Chapter 24: The Break Out Part 2

Shots were starting to fly in the air as the advancing Eclipse tried to pick out Shepard and his group from afar. Too bad for them that the Shadow Broker operatives mostly consisted of some of the best damn snipers Shepard had ever seen. The Eclipse immediately regretted initiating the exchange when these crack shots made their reply with more than a dozen Widow heavy sniper rifles, dropping targets off in the distance.

In the midst of the fire fight, Jacob and Miranda worked together to create large biotic barriers to help generate some cover for the others who were still setting up in defensive positions against the advancing mercs. Sniper rounds crashed against their barriers, holding steadfast as agents filed out of the convoy of trucks, setting up cover nodes or jumping behind crates and barrels.

Zaeed set his revenant up behind some barrels, switching the weapon to disruptor rounds to deal with the droid heavy forces of the Eclipse. "How bloody long does it take for somebody to look out of a Goddamn window?" he growled, eyeing the still closed ramp of the Normandy behind them expectantly. "EDI should have detected us by now!"

"She must have rebooted! I can't hail anybody either, the comms are still jammed!" Miranda replied over the escalating rate of fire. "Give her a minute! At least we don't have to worry about dealing with whatever that is!" she said, pointing over to where Feron was fighting off the monster.

Zaeed looked over and laughed, "Are you kidding? It would be one hell of a story to tell if I could take that thing down!"

Jacob merely grinned in amusement despite the situation as he generated another barrier, deflecting fatal shots from tagging him and a couple of others at the last second. "So what's stopping you, old man?"

"I pulled my hip getting out of the truck." Zaeed said straight faced, making Miranda's eyes roll and Jacob raise his eyebrow. "That monster's lucky, let me tell you…"

"Right…" Jacob and Miranda said together, with various mixtures of amusement and annoyance in their tones.

"Still, looks like that Feron lad has us covered pretty well." Zaeed said with a sly grin. "Your thoughts, Krios?"

Meanwhile, Thane got his hands on a sniper rifle, joining the other snipers in their duel. Every shot of his not only popped the head off of his target, but hit a collateral victim every other shot or so. "Do not concern yourself with that battle." He observed, casually firing off another shot. "The rest of the enemy is quickly coming into range."

"See? He agrees with me." Zaeed said, pulling the slide of his gun and aiming down it's sights, waiting for a poor fool to come into range.

Originally, the hanar trained their assassins in the art of delivering a quick death to their targets via a single, generalized school of thought and technique. Through the millennia however, drell culture and tradition mixed with these teachings setting up diverse sects of methodology, each with vastly different methods of assassination. For flexibility's sake, assassins adhere to no single technique, but still tended to lean on one in particular more than the others. There were the scoundrels, who blended in with their targets and dealt death with stealth and treachery. There were the warlocks, whose biotic mastery was harnessed to summon raging tempests and rip apart all in their wake, atom by excruciating atom. Still, there were the hunters, whose mastery of firearms and eagle-eyed aim made them fatal from any distance. And then there were those who adhered to the old ways, whose minds dipped in between lucidity and the battle-sleep, wielding the weapons of their ancestors.

That kind of state usually took masters years of intense training and meditation. But for Feron, a year of constant, intense torture care of the Shadow Broker was all he needed. The old broker was trying to use the drells' unique physiology to his advantage by attempting to brainwash him into a living weapon. Training sims were force fed into his mind as the same stimulation was meant to fry his frontal lobes. Fortunately for Feron, Shepard and Liara's timely rescue prevented this, leaving him with his mind intact and with something more.

It wasn't really his style to begin with, and honestly the price was too damn high. But Feron couldn't argue with the results when he resorted to using it. When his blade left it's sheathe, it would sing to him, begging for someone to die violently on it's razor edge. He just wished he could have gutted the old broker, himself.

Feron stared down the shrieking Melina as she brandished her talons at him, flashing a mouthful of sharp teeth as she did so. He had brought them a fair distance from the Normandy, opposite the side where the Eclipse was advancing to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. In his left hand, he held a long blade still hidden in its sheathe; while his right hand held its handle firmly. Without warning, Melina dashed right at him, her talons flashing as she slashed away in a flurry of swipes.

The talons snagged the tail of his long coat, shredding it with ease as Feron jumped backwards, ducking, dodging and sidestepping the assault. He clicked his tongue in frustration and annoyance as he was unable to close in and retaliate. He just needed an opening, he thought as the surprisingly agile beast kept the pressure on him. The monster drew back its claws and thrust them towards Feron, trying to impale him on the cruel appendages.

Kicking off the floor, Feron flipped into the air, the monster's talons missing him by inches as he glided safely above it. Drawing out his sword, he drew back his arm and jabbed the blade into the top of Melina's head, sinking it in with satisfaction before twisting the blade in her head and pulling it out, black ooze spurting forth from the wound. Landing behind Melina, he turned around and delivered another slash down her spine, sending more black ooze splattering to the ground. Melina screamed in pain as she turned around to face her attacker, swinging wildly, but Feron had already stepped out of harm's way by then.

"Damn it…" he mused, backing away and seeing Melina was still moving even after he had just obliterated her brain and spinal cord. He gave his sword a quick flick in the air to clean off the ooze still clinging to the blade and sheathed it. "This is going to get real old, real fast isn't it?" He asked the monster as it wailed in pain and fury. The ooze was annoying, that much was for certain, and now the monster was bleeding so much of it. Wait a minute, he realized, it was still bleeding. The krogan called Grunt said it had some kind of regenerative power, but the black ooze flowed freely with no signs of abating. Grunt also told him it could use biotics, but so far there were no signs of that. Is it possible that whatever abilities she did possess were weakening? That got him thinking as Melina crouched, ready to pounce on him again. "Let's test out this theory of mine, shall we?"

With a bone-chilling shriek, Melina lunged at him, claws outstretched and reaching out to shred Feron to pieces. Feron kept back flipping as she converged upon him, managing to dodge her blows by mere inches. He dove to a roll underneath a wild swipe and drew out his sword, intent on chopping her into two pieces. Before he could swing the blade however, Melina kicked him away, his barrier barely holding together from the force of the blow. Feron managed to land on his feet, the kick sending him a fair distance apart from the beast. It would appear that this was not going to be so simple, he thought to himself as Melina charged towards him again.

Shepard took Grunt into cover behind one of the trucks as they waited for the Normandy to notice they were right outside, listening to his recount of the events. The shooting was intensifying now as the constant sound of gunfire filled the air.

The krogan flexed his arm experimentally, blood still flowing from his wound much to his annoyance. His healing factor was nearly burning itself out. "So yeah, Eclipse, psychotic bitches, nightmarish monster, Jack and Samara injured… Let's skip all that and I'll jump straight to the most important bits we can do something about." Grunt huffed, leaning against the truck as Shepard applied medigel to his wound. "We still got people out there," he began, projecting a map of the area with his omnitool, highlighting two different locations. "Garrus and Joker ended up over here in this sector along with Kasumi. While Tali is off on her own over there."

"She's what?" Shepard demanded, the last half of the news causing him to look at the map, his instincts telling him to run as fast as he could in whatever direction that may be. "What the hell is she doing there without back up?"

"Because there wasn't any back up, Shepard." Grunt said, jerking his thumb towards the massive robotic arms underneath the Normandy that were fixing the armor platings in place. The thermal rounds splashing against it doing little to no damage to the industrial grade make of the machinery. "Your girlfriend was the only one of us who wasn't fighting for her life at the time to get the job done." He said. "The Normandy wasn't space worthy without that layer of armor being put on her right now, so she went ahead and did something about it."

"That's my girl…" Shepard conceded, his thoughts clashing with pride and worry. Sometimes he had trouble remembering she wasn't a damsel in distress or a fragile little girl, but a capable warrior and invaluable asset to the crew. She was as skilled and dangerous as anybody else on his team, despite how much she may act otherwise. Still, it didn't mean that he was free from feeling worried about her from time to time. A thought crossed his mind. When he was out there, putting his life in danger time and time and time again, did Tali feel like this? She must have, he thought as the realization dawned upon him. God, how could he be so damn clueless? No wonder she was upset. Wait, he thought, Grunt said something about Jack and Samara. "Time out, Jack and Samara are injured? How are they?" he asked urgently.

"You should've seen it, Shepard. Hah! The three of us really cleaned out the house. The reason why I'm still up is that I'm just the lucky one with a redundant nervous system and healing factor." He boasted. "They're receiving medical care in the ship from Doc Chakwas and Mordin, they'll be fine." Grunt dismissed, "It's the ones who are stuck out here like us who you need to worry about."

"They'll never make it back here on foot." He replied, focusing on the reality at hand. "We'll have to extract them."

"What? In this storm of bullets?" Grunt scoffed. "I don't think you can cut an opening through the Eclipse short of venting the whole damn place. We're going to have to outfight them."

"That's too risky!" Shepard countered over the din of gunfire. "There has to be another way!"

The hiss of depressurization filled the air, and all heads turned to see the ramp of the Normandy slowly opening again. At the foot of the ramp stood Legion, it's heavy geth shields practically shining from the constant gunfire it endured. "Shepard-Commander!" it greeted as it tried to navigate through the onslaught.

"Jacob! Miranda!" Shepard called out from his position. No sooner had he said that, a barrier was erected around the geth to take the pressure from it. "Legion, get over here!"

Jacob and Miranda were visibly straining to keep the barrier up. Miranda was nearly exhausted from the day's events, barely able to speak as she focused hard. Jacob noticed this and yelled out. "For the love of-! Hurry up, damn it!"

Legion slid into cover, just in time as the barrier shattered, sidling next to Grunt and Shepard. "Shepard-Commander, Grunt." It greeted them with a nod to each as it held a sniper rifle in both hands. "Our apologies, EDI had to do a hard restart to prevent another viral upload; As an unintended effect, communications are jammed by the flux in data transmission. It is taking longer than estimated to reboot."

Grunt scoffed. "Yeah, sure. You still took your sweet time, you bucket of bolts."

"Again, our apologies."

"You didn't even bring any more guns like you said you would!" Grunt continued ranting.

Shepard had to get between the both of them. "Stand down, Grunt!" Shepard said, causing the krogan to grumble. He shook his head and turned to Legion. "What got into you, Legion? Your platform could have been critically damaged!" He looked at the ramp which was still being peppered by bullets. It was still too dangerous to retreat back into the Normandy; anybody who steps on that thing would have more holes than swiss cheese.

"Our crew was endangered." Legion began, "We saw a need to come out here."

Grunt butted in again at this point, still miffed about the incident. "Well here you are, other than nearly getting yourself scrapped, what do you have to contribute, eh?"

"We said that we needed more guns to counter the previous threat." Legion began, reaching for something on his back. "But then we came to the consensus that the solution didn't lie in quantity, but quality. So we brought this"

Shepard nodded in approval, and even Grunt couldn't suppress the grin creeping on his maw once Legion revealed what it had brought with him. In it's hands was the M-920 Cain, a handheld sub-thermonuclear weapon.

"This will work." Shepard said, taking the gun from Legion and checking its specs. It had enough power for a couple of shots, but with this gun, one shot was all you needed. "Yeah, this'll do the job just fine." He brought a hand to his comm and spoke, "Everybody, I have an idea. Does anybody copy? Over." What came back was static, the message having been not transmitted due to the jamming. "Shit, comms are still down. Looks like I'm going to have to resort to word of mouth." He said as he prepared to go from cover to cover.

"Shepard-Commander." Legion said before Shepard could do just that. "Our scans indicate that you are injured."

"I'm fine, Legion." Shepard dismissed, hefting the Cain and checking to see if he was clear. "There's plenty of time to rest when I'm dead."

"We would prefer that to be a long time from now." Legion replied. "The galaxy needs you."

"Noted." Shepard replied, peeking out of cover. "How long do we have before the reinstallation and EDI's reboot are going to be done?"

"7 minutes, 23 seconds and counting for the reinstallation of armor plating and 6 minutes, 43 seconds and counting for EDI's reboot."

"That's more than enough time to gather our people." Shepard concluded. "Now I'm going to need me some covering fire here, I'm going to coordinate my plan with the others."

Grunt got up from where he was sitting; his arm fully healed and grabbed an assault rifle. "We have your back, Shepard."

"Affirmative." Legion added.

"Lock and load, fellas!" Shepard said as he swung out of cover, finger on the trigger. "Wait for me, Tali." he whispered to himself as bullets started to whizz by his face.

The translator was having a difficult time keeping up with the khellish curse words coming out of Tali'Zorah's mouth as she shot back blindly from cover, pinned down by over a couple dozen Eclipse mercs from her position. She was making good time on her way back to the Normandy when she ran into the problem at hand. They barely gave her enough time to dive into cover when the bullets started to fly. "This is Tali'Zorah! Can anybody read me? Come in!" Tali said over her comm as she tried to hail the Normandy. The comm blared static, the signal still being jammed. "Damn it, I need a hand here!"

These mercs were no doubt splintered off from the bigger group that was assaulting the Normandy in order to try and deactivate the repair process. Too bad for them that even if they did get past her, they'd still have to deal with her encryptions and the lack of a working console in the work station she just came from. Though honestly, Tali'Zorah would prefer to enact the scenario wherein she gets out of this situation alive. Popping out of cover, she returned fire, only to be forced back into cover by the enemies' overwhelming response.

John was finally here; she knew it in her bones. Who else would make an entrance like that? She rationalized in her head as she reloaded her heavy pistol. He was here, just right over there past these idiots, and she'd be damned if she died here and now. Bringing up her omnitool, she generated her combat drone, Chiktikka vas Paus, and sent it to flank the enemy from behind. The little drone zoomed out of cover, weaving in and out of fire before diving into the heart of the enemy position, exploding in a pulse of electricity.

Taking the screams of pain as her cue, Tali rose out of cover and unloaded with her pistol, catching a couple of mercs unawares and dropping them to the ground. Advancing into a better position behind some crates up ahead while the rest of her assailants were regrouping, she flipped open her omnitool and brought up her AI hacking module. Transmitting the program to a couple of loki mechs, she had them turn on their owners, adding to the chaos she was producing in the enemy lines. Tali holstered her pistol and pulled out her shotgun, blasting away at the panicked troopers. One of her shots caught one trooper full in the chest, the shot gun blast causing blood to erupt in a spray of gore and sending what was left of the trooper flying. Another shot vaporized the top half of another troopers head, the body crumpling like a ragdoll as blood spurted like a fountain from the stump left behind.

Tali ducked down just in time as the rest of the Eclipse troopers regrouped, slagging the mechs and focusing on her position again. More mercs seemed to appear out of nowhere, bolstering the enemy's defenses and making her current kills moot. She could do this, she told herself as bullets whizzed by overhead from where she was ducking and reloading her weapon with what precious ammo she had left. Now was not the time to choke, she thought as she blindly returned fire to prevent herself from being completely pinned and flanked. She generated another drone body for Chiktikka, but this one was shot down just as it zoomed out of cover, exploding in a shower of sparks. "Damn it!" Tali cursed, covering her face as debris sprayed on her. She can't die yet, not here she thought as she returned fire. Bullets started ricocheting by her feet, and she knew her cover was soon going to be compromised by the enemy's flanking. "Normandy, this is Tali'Zorah!" she said urgently as she hugged what cover she had left. "Damn it, John! Whatever you have planned, hurry!"

A mercs head exploded as Garrus just kept firing headshot after headshot, giving Joker and Kasumi enough leeway to get into cover beside him. They tried to get as far as they could towards the Normandy, but were finally detected and pinned down by the Eclipse. The amount of guns shooting at them was staggering. "They're everywhere!" He said as he reloaded his weapon, bullets raining on his cover. "If this keeps up they'll be all over us soon!"

Kasumi set Joker down popping out of cover to unload with her locust. "Watch the flanks! The flanks!" She yelled out loud just as Garrus raised his gun, dealing with the problem. "Shit!" She cursed as she felt a bullet slam against her shields, ducking back into cover. The blow winded her, and Kasumi found herself momentarily disoriented.

"You okay?!" Garrus asked Kasumi as he moved back to her side, setting aside the widow and pulling out his vindicator assault rifle. It wasn't as powerful as the sniper rifle, but the faster rate of fire was his best choice right now against the advancing Eclipse. Two mercs immediately dropped dead after a couple of quick bursts to the chest. "Kasumi, talk to me!" he said with a tinge of panic as the woman remained silent.

"I'm fine!" She finally replied as she popped up to return fire, "My shields held up. Concussive force hurts like hell, though!" Kasumi said as she pulled the pin on a flash grenade. "Flash out!" she yelled as she lobbed the grenade blindly over cover.

Garrus ducked just in time as the air snapped in a brief sea of light, disorienting some of the Eclipse enough for them to return fire. "Let's see if they like it!" He said as he launched a concussive round from his gun, sending a bunched up group of mercs flying off their feet. "Nope, seems that they don't like it either!" He said as he continued firing. "Still with us, Joker?"

"I still am, unfortunately!" Joker said as he grabbed his head, trying not to go deaf from the gunfire. "Anybody have a spare gun! I'd really feel safer with a gun right about now!"

Kasumi handed him her pistol and a couple of clips, "Here, just keep our flank covered." She said quickly as he took them. "The kick isn't that strong so I doubt you'll break your arm just using it."

"Thanks!" Joker said, reaching out to fire blindly at their attackers' general direction and not risking getting out of cover.

Garrus growled as a round went past his shields, piercing into his armor. "Mother fucker!" He roared, taking down the culprit before swinging back into cover. He brought a hand to the hole in his armor and checked for blood, relief washing back over him when it came back dry. "They're really starting to get on my nerves!"

Kasumi scoffed, "Just starting to? You're a pretty patient guy!" she said, "They've been riding on my nerves this whole damn time."

This was bad, Garrus thought. Their ammo was dangerously low and they could only hold out for so long against so many. Something better happen soon or else the Eclipse would just swarm all over them. "Kasumi!" Garrus said urgently, making the woman look at him in surprise.

"Geez, Garrus." She said, putting her gun down. "What is it?"

"If this all goes downhill, use your cloak and just run!"

"What? No!" Kasumi said, taken aback by what Garrus said.

"You have to, Kasumi." Garrus urged. "Now might be your only chance."

"Are you crazy?! You can't ask me to do that! What about you and Joker?!"

"If everybody dies here then nothing would have mattered!" Garrus said, looking her in the eyes. "It's better that one of us gets away than all of us dying! We'll draw their fire long enough so that you can get out of here!"

"Damn it, I agree with Garrus!" Joker conceded reluctantly, not looking forward to death of any kind as he reloaded his pistol. "EDI can still fly the ship pretty well without me!"

"Shut up, Joker!" Kasumi snarled, nearly scaring the pilot out of cover before turning back to Garrus. "You listen to me you sanctimonious, self-righteous, white-knighting jerk! I don't know where you get off on telling me what to do, but I am staying, and I don't need your permission to do so!" Garrus opened his mouth to say something but Kasumi grabbed his mandibles shut. "No talking back! I'm talking right now, so listen to me you ugly bastard! Either we all get back or none of us do!" she said, glaring at him under the darkness of her hood. "I hate martyrs and I will not let you become one on my watch, got it!?"

"Yeah?" Garrus shoved her hand off of his face and turned to return fire at the Eclipse. "You want to stay here and die, then?! Is that what you want?!" He regretted raising his voice immediately after he did, but she was just so frustrating. Somehow, he knew that he'd happily give his life so that Kasumi wouldn't have to. He'd give it a thousand times over if need be. He just didn't want her to die here. Was it wrong that he didn't want her to die here? Why was the thought of her dying making him so very irritable? "By all means then, Kasumi, fine by me!" he said, knowing fully well that it wasn't fine by him at all.

"Like I give a damn what's fine by you or not, Garrus!" Kasumi grit her teeth, wondering how the bastard could dare turn his back on her. This man was really infuriating her, she decided. It was like he didn't care at all that she was basically willing to die alongside of him. She wasn't going to run out on them, on him, when they really needed her the most. Why did she care, anyway? It's not like she likes him or anything. "Jerk!" she spat out, full of spite for him, before turning around and taking her frustrations out on a trooper who was unfortunate enough to have peeked out of cover.

Joker groaned, finding himself in the middle of the awkward silence. He would have asked for somebody to shoot him now if there wasn't already a hundred people trying to do just that.

Drawing out his sword, Feron shined with biotic energies as he rushed out to meet Melina head on. Sparks flew as his sword made contact with her talons, the unique composition of the blade withstanding the razor edge of Melina's claws and helping him deflect and parry otherwise fatal blows. The black ooze was still bleeding out from the many cuts he had managed to inflict on her, not even slowing her down a bit. But he found that his suspicions were correct: She wasn't healing her wounds at all. He backed away as she slashed at the ground he was just standing on, creating some space between them to catch his breath.

He had inflicted damage on nearly all the fatal points he knew an asari possessed, but it seemed like this monster no longer shared anything similar to an asari's physiology. Or conventional logic, for that matter. Surgical precision was proving ineffective against it, so maybe a dose of brutality was what it took. Melina was crouching again, he observed, preparing for another charge. Sheathing the blade, he tossed it up into the air and took off his coat, catching the sword before it hit the ground. "Come on then, you ugly bitch, I'm on a tight schedule here." He called out to her, sword in one hand and coat in the other.

Melina lunged at him, that bone-chilling shriek piercing the air. But instead of dodging or parrying, Feron threw his coat at her, the garment obscuring him from her vision. Her claws shredded the coat easily, but it served its purpose to distract her wonderfully so. The sound of the sword being unsheathed was drowned out, rendered inaudible through her shrieking.

Ducking beneath the strikes and getting past Melina's defenses with blade spinning in one hand, Feron's sword flashed in the light as he slashed at her with wild abandon. His blade went through her mutated flesh with ease again and again and again, cutting wounds so fine that they barely even bled. Melina's shriek died in her throat as the sword passed through her neck several times over. Feron's free hand then glowed with energy as he delivered a biotic shockwave pointblank into Melina's gut. The force resonated within her before bursting forth in fury as Melina's body broke into pieces in a spray of black ooze and hacked body parts that splattered against the floor.

With a spin of his sword, Feron flicked the blade clean of the ooze and replaced it in it's sheathe. His breathing was heavy, and he just lost his favorite coat, but he was otherwise unharmed. "That was interesting." He concluded as he made his way back to the front lines, careful not to step on the black ooze that was now smeared all over the floor.

Shepard coordinated with his men and the operatives, establishing two extraction teams and their exit strategy. The first team consisted of himself, Thane and three of the Shadow Broker operatives, a turian male, and 2 human females. The second team was composed of Miranda, Legion and 3 other operatives, all salarian males. The strategy was simple, once the signal was given, the two teams would zoom out with their respective trucks to extract the pinned down stragglers, while the rest would use the signal as an opportunity to retreat back into the Normandy.

The signal?

That was Zaeed's job.

Using the M-920 Cain.

The veteran mercenary's craggy face nearly broke into a smile just by holding the heavy weapon. "I should have brought this girl along with me to the Afterlife." He said, leaning up against cover. "It could've made that little incident more interesting."

Jacob just looked at the older man, reloading his pistol. "I'm pretty sure we covered the 'explosion' quota pretty well without that thing's help."

"Always did like aiming for the surplus." Zaeed admitted, peeking over cover to look at the enemies. "Poor bastards don't even know what's coming to them."

"Alright, just remember to stick to the plan."

"I know what I'm damn well doing, Taylor." Zaeed said, swinging out of cover, the Cain charging in his hands. "Fire in the hole, gentlemen."

"Fire in the hole!" Jacob shouted out for all the operatives to hear, giving them time to take cover before the flash in the distance could blind them.

There was silence at first before the very air crackled in fury. The ground in the distance where several dozen of the Eclipse stood bloomed in white hot light, immolating any and all within it's proximity and instantly reducing them to ash. Those unlucky enough to be too far from the initial blast zone to suffer instant death were subjected instead to painful ones as they slowly burned from the heat.

"Burn you bastards." Zaeed said as the small mushroom cloud bloomed in the distance, peppered with the screaming of it's victims. As he said that, two of the trucks zoomed off in opposite directions to extract Tali and the others. He set aside the cain and talked to an operative beside him. "Alright, tell your people to get the wounded inside the Normandy! The rest will stay here and provide cover fire until Shepard comes back, copy?"

"Copy that." The operative nodded and set about disseminating the instructions to the others.

Jacob let out a whistle, the massive explosion in the distance giving them some breathing room as the Eclipse reeled from the blow. He turned his head and idly watched the truck carrying Miranda zoom away to where Garrus and the others were reportedly situated. "Hey, Zaeed." He said, catching the attention of the older man who was busy setting up his revenant again.

"Yeah, Taylor?"

"I've made up my mind." He said, nodding his head. "I don't want to grow old with regrets."

"Stop telling me all about it and start doing something about it then, Taylor." Zaeed said as he planted the revenant back on top of his cover. "Girls like that one aren't just born every day, you know? Literally."

"Copy that." Jacob replied as he popped the heat sink on his pistol and reloaded it. Yeah, he thought, he didn't want to grow old with regrets. After everything that happened tonight, he was reminded of how fleeting life really was to waste it wondering on what-if's. It was time to man up and put all of his chips down on the table. The shooting slowly started to pick up the intensity again as the Eclipse got over the devastating attack. "Here they come!"

"Right, so get your head out of the damn clouds and open fire!" Zaeed barked at him, pulling the trigger on his revenant and unleashing a torrent of death towards the Eclipse.