Jade pressed her back against the door frame and listened for the break in fire that indicated her opponent was changing thermal clips. When it came, she lunged around the corner and caught him with a three-round burst to the chest that knocked him back long enough for Garrus to put a round through his head.
She'd gone in person as soon as she was able to apologize to both the turians she'd attacked. The Primarch had been the easy one. Jade had been called on the carpet more than once in her military career and knew how to handle a superior officer dressing her down. Garrus, on the other hand, had been more difficult. He'd been impressed by her skills as a soldier and a survivor, but was still wary of her as a human. Apparently, even Shepard's influence only went so far when there were so many who still harbored animosity after the First Contact War.
Jade grunted her thanks and followed Shepard through the laboratory, looking for more Reaper tech. Well, she's looking for Reaper tech. Jade thought as she helped clear the next room. I wouldn't know Reaper tech if it walked up and punched me in the face.
"Clear!" she called as she finished sweeping the room for any additional enemies. There was a console in a corner of her section and she drew the others' attention to its contents. "I don't know what this is but it looks important."
"Good work." Shepard said as she moved to deactivate the containment field.
"What is this shit anyway," Jade asked eying the artifact as Shepard fiddled with the controls.
"Damifino," the other woman grunted. "Other than Reaper tech and therefore extremely dangerous. You read those journals. Whatever this 'integration' involves it's clearly no good for the people who sign on to Cerberus."
"First level indoctrination or higher I'd bet," Garrus rumbled from the door. "That kind of personality change is too advanced to be low level exposure."
Shepard merely grunted in reply.
"Aaand, got it!" She said as the field fell. "Let's get this back to Cortez."
"Roger that." Jade replied. "Moving out."
It wasn't until they returned to the interior of the base that they realized the areas they had previously cleared had been restocked with new goons. Jade dove for cover as her shields absorbed small arms fire.
"Goddamn, motherfucking, sons of bitches don't know when to fucking give up do they?" She swore as her borrowed armor pinched uncomfortably. She couldn't move from her crouch behind a console without exposing her shields to more fire. "You'd have thought they'd have figured out they are badly outclassed by now."
Shepard stood and began returning fire; her shields absorbing the withering fire directed her way and drawing the attention of their enemies, not incidentally allowing her teammates to return fire.
"Sure they're outclassed," Shepard growled between shots. "C'mere you bastard, show me your head. But Cerberus has altered them so much they're probably incapable of even questioning their orders at this point."
She ducked back down to change her clip. "And if they're indoctrinating techs and scientists to keep them complacent, you can damn well be sure they've altered their grunts even more heavily."
Shepard leaned up to eyeball their opponents over the top of the counter she and Jade crouched behind.
"Guardians inbound," She said. "Garrus, you wanna send 'em a special delivery through those mail slots?"
"I'm on it." The big turian stood and the roar of his Widow filled the air. "Scoped and dropped. I think that's the last of this batch. We should move if we want to get the rest of that tech."
He's still not happy that Shepard pulled me for this op. Jade thought as she checked the fallen for spare thermal clips. I don't blame him. An apology does not erase what I did and, like Vega said, there's no evidence that I'm not an enemy plant. Figure that's why Shepard wanted me on this op. Chance to show I don't mind killing Cerberus. Christ, thinking about this is making my head hurt. There's a reason I specialized in raw intel and blunt force tactics. I'm shit at trying to figure this stuff out.
"Right. Jade, you take point," Shepard nodded the other woman forward then gave her a broad grin. "Having fun yet?"
"Oh sure, I'm hot, thirsty, wearing ill-fitting armor and killing enemies on their own turf, who have me sorely outnumbered," Jade replied in a playfully sarcastic tone as she took up her position. "What's not to love? It's just like being back in Baghdad!"
She cautiously peeked around the corner and motioned the team forward. It seemed no matter how clear she thought the facility was, Cerberus always had more troops to drop in behind them. Finally, after several more small scuffles, they appeared to have reached the end of the cannon fodder.
"I think we're clear for the nonce," Jade reported, lowering her guard fractionally. "Also I think that other bit of Reaper tech is just there if you wanna grab it."
As Shepard and Garrus moved to the console to work to bring down the containment field, Jade prowled the perimeter of the room, poking into bins and opening lockers, looking for any hidden enemies or goodies. She opened the door to an adjacent storage room and froze in her tracks, She'd missed it the first time they'd cleared the room, more worried about checking for hidden enemies than looking at what was written on the stacks of footlockers, otherwise she'd have noticed her own name in big, block letters on the side of one of the crates.
She stood for a moment, just staring at the black letters, mind completely blank, then the oddity of it struck her. Why would these people have a locker of my things? I left those for Ana. What's … what's … She reached out to flip open the latches.
"Harmon!" Shepard's voice cut through the fog in Jade's mind. "We're nearly done with this field and then we're outta here. What did you find?"
"I … I think it's mine." Jade admitted, gesturing to the footlocker.
"What?" Shepard stooped to look. "Why would they … you know what? It doesn't matter. Grab it; we'll deal with whatever's inside when we get back to the Normandy."
"Right," Jade shook herself. "You're right. Let's go."
She grabbed the box's handle and hoisted it up, it was surprisingly light.
Garrus had the Reaper artifact now and all three of them moved, hell bent for leather, for the landing pad.