My glower at Mat'al's back was ignored as the dark skinned salarian walked down another narrow, dusty hallways. Resigned to my fate, we continued down the deep road to hell. My eyes glancing down each corridor as we passed, shoulders tense. The worst was yet to come. We were approaching the geth rather than evacuating the area. The reason why this salarian was interested in geth remained a mystery, or why he dragged me along for the ride. However, that was what not my main concern now. Survival had to come first.
The corridors opened into a low, wide room. The ceiling cracked and splintered above it as if on the brink of collapse. My eyes darted, scanning the ruins for signs of movement. Aside from Mat'al and me, just a breeze of dust accompanied us. Mat'al approached a round basin, the towering centre a splintered pillar of what used to be marble. This was once a plaza filled with people, life and colour. Why had they abandoned it and left it to rot? Mat'al bent down to pick up two belt covered in pouches leaning against the old fountain. My eyes narrowed as he snapped one around my waist. He smiled
"Geth cores go in these pouches, nothing else," he said.
"Wait, what?" I balked.
"Ah, I have failed to tell you what we are doing here. We will collect a few geth cores for the STG," he explained. He glanced around the room while my jaw rolled on the floor. Light leaking in from collapsed holes and hollow windows, staining the weathered concrete in warmth. Columns littered the floor over the years, exposing parts of the upper levels with new skylights. Mat'al turned to me again, a cool smile in place.
"Ready for more climbing?" he asked. My moan slipped free. My shields vaporized around me as a bang sent me leaping back, jaw floundered. "Rule Six, don't complain," he reloaded the sniper. My jaw slammed shut, tensing the muscles to save myself from another bullet.
Once again, Mat'al forced me to clamber up a near vertical ascent, leaping over the holes in the floor to reach ropes which hanged down. My muttering followed me, grumbling about the whole situation being a set up. A squeak burst out when he shot me again, and screamed when he shot me again. The new rule included screaming, so he shot me again for my scream. My teeth cheek the air rounds stung, but clenched my jaw. Another new addition to this climb was Mat'al, He followed me up, keeping a short distance from me to watch my progress.
When we reached the top, my shields had shattered 5 times. Once where after a scream when concrete slipped away under my feet. His reasoning was that as I was not falling, there was no reason to scream and alert everything in the area to my presence. The next three were during an attempt to cross a wide gap in the floor. A jump caused me to at a jump, eyes slipping into the abyss. My trust in my legs to carry me that far was not high. After my third hesitation, a grenade to my feet. My legs sprinted for safety, running on the air while Mat'al laughed at me. The fifth time was when I threatened to have Wrex crush his skull after earning rope burns on the second to last rope. He also reached for the live ammo pistol that time, but fear had me scrambled up the rope to safety.
Then we hit the geth. Mat'al dragged me behind a fallen wall, staring across the rectangular, 10 floored room. At the bottom was another ruined plaza with the vague outline of stairs spiralling up the far side to the top. The stairs had long collapsed. Mat'al ignored my trembling as he assessed the situation, my stomach churning like a stormy sea. Four white geth patrolled the room, the heads casting light into the darkened corners where the sunshine failed to ignite. Mat'al glanced down, studying me with a critical gaze.
"Take your gun out, the SMG I gave you," he ordered. My hand scrambled, heart stuttering, grabbing the gun at my hip and popping it free. My eyes gazed at the geth in the room, ducking behind the rubble in terror. Hands trembled to the point my muscles ached and my breath surfaced in harsh gasps. The geth clicked as they wandered nearby. One was beneath us on another floor. My head shook, I couldn't do this, this was suicide! Behind the rubble, my body curled up.
"I-I can't," I said, voice quaking. Mat'al raised his gun, already seeing my reaction coming. My eye caught it from the corner of my vision. Instinct grabbed the gun and angled the barrel away. How a layer of ice didn't freeze over me me was a miracle from his frozen glare. "I'm sorry, I can't!" I whimpered. "Tell me to jump from building to building. Fine, alright, but c-can't fight! I-I don't know how! I-I can't shoot straight! I-I'll miss and t-they'll hit me. You haven't even asked me to shoot anything yet, let alone things that can move! How am I supposed to do this?"
Mat'al fell quiet, forcing me to tremble under his icy stare. He turned, regarding at the geth with shrewd eyes. He clicked his tongue. My eyes widened as he changed his sniper ammo to live rounds. My stomach fell out from under me, knees knocking. Mat'al smirked. He took the SMG and the pistol off me, holstering it at his hip. My shoulders relaxed.
"Well, since you are happy to run and jump around and not shoot, then I need to shoot. So you need to distract them," he said. Petrification joined horror. He wasn't suggesting... "Well, I need to shoot clean shots but I also need someone to grab the geth cores before they erase the data," My mouth opened to complain. He raised a long finger, grinning. My mouth shut. "Now, remember what I've taught you, run, take cover and trust in your shields," My mouth opened again. "Rule one, five and six," he teased. My jaw shut. My lungs sucked in a short breath in before shuffling my way down to the floor above the geth. There was no arguing with this salarian.
A small rock found its way into my hand, a piece of crumbled debris. Why was I doing this? A sniper glinted on the floors above… aiming at me. A swore broke loose. He was serious about this. The faint sound of the sniper cocking echoed, the geth perked and light dancing as they looked around. Fantastic! Thanks, Mat'al, you piece of shit! A geth was close, just over a few piles of rubble. Taking what could be my last breath, The rock hurled through the air towards it. It made a robotic sound of complaint before locking in on me. All guns trained on me in an instant. Ah, fuck, these things talked to each other at computer speeds, really should remember that! And these guys had bloody assault rifles! When the bullets flew in my direction, a cream flew.
I ran, there was little else to do. A pause would kill me, my corpse a living – or dead – representation of Swiss cheese. Momentum vaulted me over a rubble wall and dived behind cover. Bullets punched through the concrete above my head. My heart burst out my chest as my hands clambered up a fallen floor to the next level. One of the geth followed me, tracking me as another rock pressed into my hands. It flew over my shoulder, smacking a geth in the chest. It crackled as it aimed its gun at me. Great, it was pissed off now! A yelp and duck later, realising my places to run were running low if I wanted to stay behind cover. A bullet smashed into my shield. My bright blue bar on my left wrist blinked close to red. It was still up, but another shot would hurt.
Then another leapt over some rubble dropped me face-to-face with a geth's gun. Everything in me wanted to freeze, to turn into a deer staring at an oncoming truck, but there was too much momentum. My body whipped control away from my brain. I jumped, used its shoulder like a vaulting horse and continued running as it turned. It aimed. Then the head vanished. It fizzled, staggered. The arms flailed.
"Girl, go back to that geth. I need that memory core," Mat'al called. The anchors slammed me to a stop, but after a second, a bullet smashed my shields to shreds; a sniper bullet. My legs sprinted back to the geth, my mind shut down as garbled messages conflicted. My body ran on adrenaline. Tears stung my eyes, but everything was running on auto-pilot. Something would happen to me if I stopped, there was no escape! Mat'al would shoot me if his orders were ignored and the geth would shoot me if I carried then out. There was no way to win!
"I don't even know what I'm doing!" I shouted up in panic as the flailing machine neared.
"Oh it's easy. It's in the chest, you can't miss it. Open a pouch," he answered. My hand fumbled with the button to get one of them open. A small disc clutched between my fingers, what could have been a small coin had it not contained computer-chip style clamps on the rim. "Stick it on the geth. Come on now. The core will erase if you aren't fast," he sang. A curse snapped out my lips. This man was relentless! Back at the geth, my hand slammed the coin on the torso.
It went rigid, froze. The sparks dancing along its body enraptured my gaze. Then the chest peeled apart. A glowing disc sat in the middle of the chest, wires encircling it like veins to a heart. That must be the core. My hand reached in, grabbed it and pulled, turning to flee. My shoulder yanked back, recoiled when the core refused to budge. With bullets firing my way, my wrist twisted and pulled harder. The wires snapped, sparks flew around my hand, burning sensations tickling my skin below the glove. A surprised yelp escaped as my legs launched be back, hand still gripping the core as my fingers refused to release. The geth tumbled forward, taking me with it on its downward journey, but the core shot loose, sending me flat on my ass. My eyes stared at the disc in my hand, lights weaving all around it as they dimmed to nothing. It was like watching a small piece of life die in my hand. Only Mat'al's gunfire at my shields snapped me out of my daze. I shoved in the pouch the coin had removed been from, sealing it shut.
On the run again, my breath gagged in my throat. Another geth climbed up after me. Like a surgeon, Mat'al shot the head off, offering covering fire in against me as an encouragement to keep me moving and grabbing cores. This time, the zapper lay ready in my hand. Arms pulling for all my worth, the core pulled out without me landing on my ass, but it still destabilised me, My shields shattered. A bullet burned through my armour, my skin scorched. My legs ran for cover, my eyes glancing to my hip in dismay. 'Bullet wound' was now on my growing injury list. Mat'al wasn't shooting the geth unless they were nearby to them. He waited until they were close enough to have their cores stolen. Where was my covering fire? Oh wait, he was shooting at me most of the time…
"Dammit, Mat'al! Would you at least give me some cover?" I snapped, hurling myself behind a fallen column, only to roll and leap the side as a geth clambered up behind me.
"Consider it a lesson," his said. His tone was more than amusement.
"For what!" I cried skywards as my back ached after rolling down a hole to the floor below.
"For not shooting," he responded, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Excuse me!?" I managed through my tight throat, squealing like a pig as my back landed on the floor below.
"Well, you wouldn't shoot, so you broke Rule one; follow orders," Mat'al said.
"You're insane!" I snapped at him.
"Me? I'm not the one running around geth with only my shields keeping me safe," he laughed. My teeth grinded.
"I hate you! All of my fucking hate!" I screamed. My shields give again and dived behind some cover. Whether that was Mat'al or the geth that brought them down didn't matter. What mattered was my throat was so parched breathing hurt. My shields took forever to come back online, giving the geth more time to get into a better position to deal with me. My legs wobbled and ached, every muscle wailing in complaint.
The third core was grabbed while dodging the final geth, somehow. The pair travelled together, but they appeared less organised than when this mad mission started. However, as my exhausted body leapt around the pair, trying to separate them, a bullet slammed into my side. My yell rewarded with a sniper to the shields once they were back up. One geth stumbled through a hole, opening a chance. After rolling to cover, my legs launched me forward, charging. Mat'al shot the head off, the zapper slammed on and the core yanked free. It was just waiting for the last geth to stumble up to me to repeat the process.
When the final geth collapsed to the ground, my body trembled, gulping air down my parched throat. My knees caved and one knee crashed into the ground, doubled over as every nerve twitched. My eyes skimmed past to the belt around my waist, counting the number of pockets available to me. Three more pouches to fill, not a comforting prospect. A sound snapped my head up, landing to the dark salarian as he dropped from the floor above. My eyes followed his progress as he meandered around the broken wreckage, dropping one last level to join me. He smiled.
"Good. I only had to take your shields out four or five times that time," he said, assessing the two geth corpses around me, sniper still in hand. Tears threatened to choke me once more, igniting my rage.
"With live rounds? Are you insane?" I snapped. Mat'al chuckled as he straightened.
"Now who said anything about live rounds?" he asked, unclipping another sniper rifle, holding a sniper in each hand. One had the orange lights to show normal ammo, the new one had light blue lights to represent air or concussive rounds. "You screamed once or twice, though you didn't scream when you got shot the second time,"
"Yes I did..." I muttered. It was hard to not recognise a bullet would... Mat'al grinned.
"Are you even aware you took three shots to the back?" he asked. My expression froze. Wait, shot in the back? My hand ran up and down what parts my hands could reach. One small hole by the left shoulder blade, another on my hip and another on my lower back. "Hmm, maybe your back is studier than the rest of you. You also hesitated, a bad move whist suicidal," He slipped one sniper away, bringing out the SMG again. He tossed it at me, making me fumble with it but it didn't fall. "Rule Seven; shoot if you can't run, run if you can't shoot. Never do nothing. Now let's keep moving. I still need a few more cores. And you need more practice,"
My muscles quaked, my breathing rasped as my vision tunnelled, tasting copper as my eyes narrowed. It had been relentless; no rest, never any chance to practice. He had been making me do everything and yet he sat up on his high perch like some bloody guardian angel – a shit one at that – and he walks off? A growl rumbled in my chest, fists trembling at my sides. Only my morals kept me from strangling him was my poor upper body strength... although salarians looked frail... I stormed after him, my blood burning.
"I want answers," I demanded. Mat'al glanced at me, raising a brow. Surprised I demanded something? He folded his arms, stopping my advance short, leaving just tens of centimetres between us. His expression was blank.
"Oh? About?" he asked.
"Why are you doing this? Why am I even here? What's your plan? What's the point?" I hissed. My questions tumbled free from my mouth rather than anything coherent or sensible. Mat'al smiled, turning to face ahead. My teeth ground my teeth in frustration. What would it take for him to lose that cool mask he kept on... just once. He checked his gun, the click as it reloaded loud in the desolate hallway.
"Tell you what. Survive this next lesson and I'll tell you anything and everything you want to know," He chuckled. "If I told you now, it might not have the same impact," My brow furrowed. What was he on about? Fine, he wanted to delay on giving me answers, that was fine. He would learn he couldn't play me for long, however. I would get my answers...
We found more geth, this time the battle occupied a much larger room with less floors. Upset over the lack of debris to hide behind. This time, however, my gun was in hand and I'll be damned if Mat'al tried to take it off me. There were about seven geth in this room, three of them were larger and each armed with a rocket launcher of some sort. Mat'al checked his guns, nodding.
"Deal with the troopers first. Leave the shock troopers for now. We'll grab their cores," he said. Eyes locked onto the larger geth. My heart fluttered as the fear rose again, they must be the shock troopers. "Off you go, unless you will not shoot..." Mat'al smiled. My eyebrows snapped down, checking the clip on this compacted SMG with the two handles and shuffled down behind some cover. We began round two.
It was not as chaotic as it was last time, but more mistakes occurred. Two geth exploded beside me, sending me flat on my back for several seconds. It forced Mat'al to cover me while my body recovered and pushed me back on my feet, gasping for air and trying to see past the smoke and dust. Then the added issue of the shock troopers' longer response time to the zapper surfaced. That forced me dodge bullets before the chest bloomed, granting me access to the cores. And even then, I could only get two of them. The other cores exploded in my hand, my armoured glove ruined, exposing my now somewhat charred hand. It hurt to move it too much. It wasn't my trigger hand, so my gun could still save me from these things.
On top of this, my next lesson was to trust my shields and armour. With Mat'al no longer shooting at me, realisation struck at how little assault rifles did compared to a well shot sniper. That the SMG was a piece of cake to aim, there was no recoil, well, almost. The high pitched 'pew, pew' suggested it didn't hit very hard. Compared to when Shepard fought the geth, they took longer to drop. To add to our worries, geth got around behind us as a small wave of reinforcements arrived. Mat'al vanished to drive them away or lure them into an easier shooting location. A deafening crack of a shotgun filled the air plenty of times. Don't ask me where he got it, he must have had another cache nearby. On my own, they geth forced me to dive back behind further cover as they shoved me to the edges of the room. Then the next wave arrived, bringing with it more shock troopers and a few troopers.
A geth crossed my sight, the SMG shaking from the injured hand. The geth stumbled before collapsing on the ground, the light on his head fading. An explosion rippled over me, making me flinch closer to the ground. The gun aimed over my head, over the cover, spraying a clip of ammo towards the geth. The gun clicked when empty. There was no change in the number of geth.
Throughout all of this, my own reactions came under my scrutiny; my hand was steadying with each passing minute, my fear subsiding to allow for concentration. my mind remained clear, assessing the situation, realising when it was time to move and duck. Although, the rockets made it difficult to think at all when dust falling around my head. My screaming had reduced too. Sure, a few yelps here and there but never scream. My jaw learned to tense when one built up. All these small changes made me wonder if this was Mat'al's goal. Albeit the nerves still bounced around my system like a drunk elephant on a bouncy castle. My breathing slowed, my head popped out and fired about half a clip before ducking back under. Another trooper down, more were closing in though.
"Mat'al I need cover fire!" I called over the radio, ducking as another rocket flew over my head and exploded into the wall opposite me.
"Give me 10 minutes, Dell, I'll be with you soon," Mat'al's answered, the rumble of his shotgun prominent. Through a crack in my cover, my gaze could assessing the situation. There was still 2 troopers and 3 shock troopers before me, but who knows how many had Mat'al pinned down. Looking up to the second level, my eyes flew to the exposed corridor Mat'al had hid in a few minutes ago.
"Lead them this way, I'll cover you, maybe thin their numbers," I said. As risky as it was, and being worried about hitting Mat'al, these geth would kill me without his help!
"I will be a few minutes-" Mat'al said.
"No, Mat'al! No more putting things off, no more standing off to the side. You will help me or by God, I will drag your ass, dead or not, with me! I'll then stuff it and smack it like a piñata!" I snapped. The answering silence sent shudders down my spine, a grenade to land at my feet wouldn't surprise me, hell, it would even be welcome at this point.
"On my way," he responded. My breath eased free. My eyes scanned the floor above, waiting, praying the geth stalking behind me could wait for a moment. Tension crawled up by body, forcing me to shake my head hard. The corridor was quiet, and with the advancing geth gave me the chance to retreat behind further cover. A severe ammo restriction settled over my shoulders.
Mat'al dashed into view. A sigh released after seeing him in one piece, I might get out of this! But then a light danced over his body and he vanished into the background. An invisibility cloak? About six geth ran out after him, two shock troopers. The SMG clip emptied into them, then another, keeping my head low to the other 5 geth on the ground with me. Mat'al's shotgun sounded several times, and geth tumbled around like rag dolls. By the time Mat'al pushed back some of my geth, only 2 remained standing on Mat'al's floor. Mat'al delivered a shotgun to the head, forced open their chests and grabbed their cores before fleeing to a good vantage point. He had far, far better grabbing techniques than I. My head peeked up over the cover, paling at a geth hovering above me with an assault rifle.
My hands grabbed the geth, yanking it over the cover without even thinking. My back creaked from the weight. We wrestled with for several minutes, terror blinding common sense. All that new confidence gained from fighting these things vanished. My fist rose to punch the head, as stupid as that was with a machine. As my fist lowered, my omni-tool blinded me. A blade whipped out and sliced the head clean in two. My eyes gawked, paralysed, staring at the purple blade. Where the hell had this come from?! The geth beeped. I withdrew, flinging myself away, crawling away, anything to escape the impending explosion. The omni-tool it faded, the explosion rippling nearby drowning out my heavy pants. The fear was sinking away again, allowing me to think.
"Thought you might want a hand," Mat'al chuckled in my ear. For once, it was a good thing Mat'al hacked my omni-tool. Whatever this was, it had saved my hide.
A sniper rifle fired and a rocket geth fell. My lungs struggled to catch my breath. Danger remained around me. My head shook, struggling to hold the SMG as my arm pulled it off the ground. My adrenaline drained away, leaving behind a veil of exhaustion. Back leaning against the cover, my strength weaning. The SMG fired few more bullets, but it was up to Mat'al to take care of the rest of them. My body was turning sluggish, the muscles ached and the wounds burned. My body wanted to curl up and sleep, regardless of the geth around me.
Silence surrounded us when Mat'al shot the final geth. No more tumbled into the room, no more bullets soared through the air. Nothing stirred aside from my rasping breaths. My head flopped back against the rubble, eyes shut. Mat'al slunk down, watching the darkened holes around the room for more geth. His hand touched my shoulder, my breath coming out in painful wheezes. He clicked through his omni-tool, the light beeping drowned out by the blood gushing in my ears. Then relief flooded my body. A shiver ran down my back. It was like a cool wave crawling over my skin, massaging the aches. My eyes fluttered open, glanced at him. He gave me a weary smile as he sat himself down beside me.
"Medi-gel. Never leave home without it," he said. A laugh coughed free, the sting in my chest cutting my laugh short. My ribs felt broken, my first ever broken bone... "Well, it didn't quite go according to plan, but we have enough cores now," he sighed, resting against the crumbled wall.
He looked over his cores, the quiet popping as he opened the pouches reminded me of popcorn, and that set my stomach off. A moaned escaped as it twisted. Food, any kind of food would be wonderful now… even military rations would be enough. Mat'al shuffled, hands clicking the pockets open around my hips. His hands went ignored, exhaustion draining me The exhaustion had won. My eyes struggled to stay open. Mat'al studied me for a time, smiling as he pressed a finger to his ear.
"Delern to base. Requesting evac, sending co-ordinates," he said.
"Roger that, Delern. Evac on the way. Sit tight," a voice crackled in my ear. A breath heaved, relieved. Mat'al glanced to his omni-tool again, looked down with a calculating frown. My omni-tool lit up, my eyes fluttering in surprise.
"A small... gift, I suppose. For the help," he said. My arm flopped up to read the screen. It rested on my propped up knee to read anything. Small tools and icons seemed to blink at me, my eyes squinted at them. They hadn't been there before.
"What is it?" I asked. Mat'al closed his omni-tool.
"An omni-blade in case they get to close, activate it by touching the palm screen with your thumb. Incinerate, useful against armoured foes, good if you need to burn something, it also stops foes from regenerating. Activate with your index finger. A combat drone, just in case you need to distract something. Activate with your middle finger. Cryo blast can freeze enemies for a time. Not as useful as incinerate, it does against armoured foes. Fourth finger for this one. Then-"
"A bow?" I asked, staring at the icon.
"Omni-bow. Your record said you did archery for a while, as your planet calls it," he shrugged. "May as well use every skill you have to your advantage. Two or more fingers to activate it," My eyes scanned at the salarian. He in return gave me a tired smile as he clipped a bag of bolts to my belt. They were the length of my hand. He sighed. "I've... given you some Engineer-classed tools. You aren't all that suited to the soldier, your fear has not been hardened enough to handle front line work. No biotics either so you can't be adept, sentinel or vanguard. You also don't have the eye or the steady hand required for an infiltrator either," A frown formed as my sluggish mind turned his words in my head, staring at the omni-tool.
"Why are you doing this, Mat'al? Why put me through this hell?" I asked. He rubbed his neck as he stared up at the collapsed ceiling. He focused on nothing, disappearing from reality for a time.
"I've given you a beginner's crash course in STG training," he said. "In the STG, I teach the training courses for when I'm not out on missions, I've taught more STGs operatives than I have done missions myself. I… have an eye for talent, I suppose," he shrugged. "We have cameras all over the colony, to watch the geth and estimate attack patterns, so when you arrived I wondered why you were here. A human vessel was not unusual given the circumstances, but Alliance? Where were the ExoGeni ships? And a Spectre on top of everything. It was unusual, so we investigated.
"Then I saw you, the obvious black sheep. Your body language screamed 'Get me the hell out' and yet you kept going... As we watched you. Something about you... clicked, it is difficult to describe. It isn't something I experience often, only those who have a knack or some wall they cannot surmount alone. I watched your team in the docking bay, when you defended yourself... my gut wasn't far off the mark," A small laugh escaped.
"You saw me hiding and being crushed behind a crate by a turian and thought I had potential?" I asked.
"I'll admit, you cowered, but you still wanted to help. You would not have pulled your gun out if you didn't. Blockaded by fear though," he shrugged, "I wanted to see if I could override that instinct, that given extreme enough conditions I could over-ride your fear," he smiled. "Most people as untrained as you who had a gun on their person would either shoot or forget they had the thing. You could control yourself enough to have the gun ready to use, but weren't wild enough to shoot anything that moves. As terrified as you were, you still kept it together enough to aim the gun, although you never shot. I assumed you were worried about hitting a friendly. You had little option with the geth stalkers. Although you shot a bullet, slow but with a grown turian sitting on you I can't blame you.
"Then I watched you while you went around the colonists. I saw how nervous you were, saw the fear rattling your frame. You punched your way through it though. That was enough to prove that if pushed enough, you can overcome it. I doubt your commander would mind if you decided not to say a word to anyone. And you did that again here,"
"Shepard is turning into a right asshole. He would never let me live it down had I left," I grumbled. Mat'al raised a brow, questioning my interruption. A cough covered my unease.
"Scared as you were," he continued. "You kept going, kept pushing yourself onwards, even here. I had to find something to push you. Between abusing your anger and giving you something more frightening than geth, you have survived this ordeal," He patted my shoulder. "You've done better than I thought, although the nerves still need hardening. Still making small mistakes, all fear based. They'll iron themselves out with time though," he grinned. "You even ordered me around,"
"Yeah, sorry about that," I flushed.
"Not at all, you saved me from several injuries. But... Well, I suppose I based my training method the way I did because these geth get tiresome after a while, too easy as a target," he smirked. A glare aimed in his direction.
"You got bored so you shot me instead?" I asked. Mat'al grinned. The urge to strangle him resurfaced, for good measure, my teeth bared as they grit. He chuckled, patting my shoulder. He was content he had rattled me up. My glowered was ignored as we sat in silence for a time.
"When we get out of here, I'm buying you a drink," he offered.
"I don't drink," I said. Mat'al raised an eyebrow.
"Rule eight; never turn down a drink. You'll never get it again," he scolded. That got a pained laugh out of me. My head shook. The silence returned. We both listened for geth, for any sign of life around us. All was still.
"Evac to Delern. ETA 3 minutes,"