Chapter 6: Sisters in Arms
Nel usually wasn't much for science lectures and boring genetics talk. However, when the thing being discussed was a bio agent that targeted your specific DNA amino acids, you tended to listen. Vik had set the whole briefing up in Liara's room. Glyph, the little floating eyeball Liara kept around, gave technical analysis as Vik flicked through the information they had pulled from STG's files and elaborated further. He probably felt he was playing translator for the technical jargon, but Nel could just get the gist by seeing what was on screen. Pictures of Dextro Cells being assaulted by the bio agent, Strain-S3, and none of it was pretty.
The first image was fine, a normal dextro-based cell. Nothing to really comment on there. The next was the introduction of the strain. Almost at the second contact, the cell began to unravel. Glyph explained the specifics.
"Strain begins assault on membrane, dissolving it upon contact," the little synth stated. "Cytoplasm exposed, cellular breakdown begins in earnest."
"Cell is compromised in nanoseconds," Vik explained. "It can do whatever it wants after that."
The next slide showed a far more degraded cell, blackness enveloping most of the insides.
"Various sequences now inflamed," Glyph clarified. "Amino Acid instability achieved, enzymes broken apart as subject temperature rises exponentially."
"Strain basically makes you feel like every part of your body is on fire," Vik once again elaborated. "Among other things, once individual cells start failing, the body most likely goes into total shock. Depending on where it hits you, other symptoms could activate."
The next slide showed the nucleolus of the cell being practically lacerated as the strain reacted to its presence.
"Penultimate stage," Glyph stated. "The strain violently assaults heart of cell, ripping various compounds apart from each other before exhausting them."
"Body feels like its burning, suddenly it feels like it's coming apart," Vik explained.
The final slide showed a desiccated cell, nothing more than a blob of protoplasm. It wasn't even recognizable anymore as anything but a putrid puddle of organic slime.
"Final result," Glyph concluded. "Specimen functions ceased. All elements of cell torn apart or annihilated. What remains are simple base elements."
"That's just on a single cell removed from a dextro based insectoid specimen," Vik informed the others. "They never even went to full trials with animals. They had seen enough to know it wouldn't be pretty. STG shut the whole thing down, went a different route to solve that whole pest problem."
"So we don't even know what it could do to a full grown turian," Wrex noted.
"I imagine Orukuri and Balak have made their own educated guesses," Liara presumed. "Glyph, how long did the overall process take to destroy this cell?"
"Seconds, Shadow Broker," Glyph responded.
"Fuck," Nel snarled. "It doesn't waste time doesn't it."
"Without further testing they weren't able to determine how effective it would be on a larger scale," Vik stated, still sounding shaken. "Like I said, as soon as they figured out what they had, they shut it down and suppressed the whole project. Gag orders, reassignments, confiscation of materials, probably a few blood oaths, the works. Can't say I blame them, if even this much got out the damage to the Salarian Union would be devastating. The scandal would probably call for investigations, maybe a change in government leadership."
"That's not enough for Orukuri," Liara stated. "He wants something that can't be cleaned up with some apologies and resignations. He wants the turian people to be so enraged they start calling for blood."
"You mean demanding they pull out of the Council?" Wrex asked. "Why would this lead to that? This makes the salarians look bad, but the asari and humans have nothing to do with it."
"It won't stop Orukuri from finding an angle to put blame on them," Liara informed him. "We know the base of his attack, but not the full picture. We need more information, before he can finish the weapon."
"There's a lot of steps to go through before you can turn the inklings of a genetic-based pesticide into a full blown bio-weapon," Vik said, trying to sound reassuring. "The proper release mechanism for one, along with an appropriate delivery system. Both have to ensure the strain isn't damaged or reduced upon activation. More importantly, there's refinement of the thing. How it spreads, how it infects individual victims, how fast it works, how potent the agent is, there's a lot to go over there. They do it wrong, they at worst cause a minor outbreak that is contained in a few minutes or hours. Point is, we have time, not forever, but we have time."
"Then we work faster than them," Liara declared. "We have to put more pressure on Orukuri's operation on every front. We need to find where they're perfecting Strain-S3 and take it out of the equation."
"Where do we start?" Nel asked, hoping that the asari already had an idea.
"Their supply line, the Eclipse Sisters," Liara informed her. "If they're shuttling weapons, gear and drugs for the Blood Pack, they're doing the same for the Turian Separatists in some capacity as well. We hurt that supply chain, we slow down their bio-weapons development in the process. Maybe get some more information in the process if we're lucky."
"We got a lead on them?" Wrex asked.
"We might," she answered. "I've cross-referenced the intel Saya recovered from STG with that of my own agents. We're narrowing down the location of their main supply base now. Once we have something we're hitting it."
Nel smiled at that.
"Finally, something up my fucking alley," she chuckled. "After this shitty news, I really feel like cutting loose already."
"You're not the only one," Liara told her. "We need to hurt Balak's operation hard and this is part of that. The more pressure we put on him, the greater chance he or one of his cronies will make a mistake. And when that happens, we'll be there to take advantage of their rash behavior."
Nel decided to head to the armory to prepare her loadout for the upcoming mission. They had picked up a ton of guns from their various missions at this point and she wanted to be ready for whatever the Eclipse Sisters had to throw at her. When she got there, she found Kayap was looking through a few heavy weapons himself. They were all deactivated, of course, a safety precaution aboard a spaceship. Only small arms could be fired and only in designated areas, like the small test firing section just off to the side.
Nel was surprised to see the little spud about, he wasn't exactly so keen on guns. He had to use them, but of everyone here he was the one who liked fighting the least. He had stuck to his comfort zone for a while now, Covenant small arms with the occasional big gun his former allies had kept from him. Now he was eyeing a few of the heavier weapons from this universe. His main interest was the M-622 Avalanche, maybe because it looked the least intimidating of the bunch.
Normally Nel would ignore Kayap, but considering they were both here and interested in guns, she decided to do the opposite. Besides, she was curious as to what had brought him down here.
"Looking to upgrade your arsenal?" She asked.
"I need to get familiar with more of these guns," Kayap explained. "If I'm going to be of any use to you guys, I should get to know every heavy gun I can. That is my job now."
Weird how that had worked out. Nel never would've guessed that the Covies would put the little Unggoy in charge of heavy ordinance, but apparently that was something they got stuck with now and then. Kayap was very proficient in the bigger weapons too, another surprise. For someone so small he seemed to know how to make the most of big bangs.
"Why do the Covies give you guys the big guns?" Nel asked. "I thought you guys got sub-standard equipment half the time."
"We do, but heavy weapons are an exception only for distinguished fighters," Kayap explained. "You have to be given special permission by your unit leader. Most Unggoy who are allowed to carry them need to be trained for special operations and exhibit certain survival tactics."
"Like you?" Nel asked.
"My survival tactics involved trying to stay in cover as much as possible," Kayap clarified. "That's not what most special squads are looking for. They want to hold the line, show aggression, act like a real soldier. It's not that easy. Even if you're cleared for the gun, it's not exactly a blessing. You get something more devastating against the enemy, yeah, but you also have a bigger target on your back."
That's true, Nel thought. How many times did they teach her in training to go after heavy weapons operators in the field? Take down the rocket guy, protect the vehicles in the convoy, your tanks, that sort of thing. Made sense the same thing carried over to the Covenant.
"So they give you the heavy weapons because it means you might take distract the enemy from shooting your officers," Nel presumed. "The sangheili are too important to lose by handing them a big old Fuel Rod Cannon, huh?"
"That's one way of looking at it," Kayap confessed. "I still got training on how to use some heavy weapons just in case something came up in the heat of battle. I was never permitted to have my own though. First time I ever fired a Fuel Rod gun in combat was with you guys. Now though, I wanna learn more about the guns here."
Far be it from Nel to deny an aspiring gun nut. She picked up the Avalanche and presented it to him, holding it how she had been trained to hold them.
"What you got here is Avalanche, but you can just call it what it is, a big old freeze gun," she explained. "One concentrated shot of this baby instantly freezes pretty much any infantry unit. Minimal damage, sure, they're more than likely still alive. However, they've become so damn brittle that your backup can more or less mow them down before they thaw out. Perfect for big groups of foot soldiers."
Nel put it down and brought up the next weapon to show off, one of her favorites of course.
"The Firestorm is your heavy duty flamethrower," she stated. "None of that garbage backpack junk that the vorcha use. This one has a self-contained fuel source that does not explode from just any stray shot. Perfect against all forms of defense and dulls the regenerative abilities of vorcha and krogan. Might be a bit dangerous for you though. What with your need to breathe methane and all that."
"Yeah, probably not my thing," Kayap admitted.
Nel then picked up the next weapon, chuckling as she did. She let the capacitor unfold to better show off where the sparks would be if it was activated.
"The Arc Projector, lightning in the palm of your hand," she grinned menacingly. "You can fry most electronics in one shot with this bad girl. I had me a bad seppie bitch in this mech once, bearing down on me and my squad. One clean hit and her piece of shit robot suit was sparking. Course I had to charge it up the whole way, the longer you hold the trigger the bigger the shock, so to speak."
Kayap nodded in recognition, but then pointed to one last weapon. The one with the big hazard sign on it.
"What about that?" He asked. "The Cain I think?"
"Oh the Cain," Nel said grinning, but not picking it up. "Yeah, most people in my unit just called it the Mini Nuke Launcher. None of the radiation associated with its bigger cousins they put in warheads. Still a ton of firepower though. You hit anything with that, it's most likely not getting back up. Costs a fortune in heavy heat sinks to fire though."
"You ever use it in the army?" Kayap asked.
"Heh, once before all this ShadowNet at least yeah," Nel admitted. "Enemy gunship was strafing us and it seemed like the fastest way to end the slaughter. I got off a hit before it could turn its gun on me. I made the mistake of looking at the blast though, I'm lucky I'm still able to see. Even with my visor on, my eyes felt like they were burning. Thankfully, a good solid week of treatment prevented any permanent damage."
Kayap looked semi-impressed at that.
"You sure know your guns, Nel," he complimented.
"All thanks to the good old turian education system," she assured him. "If you need to train to be a soldier, go learn in a turian school. It will prepare you for everything. Course, the real school comes in boot camp. Damn that was awesome."
"Wasn't it hard?" Kayap asked confused.
"Oh grueling, horrible," Nel recounted, smiling as she did. "I ended up with bruises on my exoskeleton and mud in every crevice! It was hell to get through. I cut, scrapped and broke something every day. Loved every second of it."
She could tell that was only confusing Kayap more, so she tried to better explain.
"You need to understand, I'd been dreaming of boot since I was a kid at that point," she informed him. "The day I'd come of age and join the military, when I'd become part of something greater. I finally got the adventure they had always promised. No other birthday present after that could compete."
"Hard to imagine anyone would like getting conscripted," Kayap mumbled sadly.
Nel was a bit more understanding to that point as far as Kayap was concerned and she knew why. Covie boot camp was probably nothing like it was in the Turian Hierarchy. Her experience was fun for her, but not for him.
"Well, it's not like what they do in the Covenant," she tried to explain. "You can leave after your service is up. They don't make you stay."
"I guess they just never made it sound like an adventure or even a duty to others," Kayap responded rather succinctly. "They never even bothered. If you didn't go, your life was forfeit and so was that of your family. It was penance, you had to go to absolve yourself of sin, to prove you had faith in the cause."
"I can't really blame you for not liking it given everything I've seen the Covies do to you guys," Nel confessed. "Even when I was training folks at that camp, it always felt weird how the unggoy were more picked on than anyone. And I don't think the sangheili ever appreciated my methods. I'm guessing turian standard weren't as harsh or as unforgiving as they preferred."
"Technically training in the Covenant for an unggoy is rather sparse," Kayap clarified. "You're taught how to shoot, how to move, how to obey. They never really teach you how to survive though. Just how to fight. You have to figure out how to keep alive on your own. They don't expect you to last. Not even through training actually, let alone your first battle."
Cannon fodder, that was what his species was to the Covenant. Nel was disgusted by the thought. A turian life was expendable in the service of something greater, yes. They never taught you to waste your life though, but to spend it. To the Covenant, the unggoy were only good to waste and that was sickening.
"Well, you survived," Nel told him. "You showed them."
"I survived because Liara saved me," Kayap corrected her. "Well, spared me and showed me another way. Now I just want to be useful to her. If that means fighting, then I need to get better at fighting."
"You're plenty useful, Kay," Nel informed him. "Not just to Liara, but just in general. You got more moves and skills than you give yourself credit for. The fact you're still here proves that."
Kayap just shrugged, nodding lightly at the compliment.
"Still probably nowhere as good a fighter as you though," he told her.
"Yeah, but who is?" Nel said smugly. "Nothing to get down about. You do you."
Nel picked up one of the assault rifles and gave it a look over.
"I'm just glad to be here," Kayap stated. "Glad I'm fighting for something that's actually worth it for once. If only more unggoy would join us though, see that there's an escape."
"Hey, you never know," Nel told him. "There might be a few unggoy out there who are just like what you were once and are looking for a way out. We beat the Covies, maybe they find that way."
"The problem always comes back to family though," Kayap admitted. "If they leave, there would be reprisals. That's usually enough to make anyone stay. You know how it is right?"
With family? Yeah, Nel knew how it was. She just wished she could say the same for her own. Maybe not all of them, but just one person. It was the one thing about boot camp she hated, the one thing she could never get over.
She remembered when she graduated, all decked out in her new dress uniform. Everyone was there, even mom and dad. She had almost thought he wouldn't come. Instead, she ended up wishing he hadn't. All through the ceremony he just looked... disappointed. Just scowling constantly over it all. Even when she waved to him, as she came up to receive her promotion stripes, he couldn't even be bothered to acknowledge that. He had just sighed.
He never wanted her in his precious army, now she was and she spent the rest of her time there trying to prove she belonged.
"Yeah," Nel finally said. "Family does get to you like that."
The conversation was interrupted by her commlink going off, same with Kayap's.
"Everyone, briefing room," Liara informed the team. "We have a lead."
Thank the spirits, Nel thought. If anything could get her mind off family it was finding assholes to shoot.
Tracking Varna had been easier than they thought. One of their smugglers, Deinu, had been located by a Shadow Agent. Thanks to the intel they recovered from STG, they were able to stake out a few of her regular hangouts. Eventually, she had visited one and now she had a tracker on her ship. All Liara had to do was follow the ship back to the Eclipse Sisters' base. It didn't take long, the Sisters were located in an old deserted mining colony boom town on some desolate little dustball of a planet, surrounded by various rock formations. It had long been abandoned by the corporation that had set it up when all the resources had dried up. Now, it was the Eclipse Sisters' main base of operations. The last refuge for their little chapter.
Liara now observed their intended target from afar, her binoculars scanning the otherwise unassuming mess of dilapidated homes and structures. The Sisters had fixed it up somewhat, turning it into a decent merc fortress, but it had clearly seen better days. Liara presumed the main center of operations was in the large processing building near the back of the dead colony. They'd need to go through a ton of enemies just to get to it though.
"Wish we had a tank," Nel said, keeping low in the rocks. "This would be a lot easier if we had a tank."
"We have krogan, they technically count," Liara joked somewhat. "Speaking of, Wrex should be ready to move soon. We all remember the plan?"
"Yeah, yeah, they bust through the west gate, we hit the other side with the Shadow Troops," Nel recounted. "Meet up in the middle of town, push to processing plant. Really, I can remember a briefing from literally half an hour ago. I'm not stupid."
"Just making sure," Liara informed her. "We haven't performed a straightforward assault in a while."
"Like falling off a speeder, you never forget how," Nel assured her.
"Why must we equate the ability to conduct a successful attack with abject failure?" Vik asked. "That's... that's not exactly a great metaphor."
"Oh relax," Nel groaned. "Stay behind me and you'll be fine. I soak up all the fire anyway."
"Yeah, because that really makes me want to stand behind you," Vik mumbled.
At that moment, and explosion erupted along the western gate of the compound. The calling card of any krogan assault force, loud and abrasive. Predictably, the majority of the defenders moved towards the gap in their perimeter as krogan charged the blown open gate. That left the east gate summarily less guarded. As far as Liara was concerned, it was all going perfectly.
"Move," she orered. "We need to get through that gate before they realize their mistake."
ShadowNet Mercs moved forward, jumping up from behind the rock formations and towards the East Gate. The Eclipse Sisters didn't see them until the firing started. The first line of sentries were taken down as they reached the perimeter. A rocket slammed into the gate next, blowing it wide open. Liara forced her through the wreckage, her pistol at the ready. She spotted two Eclipse Sisters staring her down from some barricades as she emerged. She let loose few shots at one while sending a throw attack at the other, sending the Sister flying through the air.
"Move down the street towards the center," she ordered her people. "We'll squeeze them between ourselves and Wrex's krogan. Nel, on point."
Nel moved up to the front, her Revenant armed with inferno rounds. She marched forward, blazing a path of fire as she headed up the middle of the street. Her armor and shields protected her from enemy fire for the most part, allowing the Shadownet mercs the time they needed to get to cover and start moving through the buildings.
Eclipse Sisters appeared in the upper windows of some of the old homes. They began firing down on Nel, forcing the turian to move back. She returned fire, spewing incendiaries into the windows. She shot down two of the sisters and forced the others to retreat back inside.
"We need to watch up top," Nel warned. "They got more inside each of these structures."
"I'm on it," Liara assured her. "Get to cover and help the others clear the buildings. No matter what, we keep going down the street. We have to meet up with Wrex or this assault is going to fail."
Nel ducked into cover behind an old porch, firing into the next building over. Sure enough, the Sisters inside returned fire. They turned their guns onto Nel, giving Liara the chance to move forward. Liara burst through the doorway, sending a singularity to pick up two of the Eclipse sisters and then detonate them with a following Warp attack. As the biotic explosion died down, Liara moved to the steps, her pistol's trigger clutched between her fingers. One of the Sisters jumped in the way upstairs, slinging a biotic attack to throw the asari back. Liara banked left, letting the biotic attack sling by her. She then used pull to latch onto the enemy asari and send her careening into Liara's fist. The mercenary thug down, Liara rushed up the steps to the top level.
When she got there, she found it swarming with Eclipse. One of them was taking cover behind an old desk of sorts. Liara used her biotics to send the desk flying into the merc, which in turn sent her screaming out a window in the next moment. Liara sprayed her automatic pistol at the other Sisters, killing one and forcing the others to duck. Liara moved to cover behind a corner as mercs returned fire, but she was ready for that. She activated another singularity, lifting two of the Sisters up. She then sent a powerful twin throw attack into both of them at the same time. The subsequent biotic detonation killed those sisters and sent two others flying out the windows to the street below.
Liara moved through the wreckage of the floor and clambered out onto the balcony now. She could see below that Nel was pushing up Shadownet. Vik wasn't far behind, providing tech support. His drone patrolled the outer areas of their advance while Nel kept her focus forward. When one of the Sisters jumped from an alley, Vik's overload depleted her shield allowing Nel to gun her down.
In the distance, Liara could see the heavy fighting with the krogan getting closer, plumes of fire and explosions erupting across the street. Wrex was certainly doing his job. She would need to live up to it. Liara scrambled onto the roof of her building, forcing her way onto it. She then took a running leap towards the next structure, using her biotics to help lift her along. She landed in a rolling position before taking a knee. There was a skylight nearby, moving over to it she saw inside was another group of Eclipse Sisters.
The best way to deal with this situation was to disorient them. She threw prepared a smoke grenade and smashed it through the skylight. She followed it through once the smoke had saturated the area. She dropped in and sent a throw attack to knock the nearest Sisters off their feet. She turned to stasis another, allowing her some breathing room and then rushed for cover. She ducked behind an old couch as bullets screamed around the area in a frantic fire fight.
The smoke mostly cleared and Liara popped up to return fire, gunning down two before her stasis wore off on the last one. Her biotic shockwave rippled towards Liara, forcing her to flee as the couch was up-ended and smashed into the wall. Liara rolled into a kneeling position and unloaded her clip into the merc, taking her out with a wild spray. She heard footsteps coming up the stairs, bounding up fast. she activated her singularity just as the Eclipse Merc appeared. She wasted no time in following it with Warp to detonate the rest of incoming mercs.
Not wanting to risk heading downstairs, Liara moved for the nearby window. She vaulted through it into the alleyway, stomping down in the dirt once more. Nel's advance had kept pace with her, as she watched the turian kick down a door and begin spraying wildly inside. She then threw a cluster grenade deeper inside, the resulting explosion blew out several windows.
Vik was close by, moving along a wall towards an alley. An Eclipse Sister rushed, trying to hit him with a biotic punch. Vik fell back and activated his omni-tool, hitting the Merc with an incineration blast that set on fire. He followed it up with a shotgun blast that dropped her. He then picked himself up an followed Nel into the next house.
Liara exited the alley to continue moving, as she did Saya joined her, pointing to what appeared to be a machine gun nest up on a roof top across the way. It was pinning down some Shadownet mercs near some boxes, forcing their heads down.
"I got it," Liara assured him. "Keep moving."
Saya nodded and rushed ahead. Liara scanned the crowd and spotted Kayap bringing up the rear with a heavy weapon. It looked like an Avalanche. Strange for him, but Liara supposed he needed to familiarize more with other weapons. She called him over to her position and pointed to the nest.
"Think you can help me take it?" She asked.
"I'll can give it a shot," he exclaimed.
Liara moved forward with him, getting him to some cover to set up. He aimed the Avalanche upwards just enough and fired. The freezing blast rocketed out and slammed into the machine gun nest, freezing the merc manning it. Liara then sent a throw attack right at it, sending the frozen sister flying away to shatter elsewhere.
"Stay with me," Liara told Kayap. "We might have bigger problems soon."
Liara advanced along the street, soon spotting Saya again preparing to make an entry into another building. Some old drinking hole from the looks of it. She decided to back him up, moving towards the structure as the salarian blew open the door. As he charged in you could see the flash of a blade amid sounds of gunfire. Liara managed to get inside to see at least three Sisters cut down, while another with an omni-blade tried to hole Saya off. A fifth sister popped up from behind the bar, armed with a shotgun and unloaded at Liara and Kayap. The two ducked to the floor behind a table, letting it absorb the shots for them.
"We got to keep them off Saya," Liara told Kayap. "Cover the right side of the room, I'll take the one behind the bar."
Liara moved out, using singularity to lift her opponent off the floor. Then filled her full of enough holes to send her flying back into the assortment of drinks behind her. In response, two Sisters emerged from the upper floor and began spraying lead down from the overlooking balcony. Liara rolled away from the shots and returned fire, but it was Kayap who managed to get both of them. A single blast from his Avalanche froze both of them easily, Liara was able to finish them off with some well placed shots, shattering the mercs to pieces.
Saya in the meantime had managed to get the better of his assailant, stunning her with his free hand before cutting her down for good. The old drinking hole was clear, they needed to move on. Liara led them to the backdoor, forcing it open with her bare hands. The rusted old slab of metal gave way, revealing a large force of Eclipse Sisters fighting among some assorted barricades. The Shadownet mercs were pushing up on one end and on the other approached Wrex's Urdnot soldiers.
As he two forces began to meet, Liara joined the fray. She fired her pistol into a number of Sisters, taking them out before they could see their flank had been exposed. Kayap fired another Avalanche blast into the middle of the group, freezing three more Sisters before Krogan Carnage shots shattered them to bits. Nel moved in with Vik backing her up, setting down a turret drone to add to her already impressive display of firepower. When next Nel threw a cluster grenade into the mess of enemies, destroying a barricade with them, it was at that point the enemy line broke.
Eclipse Sisters began running away, back towards the main mining structure, in droves. They fired back sporadically at the Krogan and Shownet Mercs, but it was fleeting. They knew they were outgunned. Liara's plan had worked, if only the first phase of course. The point was they were inside and they needed to press the advantage.
Liara regrouped with the others to find Wrex, who stomped onto the battlefield like it was just a day at the park. He grinned at the aftermath around him, the old abandoned colony in flames.
"A good victory," he observed. "But we still have one final objective to go."
"Yes, and looks like a good number of the Sisters will be waiting for us," Liara added. "It won't be an easy fight once we're there. They may have diminished numbers, but we've lost the element surprise by now. And we don't know what they have in there either."
"Maybe a ton of biotic drugs?" Nel suggested. "I mean, they were giving the shit away."
"Possibly, but they're shipping more than just their modified red sand," Liara reminded her. "They could have a few heavy weapons in there and their latest arrival to Balak's alliance with the Covenant might mean other surprises."
"Or they'll take whatever they can carry and run," Wrex suggested. "Including Varna. She doesn't look like the type who's going to commit to a last stand. Thugs like her prefer to live to fight another time on their terms."
"So we should move fast," Vik suggested. "Even if we can't stop Varna, we can keep her from delivering anymore weapons to the Separatists or Blood Pack."
"Yeah, cut off their supply lines," Nel agreed. "Really hurt them this time."
"Then we move ahead now, leave most of the assault force to consolidate here," Liara decided. "They can surround the Main Processing Building and try to stop anyone from getting out. Whatever happens inside though, remember, Varna is priority. She's our first real link in this chain for whatever VykurCorp is up to. We get her, we might actually find out what Orukuri is planning."
Everyone nodded in agreement and before long they were making tracks for the main processing building. Where Varna, and hopefully answers, awaited.
Wrex brought down the door easy enough, it wasn't exactly grade A material anymore. The decades of rust and decay had weakened the super structure. The inside of the processing plant didn't look much better. Crumbling walls, crusty ceiling, clear chemical corrosion on quite literally everything, it was clear the new tenants had done nothing to really slow or repair the state of the old facility.
"This place screams staph infection," Vik grimaced. "I think I saw pictures of it in a handbook back on the Flotilla. The chapter on why we double check suit seals and acidic protective layering."
"I'll admit, I'm not interested in touching anything in here myself," Nel agreed.
They hadn't gotten three feet inside before the old intercom system started crackling. The sound buzzed in their ears for a few seconds as the microphone adjusted. But it was the sound that followed that became far less pleasant.
"Liara T'Soni, heh, Trox warned me you'd be a problem sooner or later."
Everyone knew that voice, they had heard it in Liara's recordings from the Forerunner dig site.
"Varna," Liara said with a snarl. "So, she hasn't left yet."
"You know, I should probably thank you," Varna continued, her voice dripping with malice. "Seriously, if it weren't for you apparently sending Commander Shepard our way after that Justicar, I wouldn't be in the position I am today. So many dead Sisters, so many people lording over me gone. I never had a chance to lead the chapter before all that went down. Now look at me. I'm living the big time at last. Not bad for a street thug, eh?"
"Yeah, yeah, you talk a big game over how you got lucky all your friends died," Nel huffed. "Getting promoted because you're the only one left to take charge does not mean you deserve it, lady."
Liara knew Varna couldn't hear Nel's comeback. Not all intercoms were two way after all. But that didn't stop the Sister from responding in a way.
"I don't know what you and your little band of dipshits think you're going to accomplish here and I don't really care," Varna claimed. "This was just a temporary situation anyway. Thanks to the Blood Pack, the Eclipse Sisters are going to be moving up in the ranks soon. All those high minded Salarians and other Asari running the show, they're on the way out. Before long, I'm going to be running all of Eclipse."
Wrex stifled a laugh at the very idea.
"Seriously? Is she deluded on top of having an ego?" He asked.
"Trox probably fed her that line," Liara hypothesized.
"Well she's stupider than she looks if she believes him," Wrex stated. "Guessing she can't tell when she's being used."
"Once I get everything loaded onto my ships, me and my girls are out of here," Varna declared. "And to make sure you stay out of our way until we're packed, here's something to keep you occupied."
Liara did not like the sound of that and she didn't have to wait long to find out exactly what they were going to have to deal with. Clanking out of several corridors and side rooms appeared a number of mechs, LOKI and FENRIS models to be exact.
"Cover, now!" Liara ordered.
The team moved to better ground as the Mechs opened fire. Wrex shot at the currently charging FENRIS mechs. Saya stabbed any that dared get to close to him, plunging his sword into the face of one before turned to slash the other. Liara attempted to return fire on the LOKI mechs in the meantime. She knew they couldn't waste time here though. As Varna had so clearly stated, the mechs were here to keep them pinned down. Varna wanted time to load up her goods and get out of here. It was the only way she'd save her commission and standing with Trox and Balak. She could lose the base, she could not lose her customers' shipments.
Liara looked to see Vik fiddling with his omni-tool while his drone turret held the mechs at bay. His increasing frustration became more apparent when he start spewing a dozen so words that even Liara's translator couldn't decipher.
"Vik?" She called over.
"There's some kind of anti-hacking subroutine installed in them, I can't turn them!" He snarled in anger. "Argh! Bosh'tets!"
"Then we do it the hard way, shoot them all down," Liara ordered. "Does overload still work?"
Vik switched to said function and fired it at one of the packs of LOKI mechs. Arcs of electricity sparked among them momentarily before the fell over into smoking heaps.
"Thankfully, yes," he reported.
"Good, focus on that angle," Liara told him. "Saya cloak and go ahead, clear out as many as you can ahead of us. We cannot let Varna escape with all her cargo, we don't want it getting to the Separatists."
Saya nodded before cloaking and vanishing ahead. A LOKI's head getting lopped off suddenly in the flash of a blade was the only indication of which direction he was going.
"Nel, Wrex, cut us a path," Liara ordered next. "Kayap, conserve your heavy ammunition for now. We'll need it just in case they have something bigger waiting for us."
Kayap put his Avalanche away, bringing out his plasma pistol instead. Its overcharged shots managed to disable a few of the LOKI mechs easily. While Wrex and Nel blazed a trail of bullets through the mech ranks. While they were doing that, Liara let loose with her singularity, sending a powerful biotic torrent directly ahead of them.
"Wrex! Hit it!"
The krogan responded with a warp attack, striking the heart of the singularity. The subsequent biotic detonation ripped the various mechs apart with ease. There was now a gap in their perimeter they could exploit to get deeper into the facility.
"Move, we have a lot of ground to cover," Liara told her team. "Wrex, Kayap, we'll move along the right corridor. Vik, Nel, take the left. Push through these mechs to loading bays. We need to stop their shuttles and destroy whatever it is they're trying to ship out."
"Sounds like this will involve explosions, I'm in," Nel concurred. "Come on, Bucket! Lets get to it!"
Vik for once didn't argue, rushing behind Nel as she fired her assault rifle at the remains of the mech forces, punching through to the other side of their lines. Wrex didn't need to waste any ammunition to do the same, he just charged forward screaming bloody murder. Several mechs were sent flying as the big krogan busted through another broken down door.
"Try not to destroy too much of the superstructure," Liara warned as she followed. "We don't know how stable this place is after all these years."
"Hey, don't spoil my fun, Liara," Wrex responded jokingly. "It's been a while since I've cut loose after all. I'll watch which walls I burst through don't worry."
"Worry?" Liara responded coyly, "With you? Never."
Wrex gave a hearty laugh as they moved into the facility proper.
Even though the mechs couldn't be hacked, Vik still had more than a few tricks up his sleeve to deal with them. Mainly his combat drone and turret, the former of which rolled forward into the fray to blast several machines at close range before exploding among them. Whatever survived the drone's detonation, Nel cleaned up with sustained sprays from her assault rifle. When they moved up, Vik dropped the Turret to provide covering fire.
Mechs weren't known for advanced tactics, they were there to provide extra guns, nothing more. They could delay you, but their strength was in numbers, not in brains. That made repeating the same strategy for a bit viable in this case. The mechs didn't adjust at all to this plan, falling into the same trap constantly and allowing Vik and Nel to push forward rather quickly. There were still tons of these mechs though, so it was still rough going, with every corridor they entered soon filled with the sound of bullets.
"How far did Saya get?" Nel asked as she ducked behind cover. "He better not be invisible and hiding just out of sight."
Nel popped up to deliver a clean pair of headshots to two LOKI mechs. They both toppled over, twitched for a few seconds and then exploded. A satisfying kill, but Nel was already getting tired of dealing with these stupid bots all the same.
"It would've been pretty easy," Vik suggested, reloading his shotgun. "LOKI mechs don't have the advanced thermal imaging most military bots have to counter cloaking tech. He could be way deeper than any of us by now."
"He wouldn't get that far ahead without backup," Nel stated. "That's more my style than his."
Nel popped up again and fired another burst, ripping off the arm and leg of another Mech. It fell to the floor in a broken heap, causing another mech to trip over its flailing body. However, what came around the bend next was not nearly so stupid. It was an Eclipse Sister, blasting back at them with her own assault rifle. She was soon joined by others as they mixed in with the mechs still operating. Apparently they were deeper inside the facility than they thought.
"Great, so much for easy targets," Nel grimaced, doing her best to stay in cover as bullets bounced off the rusted steel. "We must be near one of their store rooms, only reason they'd run out to shoot at us now."
Chances were that said storeroom was packed wall to wall with supplies. The Sisters couldn't get all of it out in time so the next best option was to try and defend it. Otherwise Nel and Vik would've busted inside and caught them with their pants down. They were greedy, opportunistic criminals, but they weren't stupid. Not that stupid anyway.
"I guess they didn't have much faith in these mechs either then," Vik reasoned. "We need to get past them and find that storage space before they get too much of their stuff loaded."
"I hear that," Nel concurred. "Drop a turret and watch my back, I'm going to take them from the side."
Vik nodded, dropping another hovering turret station into the fray. Bullets chattered away from its barrel, forcing Sisters to take cover while mechs absorbed the shots. Nel made a mad dash towards a nearby door, rushing as fast as she could to reach it. Before she could even get close though, a biotic attack smashed into her side, throwing her into a wall. Her armor absorbed much of the impact, but she was still hurt somewhat. She turned to fire on the offending Eclipse Sister, rolling onto her back and letting a barrage of bullets fly. She managed to force her head down at least, but soon a shockwave attack was rippling towards her. Nel rolled away, just barely, as the attack sped by her. That got her in the sights of one Sister's rifle. When the enemy merc tried to shoot though, her gun exploded in her hands.
Nel barely had time to get to her feet as she looked to Vik's position, omni-tool activated and out. He had pulled a sabotage at the last second, the clever bucket. Nel just gave an approving nod as she ducked into the doorway of the nearby room.
Vik remained outside, unsure of Nel's true intentions or plan. He assumed she was going to get behind them all and shoot them in the back. That left him to hold out the front and keep them busy. He was just lucky he had his drone and turret to keep the bad guys at bay, for a little bit at least.
He had his drone move up first, absorbing fire while he rushed to a new position. The drone fired several blasts at the mechs and the mercs. The robots kept doing what they did before, advance with little regard to their safety. The mercs were smarter, targeting the drone specifically, knowing they couldn't let it get close to them. That gave Vik the chance to slide in behind a stack of old crates. Bullets started chewing up his cover as soon as he settled, but the second they stopped he popped up to blow one of the mech's heads clean off.
This small victory was interrupted when two warp blast attacks smashed Vik's sentry turret. The subsequent biotic detonation destroying it with ease. With one less gun on the field, Vik knew he had to rely on his own head. He knew his overload attack had an area of effect to could hit others nearby, so he activated his omni-tool and took aim at one of the mechs. The electrical assaulted shorted out the mech's systems and also ravaged the shields of a nearby Eclipse Sister. The pain shorted through her shields and into her body, forcing the asari to stand up. Vik used that moment to shoot at her, blowing the Sister into the wall with the force of his shotgun.
That was when a throw attack knocked him back though, signaling that he was all out of luck. Where the hell was Nel, he asked himself. At that moment, the wall on the right side of the corridor exploded. The mercs and mechs, all packed into the small area, were engulfed in flames and shrapnel, their bodies flung about and robotic limbs blown off. Appearing from behind the hole was Nel, her assault rifle chattering away at the now flanked asari. The Sisters could hardly react to the sudden emergence of the heavily armed and armored turian within their ranks. All any of them could do was retreat, lunging away from the battle with biotics or trying to spray Nel back into cover as they fell back.
Vik poked his head up as the fighting subsided, Nel smashing a mech's head with her foot as it tried to claw at her leg. The quarian had a mixture of relief and annoyance on his face.
"What took you so long?" He asked.
"I had trouble getting the damn high explosive grenade to stick to the wall," she explained. "I'm not a krogan, I can't just ram through steel. Even if it is rusted."
"Your plan was to blow up a wall?" Vik asked, baffled.
"Well I was hoping to find a door to get around," Nel clarified. "But there was a ton of debris and shit and I was thinking they might be expecting that since they saw me run off. I knew I couldn't have you waiting on me, so I improvised."
For once, Vik was happy she improvised. Even if it was with a certain degree of recklessness. At least it was recklessness that was directed at saving his ass. He was not about to complain in that regard.
"Well I'm glad it worked at least," he told her. "Lets get after them. Their storeroom can't be too far ahead."
Nel nodded in agreement and led the way forward. They of course didn't get too far before a shockwave attack rippled out towards them. Nel and Vik slunk to either side of the corridor, the turian aiming down her sight. She let her trigger finger rip, bullets slamming into the offending Eclipse Sister. They braced for the next Sister to take her place, but none came. The others must've kept going.
They made it to a half-open door just a few feet away from where their fire fight had taken place. Inside, they found their target, a storeroom filled with crates upon crates of supplies. A cursory glance at some of the of the warning labels or even serial descriptions on the side revealed what was in them.
"High-grade explosives, Biotic Amps, heavy weapons and..." Nel knelt at one of the nearby boxes, opening it up to reveal several canisters of a red swirling gas. "There it is, Big Sister's special brew for biotics."
"This is way more than we expected," Vik observed, astonished at the sheer volume. "For a gang that's fallen on hard times they certainly got a lot of supply."
"Big galaxy, everyone needs something shipped," Nel stated. "And the Sister did just get a ton of clients after all."
"The weapons I can see, where are they getting all the Biotic Boosting Sand?" Vik asked.
"Maybe this place isn't just for smuggling after all," Nel suggested.
Before she could elaborate, blazing tracer fire struck near her head. Nel and Vik ducked behind some boxes as a small squad of Eclipse Sisters and a good chunk of mechs, began shooting at them.
"Seriously, where is Saya?" Vik demanded. "We could use his cool sword with the exploding gel right now!"
Nel crested her eyes over the top of her cover, scanning the area for an opportunity. She spotted it with three crates loaded with explosive ordinance. Too greatly spaced out to be a danger on their own, but together they were dangerous. She came up with an idea.
"You think you can get a drone over to that crate on the far right?"
Vik looked over to what she was pointing at.
"He can get there," he told her. "Why?"
Nel looked for a door to exit out of, she spotted it on the far left side of the level. A straight run from their position across the catwalk. Pulling out a grenade, she readied herself.
"The second I move, you keep running with me, do not stop," she ordered.
"This is going to get loud, isn't it?" Vik asked nervously.
"You wanna keep this shit out of their hands, right?" Nel asked. "Just get the drone moving."
Vik activated the drone and sent it off on a self-destruct mission, to detonate the explosive crate. Nel kept her cluster grenade ready, counted to three and then took off. Vik was right behind her, dropping a sentry turret to cover them as they ran. Mid run, Nel tossed her cluster grenade over at two other crates. She then fired a stream of bullets into its descending arch. Before long and explosion erupted in the air.
The secondary bombs struck the two containers of explosives, just as Vik's drone reached its own destination. The whole storeroom was rocked with fire, pillars of it reaching to the ceiling. Nel and Vik bull rushed through the exit and kept could hear more erupting crates, more explosions, a fireball erupted from the doorway they had just left. Nel doubted anything else had gotten out of there.
"Well, they won't be using those guns," Nel reasoned.
"Can we not do that again?" Vek asked. "I mean it worked but-"
Nel quieted him, hearing something nearby. Voices or something? More mercs? It was coming from a nearby room. She steadied herself and moved to the doorway, Vik behind her. Entering it, she scanned the area and could see only bodies. Lots of dead, sliced up bodies. All Eclipse Sisters, all high level given their uniforms. Standing amid the carnage was one black clad salarian with a sword.
"Oh so this is where you were all this time," Nel observed. "Having fun without us."
Saya said nothing, but one could tell he was glaring.
"I think he was covering our flank," Vik noted. "Your explosions do attract a lot of attention."
Nel supposed he was right, it would explain the smaller squad of mercs in the store room after all. That was not entirely important though for the moment. The fact that they had linked up with Saya was. Despite being disappointed she had missed out on seeing some cool STG ninja action, they still had a job to do.
"Well, since we're all together now, lets head to the landing pads," Nel stated.
Saya nodded, pointing behind him to another doorway. He didn't wait long before taking off, Nel and Vik following him. They had torn through a good chunk of the enemy, but chances were the shuttle area was going to be packed with enemies regardless. Every Merc who knew where this was going was no doubt running towards them now, if not there already. They still had a decent fight ahead of them.
Liara and Wrex entered a large room. They had thought it would be storage space laden with cargo. They were only half right. Inside was a fully operational production line and lab. It was crude, almost primitive, but it had everything. Packing equipment, mixers, industrial ovens, boilers, everything you needed for a high grade operation that only served one purpose, drug production. And from all the red caking the walls, equipment, floors and even the ceiling, it was clear what that product was. Red Sand, more specifically the Eclipse Sister's own brand, Minagen X3. The stuff they were trying to hock onto the Seppies.
Technically they had only picked it up when a volus merchant delivered it to them and muddled up their smuggling operations with the stuff. However, from the looks of it they embraced the drug ultimately and were now looking to perfect it. This place wasn't just where they were storing stuff, as they could see from the boxes upon boxes in the corner. This was where the survivors of Shepard's attack had relocated their entire drug operation.
"Well, this is... unexpected," Wrex observed.
"No wonder they tried so hard to keep this place hidden," Liara reasoned. "This is their main source of income and they knew they couldn't hold this place in their shape. They lose this and they'll never recover."
"Shows what you know."
Stomping out of the back room, bursting through bolted doors, appeared a huge YMIR. Not the average kind though, normal YMIRs were just huge, hulking and only had two weapons options. This one was armed with the regular missile and machine gun cannon arms, but it also packed a pair of automatics lining either side of its head, a flamethrower attached to the arm and a pair of missile pods strapped to its back.
"Like it?" Came the voice from the machine. "I commissioned the upgrades myself. Thicker armor, better guns, the works."
The voice was clearly Varna's, even if slightly distorted from the electronic filter. Liara grimaced at the mech, her disapproval firm.
"Are you that much of a coward, Varna?" She demanded to know. "You won't even face us yourself?"
"I'm remote controlling this, it's as good as being there in person," Varna claimed. "Besides, if attack drones are good enough for the Alliance in a fight..."
"You're hardly the Alliance," Liara spat back. "You're just a petty thug playing drug lord."
"I'm not playing shit, pureblood," Varna's voice snarled. "I got this job through being the baddest fucking asari around. I clawed and beat and killed every bitch who dared say otherwise until I was the last one standing. And from the ashes of all that I built this!"
"You found a scummy pit of rot and decay, moved in and set up your little operation inside," Liara corrected her. "And the only reason anyone followed you in the first place was because Shepard killed everyone else more qualified. You earned nothing."
"Wasea's death was just my opening, so what if I took it?" Varna screamed back in anger. "All my life no one has ever fucking respected me. Not my mother who died piss drunk. Not my deadbeat worthless shit of a father. Not the fucking pissant cops who threw me in jail. Not the assholes I met in prison who punted me around like a chew toy. No one! Everyone in my life thought they were better than me, guess where they all are now? DEAD! Fucking dead! And you're about to become just another body on the pile, T'Soni!"
The mech aimed its missile cannon arm at Liara, prompting her and her team to rush to cover as projectile rocketed towards them. It exploded against the back wall, as Liara braced against her cover. Bullets sprayed across the room as the YMIR smashed through the production line, rampaging across the floor. Wrex fired at the mech's head, but the bullets seemed to bounce right off the shields.
"Of course she upgraded the shields," the krogan groaned. "She blew most of her credits on this damn thing, didn't she?"
"Well it's effective," Liara told him. "We need to kill it. Spread out, do not let it keep focus on any one of us."
"That won't be too hard," Wrex reasoned, arming a carnage shot. "She seems very easy to provoke."
He fired the carnage shot, hitting the YMIR square in the arm. The mech instantly turned on the krogan, firing every machine gun at Wrex's position as it strafed the area.
"Oh Carnage? You thought that would work on this Mech?"
Wrex absorbed both the excessive street speak and the incoming bullets, staying behind the lab equipment. Glass shattered, steel ripped, but Wrex stayed calm. He'd been in far worse situations in his very long life. He blasted a few shots blindly at the rampaging machine, intent on keeping it off Liara and Kayap as long as possible.
Liara circled around close, but she wasn't targeting the mech. She had her eye on what the said mech was currently smashing. Varna clearly didn't care about her drug operation anymore, she was in full "burn everything and everyone" mode. And because she wasn't even in the room, she cared even less about what she was doing to it. So she didn't see the fact that her little rampage had dislodged the various wiring from the machinery. Mainly the giant mixing machine that the mech was currently under. The one sparking and zapping and barely holding together. Liara sprayed bullets onto it, dislodging the metal plate around the wires. She then powered up her biotics and sent it flying towards the mixer.
The various electronics were dislodged, wires and cables spilled down onto the mech. There was a huge flash of sparks. The mech flailed around, its head twitching randomly. Eventually the mixer's power died out, but the mech quickly rebooted. Varna's voice, now even more distorted by the damage screamed out of it as it turned toward's Liara's position.
"You think I need shields to kill you people?" Varna snarled. "This mech is still a fucking beast, either way! Bring it the fuck on if you think you're so tough!"
The mech lashed out with its flamethrower, spewing a torrent of fire across the room as it advanced on Liara's position. With few options, Liara assaulted the mech with a Warp attack as she fled from the surging flames.
"That ain't enough to bust through this thing's shell!" Varna claimed.
That was when Wrex made his move, flinging a powerful throw attack right into the mech. The biotic detonation resulted in sending the YMIR flying backwards into one of the cookers, busting off the door. That wasn't enough to kill it though, nor destroy its armor, but it did enrage Varna.
"I see what you're doing," she growled. "You wanna divide and conquer, huh? Well I know how to resolve that problem."
The YMIR launched a blazing storm of missiles from the pods on its back. Dozens of tiny projectiles shot out, targeting either Liara or Wrex. Even the ever powerful and steadfast Wrex had to move quickly. He vaulted over his cover and made a mad dash for part of the assembly line. The lab area was destroyed and Wrex found himself thrown into the machinery by the shockwave somewhat, but he was at least in one piece.
At the same time, Liara reached out with her biotics to create a barrier to block the incoming missiles. The projectiles exploded against the kinetic barricade, but when Varna added a shot from the YMIR's arm cannon it was too much. The blast from the larger missile sent Liara flying, flipping over an oven and landing behind it. She sat herself up best she could, but soon could feel heat all around her. It wasn't from the oven though. No, it was from all the fire around it. Varna's cackle confirmed her suspicion.
"It would be more satisfying if I could stuff you in there, but this will do," Varna's electronic voice howled. "Maybe my next batch can be blue instead of red. I'll call it, Dead Pureblood Whore! How's that sound?"
Liara didn't respond, she just waited. Eventually, if she kept shooting off this flamethrower, the fuel would run out and she'd make a run for it. Or Wrex would get up and hit her in the back. Panicking right now, even though every muscle in her body said she had to, would get her nowhere.
However, she was surprised the flames suddenly stopped and Varna now sounded even more frustrated. Looking out she saw the entire left arm of the YMIR was frozen over, including the flamethrower. Varna shook the icy appendage, trying to smash out the deep freeze it had been stuck in. Liara looked to find the obvious culprit, Kayap, standing atop a demolished assembly line and aiming his Avalanche at the mech. The unggoy fired again, this time freezing one of the missile pods solid. Liara wasted no time in exploiting this, she fired what was left in her clip at the frozen pod, shattering it under the haze of gunfire.
"Bitch! You know how much that cost?!" Varna screamed.
Varna smashed the ice off her mech's arm and then took aim at Liara. Before she could respond with a singularity, lift or throw attack, an explosion erupted along the right side of the mech. The remaining missile pod burst open, forcing the mech to fall forward as fire surged along its back. Wrex had fired an explosive modified round from his shotgun right into the missile pod, completely destroying it and taking a huge bite out of the YMIR's armor.
"There, now you match again," the krogan huffed.
The mech turned violently, as an enraged Varna screamed over the now heavily distorted voice box. She let every gun rip as Wrex ran across the processing room's floor, the asari behind the YMIR constantly screaming the whole way. Liara couldn't help but imagine Varna was the kind of person who screamed at her vid games wen things didn't go her way.
Kayap had by now joined Liara, standing by her side with his plasma pistol. Even as Varna's shots ripped through her drug supply, Wrex kept her focus squarely on him. Good, that was the key to ending this. She bent down next to Kayap and let him know the plan.
"Overcharge your pistol and fire it into the breach in her armor," she told him. "I need to get close."
"You got it, boss," Kayap confirmed.
Liara rushed off towards the mech, knowing Kayap would do what needed to be done. She remembered how the plasma pistol had an EMP effect when fully discharged on a mechanical target. Well there was now one really big mechanical target facing them down. That left things open to a very easy solution to this problem.
As Kayap fired his shot it hit the YMIR's breached armor perfectly, hitting the machine's circuitry and causing it to shutdown suddenly. Now, Liara suspected, given what had happened with the live wires before, that Varna would try to reboot the system. It would more than likely work, but the seconds the YMIR was offline gave her all the time she would need.
Liara jumped up onto a nearby table and launched herself towards the mech. She grasped the YMIR's back and scrambled up to the top as fast as possible. Even as she reached the summit, the machine began to spring back to life. It turned towards Kayap, forcing Liara to hang on dearly. Varna took direct aim at Kayap, raising her missile cannon to fire on him.
"Don't know what you are, ugly, but fuck it," Varna snarled. "I'm killing some- Wait... where's T'Soni?"
Varna caught on too late, she may not have been a complete idiot, but she was still not fast enough regardless. Liara powered up her biotic fist and smashed it down onto the YMIR's head. The steel crumpled beneath her field of power, the head practically imploding upon impact. As she tore her hand out of the now headless machine, she fired several more rounds into it with her pistol just to be sure. she then leapt off as the war machine toppled over and collapsed to the ground.
They couldn't hear Varna anymore, but Liara imagined she was none too happy about the loss of her little toy. Picking herself up off the ground, she regrouped with Kayap and Wrex, now standing the middle of a ravaged drug processing plant. A hazy smoke of destroyed Minagen X3 wafting in the background.
"Best not breathe that in," Liara warned. "Powers up biotics, but it's hazardous to your health."
"Well we kinda killed two pyjaks with one grenade here," Wrex stated. "I mean, they're not going to be using this place to make more drugs anytime soon and that's one less killer mech around."
"I won't be satisfied until the asari controlling it is no longer a threat either," Liara insisted. "Kayap, you still have some ammo left in the Avalanche?"
"A few more shots, but running close to empty," the unggoy replied.
"Then we best head to the landing pads and cut off their escape," she told the group. "We need to stop as many Eclipse Sister shuttles as possible from escaping. I'll call in the Lucen, see if they can't blockade them from orbit. But we need to be ground side, regardless."
"Then we gotta move to catch'em," Wrex informed her. "Varna will not stick around much longer knowing her proxy is dead."
Liara nodded in agreement and took point once more as they headed for the back exit. They left the tattered remains of the Eclipse Sister's drug prospects behind them. No matter what happened now, one thing was for sure. The Sisters were done. They'd scatter after this. There was nothing Varna could do to stop that now. The mission would not be complete though until Varna herself was captured.
They needed to know everything that bigshot thug had in her mind. While Liara accepted that probably wouldn't be much, given who Varna, she suspected the mercenary would give up something of value if pressed hard enough.
Nel came out onto the tarmac first, where the shuttles were already well underway. The Eclipse Sisters spotted her pretty quickly, throwing down what supplies they had in their hands and opening fire on the turian. Nel strafed the shuttles as she moved to cover with Vik dropping a sentry to provide additional covering fire. The quarian stuck besides, but Saya looked ready to break into a sprint. Nel obliged him.
"Go!" She shouted. "We'll cover you!"
Saya nodded and took off, sword in hand. One of the sisters fired at him while sending a shockwave at him. He tucked and rolled to the side, popping up on her right. He slashed deep into the asari before firing at the sister nearby with his pistol. He ducked into cover near a supply crate as the remaining sisters opened up on him.
Nel targeted the extra mercs, but it was clear they had no intention of sticking around. They started moving back towards the shuttles, trying to make their escape. As one of the shuttles attempted takeoff, Nel unloaded a furious barrage of bullets into its thrusters. The shuttle rose up a few feet before the engine suddenly exploded and the entire craft slammed back down into the ground.
"Ha! That's right! Fuck you, bitches!" The turian shouted.
A door nearby suddenly opened and Nel turned to take aim at what she thought were more mercs making their escape along their flank. Instead, it was just Liara, Wrex and Kayap. They had found their way here it. Good, now they could finish this mission.
Vik and Nel moved forward now under the base of Liara and Wrex's fire. The two groups converged along the first landing pad. The shotgun of the krogan warlord easily gunning down any Eclipse Sisters who didn't retreat from their shuttle. It wasn't their true target though, that was the shuttle on the furthest pad. Everyone could plainly see Varna among the group of mercs crowding around the shuttle, intent on making a final stand while their shuttle prepared for liftoff.
"Advance and take them down," Liara ordered. "We want Varna alive!"
Nel moved forward first, Saya along her flank backing her up. They didn't get five feet before something appeared from below the edge of the building. Rushing up from below, almost out of nowhere, was a gunship. There was only a little time to react. Nel dove into cover as the craft strafed along her position. Saya cloaked and ran as fast as he could out of the killzone.
Liara could only just grimace, once again Varna was throwing something else in their path to facilitate an escape. For someone who acted like the big bad mercenary boss, she really was just a petty crook trying to make a clean getaway from a sinking ship. if they still wanted Varna, they needed to act fast.
"Vik, take its shields down," she ordered the quarian. "Target it with whatever you have! Wrex, shred the armor with carnage! Kayap, freeze the engines, drop it from the sky!"
All at once her team went to work. Vik reoriented his sentry turret to assault the gunship's shields, while Nel continued to shoot harassing fire as it circled the building. It took the occasional shot, but with so many shuttles still on the ground, along with fellow Sisters, perhaps the merc inside was hesitant.
Whatever the reason, it worked to their advantage. Vik was able to charge up a powerful Overload attack in his omni-tool, overclocking the basic functions. When he let it loose, the craft's shields went completely dead. Wrex used the chance to strike. He let a carnage shot loose to shred the armor and then kept firing his shotgun up at the ship. The flying machine turned and launched a missile his way, but the krogan charged ahead as the projectile slammed into the roof beneath him. He continued blasting at the underbelly of the gunship, forcing its attention to stay on him.
Kayap, however, was the real threat. Largely ignored by the gunship, the unggoy charged up the avalanche for firing and let loose. He targeted the engines, jamming them up with cryogenic ice. The fires in the thrusters died, the systems sputtered and the craft began to spin out of control. The gunship inevitably crashed into another shuttle trying to speed away from the action, exploding in a violent fireworks display. More than likely due to a few volatile explosives aboard the shuttle were the cause.
However, this was not Varna's shuttle. As the gunship went down, Liara saw it start to lift off and away. She fired her pistol at it as it took off into the sky, her frustration boiling over into a snarl. Varna's craft lurched upwards and took off into the sky. The merc was a free bird.
"Damn it!" Liara shouted, throwing her gun down on the ground. "Damn it!"
The rest of the team approached the asari, sharing her annoyance and discouragement.
"We can find her!" Nel insisted. "How far can the bitch run?"
"There's a number of places she could go to within this cluster and by the time we find her there she might be long gone," Liara exclaimed. "We just blew our one shot at..."
It was then Liara noticed Saya holding up his omni-tool to his own eye level, the screen flashing a green signal. He then held up a special gun that he waved around. Liara recognized the make, an STG standard edition FTL tracking beacon gun. Used for emergencies like this, when targets got away.
Liara smiled lightly at that. They had not lost this day after all, not yet.
Back aboard the Lucen, Liara did her bes to pour over the data Saya's tracker was broadcasting. The signal strength was a wide berth, but it narrowed down a possible location towards a few systems. With more time they could probably zero in, but Liara did not want to wait. She had a mission to see through to the end. Varna would not get a reprieve.
She went over the notes on the target in question, trying to get into her headspace. it wasn't hard. Varna was a thug on the run. Her gang was scattered, her operation devastated. She had nowhere to really go at this point. She doubted her fellow Eclipse mercs in the other branches would be happy to discover she more or less lost her commission. Not to mention, she left her people to more or less die on the ground, fleeing like a coward instead of fighting like an honorable soldier. At least Wasea had stood and fought Shepard.
So where would she flee? Where else, her fellow contacts. The failure to nab her at her HQ was perhaps a blessing in disguise. Now she could potentially track her back to her sellers, the Seppies, Trox, Balak maybe. She couldn't have gone far on the shuttle she was in, they only had so much fuel. So the question was, did this system have some friends of her close by?
That was when she recalled something they had picked up during their infiltration of STG headquarters, two agents discussing codenames they intercepted for smuggling drop points. One of them had heard a bird in the background and enhanced it slightly. They still had the recording.
"Glyph," she ordered. "What was the bird call we identified from the recording we overheard in STG HQ?"
"The Yellow Spotted Crested Narble-Walb, Shadow Broker," the VI replied simply. "A very rare species native only to a few planets."
"Any in this cluster of systems?" Liara asked.
Glyph performed a quick scan of available information and soon came back with a result.
"Only one suitable habitat it could've have thrived in during transport," Glyph claimed. "Pernax 02, in the neighboring Stelnarv System."
Glyph highlighted the planet in question. A known stop over for many smugglers, once a small colony settlement for the rich that failed due to an onset of disease. Many pets escapes captivity, most exotic birds. Liara could've sworn she had seen this planet before though.
She did a quick overview of her information, everything from the investigation so far. That was when she spotted it. It was on the star chart they recovered from the Forerunner ruins. It was a potential landing site for their exodus, marked clearly on their map, but it was in the red, not fully functional yet or presumed lost. She hadn't sent anyone to investigate it because she believed it to be a dead end. They wouldn't find anything interesting there. Perhaps she was wrong. If Balak or Trox or any of their cronies decided to give the place a visit, then maybe they should take a peek themselves.
She contacted the others.
"Get ready to move, team," she told them with renewed vigor in her tone. "We have something."
AN: This was one of those chapters I had to fight to write through, if only because I struggled with what my intended goal was. More or less, to give a good old fire fight from start to finish with some decent action sequences, leading us into something a bit more interesting before I activate a major plot point I've been building towards with this very story. Think of it as a buffer of sorts, something to properly gauge the time between now and an intended big deal character development chapter later. This right now is about advancing plot, so there were certain functions it had to fill. So, what am I building to exactly? Well you'll have to wait a bit longer. For now, expect some more Forerunner temple shenanigans next time.