Astella Garrison, Nevos
Day 1, 1345
"Where. Are. They. Coming. From?"
Saffiya punctuated her rather growled question with a two-handed swing of the drell sword in her hands, taking chunks out of a group of husks that were rounding the corner into the garage. As the last one fell, neck in tatters, she dropped back into cover with an exhausted sigh, reaching for the Acolyte pistol with one hand even as she let Raziel's sword hang in the other. Six rounds left, in clips of three. A dozen warp rounds remaining in the Predator thrust through her belt.
"Main road to the south," a maiden marksman replied, peering down the scope of a Mantis as two of her fellows spent what remained of their rifle ammo on pushing the Reapers back. "Feeding in through the back streets and the alleyways… I see fighting all the way to the highway, justicar, and some big plumes of smoke where that Reaper hit…"
"I'm not familiar with this city," Saffiya muttered, wiping her blade clean on the leather leg of her armour. "Would that smoking ruin happen to be the spaceport?"
"…about the right distance, yeah," the sniper admitted, with a nervous little nod.
"Captain…" the justicar sighed, patching into her radio again. "It would appear our defenders at the shipyard are gone. Reaper creatures are hitting the south flank unhindered."
"The temple looks like a bombed-out shell from here," Tarenna cursed. "We're losing blocking positions left and right."
"Time we left."
"Time we left."
There was a thud and a squeal, and one of the asari rifles dropped back, ducking low and spitting out rounds in retaliation - a Cannibal had just cut a line of half a dozen red-hot shots into the pillar of the garage door, above her head.
"Reloading!" the other maiden cried, sliding back into cover to reach for a fresh magazine - the barrel of her Avenger was still glowing scarlet from the effort of firing.
Saffiya stepped out in her place with a nod, raising the now-familiar Acolyte. It was a powerful weapon. Pausing a moment to pick her target, and barely flinching as a round or two bounced off her barriers… bang. She took the head off a particularly fearsome Cannibal, punching through the thick armour plates that had swollen around its neck and skull. Bang, bang. She blew out the legs of another batarian as it came charging, leaving it for the maiden with her rifle to dispatch. Finally, as another pair of husks and a squad of shooters came rushing for the door:
Whump! She raised her other arm, keeping a grip on the sword's hilt with thumb and forefinger, and shooting out the other fingers of her hand, level. There was a flash of biotic blue, and then a shockwave rippled forth, tossing the creatures off to left and right, dead or crippled. One Cannibal was left spinning lazily in mid-air, groaning balefully - just as it rose to the height of its arc, the sniper picked it out of the air with a deafening bang!
The justicar fell back, taking a deep breath as her muscles strained and her brain throbbed. Biotics were an effort she could only spare so often now, and as the now-loaded rifleman spun back out to keep firing, Saffiya's attention was on her rather more material weapons. She set her sword down, leaning it against the garage wall behind her, and set about loading her last clip into the Acolyte. Only once it was in with a faint click did she pick up the blade once more, twirling it once in her hand and setting her eyes to the besieged garage door.
Bang! The sniper, crouching behind a pile of empty crates, took another target's head from its shoulders with her rifle. Even as she pulled back the bolt action, however, causing a spent casing to rattle off the top-most crate, she was looking wary.
"Two left!" she called out.
"Last mag here!" one of the rifles replied. The other turned her head away from the firefight to report:
"Empty!"
She turned a moment later, discarding her rifle entirely and reaching for the sidearm in her belt - one magazine loaded, 'just in case', as was the style. The rifleman-without-a-rifle dropped to one knee just inside the garage door, pelting out quick, anxious shots from the pistol and visibly unnerved.
"Ten rounds!" the other rifle reported, as a short, staccato burst from her rifle felled an approaching Marauder.
Bang. The sniper took herself down to one round as she obliterated the armour-plated chest of a tough Cannibal.
"Get the door!" Saffiya called, reluctantly. "We need to fall back…"
The drained rifleman nodded from the far side of the doorway, reaching for the control panel by her side and tapping something in. Her fellow outside backed up one foot over the other, firing a five-shot burst from left to right, then another back the other way, then abandoned suppressing fire entirely and ducking through the garage door as it slid shut. With a dull clang, the garage sealed up, leaving the four asari alone with the sound of shots ricocheting and creatures baying outside…
"Captain," the justicar murmured, setting off at a jog to keep herself moving and waving for the rest to follow. "We've shut the garage door, but it won't hold long. We're spent."
"Damn it. Get in here, justicar, we're barely holding the east side…"
"You three, grab ammunition and back up the captain's team!" she called to the maidens in her wake. They nodded anxiously, and as the group stumbled back into the main warehouse, they broke off to the left towards two of the Alliance crates, opened up to arm the platoon. Beyond, four more trucks were being readied to move, engines ticking idly in the loading bay… the justicar just made a beeline to the right, pistol and blade in hand.
The main line was… not faring well. As she approached the sturdy barricade Tarenna's platoon had erected over the east entrance to the garrison, Saffiya counted no fewer than three troopers huddled in cover, ammo spent and clutching knives or omni-blades for the inevitable moment when the Reapers came bursting through their line. The captain herself was in the centre, Vindicator still rattling defiantly, and a motley collection of rifles, sub-machineguns and shotguns were pelting out rounds from the barricade line on either side of her. In the street beyond, a mob of Reaper creatures even larger than the one besieging the south garage had gathered, and even as Saffiya advanced, another meteor-drop was exploding onto a rooftop opposite. With covering fire from the floor above now gone, the enemy was pushing hard…
"Friendlies, coming out!"
Saffiya hadn't even made it to the line as she stopped, staring off to her left. A battered radio operator was scrambling out of the way of the elevator shaft as a turian thudded down next to her. The quarian dropped in next, wiping dust and ash off his visor and swiftly followed by an asari, a stocky human man… the justicar had never been quite so relieved to see her colleagues, as they emerged with weapons in hand.
"Shit!" a panicked voice yelled - one of Tarenna's NCOs, if memory served correctly."North side's breached, we're-"
Thud, in the background of the radio. A forlorn blast of shotgun fire rang out from the north side of the garage, before that too was silenced. From somewhere in the distance, the bellow of a Brute echoed through the building…
"North side!" the justicar screamed, and Zel got the message. Practically dragging Ethan with her, she set off north with her sniper rifle in her arms, Aeryn and Ethan following closely behind a moment later.
"If you're empty, fall back!" Tarenna cried, from the barricade. "Get the trucks ready, pull those ammo crates onboard too!"
A handful of asari soldiers scattered from the battle line, dashing back towards the loading bay and the waiting vehicles. Saffiya hesitated, halfway to joining Tarenna on her battle line before the noise of battle distracted her once again.
"Zel, nail the bastard's skull!" Ethan was yelling, as a Brute's roar echoed from the north once again - her four colleagues were stood in the cavernous doorway between the main warehouse and the north storage wing. "I'll try to flank him!"
"Saffiya!"
The justicar shook herself back to attention, going for the radio as Lieutenant Andersen's voice caught her ear.
"I hear you," she said, bobbing up and down on her feet unsure of where to go.
"We're in the armoury stairwell, ground floor, but the door's locked! We can't get through, can't go back around!"
"I'll open it from this side," Saffiya replied. "Captain, where's the armoury door?"
"North wall of the loading bay!" Tarenna barked, over her shoulder.
The justicar set off at a run, first hopping down into the sunken bay around the trucks, then clambering up on the far side of it, making for the door set into the north wall. No crimson roundel in the centre, it was simply dead, short-circuited by some blast or other. As she reached it, the asari pounded a fist against the door, calling out:
"Andersen?"
"Right here!" the engineer replied, muffled by the door. Correct door. That was a good start…
"Can you blast it open?" she asked, quickly.
"No explosives! Your biotics?"
Saffiya paused, running a hand over the door and letting a mass effect field resonate. The steel was solid, her arm tired…
"Can't knock it through," she concluded. "It's shut tight! I'm not sure I can pry it apart!"
"Find something to lever it open!" Sam's voice suggested, from slightly further back.
"I'll try!"
She backed away from the door, pistol and sword still in hand, both useless. The door was solid steel, thick enough to withstand a shot, while the drell blade was thin, quick, precise… and far too brittle to pry a door open. With a vague noise of frustration, the justicar slid both items into her belt and glanced around, looking for something amidst the tools and the gear and the remnants left scattered across the loading bay…
An unexpected helper beat her to it. Before she could turn up anything useful, she felt something hefty being pressed into her arms, and turned to find a visor staring back at her.
"Auto jack!" Kan explained hastily, before diving back into cover by the corner of the wall. He had clearly darted in from the north wing in time to hear the conversation, and there was trouble following him - in the background, Ethan Cash thudded to the ground under an impact from what had to be the Brute, managing to scrabble away only thanks to a burst of covering fire from Zel.
"For a door?" the justicar frowned, examining the wedge-like contraption now resting in her arms, all levers and gears, with a hydraulic bottle hanging somewhere in the middle and a crank jutting out of one side.
"If it can hold up a truck, it can hold open the door!" the quarian explained. "Get them through!"
Crack crack. He leant out around the corner, pinging two shots at some hostile out of sight before dropping back, a wave of crimson shots battering the column behind which he was sheltering. Saffiya made a beeline for the armoury door, but even as she approached it, there was a feeling of uncertainty in her gut…
"I need both hands!" she called out, sharply.
Kan didn't reply. He muttered something under his breath, fired another blind crack crack crack around the corner with his rifle, then sprinted to her side, dropping the Avenger entirely and snatching the jack out of her unprotesting arms.
"Do it quick!" he barked.
Saffiya nodded, and went straight for the door, hoping the others had the sense to stand back. She wreathed both arms in all the biotics she could muster, and thrust them forward, hands outstretched. After a moment's effort, she found the edges of the gap in the door, working her fingers into it, though the touch was far-off, distant as if underwater. Then, with a snarl of effort, she took a firm grip of each half of the door, and wrenched them apart. All the force she could marshal was only sufficient to push the door open a few inches or so, and the pistons in the door were pushing back, trying to close it on her straining arms…
"Let it go!"
The justicar glanced down, blinking in surprise as she realised Kan had already slotted the auto jack in above her arms. She leapt back, biotics dying with a flicker, and the two halves of the door slammed inwards onto the jack. It held, by some miracle, and a small flicker of light was visible from the stairwell beyond.
"Help me with this…" she murmured, setting her hands on the crank and starting to turn it, as Kan grabbed it from the other side. "Lieutenant! We're opening it up!"