Chapter 18: Into the Fire

Mordin looked around for any sign of trouble as the battle went on, carefully pushing several crates along on a hover-trolley. Unbeknownst to the Eclipse as they fought the more overt strike team, he along with Tali and Kasumi were tasked with counter-hacking the eclipse under their very noses. He says we, but it was the ladies doing all the digital labor, leaving him with the, ugh, grunt work. The tech oriented mercs were so busy with the more obvious threats that the salarian doctor was able to quickly roam around the underside of the ship and set up a ring of crates around them without anyone noticing. He dusted his hands as the consoles they've commandeered were now nearly fully obscured by the makeshift cover. All that was needed to be done now was hack the Eclipse.

Tali's brow furrowed in concentration as she typed furiously into the console. She was the kind of girl who worked well under pressure, but this particular situation was a first in a long history of high pressure situations. Gunfire and explosions snapped in the air as Garrus and the rest of the strike team put up a show for the Eclipse to be preoccupied with, leaving the stealth team to their own devices. The task was relatively simple at first, but with each layer she broke through, the subsequent codes were ciphered even more complex. Once she was in the main system, she'd be able to disrupt the uplink of the virus into the Normandy. It didn't have to be a complete disconnection. Even a momentary stall in the frequency can give Legion and EDI enough time to reel back from the assault and bring the Normandy back up to speed again. Over all, it was easier said than done with all this chaos going on around her, but at least she was not alone.

Beside her, Kasumi was doing the same thing, focused on the other console. Being the best thief in the galaxy required certain skill sets. Hacking highly encrypted channels was merely one of them. With both of them working together, they picked up the pace and peeled back layer after layer of the Eclipse security software. "This thing is locked up tighter than most banks…" She mused, sifting through random data. "These codes are way past civilian grade stuff."

"Too tough for you?" Tali smirked, sparing the other woman a glance while she typed. "Didn't think I'd see the day the best thief in the galaxy would meet her match."

"Please, I just needed a little warm-up."

"Excuses…"

"Well pardon me; I forgot I was with programming royalty here." Kasumi retorted, her Cheshire cat grin gleaming under her hood. "Oh wait, whose incognito proxy were we using again? You know, the one that keeps us invisible to the system?"

"A minor detail." Tali replied, unfazed by an explosion that blossomed nearby, too engrossed in her work. "I'm the one running the show."

"Must be nice, power-tripping as the commander's girlfriend." Kasumi said, waggling her eyebrows. She was met with a bit of silence, and Kasumi immediately regretted her words. "Ah, right… Sorry." Still the quarian didn't say anything. "Come one, Tali, Shepard's practically indestructible. The man was too stubborn to stay dead, for crying out loud."

"I'm fine, Kasumi…" Tali began, not looking up from the console. "It's just that I sometimes wonder, what if I was too hasty with Shepard? What if I just rushed in this… this thing we have together? I know he has all these things he has to do. I know the burden he has to carry and… I just… Sometimes I think I just can't give him the support he deserves."

"So you're saying you don't love him?" Kasumi pointed out bluntly.

Tali's head shot up to look at Kasumi, with what could only be an incredulous expression beneath the mask. "What? No! I mean Yes! I mean-!" Tali stopped typing for a moment and sighed deeply, before going back to work. "Of course I… I love him." She said, shakily.

"Then I don't see the problem." Kasumi replied with an air of finality.

"It's… It's much more complicated than that, Kasumi…" Tali protested meekly.

"Does it have to be complicated?"

"What?"

"I asked you: Does it have to be complicated?" Kasumi repeated. "When Keiji was still alive, when we we're just starting out our 'thing', half the galaxy was on his tail. The klutz tripped up on a big job and we had to be on the run from a spectre and half the Palaven underworld." She giggled at the memory. "I say 'we', but all they were after was Keiji. I was still an anonymous ghost known only to a select few in the underworld's upper echelons. And nobody knew my connection to Keiji."

"But you still went with him?"

"Of course."

"So what did he do?"

"Well, he was tasked to retrieve an ancient heirloom, the sword of some great turian war hero, from the Imperial Museum by said hero's descendants." She began, "These descendants also happen to be one of the biggest organized crime rings to have come out of Palaven in the last Millenia. Talk about a fall from grace, huh?"

"No kidding…" Tali agreed.

"So anyway, he was halfway done, but somehow this salarian spectre was tipped off about what was going to happen and trailed Keiji all the way back to the drop off point." Kasumi said, shaking her head. "The spectre was good; Keiji didn't realize he was being tailed until it was too late. Long story short, the crime boss thought Keiji sold him out to the authorities and the spectre thought Keiji was in deeper with the organization than he actually was. So Keiji did what any rational thief would do: Make off with the goods."

"No way…"

Kasumi gave her that Cheshire grin of hers. "We were on the run for 3 whole years. We'd still do jobs of course, but there was always this hanging sword over our heads. If it wasn't the mob, it was the spectre, and vice versa." Kasumi could guess the expression on Tali's face. "It wasn't so bad, mind you; usually we'd get a heads up from our network of contacts, but sometimes we had to fight our way out of some carefully laid set-up. It was only when the crime ring was wiped out that we were able to operate with a degree of freedom again." She took a deep breath. "All that trouble for a measly sword…"

"Wait a minute…" Tali began. "Are you telling me that the sword in your quarters is an ancient turian relic?"

"Yep, don't tell Garrus." She winked.

Tali shook her head in amusement. "So what happened afterwards?"

"Well we took a little break on this beautiful resort planet…" she mused dreamily. "White sand, the crystal clear sea and the bright sun… It was all perfect. So that was when Keiji asked me to marry him."

"What?" Tali blurted out, not expecting that twist in the story. "I didn't think you two were married."

"We weren't." Kasumi clarified. "I told him no."

The quarian's jaw probably dropped, because it took her a few seconds to say anything. "But why would you say no?" Tali demanded, fully engrossed in Kasumi's story. "You stuck with him through what must've been the hardest trial you've had together! You loved him didn't you?"

"Oh yes, I did." Kasumi confirmed casually. "I loved him with all my heart."

"Then it doesn't make sense that you would just say no to him! If you really loved him you would've stuck by him no matter what! You would've given even what little you could! And now he's-!" The realization hit Tali like a brick to the helmet. "Oh."

Kasumi only gave her a sly grin. "Yep, now he's dead." She sighed, the soft smile still playing on her lips. "I loved that man with all my heart. I'd have done anything for him. But when he asked me to be together with him, I said no. Why? Because I was scared; It wasn't just the commitment that was scary, although that was terrifying in and of itself. No, it was the fear of letting him down. What if the same thing happens and I couldn't support him again? What if I screw up and put him through the same thing again?" She laughed, a quiet and sad noise. "The business we were in left no room for errors. Sure, I loved him with all I had, but it was much more complicated than that." She turned to look at Tali, who had fallen silent again. "I often wondered, what if I had said yes to him? Then we'd always be together. Things may have gone differently with that whole affair with Hock. Who knows? Keiji may even be alive today." She sighed. "I've realized since then, that it didn't have to be complicated. It was as simple as a man and a woman, being in love."

"I had no idea, Kasumi…" Tali said as she typed into the console. "I'm sorry."

"Hush, girl, this isn't about me. I've made my peace." Kasumi said, soothingly. "I just don't want you to make the same mistake I did. I don't want you to be haunted by 'what if's' like I was. Granted, if the Reapers are coming, you won't be haunted for long. But still…"

Tali laughed, and then sighed as she mulled it in her head. "Thank you Kasumi, you have given me much to think about."

"Eh, I'm good for one of those pep-talks every couple of years…" She waved off, and then leaned in towards Tali with mischief in her tone. "Besides, if you throw away a prime catch like Shepard, don't be surprised if a lot of women come clamoring up for a little bite of him." she emphasized by clicking her teeth.

"Oh you better keep your hands to yourself, sneak thief." Tali warned playfully. "I haven't thrown him away just yet…"

"Oh please, Shep's great and all but the whole boy-scout thing is just not really my type."

"Boy-scout?" Tali asked, unsure of what that meant.

"Eh, it's an Earth thing." Kasumi shrugged. "Besides, I like my men a bit more…"

"Go on…" Tali urged her.

Kasumi stuck out her tongue. "It's a secret."

"Secrets huh…?" Tali chimed innocently. "I'm pretty sure you don't have a monopoly on those."

"What do you mean?" Kasumi asked, her interest piqued.

"Oh, let's just say..." Tali trailed off.

"Yes?"

"It's a secret." Tali finished.

"I swear, you're worse than Jack… Well, maybe a close second."

Mordin was keeping watch this whole time, not being a card in programming himself. Well, not in the same caliber as the two ladies he was with, anyway. Said ladies were having a very enthusiastic, yet out of place conversation on the battlefield, giggling like school girls while explosions blossomed all around them. He cleared his throat to catch both of their attentions. "Appreciate need for casual conversation." He began. "Lightens tension, brings up morale in highly stressful environment. Still, need to keep head in game, as they say. Mission must have our utmost attention."

He was met with a pair of raised eyebrows. Well, at least he could see Kasumi raising hers and just came to the conclusion that Tali was doing something similar. Amazingly, both were still typing as they did so.

He sighed and turned back around to keep watch. "Never mind, carry on." Mordin had master degrees in both salarian and xenos medical biology, and he still never could understand females. The two went on chatting, and he contented himself with spectating on the ongoing battle.

If there was a word to describe a Justicar in the heat of combat, it was gracefulness. Samara spun on her heel as she dodged a storm of bullets coming at her, feeling the projectiles cut through the air and whizz by her face. The Ymir kept unloading it's machine gun as it tried to pin the Asari down, who was always one step ahead of it's deadly firepower. Like a well-tuned dance routine, she dipped, dodged and jumped over the arc of fire as the heavy mech kept spraying a seemingly endless stream of bullets at her. Her body was suddenly engulfed in a biotic aura, and Samara dashed without warning into striking distance of the Ymir.

The Ymir raised a massive arm with the intent of smashing her into the ground, but the Justicar slipped between it's legs with a baseball slide and clambered up onto it's back. Pulling out her Locust SMG, Samara got up to its shoulders and jammed it into the space between the Ymir's head and the rest of it's body and pulled the trigger. The Ymir convulsed and sparks flew as bullets tore through it's inner workings. It took a couple of clumsy steps before falling to its knees, smoke coming from the gaps in its armor. She kicked off the mech as it face planted to the ground and onto the head of another. Samara pulled her fist back and buried it in the other heavy mech's optics.

With its sight gone, the second Ymir flailed wildly trying to grab onto the asari latched on top of it, only to end up punching itself in the face. The Ymir stumbled backwards, and Samara jumped off the mech, pushing it with her biotics as she did so. This caused the heavy mech to fall on top of the other Ymir she had disabled earlier. Landing a safe distance away, she pulled out a couple of grenades and lobbed them at the mech that was struggling to get up. The initial explosion tore through the mechs' armor, igniting energy cells and thermal ammunition, and lit up into a tower of fire and shrapnel.

Bringing both hands in front of her, Samara quickly projected a barrier to protect herself from the rain of debris. Through the haze of fire, she looked for another target. So far, their combined efforts have taken half of the mechs down, and the Kodiak was taking care of the Eclipse infantry from zeroing in on them.

Nearby, Jack roared as she rushed head long into an Ymir. The woman planted both palms firmly into the Ymir's chest and unloaded with a biotic shockwave that sent it flying backwards, crashing into another heavy mech, causing both to stumble to the ground. Her body shining with biotic energy, she leapt high into the air and smashed into the mechs, tearing through their armor and ripping apart gears and circuitry. If Samara was grace personified on the battlefield, Jack was sheer unbridled rage.

She stood up and inspected her handiwork, before planting her foot onto the Ymir's chest and grabbed it's head with both hands. With a growl of effort, she pulled on it until metal shattered and wires still connected to the neck like sinew slowly snapped one by one. With a final tug, the head finally came off and she smiled as she admired her trophy, wires sparking and tubes still dripping with fluids. A clicking sound to her left alerted her as another heavy mech aimed it's machine gun at her. She jumped off the mechs she just destroyed and ducked behind them as the Ymir peppered her cover with gun fire. Another tell-tale click as the guns went silent gave Jack the signal to start running as a rocket crashed into the down mechs, sending them up in flames.

The Ymir lowered its arms as it inspected the blazing heap, searching for signs of Jack. It found what it was looking for as the flames parted and Jack leapt through the gap, severed Ymir head still in hand. Like a bat out of hell, Jack shrieked her war cry, flames dancing around the shimmering shield covering her body as she drew the severed head back and slammed her trophy into the Ymir's face with such force that both heads shattered on impact, facilitating a mechanical meeting of the minds. The Ymir staggered backwards as its OS stalled from the force of the blow.

Jack stepped up in front of the stunned Ymir and scowled. Tossing the scraps of the head in her hand aside, she reached behind her and pulled out her shot gun, pumping the weapon before jamming it in what was left of Ymir's face. Pulling the trigger, the gun blasted it's payload from out the back of the Ymir's head, sending pieces of it flying everywhere. Smoke rose from the warped, metal stump that was left behind attached to the neck as the mech stood there lifelessly. Jack grumbled, seemingly discontented with this resolution. She lifted her boot in front of her and kicked the mech hard, causing it to teeter before falling backwards in a loud crash. "Well that was a fucking let down…" She murmured, her hopes for another big explosion unfulfilled. She perked up as she looked around her. "Still, there's plenty more where that came from."

Just as she said that, another Ymir raised its weapons at her from a distance. Before it could fire them however, a rocket crashed into it from behind, causing it's shields to shimmer and stagger the heavy mech. The Ymir turned towards the direction where the rocket had hit it, only to see a krogan running head long for it.

Grunt growled like a wild animal as he ran up to the heavy mech, eyes blood-shot with murderous intent. With a guttural roar, he tackled the Ymir with his shoulder, knocking the mech back. Whipping around with the rocket launcher, Grunt used it as a club and slammed it on the broadside of the Ymir's face, causing it to reel back further. "Go down, damn you!" Pulling his head back, he head-butted the mech in the chest with authority, causing it to finally lose balance and fall backwards. Getting on top of the struggling mech, Grunt lifted a heavy boot and curb-stomped its head inside out, drawing out his claymore and aiming it at the Ymir's chest. "And stay down!" He pulled the trigger, and a large bore round tore its way through the Ymir's armor, causing it's struggling to cease.

Another mech opened fire on him, but Grunt merely raised his arm to protect his face as the bullets bounced off his heavy armor. The shots that did penetrate did little damage as the wounds started to heal almost instantaneously. See, Urdnot Grunt was no biotic prodigy like the two women he was with. Instead, he was the culmination of a madman's vision for genetic purity, a deadly weapon given free will. He was stronger, faster, thought quicker, and healed faster, near comparable to a centuries old krogan warlord. He was the very ideal of the krogan warrior. "You want some of this?" Grunt yelled from across the battlefield at the Ymir who was showering him in bullets. "Come on!"

Breaking into a run, Grunt sprinted upstream a river of enemy fire as he reloaded his claymore. Blood and bits of his own flesh splattered on his skin but he paid no heed to the pain, lost in a blood lust. The Ymir saw this and readied a rocket, but it was too late. Grunt came upon the heavy mech in force, aiming his shotgun at the arm mounted rocket launcher and pulling the trigger. The shot ripped apart the rocket, which detonated and set up a chain reaction, igniting every other rocket in the Ymir's payload. Grunt skidded to a stop as the heavy mech burst in a cloud of flame, reloading his claymore. "Hah! Compared to the Collectors, these guys are nothing!"

Filon dropped his binoculars in disbelief as he tried to rationalize the display he had just witnessed. 3 people had just destroyed a total of 10 Ymirs.

3 people.

10 Ymirs.

He was obviously missing something blatantly obvious, because it made zero to no sense as to how 3 people could destroy 10 heavy mechs in such a manner as these 3 have. Lady Ionet had given him an ultimatum: Deal with it or die trying. And Filon had no intentions of dying anytime soon. He grabbed the nearest trooper to him by the collar of their armor and brought him face to face. "Tell me why the hell we haven't shot them down yet!" He demanded, spittle flying into the merc's helmet.

"It's- It's that Kodiak, sir!" The merc said in panic, "It won't let us near enough!"

"We are in an enclosed hangar…" Filon began testily. "WHY HAVEN'T WE SHOT THAT DOWN YET, EITHER?" He shouted in the trooper's face. As if on cue, the Kodiak swooped from above, raining death with its cannons on their position.

The resulting explosions knocked Filon and several others aside, but the rest of the troopers and Loki's he was surrounded by weren't so lucky. Getting up to his feet, Filon wobbled from the shell-shock, but that didn't take away from the look of desperation in his face. All he saw and hear was the ultimatum: Deal with it or die.

"Get me the arc cannon!" He demanded as he reeled around the other troopers.

"The arc cannon? Sir, that thing is still in the experimental stages of-"

"I said: get me the arc cannon!" Filon howled. "NOW!"

Meanwhile, the Afterlife was slowly starting to crumble from the chain of explosions, the ground shook as the trio of Shepard, Thane and Aria tried to make their way out.

"The patriarch?" Thane exclaimed as he carried an unconscious Aria in his arms. Shepard had just finished recounting his earlier encounter with the broken, former krogan warlord of Omega, who turned out to be not so broken and trying to reclaim the title. They were almost halfway out of the long hallway, the going slow but steady, but the longer they lingered, the more danger they faced. "But it makes sense…" he said, "He has connections and influence, the most likely candidate to take power in Omega should Aria fall, if not the least respected."

Shepard limped alongside him, still clutching his right shoulder. "It also explains the general modus operandi of the attack." He said, forcing out the words as he walked. I was something to keep his mind from the pain. "Overt enough where people can see and hear it; It fits the bill of a krogan battle plan right down to a tee."

"And it also explains why he sent a sadistic psychopath after Aria." Thane continued, sparing a gaze at the asari in his arms. She was still unconscious, a small mercy considering how she might end up killing herself exerting energy in her undoubted rage over the incident. "Miller mentioned something about making goddesses bleed first. I think simply killing Aria wasn't enough for them. They had to break and desecrate all that she stood for."

"Much like what she did to the Patriarch…" Shepard added. True, Aria wasn't a saint. No, no, the truth was very far from it. If he were to compare her records with the Patriarch's, she would probably be just as monstrous, if not more so. But two wrongs do not make a right. Though she may be a tyrant, Aria was exactly what the Terminus systems needed to keep the balance of the Underworld. After seeing the Patriarch's new motivation in action, were he ever to take power, war would cut a swathe through this entire system. All this death was pointless, especially with the reapers coming. All of it just to satisfy one man's desire for power. He'd put a stop to it, Shepard vowed. Omega will not fall to the hands of the Patriarch. But first, he needed to get out of here alive.

The medi-gel could only do so much and the cybernetics could only push his limits so far. Every breath he took brought about a stabbing pain in his chest. His body sung in pain, what little of it that was spared was numb and insensate. By all accounts and purposes, he shouldn't be standing. But he was still alive, he thought as he willed one foot in front of another. He did not have the luxury of dying, not yet. Like a pack animal allured by a carrot at the end of a stick, one thought was egging him onwards. He would endure this, if only for her sake. He wouldn't break her heart, not again.

"Shepard!" Thane said, having stopped alongside him and bringing Shepard back to reality.

"I'll be fine." Shepard forced himself to say, limping on ahead. "How's Aria?" he asked, hoping to change the topic.

"She's lost a good amount of blood, and suffered severe injuries." Thane said, "The medi-gel has done all it can. She requires medical attention, but she's stable, for now."

"To think the patriarch was capable of this…" Shepard said, disdain clearly evident in his tone. "To think I once helped him… He thanked me, you know? He told me I changed his life into… If I knew this would happen…"

"You did not kill all these people, Shepard." Thane replied, soft but with firmness. "You should not let what is done haunt you. You did what you thought was right. His sins are his alone. His atonement is his alone."

"That really doesn't make me feel better about the whole thing."

"No, I don't imagine it does." Thane replied. The ground shook as another distant explosion rocked the building. "Now that I think about it, how can one such as the Patriarch obtain the loyalty of not just the Suns and the Eclipse, but of an entire host of mercenaries?" Thane said, mulling the thought in his head. "Past deeds aside, from the last I heard, he was not one of the most respectable members of the Omega citizenry nor the most affluent. Men like Miller do not just bend their knees to anyone."

"And the Patriarch doesn't seem like he's willing to be a puppet for other people's agendas." Shepard agreed. "Not to mention the fact that Cerberus' ugly face could be in on this as well. It all adds up, but to what?"

"There are more than two faces to this story, it seems…" Thane mused, managing to stay on his feet as the Afterlife shook on its foundations, rocked by another explosion, dust raining on them from the ceiling. Next to him, he observed Shepard struggle to keep balance, the stubborn human trying his best to not drop to his knees from the brunt of his injuries. "Shepard!"

Shepard stumbled down, roughly landing on his left forearm, his legs having given in to the pain. Blood and sweat dripped from his face as he stared at the floor, his breathing ragged. Gritting his teeth, he painfully pushed himself up to his knees, slowly trying to stand back up despite the shaking floor. He felt something help support him, and he soon noticed a blue aura surrounding him and lifting him up.

"Easy, Shepard. I got you." Thane said as he aided him with what were basically biotic crutches.

"Thane, stop it." Shepard's voice was shaky, yet firm and venomous at the same time. "Discharge this field. Now."

"But you-…"

"Discharge it now!"

Thane did so, reluctantly, and he watched as Shepard gingerly readjusted to the weight of his body against the pain.

"I'm fine!" Shepard spat out, finding his footing and limped on ahead of Thane. "You can't spend too much energy, Thane! You know that! You're already burning out so much keeping Aria-…!" he stopped himself and took a deep breath, looking over his shoulder at Thane. "Just… just keep your focus on those biotic fields keeping Aria from bleeding out…" he said in a softer tone of voice that still managed to be as hard as rock. "Your mission isn't done yet, Thane. See to it that she lives through this. I'll worry about keeping myself alive, copy?"

Thane regarded the asari in his hands then turned to look at Shepard grimly. Tali was right, this man was stubborn as stubborn can be. "Understood, Shepard..." He replied, before another blast shook the Afterlife, and a blaze finally took hold of the club. Tendrils of fire slowly started to creep after them down the hallway. "I suggest that we hurry…"

"Well quit talking and start walking…"

They quickly made their way past the last few meters, the heat licking their backs as they hurried towards the sealed front doors of the Afterlife. Shepard raised his arm towards it, his omnitool flickering to life. Now he just had to hack the damn thing to get it open. He frowned as the codes started to match and override the locks. He always did hate hacking. The fire creeping closer to them wasn't doing him any favors either.

"Shepard…" Thane said, looking over his shoulder at the incoming blaze.

"Almost there…"

"Shepard…"

"Relax, just a little bit more…" The flames crackled as something thundered inside the club behind them.

"Shepard!"

The doors split open with a satisfying hiss. "Damn it, Thane! It's open, alright? Now let's-!" He was cut short as his eyes widened and a powerful shockwave carried them flying into the air and out the door, over the stairs leading up towards the Afterlife main entrance and sending them crashing violently into the plaza in front. Their shields shimmered and fizzled on impact, somehow absorbing the brunt of the fall. Thane had somehow managed to keep his hold on Aria, holding her tightly as he landed roughly on his back. The fall had winded him, but he was able to keep his focus and maintain the fields he was using to prevent Aria from bleeding out.

Shepard groaned as he pulled himself up to one knee and surveyed his surroundings. "Aw, crap…" Countless gun barrels met his gaze.

The blast had sent them flying alright, right into the hands of the Blue Suns. There was probably a whole company of the blue armored mercenaries stationed in the plaza, all of whom had their sights on the commander, Thane and Aria.

A blue armored batarian walked up to them, a cruel smile playing on it's face. "Well look at what we got here, boys." He said as he cocked his assault rifle, inspecting Shepard and the others. "I'm seeing promotion and bonus pay, hehe."