Zenna moved up to one of the side passages to the next section of the market but took cover as soon as she was fired upon. Three soldiers took cover ready to engage again. Cursing her luck, she moved out firing at the troopers. They did pop out and fire back trying to take her down, while she had speed, several rounds did hit her in the leg and arm, but she ignored it as she moved into better cover. After applying a quick dose of medi-gel, she continued to move and fire at the soldiers.
She managed to take out one, before jumping into another section of cover. Pressing her back against a market stall the two last soldiers fired at her location pinning her down. Crouching like a tiger she moved up to a corner slowly to see the sniper behind a bar and looking down the sniper rifle waiting for her to pop up but nothing happened. Zenna aimed her pistol at the sniper's head and fired.
Despite being small the weapon packed quite the big punch at the cost of some accuracy. While she managed to take out the sniper, she had to change out the heat sync before moving to take the final soldier. He charged at her while firing. Popping her shield again he managed to wound her, but was backhanded by the minotaur when he got too close. She finished him off with a few shots to the head.
Grunting as she applied another dose of medi-gel, her radio cracked to lifer. "Javik reporting in commander. The crew is on its way," the old Prothean said.
Zenna sighed at that. "Good to hear, things are getting a little dicey," she muttered.
"I'm not surprised," he replied in a deadpan tone.
The minotaur smiled and shook her head as she turned and followed the way round to the main street. A door in the middle of the main street blocked the way. The warning red lights on it were a clear indication that this was invasion barrier. Sighing, the minotaur tapped her ear.
"Brooks I found a way across, but it's locked down," she called. "Can you do something about it?"
The intel officer came on quickly. "R..right, because of the uh, lockdown," she stuttered. "Can you get through?"
With a sigh of annoyance, the commander nodded. "I'll try to override it," she muttered as she moved and looked at the lock.
She opened up her omni-tool and just typed in her Spectre code. "And I rarely think of that why?" she muttered under her breath.
It opened with no issue but as soon as she moved onto the walkway a merc spotted her. "It's her. Open fire," one of them yelled firing making her take cover.
"Me and my fucking luck today," the minotaur groaned before she popped out of cover and fired.
"Commander!" Brooks yelled into her ear.
"Shepard! What's happening? I heard that from here," Garrus practically yelled.
"It's under control," The commander said with gritted teeth as she followed the walkway round. "It's under fucking control,"
She moved to the other side of the street and fired at the soldiers as Garrus came on the comm again.
"Shepard, Brooks sent me a navpoint for the skycar lot. Meet you there," he said.
"Good." the commander said as a soldier who was getting a little cocky and advancing on her. "I need some help," she exited cover and pushed herself towards him, pushing the soldier off the ledge.
"What do we know about the Mercs?" the former C-Sec officer asked.
"They have guns and don't like me," she answered sarcastically as she ran into a soldier before blowing a hole in his head.
The exasperated sigh of Garrus told her how much he didn't like that. "Not helping Shepard," he muttered back
"Commander it would be really great if you could stay off the comm," Brooks chimed in.
"Hey they called me!" Zenna defended as she took cover as sniper decided to use her as target practice.
The sniper had poor aim however and missed her as the three soldiers advanced. She sighed but moved up fast. Throwing a grenade at one of the mercs, it detonated soon after taking out their shields. Three sniper rounds impacted her shields causing them to fail and a round hit her in the side. With a grunt she tumbled into cover and applied medi-gel and groaned in annoyance to find that she only had two doses left.
Once the pain settled, she moved along as the sniper focused on where she was and not where she is. "Whoever gave this guy a sniper did a piss poor job of training him," she said under her breath as she reached his position.
Moving quickly, she exited cover and charged at him. The sniper didn't react quickly enough and was backhanded off of the bridge. Two more then turned to her and tried to open fire but one of them had his cheats riddled with holes while the other had his neck snapped with a quick movement form the minotaur.
As she got closer a trooper appeared and forced her back into an alcove for cover. Swearing she reloaded the pistol and waited for the soldier to reload. When his weapon stopped, she moved up fast and tackled him to the floor. His helmet came of showing the blue goo he was made out of and slid out of the armour. It flung part of itself at her traying to choke her. Backing up she tried to pull the slime off as the rest of the body stood and took aim.
Managing to peel the slime off, she threw it to the ground before running up and placing a grenade on the slime's armour before backing up. It didn't have time to run as it exploded taking out it's nucleus, killing it.
"Fucking slimes," she muttered as she continued on.
She moved into a shop and spotted two mercs firing at a turrian behind a car. Getting annoyed the turrian got out from cover and moved up firing a heavy pistol as the solders and due to their weaken shields they fell quickly. The minotaur looked at the turrian with a smile as she walked up to him.
"So having a bad day Shepard?" he asked.
Rolling her shoulders, she nodded. "You could say that, but after I fucked someone, I'll be fine," she muttered back.
The turrian shrugged but nodded. "The landing pad is just over there but it's behind a locked gate," he pointed.
She nodded looking around. "Let's find a control panel," she said as walked past him.
"Right," he replied in an accusatory tone. "Word is you fell through a fish tank,"
Zenna gave him a half-hearted smile. "We'll talk later," she replied through gritted teeth.
"A damn shame," he shook his head. "Good food there,"
"We'll talk later," she hissed adding the tone that she didn't want to talk about it.
The walked up to the door next to a dealership, but it was locked. Looking around the two couldn't see a way to open it. With a sigh, the minotaur brought her pistol up ready to fire but Garrus lowered her weapon before tapping on a window next to the door,"
"Hi there can you open this up?" he asked in his most polite cop tone he could muster.
The doors at the other end opened up and the two of them smiled.
"Much appreciated," he thanked the dealer
"Please leave," the Volus said.
Garrus then gave Zenna a cocky look before swaggerer off.
She scoffed. "Well I could have done that," she whispered with no small amount of annoyance.
The two the moved onto the landing platform as a C-sec car came in. As it lowered to a hover the door opened and a bunch of mercs inside began to fire at them making the two take cover. The rounds hit their cover and bounced off it. Just then a loud roar sounded and Wrex jumped from a shop and landed on the front of the car sending it to the landing pad. He then jumped at the side of the car and rand up crushing one of the mercs against the wall. Turning he then head butted another knocking him out then punched another till he fell then looked at the final one.
The other door of the car opened and the merc screamed as he jumped out scared of the rampaging Krogan. The one who was crushed into the door was trying to get up but Wrex just kicked him off the platform. He then walked out of the car and onto the platform before looking at the heavy trooper as Zenna and Garrus walked up to him.
"Wrex what are you doing here?" Zenna asked with a smile.
"Ah just informing the council about new Krogan requests for expansion," he said as he picked up a chaingun and threw it to Zenna.
An explosion sounded behind them and the three of them took cover as more mercs jumped down from the platform.
"Shepard, got a way out of here?" Wrex asked as he began to fire at the mercs
"Wrex, I'm a professional," she replied.
Wrex just looked at her, questioning her non-answer. "That's not a yes!"
"It's not a no!" she counter and spun up the barrels of the gun before firing.
The weapon was loud but took out at least five of them down before Joker came on the comm.
"Commander!" Joker called.
Zenna got back into cover and tapped her. "Joker! We lost our ride, where are you?" Garrus and Wrex took up the slack as the mercs tried to make a move.
"On my way, picked up Brooks figured you have some questions," he replied
"Good call," she said as she came up out of cover and opened fired again taking out a few forcing some into cover but Garrus' eagle eye put a stop to that.
"Good to be back yeah!" he called out as Zenna's chaingun overheated and she was forced to take cover and Brooks decided to call.
"Commander did C-sec find you? Are you ok?" she asked.
That raised a few questions in her head. "Yes and no, mercs in C-sec shuttle,"
"What?" the intelligence officer asked in confusion.
A shot hit near her. "Little busy now," Zenna said as she came up from cover and took out the sniper.
"Right sorry, we'll be there soon," she stuttered.
Mercs seemed to be pouring out of the vent on a ledge. Zenna decided to move up and take cover before unleashing a hail of lead at them taking more of them down as Wrex called out as he smashed a merc into a wall.
He roared in joy. "Great place to fight in, lots to destroy," he declared.
Joker then soon came on as Garrus took down three of the mercs in rapid succession. "Approaching your position commander, just following the gunfire."
"Copy that," Zenna confirmed. "Are we being that loud?"
"Sorry I'm late I hate to take the scenic route," he apologised.
"Scenic route?" Brooks asked in bewilderment. "We nearly crashed four times! Where the hell did you learn to drive?"
"And Brooks says hi," he quickly added.
As she took cover again Zenna looked to the landing pad to see the Kodiak coming in.
"Get to the shuttle!" she yelled as she ran to the shuttle firing at the mercs, giving the others covering fire/
The other two followed her and jumped onto the shuttle as the door closed Zenna flipped the bird as them before it fully closed.
OOOOO
As the four entered Zenna new apartment question began swirling in their heads. Ashley, who had made it back before them, was the first to voice her question.
"Can someone tell me what's going on here," she asked. "And did you really fall though a fish tank?" she directed at Zenna who gave her a disapproving look.
"She did," Garrus answered earning a death glare from the minotaur which he ignored. "I didn't recognise those mercs, heavily armoured and C-sec shuttles?" he asked as they moved in front of the fireplace.
"I don't know I never seen them before," Zenna shook her head as she looked to Brooks who had her face in her hands.
"I cannot believe you survived all that," the intelligence officer said, her mind still reeling from what happened. "They had guns and grenades and those drone things,"
The others looed at each other for a moment, unsure what to make of Brook's outburst. "This is a standard Tuesday for us," Ash answered with a nod from everyone earning an even more shocked look from Books.
"I'm calling Commander Bailey, see what's going on with C-sec." Zenna said as she opened up her omni-tool.
"Okay that sounds, wait! wouldn't that make anyone who you contact a target too?" Brooks asked.
Garrus nodded at that. "She's right Shepard. Until we figure this out it's a big risk," he agreed.
With a groan of annoyance, she shut down her omni-tool. "Okay then, for now we run this ourselves,"
"Ourselves, on our own? Outside the law? Okay, yeah," Brooks said clearly nervous.
"Not for the first time," Wrex muttered.
"I got shot! I've got medi-gel, but still, I took a desk job explicitly not to get shot! And you killed a hundred guys with a pistol," the intel officer burst out saying, panic seeming to set in.
"Well yes that did happen…." the commander admitted. "But that happens to us how many times?" all she got was shrugs.
"I mean who does that? Well, you I guess but besides you? They said that medi-gel might make me jumpy. Do I seem jumpy?" her tone was a little agitated but no one took notice.
Garrus and Wrex looked at each other and the two just shrugged.
Now she groaned in annoyance. "How did you get mixed up in this?" she asked no one in particular. "I monitor data for the Alliance to prevent data fraud and hacking of officer Id's. Like someone's using an admirals pass to get into a nightclub on the Citadel when that admiral is fighting on Tuchanka? I wrote a tracking program, it's really neat. I'm named it 'Mr Biscuits' after my cat,"
"Brooks," Zenna said in a calming tone trying to keep her on topic.
She waved her hand. "Right sorry. Anyway, Mr B… I mean my program detected a breach in your classified files. Soon everything we had on you was compromised, personnel files, mission reports everything,"
"Since when does hacking personnel records involve heavy weapons fire?" Wrex asked.
"With our luck? All the time," Garrus shrugged to which Wrex nodded in agreement.
Ignoring them, Brooks continued. "Think of what the criminals could do if they had Shepard access codes. Or Spectre codes even!"
"Explains why they want you dead Shepard," Ashley nodded. "Nothing to stop them until the damage is done,"
"And just when we got some time off," The commander whispered. "Okay, let's figure out who they are and shut them down. Any ideas?"
"Well, I was looking at that pistol you picked up," Garrus said making Zenna pull it out and look at it.
"For such a tiny thing it sure packs a punch," Wrex added as she put it on the table in front of them. "Never seen anything like it before,"
At that moment Liara walked in and joined the six in front of the fireplace. "Let me see it. I might be able to help. Glyph,"
The former Shadow Broker's drone then appeared. "I'll begin collecting the relevant intel to review, Dr T'soni,"
"Liara," Zenna nodded as she held out the pistol to the drone.
"Shepard, I'm happy to see you're in one piece," the asari said. "A shame about the sushi place though. It was my favourite,"
"I hear that," the minotaur muttered.
"Yeah, she fell through a fish tank," Ash added getting a shocked look from the Asari which turned into an accusatory gaze at the minotaur who found the window more interesting.
"Alright Liara's on point, what about the rest of the crew?" Wrex asked.
At that moment as if on cue Joker walked in. "Yeah, what about those slackers?" he asked.
Zenna smiled and walked up to him. "Joker, you've been busy," she said.
He nodded as "I found some folks who accurately like being shot at," he said as he turned and Miranda, Javik, EDI and Tali stood in the doorway.
"Ready to help commander," EDI said.