The cab flew over the dark yet neon lit streets of the wards at it headed to the Ryuusei sushi. Even from the distance they sat at, the two could see the lin. Nervously, Ashely adjusted her smart casual uniform collar in an effort to breath a little more. The cab soon landed and two exited, with the minotaur cracking her neck before approaching. Most people stood in line dressed in some high-class outfits but Shepard wore a casual military outfit, but did her best to smarten it up for this occasion. A man upfront saw them and indicated for the two to come down. She nodded and lead Ashley to the guy up front. Several people stared daggers at her for skipping but after hearing her name backed up a bit.
"Ahh commander Shepard," he smiled. "Your table is ready," He moved to the side and indicated to a table where Joker waved at her. Zenna smiled as she and Ashley walked over to the table at the far end of the restaurant and sat down.
"Hey commander. Not bad huh? This place is serious, like 'French guy at the door' serious," he said. "Only had to save the galaxy twice to get a place here. You see the line outside?"
"Yeah," Zenna muttered as she glanced, seeing an alliance officer trying to get in. She frowned at that, but turned to look at the two. "So, what's new?" she asked as she typed in a few keys, ordering food and drink with Ashley doing the same.
"Here we are, drink in hand. Best pilot in the galaxy, a rock star, and a cute puppy," he said making Zenna laugh while Ashely looked at him with a death glare.
Shrugging, the marine spoke up. "Any news on the Normandy?" she asked but earned a shrug from the pilot.
"Ah you know maintenance stuff," he explained. "It's hard knowing a bunch of strangers are moving around my, I mean your ship."
Zenna shuddered at that. "I know the feeling," she muttered as her engineering mind kicked in. "It feels like someone's going through my stuff,"
"Agreed," Ashley spoke up. "But, it will also do us to get some time off. As long as nothing explodes,"
Joker pointed at her with a nod. "Oh I trust you, just not sure about shifty aerospace engineers. Stealing our silverware,"
"Finding your porn," Ash added earning an odd look from the pilot.
Zenna smiled to the point of laughing, if not resisting the urge to bust a gut, but managed to speak up. "Let's just let something else do the work for now. We're on shore leave enjoy it,"
Williams nodded. "Yeah, whether we like it or not," she muttered as hu-hounds disliked not being active in some way.
"You'll manage," Zenna encourages as she patted the marine on the shoulder.
"I may need a drink that comes with an umbrella," Ashley grumbled as she drank her water.
Shepard smiled at that. "I'm the first human Spectre. I'll get you two umbrellas," earning herself a middle finger from the marine.
"Awesome use of power boss," Joker smiled as he put down his glass. "So, your email, it said it was important?"
Zenna was about to drink, but stopped placed it back down she looked around sharply. "My email? We got here because of you," Ashley nodded with her ears perking up.
Joker frowned at that with confusion, telling Zenna all she needed to know. "The hell I didn't send anything,"
"If you didn't who did?" the minotaur asked.
At that moment, the dark-skinned Alliance officer manged to get though. "Commander. Excuse me commander Shepard," the officer called out, making her way over to the commander while bumping into people and dropping her pad. "Alliance business. Commander this is urgent,"
"I don't think that's the umbrella lady," Joker muttered as the officer came up to the table.
"Commander Shepard, I'm staff annalist Maya brooks. Alliance-" she said before stumbling the saluting. " Excuse me- Alliance intelligence. There are people trying to kill you,"
The three people of the Normandy crew looked to each other with odd looks before looking at her.
"Yeah.. I think she's aware of that," Ashley slowly muttered.
"No," the woman said stuttering, waving her hand and trying to find the right words. "I don't mean Cerberus and the Reapers! I mean other people! New people! They're… it's. Someone is hacking your account, comm channels, personal records. They're targeting you specificity."
"Biggest mistake of their lives," Zenna said with a tilt of the head while she took a sip of her drink.
The pilot looked at her as she set the cup down. "Oh man there's the angry face." Joker said looking at her.
The minotaur shot him a glare before looking at the officer. "From the top. What do you know?"
As she said that three men dressed in military armour walked in past the host with the final one punching him in the face. The leader was tall, taller than a normal human but lacked the horns of a minotaur. His bulk indicated minotaurian heritage, but with the helmet on, it was hard to tell.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," he spoke giving them a mock bow. "Tonight's performance is brought to you by random acts of violence," Once he spoke the last sentence, the others began to fire in the air and tip the tables over.
That scared the customers around the place as they began to get out of the restaurant. As soon as they began to fire Zenna flipped up her table and her, Ashley and Joker to take cover behind it, while Brooks hid behind another table.
"Get down." she quietly ordered. "Should have brought my pistol,"
"No firearms," Ashley muttered
More people began to panic as they ran and the leader looked around. "Man, I love show business. Spread out find Shepard. That cow should be here somewhere,"
Zenna's eye began to twitch. "Cow? Did he just call me a cow who's only good for milking?"
"He didn't say that," Ash muttered
As one of them moved up he grabbed Brooks and pulled out her of cover as Joker complained about his pancreas.
"Got one sir," he yelled as he dragged her away despite her complaints.
The way he did it screamed ex-military. Seeing this, and idea came to Shepards' mind as she turned to Joker and Ashley.
"I'm going after her, find the crew," she ordered the two. "Split up go in separate directions.
"Find the crew, got it." Joker said as he moved away with Ashley going the other.
As they did this, one of the soldiers then came over and spotted Joker trying to sneak away.
"Hey stop." he ordered but before he could do anything Zenna came up grabbed the guy's head and twisted it snapping it killing him. She then grabbed his gun as Joker and Ashley turned to her.
"You used us as bait?" he asked.
Ignoring him, Shepard exited cover and fired forcing them to focus their attention on her and get into cover. "Go get the crew!" she said.
"She used us as bait." Ashley complained.
Three of the soldiers were still in the restaurant, taking cover thanks to Shepards covering fire. Zenna popped out of cover and fired three shots at the nearest merc, who decided to pop out of cover. The gun had a bad kickback but the impacts took the shields down and sent him to the floor dead. She moved over to better cover while using the pistol to take out another one of soldiers leaving only one left. The final one sent up a drone to attack her but she just kicked it into a wall taking it down.
"Brooks stay down!" she ordered.
"Staying down," Brooks said before muttering 'don't shoot me.'
Zenn made it up to Brooks and gave her an application of medi-gel. As she helped the intel officer up Zenna pushed her away as the minotaur sized merc jumped. The two minotaurs collided with each other and fell onto the glass under them. As they began to stand, cracks began to form which spiderwebbed out. The two looked at each other the glass broke and the two fell down into the pipes below.
She grabbed onto one of the light bars but it snapped and she fell down further. The other minotaur tried to do the same but slipped. The two landed into heaps on the floor, moaning from the pain and being wet and in pain as they sized each other as they got up before noticing the gun on the floor between them. After a quick look up to each other, they made a move for the weapon at the same time. Zenna was faster and grabbed it, but wasn't fast enough to pull away. The other minotaur grabbed onto her arms and tried to wrestle the gun out of her hands.
They moved back and forth, struggling against each other's strength before Zenna slammed her head into his. Despite there not being a wound, he backed away in a bit of a daze allowing Shepard to finish him with a single shot to the head, killing him. Shaking her head to get rid of her own dizziness she checked the weapon before her comm buzzed.
"Commander?" Brooks said over her comm. "I found a secure terminal are you ok down there?"
Zenna frowned. 'How did she find one this quick? Something isn't making sense,' Kira thought as she looked up from where she fell before shaking her head.
"I'm fine, but Brook you got hit," she responded as she moved up through a way onto the 'roadways' section of the wards.
Her response was not what Zenna was expecting. "I know! I used medi-gel. A lot of it. Um all of it accurately and the room is a bit bouncy."
"Sound about right for using too much," the commander muttered sarcastically.
Either she didn't hear, or didn't respond as the intel officer continued. "So can I help with anything?" making it clear about how eager she was to help.
As she moved further down the 'road', Zenna looked to the edge of a billboard and spotted a ladder. "Alert C-sec and look for a way out," she ordered as she took the ladder and slid down it.
Looking over to another platform, the monitaur jumped over to it before sliding down the ladder on it then a few shots from someone. As she landed, she looked over to the opposite side to see a landing pad.
"Brooks, I see some skycars across the gap, maybe a landing pad," she said as she ducked in case the mercs decided to take any more shots at her.
"I'm checking that area, transport no, laundry no, food no. ah it's a skycar lot Csion Motors." Brooks replied.
Moving her cover, plans of attack entered Zenna's mind before she picked the one, she felt would work the best. "Get a shuttle over there, I'll find a way across," she ordered as she slid down a ladder.
"Ok," Brooks muttered in confusion before continuing. "Umm so it turns out C-sec has locked the whole area down. It's going to be a tiny bit tricky to get a shuttle,"
"Keep at it Brooks," was all Zenna said as she moved into a cryo storage area for a restaurant.
"Oh," the intel officer said as if she forgot to mention something, one of the worst sounds in any marine's wear. "Also stay off your comm. Well except for me, it's hacked, that's probably how they found you,"
"Why didn't you say that earlier?" Zenna hissed as she moved through the cold section to the ladder at the end of the room, taking a breath she clamed down and took the ladder up. "Who are these guys?"
Taking the question at face value, Broos decided to answer it. "I don't know but they don't seem to like you,"
Zenna did her best not to roll her eyes. "Yeah, I'm sensing that," she muttered under her breath.
Getting up to the top she then ran across the top of it and jumped three times off the different sections to get to the end of the restaurant. Her ears twitched at sounds ahead which made her take cover. Her instincts turned out to be correct as she spotted two mercs to the right walking along.
"The advance team screwed it up," one of them said in annoyance.
"Shepard was unarmed. Man, those guys are stupid," the other said in agreement.
"Well, I wasn't armed but the fact is that I'm Zenna Shepard the biggest badass in the galaxy," the commander said as she leaned on a wall spinning the pistol in hand.
"What the..." they both uttered but before anything else could happen Zenna kicked one of them between the legs before throwing him into his friend.
The two grunted in pain before she kicked them off the ledge sending them to their doom. With a smile, the commander rubbed her hands together before shots rang out, forcing her to take cover.
"Shepard can you hear me? Are you alright?" Garrus said as he came over the channel making the minotaur smile.
"I'm fine," she said as she fired three rounds into the final merc followed by a cooked grenade which ended him. "Might need a little backup,"
"Lucky for you I'm Archangel. "Joker and Ashley filled me in, I'm on foot. Be there as fast as I can,"
Zenna smiled as she made her way passed the market Brooks came on, not happy with somone else on the line
"Excuse me who is this?" she said like an offended high-class woman. "You're on an unsecure channel and putting commander Shepard in danger," that made Zenna groan in annoyed.
"I'm doing what? Who is this?" he asked, his confusion self-evident.
"Hang on." Zenna as she reloaded the weapon before finishing a wounded. "Joker mentioned Staff Analyst Brooks right? That's her. So everyone play nice otherwise you'll have me to answer to, and you don't what that do we?"
"No commander." both Garrus and Brooks said at the same time with fear in their voices.
Zenna kicked the dead body of the merc to make sure he was dead. "Good,"