Liara's singularity placement, right in the area where the trooper was drifting away from.
The biotic explosion released its energy within an instant of the two pieces connecting, killing two of the troopers outright, the third attempted to crawl away, but quickly passed out.
The still-helpless assault trooper flailed in the air as Garrus quickly moved forward, grabbed the foe's weapon with a smirk, and tossed it off the ledge.
Suddenly, there was a familiar electronic pinging and a hiss of releasing gas; the sound of a smoke grenade detonating. Six other Cerberus troopers appeared through the smoke on the other side of the room, intent on recovering their friends and eliminating the enemy.
A concussive shot blast from Garrus, another singularity from Liara, and a grenade launcher round from Shepard ensured the destruction of the unprepared enemy force.
A fresh team of STG troopers arrived after the fight was over, and offered to stay and keep an eye on the prisoners and wounded.
This offer was quickly accepted, and Shepard's team began moving again. They had wasted enough time already.