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"As soon as the lift opens, I head left. You head right, Cop." His bodyguard grunted shortly, flicking the Turian a nod and gesturing at the tight confines of the elevator - at least with so many people, and one being a Krogan - and rumbling. "We can't risk getting stuck in here. One grenade, and…"
"Soldier soup." Riks grunted, sighing, "Yeah. That works."
"You said you had special access on this?"
"I do, and we're not coming out in a public area because of it." Riks nodded, bringing up his arm and projecting a very simplified layout of Huerta and the wide avenue just outside it. He tapped a wide room on the other side of the avenue and drew a line under the avenue and over towards Huerta, tapping a spot just below where the lift would normally let them out. "We'll get off here, in the maintenance access zone, and head across through the old warehouse to come in from a more open area. The better to avoid clustering up and trying to breach through a small, very grenade friendly access point."
"And the warehouse approach should be safe?"
"It should, yes." Riks nodded, flicking the Drell a look and adding, "It's an older, mostly disused, surplus storage area. The nearby stores send overflow there, but beyond that…"
"It's an old, forgotten hole." Arak grunted, "Perfect for a place to sneak in through."
"And if Cerberus is waiting?" John asked, pointing at the access way and then the avenue. "Either case, we'll be in for a hell of a fight…"
"We are either way." His Krogan grunted shortly, "This way, we hit their rear."
"Ideally…" The other cop murmured, sitting in the corner and tapping their foot idly.
"Worst case, we'll be able to tell if Huerta is already lost before we're in the middle of it." Riks grunted, mandibles flicking uncomfortably, "I'd rather secure it, but…"
"If it's lost already, we can't do anything." John nodded, sighing tiredly, "One step at a time."
"Indeed." Thane murmured, "One step at a time…"
They all agreed and the last few moments passed by in a familiar, tense sort of quiet. The kind people fell into when they knew they were very possibly on their way to a swift, gorey end.
Finally, though, the elevator slid to a stop and 'dinged' quietly.
Arak and Riks swept out as they'd planned, stepping out quickly and sweeping the dark hallway outside the door with their weapons. When they didn't see anything - or get shot at, of course - they stepped further out to rest their shoulders against the wall opposite the lift's door and paced off to either side while John and the other officer stepped out to join them. Outside, the hallway was dark, with recessed lights sputtering and damaged along the ceiling and their long shadows cast by the light from the elevator, stretching out ahead of them.
Gods, he missed his VISR right then…
"Clear." Riks grunted shortly, "Dark, though."
"Clear." He whispered, taking a shallow breath and frowning. "I smell blood…"
"So do I." Arak grunted lowly, "Fresh… Both ways."
"Which way to the storage area…?"
"Your way." Riks called over his shoulder, turning and coming to join him, kneeling in the dark behind the heavily armored Krogan. "Odds are they cleared it when they first hit… Like the Presidium walkways."
"Mhm…" He hummed, instincts drawing his eye to every flickering shadow. "Thoughts, Thane?"
"The sooner we get into a more open area, the sooner my Biotics will be more useful." The fatigued Drell spoke, voice raspy, echoing from the elevator he held open - giving them what little light they had. "Until then, I am of… Limited use."
"And you need to rest." John grunted, "Catch your breath."
"A funny trick that would be," he chuckled, "considering my lung disease."
John smiled but let the conversation die, reaching out to tap Arak's side and grunting, "Advance. But be careful. No telling what could be waiting for us…"
Slowly, they advanced, with him just behind the two more heavily armored soldiers, right in the middle, and Thane lingering with the other officer. The hallway didn't get brighter as they went, but when the lift closed, the darkness was at least relatively even. Enough that he could make out stacks of crates, boxes on dolleys, and more along the walls as they walked. And, after another few, quiet moments, and the smell of blood getting worse and worse, they saw light ahead.
And a corner.
And a leg sticking out from the corner…
"Shit…" Riks sighed, advancing just a bit quicker, past the Krogan who huffed and let him go. He stopped at the corner, peeking around it and going shock still before he stood and staggered out, into the open.
Why, John realised when they reached him…
The storage area had been very nearly emptied of the normal crates and supplies he'd expected, but that hadn't been Cerberus.
It had been around fifty or so refugees, who had moved in with tents and lengths of cloth that were still somewhat intact, stretched between the cargo containers left behind. Little seating areas, mostly just cushions and pillows laid out, dotted the inside of the camp. And little grills and electric stoves, scattered about haphazardly in between crushed and trodden tents. It wasn't too bad, considering the state of the galaxy, but…
"Cerberus found this place." Arak grunted, standing at the corner and looking at the row of dead civilians, left in a neat pile where they seemed to have fallen. He flicked John a look when he only sighed and turned away from the bodies.
"They'll pay for this…" Riks growled, turning and striding towards the door at the far end of the room - before Thane caught his arm.
"Do not rush to combat in anger, Officer." The Drell murmured, "That way lay mistakes… And your death."
"I know what I am-"
"And ours." John added, stepping between them and gently pushing Thane's arm down. "Cerberus will pay for this- For everything. But we need to keep our heads, and do it right."
For a long, quiet moment, the Turian was silent, staring at the bodies. It was a look the ODST recognized, in spite of his alien features. He had been meant to ensure precisely this never happened, and had failed. However impossible to stop this it would have been for him, that would always be how he saw it. And John was torn between letting him have the time he needed and their very real need to move…
But, luckily, he recovered quick enough, turning and grunting, "Right. Come on."
John flicked the Turian a look, recognizing the quiet, distant tone… But ultimately he only nodded and followed behind him.
The stairs up were empty, aside from little piles of loose rubbish scattered in the corners. Piles they checked as they went, wary of mines or sensors that would give them away. They didn't find anything, though whether that was because they missed something or Cerberus was simply that confident the route was secure, and made their way up and into a hallway running behind several stores, a couple C-Sec officers dead against the wall where they'd died fighting. More were just through the doors, scattered behind service counters ripped apart by the fighting, scattering food in some and clothes and jewelry in others. Beyond them, a couple dozen Cerberus soldiers had died in the assault.
For once, he felt glad to see it…
Beyond the stores was what was left of a familiar boulevard, split by an elegantly curving support column pockmarked by weapons fire. Corpses filled that space, too, scattered amongst overturned tables, hastily erected barricades, and broken turrets.
"C-Sec held out there, first." Riks grunted, pointing at the vague outline of a perimeter to either side, over-run by Cerberus bodies laying amidst the C-Sec ones. And others - mercenaries, he assumed, here on leave - that had died beside them.
"They haven't taken it yet." John murmured, pointing across the promenade. The quiet sound of gunfire echoed out of the wide, open entrance of Huerta, its security shutters drawn down and then blasted apart. "We need to move in, now, before whoever is there breaks."
"No time to be clever." Arak grunted, "They'll call for reinforcements."
"Will they…?"
"What are your thoughts, Cousin?" The Krogan asked, flicking him a look.
"We killed their sniper," he pointed out, "but no one reacted…"
"That we know of." Riks pointed out, "No one reacted that we know of."
"All the better to move slowly." John grunted, "If they're waiting, they'll have mines and turrets up. If not…"
"We will approach their rear," Thane hummed, "and take them by surprise."
"Exactly." He'd been considering it for a while, but the Cerberus teams they'd fought didn't seem to be communicating. After they'd cleared the landing, nothing further had come. Just what they'd sent initially. "I think their response to C-Sec's robust communication systems was to just broadly jam everything."
"Including themselves…" Riks murmured, "That's-"
"Foolish." Thane nodded, "But then, Cerberus does not overly value its soldiers."
"We move slowly, until we know we can't." Riks nodded, raising his rifle, "Then we rip them apart."
Plan made, they spread out through the three stores straight across from the hospital. And, quietly, crossed the open boardwalk, slowly picking their way through the corpses. John paused long enough to police a Vindicator from a fallen mercenary, shouldering it as he moved on and turning to watch Thane collect a pair of Shurikens for himself, which he looked over with a frown before turning to give him a nod. It reminded him of a different life, on a different planet, with a very different person in drab, rain-soaked fatigues looking over a plasma rifle and giving him the same look.
He didn't like the memory…
Didn't hate it as much as he expected, though, either.
Huerta had two entrances just a bit inside the overhanging opening, split by a wide, pockmarked welcome desk. Unlike the one inside, this had several seats for staff as well as what had been a solid, reinforced glass front and a security desk by each of the two doors to either side of the desk. Mainly, before the war, it'd been there to help ward away people trying to get at the wealthy and famous that had always flocked to Huerta. After, check-in had moved out to it to make space for more management at the main desk inside, and more security had been added.
Security laid against the wall behind the desk, alongside another pair of C-Sec officers and a Phantom…
He was impressed they'd managed to take one of those down.
"Krios." He grunted, jerking his hand over his shoulder towards the exit side and waving Arak and their two C-Sec allies towards the entrance. He pointed at them as they parted, then held up a fist and drove it toward Huerta, then tapped his chest and held up two fingers. 'You breach first, we come second.'
Riks and Arak both nodded, heading over.
The double doors had been blown in on their side as he approached it, listening to quiet Cerberus chatter just inside, and he was sure the same could be said of the entrance. Cerberus favored all-out assaults, after all, and leaving the literal entrance unassailed wouldn't make much sense for them. With Krios on the other side, and waiting on the first breach, he peered around the corner, anxiety spiking in his gut…
The dozen or so feet between the entrance and the welcome desk was filled with bodies, but most of those were Cerberus. And the rest were C-Sec and a handful of Krogan. Where they had come from, he had no idea, but they'd gone down as hard as expected. The hallway and first layer of treatment rooms had been reinforced by furniture piled up in a barricade wall, but Cerberus had already taken it, pausing for a moment while they rearmed and a Centurion at the welcome desk barked orders and watched an Engineer working at the main admin terminal.
What could they be after there…?
A burst of gunfire cut off his thoughts and punched into the back of an Engineer working on a turret on a trolley just beside a hole in the barricade. She screamed and fell, clutching her back and writhing as the dozen or so Troopers spun towards the entrance and moved for what scant cover they could find behind the main desk, overturned furniture and the bodies on the floor. Arak rushed forward, bellowing to meet one of the Troopers that tried to rush closer to them, reaching for a grenade on his belt. The Krogan's backhand crushed his helmet in and sent him reeling as the warrior kept on, heading towards a group of them while Riks sprayed suppressive fire.
All the while, the Centurion just shielded the Engineer working the terminal, and the Engineer kept at it…
"Thane…"
"I see them." The Drell hummed, "I will handle them."
Nodding, he stepped around the corner and raised his rifle, peppering the Troopers trying to circle his bodyguard. The Vindicator was light and accurate, and his shots found the backs of knees and hips, sparking off armor as often as they punched into the vulnerable bits between. One, two, three fell before he ducked into cover, reaching for a fresh clip and peeking around the corner as he mechanically exchanged it.
He just managed to catch Thane sliding over the counter, turning the motion into a kick that knocked the Centurion's weapon aside while he drew both his new Shurikens, peppering the Centurion's throat and stomach in three quick bursts. The Engineer flicked him a look as he landed and spun, kicking him in the side while he still tried to keep working. The blow sent him reeling into the corner, and two more bursts caught him before he could recover. Thane turned and hurled the spent Shuriken into the Centurion as he drew a knife, backing it with Biotic power such that it shattered the man's collar bone - judging from the strangled scream and limp arm - before Thane punched a Biotically enflamed fist into and through his throat, ripping it to the side and pitching the dead man down as he turned to gun down another Trooper trying to advance on him.
Jaune killed the other two trying to back him up and, suddenly, the room was quiet…
"Clear!" He called, stepping out of cover, mindful of the bodies - old and new both. "Riks? Arak?"
"Fine!"
"Clear!" Riks grunted, pacing across the room towards the barricade, "This is Officer Riks, C-Sec! Is anyone-"
"We're alright!" A familiar, accented voice called just before Michel's head poked over the barricade. She had a bandage wrapped around it, with a little spot of red that made John scowl, but she smiled on seeing them. "It is good to be rescued…"
"Reinforced." He corrected, turning to watch the door, "Not rescued. We don't have a way to move anyone, or anywhere to go."
"We're entrenching at the door." Riks called out, "Is there anyone left that can help us move some of this barricade there?"
"I'll get some volunteers." She answered, "Give us a moment. It has been… Hard."
He left Riks to coordinate the effort and turned instead to pace over to where Thane was working on the terminal - and leaning heavily on it. Sensing his approach, and doubtless wanting to avoid the obvious questions, he said, "They were looking through admissions files. Luckily, the names are all code-named, at least for the VIP wing."
"That's what they were looking at?" Thane nodded and he frowned, "Why?"
"I believe," the Drell murmured, "they were looking for us."
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Chronus :
One - every part of a story does not need a 'use'. What 'use' is ANY scene I have written of combat or even of cast members just talking? None, really, except to let you have time to breathe with them. Does it make things take longer? Yup, and some don't have the patience for it - which is fine, I don't have the patience to smoke brisket properly. But it's a style thing. Like how some people make peppered steak on charcoal and others are wrong. XD
Two - the use in this case was to establish that the STG in this continuity is an antagonistic force, and how far they are willing to go. And to foreshadow their future actions. I wanted it to happen mostly in the background, with characters drawing their own conclusions and evidence to let the readers decide what THEY thought about it all.
It also had a fun fight scene to set up John's burgeoning bond with peoples and characters in this story. XD
Addendum because I am sleep deprived - I am only explaining my process in response, please don't take this as any form of attack. XD