Garrus, Zaeed, Mordin and Sheppard watched from their hiding spot as the Eclipse mechs tore into the merc groups. They maybe weak, but the number of them and the unexpected turn left the mercs disorganised in the chaos. Rounds and screams echoed from the Merc base making the Turian smile.
"Good Job Shepard," he said hitting her shoulder. "Let's move,"
He jumped over the railing's followed by the other three. As soon as Zenna landed she pulled up her grenade launcher and fired it at the barricade. It detonated causing it to open up. The group of four then readied their weapons and moved into the Merc base.
"Shit, they're with…" one merc tried to say before his head exploded.
"Move fast but stick together," Zenna ordered as the group slip and moved into cover as several Blue suns mercs moved up.
Zaeed bounced a grenade in his hand looking around to see what could cause the most damage. He soon saw it and threw the high explosive over to a set of fuel drums. It detonated, sending shrapnel into the blue suns, shredding them to pieces. But it also took down a wall where some eclipse troopers were fighting the mechs. As the wall fell, they turned and shot a couple times at the team, but focused on the mechs. Garrus made short work of them by taking them down one at a time.
Another set of barrels exploded collapsing several rooms. Fires began spirt out form them incarnating the mercs.
"Oh shit," Zenna muttered. "Heads down!" she yelled.
The group covered their heads as an ezzo tank exploded. The shockwave took down several walks and rooms. As it began to settle into a fire, several mercs moved around dazed wondering what happened. Half destroyed mechs moved finished off the mercs as the team emerged from cover and looked at the devastation. Whatever the eclipse mercs had, it did a lot of damage to the point where the teams RV was gone. The four looked to each other with looks of concern.
"That's bad…" Zaeed muttered.
"Destruction… consistent with ezzeo bombs," Mordin muttered as he moved up and looked at the damage. "Likely last option resort,"
"Sounds they really didn't like you Garrus," Zenna said hitting him on the shoulder.
"Yeah…" the turian muttered as he looked around. "But how are we going to get out of here?"
The commander nodded and she tapped her radio. "EDI, need a new escape route," she requested.
"There is a truck in the garage a floor below you," the AI responded, raising Garrus' brow. "However, I am detecting several heat signatures below you,"
"Likely tried to ambush you from below," Zaeed said as he moved over to the bridge and looked to the garage.
"Well, they had to use their heads eventually," Garru nodded as Mordin re-joined them. "This way,"
He led the way back though his base and down a floor as a group of vorcha came in. As soon as they sat Garrus, and the team they opened fire. But the rounds bounced off the shields as the team took cover and fired. the position of the vorcha made it easy for them to be taken down, despite their regen abilities. Once down the team moved up to the garage and Garrus moved up to one of the trucks with a cannon on it.
"Here, we can get out using this," he said.
"I'll drive," Zenna said but Garrus stopped her.
"Oh no you don't," he said looking at her with a fear in his eyes. "You get the gun, I'll drive,"
"Why?" the minotaur asked.
"Do I really need to talk about the mako?" Archangel asked.
"Why?" Zaeed asked. "What happened with a mako?"
"She's an extremely bad driver," Garrus said looking to the merc.
Mordin and Zaeed then looked to the commander with a look that bordered on concern. The sound of a bullet hitting armour however made the conversation academic however as the team claimed inside the truck. Zenna moved over to the gun while Mordin moved over to a secondary control panel opposite the gun controls.
"Tracking systems online," the salarian said as Zaeed set himself up in the co seat of the truck as Garrus pulled out of the garage.
"How did you get this thing?" Zenna asked.
"Stole it from one of the mercs," Garrus smiled. "Me and my team modified it for our needs," he then lost his smile as he took a glance down. "Let's get out of here,"
The truck moved onto the main roads and accelerated as gunships and merc coloured trucks came after them.
"Here they come," Zaeed muttered as the cannon barked.
The shell hit one of the truck's wheels sending it off to the side and into a wall. It didn't explode just turned over on its side. Sky cars soon joined the chase with heavy weapons on board. A vorcha trooper fired a rocket, but impacted a shield that the vehicle had. Garrus compensated and continued to floor the accelerator. The gunships opened up with their rockets trying to make it hard for the team to escape. But the gun turret was doing a good job at making sure that the mercs kept their distance.
Civilian vehicles did their best to move out of the way or get crushed. The truck bounced over a few unlucky bystanders, but that just encouraged the others to get out of the way. Garrus grunted the truck bounced. A gunship decided to try its luck and flew in front of the truck, opening firing with it's twin -linked guns. The rounds impacted the shields, causing it to spark before Zenna blew it out of the sky. It collided with a merc Kodiak and the two fell into the void.
As it fell the gunships then fired a barrage of missiles at them that took down their shield and damaged the generator. It sparked inside the truck forcing Mordin to move and try to repair it a Garrus moved about of the way from another volley. But one of the rockets hit the back wheel forcing archangel to change drive mode from back to front. He caused in his native language as he did so.
"We lost some speed," he said. "They're going to be closing in!"
"Shit," Zenna muttered as she fired at a couple of the transports.
"Commander you have a problem," EDI chimed in. "A group of mercs have set up a wall ahead of you, there is no way round,"
"Great," Zaeed growled as he looked around to see if he could help.
Zenna handed him her grenade launcher. After strapping himself to one of the rails inside the truck he opened the door and began to fire. He managed to take out one of the merc sky cars, before forcing to take cover due to one of the gunships taking a lucky shot at him. As soon as it stopped, he fired at it, the grenade hit one of the wings causing it to spiral and crash into a truck. It paid for its chance shot.
"Eat that you bastard!" he yelled before a skycar flew out in front of the truck and a salarian Eclipse merc fired a them.
Pulling himself back in again, the salarian tapped into the radio. "You'll pay for what you have done archangel!" he yelled before he opened fired with his heavy machine gun.
Zenna made short work of him as she destroyed the gunship with a single shot. The skycar fell and was crushed under the truck.
"Good riddance," Garrus muttered before his eyes widened at the barricade. "Heads up," he almost yelled.
It was a two-section barricade with a small one in the front with a few blue sun mercs set to try and take out any survivors. The main one was large enough to reach the top of the sides of the road barriers.
"EDI, you got a way out?" Zenna asked as the truck pulled up to the side.
"Negative, but we have deployed the Kodiak with Jacob and Miranda," EDI replied.
"Understood, eta?" the commander asked as Garrus, Zaeed and Mordin climbed out of the truck to take out the mercs and set up a defensive line.
"5 minutes," EDI said as a rocket took out the truck's main turret.
"Roger," Zenna replied as she climbed out and began to fire at the troops coming at them.
The gunships held back, but did take the occasional pot shot at the barricade. Zaeed fired at a group of krogan that took cover behind one of the fallen skycars. The car exploded shredding two of the krogan and wounding one. But he was taken down with a shot to the head thanks to Garrus' dead-eye aim.
"You guy's heard?" Zenna asked as she threw a grenade in the merc's direction.
It detonated taking out a team of asari trying to get close. Thankfully the truck had enough ammo to go around the team as they tried to hold off the mercs. A few managed to get close, but none managed to get past the killzone, that the team had set up. Garm watched from his ship.
"That's it," he yelled and jumped out of his Kodiak. "I'll take of this myself,"
He marched towards the team holding a large slab shield. Zenna looked to the others, who looked back and nodded. The minotaur climbed up and over the barricade and charged at Garm. The krogan braced himself against his shield with a smile. But he didn't expect Zenna to push him back a good distance. He looked at her with a growl as she pulled back and roared. Garm roared as all and dropped his shield before charging at the minotaur. But Zenna was ready for him and braced herself for the attack.
Her fangs bared as Garm collided with her and pushed her a few feet. She headbutted Garm and moved around him before kicking him in the back. He turned and growled at her only to spot her smile and a detonator in hand. His eyes widened as he tried to grab the bomb on his back, but Zenna just blew him up, sending korgan innards everywhere. The commander smiled at her handywork before shield impacts forced her to get back into cover. As soon as she jumped behind the wall, warp balls landed in front of the mercs.
With their gravity lost, the gunships tried to move in, but rockets put an end to that as Jacob aimed for the engines. A few missed, but the ones that hit sent the remaining gunships to the ground. As the last one fell the Kodiak landed and the team claimed on. Garrus was the last to get on, but a burst of bullets prevented him from getting on. The team looked to see a gunship, larger than the ones that held back approach them. The Blue Sun marking making clear who they belonged to.
"Archangel!" Tarak yelled as he fired more rounds to try and separate the crew.
He focused on Garrus as he fired a rocket close to the turian's location sending him sprawling across the road.
"GARRUS!" Zenna yelled as she grabbed the grenade launcher from Zaeed and fired at the gunship.
Jacob helped by firing his rocket launcher. The combination of the two heavy weapons forced the gunship to move, but Tarak wasn't letting anything go as several high explosive shells hit. Miranda threw a warp ball to keep the gunship in place while the team finished the gunship off. With their leaders' dead, the merc groups fell back convinced that even if they run, Archangel was dead.
Zenna ran up to her friend and looked at him. The rocket hit close, scarring part of his armour and face. He wasn't moving as Zenna got to him, but as she hung her head, he took in a deep breath.
"Garrus," she said surprised before turning to the others. "I need a hand over here,"
OOOOO
Back on the Normandy Kira walked around the briefing room Garrus got quickly rushed to the med bay due to his injuries. Jacob had called her to the briefing room after a few hours.
"Commander Garrus took a bad hit. Doc's done what she can for him. Best we can tell he'll have full functionality but..." Jacob tried to say but just then Garrus walked in.
"Shepard," Garrus greeted making Zenna smiled.
"Tough son-of-a-bitch, didn't think you'd be up yet." Jacob commented.
"Commander no one has given me a mirror how bad is it?" the turian asked pointing to his new cybernetics.
"Hell Garrus you were always ugly slap some face paint on and now on will tell the difference," she said trying to make her friend feel better
"Ha don't make me laugh damn my face is barely holding as it is," he tried to smile but his wounds prevented that.
Jacob, sensing the tone in the room, saluted and left.
"In all honesty I'm worried about you. Cerberus, Shepard remember those experiment's they were doing?" Garrus asked.
"I know," Zenna sighed. "If I knew you were archangel, I would have got you sooner. I need friends here, people I can trust if I'm making a deal with the devil,"
"You do realise that it includes me making a deal with you?" this time he dealt with the pain as he smiled. "Just like old times,"
"Yeah, just like old times," she said as she two clasped their arms together.