At her first glimpse of Sha'ira coming down the staircase, Ashley instantly forgot the pandemonium swirling around her. She desperately wanted to run to the Consort and say all the things she'd feared she never could: that she loved Sha'ira, that she was sorry for what she'd said the last time they were together, that she'd give anything for a chance to make it right between them. There was no time for such luxuries though, and Ashley did her best to put aside the fantasy reunion she'd constructed in her mind. Sha'ira was alive and that would have to be enough right now.
It seemed she wasn't the only one who felt that way. Sha'ira fell into her arms, no sign of the coldness Ashley had feared in her voice as tears ran down the normally composed Consort's face. "Goddess, Ashley," the asari gasped, "I thought that was your voice I heard, but I feared it was only a dream."
"No dream, just me," the Spectre said gently. In spite of the chaos, Ashley couldn't deny herself one kiss, and for a single, wonderful moment, the sweetness of Sha'ira lips reduced her world down to the two of them. It was only a moment though, and as they reluctantly pulled apart and Ashley noticed once more the bruise above Sha'ira's eye she asked, "Are you all right? Who did this to you?"
"It was Hock," Sha'ira told her, and as she said the name, Ashley could see the fear it conjured in her lover's dark blue eyes. Horrid, repulsive images flashed through her head, and as if able to see them too, the asari corrected her. "It is not what you may be thinking but he is terribly dangerous. We have to escape now."
Ashley took one look at the frightened group of slaves and shook her head. "We're not gonna be able to move quickly with so many people. We'll have to fight our way out." She gestured to the dead guards. "Get their weapons. Give priority to anyone with combat experience. Zaeed, Gorax, and I will try to do most of the fighting but you'll have to pitch in too."
As the slaves armed themselves, the Spectre looked back to Sha'ira. The asari was wearing one of those damned biotic blocking collars, severely limiting her lover's combat abilities. "I'm sorry," the marine told her, "I don't have time to get that thing off of you now without the key." Ashley offered the asari the extra pistols she'd brought from Ilara's arsenal. "Can you use this?"
Sha'ira took it from her, turning it over in her hand. "I've had occasional call to carry one over the years, but I am no soldier."
"Stay close to me then," Ashley replied, having suspected as much. "I'll cover you when the shooting starts."
No sooner had she said those words when the Spectre heard a gathering commotion coming from the outside of the building and she barked out, "Get behind something everyone."
Taking her own advice, Ashley took cover behind one of the large columns in the hall as from the entrance-way, a couple of squads of guards filed in. Striding at their head was a massive metal figure, as much a mech as a suit of body armor. The helmet it wore was opaqued, but when it spoke, she recognized the voice that emerged from inside it.
"Very bad manners of you to have invaded my home like this." Donovan Hock sounded slightly different than he had in the recordings Liara had sent her, an metallic timbre present in his voice, but it was still definitely him.
"Yeah, well, buying slaves isn't exactly good etiquette either," Ashley snapped back.
"Well, well, if it isn't the famed Ashley Williams, girl Spectre," Hock chuckled, the arms merchant clearly having recognized her.
"That's right, Hock," she replied, her voice taking on a menacing edge. "The last time you tangled with one of those, it didn't work out so well for you, did it? Messing with Shepard cost you a gunship. You don't want to find out what I'll take."
Once more, she had to sublimate her personal desires. After seeing what the man had done to Sha'ira's face, Ashley was itching to put a bullet through Hock's skull, but her first priority had to be getting the other prisoners to safety, to say nothing of the Consort herself. There'd be time to deal with this creep later.
Hock, however, did not seem inclined to give her the choice. "A gunship!?", he roared. "Is that what you think that bitch took! Look at me!" The face plate on the mech brightened and even as hardened a marine as Ashley gasped when she saw what was behind it. Most of the arms dealers' once-handsome features had been melted away, and in their place, an ugly web of cybernetic implants connected what remained of the man to his armor. "This is what Shepard did to me! Do you really think I'm going to let her little friend leave here with my property after that!?"
"I guess not," Ashley muttered to herself. Zaeed seemed to have come to the same conclusion because from a doorway, the old mercenary hurled an incendiary grenade that exploded in the midst of the guard squads, lighting several of the more lightly armored men on fire.
After that, it was pandemonium. The Spectre had promised to try and protect the civilians, but she rapidly realized that there was no easy way to do that under the circumstances. The battle was a disorganized mess, even more than such things often were, as the panicked, the poorly trained, and the confused filled the large room with bursts of ill-aimed gunfire. The best thing she could do to end the danger to the prisoners was to kill Hock, which made the marine glad that he wasn't exactly hard to pick out. The armored shell that contained his burnt body was smashing its way across the atrium, shrugging off the bursts of small-arms fire that were being directed at it and tossing aside anything in the way of his desire to get at Ashley.
Rolling out from behind the pillar, the Spectre opened fire on the mech. Her pilfered assault rifle was a better weapon that the ones the prisoners were using, but it still made little impact on the powerful suit's armor and shields. The arms dealer advanced until he had a better line of fire, some of the armor plates in his right arm sliding back to reveal an assault canon.
Chips of stone exploded off of the column as he opened fire and Ashley dove across the room, letting her shields take the few shots she couldn't avoid. Making it to a second pillar, she taunted Hock as she reloaded, trying to make sure his attention stayed focused on her. She had to trust that Zaeed and the krogan could lead the rest of their makeshift team to victory as long as she kept this son of a bitch busy.
"Did Shepard blow off a few chunks of your brain along with your face?", the marine snapped, ducking out to fire a few more shots into Hock's shields. "Anybody with even half of one would've quit while they were behind."
"Quit? I'm only getting warmed up!," the arms dealer snarled as another port on the upper part of his suit opened up. "After I send Shepard your broken body, she'll come here and so I can kill her too."
Ashley's eyes widened as from the hole, a missile emerged. She hurled herself backwards behind the pool and the shot landed in the water, but the blast radius rippled outwards, slamming into the Spectre's shields and sending her skidding backwards across the hard marble floor.
Her ears ringing, Ashley ducked to the side just ahead of a fresh burst of canon fire and she rolled one of her grenades towards Hock. Fortunately, while the mech seemed to have a pretty good sprint speed, its lateral movement was less impressive, and the arms dealer was unable to avoid being caught at the center of the blast radius.
The explosion finally did some real damage to his suit, buckling the shields and scarring the metal along the undercarriage, but it didn't slow Ashley's target down for long. Hock pressed forward and even as the marine was getting back to her feet, he showed her yet another of his tricks. His left arm raised and a jet of flame leapt forth from it, the heat singing the Spectre even through what was left of her own shields.
She raised her arms to cover her face, but even as she backpedaled away from the flamethrower, Ashley heard a voice cry, "Get away from her!" A series of shots rang out, striking Hock's armor, and the man turned. Ashley did as well, and from the corner of the room, she saw Sha'ira facing down the mech, the pistol the Spectre had given her in her hand.
"Stay out of this!", Hock snarled, aiming his canon at the asari but before, he could fire, Ashley pounced. Leaping forward, the Spectre activated her omni-blade and slammed it into Hock's weakened shields. The resistance was terrific, but with a grunt, she managed to pushed it through, the glowing blade penetrating the metal shell of the mech.
Hock whirled back towards her, his attack quicker than she'd expected, and one of his powerful arms caught hold of Ashley's shoulder and lifted her off of her feet. With his other, he smashed into the Spectre's chest, knocking the rifle from her grasp and rattling her bones even through her armor.
Shaking off the pain, she reached into her belt and when her hand emerged holding a small metal sphere, she could see the surprise on what remained of Hock's face. "You know that won't kill me," he laughed, the inhumanity of his synthesized voice even more evident up close. "But I'll enjoy making that whore clean up the pieces you'll be left in."
"Not exactly the plan," she muttered, hitting the detonator of the device she had found in Ilara's rather extensive armory. Rather than a conventional explosion, the grenade unleashed an electrical pulse designed to disrupt synthetics and shields but leave organics relatively unharmed.
Relatively still made Ashley spasm as the blast wave went through her, but that was nothing compared to the reaction the mech had. It's arms went stiff and Ashley dropped out of its grasp, falling to the ground as its systems sparked and sputtered. Recovering faster than Hock did, the Spectre grabbed her gun and pressing it flush against the surface of his faceplate, she opened fire. The rifle's relatively simple mechanics hadn't been affected by the grenade, and nothing stopped her from emptying the full clip into her adversary.
Cracks began to appear in the hardened material and as the mech twitched, full control slow to return, she reloaded as quickly as she could manage. The second clip did the trick. Pieces of the faceplate flew off under the intense assault and the final bullets tore into Hock's already-ruined face, shredding what was left in a spray of blood, bone, and metal.
The suit crashed to the ground, nothing but an empty shell without its pilot, and Ashley turned back to the rest of the battle. Several of the freed slaves had already fallen as had a number of the guards, while the remainder of the two sides had pulled back somewhat, snipping at each other from behind a variety of columns and walls.
Taking advantage of the relatively lull in the fighting, Ashley put on her best battlefield commander voice and yelled out, "Hock's dead!" That got everyone's attention and she added, "Why don't the rest of you get the fuck out of here?!"
There was a moment's hesitation, and then one of the guards asked, "We can leave?"
"Yeah," Ashley replied more calmly, motioning for her people to pull back as a gesture of good faith, "That's the deal. You leave now, we let you walk away."
Another moment passed, and then a different guard said, "Screw it. I'm not paid enough to get killed, especially fighting for a dead guy. Just don't shoot me in the back."
He broke cover and headed to the exit, and when indeed nobody shot him, the rest of the guards didn't take long to follow his example. Watching the last of their enemies leaving, the Spectre exhaled. What was left of her people looked equally relieved but her attention was focused on one beautiful asari, a smile beginning to spread across her face as Sha'ira rushed towards her. Their eyes met, and almost as if they were joined, Ashley could tell that they were sharing the same thought: finally, incredibly, this was over.
Well, it's not actually over just yet, but I do think these two may have earned at least a small break in the action to catch up. Let me know what you thought of angry mecha-Hock, and in case your curious, the grenade Ashley used is the arc grenade from the multi-player. I love those things.