All was not well in Thaddaeus Shepard's universe. As the adage went, every soldier is only as good as his last battle in the eyes of his commander. Apparently, Michael Hogan was no exception – and that made Operative Thanatos a failure. And that called for penalties, repercussions – in the form of restricting his knowledge and therefore power, by virtue of upgrading the security on the N7 databases to an exponentially greater degree. It was good work; Shepard would have been able to hack it eventually, given the time and privacy, but the other problem was that now he was being afforded neither. Even the assignment had been an indication of his CO's displeasure – Hogan hadn't seen a need to kill Ross, merely to monitor him. Ironically, it was only Thaddaeus' diligent vigil that had alerted them to the journalist's activities, for the man had been far too careful to be caught by the usual electronic surveillance.
And now to even have a hope of reclaiming some vestige of the high ground, the power that he had lost due to nothing more than unfortunate circumstance, the assassin had no real choice but to let his target live, gain his trust – fight at his side. It mightn't be impossible to murder him and then make use of an escape pod, but Shepard knew that Ross had contingencies stashed that could do a potent amount of damage to the Alliance and other groups in the event of his demise. Contingencies that would be just as useful to an assassin as a journalist. But to sabotage those schemes and claim the payload for his own, first those infernal hijackers had to be dealt with.
First things first, the hacker, now that he had located Ross. Their control over the ship's automated systems, both internal and external, made them by far the most dangerous opponent. This in turn begged the question of where exactly the hacker was, since you could make a bet at highly reasonable odds that he'd have locked out every terminal but his own from the ship's network. In spite of the fact that his excuse, should Ross enquire as to why Thaddaeus was where he was and not helping the ship's security repel the boarders, had been that he was searching for the hacker, Shepard doubted that he was headed in the right direction. The most prudent location would be near the point at which the hijackers boarded so as to be in annexed territory as quickly as possible, but secure and fairly secluded to avoid becoming collateral damage. And yet, that line of reasoning also demanded an explanation for the presence of the two recently deceased keeping the two men company; why were they so far from their comrades?
Unless perhaps, rather than being tasked with securing any particular asset, they were part of the hijackers' overall strategy to deal with shipboard personnel; making a flanking manoeuvre in order to minimise casualties and collateral damage on both sides and thus maximise profit. Except that a squad of two was too small for such a machination not to be prohibitively risky, without real-time Intel from...
"So, do we have a plan?" Ross asked cautiously, intruding upon Shepard's introspection. Throwing a brief glance up at the CCTV camera at the far end of the corridor, the N7 cursed internally, before regarding the journalist intently.
"I needed to reconsider certain things in light of your presence. Shipboard security were poorly equipped, trained, led and disciplined, and from the sounds of it have surrendered, or been killed or subdued. Their position was untenable and, as you can see, the hijackers were already moving to flank. My intention had been to harass and weaken their forces, then use that freedom to locate their hacker, incapacitate him, then punch through their lines and regain control of the bridge." Sensibly, the hijackers had boarded so as to seize control of the main controls almost immediately. "With you here, we should be able to move straight to the second phase."
In actuality, there was no real choice in the matter. The hijackers would have a decisive real-time knowledge of the battlefield until control of the ship's systems could be wrested from their control, making any strategy a weak one, particularly if it had any focus other than taking that advantage away.
Without any further ceremony, Thaddaeus turned and fired a single unerring round into the surveillance device, before heading back the way he had come. "Stay behind me, and don't shoot anything unless I tell you to."
Currently, he and his companion were on the topmost deck of the transport, the bridge being located at the far front of the bottom level. Clearly, the ship's elevators weren't an option; even if the hacker permitted them access he'd also have control over their movements. In his position, Thaddaeus would simply drop those with the audacity to oppose him down the shaft, possibly more than once. In any case, that meant an alternate route was required. A stairway, with manual access for maintenance and emergencies, would be located near to the trap. It suited the assassin's purposes, though it would doubtless be the anticipated alternative. Even so, he refused to acknowledge the situation as one that qualified as an emergency. Maintenance, perhaps – he was purging a shipboard contaminant, after all.
The duo hurried along a stark corridor lined with passenger cabins, Thaddaeus having adjusted the pace such that Ross could keep up whilst moving reasonably quietly before focussing his attention on sabotaging any surveillance devices, and listening for any hint of hostile contact that might offer him more time to react-
Nonetheless, he was caught as unprepared as the general situation warranted when he and the journalist reached a junction and were greeted by a corridor dammed with a line of pirates, weapons at the ready. Shepard was just fast enough to throw Ross back out of the line of fire, his own response slowed by a fresh stab of agony as his body flashed blue, before the volley slammed into his kinetic barriers and shut them down almost immediately, nearly knocking his feet from under him. The armour that guarded his legs and lower torso buckled in dozens of small craters, but remained whole for the instant required for the assassin to simultaneously fire a dazzling ball of plasma at the enemy's line and hurl himself into cover on the other side of the junction to Ross.
Curses indicated the ploy had bought him a couple of seconds, the duration of which his mind was racing. They'd got the drop on him because they were ready in position; an ambush, liberal in its use of manpower. Clearly they'd been noted as a serious threat; audio devices must have picked up his declaration that he was an N7. And yet, firing so low, compromising the lethality of the tactic, could only indicate that they were wanted alive. Obviously, they knew who Ross was, and were prepared to risk tangling with an elite commando to find out what he knew, doubtless for many of the same reasons that Shepard hadn't already eliminated him.
The thought of the journalist prompted Thaddaeus to glance in his direction, across the void already being filled with suppressing fire by the hijackers as they doubtless advanced. He found himself meeting Simon's fearful gaze, and then realised the magnitude of the error he had made in the heat of the moment, instinctively continuing forwards toward his objective. Only his primary objective was separated from him by a lethal hail of fire, and staring at him in consternation. No; that wasn't it, Ross was staring past him...
Shepard turned to see an already effective tactic on the part of his foes completed, and swore aloud. Three more thugs advanced down the corridor from which the assassin and the journalist had no cover. Fortunately, they didn't need it, as their attackers weren't firing at them – couldn't fire, actually. They were fully occupied holding military grade riot shields, the sort occasionally employed by C-Sec; tall, wide, thick, heavy, and nigh impenetrable. The three of them, shoulder to shoulder, formed a solid wall to match that of their comrades to Thaddaeus' immediate rear. Quite literally, the walls were closing in. Time, or Shepard's ever so subjective perception of it, seemed to slow still further as his brain went into interstellar overdrive.
The 'legionaries', as the assassin spontaneously dubbed them, had left their feet exposed, but if they had any sense the moment he took aim they'd stop and cover that one vulnerability. They could afford to; he was milliseconds away from being outflanked. Yet even if they didn't, extremities, armoured and presumably barriered as they were, would still take too long to tear into, during which time their allies would sweep down into the corridor behind him, secure Ross and have him comprehensively trapped and ripe for slaughter.
Position untenable. Fall back. How?
The rapidly approaching criminals were still laying down heavy suppressing fire, and his kinetic barriers were still non-existent. Ordinarily, he would readily resort to the tactical cloak module installed in his armour, but being nigh impossible to see did not make one nigh impossible to shoot – merely a problematic target. Flood an area with a sufficient volume of projectiles and whether you could be seen or not became wholly irrelevant in the matter of whether or not you could be killed. Whomever was co-ordinating all of this was frustratingly good. It would be a pleasure to demonstrate his superiority later on...
The option Thaddaeus favoured least occurred to him next. Biotics; possible death by virtue of a brain haemorrhage versus probable death by virtue of being riddled with miniscule shards of hyper-accelerated metal. That was all the calculation amounted to. Unless there was another alternative...
Tech trickery was unlikely to faze the enemy now; he'd shown his hand with the plasma in an admittedly desperate situation but such a ploy would not work twice, and even if it wouldn't interfere with his own equipment at a time when his resources were already decidedly limited, his omnitool couldn't generate an EMP strong enough to put their weapons out of action for a moment. Interfere...
"ROSS!" Shepard bellowed over the reports of perhaps a dozen forearms. "OVERLOAD!" He brought up his omnitool as the journalist nodded and mirrored the action, raised two fingers, dropped one, then-
The principle of superposition states that waves of the same type, travelling through the same area of space-time, will interfere and produce a wave pattern with the vector sum of the waves' individual amplitudes. An EMP is just a high intensity pulse of electromagnetic radiation, therefore it behaves in the same way as other waves in this respect. When the assassin and the journalist simultaneously fired their respective pulses blindly down the corridor that divided them, the two waves overlapped, at some points negating each other, at others doubling the intensity of the blast. The wavelength of most of the electromagnetic spectrum being miniscule meant that the gaps between these points were equally miniscule, and as such all of the charging thugs found that their weapons momentarily ceased to function, along with their shields. Regrettably, so did those of the duo, meaning there was only one way in which they could exploit the situation; retreat.
Shepard bolted out of cover and past the journalist, who followed more quickly still when the legionaries behind them set their shields aside for a moment and sent a flurry of pistol fire after them. Their targets hunched their backs in response, minimising their respective profiles and veering back and forth, meaning no rounds hit them before they turned the next corner. Thaddaeus continued to lead the way at a run however; thudding feet behind them indicated that a number of hijackers had followed them, though certainly not their entire number.
A quick glance downward told him that the computer systems within his Karpov had successfully rebooted; it was time to be proactive again, regain the initiative and force his foes to respond to his strategies rather than being forced to react to theirs. The strategist commanding the operation, unsurprisingly, seemed to have other ideas.
"Mr Ross?" A filtered voice filled the ship. Shepard gritted his teeth sourly – Ross, as a civilian, was vastly more vulnerable to psychological warfare due to his lack of basic military conditioning and experience, and the increase in background noise served to cover the sounds of their pursuers, as well as any possible ambushers. All in all, it was a ploy the assassin himself would have used in this very situation. "There's no need for any more of this... unpleasantness. I believe that there has been nothing more than a simple misunderstanding of our intentions here, and I'm confident we can rectify it like civilised adults. My associates and I have no wish to see you dead, unlike the supposed 'marine' at your side..."
Conscious of his façade, the N7 grimaced and uttered a grim, quiet laugh as he turned to regard the journalist. "Don't tell me you're going to let this bastard fool you..." Ross shook his head, smiling weakly. The gesture was not one that particularly inspired confidence, Thaddaeus reflected. No time to deal with that now; the pounding signs of pursuit were a conspicuous reminder of his lack of breathing room. His gaze was drawn to the air ducts notably protruding from the ceiling, then fixed upon a grille that swiftly passed through his field of view as the duo ran onwards. More bloody vents... delightful.
"Stop. Into that doorway." He instructed the journalist loudly, realising that there was no advantage in sacrificing clarity for quietness; the criminals following them would be alerted by the cessation of their less than subtle footsteps in any case. Simon hesitated, the uncertainty flickering across his face as he hefted his rifle nervously, as fearful of more combat as he was of the pirates and the man who claimed to want his help. His eyes flitted to the Karpov in the marine's steady grip and then up to a face, wreathed in shadow, that was studiously blank despite the impatience in its owner's voice. Pitch black stared at him from where human eyes belonged. He moved to do Shepard's bidding, crouching in the specified alcove. "Keep your eyes open and their heads down." the orders continued, as their origin gestured back in the direction whence they had come, before moving past him. Simon risked a furtive glance over his shoulder to see the silhouette of his ally tinkering with a grating in the roof of the corridor.
CRACK CRACK! Hyper-accelerated rounds seared through the air in terrifyingly close proximity to his face, leaving behind them a fine ionised tang in his nose. He whirled back to the front, and didn't wait for the testy "Ross!" from behind to fire a discouraging burst at the shape leaning around the corner, and the others moving out past them. Somewhere in the back of his mind it registered that they weren't shooting to kill, and he reeled in revulsion at the realisation that he was. The forefront of his attention was on making sure that he did it right.
More rounds flew past him, this time in the other direction, alongside his own. "Moving up." the Englishman announced as loudly as was necessary, before darting forwards into a depression on the other side of the corridor, paying no heed to the projectiles that glanced off of his kinetic barriers as he covered nearly all of the distance between them and their attackers. A double flash of orange contrasted heavily with the blue muzzle-flash of mass accelerators, and a splash of plasma ate through the remaining shields of one unfortunate aggressor and into his armour, then his skin. His colleagues dragged him back out of sight, screaming and clawing (very unwisely) at himself, before quickly coming forward again and reopening fire with as much vengeance as shooting to wound would allow.
On the other hand, they hadn't seen the nearer of their foes quickly hack the door of the cabin he sheltered outside, hadn't heard the fright of its occupant over their own comrade's agony, and didn't notice the a section of wall in the corridor behind them glow red, then white as Shepard carved his way through it, before allowing the smoking metal to topple gently back into the room and delicately step through the newly opened portal, under the cover of his cloak, of course. His first course of action was to ensure that there were no surveillance devices in a fit state to be monitoring him. His second was to assess the enemy: six well armed and armoured thugs, one already incapacitated and apparently freshly sedated, the other five maintaining a constant cycle of fire – three on, two off, allowing their weapons to cool and their shields to recharge at regular intervals. More holding tactics, no hint of a strategy to break the apparent stalemate, which immediately led Thaddaeus to conclude that the source of that offensive would be Ross' flank.
A knife appeared in his left hand (or would have, were any of his anatomy visible); it wouldn't short out his cloak or cause due alarm to his intended victims. First, a careful insertion of the composite blade into the vulnerable armpit of the one who was sleeping. Second, a more perfunctory slash across the throat of the nearest man, who imprudently neglected a helmet, before a double shot, point blank, into his startled, suddenly blood smeared contemporary's visor, the first cracking the transparent material, the second punching through to burrow into his skull. Even as the dead man's allies turned, spraying fire on instinct, he deactivated his cloak to allow his armour to focus on supporting his shielding for the brief moment he required to knock the nearest enemy's rifle aside and launch a kick that slammed him back into his closely packed peers and sent all three of them stumbling into Ross' line of sight. Within the space of a moment, their shields were perilously near to being non-existent, before a liberal administration of plasma finished the job and their resistance. None of the three was in any state to offer assistance or relief to the other two as they had before.
Dismissing them, the assassin strode quickly back down the corridor towards his designated target, very nearly opening fire when the journalist send a flurry of rifle rounds past him down the corridor, before he analysed their vector and heard the screaming behind him cease, and realised Simon had been ending the hijackers' misery. Pointedly ignoring the gesture, he nodded up at the entrance into the ventilation ducts he had made a brief while earlier, offering a boost and a single syllable. "Up." Without a word, Ross ascended and then offered a hand to assist Shepard, who snatched up the vent cover before following, securing it again once he was in. Making painstaking efforts to avoid creating noise, the two crawled in single file in the darkness until Thaddaeus was satisfied that they had left the area and that no hostile was within earshot.
"My orders have nothing to do with murdering you." He stated in a low voice, twisting to face the man to whom he was lying through his teeth. "If they did, your body would be stowed in your cabin and I would be drifting in the nearest escape pod. The pirates' presence here would even offer the Alliance the perfect cover-up. And your reputation, the reason you're afraid of my COs, and of me, is the reason these men want you alive; believe me when I assure you that that ought to be the outcome you desire the least." The assassin didn't bother to attempt to deny that any member of the Alliance brass would even contemplate the murder of an inconvenient journalist. One of the reasons he was so very problematic was that he knew all too well that they would.
Ross nodded, his body language inscrutable, betraying no hint of whatever his internal thought processes were; the most that could be guessed was that he was apparently satisfied for the time being. "What now?" He enquired softly.
"We still need to get to the hacker, but whoever's coordinating their strategy will want to make that difficult for us. We've dropped off of the grid for the time being, but we still need to use one of the emergency stairways to get to the lowermost deck. We're near one that should be behind the front line of their search, which will buy us a little time. The moment we leave the vent, however, they'll be coming for us."
"Mr Ross, your stubborn refusal to consider your own wellbeing disappoints myself and my colleagues. What has your assassin told you? That if he were indeed sent to ensure your destruction, he would have done so already and taken his leave? That the very presence of myself and my associates only benefits such a plot? For shame, Mr Ross. He cannot very well return to his superiors having left all sorts of classified information within the reach of an enterprising extra-legal group of businessmen, can he? Before he kills you, he must preclude such an outcome, meaning he must either eliminate the data, which you would only facilitate under prolonged and extreme duress, or he must eliminate the threat my organisation poses. The latter is clearly the easier option, simpler still with you intact and assisting his efforts. His employers want to erase all record of what you know, whilst mine wish to preserve it. You must realise which is more to your advantage..."
Warily, Thaddaeus assessed the movements of the journalist as, now leading the way, Simon carefully removed the obstacle the grille represented, before lowering himself into the corridor, rifle poised. The assassin could discern no more of an emotional response than moments earlier, when he had been trying to convince the Canadian journalist himself. He followed the man down, located the camera watching the section of corridor, and raised his pistol-
Ross beat him to the sabotage, wrecking the camera with several rounds from his rifle. The Englishman winced at the noise, but for the moment his hypothesis had been correct; they were left alone with the sealed entrance into the maintenance and emergency stairwell. It did not remain sealed for long under prolonged close exposure to the thin stream of plasma generated by Shepard's omnitool fabricator. Voices and footsteps, muffled and urgent and increasing in volume, made their way up to greet him from the bottom of the shaft; there was little doubt that those already on their level were on their way as well.
The N7 stepped forwards and leaned carefully out to observe the spiralling pattern of thugs making their way up, most of them from near the bottom deck. Turning to his companion, he quietly instructed "Head down as quickly as you can."
"What are you going to do?"
"Lead by example," came the reply as the marine, and maybe murderer, casually vaulted the guard rail and dropped into the narrow abyss.
Ross took a moment to absorb the situation, and swore vehemently.