Chapter Two: Damned if You Do...
Year: 2184
Location: UT-47 Kodiak Drop Shuttle, en route to the Hoplos system.The shuttle was well-lit, able to fit about a dozen people or so. Unfortunately for a grumpy old krogan like Nakmor Drack, his massive size would count for four or even five, he humorously told himself. Human shuttles never accounted for krogans.
Still, the ride so far put him on edge. His right leg had been twitching and his prosthetic left hand started to itch again. As someone from that one human movie said, he was getting too old for this shit.
There were two others with him, one drell and the other human, both male. The drell assassin sat across from him, his hands together as he started to pray. Thane Krios. Years ago, he hired Drack to help him pursue his wife's murderer.
"Amonkira, Lord of Hunters. Grand that my hands be steady, my aim be true, and my feet swift," Thane muttered. "And should the worst come to pass, grant me forgiveness." He raised his head, his eyes now on the krogan, and straightened his posture. It looked like that prayer of his gave him confidence. Or assurance.
"If I didn't say it before, I'll say it here." The old krogan smiled. "It's good to see you again, kid." The old krogan let out a small, hearty chuckle.
"Likewise, Drack," Thane replied.
"So how's your son? He doin' alright?" the krogan asked. "I know you haven't seen him in years but…"
Thane clenched his jaw as he shook his head. "I have been out of his life ever since." His tone was firm, controlled. "It's better for him not to follow in my footsteps."
The human in a brown jacket and black pants stepped in. "If you don't want him to follow in your footsteps, then maybe you should be more worried about what you wear," he deadpanned.
"What do you mean?" Thane asked. His expression remained unchanged.
"You, the brooding badass wearing a black coat, like all the cool kids want to be," the Courier answered.
Drack looked up at the human who called himself the Courier. Like he was supposed to be a superhero with a secret identity or some shit. When they met, the human came across as cocky. In his experience, the cocky ones always went first. At least he was upfront as to why he hired them. There was a facility run by Cerberus on Triden and they would infiltrate it to find some information on a project of his that Cerberus hijacked.
However, Drack wondered
how that human managed to contact them.
Thane tensed up, which the krogan and the Courier noticed. "Something up?" he asked.
"Kid's got Kepral's Syndrome," Drack replied, leaning forward. "Lotta drell have it. Pretty sure you've caught up on stuff like that, yeah?"
"Yeah. It's because the drell are more used to arid environments than humid ones," the Courier answered. "It erodes their lungs' ability to take in oxygen, affects the rest of their body. In other words, they suffocate."
"That is correct. It is a slow and painful death," said Thane matter-of-factly. He turned and looked at the human. "Do not worry. I've made preparations for dealing with water worlds such as Triden."
The Courier nodded. "Glad to hear it."
The shuttle rumbled for a moment before the screen next to Drack popped up, showing a spaceport outside. There was an intense thunderstorm going on outside. Lightning clashing in the distance, waves crashing into the edges of the port along with a stack of heavy crates here and there. Hell, they could hear the roar of thunder as the shuttle entered the moon's atmosphere.
"We're here." The Courier stepped in front of a wall. The drell assassin was the first to stand up, putting his helmet on as he stood next to the human.
"Finally!" Drack exclaimed, cranking his neck as he stood up and caught up with the other two. He looked at the human with a scoff. "Hey, kid. If this all goes to hell, you better hope you know how to count."
The Courier smirked, looking back at the old krogan, before he put his helmet on. "Then try and keep up, old man," he retorted as the wall in front of them parted open.
"Old man?" Drack chuckled as the three stepped out of the shuttle. "Not a lot of people talk back to me like that. Maybe I'm starting to like you."
Location: Triden, Hoplos SystemAs soon as the Cerberus shuttle landed on the pad, Zachary stepped out, his M-92 Mantis sniper rifle fully formed in his hands. Heavy rainfall crashed down on him, and a shiver ran down his spine. He was quite grateful his armor kept him dry and somewhat warm underneath; he would have frozen otherwise!
He turned to seven other soldiers as they stepped out as well and signaled to the pilot inside. The shuttle lifted off at his command and went further out of the atmosphere, the glow and roar of its engines were all that remained before it disappeared completely in the thick, thundering clouds above.
He knew two other people among his squad: Raonar Fulmer and Anthony Prats. They had been with him since his early days in Cerberus.
Anthony was a biotic who was sent off to Grissom Academy before being expelled for constantly attacking the other students. Raonar, the larger man in the squad, was a heavy weapons expert who once served in the Alliance before being dishonorably discharged for steroid abuse and his disregard for civilian casualties.
Here, they both served a better purpose in working for Cerberus, Zachary would say.
Zachary gestured to the squad before moving forward, and they followed behind him, their weapons up. They said nothing, even as they trekked across and past each of the landed pads. Their destination was in their sights: an unassuming building owned by an information security company. It was large and oval, a series of antennas crowned on the roof.
It was like anything else in this water world, but for anybody working for Cerberus, this company was a front, having many purposes from expanding its influence in the Attican Traverse, archiving information on the organization's various projects and team structures, and was the intended site to conduct experiments on biotic-suppressing drugs. Unfortunately for them, the Courier used to be with them, and somehow, he found out about this place, according to intel.
Zachary raised his clenched fist and they all halted in their footsteps. He climbed on a catwalk to his right and the rest of the squad spread out and went into position, each of them either hiding behind crates or pipeline railings.
Raonar was rather twitchy, twiddling his fingers on the new M-83 Breaker minigun. Anthony's hands curled into fists, a dark blue aura surrounding each of them.
He could see why they were tense. The Courier was, by all accounts, a dangerous man. He was able to turn a failure into a success, evident with his retrieval of Commander Shepard's body last year, and his tendency to leave behind a trail of bodies. Then, months later, he defected and escaped their captivity. And then he sold out to the Alliance and blew the whistle on them. If Rasa were still with Cerberus, none of this would have happened.
As for the rest of the squad, most of them were nervous, with wide-eyed looks like one of them darted her eyes to Zachary and the others.
If anybody else led this squad, they would sympathize with some of them, including the newbie, tell them all that it'll be fine. But that would be a lie, certain that they would die quickly at the hands of the Courier.
Zachary looked through the scope. From this vantage point, he could see a parked shuttle not too far from the facility. "Confirmed. Looks like he got here before us." He let out an irritated sigh.
"Something wrong, Zach?" Anthony asked through his helmet's comms channel.
"Oh, you know," Zachary seethed, his rifle now resting on the railing. "Just thinking about him pisses me off."
"Don't we all, man," Raonar replied. "I can't wait to test this gun on that bastard. Preferably up close and personal."
"Or maybe put his head on a stick and turn him into a puppet," said Anthony.
"Yeah. If we're lucky, we can find some turian's backup weapon to do it with." Zachary chuckled before he looked through the scope.
"Maybe that'll shut that smart mouth of his for once," Raonar added.
Zachary also made out several destroyed LOKI mechs near the entrance. Bits of pieces let out little electric sparks.
"That's a headshot… another headshot…" he muttered. "That one's smashed against the wall." He turned his gun slightly. He reeled in surprise. "That one has a hole in its chest, and I don't think it's from a gun."
"Shit," someone else in the squad spoke. It was the newbie with a shotgun. Sarah. "Think he got himself a krogan or something?"
Zachary let out an apprehensive sigh. "Yep. Looks like it." As he continued scanning the area and over one of the destroyed mechs, he did a double take. Blinking, he looked back through the scope. He wasn't sure if the weather made him see things, but he just couldn't believe what he saw.
That LOKI mech laid on the ground, its body facing upwards and its head facing downward. Its arms twitched while its legs fumbled about, desperate to find something to stand on.
"The fuck? How the hell did a neck snap disable a mech?" Zachary wondered.
"Wait, seriously?" Anthony asked in bewilderment. "Who does that?"
"No idea. I—" Zachary stopped and snapped back to his scope. He knew he saw something at the corner of his eye. "Hold on."
On top of the roof, he saw something running across at a fast, maybe inhuman, speed. His heart raced as lightning struck by the building, the flash showing the gray, pale figure in full. He swore as he slipped back, and his rifle fell on the catwalk.
He looked to the rest of the squad, and they looked back at him. "Aw, did a little lighting scare you, Zach?" Raonar jeered.
"No, I just saw something and—" Zachary hastily picked up his sniper rifle, placed it back on the railing, and looked through the scope. Scanning the rooftop again, the gray figure was gone.
Gunfire suddenly rang out from inside the building.
"Did everyone hear that?" Sarah asked.
Zachary furrowed his brow and lowered his rifle. "I hear it. Sounds like trouble." He knew that if they didn't hurry, the Courier would escape with whatever he was after.
"Or fun." Raonar smirked. "Ready to take him on?"
"Looking forward to it," Zachary answered with confidence, climbing down the catwalk to meet up with the rest of the squad. "Raonar, Sarah, you take point. Anthony and I will provide a little bit of support."
Raonar ran ahead as soon as he heard Zachary's order, the bulky weapon in his hands not slowing him down in the slightest. Sarah immediately followed close behind him. Zachary turned and signaled to his squad. As he went forward, so did they.
This sure went to hell fast, Drack noticed a little too late. If this Courier was supposed to make this one all stealthy like, then he shouldn't have brought a krogan. Unless said krogan would provide a distraction while the others do their thing. Either way, he was having the time of his life. He always does.
One blast from his bladed Ruzad shotgun was enough to get one of Cerberus' goons into cover, behind a turned-over desk. The shot didn't get the bastard, but it did get him to stop shooting at Drack and the others.
While the krogan took the brunt of the gunfire as he marched forward, Thane fired a few shots from his Predator pistol at another goon before he whipped around and hid behind a pillar, avoiding the hail of bullets before him.
The Courier was hit a few times by one of the LOKI mechs, but his shields held up. He slid behind a crate nearby and fired from his Mattock rifle. In four shots, he took down a Cerberus soldier from a balcony above. Her body flipped over the railing and fell to the floor below with a thud.
From cover, Thane laid waste to several of the goons. One bullet, one headshot, ripping right through each of their shields. However, the last one, the mech that fired at the Courier was hit in the knee. It tumbled forward, its left leg now missing.
"
Er-error…" The mech tried to crawl forward, but it was easy pickings for Drack. He stomped the mech down and blasted its head off with his shotgun. Bits and pieces of metal and circuitry flew all around, and spark spewed out of a stump of its neck.
The Courier charged toward a turned-over desk and found himself surrounded by four Cerberus troopers. He quickly tapped on that gray wristwatch of his hand, right before Drack's eyes, wiped them out, each shot in the head with the Mattock once or twice. And he did it all without using up the entire clip.
Someone took a potshot at Drack, his shields glowing over his left side as he was hit. With a scowl spreading across his face, he fired back at another trooper, the blast knocking him off his feet as his armor was soon covered in bloody holes.
A blue glow surrounded the drell assassin as he threw a biotic projectile at the three remaining troopers above. They screamed in anguish, the subatomic forces pulling their bodies apart, as they each tried to get it off in vain.
Seeing this as an opportunity, the Courier tossed a grenade at them, landing in between them. As it detonated, there was a dark-blue explosion that engulfed the troopers, and their bodies soon disintegrated as they all hit the ground.
Drack looked at the Courier and gave him a nod of approval. "Good showing, kid." He was impressed. Few things impressed him.
"So…" He looked around the place. The amount of damage was quite impressive for such a brief firefight. Bullet holes were everywhere, a scorched mark over where the three of the troopers had been, and with the desk now torn apart. Even the weirdly shaped bushy plant was unfortunate enough to be torn apart by the firefight. Weirdly enough, the lights were still intact. He turned and looked at the door across, an orange glow floating in front of it. "We go inside, grab that data we want, and we get out?" He scoffed. "And here I was, having fun. Would've expected more if ya ask me."
The human stared at him. He was quite sure he rolled his eyes underneath his helmet. "Last I checked, you charged in at the first opportunity. Not me."
"Huh. Was I?" Drack teased with a shit-eating grin.
The human threw his hands up. "Your armor is
yellow! Is that conspicuous enough for you?"
"They shoot at me so they don't shoot at ya," Drack retorted. "Isn't that obvious, kid?"
The Courier approached the door, his omni-tool glowing over his right arm. As he issued a command to start up the hacking process, he stopped as he looked behind him. "Wait, where did he…? Have you seen him?"
Drack looked around as well, seeing that, indeed, Thane was nowhere in sight. He groaned. "Must've snuck off in one of the vents. He'll be back."
One shot to the back of the head and Thane caught the project manager by the back of their neck before their head could hit the desk. He slipped into the shadows cast by how poorly lit this room was and waited.
The door in front of the desk slid open, and five guards came in, their assault rifles at the ready. One of them, noticing the manager dead still, reached out, only for the body to slump forward.
The trap had sprung. Thane moved behind them and rose. He fired a few shots at two of the troopers farthest away from him in quick succession. Two to trip through their shields, a third in both of their heads, piercing through their helmets. They were dead before they knew it.
Thane charged for the nearest one, kicking the back of this gunman's legs to knock him off his feet. He followed up by thrusting his elbow into the gunman's neck, the landing making a sickening crack. He quickly went for the next one, knocking her rifle out of her hands with a kick followed by a swift left hook, bringing her down. The last one received a barrage of punches. Three to the chest in rapid succession, the fourth an uppercut. The drell finished him off with an elbow to the neck.
The last guard landed with a thud, seemingly unconscious. The assassin knelt by each of the unconscious guards, finishing him off by snapping their necks.
A whiff of the door opening alerted Thane. He spun around, pointing his pistol at whoever was about to enter. But it was the Courier and Drack. With them instead of more troopers, he lowered his pistol and stood up.
"My apologies," said Thane. "I thought it was best to eliminate them before they would get the drop on us. Security may be… tighter than we thought."
"Right. Because
that never happened to me before." The Courier looked around the room and whistled, impressed with what Thane did, as the krogan mercenary also surveyed the room. "Still, nice job. Warn us next time, okay? You never know if someone like Kai Leng shows up and stabs you in the gut."
"If he has, then I will make short work of him," Thane replied.
The Courier holstered his weapon and approached the terminal on the manager's desk. He shoved the body off the chair and sat in it. "Right, let's hope that hacking program works," he said and turned on his omni-tool on his right arm.
Someone popped up on one of the screens, showing repeating lines of code separating into blocks. There was also a bright green bar at the upper-right of the screen, emptying itself tick by tick. Thane watched as the human flicked his finger on the omni-tool, selecting one of the blocks that matched a smaller one at the upper-right corner of the screen. Before the block could disappear as it scrolled up, he tapped on the omni-tool again.
"One down. Several more to go." The Courier sighed. "Yeah, this is going to take a while."
Thane turned around and saw something on one of the security cameras: several Cerberus troopers with various weapons marching across outside the building.
With a sharp intake, he turned and said to the others, "They've brought reinforcements."
"Shit. I'll hold them off." Drack turned toward the drell. "Thane?"
"I'll provide you support from up top," Thane answered quickly before turning to the Courier. "What about you?"
The human bit his lower lip. "You sure about this? I hate to stay behind…"
"Is that what you paid us to do? Risk our lives so you can get whatever it is you're after?" Drack pointed out.
It took a second for the Courier to concede with a nod as he looked up to the drell and the krogan. "Right. Soon as I get the data, I'll catch up with you. Good luck."
Drack let out a small chuckle. "Already got enough luck."
"May Arashu protect you," said Thane, and he and the krogan hurried off as the Courier returned to the seat, the door closing behind the two.
Did Zachary see something on that rooftop? He gestured to the rest of the squad, stopping them in their tracks. Kneeling, he looked through the scope. There was hardly any cover around them, and it was difficult to see through due to the rainfall obscuring the scope. But what other choice did he have?
His eyes widened as it took him a moment to notice that, indeed, there was something else on the roof, and they had a scope. "Shit, sniper!" He zipped up to his feet before a shot from over there rang across. "We got an ambush! Keep your head down!"
Another shot rang out and he heard something wet falling onto the ground. He turned and saw the newbie's body on the ground, a bloody and messy hole in her helmet. The others clamored and fired back at the sniper's position, hoping to get a hit in. Even Anthony tried to throw a biotic projectile at the other sniper but to no avail.
Zachary sighed and shook his head. FNGs always go first, and Sarah was no exception.
You would've liked her if she wasn't such a dumb bitch.He looked through the scope. It took a deep breath or two to steady his aim, and, as the other sniper was distracted shooting at the rest of the squad, pulled the tripper. The shot missed their assailant by centimeters, but it was enough for them to duck reflectively. Much to Zachary's disappointment, the sniper didn't seem to be the Courier. He could barely get a better look before they zipped to the door and went inside.
Raonar charged past Zachary and the others. As the heavy gunner was meters away from the door, it slid open and a krogan in a suit of sleeveless, yellow armor rushed out with a bellow. Raonar yelped, barely had enough time to discharge his minigun. With only a single burst of fire, he either missed or shots that landed on the krogan didn't have any effect.
The krogan slammed Raonar off his feet, making him drop his gun, and tossed him aside to the ground.
"Open fire, open fire! We got a superkrogan over here!" Zachary barked, quickly switching his sniper rifle for a Mattock, one modified for automatic fire rather than a single shot.
Zachary fired, discharging a good portion of the thermal clip in the Mattock, at the krogan and it did nothing. The krogan stomped up to him and grabbed him by his throat, and he dropped his gun as a result. He couldn't breathe as the krogan lifted him off his feet.
"Superkrogan, huh?" The krogan's wide mouth turned into a wicked grin. "Not a bad name." He slammed Zachary to the ground, knocking the wind out of him.
The others firing in did nothing as the krogan rushed up to each of them. One had his rib cage caved in by a swing of the krogan's hammer, his breastplate cracking into little pieces. Another was blasted by his bladed, blocky shotgun, with bloody, meaty holes filling his body as if it was Swiss cheese.
It only took a biotic push from Anthony to put the monster of a krogan centimeters back. One projectile after another seemed to do the trick, but it was not enough to knock the krogan down as he slowly approached Anthony with each step.
Zachary coughed and gagged, struggling to breathe as he got up to his knees. He looked around, fear welling up inside him, his eyes growing wide, as he saw the bodies of his squadmates among the wrecked LOKIs from before. They were ambushed by a sniper and a krogan was killing them one by one.
There was only one thing he could do.
Run, Zachary! Run for your fucking life!He picked up his feet and scrambled to his feet, dashing away from the krogan and the remaining members of the squad. He never bothered to look behind him as the snaps and pops of gunfire intensified.
He ran like a dog with a tail between his legs, ignoring the burning sensation building up in them. He tapped against the side of his helmet as his heart pounded against his chest.
"Hey! Do you copy?!" he screamed into the commlink at the top of his lungs. "I need a fucking evac
right fucking now!"
"What about the others? Where are they?" the pilot asked as Zachary's helmet pinged.
"They're… they're dead…" Zachary answered between breaths.
There was a pause, longer than he would have liked as he continued running. "Okay. Going back down there," the pilot finally replied. "Just hang on."
Better alive than dead, eh?He agreed. He knew his squad would die quickly at the hands of the Courier. But not him. Not him.
"Hey!" someone bellowed out behind him, and that stopped him dead in his tracks. It was amazing how he could hear that through the crashing of the waves.
He turned around and saw Raonar running toward him. Or to be more accurate, limping as fast as he could, favoring his right leg. One of his eyes had swollen shut and his pale face was bruised, his red beard covered in a different shade of red.
"Zach—" Raonar tried to say something, right as the next wave hit, an orange, red-hot glowing blade pierced through his neck. Blood came pouring out of the spot like a waterfall. Zachary could only watch as Raonar drowned in his blood, even as the blade had retracted from the jagged remains of his neck. His eyes rolled up as he fell, dead before hitting the ground.
Behind Raonar's body was the Courier himself, his omni-tool whipping out a blade on his right arm.
Don't fight him, you idiot! Just run! Hide! NOW!The glow on the Courier's omni-tool disappeared as he drew his Carnifex pistol. Zachary fired his Mattock, hoping to get a hit on the bastard and end him, only for him to lean and stepped aside. The Courier fired once, but the shot whipped past Zachary.
He could almost feel the tension leaving him as he let out a smug smile lowering his rifle. "What? Slipping up already?" He shrugged before raising his rifle again. "I thought you're supposed to be a crack shot. Eh, I guess I'm wrong."
"Too bad I wasn't aiming at you," the Courier retorted.
"What?" Zachary's mirth faded. A hiss and a whistle brought his wide-eyed attention to a red containment unit to his left. "Oh fu—"
Another shot and the unit exploded. The fire engulfed everything in its vicinity and slammed him against the railing nearby. As the fires burned through his armor, he roared, screamed at the top of his lungs. It felt like someone dumped hot lead on his skin and left it to dry in the most painful manner possible.
Laying on his back, the last thing Zachary saw amidst the flames was the Courier approaching him, his weapon in hand, before a biotic projectile sent him over the railing.
Whiplash rattled the Courier's right arm as his hand slipped between each bar before grabbing the bottom one, and he dangled on the edge of the dock. A wave of nausea washed over him as he gritted his teeth and grunted, struggling to maintain his grip.
I hate biotics, he complained to himself. Then he noted that that would apply to Liara and Thane, so he took that back. He grabbed the bar with his other hand and pressed his toes against the wall in front of him, bracing himself before he started climbing.
When the waves started to reach below him, the roar of an engine reached his ears. He looked up and saw a shuttle bearing Cerberus colors landing nearby. His attention, however, was brought away as his grip started to loosen from how wet everything was. He pulled himself up, little by little. By the time he was halfway up, he saw the shuttle taking off, disappearing into the clouds above.
The roar of the winds grew stronger as something rumbled behind him. Ethan's heart dropped when he turned around. There was a hurricane quickly approaching the shore. He cursed as he turned back. Why did he pick the worst time to land here? If he didn't hurry up, he would be swept away.
"Hey, kid! Grab my hand!"
Ethan looked up and saw the krogan reaching out to him with his armored hand. As he took it, Drack yanked him up and dropped him on solid ground and on his feet.
"I owe you one," the Courier said between breaths. Boy, he was glad to see Drack and Thane.
"Save that for later. We gotta move!" Drack exclaimed.
"Is the shuttle on the way?"
"Yes," Thane answered. As if on cue, a blue shuttle stormed through the clouds above and skirted on the railways. It stopped, landing about a hundred yards from where they stood.
With little time to spare, the three made a mad dash across the dock as the winds grew more intense with the hurricane coming in closer and closer. Thane and Ethan stumbled while Drack, weighing half a ton or so, charged onward as the shuttle opened, beckoning them urgently to get inside for safety.
Drack was the first to enter, and Thane entered right after.
The Courier ran as fast as he could. As he was the last one to enter, the door closed right behind him as the shuttle took off. It zipped out of the planet's atmosphere. the hurricane coursing where they were moments ago.
The Courier sighed and closed his eyes. His shoulders relaxed as he fell on a seat nearby.
"Hell of a thing down there," Drack remarked as he craned his neck left and right and rolled his arms back and forward. "Not a lot of humans can pull that off, but you…" He chuckled. "You're something else. You've earned my respect for it."
"Did you find what you need?" Thane inquired, sitting next to Drack.
The Courier gave the drell a thumbs up.
"Good!" Drack smiled. "Guess that means the Alliance'll pay us."
The Courier nodded. "Yeah. I'll make sure they'll give you extra for this."