10: The Ambush

It was mid-afternoon by the time they neared the location specified. Along the way, Lieutenant Sevarn Valus had taken the gun away from Lyssa's head, although he kept it clutched tightly, barrel pointed in the general direction of the driver's seat from where he sat in the rear of the car. He felt so tired, so outright weary that, were it not for the rough and poorly maintained roads they drove over, he likely would have fallen asleep in his seat right there. That was simply unacceptable, of course; he had a job to do and he was in less-than-favourable company. He also had an unspecified amount of people out to kill him. Perhaps the entire Cerberus organisation was out looking for him, which would certainly put the odds sorely against him. After all, what could one young turian Cabalist do against a heavily armed and numerically sizeable paramilitary organization?

He had tried to contact his people on his omni-tool, but there had been a startling lack of response. Sevarn had taken this as a bad omen, but he nonetheless had Lyssa continue on their way, determined as he was to get back to his people. This mission had been off-the-books, so the fact that no one was replying on any team frequencies was not surprising. There was far too much of a risk that someone might be listening in, especially here on Anhur where some of the insurgent groups were well organized.

'You look like shit.' Lyssa's voice cut through his thoughts then, an unwelcome intrusion at that moment. They were trundling along a dirt road now, drawing closer to the command post that had seen Sevarn and the team set off for the Cerberus facility the night before. The old foundry, more specifically, and the intended rendezvous point for the team after a successful mission. Of course, the mission had been anything but successful.

Sevarn felt as much as he looked it, and part of that was down to the batarians who had ambushed their convoy. Another part of that was down to her prior treatment, in which she had nullified his biotic amp and intentionally starved him to keep his energy levels down. The shockwave he had unleashed against the Cerberus assault team had left him feeling all the more drained. He needed to eat and he needed to sleep, two things that seemed out of reach at the moment.

'Just keep driving,' he told her. She seemed to think she owed him for the save back there, but truth be told Sevarn had been saving up that biotic attack to use against her. It was simply an unexpected development to find that her own people now wanted her dead. The thought made him smile, ever so slightly.

'Something funny?' She eyed him in the rear-view mirror, forest rushing past the vehicle at both sides.

'Your own people want you dead,' Sevarn said, and he leaned forwards a little. 'After everything, you can't even trust the organization that's supposed to be for human interests.'

'Look, it's just politics. That Director, Rickard? He was always a conniving bastard. I'm just a convenient patsy, a fall guy, or girl rather. It's nothing for you to be smug over. Once I get off of this planet, I'll find someone in Cerberus who isn't part of Rickard's little circle of sycophants. And all will be right in the world.' As she added this last part, half-jokingly at that, it was readily apparent in her souring tone that she did not really believe this. She had been betrayed, forced to fight her own people. Sevarn supposed this was good for him, as it essentially meant she now had to play along with what he wanted, if only because it would improve her odds of survival.

'I need to know,' Lyssa said, glancing at him in the mirror again. 'The pistol I got off of that officer, it's an Alliance model. How'd they get hold of it?'

'That officer has a name.'

'You mean had a name, Lieutenant. She's dead.'

This was the truth, yet hearing it spoken so bluntly caused Sevarn to pause. The team was gone, wiped out in an ambush. So many good people cut down by batarian rebels, of all things. It hardly seemed fair. Of course, there now begged a certain nagging question: how had the batarians known where to ambush them? It had been too well coordinated to be a mere random attack, even though plenty of those happened here on Anhur. There was more than one batarian warlord with a sizeable following roaming the wilderness of this planet, all trying to build up their own little kingdoms and go on fighting a war that had ended years ago.

'Major Neva Gavian,' Sevarn muttered.

'What was that?'

'The officer you took that pistol from.' He spoke up then, so that Lyssa could hear. 'Major Neva Gavian. She got the pistol on special order, apparently. A Paladin model.' Seeing Lyssa carrying it did irk him on some small level, but it hardly seemed to matter now. It was not as if the Major needed it anymore. 'She paid a lot of money for it.'

'They pay your Majors well, then?'

'Well enough.' Sevarn looked through the windshield ahead. A sign, partly shrouded by overgrown shrubs, was further along the road on the left. 'There's a turn-off ahead, past that sign. Take it.'

Lyssa nodded her head in acknowledgment of the instructions. She no doubt figured she would be able to seek asylum with the turians after all that had happened, which to Sevarn did not strike him as the intentions of a Cerberus fanatic. This woman had been doing her job at that facility, even if she had been serving as a small part of a bigger and much more dangerous machine. He could not hate her, yet he certainly could not trust her.

'Your people aren't going to shoot me, are they?' Lyssa asked him. She steered the car onto the narrower, pothole-strewn road that wound its way through thinning woodland and towards the old foundry. The looming shape of the rundown structure was visible through the trees, now a few hundred metres away, surrounded by a mostly broken-down metal fence. There was little sign of life there, as was the intention. A turian Blackwatch team operating in the Terminus Systems would certainly not advertise their position. On that thought, Sevarn wondered about his dead comrades back on that highway; would the batarians parade that victory across Anhur? Would their officials use it as a pretext to apply diplomatic pressure against the Hierarchy, perhaps even the Citadel government itself? As the sole survivor of that team, Sevarn knew he would be asked many awkward questions. Some of the higher-ups would even blame him for the deaths of his team. His military career would be placed into serious jeopardy.

'That depends on how well you behave.' There would be dextro-based rations in the foundry. Just thinking about the mostly tasteless ration bars filled him with joy. Any longer running about like he had been and he would collapse from exhaustion. Not to mention, he had more than one bullet wound in him. Nothing serious, but enough to seriously hurt. So far, medi-gel was about all that was keeping the pain in check.

'If you don't mind my saying so, but you don't strike me as a fanatic.' Sevarn kept his voice level, and he received another curious glance his way via the car's rear-view mirror.

'Should I be?'

'Cerberus is a pro-human group.'

'Yeah, and I'm human. Is it so outrageous I'd be part of a pro-human group?' She gave him a small smile. For someone whose own people had just tried to kill her, she seemed to be in a good mood.

'What did you do before you joined Cerberus?'

'I was a Marine. A soldier, like you.' Her face noticeably darkened then, and Sevarn assumed the question had dredged up some unpleasant memories. 'I gave the Marines seven years of my life. Cerberus paid better.'

'That's all it's about, then? Money?'

She did not reply. Apparently, he had pushed the subject as much as she would allow him. Sevarn sighed, leaning back in his chair and wincing as an injury at his lower back flared up again. He was feeling lightheaded now, exhaustion threatening to overtake him. He took a few long, deep breaths, trying to steady himself and pull his focus in on what lay ahead. They were coming upon the grounds of the old foundry now, the concrete underneath cracked in various places from where overgrown weeds sprouted. Rusted metal struts and the like littered the grounds. The building ahead had been damaged during the Rebellions, yet there was enough of a stable main structure for it to form an adequate staging ground.

There were likely a few cameras hidden about the place. Anyone inside would have seen them coming, and if not, they certainly would have heard the car arrive.

'Stop it out here,' Sevarn told Lyssa, and she brought the car to a halt a short distance from the main building. The large double doors there were partly open, and Sevarn watched them through the window by his side for a moment, hand tight about his pistol. No one emerged, and he remained seated for another half minute before Lyssa shook her head and turned to him.

'So, are we staying or going?' She asked him.

'Get out of the car,' he told her, and for emphasis he brought up his pistol and waggled it in her direction. Lyssa hardly even flinched, she just eyed the pistol and the beaten up turian holding it and rolled her eyes. She opened the driver's side door and climbed out, emerging into a chilly breeze underneath an overcast sky. The scent of rain was on that breeze, and the dark grey clouds high above certainly suggested inclement weather was on its way.

Sevarn climbed out of the vehicle's rear. He kept the pistol pointed her way, yet it hardly seemed necessary. He had taken the gun from her during the drive here, and he had the heavy Paladin-model pistol tucked under a strap at his thigh. Still in his under suit, he felt vulnerable, and he silently cursed Lyssa for having stripped it off of him the night before.

'Stay in front of me,' he ordered. Lyssa nodded her head, before she started for the building's entrance.

'Not so fast,' he barked, and Lyssa stopped and looked his way again. She appeared distinctly unimpressed.

'You don't need to keep pointing that gun at me,' she told him.

'Yeah, well, we're not friends, Lyssa Raine. So, keep walking. Slowly.' Sevarn kept a good half dozen paces behind her. She would go in first, all while he kept her within sight. Crossing the open grounds, she came upon the double doors. There, she stopped again and turned to him.

'This place isn't booby trapped, is it?'

'Just push open the door. Slowly.'

'Fine.' Lyssa put a hand to one half of the double doors and pushed. It was a big, heavy thing, and it opened slowly and loudly. The hinges screeched like a creature from nightmare, and Sevarn figured with some disdain that if anyone else was here, they would sure as hell know someone was letting themselves in now.

The mostly clear factory floor was behind, same as he remembered it from prior to the attack on the Cerberus facility. Although, that was the thing that bothered him most: it was clear, too clear. The tables, the chairs, the computer terminals, all of it was gone, with nary a trace left behind to suggest that these things had even been there to begin with. The mostly open factory floor was as bare as it had been prior to the turian team moving in, and Sevarn found himself standing in a draughty, rundown warehouse space.

'Expecting something else?' It was Lyssa who asked this, and she turned around to face him. There was the smallest trace of a smirk at her mouth. 'Doesn't look like much to me.'

'This was it,' Sevarn said aloud, as if to reassure himself that he was not mistaken. 'We met here before the attack. There should be someone here, some kind of technician or operator.'

'Your friends probably cleared out real quick when they realised they had lost the team,' Lyssa suggested, and it sounded like a feasible enough possibility. If they had left, then there would be something left behind as a contingency for one of their own returning to the scene. He wracked his brains for details as to what that contingency may have been, and he started towards the far end of the factory floor where previously the large holographic display had been erected before rows of seats.

Someone had to have left something behind, somewhere. He looked over the concrete floor, cracked in many places, scattered holes left behind by bolts that had once kept machinery fixed to the floor. Lyssa watched him, curiosity on her face as she regarded the young turian Lieutenant and his increasingly panicked state. Sure, he did a good job of hiding the mounting anxiety, but she could see it in the way he moved and the way in which his cool blue eyes widened and darted around.

'Looks like your people abandoned you,' she stated, and Sevarn shot her a mean glance. 'Hey, I've been there. The Alliance abandoned me when I needed them most. Why do you think I jumped at the chance to work for Cerberus?'

'Shut up,' he barked at her. She was some distance behind him now, and he thought then that she might try to make a move against him. It was a fleeting thought, for the simple fact that she was in as much trouble as he was. Both of them had been left here, stuck in hostile territory with no allies but each other. As wary as Sevarn was of putting any measure of trust in a Cerberus operative, it was apparent he was out of options, and she was in turn.

'Looks like this place is a bust,' Lyssa said, ignoring his request to shut up. 'We should leave. These woodlands are crawling with outlaws and mercenaries.'

'They wouldn't just abandon the place like this,' Sevarn countered. 'There would be something left behind, in case any one of us came back. I just have to find it. A clue, a note, anything.'

'Clues? I'm not seeing any clues.' Lyssa looked about the rundown foundry and shook her head slowly. 'Unless the complete lack of any clues is, in fact, a clue itself. Though, that's probably a little too imaginative for you turians.'

Sevarn ignored her then, and instead made his way over to the nearby corner. There, a hulking, rusted out shell of what had likely been some machine that formed part of the foundry operation remained, a glorified metal box with a vaguely rounded shape that was about twelve feet across and eight high. There was a narrow space behind it, between this outer shell and the wall, and it was in here Sevarn stuck his head. Lyssa watched him, tilting her head with some wry curiosity, the turian's increasing desperation both worrying and yet oddly endearing.

'Looks like we're stuck with each other,' she told him. Sevarn disappeared behind the rusted metal shell and Lyssa frowned as soon as he left her view. 'You hear me, Lieutenant? We can help each other. We can get to New Thebes and get off of this shithole planet. What do you say? We get on a transport and go our separate ways at the first stop-off it makes?'

No answer. Sevarn was in the dusty narrow space behind the remains of the old smelter, eyes roaming the darkened nook he had found himself in. He heard Lyssa take a few careful steps his way, but he paid her little attention beyond that. Instead, his eyes fell upon something silvery, shining in the small measure of light that seeped into the narrow, darkened space he had squeezed into. It was a case, he realised, a metal one that had been tucked into the rusted hulk. He reached in and grabbed it by the handle, and with some effort managed to extricate himself from the narrow, dusty alcove that had now left smears of dirt all over his under suit. Lyssa was right outside waiting for him, and she took a step back as soon as he emerged, brow raising when she sighted the case he carried.

'Found it,' Sevarn declared, and he knelt down on the floor and set the case before him. Lyssa came to stand a few paces to his left, looking down at the case as he popped it open and revealed the contents within. The items looked brand new; no doubt they had been left here by the turians who had operated the command post rather than any other groups who may have used this old foundry as a shelter.

'Are those…?' Lyssa began, before Sevarn interrupted her.

'Dextro rations,' he declared, his voice filled with relief. There were several ration packs, nutrient bars mainly, and although they were bland with all the texture of cardboard, Sevarn nonetheless tore one open and began to scoff it down. Lyssa watched him, feeling a little hungry herself. Of course, she knew full well that dextro-based rations were hardly going to suit her stomach.

Crumbs fell down Sevarn's chin as he hurriedly chomped up the bar, and as soon as he was done with it, he tore open another one and got started on it at a slightly slower rate. Now he sifted through the other items stuffed into the case, among them a Tempest-model submachine gun, some thermal clips, a pair of fragmentation grenades and a single small disc-shaped object that was perhaps no larger than Lyssa's thumbnail.

'A locator beacon and communicator,' Sevarn announced, as he plucked the disc up from the case. It was an innocuous looking device, intentionally so on the part of those who had designed it. At a glance, one might mistake it for an optical storage drive or something similar, and it would likely work as such as well.

'Will your people come get you?' Lyssa asked him.

'Likely, but it might pay to get out of insurgent territory before we switch it on.'

'There's no telling who else might be able to detect it.'

She had a point there, of course. Sevarn looked to the beacon, narrowing his eyes slightly as he pondered his options with it. He could switch it on now, he supposed, yet just how secure was it? Surely the turian Blackwatch could secure such a thing enough so that no batarian bandit gang would be able to track it?

'I have to try,' he told her, and he rose to his feet. Lyssa narrowed her eyes, her doubt evident in her suddenly serious gaze. Sevarn met it in turn, daring her with the way his blue eyes glared her way to try and take it from him.

'This better not end in tears,' she muttered, relenting to his desire to switch it on. She shook her head slowly, no doubt beginning to have second thoughts as to teaming up with the turian Lieutenant and coming here. Sevarn switched the device on, holding it close to his face as he waited for some kind of acknowledgment from whoever was on the other end. The device emitted a few beeps, and he could almost imagine the scramble on the other end as the call came in, an unexpected one at that.

Suddenly, a voice did sound through, coming across as tinny through the tiny, multi-purpose device.

'Acknowledge, Blackwatch team. At what hour does the sun set on Cipritine?'

'The sun never sets on Cipritine,' Sevarn replied. This was a security question of course, and it required slightly more to pass: 'For Cipritine is the Hierarchy's heart and soul and is ever bathed in light.'

'Authorisation, Blackwatch?' The voice on the other end was that of a stern-sounding male, complete with the dual flanging tones that turians carried. Lyssa was listening in closely, presumably wondering what her ending up in turian custody might entail.

'Valus, Sevarn. Lieutenant, authorisation seven-seven-nine-zero-alpha-two-one-one-alpha.' He recited the code without pause, having long since committed it to memory.

'Your code is acknowledged and clear, Lieutenant Valus.' A brief pause followed, and the voice seemed to adopt a more relaxed tone: 'Now, are you in a safe location?'

'Safe enough for now.' His brow plates quirked slightly, a look of realisation filling his eyes: 'Colonel, is that you?'

'That it is, Lieutenant.' Colonel Venarus was the last person Sevarn had expected to hear answer the call. Nonetheless, it did make sense, seeing as how he had organized the mission and was known to be a very "hands-on" kind of leader. If one of his people was stuck in enemy territory, then he would be right down there on the ground working on a means to pull them out and bring them home.

'Now, I won't ask for explanations while you're in enemy territory. I simply need you to get to a rendezvous. It looks like you're the sole survivor of your squad. Given my limited resources on Anhur, I cannot send a recovery team your way.'

'Do you have my location?' Sevarn had been hoping for a pickup, a shuttle or some such to swoop in and get him out of this mess. He supposed an off-the-record mission would have fewer resources at its disposal, so the apparent lack of a rescue mission did not surprise him all that much. It was certainly disappointing, however.

'It's triangulating now.' A pause again, before Venarus spoke further: 'I had the outpost cleared as soon as I received word of the ambush. Damned batarians are better organized than we anticipated.'

'I'm the last one, sir.' Sevarn's voice sounded hollow, and he could see his team lying dead all around him once again, fires burning from the wrecks of the vehicles and batarian rebels closing in. It was as if he was right there on that highway again, stumbling around, his own blood filling his mouth. And then he was lying amongst that mass grave once more, the stench of death and the foul Anhur mud filling his nostrils. He felt a wave of nausea take hold of him then, and he almost retched. He swallowed it down instead, aware that Lyssa was looking at him in a funny way, as if she had noticed him fall into his reverie. The way in which his eyes had stared blankly past her might have clued her in, and Sevarn was quick to force himself back into the here and now.

'I'll be pulling you out of the fire on this one, Lieutenant. There's a village about ten kilometres south of you, a place called Pike's Creek. I'll be waiting for you there, at the village's hotel. It's not a big village, so you shouldn't have any trouble in finding it. I'll be here for a few more days at most. I don't want to leave you behind, Lieutenant, so get here quickly.'

'I'll get to you, sir,' Sevarn stated, his voice filling with something grim and determined.

'I know you will, Lieutenant. We can salvage this mess yet, I just know it. Now, I'd suggest radio silence from here on in. There's no telling who might be able to break into this frequency.'

'Understood, sir. I'll see you at that village.'

With that, Colonel Venarus closed the channel. Sevarn slipped the disc into a pocket in his under suit, before he rose to his feet and looked to Lyssa. She seemed surprised, and he did not have to wait long to find out why.

'You didn't tell him I was with you,' she said.

'So?'

'That's just a surprise, that's all. I thought you might be eager to tell your boss about your human prisoner. That way you can look like you did something right.'

Sevarn frowned, not sure if he should be offended by this remark or not. He bent down again and picked up the Tempest submachine gun from inside the case, as well as the spare thermal clips that went with it. He made sure to pluck the pair of grenades from inside as well.

'You're hardly my prisoner,' he told her. What he would not give for some sleep, yet he had to make that rendezvous. Sleep could wait, even if he was having trouble simply steadying himself as he stood up.

'So, I can just go?'

'I'm not going to try and stop you.' He had more important things to deal with, after all. This human Cerberus operative seemed unnecessary in comparison.

'Yeah, but like I've said, our odds are better together. This is Anhur; it's about as lawless as it gets out here. I dare say even Omega's more orderly than this dump.'

That was quite a comment to make, given Omega's reputation. The former asteroid-mining station turned mercenary hub and outlaw hotspot was certainly far from a holiday destination, yet there was no denying that the place had some measure of law and order in its own way. Anhur, on the other hand, had so far shown to Sevarn that the law and order here only went as far as the major settlements. The countryside was a free-for-all, rife with insurgents and mercenaries and the like. This may have always been the case, but the Anhur Rebellions had only made it far worse and the planet was unlikely to recover from that conflict anytime soon.

'You think we should work together?' He asked her.

'At least until we figure out a way off of this planet,' she replied. 'Look, I may be Cerberus but I'm not going to turn away help, no matter if it's turian or asari or even drell for that matter. I don't hate aliens; I simply prefer my own first and foremost. Can't you say the same for yourself?'

Sevarn did not reply to that. Looking at her now, specifically at the way in which her mouth quirked into a smirk certainly suggested that she thought she had him with that question. Indeed, he fought for his people's best interests as much as she did for her own. It was an annoying thought, that perhaps he was not all that different to this human woman. To find common ground in a Cerberus operative was probably not so far-fetched, but there was still that ingrained sense that people like her were the enemy, no matter how "normal" they may have seemed.

She perked up then, her gaze going towards the double doors at the far end of the factory floor. Sevarn heard it too, then, the sound of multiple engines sounding from somewhere nearby. They were not alone, and immediately Sevarn started for the set of stairs nearby. These took him to a rusted walkway that ran about the upper level of the main factory building, and from there would offer him an advantageous view of whatever lay outside.

'Hey, Lieutenant, can I have my gun back?' Lyssa called after him. He ignored her, and instead rushed along the gantry towards the front windows, most of which were partly boarded up. Nonetheless, he stopped by one and peered through a gap between boards, looking down upon the yard outside. There, he sighted a pair of rugged armoured six-wheeled vehicles that came trundling through what was left of the main gate. The vehicles were older, modified models, covered with a patchwork of repairs and stark red markings that denoted them as belonging to the forces of one of the more prominent local warlords.

Lyssa was behind him then, and she followed his gaze through the window to the armoured cars. As soon as she saw them, her eyes narrowed and her voice soured:

'Batarians,' she spat.

'They must have detected the transmission,' Sevarn stated. He was not sure if he should feel guilty about that or not; it had been a calculated risk, although the speed at which these batarians had arrived did worry him. Even with sophisticated triangulation equipment, it would have taken some work to determine the exact location of the source of the call. Still, there was no denying how well organized the local insurgents were, and it was part of the reason the Anhur Rebellions had been as bloody and brutal as they had.

The mercenaries, mainly of the Eclipse organization who had fought on behalf of the anti-slavery side had expected an easy victory. Instead, the mainly batarian pro-slavery side had matched them again and again, supplied through covert means from the batarian home system itself. Granted, the war was long over and the batarian militias mostly disbanded. Those that were outside now were of the small percentage who had refused to accept the terms of the peace treaty, and had instead opted to go on fighting their war through whatever means they could and wherever they could.

'Rear entrance,' Sevarn said, and he spun on his heels and started back down the walkway. Lyssa followed, all while at least a dozen batarian insurgents in rugged sets of red and earthen-toned armour began spilling out of the armoured transports. Orders were barked in their sharp, guttural tongue, and by the time Sevarn and Lyssa were close to the foundry's rear the first of them had come barging through the main entrance.

Automatic weapons fire rattled from across the foundry. Bullets struck the wall behind Lyssa as she darted along the walkway. More of the batarian soldiers were rushing around the sides of the building now, and as Sevarn ran he began to ready up a biotic field around himself, gathering enough of the shimmering blue energy to prepare some form of shockwave or throw. The pair scrambled down the stairs at the rear entrance, which came in the form of a simple rusted metal door. Lyssa shoved it open, bringing them outside into a rear yard littered with rusted metal debris left behind from the foundry's heyday. They came running outside just as another transport barrelled on through the rear gate ahead, this one smaller, more of a buggy with an open top which made the four armoured batarians inside it clearly visible. One of them was standing on a rear platform, manning a mounted gun that thundered as the pair emerged, bullets tearing through the brick wall at their backs.

The buggy came tearing towards them. Unarmed, Lyssa could do little but throw herself into cover, doing so behind a pile of brick rubble that had once formed part of the foundry building's wall. Sevarn, on the other hand, held his new submachine gun in one hand and sprayed fire downrange that clipped into the front of the buggy. The driver slouched forwards in his seat, blood spilling down his face and chest, and his body proceeded to push against the wheel. The buggy swerved sharply, and the batarian in the passenger seat hurriedly reached over for the wheel in an attempt to gain control. He managed to grab the wheel, but by that point the vehicle was close enough for Sevarn to reliably muster up all the biotic energy he could into a potent throw.

The blue cluster of energy struck the side of the buggy and sent it tumbling, throwing at least one of the batarians from the vehicle whilst the others were simply caught inside it. The vehicle rolled over at least twice before it landed on its top, metal grinding against concrete, the whole thing sliding for some distance as its momentum continued to push it along. It struck the perimeter fence, knocking a sizeable portion of it down, before the whole thing came to an abrupt halt.

'Damn it, I need my gun!' Lyssa turned to him then, motioning for the turian to hand her back the pistol he had confiscated from her. Sevarn glanced her way, briefly mulling it over, only to have his attention drawn to the batarians now flowing in from both sides of the yard. The pair were being flanked, and weapons fire rattled from both sides. With no armour and no kinetic barriers, Sevarn felt alarmingly vulnerable. He began to ready up a biotic barrier, but he was still simply too tired to do so effectively, the effort to enliven another biotic field around him leaving him panting, pain seeping into his extremities. A small trickle of dark blue blood began to fall from one of his nostrils.

'Stop!' The batarian's voice was deep and sharp. The barrel of a rugged and somewhat worn-out Vindicator assault rifle was pointed straight at him, from only metres away. The soldiers were surrounding them now, about eight of them, some with helmets and others without. Those without carried angered, contemptuous looks upon their four-eyed countenances. Sevarn had his gun still raised, and he contemplated taking his chances. These people had killed his entire team, so getting even with them was still very much at the forefront of his mind. Yet, here and now seemed the worst occasion for it.

'Stow the biotics,' the soldier barked. Judging from the white lines at the shoulders of his armour, this one had to be in charge, perhaps the batarian equivalent of a Sergeant. Sevarn looked to this soldier, who wore a simple helmet with a blue visor over two of his eyes.

'Shit.' Lyssa emerged from behind the pile of rubble, raising her hands at the sight of the armed band of disgruntled batarians. There was fear evident in her eyes, for the thought of entering batarian captivity was a terrifying one. Sevarn had heard all manner of things about what batarians did with their prisoners, with a life of slavery being the most likely outcome for a captive. Of course, that likely came after the interrogation and torture. And spirits forbid you end up in a full-blown batarian prison; a turian's lifespan in such a place could likely be measured in hours and not days.

'Drop it, turian. Or you die where you stand.' The batarian Sergeant meant what he said. The biotic field around Sevarn shimmered, yet it was not potent enough to send all of these soldiers flying out of his path. Before Sevarn could do anything, the Sergeant gave a nod to one of his subordinates. This one stepped forward, pulling some kind of pistol from his waist, and fired a shot into Sevarn that sent him reeling.

It was some kind of stun round, and its impact hit him with what was likely hundreds of volts of electricity. Sevarn yelped in pain, his muscles spasming, the gun falling from his grasp and the biotic field around him evaporating suddenly. He fell to his knees, catching himself with his hands, the shock wearing off almost as quickly as it had hit him.

'You four-eyed fucks—' Lyssa began, but a hit with a stun round silenced her as well. She emitted an agonized shout, high voltage coursing through her, and she fell somewhat unceremoniously against the pile of brick rubble. There, she writhed about where she lay for a moment more, clenching her jaw as the painful spasms rocked her body. And then, like Sevarn, the shock was over and she felt as if most of the energy she might have relegated for a struggle had gone with it.

Sevarn had to wonder if his day could get any worse. He supposed such thoughts were tempting fate, so he quelled them as best he could, even as the batarians began to manhandle him. Once again, his wrists were bound behind his back, except this time Lyssa had the same thing done to her. Just when things had started to finally look up, perhaps the worst thing short of outright dying had happened. He figured he might start simply expecting the worst, at least that way the best thing that might happen would only result in disappointment.