Chapter 10: Before the Storm.
Tullius stood on the bridge of the Revenant, yawning wearily. He had been up most of the nights working on fine tuning the ship's main gun. He had been going line by line of code, optimizing the ship's targeting algorithms. It was a relatively easy job to do, but rather time consuming.
The ship's gun was an older model of a mass accelerator commonly used by Turian ships when he had been serving in the Heirarchy's intelligence service. The tech was a decade old, but with a little patience and a lot of work, he had gotten it up to specs.
Although he had lost many a night's sleep doing so. It wasn't anyone's fault but his own, his parents had always taught him to never postpone a project. Never to set aside what could be done today for tomorrow, since it could be the difference between life and death, especially in career military families like the one he had been brought up in.
Unfortunately, sometimes Tullius pushed himself far too hard for far too long, even when it wasn't exactly necessary.
He couldn't help himself though: the Revenant needed to be the best she could be with the little credits they had, and
Tullius had done his best to make every single one go as far it could, but there was only so much he could do. The Revenant was as ready as she was going to be, at least until they got more credits.
Which is why Tullius had scouted a few jobs already from his old contacts in military intelligence. Most of the freelance jobs these days were in the Terminus systems at Omega, beyond the reach of most police forces. "Lawless space." as it had been called, lots of crime and danger but there was always opportunity.
Tullius didn't relish the idea of going back into the Terminus systems, he had made more than a few enemies there back in his glory days but he figured that if it kept them flying, it was worth the risk.
Tullius took another sip of his drink, a Turian stimulating beverage like human coffee but much more potent. Aesha's hand extended expectantly from behind the panel she was working on.
Tullius handed her another barrier emitter. They were relatively small, the size of a dining plate but thicker and coated with a metallic substance that allowed energy to flow freely from the 'top' of the emitter out past the ship's armour.
"How are we doing?" Tullius asked as Aesha took the emitter from him, seating it in it's housing just under the new armour plates.
"Pretty well." Aesha muttered as she enabled a program on her omni-tool that allowed her to screw the bolts into their sockets. "We will need more of these when we get to Omega…but I think I can get her up to 70% with a little luck."
Tullius frowned at that number. He had hoped to get the shields to more around 90% before they left the Citadel.
"Well… it's something at least." Tullius said hopefully. "At least we will survive the first shot the Geth fire at us."
"A few more than that, if I have anything to say about it." Aesha muttered absent mindedly.
Tullius sipped away on his drink, the steam from the brown liquid felt good to his still sore nose.
"So when are you going to do it?" Aesha asked, reaching for another emitter and placing it.
"Do what?" Tullius asked, although he had a good idea of what Aesha was referring to.
"Talk to Kari…" Aesha said, looking up from her work for a moment to give Tullius a disapproving frown.
Tullius grimaced, "Oh…that…right…er- well. I've got some work to do on the main gun and-"
Aesha raised a scathing eyebrow. Tullius could tell she wasn't going to buy it this time.
Tullius growled in frustration "Fine. I'll talk to her today…" Tullius muttered.
Aesha gave an approving nod, before returning her attention to her work.
"Good, because you still owe her an apology."
"I know." Tullius sighed, "But I don't like the idea of risking birthing an AI just because we need a little extra help around here."
Aesha nodded, screwing another bolt into position.
"I know, and to be honest I'm a little wary of the idea myself, but you shouldn't have insulted her people, Tully.
Aesha chided, finishing the last bolt and closing the panel.
Tullius offered his hand and Aesha accepted it, pulling herself up from her seated position to be face to face with Tullius.
"You're right. It wasn't good of me to dreg up the past like that. Especially when my own people's history had been less than ideal." Tullius admitted, looking away remoarsefully.
Aesha frowned a little. It was a rare thing to see Tullius without a grin on his face. Aesha placed her hand gently on Tullius's face, caressing it softly and turning his head back towards her. She smiled comfortingly at him and gave him a soft peck on the lips.
Tullius scoffed and gave a little grin. Her smile was infectious.
"Too bad we can't all be as graceful as the Asari…" Tullius noted, putting down his drink and slipping his hands around Aesha's waist.
"Maybe you can even get that Krogan to apologize for smashing my nose."
Aesha chuckled. "I maybe a miracle worker, Tully, but I'm not a goddess."
Tullius tilted his head to the side and shrugged.
"That's debateable…"
Aesha smiled even wider as she wrapped her arms around Tullius's neck and they embraced in a long kiss.
"So…you think that Kari and James are still asleep…?" Tullius asked, grinning wolfishly.
"What…now…here?" Aesha giggled, looking around Tullius to see if anyone was on the CIC deck.
Tullius nodded, "Why not? We've worked hard, I think we deserve a little...break."
Aesha raised her eyebrow and chuckled, "Mmm. Well, when you put it that way…." she leaned up to whisper in Tullius's ear.
"Close the door..."
Tullius felt a chill run down his spine, as he nuzzled up to her ear.
"Yes, ma'am…"
Tullius slammed the door mechanism and the twin bulkheads slid close, sealing the two away from the world.
"Achoo!" Kari sputtered for what seemed to be the two hundredth time today. She groaned, as she ran the suit's visor cleaning program again. She so wanted it to be over right now. She could hardly concentrate on her work, her skin was hot and sweaty and her suit felt like it needed a good washing.
Even with the meds she had taken, she still felt like such a mess.
Keelah, what I wouldn't give for a good shower right about now. Kari thought.
She put her fingers back on the panel where she had been tweaking the code for engine output, trying to increase the power output without atomizing the ship in the process.
Kari was just about to start writing a new line of code when she felt an itch inside her nose again.
"Achoo!" Kari sputtered again, sending a miserable hot-cold flash throughout her body as she did.
Marah looked up from her panel and shook her head.
"Must have been some night." She commented, well aware of the implications of Kari's sudden sickness.
Kari simply moaned pitifully, putting her head down on the ship's panel in frustration.
Marah sighed heavily. As much as she wasn't relishing having to work on the engine modifications alone, Kari's illness made her less than productive. In fact, she was more than a little distracting.
"Why don't you take the day off and get some rest." Marah said, as more of a command rather than a request.
"N-no. Achoo! Ugh- I'm okay…" Kari said, pulling herself back up to a standing posture and continuing on the modifications, albeit at a snail's pace.
"No. You need to go lie down, Kari." Marah murmured, putting her hand on Kari's. Kari looked up at the larger krogan woman, there seemed to be genuine concern on her face or at least, what passed for it on Tuchanka.
"Besides. If I have to hear you sneeze one more time, I'm going to headbutt you." Marah said, patting Kari's hand softly.
Kari grinned a little, but it quickly disappeared when she realized that she couldn't tell if Marah was joking or not.
"Uh- o-okay. If you sa- if you sa-…" Kari felt another sneeze coming on, but she caught the look on Marah's face.
With great effort, Kari managed to suppress it.
Marah grinned impishly. "That's a good girl. Now run along to bed. I'll take care of things down here." She said, with a slightly patronizing tone.
Kari nodded and thanked Marah and left the engineering deck before another sneeze came on. She use the lift to return to her quarters. She flopped down into the bed without even bothering to take off the fabric that adorned her suit.
It was mid-morning on the Citadel, and the Serpent's nebula's sun shone in brightly through the window in Kari's room. Kari had tried shutting the metal shutter to block out the light before, but the mechanisms that controlled it had been damaged in the attack. The full intensity of the star's rays seemed to filter in through her visor, no matter which angle she turned. She even tried putting the pillow over her head, but to no avail, the faintest hint of light still creeped in through the fringes.
Kari groaned in irritation as she flipped over once again, sniffling, trying desperately to clear out her nasal passages. It didn't work, it only seemed to make it worse.
Kari wanted so badly to be able to just go to sleep. To fall into the tender arms of unconsciousness and slip away into her dreams…which had become increasingly more pleasant since she and James had gotten together.
Most of them were sweet, some of them sensual…and some just downright erotic. The sensations and desires it had awoken in her were unfamiliar, strange, but very pleasant.
Kari had even found herself daydreaming at some points, implementing strategies and plans to execute some of the more desirable scenes that she had dreamt of. James had given her a taste of what intimacy could offer, but Kari wanted more….
Which is why her cold was doubly irritating to her. If she had gotten this sick just from kissing James in a decontaminated room, how sick could she get if they went even further?
Of course, Kari had read the articles when she was a child, about the proper mating procedures for kind. Herbal supplements, immuno-boosters, anti-biotics, but that had all been information for two Quarian lovers, who had both spent their lives in sterile environments and in properly scrubbed clean rooms.
But James was a human, he had spent his life living symbiotically with bacteria, growing immune and accustomed to pathogens. There was no telling how many foreign bodies existed on him alone, not to mention any furniture in the room.
True, the decontamination unit outside of James's room meant that no new bacteria or viruses would enter his quarters, it still didn't negate the fact that there were probably some bacteria lurking in the corners, no matter how well he scrubbed it.
Looking back on it now, it was a stupid risk that Kari had taken, she hadn't prepared, had set aside the time to do the research, she had just jumped right in with nary a thought to the consequences. Of which she was paying for now.
Kari groaned and flipped over in her bed. She wasn't going to be able to sleep, not for awhile at least. Maybe if she watched some vids for awhile, she could find that dreary sensation that preceeded slumber.
Kari flipped on the screen and brought the television app online. She paused for a moment, trying to think of what sort of vids might provide the mind-numbing state she needed to acquire her much needed sleep.
It didn't take her long to figure it out, Kari ran her thumb idly over the channel selection, bringing up the Citadel News Network as she laid back and watched quietly.
There were four newcasters on the screen arrayed around a table in what looked to be a talk show segment of the broadcast. There was a Turian male, a Salarian male, a human female and a Volus male. She had turned on the channel mid-sentence, but from what she understood, they had been debating the necessity of the increased security around the Citadel and what it could mean for the average citizen.
Kari felt her eyes drooping already… she closed her eyes, letting the background noise of the newcaster's voices slowly edge her into an unconscious state.
"…Blasto movie….breaking box office records…."
Kari started to drift off, laying the pad against her chest as her breathing slowed.
"…Alliance Captain arrested today on charges of aiding and abetting mutineers, as well as assault and battery….pending charges…."
The voices of the newcasters fell away from her reality, as did the dull ache of sickness: replaced by the shrouded mist of the spaces between thought and time.
Kari reached across to her neck, her hand grasping a little bauble beneath the fabric around her enviro-suit and let herself be carried off into dream.
Fly little bird. Fly. Came the voice across the sea.
Fly little bird. Fly.
Kari looked around. She was standing somewhere she didn't recognize. A vast ocean of silver and white on a world she didn't recognize. She stood on a little patch of something white and hard, that sat mired in the still seas. It's surface was cold on the soles of her feet.
She looked down, curiously to regard her perch when she realized that she didn't have a suit on…she had nothing on. Kari was bare against the cold winds of this world, her pale skin almost as white as the ice beneath her.
Ice…that's what it was…. She had heard of it, and seen pictures of it, but never had she felt it against her skin.
Yet, there was something marring the surface of the ice, something small and brown. Kari kneeled down to see what it was.
It was a nest, like that of a bird's, made from little pebbles and stones collected from the shoals of the unseen shore far beyond the horizon.
Fly little bird. Fly. The voice came again, louder this time, causing Kari to look up from the nest for it's source.
There was nothing there, only the gentle cresting and churning of the waters and the smell of frozen salt air.
Kari looked down at the nest again. There was something about it, something familiar, like she had seen it before in a dream…or a dream of a dream. The nest itself was bare, empty as if long deserted, but something called to her. Pleading for her to stay, and yet the voice came again with greater urgency.
Fly little bird! Fly! It sounded like it was right behind her.
Kari looked up again, to search for the speaker when she saw it.
Kari froze in place.
There was a great beast before her, one that she did not recognize. It was massive, with four legs, a great shaggy cloak of black fur, a great maw of yellowed teeth and two red eyes that burned with a fire like that of a dying sun.
Kari reached for her shotgun, but only felt the still sting of the ocean air at her back, and the sensation of her own bare skin beneath her fingertips.
The creature sat motionless opposite of her, staring at Kari with an unnerving glare. Kari thought that perhaps the beast would kill her and consume her, but it made no move. It only looked up at her.
Kari's muscles tensed, she looked back at the waters behind her. They seemed to be calm and still, but something wasn't quite right. Shadows and forms flitted and darted beneath their surface, hovering just beneath the waves.
Kari turned to the beast, fear grasping at her voice, as she spoke.
"W-what are you?" Kari asked.
It didn't move.
"What do you want?" Kari asked, this time with more force behind her voice.
There was a long moment's pause, but the features of the creature changed ever so slightly at her question. It finally broke its gaze from Kari, bowing its head down towards the empty nest, its eyes coming to rest on the stones.
Kari felt something stir inside her, a moment of lucidity in all the swirling chaos of the ocean and for a moment all seemed to coalesce. Sudden, Kari no longer felt the bite of winter's embrace on her skin. The sea fell still, as fingers of frost stretched forth the ice floe where Kari was standing, capturing the waves in their frigid embrace and sealing them into statuesque sentinels around the empty nest.
Fly little bird! Fly!
The voice called out one last time, before it too became nothing but an echo on the frozen plains. Kari ignored it. She reached forth her hand and placed it gently on the beast's head, causing a light layer of frost to form between its ears. The creature leaned into her hand and issued forth a tiny whimper, but not of pain…but of happiness.
Kari smiled and placed her forehead against its head as she wrapped her arms around it in a hug.
But the scene did not fade as it should, into eddies of joy and peace.
Instead a long shadow fell over the both of them in the shape of a great claw like hand, the dark form descending like the shroud of the eternal dreamless slumber.
The beast turned its head to her, its great maw opening for the first time, a shattered and deep voice issuing forth from its lips.
"You should have flown, little bird."
When Kari awoke the first thing she noticed how dark the room was. It was nighttime out and the sparkling lights of the Citadel's other arms filtered faint through the window.
Keelah I must have overslept.
Kari cursed inwardly, as she swung her feet over the edge of the bed. She looked around the room, it was quiet and empty, with no sound but the soft crackle of static from the datapad that she had been using to watch CNN before she fell asleep.
That's odd
Kari thought, as she picked up the pad, thinking that perhaps that she had changed the channel to a dead frequency in her sleep, but a quick check of the vid proved otherwise. She was on the right channel, but the feed was gone, replaced by the buzzing nothingness of black and white.
Something stirred uneasily in the back of her mind, a sensation of wrongness, a feeling in her gut that something wasn't right.
She flipped the channel, hoping that it was just a technical difficulty at the Citadel News station, but it wasn't just CNN. Station after station, frequency after frequency was dead, nothing but static. Kari checked the datapad itself…no errors…full signal bars…
A growing sense of dread wormed its way into her stomach. Something was terribly wrong. Kari put down the datapad, it was only then she noticed it wasn't nighttime at all…it was mid-afternoon.
Kari let the datapad drop from her fingers as she rushed towards the window. From her vantage point, she could see that the Citadel's arms had closed. Tiny dots like drops of mercury filled the skies above the Revenant, and at the very center of it all….was that…thing!
Kari fell away and onto the floor from the window when she saw it, scrabbling away towards the far corner of the room.
That ship! The claw like vessel that had haunted her dreams and been the stuff of her nightmares since Eden Prime. It was here. On the Citadel, its vice like tendrils wrapped around the Presidium tower while thousands of silver and black specks swarmed across the station's arms like flies to carrion.
Kari's mind staggered at the realization:
The Geth had come.
The door to her room slid open in that moment, and Kari recoiled and whimpered pitifully, fully expecting a Geth plasma bolt to issue forth from the opening and end her life. But the bolt did not come, nor did any other weapons fire, only white light as an inky shadow formed in the doorway. Kari lifted her head, to behold the intruder.
The dark figure stepped forth from the light, tall and muscular clad in a heavy grey coat, bearing all the accoutrements of battle with a heavy helm seated upon his brow and deep red circles for eyes that burned like the fires of a thousand dead suns.
A deep gravelly voice issued forth from the respirator, filtered through the suit's audio outputs, silvered with concern.
"Kari... are you alright?"
James had noticed something was wrong the instant his feed went dead. He had been listening to Berloiz's Les Troyens over the ship's audio systems while he worked on the finishing touches of his suit's armour. Vallon Sonore had just finished its melancholy tryst with James's wandering mind when the feeds went dead.
At first, James had thought that it was a simple signal issue, that perhaps Tullius had restarted the ship's computer core in order to affect an upgrade of some type, but when the music did not return James suspected the worst.
Years of being in the Special forces did that to you, made you think that the bogey man was around every corner, that every snap of a twig or fluttering of grass was an enemy about to strike.
He hoped that it was just some project that the two had been running or perhaps that the ship's router had gone offline. If the router was out, he could still his suit's local coms to get a hold of the bridge.
"Tullius." James said, the speaking into the voice receptor inside his respirator, pressing his finger into his left ear to hear better.
"Jam-…" came a burst of static transmission from his earpiece, confirming his worst fear: long range and short range communications were being jammed, someone didn't want them talking…but who? The only organization on the Citadel that might want to disrupt their communications would be C-Sec and to his knowledge C-Sec had to get a warrant before resorting to such a drastic action…not to mention they usually questioned suspects before arresting them.
No, there was only one other explanation…
"…cations...-tadel-….ttck-…" The channel went dead after that, but James had heard enough. He drew his Predator from the holster on his hip, grabbed his gear off the worktable and headed for the ship's lift.
Someone was attacking the Citadel
But why? To what end? Who could possibly have something to gain in attacking the Citadel? James serious doubted that whoever it was had simply come to raid and destroy, there were far softer targets in the galaxy, especially since the recent additions to the Citadel fleet. And how did they get past the fleet? It would take an armada to get past the Asari's flagship the Destiny Ascension.
James placed his new helmet on, the heavily modded Securitel helm merging seamlessly with the mount he had fashioned from the recon hood. There was a momentary pause of soft whirrs and zips as the hardware ran through the start-up code. After a moment, the Umbra NVG goggles slid down from their housing on the front of the helmet over his eyes, locking securely with his gas-mask and hard-sealing the suit from the outside world.
For the time since his wounding, James felt like a soldier again.
The lift stopped on deck two, and the door slid open. Just to the right of the CIC stood the war-room and the scene James was hoping to behold:
Tullius, Aesha, Marah and Keira were on the deck, hastily rationing out supplies, weapons and gear to one another that Keira had brought up from the armoury. The four looked up at him from the haphazard arrangement of gear dumped out on the war room table.
Tullius was in his full kit, Turian spec ops grade blue and gold armour with a modded Phaeston assault rifle gripped tightly in his hands. Aesha was in solid black commando leathers with an M-6 Carnifex strapped to her waist. Keira was in her usual black N7 defender armour with the rose coloured stripe across the shoulder and her beloved Black Widow sniper rifle propped up in her right arm, barrel pointed towards the ceiling.
Marah also had armour on, although it looked rather old and ragged and was little more than a chestpiece and two leg plates with barely enough material to form a proper kinetic barrier, but the rather large and dangerous looking shotgun in her hands that James recognized as the Graal seemed to more than make up for her shoddy armour.
Keira picked up James's M-55 Argus SOPMOD and tossed it to him as he entered the war-room. James easily snatching it out of the air and pulling the butt tightly to his shoulder, there was nothing more comforting to him at that moment than the feel of a solid weapon in his hands again. He gave her a nod of appreciation before turning to the others.
"What have we got?" James asked, not wasting any time.
"Don't know, all we know is that the Citadel is under attack and the Citadel's arms have closed."
Tullius said, turning to the war-room table and typing in a command into the console.
A second later the orangey yellow flash of the table's hologram projector came to life and showed vid feeds from the ship's external cameras.
The scene outside was a grim one. Thousands of tiny dots which might have been fighters or dropships were swarming over the Citadel's surface. Yellow flashes and tracer rounds lit up the darkened arms of the Citadel as far as the eye could see as the C-Sec traded fire with whoever was attacking. The situation looked grim indeed, although the external feeds just outside the ship's docking bay still looked clear although James expected that wouldn't be true for long.
First order of any attack strategy after cutting comlines would be to make sure no ships get into space, thus ensuring air superiority and that no enemy troops would escape the attack.
"Alright." James said at last, checking his M-55 Argus to make sure a fresh clip was seated in the receiver.
"First order of business is to secure a premeter, make sure no hostile forces get to the ship, after that out primary concern is to rescue survivors and assist C-Sec in repelling this attack."
" I want Aesha, Kari and Marah to hold the docking bay while me, Tullius and Keira head up to the Presidium and try to link up with C-Sec ground forces."
James looked around the room, making sure everyone was clear on their orders.
"If we get cut off from the Revenant and you see a chance to escape, Aesha I want you to take it. Judging by the number of ships, it will be unlikely that C-Sec will be able to hold them forever. I want you all out of here at the first available opportunity."
"No promises, sir." Aesha stated darkly, "If there are survivors we will see them to safety, but we aren't going to abandon you."
James was going to argue the point, but one look at Aesha's expression told him there was no point. James nodded reluctantly,
"Very well, but make sure you-…"
James paused, he just noticed something: Kari wasn't here. He turned and looked around but she was nowhere to be found.
"Wait…where is Kari?"
James looked to Marah who had been with Kari last.
The krogan blinked, a bewildered expression coming over her face "Err… I thought she was with you."
"Shit." James cursed at himself for being so oblivious as he rushed towards the lift.
Kari was frozen, she thought she had awoken from a dream and stepped into a nightmare. She kept hoping that she would wake up to find out that she was still in her bed all along.
It wasn't until the figure spoke, that Kari realized that this was all too real, and that made her tremble even more.
James kneeled down before her, placing his rifle on the ground as he did, but Kari couldn't bear to look at him, his very image seemed to invoke the swirling cacophony of nightmarish images in her head, fueled by the fear of the great metal specter she had seen out of her window.
"Kari!" James said, grabbing Kari around her shoulders. Kari was despondent, her eyes refusing to make contact with his. He didn't need to see her facial expressions to know that she was afraid, so afraid that she had disconnected with reality.
James realized how deeply traumatic it must be for her, she had only just started to get to know everyone on the Revenant, and now they were under attack, just like she had been on Eden Prime.
James toyed with the idea of staying with Kari, of simply staying holed up in the ship and waiting for the shitstorm to blow over. After all, he was beholden to no one on the Citadel, and if put in a similar situation, would not others do the same thing?
James shook his head.
No. That wasn't him. He was still a soldier, still a sentinel. He swore an oath to defend the weak and the innocent and while he had been released from that oath the day the Alliance had discharged him, he still held to it. Right now millions of lives were in danger and even if he could help save a few…it would be better than doing nothing.
James put a tender hand on the side of Kari's helmet, drawing her close to him.
"Kari listen to me, everything is going to be alright…" he murmured in the most comforting voice he could muster.
"Marah and Aesha will be here, just stay on the ship and everything will be okay." James assured her, although he wasn't truly certain it would be.
Kari looked up at him wordlessly, her hands gripping his arms tightly as a child afraid to fall.
He pressed his helmet against her visor for a moment in a soft embrace, Kari's arms wrapping around him as he did.
"I'll be back soon." He whispered, Kari's grip tightening around him in a silent plea.
Please don't go.
James didn't want to pull away from her, but he did, holding onto her hand as long as he could as he rose to his feet.
"I'll see you soon." He promised and turned to leave the room.
Kari just sat there on the floor and watched him leave, and James felt his heart break a little as the automatic door slide shut behind him. Even as it did, he prayed that he could keep his promise to Kari for her sake if nothing else.
"Shore up that flank!" Lieutenant Vidorian shouted over the din of battle, pointing a bloodied hand to the left approach to the lifts which was down two officers. Two of his men, Wiks and Fording moved from the center over to where their fallen comrades had been holding the line, Wiks nearly losing an arm to a Geth rocket as he did.
Vidorian cursed his luck. He and his men had been on a routine patrol of the Presidium's skylanes when these synthetic bastards had shown up. They barely had time to get clear of their squad cars with a few paltry rifles before the Geth had turned their vehicles into piles of smoking rubble.
Now here they were, barricaded in between the Geth and the lifts that lead to one of the Citadel's habitation blocks and hundreds of unarmed civilians. They could have fallen back through the lifts and gotten away from the Geth, but the attack had caught the Citadel unaware and scores of people were still trapped in the district.
Now, here they were less than a dozen C-Sec officers, holding the line against a full scale invasion and a platoon strength Geth unit that was pressing in from all sides. The incoming fire was so intense that most of the cover that they had been using had been melted away by heavy plasma impacts. They were down to their last line of defense now, and cover was getting ropey.
"Spirits help us, where the hell is our support?" Vidorian cursed at the officer who was working the radio.
"I don't know sir! I can't get in touch with the precinct or the fleet!" The young turian responded.
"Keep trying, damn it. We can't hold this position much longer unless we get some reinforcements!" Vidorian cursed as he popped up from cover, firing three shots from his Predator, sending an advancing Geth trooper into a crumpling heap.
The Predator beeped a warning as the trigger went rigid beneath Vidorian's finger. The Lieutenant cursed, ducking back into cover and slamming the slide backwards and sending a red hot thermal clip flying out of the side of the pistol.
"How we doing on clips, Gerin?" Vidorian grunted to the sergeant next to him. The Salarian shook his head dismally. "Running low, we're going to have to start scavenging soon."
Vidorian grimaced.
Thermal clips were the detachable heat sinks that could be ejected to disappate heat from the weapon. Problem was, without them the weapon's safety mechanisms would not fire. So when you ran out of thermal clips, you either had to override the gun's safeties to continue firing, risking that the weapon would blow up in your face or look for discarded clips that had dissipated enough heat to be used again.
Either way, you would probably be overrun before you got a chance to fire again.
"Conserve shots, only hit the targets you know you can drop. We need to hold." Vidorian popped out of cover again to drop a pair of Geth troopers and a badly damaged Pyro before he was forced back into cover by the heavy thumping of a plasma cannon's shots.
He slammed the slide again. They were getting close, pistols and a few rifles couldn't hold them back forever. Vidorian realized that this probably was the end of the line for him and his men. He only hoped that they bought enough time for the civilians in the wards to evacuate.
The thump of heavy cannons roared over the cacophony of battle again, sending one of his fellow officers flying from his cover in a bloody heap.
Vidorian checked his Predator: last thermal clip in the magazine.
This was it: the last stand of Aelus Vidorian. His lips moved wordlessly in a short prayer, one directed at the spirit of death, asking for a clean death and safe passage to the realm beyond for him and his men.
Vidorian made himself ready, his muscles tensing and his body ready for blow that would send him from this galaxy, but even as he was about to burst from cover, with a warcry on his lips and his pistol tapping out the cadence of his death, one of his men shouted.
"Sir! Look!"
Vidorian looked over the edge of the counter that he had been using for cover.
On the other side of the ward coming from the docking bays, were three figures. Two humans and a Turian. All three were heavily armed with what looked like military grade weapons and armour, even from this distance Vidorian could tell they weren't military, but they were making short work of the Geth who comprised the rearguard of the force that was attacking Vidorian's position.
Vidorian usually hated mercenaries. They were the scum of the galaxy, selling their guns to the highest bidder for work that was often not only illegal but unethical as well…
But right now, they were a damned welcome sight.
The Geth who had been pressing their attack so eagerly toward's Vidorian's position before turned to face this new threat, opening up their backs to enemy fire.
"Pour it into them!" Vidorian yelled, bursting from cover with his pistol, placing several perfect shots into the tank of a Pyro, sending the area around it bursting into flame as the tank burst.
James had seen the bedraggled police force almost as soon as they had left the docking bay and come up to the Presidium. The C-Sec officers had set up just outside the main lift to the habitation block, to prevent access by Geth troops.
Geth. James still could hardly believe that they Geth had come here to the Citadel. Perhaps this had been their plan from the beginning? Could they be trying to start a war? That was the only logical conclusion that James could think of. The only real significant strategic value the Citadel served was the head of government for the combined races of the galaxy.
Striking at the Citadel, to capture or destroy it would be a logical first step in a plan for full-scale war. Sever the head, the body dies. Although why the Geth would want such a war still puzzled him, but he would have time to think on that later. Right now, they were about dozen police officers about to be slaughtered by Geth.
"They are getting overrun." Tullius noted, pointing to heavily scored C-Sec barricade. "We have to help them!"
James nodded, motioning for Keira and Tullius to move into cover. The area between them and the police barricade was mostly open ground with little in the way of cover other than a few overturned café tables and garden boxes. The Geth that comprised the rear of the enemy platoon hadn't noticed them yet and James preferred to keep it that way as long as possible.
"Agreed. We will need to take pressure off them fast."
James looked up over the edge of the garden box he was hiding behind, pressing the plant's stem aside so he could get a better look.
"One prime, a dozen pyros, twenty plus troopers and what looks like some cloaked units off on the side there."
James counted off, a rough estimate of the enemy's strength. He turned back to Keira and Tullius
" Keira, stay back and give us sniper support as we move up, Tullius you're with me. We're going in fast and hard, see if we can draw their fire. "
Tullius and Keira both nodded acknowledgement.
There was a long stretch of no man's land between them and their desired objective, but James figured if they move quickly enough they could avoid getting caught in the open.
"Weapons check. Go on three." James murmured, his tone hushed.
James gave one last check his omni-tool, his rifle was synced to his targeting optics, his amp was ready and his favourite tech programs were on standby. Tullius and Keira did the same...after a moment they looked up at him. They were ready.
"One."
James counted off, his muscles tensing.
"Two."
He felt the tingling sensation of neuro-transmitters signaling his neurons to fire surging from his spine out into the eezo nodules throughout his body.
"Three."
James, Keira and Tullius broke from cover simultaneously, dashing hard and low for the Geth rearguard. They closed the distance quickly. They were about thirty meters out when the first Geth trooper turned to face them. It didn't have to worry about the three well armed combatants for very long, Keira's Black Widow made sure of that.
Tullius and James pressed their attack still, closing to within fifteen meters before they both dove for cover behind a pair of garden boxes and opened up on the Geth that were wheeling to meet their charge. James fired off a trio of rounds immediately severing the head of a Pyro from its body. White fluid that looked akin to blood flew from the sparking stump as the Geth slumped forward, falling to the ground with a heavy crash.
Behind it, another one exploded in a ball of flames that incinerated two Geth troopers in its wake.
Two more pyros moved up, and with them the shimmering distorted silhouttes of Hunters slipping past their comrades silently on the flanks, hoping to overtake their quarry without a fight. But James saw them this time. He poured shot after shot into the shimmering phantoms, causing their shields and cloaks to break before he lashed out with his left arm, a bolt of pure dark energy flying out to meet the Hunters and drag them off their feet.
The now uncloaked, unshielded hunters looked from side to side curiously, as if perplexed by this sudden change in the gravitational fields of the Citadel.
James's eyes went narrow, a wicked smile forming on his lips as he regarded the pair of suspended Geth.
"Let's see how you like it…" he growled, aiming his left arm up at the hunters and thumbing the fire button on his omni-tool's interface.
The orange hologram came alive as a gauntlet of light formed around James's left wrist and forearm. Perched on top of this gauntlet was box-like construct with several razor sharp blades housed within, like the fangs of a beast within its maw. The omni-tool gave a sharp crack and the blades issued forth in a chaotic spread, several of the blades embedding themselves in the Hunters who convulsed at the sudden and violent disruption of their systems.
If the hunters felt any pain, they didn't have to suffer long, for the mass effect fields that comprised the sharp edge of the embedded blades deteriorated quickly, shattering explosively as they torn the two hunters apart from the inside out.
Little chunks of metal and showers of white liquid rained down on the remaining Geth, but it did not phase them. They pressed their attack on James and Tullius, almost completely ignoring the run-down C-Sec forces who were offering little more than paltry fire now.
Pop, pop, pop. Three more Geth went down the Keira's rifle and the steady wailing of Tullius's Phaeston was wearing down the Prime's shields.
James kept up his own fire, his Argus picking off the more heavily shielded Geth units with ease as each trio of rounds slammed into their targets with great force.
"Firing a high impact round!" Tullius shouted, overcharging his Phaestron by loading several shots into the chamber before allowing the mass accelerator to send it downrange. The resulting chunk of melted metal struck the Prime directly in the optics, causing the thing's plasma cannon to buck wildly, firing blindly into the air.
James saw an opportunity. He rushed forward, sending a ball of biotic energy flying as he did, striking the Geth Pyro immediately next to the Prime in the chest. The Pyro staggered backwards, the dark energy swirling around it and trying to eat through the thin shields that protected it.
The Pyro met James's attack with an equally harsh response of its own. A jet of scorching hot flames poured forth towards James, nearly catching him in its incandescent fury as he slid to a halt behind an upturned metal table. The table shielded James from the worst of the blast, but his own suits systems began to beep warnings into his ear. He acted quickly, before the Pyro tried to flank or turned his flamer off.
James popped out from behind the table, taking a blast of the burning liquid straight to the face as he did, his suit's shields screaming out in distress as he stared down the river of fire. His adrenaline spiked and seething hot rage poured into his limbs. He focused the power of his anger into one powerful spike of biotic ability, sending it all directly down the nozzle of the Pyro's flamer.
The effect was exactly what James had hoped for.
The Pyro disintegrated in a powerful explosion of biotics and fire, catching both the Prime and its fellow Pyro in the blast. The Prime might have survived the blast, had not it not been caught in the secondary explosion of the other pyro at its side.
Vadorian could scarely believe his eyes. He had never seen a human do something that brash and bold before.
The dark figure of the mercenary leader emerged from flaming rubble of the Geth platoon, his two comrades bringing up the rear.
James looked around at the rubble scattered across the ground. The adrenaline that had fuled his biotic surge began to wane and a sense of accomplishment and pride began to fill him in its stead. They had just taken out an entire Geth platoon in less than two minutes…and he still had his touch.
James cracked a wry grin behind his mask looking up to see a dumbfounded Turian C-Sec officer staring at them in amazement.
"Someone call for some backup?"
"I don't know who the hell you are, but I'm damned glad you're here." Vidorian said, extending an arm of thanks to the three mercenaries before him.
Each of them took his arm in a hearty handshake.
"Lieutenant Aelus Vidorian, 12th Precinct, Citadel Security." He stated in an official manner.
"And I owe you three a debt of gratitude. If you hadn't come along when you did, we would have been smeared all over the wall." Vidorian gave a dark grin relief.
"James Irving, Tullius Arcadian and Keira Baines." James said, introducing them each in turn.
"We're here to assist in any manner necessary." James stated plainly.
Vidorian nodded his brown forming into a scowl as he eyed them up and down with a slightly suspicious glare.
"Right. Well, I'm sure we can come to an arrangement with your employeers after this is over. C-Sec doesn't usually hire… security contractors…" Vidorian putting emphasis on those last two words, as if uttering a curse. James didn't really like the sound of it either, but there was no denying what he was now, even if Vidorian put it diplomatically.
"But, you did help us out…I will make sure you are well compensated for your trouble."
James shook his head,
"We're not with any organization, and compensation won't be necessary, Lieutenant. We are soldiers, not vultures."
Vidorian's heavy features lightened considerably at those words. He hadn't expected mercs to come to his rescue and he certainly didn't expect mercs with a conscience, such things were usually bad for the business, but the human's body language seemed to indicate he was being truthful.
Vidorian felt bad now for taking such a tone with the three that had saved his men's lives.
"Huh. Well…uh- good to have you then…" He muttered, his cheeks turning a darker shade of blue in embarrassment.
"You'll have to forgive me…I assumed…well, in any case thank you…"
"It's quite alright, Lieutenant. We are happy to help." James assured, his words seemed sincere enough for the Turian officer. "Now, what's the situation?"
Vidorian nodded appreciatively, "Thanks. We have been holding this area since the attack began. We had been in contact with a doctor who was orchestrating the evacuation of the habitation block but we haven't heard from him since the communications blackout."
James looked over at the C-Sec officers behind the barricade. They looked bruised, bloodied but still held their heads up high, despite being significant under-armed for this kind of a fight. They were law enforcement, not soldiers, many of them had ever shot a weapon except on the firing range, but they still had held the line against a much larger and more powerful force.
"The entire Presidium is a mess," Vidorian continued, motioning them to follow him to the barricade, talking as they walked, "whatever the synthetic bastards are doing, they've thrown the bulk of their forces into this sector. My men and I managed to stall their advance into the habitation block of the Presidium, to buy the doctor time to get the civilians out. You may have killed the bastards that were attacking us, but they'll be back and probably with more this time." Vidorian sighed in resignation.
"I don't know if we will be able to hold this time…."
"You won't need to." James murmured. "We will take up positions and hold here until reinforcements arrive."
Vidorian turned halted in his tracks, turning back to James with a curious look, as if he hadn't heard the human correctly.
"That's crazy. You'll be cut down in no time flat."
James shook his head. "Not necessarily. If we mine the approach and get a good position, we will be able to hold this sector till doomsday."
"That may be closer than you think, James." Tullius noted with a dark chuckle, pointing up at the fires burning across the Citadel's arms.
Vidorian didn't seem convinced though.
"Miss Baines here is the best damn shot in the galaxy, she and Tullius can stay here while I go into the habitation block and see if I can find your missing doctor."
Vidorian looked over at Keira with a calculating stare, his eys scanning up and down her form, assessing her potential for violence. Keira just stared back at the Turian, her emerald eyes stabbing like frosted daggers into the Turian's skin, enough to make a little chill run down his spine.
"And my men?" Vidorian asked, unsure of exactly where they would retreat to, after all the entire Citadel could be burning for all they knew.
"Back to our ship, the Revenant. You can take your wounded to our med-bay and those still standing can assist in directing refugees."
Vidorian raised a hand to his chin, stroking his mandibles for a moment with his bloodied fingers.
While Vidorian didn't relish of his men leaving their post during a crisis was the most honourable course of action, he did recognize the fact that in the current condition, they would likely be little more than a minor distraction when the Geth rolled though again.
And while Vidorian knew that soldiers died in war, it wasn't wise to waste lives on foolish endeavors, not when there was another option.
"Alright. It's not a perfect plan, but I don't think we have much of a choice at the moment." Vidorian said, signaling Gerin to toss him a rifle. The salarian responded, chucking his Vindicator over to the Turian Lieutenant. Vidorian caught it with one hand, slipping it into that cradle between his arm and shoulder. He popped the slide back, loading a fresh thermal clip into position.
"But I'm going with you." He stated in a matter-of-fact manner.
James nodded in agreement, "Fair enough." James lifted his arm and opened his omni-tool, typing the coordinates into a text message and sending via short range peer to peer network link to Vidorian's omni-tool.
"These are the coordinates, have your men proceed there as quickly as they can."
"Right." Vidorian nodded solemnly as he passed on the information to the rest of the squad.
"Shall we proceed, then?" Vidorian asked with a grimace.
James nodded to Tullius and Keira. The two returned his gesture and brushed past the two, taking up positions on either side of the lifts.
James looked back to Vidorian and gave a quick bob of his head towards the lift doors.
"Let's go."
Kari sat on the floor in the dismal dark of her room. Her arms were curled up around her knees and her head was planted flatly against her tighs as she rocked herself back and forth slowly on the cold metal floor with her back to the window.
She didn't want to look, she didn't want to see what was happening. So many people were dying right now. Each one with their own individual wants and interests, each unique in the galaxy…and they were being snuffed out, like the flames of candles hushed by a great wind.
She wondered how many of them had husbands or wives, children or parents that they would leave behind. She wondered how many of the people she had met on the Citadel were dead right now…
Kari trembled.
Bursts of light interrupted the darkness, flashing luminous patterns across the blank wall that she was staring at. Shadows danced like puppets on strings of light across the wall, forming long deep crevices that stretched out like branches of a dead tree reaching towards the iron sky.
They taunted Kari, prodding her, pushing inky thoughts into her mind with each flash of incandescent fury followed by sacred silence.
How many in that explosion? Ten? A hundred? A thousand?
How many burned in that momentary blaze? How many would burn for years to come? How many lives would be forever changed because of one brief second.
One second, that made the difference between happiness and misery. That one second that the wife became a widow, the child became an orphans or the parent lost their son.
What if that had been the explosion that had killed James?
Kari shuddered even to think such a thought.
No, he promised to come back. He swore he would. He wouldn't just…
Kari's chest heaved pitifully as tears began to roll down her cheeks, unbidden and silent.
She knew that she was lying to herself to think that just because James had promised to return to her, didn't mean he would. He was a strong, brave man, but he was not invincible. Just because she wanted such, didn't make it so. She knew he was going to walk into hell, the moment that he had stepped foot into her room, and she had just let him go.
She didn't try to stop him, she didn't offer to come with him, she just had sat there on the floor like an idiot. If he died now, it would be her fault, her fault for not stopping him, for not trying to save him from his own damnable heroic nature.
Kari let a loud shuddering tearful sob escape her lips as she hugged her own legs even tighter.
She would never know the touch of his lips again, nor the sweet smell of his skin, unfiltered and distilled in her nostrils. She would never feel his hand again on her cheek nor would she ever get to experience the wonder of love-making or the feel of his skin against hers.
If he died today, all of it would be because of her failure: as a soldier, as an engineer and as a lover.
Kari bowed her head solemnly, her eyes still stinging and swollen.
No it wasn't right. She needed to get a grip on her emotions. She couldn't just sit here wallowing in self pity while the others risked their lives. She had to do something...she had to be brave. She had to be the person that everyone believed that she could be.
Kari felt something stirring in her, something warm and powerful like a bright light across the shadows of her doubts, dim at first but growing in strength with each passing moment.
He wasn't going to die today, because she wasn't going to let him. She was going to pick herself up out of her own puddle of self-pity and shame and march straight down there to go get him.
Kari's arms began to unwrap from her legs. The thought strengthing her resolve with each second.
I am Kari'Vereah Nar Vanya, daughter of Captain Zevi'Vereah. I can do this. I have to do this. What are a few Geth to my people? We made them, we can break them too.
Kari rose slowly to her feet, unsteadily, as if her body didn't quite want to believe what her brain was telling it.
Kari walked over to her bedside, grabbing her old shotgun up off the table. It was a well worn model dating back over three centuries to the original war with the Geth, the one that had ended in her people's exile. Passed down from generation to generation in her family, it was fitting that it would now taste battle again against the same hated foe that her ancestors had fought over three hundred years ago.
Kari grabbed a handful of thermal clips from the table and began to load them into the shotgun's magazine as she headed for the door. She moved in a daze, as if the entire process was a little more than a very realistic dream.
She still couldn't believe she was going to do this, she was no soldier. She was just a silly girl with a shotgun. She stopped loading clips into her shotgun as a wave of trepidation washed over her again.
What was she doing? She was going to get herself and everyone around her killed trying to be a hero.
But then she thought of James, and how that she felt when she was near him….and the sensation of his lips against hers, their tongues and fingers twined together in perfect harmony. That's what she was fighting for….
Kari's brow furrowed and she set her jaw, dropping the shotgun, while clutching the slide with one hand as gravity did the work of cocking the weapon for her.
It was time to hunt some Geth.
The habitations block was worse off than either of them could have expected. The once pristine alabaster walks of and parking lots of the apartments were strewn with rubble. Plasma score marks littered the landscape and several buildings were burning slowly. Others still had parts of their structure blasted away from what was likely rifled grenade impacts from their side and distribution patterns. Several bodies of various species lay strewn across the ground, some of them still smoldering blackened circles in their backs where the Geth had shot them, the smell of burning flesh and plastic wafted up to James nostrils through the filters of his suit, almost causing him to vomit.
He winced in sympathetic pain as he looked over the bodies, knowing all too well the agonizing pain that the victims had experienced in the last moments of consciousness before the grim void of death took them.
Vidorian stared down at the bodies as well in disbelief. Some of them were young, children…unarmed and frightened.
James looked over at Vidorian, his expression reminded of a passage that his father always quoted to him when he was young, an piece of family wisdom passed down through the generations.
Those without swords can still die upon them.
Vidorian kneeled down next to one of the small bodies, a Turian girl: no more than ten in human years. She had three blacked holes in a perfect triangular pattern scorched into her back. Her face was pale and cold and she looked as if she had fallen while in a dead sprint by the way her body was arrayed.
James could see the question in Vidorian's eyes as he stared numbly at the girl, as if trying to make sense of it all.
James kneeled down next to him, the petrified, look of fear in the little girl's clouded sightless eyes invoking a dark emotion deep within James's subconscious, like the echo of a scream wafting up from a dungeon.
James pressed his gloved fingers reverently over the little girl's eyelids, closing them forever.
"Hunters." James stated coldly, answering the question that had been eating away at Vidorian's mind, although it proved to be no comfort to him.
"They must have slipped past when you were occupied." James continued.
Vidorian shook his head, "Doesn't excuse it…." He mumbled, still staring at the girl's body. He needed to remember this. To see the price of his failure…so that it would never happen again.
"You couldn't have known…" James reassured, but he could tell it was falling on deaf ears. Vidorian was going to have to deal with this himself in his own way.
James knew how he dealt with horror: with a lot of sleepless nights and bad dreams.
"Come on… there's nothing we can do for the dead, and those Geth are still out there."
Vidorian nodded, rising from the side of the girl with solemn scowl on his face. "Right… there might still be someone alive out here." He said grimly, as if not believing his own platitude.
James couldn't really believe anyone had survived either. It looked like the Geth had been very through in their attack. Everyone had already escaped to met a gruesome death on the end of a plasma shotgun.
Yet as many bodies as there were laying on the ground, James knew it could have been a lot worse. Hundreds of people lived in these apartments, the dead numbered in the dozens.
Still it was far too many, James had only wished that they had gotten there sooner, perhaps more would still be alive if they had.
He and Vidorian walked through the debris and rubble strewn complexes cautiously, one on either side of the main street that ran up the middle of this habitation block.
Except for the sound of crackling fires the entire district was eeriely silent. James didn't like it. He felt like he was being watched…tracked….hunted. The scarred tissue on his back seemed to flare up in little prickles of pain, like the skin itself remembered the unbearable agony of having its flesh literally melted away to the bone.
James checked behind him again, thinking her heard something behind him…but it was just his imagination. He saw nothing but empty streets and still bodies. That made him even more nervous. He had seen some of the old cheesy movies of his grandfather's era where the dead rose up from their graves to eat the flesh of the living, the concept had scared the hell of him as a child, but he had never been afraid of such nonsense as an adult.
But, James couldn't deny that the thought didn't occur to him now, as silly as it seemed. He had never been in a situation like this before. He had seen plenty of death in his time, but the dead were always soldiers, or there had been some kind of immediate threat that had prevented him from dwelling on thoughts about the fallen around him.
Now, there was only silence, and the churning of his own vicious imagination to keep him company.
James stepped over another corpse. A human woman in her middling years with a kindly looking face, scrunched up and frozen in her death throes.
Someone's mother, no doubt
James thought has he moved on quickly, forcing his brain to stay on task and not wander into that obvious abyss that stared up at him.
"Do you hear that?" Vidorian asked, holding up his three-fingered hand in a fist. James froze, scanning the area with both his eyes and ears.
He did hear something: a voice.
It was muffled and distant but it was definitely a man's voice: human from the sound of it.
James and Aelus both looked at each other for a moment, nodding silent assent to the other.
They rushed forward, picking up the pace from the creep they had been going at to a light jog. They were still checking corners and scanning for threats as they went, but at a much less thoroughly.
They twisted and winded their way though the alleys and backways of the apartments, seeking the origin of the voice and the speaker. As they came closer, James recognized that the person that was speaking was indeed human and curiously enough he sounded angry.
James couldn't make out the words, but from the tone the person sounded like he was scolding a naughty child about not finishing his or her peas at supper.
The voice grew in strength and volume, until finally they were able to get a glimpse of the speaker.
The scene that greeted them was a strange one indeed. About fifteen meters from their position was a gaunt, tall man
that looked like he could have been plucked from a page in a history book.
His appearance suggested he was in his late twenties in a three-piece white suit with half-moon crescent glasses perched upon his nose and a very odd looking handbag clutched in his right hand which was at his side like the kind commonly used several hundred years ago to carry tools or medicine.
Behind him was a small Asari girl, about six years old (in human years) cowering behind the leg of the much taller man. The man cursing at a geth hunter who stood immobile, staring at the pair with its shotgun leveled at the human's chest.
The human was unarmed but the ferocity of his gesticulations suggested that he was giving the Geth hunter the sternest talking to that it had ever received.
James and Aelus both took cover behind a couple of wastebins that cluttered the alleyway, both lining up shots on the Geth's head.
"How dare you, sir. Scaring a young girl in this manner! Have you no manners? Did your parents- or whatever it is you creatures have ever teach you any civility whatsoever?" the man ranted in a very cultured drawl.
"I demand that you release us at once! I must get this child to a properly medical facility right away before her condition worsens- are you listening to me?"
The Geth seemed to understand at least part of what he said: the little girl was injured and would likely not be a good candidate for their purposes. The Geth lowered its barrel from the man's chest to aim at the little girl.
The girl whimpered and retracted even further behind the man's leg, the human stepping in front of the shotgun barrel with an appaulded look on his face.
"Good God, man, she's a child! Have a little compassion!"
The human was going to be a problem. It was no matter, the Old Machines would find a use for his corpse.
The hunter began charging its shotgun, to deliver an instantly fatal blast to the man's chest. That is, it would have, if its head didn't suddenly go missing.
Err-rr-rr-oor-
Boom. The Geth hunter collapsed into a hunk of scrap. Both the man and the Asari girl looked up in suprise to see the source of the shot, the human putting himself between the girl and where he figured the bullet came from.
Vidorian and Irving emerged from behind the wastebins, with sights trained on the fallen Geth.
The man in the white suit seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when he saw the C-Sec uniform.
"Officer Vidorian. Good to see you again." The man said, relaxing slightly.
The Turian lieutenant nodded, "You as well, doctor. I was worried that you might not have made it."
"Same to you, Lieutenant. When those Geth showed up, I thought that you and your men had fallen."
Vidorian shook his head, his expression one of regret and pain. "No. They had cloaking units, so they must have slipped past us." He said, the bitterness over his failure still fresh in his voice.
The doctor nodded sympathetically. "I thought as much. We were close to being finished with the evacuation of the district when they came out of nowhere, from all sides…"
The doctor grimaced, "We lost a lot of good folk today."
James nodded in agreement, "Yes…we have."
There was a moment of silence between the four of them before the doctor turned to James.
"I'm sorry. You will have to pardon my manners… Benjamin Byrd, Doctor of medicine and philosophy, at your service sir." he said in an official manner, bowing graciously to James.
James raised his eyebrow slightly at the gesture, it was a very dated, very dramatic sort of bow similar one would see at a Royal Ball in London, although his accent sounded far from English.
"James Irving. Private Military." He said, offering a respectful nod.
"Ah." Doctor Byrd said, raising his eyebrows slightly in understanding, but offering a polite smile nevertheless.
"A pleasure, sir. I wish we had time to become acquainted, but I'm afraid this girl needs immediate medical attention." Benjamin said, gesturing to the Asari child that was starting to peak out from behind his leg curiously.
"I have an owie." The little girl chimed in, holding up her hand to show the newcomers her war-wound. It looked to be nothing more than a bad bruise and a small tear in the skin, hardly more than a flesh wound that would would require at most a few stitches.. But James understood what the doctor was getting at.
Something bad had happened to this little girl's parents...and he was trying to keep her thoughts off that subject.
James looked up at the doctor, who gave a sad little smile as he looked at the little girl. He scooped her up in his left arm and put her on his hip.
"Yes you do, m'dear. Don't worry, we will get you fixed up right as rain when we get you to a hospital." The doctor smiled at the little girl, grabbing his handbag up in his other hand.
"Will mommy be there?" the little girl asked innocently.
The doctor's brow furrowed slightly…sadly. "I don't know m'dear, but I'm sure she's proud of you for being so brave."
The doctor forced another smile to his lips. "Tell you what, when we get to the hospital, why don't I get you some of those sweeties you like so much and we can wait for your mother together. Does that sound agreeable?"
The little girl gave a little grin. "Okay." She said and nuzzled her head up against the doctor's shoulder, wrapping her tiny arms around his chest and side.
"We should go." Vidorian stated calmly, although James could tell by his expression that he was feeling anything but calm at the moment.
"Is there anyone else?" James asked, to which the doctor shook his head.
"No. It's just us. Everyone else is already gone."
"Then I suggest we do the same. Come on, before that hunter's mates decide to show up."
Kari moved silently through the abandoned streets of the habitation block. It was quiet here, hauntingly so. It was as silent as a tomb on the street level, with no sound but the gentle crackling of spreading fires and the shifting of metal and timber as the burning apartments caved in on themselves. There were bodies strewn about in horrific fashion, as if someone had just tossed a bunch of ragdolls haphazardly across the ground.
Kari stepped over them slowly, tiptoeing as if trying not to disturb the dreamless slumber which held them. She tried not to look down at the bodies, the very smell alone was enough to weaken her already shakey resolve, but if she was going to find James, she had to go deeper still.
She stepped over another body, the cloaking field around her shimmering slightly as she did. She nearly tripped on the arm, forcing her to gaze down to try to regain her balance. The arm belonged to that of a blonde haired middle aged woman. She looked someone's grandmother, with a very tender, loving face, now pale and cold in death. Kari wondered if perhaps the woman could have been James's mother, her face looked a lot like James.
But then, James had never mentioned his mother, except once. She had died some years before, but James wouldn't say anything more than that. It seemed a subject that brought him a lot of pain, so Kari didn't press the issue, but Kari couldn't help but wonder whose mother this was...
Dark thoughts started to creep back into Kari's consciousness, bringing with them that fear that she had been suppressing. She shoved the thoughts away quickly, before they had a chance to take hold, forcing herself to press on deeper into the maze of buildings.
She wasn't sure how much longer the cloak was going to last anyways she had forgotten to charge the unit before she left and it was the older model that the Ellis's had given her. Even at best she figured that she would only have a few more minutes before she either had to turn back to risk losing the cloak and being exposed.
Her enviro-suit had kinetic barriers, but they were very week, suitable for only stopping a pistol round or two before giving out. After that, she might as well just paint a giant bullseye on her visor and wait for someone to shoot her.
Kari continued on, the silence only growing the further she got in. There were fewer bodies this way, and less rubble no fires at all. It was as if she was walking into a photograph, a ghostly reflection of the district's past: everything still perfectly in its place, but with no sign of life anywhere.
Kari started to feel uneasy, like the walls were closing in around her, growing in height, blocking what little light filter through the darkened skybox. She heard a whispers and ghostlys voice in the back of her mind, alien and unknowable.
Her heart pounded in her chest, and her head started to throb in dull pain.
She stopped in her tracks. To her right, there was a rather dark narrow alleyway with walls that seemed to reach up to the sky and nothing but inky darkness in its depths except for a very small point of white light at the very center of the long corridor.
There was something down there. Kari could feel it…yet her mind recoiled at the thought of going down there. Shadows spread out like a tongue from a maw, inviting and warm. She felt drawn to it. It called to her, a voice in the back of her mind spurring her on to investigate.
Perhaps James was down there? Was he injured? Did he need help? How could she leave him alone in such a place…she had to go to him.
Yet, just as she was about to step down into the alleyway, she heard something from behind her. Voices: several of them, in hushed tones. One of them sounded like James.
The voice in her mind disappeared, a soft growl echoing in its wake. The light was gone. Kari stepped back from the menacing looking alley. Trepidation hung heavily in her heart as she turned and ran her steps quickening as she moved away from it and towards the sound of James's voice.
Out of the dark alley, an several inky figures moved in the darkness, slipping out of the shadows that had harboured them. One by one the figures departed from the alleyway and disappeared into the streets beyond….
James, Benjamin and Aelus moved through the streets as quietly as they could manage, only exchanging hushed words they had to. The little girl Karena had been talking at one point before, babbling on about her pet varren, Snuggles. However with a few words from James and the doctor, she had agreed to keep quiet until they told her otherwise.
They were in a very dangerous situation. By the doctor's count there had been nine geth hunters out there, eight of them that could very well be stalking them at this very instant and they wouldn't know it.
So they moved quickly, Vidorian in front, the doctor and the girl in the middle and James pulling up the rearguard. Street by street they moved, closing the distance to the lifts with each passing second. James hoped that Keira and Tullius were not having too much trouble trying to hold down the fort by themselves, although James knew Keira and if Tullius was even as half as good at her with a rifle, they could hold that lift until doomsday.
James grinned as he thought about them. If he knew Keira, she would have probably made a wager against Tullius to see who could get the most kills. A wager she always won of course. The girl had a mean eye and an even meaner shot. He once saw her pop the heads of four batarian slavers with one shot from her anti-material rifle.
They would hold, James was sure of it. The only question is now was if they would make it to the extraction point alive. If all eight of them swarmed him at once, he couldn't possibly get them all before they blasted him with those shotguns of theirs and that was if he saw them coming. They could very well gut him from behind again, and this time probably do a better job of it to.
It was a very discouraging thought…
James turned around to see how they were progressing. They were close. He could see the lifts to the Presidium in the distance, just beyond the glass ceiling that opened up to allow cars into the Citadel skylanes. Just a few hundred meters or so and they would be there.
James smiled and turned back around to face their flanks. But in that moment, the smile fade from his lips. He saw something….moving. Like a gust of wind… faintly stirring its surroundings. But there was no wind on the Citadel…
James looked closer and he saw it. The faint silhouette of something moving towards him…it was small and closing the distance fast, the distinct shimmering of a cloaking field becoming visible to him.
James raised his rifle to his face, but the form continued its advance, not even breaking stride as it grew closer.
James aimed down the sights of his M-55, observing the patterns and currents of the electricity as it flowed around the form, allowing James to pick out the head from the rest of the body.
Even with its shields up, there was no way that a hunter could survive a trio of Argus rounds directly to the optic cluster, and since he didn't see any additional distortions behind it, James allowed himself the time to line up the shot perfectly.
The red dot of his sight centered directly on the mirage's skull.
"Gotca." James whispered, and squeezed the trigger.