Chapter 15 - Double-Edged Sword

January 24th, 2211, 0509 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 9, Pedestrian Corridor 20F – Outside Hangar bay 2-D

12 hours and 09 minutes after Outbreak.

Cade pointed at the line of bruises that had begun to discolor my jaw. "Looks like the old man really did a number on you," he gaffed. "You don't look too good."

I raised my helmet and slipped it on. It sealed with a hiss, hiding the purple splotches alongside my jaw and my bloodshot eyes from his penetrating glare. "I'll live," I replied.

Cade crossed his arms against his chest and tapped a gloved talon on his armored rerebrace. His mandibles were drawn tight across his jaw and he had what might have been a look of consternation plastered on his own plated face.

"You know, there hasn't been many times where I've seen you throw so many successive Warps…"

The turian Spectre's light-blue eyes narrowed suspiciously at me, boring through the navy-blue visor of my helmet and into my eyes. I physically turned, averted my gaze and looked away but Cade refused to let it go. He stared relentlessly at me, his look of consternation growing stronger and stronger. I looked at the charge of my kinetic barriers, expecting them to dip any moment under my friend's ruthless scrutiny.

Cade grabbed my shoulder and spun me towards him, his mandibles now flaring outwards in anger.

"What did you take?" he asked accusingly. "As far as biotics go you're no slouch, but I've never seen anyone but asari matriarchs or their veteran commandos use biotics like that."

I tried to rip my shoulder out of his grasp but my friend's grip might as well have been a vise clamp. Galen and Jaelen both stood a few feet away, maintaining a minimum safe distance and silently observing our little spat with more than a hint of nervousness.

Cade refused to let it go. He moved closer and grabbed both my shoulders again, his face a couple of inches from my helmet. I was close enough that I could hear his native language behind the universal translators we all had installed.

"Was it Minagen X9?"

My silence was all the answer that he needed. Like a candle before an open window his anger blew out. He let go, wearily shook his head and sighed.

"This isn't the second time, Spirits, it isn't even the third, or the fourth," he said dejectedly.

The urge to defend my decisions and my actions began to bloom within my chest. "I didn't have a choice. We were outnumbered and possibly up against the most skilled of the saboteurs, we needed every advantage we could get," I tried to explain.

Cade didn't buy it, instead he squeezed my shoulder even harder, seeking an outlet for his frustration that wouldn't involve shooting me in the kneecaps or punching me in the face. His talons dug slightly into my pauldron, carving light grooves in the matte-black plating.

"We did have a choice! We could have both gone down together and flanked them! You didn't need to go down by yourself, you just insisted!" Cade said angrily.

"You use that excuse every time we're in a situation like that!" He continued. "You always think that there's no other way, that you need to do something either incredibly insane or incredibly harmful to yourself to win. Well I'm telling you, you're wrong, you damned monkey!."

Jaelen coughed and sheepishly raised a hand, as if to seek permission to speak. "Minagen X9 waste products not properly metabolized in humans, will accumulate over time unless surgery is performed. Also, overdose and overuse of biotics under its effects may lead to destruction of the central nervous system, but keep in mind, so can accumulation of these waste products."

I already knew all that. Minagen X9 was metabolized into Meritaldehyde or something like that. Humans can't excrete or metabolize it, so every time you used Minagen X9, the amount of Meritaldehyde in your body would accumulate. Side effects of a high concentration of the metabolite included headaches, memory loss, hallucinations, loss of motor function, and eventually death as your nervous system was destroyed piecemeal.

Asari could metabolize it no problem, but for every other species we had to be extremely careful in its use. I'd used it four times in my life, and while I hadn't developed any side effects yet, that in itself was no indication of whether or not I was hitting that lethal concentration. The concentration of Meritaldehyde necessary to produce those side effects wasn't far off from the concentration needed to fully destroy your nervous system. By the time I felt those side effects, the destruction of my nervous system was likely not that far off. It was like Alzheimers, Microencephaly, and the Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease rolled up in one convenient, deadly package.

Oh, and did I mention that there wasn't a firmly established LD50? The tolerance varied from individual to individual. Some people could handle several hundred ppm, others several thousand, and a few unlucky ones burned out at a couple dozen.

Treatment was a complex, dangerous, and highly experimental surgery that involved cleaning your nervous system, for lack of a better description. The asari had never put much stock into developing such treatments, seeing as they could metabolize Meritaldehyde, so most of the research was done by salarian, human, and turian joint initiatives. Given the relative youth of Minagen abuse, the science behind it was still young and therefore not totally conclusive.

My best friend waved a hand at our salarian scientist and looked angrily back at me. "See? Jaelen knows what he's talking about, and even I know that every time you use Minagen X9, you're rolling the dice."

I sighed and gently grabbed Cade's wrists and removed his hands from my shoulders.

"I'm sorry, okay?" I began, "We didn't have enough time, Val said that their ship was en-route to extract them and we had barely twenty minutes to work with."

I could see my friend's gaze begin soften at my apology. As far as hot-headed individuals went, Cade was surprisingly easy to talk down, provided you kept your head. The intensity of his glare dialed down and his mandibles started to relax.

"Besides, I needed you to cover Jaelen and the rookie in case things went south up there. It's one thing to use your booster jets to jump down to assist me, but getting back up to assist them? That wouldn't have been possible."

Cade nodded and conceded that fact. It was something I had come up with on the spot, but he ate it up nonetheless.

"I'll go see a doctor once were back on the Citadel, do a full scan, I promise. I'll even have Jaelen do it," I assured him.

This seemed to mollify the turian Spectre. He nodded again and stepped back, obviously willing to temporarily put this aside so that we could refocus on the mission. My friend unsling his Vindicator Battle Rifle from his armor and powering it up.

I grabbed Accer's N7 Hurricane from my back and powered it on. Zakiah the salarian saboteur had destroyed my borrowed N7 Valkyrie with a grenade in the last fight, leaving me with just my pistol and the submachine gun and seriously crippling my long-range capabilities. I was down to my last reload on my Hurricane, and my pistol had maybe two reloads left before its ammunition block also ran dry. I could still use my biotics, but likely not for much longer and not with the same power and intensity that I had done so under the influence of Minagen X9.

After my weapons ran out, I'd be down to my Talon knives.

Cade checked the ammunition block in his Vindicator and gave a slight hiss. "I've literally got three bursts left."

He powered off his Vindicator and slung it beside Meera. With a wide grin he unholstered both of his Carnifex pistols, powered them on, and began to make pretend shooting noises out his mouth, fake-firing his pistols at imaginary enemies.

Our other two companions had relaxed now that the storm between me and Cade had passed, returning them to relatively decent spirits. Jaelen cocked an eyebrow and gave my friend's antics an amused grin. "Very movie star-esque. Looking forward to your next film."

Cade pantomimed firing a pair of shots, then whirled and fired another pair at some target only he could see. "I'll talk to my agent, see if he can land me a role in the next Blasto movie."

The scientist's eyes grew wide. "Blasto 15?"

My friend deftly twirled both Carnifex's before putting them back in their holsters. "16. 15 was Blasto: Citadel Royale," Cade replied.

"Ah, very much liked the new hanar they casted as Blasto, previous one much too talkative, too comedic, give me a silent, cold, ruthless Blasto any day," Jaelen nodded.

Cade nodded enthusiastically and slipped an arm around the salarian scientist, pulling him close. "Agreed! I think the fact that the hanar was a lighter shade of pink than every other previous Blasto doesn't diminish his on-screen presence in any way."

"Yes! In my opinion his mannerisms and his character habits are most in-line with the original Blasto from the first film. Blasto needs to be cold, calm, collected, not cracking jokes and making quips."

"Enkindle this, cue point-blank headshot, not enkindle THIS, cue comedic moment!" Cade crowed. Jaelen laughed and nodded in agreement.

The pair continued their little back and forth on the relative strength and merits of the latest Blasto actor compared to all the previous ones. Personally I preferred the latest iteration of the beloved film character as well. The stories might have been bad, but the actor was definitely top notch.

I turned my head to check on Galen. The young turian marine was also busy checking the remaining ammunition left in his Avenger.

Whatever was left must not have been good, because he slipped the Avenger onto his back with a small sigh and pulled out a standard-issue Predator pistol.

"Sir, we're running on fumes here. If we run into serious trouble we're not going to be able to shoot our way out."

"Agreed, Private. You have a plan?" I asked him.

Galen moved up beside me and pulled up a schematic on his omni-tool. With a tap of his finger he highlighted a portion of the ship not forty meters away from our current position, between us and the bridge. He brought his thumb and his forefinger together at the spot, then spread them apart, further magnifying the location he had highlighted.

Armory 2-D.

I removed my helmet and peered at the location with great interest. I looked towards Galen and grinned at him. The marine nervously grinned back.

"The hangar bays are the most likely ingress point for any boarding force, so the SSV Hippocrates was designed so that an armory would be situated near each hangar bay to allow crewmembers to arm themselves and form a quick reaction force in the event of a boarding," he explained.

He pulled up a list and sent it to me. I opened it on my omni-tool and scanned through it. It was an inventory list of weapons and equipment. The majority of the items were pretty standard-issue—items such as M-8 Avengers, M-3 Predators, M-23 Katana's, and frag grenades—but on a separate list beneath the main list was a shorter, much more appealing one.

"They have Black Widow Sniper Rifles aboard a god-damn ship?" I asked in disbelief.

Galen nodded. "The Hippocrates is over a kilometer long, the hangar bays themselves are nearly eighty meters long and the ship's central passageway is nearly eight hundred. There's more than a few places where you could put these babies to good use, and I'm betting their ammunition blocks are compatible with your Snakebite."

My Sniper Rifle had been hanging unloved and unused on my back for what must have been the last eight or nine chapters. It was about time to change that.

One little snag.

"It says here that access to this inventory is restricted, we can't get through that door without heavy explosives," I pointed out.

Galen's mandibles splayed out in an even wider turian grin. He pulled a key card from a utility pouch and twirled it between his fingers.

"One of the saboteurs we killed back in the machine room was actually the marine lieutenant in charge of the platoon that Sergeant Mardinus and I are attached to, I recognized some of the personal effects he had attached to his armor. I grabbed this off of him just in case we needed to stock up on some extra firepower."

I chuckled. "Good man, I hope you weren't too attached to him."

Galen shook his head and snorted. "He was an asshole."

"I thought you turians were all about duty and loyalty to your commanding officers," I pointed out.

The young private snorted again. "Turian commanding officers, maybe. Human officers are a whole other beast. Maybe it's because he was the first commanding officer I've ever had, or maybe it's because I've barely got the scales to cover my balls, but he didn't strike me as a model officer, the kind that the textbooks teach us that we should die for. He never listened to us, never gave a damn about us. He'd dismiss our concerns and ignored how we felt about his orders or the way he decided to run things."

He flapped his mandibles in a turian equivalent of a sigh and dipped his head down.

"Sergeant Mardinus and a couple of the more experienced turian marines in our platoon had no problems following Lieutenant Hackman's every order like he was sent by the Spirits themselves, but a part of me always got the feeling that he didn't care for us. It made obeying him difficult."

Galen looked away, his brow-plates came together and hinted at the turmoil within the young private's head.

"I want to be a good turian. My father was a merchant sailor and my mother a teacher, they did their mandatory civilian service but never wanted to rise any higher than the rank of citizen in the meritocracy. I want to be everything that they could never be, I want to fight for what is right on a dozen different worlds, I want to earn the respect of my commanding officer and my fellow turians, I want to make a difference in the galaxy."

"But If I can't even do something as simple as respecting my commanding officer, I have no idea how I'll manage all of that," he finished.

Galen's shoulders slumped forward. He deactivated the map on his omni-tool and sighed.

I looked towards Cade and Jaelen, both still loudly engrossed in an animated conversation about the latest Blasto films, the advantages of the new M-6 Carnifex, and whether or not human or asari women were more attractive.

I placed a hand gently on the young marine's shoulder and dropped my voice so that we wouldn't be overheard. I wasn't good at this. Give me a target or an objective and I was the Michaelangelo of Spectres in my opinion, but when it came to something as simple as speaking what was truly on my mind about a specific subject, I was hopeless.

Galen reacted to my hand on his shoulder and looked up at me. His green eyes contrasted with the red clan markings on his dark grey skin. Unlike most mature turians, his plates still looked soft and thin, uncracked and unweathered. He was barely a mature adult by his species' standards. Just a boy.

I had only known the young turian for half a day, and if I were to compare who he was now to who he was twelve hours ago, I would be hard-pressed to say that they were one and the same. I remembered Mardinus' introduction of him back at the bridge, how he had stuttered and hero-worshipped Cade, Percival and I.

I looked at him now. He didn't stutter anymore, had fighting skills that amazed even me, had the tactical and strategic sense to grab the keycard and point out the armory, and above all, displayed a drive to do something meaningful and good with his life, beyond the standard call of duty. And he wasn't even eighteen yet.

I cleared my throat and began to speak. "Hey, whatever doubts you may have about yourself, I think that you're on the right path."

His brow-plates and his mandibles relaxed ever so slightly at my words, giving me the encouragement I needed to press on with my awkwardly-worded inspirational speech.

"If there is one thing that I've come to realize during my time as a Spectre, it's that at the end of the day, there is always another way to realize your goals," I began.

"We humans have a saying, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. I think that there is truth in that saying, truth that is applicable to your life right now."

"Just because you don't fit the mold of a model turian like Mardinus or Barthilus doesn't mean you can't become something great. The fact that your parents weren't high ranking military officers or high up on the meritocracy tier list doesn't matter worth a damn either."

"I've seen a lot that this galaxy has to offer, I've worked with a lot of different soldiers, politicians, civilians, doctors, scientists, what have you. Out of all of them, the one thing I've noticed that separates the exceptional from the mundane is that drive to become something great. It didn't matter where they started from, or what their personalities or tendencies or habits were like. As long as that drive is there, as long as they nurtured it and let it guide them without fear, they will become something great."

Galen's eyes look into mine and for a brief moment I saw what a more sentimental man might have mistaken for hope. His mandibles closed and opened repeatedly as he carefully considered what I had to say.

"I see that drive in Cade, in Percival, in Accer and Teewin and Camilla," I continued. "But above all, I see that drive in you, as strong as a star and as clear as day, stronger than in any of us."

I removed my hand and lightly punched the younger turian in the arm. "I expect great things from you, Private Galen Verus," I finished.

Galen hastily brushed away a few tears on the back of his armored gauntlet and nodded resolutely at me. "Thank you, sir. I won't let you down," he promised.

"I know. Now go tell Cade and Jaelen about the armory. We're going to need the extra firepower not just to fight our way to the bridge, but to fight our way back to one of the hangar bays for extraction. Have Cade radio Captain Murgen and Percival, ask them what they need."

Galen nodded. "You've got it, Sir."

He saluted and jogged up to where Cade and Jaelen were currently conversing. I watched as he pulled up the map on his omni-tool and began to recount what he had told me regarding the armory and its contents.

I had meant every word that I said to the young marine, specifically the part about that drive needing to be nurtured. He was young, and although the events aboard this ship had been a test of monumental proportions it would be likely be the first in a long line of tests, each one capable of crushing that drive, of crushing his spirit.

The galaxy needed more stars like Galen. Many young hopefuls started their lives with that same drive, only for life's tests to stomp it into the ground and snuff it out. Every life was capable of such potential, but there were many things in the galaxy that were capable of crushing it. I was determined to not let that happen with Galen. He had the potential to become something truly great.

I wasn't very good at these things. I just said what I thought my mother would have said to the young turian.

Up ahead, I caught the words "Black Widow", followed by a very high-pitched, almost girly squeal of delight.

January 24th, 2211, 0526 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 9, Pedestrian Corridor 20F – Outside Armory 2-D

12 hours and 26 minutes after Outbreak.

The Corpser howled and sprinted at the turian marine.

Rather than back away and risk stumbling, Galen leapt forward and ducked beneath the jagged claws of the crazed monster, it's wildly scything arms hitting nothing but air.

In what I considered now to be the young turian's trademark move, Galen pivoted so that he was facing the back of the snarling creature and placed two well-aimed shots into the back of its skull, where the armor-plating seemed thinnest.

The Corpser's brains blew out in a bright spray of blue and pink and it immediately ceased howling. Galen whirled back around just to duck underneath the claws of another Corpser.

I emptied the remainder of my magazine into the stomach of the first Corpser Galen had executed. The Crawlers within shrieked as they were shredded and fell silent just as the heatsink on my Hurricane overheated and the ammunition counter blinked red.

I quickly clipped it to my thigh and in that same motion brought my left hand up in a gripping gesture. My amp lit up and snagged a pair of onrushing Corpser's in a stasis field before they could join the Corpser currently trying to eviscerate Galen.

Galen ducked underneath a wild swing from his Corpser and delivered a powerful kick right into the gut of his foe. The ex-asari stumbled backwards to fall in front of the two Corpser's that I had trapped, it's jaws snapping in frustration and rage.

A fiery Incineration bolt flew between Galen and I to slam bodily into the trio, setting off a combination detonation that blew the synthetic-organic hybrids to charred hunks of metal and flesh.

A large Krogan Corpser howled almost in indignation and anger at the destruction of its fellow comrades. The body armor it had originally been wearing hung in tatters atop its body, ruptured and destroyed in places where metallic spikes had burst out of its skin. With an angry shake of its head it began stomping towards us.

The first shot blew a fist-sized hole through the center of the Corpser's headplate, exposing what was left of its brain. The second and third punched into its throat, the second one shredding the armor-plating that had grown around it and the third ripping apart its esophagus. The fourth, fifth, sixth blew off the creature's left leg.

It laboriously began to drag itself by its claws, the damage to its throat negating its ability to howl or snarl or make any sort of sound other than a soft, wheezing noise. The seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth bullets blew off both of its arms. Finally, it flopped onto its back and died.

Cade stepped between Galen and I and emptied the remainder of his dual Carnifex's into the stomach of the krogan Corpser, killing the Crawlers within. Satisfied that the combatant was completely out of play, he faked-blew smoke from the barrels of both of his Carnifex's, in utter defiance and disregard of the fact that no weapons in this day and age used gunpowder, and deftly holstered them.

He looped one arm around my shoulder and another around Galen's and pulled us both in.

"Don't you wish Carnifex was at your side?" he crowed.

I rolled my eyes while Galen gave a light laugh. Cade grinned and let us both go. He carefully walked up to the fallen creature and took a moment to appreciate his handiwork.

"Was that really necessary?" Jaelen asked my friend.

Cade threw up his hands in mock defeat and turned towards us in confusion. "I'm sorry, did I misunderstand the part where we are literally outside an armory filled with hundreds of thousands of bullets?"

"Touche."

I scoffed and made my way past my friend, nudging him roughly with my shoulder as I walked by. He stumbled a bit in response but otherwise didn't reciprocate in kind.

Cade and I took up positions on either side of the armory doors, with Jaelen keeping an eye on the corridor we had just come from. I gestured for Galen to move up and open the door.

The young marine came between us and tapped a code into the door's electronic lock. With a hiss they slid open.

Cade was the first one through, then I. The room wasn't large, maybe twenty feet deep, twelve feet wide and eight feet tall, but it was filled to the absolute brim with all sorts of standard weapons. Dozens of Avengers, Predators, Katanas, even a few Mantis Sniper Rifles. It didn't look like the saboteurs had bothered looting the room or its contents.

Satisfied that the room was secured, I waived the rest of my team inside. Galen sealed the door behind us and Jaelen immediately grabbed a large duffel bag from a rack to the side. He wasn't comfortable shooting anything other than his M-3 Predator, and had instead volunteered to be our mule in case our fellow survivors on the bridge needed some extra firepower. He began moving around the room and filling it with all sorts of ammunition blocks and grenades, with a couple of spare weapons in case the survivors needed them. The tiny mass effect field generators built into the bag would help alleviate most of the weight and make it easier to carry.

Galen immediately began moving deeper into the room with Cade and I close behind. None of us bothered with any of the standard-issue weaponry in the main room, all three of us knew that the real goodies were in the sealed section.

A large metal door stood guard at the back of the room. Galen walked up to it and inserted his stolen keycard into a slot in the wall. Immediately the sound of gears could be heard within the door. A green light lit up on a panel and the large metal door began to swing open. The inside of the room was dark but upon our entry a series of automatic lights flickered on, illuminating the treasures within.

This room was much tinier, but the contents were so much more beautiful.

The racks on either side of the room had M-76 Revenants and M-96 Mattock Assault Rifle's slotted into them. Galen immediately made his way over to one of the walls and pulled an M-96 Mattock from the rack. It was a good-looking gun, semi-automatic with a very aesthetic carrying rail and a gunmetal gray finish instead of the usual white, marking it as a Systems Alliance-produced rifle rather than a privately manufactured one.

He inspected the weapon then, satisfied that it was in prime condition, slapped a small holographic sight onto the rail and slid half a dozen ammunition blocks into his belt. The Mattock could fire sixteen rounds as fast as you could pull the trigger before the heatsink overheated, each ammunition block was capable of storing maybe 112 rounds total before it ran dry.

That was a lot of bullets.

It was generally issued to a squad's designated marksmen. The smaller clip size made it less forgiving than the standard M-8 Avenger issued to Systems Alliance marines and it lacked the punch that an M-15 Vindicator or Valkyrie had, but all-in-all it was a good middle ground.

Galen then grabbed a couple of fragmentation and inferno grenades and hooked them onto the grenade-holders on his armor, ignoring the sticky and arc grenades. That was understandable, one had to have very, very good aim to make the best use of sticky grenades, and as nice as arc grenades were for disabling shields and electronics, they didn't do as much real damage as fragmentation or inferno grenades did.

I grabbed six sticky grenades and clipped them to my own grenade-holder. I grabbed my own M-96 Mattock and a pair of ammunition blocks and clipped them to my armor. Satisfied, I made my way to the back of the room where not one, but three Black Widow Sniper Rifles hung in sealed cabinets.

Hung as in past tense. Cade had already smashed the window on all three cabinets and had stripped all three Black Widows of their ammunition blocks. He also grabbed the six back-up blocks and was currently trying to figure out how to store them on his armor without the need for an external backpack. Like me he had grabbed a pair of ammunition blocks for his Vindicator.

"Hey friend, wanna share?" I asked.

Cade gave me a vicious look and muttered something that I couldn't hear. I held out my hand and stared pointedly at him.

After a few seconds, he slapped four of the ammunition blocks into my palm, a lone tear sliding down his face as he did so. That would give me 64 shots for my Snakebite and leave him with just over a hundred and ten rounds. Ass.

I grinned and unhooked my sniper rifle and began to insert one of the blocks. The way modern-day weapons worked was that each gun carried an ammunition block designed for that general line of weaponry. Assault rifles used assault rifle ammunition blocks, pistols used pistol ammunition blocks, shotguns used shotguns, etc etc. You couldn't put an assault rifle's ammunition block into the Snakebite and expect that it would work.

How many rounds you could fire before your weapon overheated and how many reloads your ammunition block provided depended on the size of the bullet your weapon was designed to shave off. For example, Cade's Black Widow could fire three rounds before the weapon overheated and he had to either swap heatsinks or wait for it to cool down. After about 21 total shots, the ammunition block for his weapon would be expended, because each shot was 1/21 of the overall ammunition block.

My Snakebite on the other hand could only fire one round before the weapon overheated, and could eke out sixteen rounds from an ammunition block. Each of my rounds were larger than Cade's, being about 1/16th of an ammunition block.

The damage that a weapon could increase was also further influenced by barrel size, ammunition mods, etc etc, but this is basically the gist of how ammunition blocks worked. Furthermore, once your weapon overheated, you could either wait for it to cool down, or slip a heatsink into your weapon and continue firing.

There were pros and cons of this weapon design. Back in the 21st century, human soldiers carried individual magazines into battle. The fact that each magazine held maybe a couple dozen bullets compounded with the fact that the magazines were large and bulky meant that a soldier could only carry maybe half a dozen of them comfortably into a fight, leaving them with maybe only a little over a hundred bullets depending on their choice of weapons.

With ammunition blocks, a soldier could now carry hundreds of rounds while carrying the same amount of ordinance, and wouldn't have to worry about constantly removing and inserting magazines into his or her weapon. Sure, carrying and swapping heatsinks was a hassle, but it wasn't necessary unless you intended to keep up a near-continuous rate of fire. I kept maybe two or three somewhere on me at all times, otherwise I just let my weapon cool off as needed. That was also one of the benefits of the Snakebite, I could simply pull back the cooling lever and the weapon would cool without me having to wait.

Jaelen walked in while whistling, the duffel bag slung over his shoulder bristling with all manner of weaponry and ammunition, it's mass effect fields reducing its weight to that of maybe a backpack with a couple of textbooks.

He tossed a handful of pistol ammunition blocks at Cade and I. We grabbed them and clipped them somewhere on our thigh armor, near the weapons in question. I made sure to grab a few more, seeing as I tended to use my pistol a lot more than I did my Snakebite or any of the other weapons I was proficient in.

Now that we were both heavily-laden with bullets and grenades, Cade and I were in a much better mood. We had enough bullets to take out an entire army. Well, maybe a couple of companies, but you get the point.

"Theres one more thing," Galen smiled.

The young marine flipped open a panel off to the side and slid his stolen keycard into another slot. With a hiss the cabinets that once held the Black Widows began to slide apart to display a singular weapon stand with its lone occupant sitting snugly in its grasp.

Cade, Jaelen and I all gaped silently as Galen stepped back and crossed his arms, a smug look of amusement on his young plates.

It was an M-920 Cain.

"Dibs!" Cade instantly called out. He immediately shoved me aside and rushed into the small chamber, talons greedily stretched out and tongue spilling out of his mandibles.

Blue fire snaked its way down my arm and I brought my left hand up, trapping my friend in a Stasis. Cade immediately froze in place, his talons mere centimeters from the handle of the M-920 Cain.

Nicknamed the "Nuke Launcher", the M-920 Cain can fire a singular 25 gram slug at a speed of over five kilometers a second. The single shot that it carried possessed devastating explosive force, the impact typically producing a mushroom cloud that gives the weapon its nickname despite the fact that it was technically a railgun.

Also, I feel it prudent to point out that the reason why I don't stasis my enemies more is the fact that rapidly moving targets or targets that are further away are harder to freeze, not to mention the fact that I can't stasis something behind cover and the fact that biotics tended to be very tiresome to perform for non-asari.

Also I really, really didn't need stasis to kill people. Also because it's broken.

I moved my way past the frozen form of my friend. The look of intense pleading in his eyes was so pitiable that for a moment I half-considered letting him have the weapon.

I knelt down to observe the distance between his talon tips and the handle of the M-920 Cain. Two-point-six centimeters.

I tilted my head towards my friend and gave him a look of understanding and pity.

"Listen buddy, I know you really, really, really wanted to play with the Cain, but I need it for something. I can't tell you what I need it for, I can only ask that you take my word and put your trust in me," I explained.

Cade's blue eyes darted to mine. He upped the sadness and pleading in his eyes to the nth degree in a fruitless attempt to persuade me otherwise. Damn, when they really tried, turians could really give golden retrievers a run for their money when it came to puppy-dog eyes.

I gave an exaggerated, extended shrug. "Sucks to suck, friend."

I pulled the M-920 Cain from its stand and collapsed it into its deactivated form. I slipped the M-96 Mattock from my back and placed it on the stand in its stead, storing the M-920 Cain in its spot on my back. I was already carrying my Snakebite, my Predator, and Accer's Hurricane, not to mention a score of ammunition blocks. I didn't need any more extra weight.

My stasis wore off and Cade collapsed onto his knees. He placed both palms on the ground and let out a loud, heart-wrenching sob.

"Spirits damn you!" he cried as he pounded an armored fist onto the floor "Spirits damn you all to hell!"

"What?" Jaelen asked in confusion. Galen shrugged and turned to exit the room.

A green light on my omni-tool indicated that we were being hailed. My radio crackled to life and the slightly unnerved voice of Captain Murgen filtered through.

"Spectre, we're under attack by the creatures and we're running low on ammunition, are you in position to assist, over?"

I could also hear weapons fire and screaming also over the radio, but the majority of the noise was that of howling and snarling. I jammed down on the transmit button on my comms. set and quickly replied. "We're about ten minutes out, Captain, can you hold out? We've got weapons and ammunition."

"We'll do our best. I radioed the Flight Lieutenant to see if she could swing by and drop off the rest of my Jaegers, but that big-ass ship forced her to move further out of the system, she won't get here for at least twenty minutes."

"Roger that, Captain. We're oscar mike, hang on."

"Copy, double-time it, Spectre."

I pulled the Snakebite from my back and pressed its activation button. It immediately extended to its full eighty-two centimeter length, all matte-black with a powerful Seer scope affixed to the top of the gun. Aesthetically it was similar to the Black Widow, albeit with small visual differences.

Unlike the widow, the stock of the gun connected to the handle, and the body of the weapon was slimmer and less curved. The barrel design was similar to the M-92 Mantis or the M-97 Viper in which there was the main barrel and a slightly thinner one situated a few inches below, with a few metal "struts" connecting the two.

Don't ask me what the second barrel is for. It's not like the Mantis, the Viper, or the Snakebite fired from both barrels, or alternated fire between the two, or had an alternative fire method. It was probably just an aesthetic thing that the designers decided on.

Cade, who also heard the radio transmission, immediately ceased his childish antics and pulled his Black Widow out, activating it as well. He made a few minor adjustments to the scope, sighted down it a few times, then nodded at me. It's funny. We both hated shotguns but didn't think twice about using our sniper rifles on targets less than ten meters away.

Galen and Jaelen formed up behind us, the turian with the stock of his newly-acquired Mattock pressed firmly against his shoulder while the salarian had his pistol in one hand, a primed omni-tool in the other, and the bag of weapons on his back.

I took point and led the way.

January 24th, 2211, 0542 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Pedestrian Corridor 9G, currently enroute to the Bridge Main Entryway

12 hours and 42 minutes after Outbreak.

"Almost there, be ready," I told the rest of my team.

"Roger," Galen replied. The four of us had almost sprinted the entire way back to the bridge, the only respite that we had been allowed was the brief elevator ride back down to deck seven.

"Ready to be of use," Jaelen panted. Ragged gasps for air escaped from the salarian as we maintained our punishing pace towards the bridge. Excelling in the scientific profession required some sacrifices to be made in the pursuit of knowledge and as a result Jaelen wasn't in nearly as good shape as the rest of us.

Cade brought up the rear, his breathing as steady as mine was.

Up ahead the corridor turned sharply to feed into one of the four smaller doors that fed into the bridge's main entryway aside from the massive doors that fed from the ships central passageway.

I could hear shooting and gunfire rise occasionally over the din of howling and snarling, but the cacophony that the creatures raised was the prevailing overture. It didn't sound good.

"Captain Murgen, we're twenty seconds out!" I yelled into my radio.

"Spectre, this is Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus. Captain Murgen's busy repelling the attackers1 They've broken through the barricades and are on the bridge, we're taking casualties!."

Shit, once the creatures were inside the survivors would be engaged in close-quarters combat. Firing lines would become distorted, friendly-fire would become an issue, and the creature's numbers clear advantage in close-quarters combat could be disastrous.

"Lieutenant-Commander, you need to consolidate your defenders and re-establish proper firing lanes."

"Already doing so, Spectre! Get here soon!" The line clicked off.

The four of us rounded the corner and dashed into the entryway. More than two dozen Corpser's had their backs turned towards us. The hulking forms of not one, nor two, but three Changer's were interspersed among their numbers.

Ahead of them I could see that more of the creatures and another pair of Changer's had already made their way into the bridge. Streaks of tracer fire hammered into the creatures and a pair of detonations blew packs of the attackers apart, but their efforts did little to stem the tide. The survivors were likely running low on ammunition.

"Cade, with me, big one's first," I rapidly ordered. "Galen, suppress. Jaelen, weaken."

My team nodded and we immediately went to work. A blisteringly-hot Incineration bolt flew from Jaelen's omni-tool to slam into the back of a Changer's head, melting and twisting the armor-plates located there and setting alight some of the Corpser's that had been standing too close to the point of impact.

Cade and I immediately fired a combined total of five shots — three from him and two from me — into the back of the head of Jaelen's target. The Incineration bolt had weakened the plating there, allowing for our shots to punch through with minimal resistance. The face of the Changer erupted in a shower of sparks and flesh. Without a sound, it crumpled at the knees and crashed into the deck.

The rear echelons of the Corpser's turned as one. Twisted, synthetic faces of what had once been human, asari, and salarian leered angrily at us. The red light of their eyes flashed hungrily in anticipation at the thought of finally having access to fresh prey. In unison they howled and began to advance towards us.

Cade's omni-tool lit up and a wave of blue electricity spewed forth to hit the Corpser's front ranks. The Overload charge rooted four or five of the ones at the front of the pack in place, causing a few of their brethren to slam bodily into their backs.

Galen stepped up and let loose a pair of Inferno grenades from his gloved talons. They erupted in a bright-orange detonation of shrapnel and flames that tore nearly a score of the Corpser's apart.

One of the creatures managed to survive the devastating explosions. It coiled and leapt at the young marine, talons outstretched, its jaw unnaturally unhinged to expose row after row of jagged, metallic teeth mixed with the teeth of its original host.

With one quick motion I shouldered my Snakebite and, without bothering to sight down, blew a coconut-sized hole in the stomach of the Corpser. It crashed onto the deck with a shriek where it writhed in pain for a few seconds before Galen stepped up and put two rounds from his Mattock between its eyes.

My biotic amp spun up and I threw my hand forward. A massive blue wave swept forth and knocked another phalanx of Corpser's onto their backs. The powerful Throw field left them disoriented and vulnerable to the marksmanship of my fellow squad members. Gunfire erupted among the turians and the salarian as they all struggled to pick off as many of them as possible. Another grenade detonation further culled their ranks and a hastily-fired Incineration bolt left charred limbs and bodies on the deck of the ship.

I quickly called forth my biotics again. Azure flames erupted around my left hand as I summoned a Singularity and hurled it towards the entrance of the bridge. The tumultuous, dark-purple ball of biotic energy swirled menacingly in the air and prevented any more Corpser's from entering the bridge, buying time for the survivors inside to finish off those that had made it in and buying us time to eradicate the ones outside. A few of the Corpser's that tried to force their way in were picked up by the Singularity and made to dangle helplessly in the air.

Maybe if I were still under the effects of Minagen X9, my Singularity might have impeded the progress of the two remaining massive Changers. But I wasn't, and therefore it was with an ease that bordered on impudence that the pair of nine-feet tall, multi-ton behemoths waded through my Singularity and squeezed into the bridge, ripping through what was left of the barricades.

A pair of heavy-caliber shots blew out the heads of two of the Corpser's caught in my Singularity. I turned around just in time to see Cade duck under the swiping claws of a third Corpser, trigger his booster jets and propel himself several meters back, giving him the room necessary to bring his Black Widow up and squeeze a third shot that destroyed his attacker's head.

"Go!" he waved at me, "We'll handle them!"

The turian deftly slid in a new heatsink and shot a pair of Corpser's that were close to cornering Jaelen, who was busy using an M-8 Avenger from his weapon bag to mop up a wave of Crawlers. Galen was a blur of motion, alternating between his Mattock and his Talon combat knife, weaving between the creatures and leaving behind well-placed shots and knife wounds that either incapacitated or destroyed the creatures.

I ignored it all and clipped my Snakebite onto my back. I brought my hands together and quickly ripped them apart. My Singularity detonated, throwing aside the Corpsers I had entrapped and opening the way.

I sprinted into the bridge. I could see the bodies of several of the ship's remaining security personnel, all with a variety of horrific wounds and dismemberments, strewn on the deck amidst scores of Corpsers.

A few of the bridge officers were also among the fallen. In addition, the bodies of three of Murgen's Jaegers lay in close proximity to the entrance. One had had his whole right arm ripped off if the jagged, meaty edges around his shoulder was any indication, while another seemed to have died from multiple lacerations to his chest. Both still had their M-7 Lancers held tightly in their hands, an indication that just maybe they had gone down fighting.

The third Jaeger was nothing more than a pile of cracked, smoking armor. The similarly-destroyed bodies of half a dozen Corpsers around her told me all I needed to know about her heroic last moments and the decision that she had made.

Percival, Camilla, Lieutenant Barthilus and a few of the survivors who still had ammunition were currently firing all they had at the two Changers. The rest of the survivors – the marines from the Excalibur included – were left with small arms and knives. They formed tight ranks and focused on fighting off the smaller Corpsers.

I dashed forward, my Predator pistol in my hand. I emptied all twelve rounds into the back of the first Changer's head. It barely acknowledged the damage I had inflicted, so intent it was on reaching my friends and destroying them.

As my Predator overheated, I leapt up and used its spikes to clamber my way up its massive back. Once I was up on its shoulders, I wreathed my fist in bright, blue flames and began to hammer the spot where I had emptied my Pistol into.

Each blow further crumpled the plates that I had already weakened prior with my pistol. Eventually the plates cracked, the half-synthetic flesh beneath them tearing away to reveal the creatures brain. It was a sickly gray color, disfigured and tinged blue. A mess of wires ran between the lobes and attached themselves to various parts of the creature's skull.

With a grunt I ripped both Talon's from the small of my back and jammed them again and again into the vulnerable tissue. The Changer didn't make a sound, not even as its brain finally stopped fighting and it crumpled to the deck without warning. I leapt off in surprise as it dropped, the suddenness with which it had died catching me by surprise, forcing me to land in a roll that knocked the wind from me.

I used one hand to push myself up and stumbled shakily to my feet. I watched as my friends fired everything they had at the last of the massive creatures to no avail. Camilla charged forward, her geth plasma shotgun firing bolts of super-heated plasma that splashed across the remaining Changer's chest, causing its thick armor-plating to hiss and bubble from the heat.

The massive creature didn't falter. Her brave maneuver barely slowed it down. Deterred by the limited effect of her attack on the creature's charge, Camilla began backpedaling desperately to allow her shotgun time to cool down.

The creature must have sensed her vulnerability, her fear, because with a massive jolt it leapt into motion. It increased its pace and lurched towards her with frightening speed.

A mote of panic wormed its way into my brain, past all the adrenaline, the drugs, the combat-high. If Camilla died we wouldn't have any way to destroy the ship. No way to stop the creatures aboard from escaping and infecting the whole galaxy.

Percival made to move towards the scared technician but a pair of salarian Corpser's crashed bodily into the pre-occupied Spectre and brought him to the ground. I could hear him grunting and the scrape of metallic claws against armor as he struggled beneath their weight.

I could hear booster jets and footsteps behind me, but they were too far. I shifted to a run towards the drive core technician but I knew that I was too far as well. I tried to stasis the creature, but while I could maybe freeze a limb or two, I couldn't freeze the entirety of its twisted, shambling mass of rotted flesh, armor plating and cabling.

It dragged the leg that I had put into stasis along, marginally slowing its progression. The cables that sprouted from its left arm and shoulders rose like snakes and grasped towards the drive core technician as if they had a life of their own. Less than a meter away, Camilla stood frozen in fear, her shotgun held at her side in a limp, sweaty grasp.

A black-armored form with the image of a white knight stamped on his shoulder crashed into the side of the paralyzed technician, knocking her out of the way and putting himself squarely in the path of the creature's cables. He whirled to face the creature, just in time to see no less than four of the cables drive deep into his chest, punching through his chestplate and out of his armored back.

I could hear the man cry out in pain from behind his slitted-helmet. The creature lifted the mortally-wounded marine into the air and brought him face to face with its own twisted visage, the matte-black surface of the Jaeger's helmet tinged red as it was bathed in the dull, red light of the creature's eyes.

The Jaeger began to convulse as whatever was in those cables started to change the very fabric of his DNA. Metal spikes burst through his undersuit, his left arm began to shake and his pauldron fell off as the arm doubled in size and a series of metallic talons ripped their way through his vambraces.

His helmet tilted to look past the shoulder of the creature to stare directly at me. My eyes made note of the motion he was trying to make with his right hand and I nodded in understanding of his intent.

I gave him one last look, poured as much sympathy, sorrow, and above all, respect, into it as I could and raised my hands. A large biotic barrier sprang up like a bubble around the monster and its prey.

A series of massive spikes had already emerged from the man's back, his left arm was barely recognizable and his head now twitched back and forth, low moans coming from within his helmet.

His right arm, shaking and twitching, dropped to his right leg, and with the last of his humanity he pressed the activation trigger of the first grenade, then the second, and the third, and the fourth.

Ask a physicist what happens when a series of detonations occur in an enclosed space, such as the space created by my barrier. It magnifies the damage.

The explosion utterly destroyed the creature, and a man died with the knowledge that his sacrifice had perhaps spared the galaxy from the horrors that we had seen aboard the SSV Hippocrates.