Ch. 20
Hit them hard, Archangel had said. If not dead, leave Tarak destroyed.
It was clear that the siege was completely unexpected. Team A moved first. Krul charged at the two guards outside the front door as only a krogan could, crushing one of them against the wall, shooting the second in the face. Weaver and Erash barreled past him through the front door and into the foyer, shooting holes in whoever was waiting there for them.
Elsewhere, gunshots rang out as Team D, the snipers Sidonis, Vortash, and Archangel, dispatched those Blue Suns patrolling outside or visible through windows.
In the same moment, explosions rocked the compound as Mierin ignited his C-4 inside the large garage.
The lights went out when the power was cut, but flickered back on a moment later thanks to internal generators. If that was the only thing to go wrong tonight, Archangel would be grateful.
Tarak would be panicking. He'd be shitting himself. He might run, but he'd have nowhere to go. He might fight, but Archangel was kind of hoping for that. He might hide, too. Archangel had all night.
Archangel grinned and tucked his rifle under his arm, running towards the estate. He glanced over his shoulder, watching Sidonis and Vortash both fall into step behind him.
Gunfire, screams, booms. It was electrifying.
Archangel's team was to attack from the east, through the dining room window. It should be empty by now, everyone should be responding to the frontal assault. Archangel threw a flashbang, letting it crash through the glass and explode with a blinding light show. He went in next, his two men at his heels as he leapt through the broken window.
A Blue Sun was on the floor, shrieking and covering her eyes. Archangel swapped the rifle for a pistol and fired one round into her head. He kept moving.
There was a shout over the radio. First injury. Melanis. Ripper was calling it in, but Archangel could hear the kid insist he was fine. Archangel kept moving, "Stay on it!"
The dining room opened up to the foyer where the firefight was still underway. His men had retreated to the front door for some cover, while the Blue Suns were huddled around the staircase. The merc's backs were to him. Archangel heard Sidonis fire and watched three of the Suns fall before they realized the attack was coming from more than one direction.
Another explosion. Archangel could feel the ground shake as he emptied the last of his rounds into the Suns before stepping back for cover. He ejected the overloaded clip, resting his head back against the wall as he let out a slow exhale.
Shepard would have loved this.
The dining room table suddenly lit up with blue biotic energy and flew across the room towards them. Archangel ducked out of the way, but Sidonis and Vortash were pinned against the wall. Archangel danced backwards, watching two Suns, a pair of humans, dive into the room, firing wildly from behind biotic barriers.
Archangel gritted his teeth and emptied his pistol into them as well, watching the biotic barriers flash and dim with each bullet. One of the humans spun to return fire, shouting "It's Archangel!" with a mix of disbelief and dread. The bullets pinged off Archangel's kinetic shields, then armor when his shields fell. Growling, he lifted the pistol stopped his retreat. He stood his ground, aimed the gun, flicking the sensor to load a concussive shot. The Sun froze in her tracks as Archangel stared her down, confused and terrified. In the next moment she was flat on her back thanks to a shot right between the eyes.
The table fell, freeing Sidonis and Vortash. The pair of them quickly recovered, killing the other biotic Sun in a flood of hot gunfire.
Sidonis was hurt. He could tell by the way he stood, too stiffly, like he was trying to hide it. But he could stand, and his trigger fingers worked just fine. He tilted his head at the other turian questioningly, and Sidonis just nodded back.
More gunfire from the foyer. The other teams were catching up. Archangel stepped back through the doorway in time to see Butler shoot and kill a batarian Sun who was putting his hands up in surrender.
And then silence, brief but glorious.
Archangel spun once and counted heads. Eleven men in armor, some dinged up. Melanis looked the worst of them. The plastic armor over his shoulder was smoking and mostly gone, and some of his plastron was exposed, bloody and blackened. But he was standing and alive, like everyone else. The initial assault was a success.
Archangel nodded his helmeted head once, motioning at the stairs. The team was to split up again. He turned to take the stairs two at a time with five more men, ducking to one side as gunfire started up again. A bullet caught him in the chest through the kinetic shield and made him stumble backwards. "Dammit!"
Krul was right behind him and returned fire without even blinking. Two more Suns fell while another turned and ran.
Archangel ran his gloved hand along his chest, checking for damage. He felt a notch in the armor and nothing else. No blood. "Keep going."
The second floor was a narrow hallway that forked in two directions, and stepping into the hall meant stepping into the line of fire. Suns were up and down the hall, hidden in doorways with more cover than his team had. Archangel took another hit to his armor and backed away onto the stairs again with a grunt.
Mierin was at his elbow, fiddling with a grenade and grinning broadly. "One sec." He spun and flung a grenade down one end of the hall, cackling at the explosion. He repeated the action down the other hall, and then started to withdraw down the stairs again. He had more damage to cause elsewhere.
Sidonis spun to lead the charge down one hall, Archangel down the other, the men splitting up yet again, three and three. Tarak had to be up here somewhere. The rest of his men were searching downstairs and in the basement. Clearing everything out, destroying everything but information.
He glanced at his omni-tool. Fifteen minutes had passed since they stormed in.
Archangel heard another shout over the radio. Another injury. Monteague. Archangel gritted his teeth and pressed himself against a wall. He spun, kicking a door open, scanning the dark bedroom. He motioned Butler inside to make sure no one was hiding. The human made a quick sweep of the empty room, and then rejoined him in the hall. "Clear."
Onto the next room.
From the opposite end of the hall, he heard gunfire. He kicked open another door and waited a beat for an attack. Once more, Butler slipped into the dark, searching the room. He found a merc in the corner and killed him with a few well placed shots.
This was going too well.
He kicked in the next door and screams poured out. Archangel froze outside the doorway.
No.
He slowly leaned to one side to look in, holding out a hand to signal Krul and Butler to hold.
Women. Two of them. Humans, crouched in an office, their backs pressed up against a closet door. Closer to girls than women, really. They were wearing filmy clothing, not armor. They had no weapons, and they had no Blue Suns tattoos on their skin. They instead had a batarian symbol tattooed on their necks: an X in the center of a circle of linked loops, with four black dots around it.
Slaves. They were marked like batarian slaves.
Tarak had slaves that escaped his team's attention. No one saw them come or go, of course. They were always here, never left, probably always close together. Clinging to one another for safety and comfort in this place. They were probably used in various ways by Tarak's men. That would lead to confusion with the heat signature counts, wouldn't it? Two people close together became one single yellow smear.
Damn it. No, that was no excuse. They'd been so damn careful, how did his team miss these two girls?
The idea that Tarak had slaves never once crossed Archangel's mind. There weren't supposed to be slaves on Omega. That was one thing Aria didn't allow. The two women hugged each other, staring up at him with white rimmed human eyes.
Damn it. Damn it!
"Charon," Archangel barked into the radio.
"What?" Sidonis called back.
The abort command. "Charon," Garrus repeated. "Charon, Charon." He looked back at the girls, then stepped back out of the doorway, "We're going to get you out of here." There might be more. Tarak would not hesitate to use them as shields.
"You can't be serious, I just finished down here!" This was Mierin. He was setting up bombs on all the support beams.
"Charon."
He heard Mierin curse in his native, squeaking tongue.
"Butler, help these women out of here." Garrus stepped back, motioning his human squad mate towards them. Tarak was here. Somewhere. He was hiding. The idea of leaving now made him sick. If he could just find him and get in one good shot…
He lifted his helmeted head, watching his various men begin to retreat, ignoring the mix of confused and dark looks. Butler emerged, leading the women by the hands, Krul right behind him.
One of the girls stopped, staring up at Archangel, dragging her feet as Butler pulled. She squirmed her way out of his grip while he insisted he was trying to help her. Archangel tilted his head curiously at her. She stood before him, and pointed wordlessly back into the room. At the closet. She took the other girl's hand again, and disappeared down the stairs with Butler.
Archangel snapped his gaze back to the closet. Tarak.
He found himself in front of the closet in the empty room an instant later, hand on the panel to open it. His team was retreating. There were still bursts of gunfire throughout the estate. More Blue Suns would be coming from every corner of Omega. But he couldn't let this go. All he needed was one more shot. He tapped the panel and the door opened.
There was another door inside the closet. Heavier, with the best lock money could buy. Son of a bitch had a panic room.
Archangel gritted his teeth and pounded the door with his fist. He thought back on the schematics. Of course, this wouldn't be on it. He was pretty sure the blueprints had a sauna on this spot.
"Archangel!" Sidonis was in the doorway. "We have to go!"
"He's in here!" Archangel leveled his assault rifle at the illuminated lock display. "Get Vortash and Mierin back in here, we need to get this door open!" If they had succeeded in cutting the power, if he didn't have generators on site, they could get in easily. But the door was sealed tight.
The other turian scanned the door, grimacing. "That could take hours. You know that. You gave the order, we have to go." More Blue Suns would already be on the way. They could already be rushing in through the front door.
Archangel growled, stepping back, "So we level this place."
Sidonis' eyes narrowed. "You don't know who else is in there. You want to do that?"
Archangel paused. The girls that escaped their attention. Tarak would have to hide his slaves, even on Omega. He'd hide them in a secret room with walls too thick to see through with heat scans. He envisioned Tarak running here when the chaos began, throwing out two terrified girls in his path and shutting the door behind him. Sidonis was right. There could be more inside. Hell, he wouldn't put it past Tarak that he was in the slave trade.
His eyes scanned the door again, and he spotted the reflective lens of a camera in the frame. He leaned in close, "This isn't over, Tarak. I hope you're comfy in there. The moment you step out of that room, you are a dead man. I'll see to that myself."
"Archangel!" Sidonis said again.
Archangel flexed his jaw and mandibles in irritation, before he turned on a heel and retreated. He felt like he was connected to that door by an elastic rope; every step away was harder and harder.
He and Sidonis killed another four Blue Suns on the way out, through the back door and into the dark streets of Omega.