[Tshombesha] Du hast mich

"Copy Bravo, we got your shadow"

Avera and Marija walked across the rooftops, keeping low to avoid counter-snipers as they shadowed the four Suns moving towards where the mortar fire were.

It was then that a shot glanced off one of the roof entrances, barely grazing Marija's helmet. She was lucky, had that been a trained sniper she'd be dead.

"Bravo, this is Overwatch, hold position, we got a sniper." Avera spoke on the comms before turning to Marija [color=#008B8B]"You, help me get visual, keep in cover much as you can I got you covered."

The girl nodded, very slowly peeking above cover, her scope trained at the opposite balcony, it was there she found what appeared to be an indig on the fourth floor window, he attempted to make a potshot at her, but thankfully Marija was fast and he was untrained, he fired in haste, the bullet wasn't even close.

"Fourth floor window"

"Thanks" Avera said, just as the enemy sniper leaned out again, he was brought down with two shots in the center mass.

"Bravo, you're cleared to proceed"

The ash grey turian slid one into a pouch on his combat webbing, slamming its fellow back into the rifle.

It's just us here.

Orders.

And that's fucking good enough.

Okay.

You've been here before. You've done this before you've got orders.

There were orders.

Your men are going to be okay, they'll put up covering fire, Bravos got 'gel. You've got a fucking plan.

There was a plan.

You are a fucking Legionnaire.

Legionnaires lead the way.

He felt the invisible slab slowly, ponderously fall off his shoulders and the steel cables weave their way back into nerves and muscle. Sniper fire. Warp fire. Biotic slugs. Covering fire from Pacey and the remnants of Alpha and Bravo (the wounded dragged free even without Dunn's command, Legionnaires didn't like watching other Legionnaires die). Rockets. Mortars. Insurgent sweeps.

They all screamed through the air. Cracked, hummed, pinged, and thumped as Cass sprinted through the rain, breath rattling harsh and raw in his helmet, shields flaring blue as they caught and disarmed stray shots. Blood pounded in his ears. His feet pounded the muck of the slums.

Gunfire chewed the mud in front of him.

You're not going to fucking make it.

A rocket detonated to their right, a misfire; Suns or Innie he couldn't tell which, and metal rain mixed in with the downpour. The blast wave staggered him. The charcoal tattooed man pushed on, mandibles clamped to his face, teeth bared.

I'm going to fucking make it.

He slammed himself into cover behind a pillar. Dimly aware that someone was laughing, a relieved, exhausted sound tinged with a faint note of hysteria.

The Corporal realized that he was making the sound and abruptly shut up.

"We're clear. Get the-"

There was flash of yellow from the corner of his eye, half obscured through the rain and smoke but there, definitely there on the rooftops, far enough back that nobody else could see.

Amidst all the din and roar of battle there was a moment of quiet, strained stillness.

"GET DOWN."

The words left his mouth at approximately the same time as the solid platoon of Eclipse troopers opened fire on the square.

Dunn was nothing if not dutiful. His cover fire, accordingly, was thorough. A few quick taps at his omni-tool had linked his HUD to that of Bravo's heavy weapons gunner Mona Du Preez. Together, they tracked across the Junction; Dunn plugging away with continuous bursts, even the insulating foregrip warm to the touch, while Du Preez hammered fixed positions with rockets. The linked visuals fell on three insurgents cowering behind the twisted remnants of something walled with thick concrete. A pair of rapidly fired rockets cracked their cover, splintered it and sent chunks flying. Even before the dust had cleared Dunn was firing. A subtle red light blinked in the corner of his vision whenever Du Preez pulled the trigger - he simply waited for it to blink out.

Now, he realised dimly, it was his turn. The ghostly blue triangles his HUD rendered above the heads of Aquila and T'Masu were in position. He shot Du Preez a tight thumbs up before a button press severed their connection. He turned to Cass, nodded and started sprinting.

It was strange how much louder gunfire seemed when it was all around him, when he was not firing back. The dark of evening and the gloom brought by the rain made every flare, every slug illuminated by mass effect field, every flashing detonation piercing, and it was all Dunn could do to keep from quickly becoming disorientated. The helmet visor's smart adaption systems helped, but they were still limited.

A quick scan either side showed his turian running mate sporting a grim expression of cold determination. He turned right just in time to see a rocket detonate. He found himself staring as a heavy piece of shrapnel - from the ordnance or a shorn piece of masonry he could not tell - spiral, almost lazily, through the sodden air towards him. It must have been moving too slowly for Dunn's kinetic barriers to fire, because the next thing Dunn knew was a sharp dose of pain as the debris thumped into his side. Just above the din, he heard a faint crack and felt an odd cold sensation spread into his chest. He grunted, ignored it, and kept running.

There was a sudden pressure on his shoulder.

A three fingered hand pushing down on him. "GET DOWN!" Came a translated, layered yell uncomfortably close to his ear. Dunn relented, and hurled himself to the ground, scrambling for the scant protection of an upturned and dented newsstand. The gunfire around him intensified. Dunn looked up, saw the yellow armour bright against the charred and grey landscape.

"Oh. FUCK!" He spat, his head reeling. They're fucking here!.

He gestured madly at the two biotics.

"Get the fuck inside! Now!"

Aquila wasn't too worried about it. The run, that is, not the reaction to Eclipse appearing out of nowhere to fuck up their operation. That had him swearing up a storm inwardly even as he sent tight bursts of warp-ammo into their midst. At least that little addition was going to pay off today. He emptied his Tempest downrange and ran, sprinting flat-out over the broken ground. He felt rounds zip around him, crash against his barriers, threaten to break through. He dived with a third of the way to go and vanished in a blue flash, reappearing inside the news stand where he completed his dive as if nothing had happened.

"Where did they come from!?"

Akere was running when the first shots hissed around her. Well then. Things were FUBAR at this point, if anything was. She had to have some grudging respect for the Eclipse infiltrating so successfully.

She fired from the hip as she ran, just to get some rounds down range, not bothering with biotics-the mnemonics would distract her and were somewhat difficult to do while sprinting for her life. When the clip overheating she concentrated on just running, wincing as her shields plummeted.

As she dove into cover, her shields broke. She grunted as the remaining kinetic energy of the shot slammed into her chest. She'd have a nice bruise from that.

At Aquila's question she replied, "Infiltration is one of Eclipse's favoured tactics. Surely the Suns have some tactics designed to compensate for that?"

She reloaded in a few quick movements, hunkering down as she waited for her shields to recharge.

Well fuck.

Avera had expected they'd run into the yellowbellies sooner or later, she'd prefer though that it wasn't right now, while they were in the midst of engaging insurgents.

"Eclipse? How come we didn't notice them here already?" Marija asked.

"Yellowbellies are nothing if not sneaky." Avera replied, checking above cover to see if there were any Eclipse counter snipers.

"Bravo, this is Overwatch. Confirm positions of Eclipse troopers at Junction Cross, we'll be Oscar Mike to your location soon."

Cass swore violently and smacked the side of his helmet as his entire HUD began to shift and flex, fragments of an augmented reality dancing across his faceplate before the rain outside, making his stomach heave in time with the flashing and twisting graphics. Comms, already in the shitter, went on a one way express to hell once the techie flooded their channels with rough EM jamming.

It fucking sucked.

Not quite as much as the coils of electricity that burned into his shields and scrambled his weapons for a subjective eternity but, you know, with this kind of thing it was all relative.

As his Vindicator uplink flashed a nice, polite warning sign in the corner of his visor that promptly replicated itself off onto half his field of vision he managed to scramble out a hard reset on his hardened OT.

The small storm of lights blaring into his eyes shut off and soft, merciful darkness settled in.

It was...well to be honest the situation was pretty fucking grim. They were here in this glorified convenience store taking what shelter they could which, you know, wasn't all that bad, and they had no man's land between them an the yellowbellies so they couldn't straight up storm the place unless they particularly felt like eating ME rounds which-

Shit

The other downside (and spirits there was a whole fucking heap of them too) the ground they sprinted across to get here (ground, lake, whatever) lay between them and the tattered remains of their respective squads. And Eclipse had the advantage of clean, clear, superior terrain.

Shit, shit, shit, shit.

Okay.

Okay.

Think damn you.

Right they had biotics. Two in fact. But that was going to do somewhere between jack and shit when the enemy got tired of pussyfooting around and just put a couple RPGs or a spiritsdamn missile into the store. Really the only reason they hadn't bothered already was probably 'cause Pacey and the others were the primary threat. They were four, what the fuck were they going to do?

Rhetorical question mind but, well without their shields and bearing compromised guns their options were limited to die and die horribly. Granted those were coming back in a couple minutes but one minute was a long time and those mechs and riflemen were coming now and

App like overload and what the fuck was that thing but an overload, he thought as rounds hummed past cripples your VI's an higher tech stuff but it doesn't really bother the mechani

There was a pause.

And then a slow, ugly grin.

"Get down, gonna try to buy us some time."

The first: hold. Count. Step out from behind the pillar and try not to stumble back as a couple of rounds batter your armor like tiny sledgehammers.

Throw.

There was no way to reach the other side, not a chance in any hell you cared to name, but he could arch it up enough to get it at about the level of the couple still standing buildings, yeah he could do that.

The grenade was still in the air when it detonated in a massive ball of oily flame, bomblets falling, scattering in the face of the blast wave to ignite a fraction of a second later.

It wasn't going to hurt the Eclipse platoon. Too far away. Not strong enough. But, then again, that wasn't really the point of that nice, bright, distracting, miniature inferno.

That was what the second one was for, the one he sent skittering and hopping over the mire of the square, hitting a dip and popping up at the last minute a few scant meters away from a crowd of LOKIs.

Boom.

"Fuck!" Dunn muttered as the stab of a static electric shock pierced his skin, prickling the flesh where the fracture in his armour created a short. His HUD responded in similar anger and for a moment his vision was all pulsating red lights and error reports, while his ears were assailed by a high pitch warning bleep. He popped a now unshielded head just over cover, desperately seeking a flash of yellow. He pulled the trigger on his Vindicator in an effort to generate some blind suppresison, but was greeted only by similar outraged protests at the notion he wanted to use his firearm.

"What the...?" Weapons and shields? That's a new one He tried again. "Fuckin' tech!" He groused, before thumping his rifle and dropping it, sending it clattering to the ground. Desperately, he pulled out his sidearm, hoping that while inactive it had been spared this damn tech pulse. Fuckin' A. He was rewarded with several sharp reports as the muzzle of his Predator erupted in blue flares. Suppressive fire at this distance with a sidearm was, of course, a largely futile gesture. Holding the weapon carelessly above and behind his head was even less likely to help his accuracy. But Dunn felt better about it, and with no shields it was an absolute necessity to remain in cover.

Nonetheless, he stole a glance at Cass' little fireworks display. "Shot." He murmured appreciatively. He lent back, opened his mouth and let the downpour fill it. Sour faced, he swilled the liquid around his mouth before spitting it out in a show of contempt. Another quick glance around showed the Suns were in dire straits. "Where's our fuckin' CAS?" He yelled to no one in particular. The intense signal jamming had kept him even from dialing in assistance from Mona Du Preez and her rocket launcher.

Slugs zipped by his vision, throwing up plumes of dust and rainwater mere inches from his feet. The wait for his shields to regain functionality was almost killing him. Literally.

"Ladies and gents, I reckon we need to be getting out of this square. And fuckin' soon. Alleyway, thirty metres to our southeast. Might be the four of us could use it to get on their flank." He gestured appropriately. "Hell of a run though, I'm open to suggestions. So long as they're not from Maxentus. Anyone see a way of gaining a little elevation?"

Aquila jerked like a marionette whose puppeteer just had a seizure. Yeah yeah, the other two wusses beside him could piss and moan about their rifles being shorted out and their OTs going nutso. Getting hit by an Overload charge as a biotic is fucking awful. It felt like his blood had turned to molten lead in his veins, which actually wasn't as metaphorical as he would've liked. He imagined that every single wire of his biotic implants could be seen glowing beneath his hide if you took his armour off.

"Fucking ow. Hahahaha. Good one. Classic." Aquila shuffled his way back into an upright position with his shoulder blades. Blue sparks popped off his claws as he tried to work the shock out of his system.

"Spirits, that sucked. I wouldn't hold my breath for biotic support for a while if I were you." He spared a brief glance down at his modified Tempest, saw the flashing red light, and curled his beak in distaste. Just like Dunn, he drew his Phalanx and lazily popped off a few rounds blind.

While asari didn't require implants or amps to use their biotics like other species, most huntresses and commandos had them in order to amplify their abilities. It was something that Akere regretted as pain lanced through her, pressing into her nerves from every wire of the implant. She managed to keep her feet better than the younger turian and flared, grimacing as she tried to get a handle on it.

"Give me five minutes and I'll give you some biotic support." Some was better than none, "I can try a barrier when we run, but it won't be very strong. Keep bullets off us but not much else."

She hated overload charges. She put away her shotgun and followed the NCO's example by pulling out her SMG. The gun barked, sending a burst of slugs in the direction of the Eclipse.

Memories flashed briefly in her mind of the last time she'd fought Eclipse. Deris and her spotter calling in artillery strikes, the ground shaking with each round the Unity had fired from orbit. Her assault squad hitting and running. The Eclipse had folded that day under the pressure of a frigate and a well-trained commando unit.

This time wouldn't be so easy.

"You see those Engineers?" Avera said to Marija, trying to get a bead on a couple engineers trying to repair a downed YMIR.

"Yeah"

"Take the one on the left of the mech." She said whilst lining up the shot. "Soon as the hostile's down, we haul ass before they get a fix on our position."

The scoped lined up, adjusting for distance as the crosshairs fixed on the Eclipse tech's head. She fired two shots, one to eliminate the KB, the other to hopefully eliminate him.

The shot struck home and the tech slumped over, the white armor of the YMIR briefly with bits of red and dark greyish matter before being slicked clean by the rain. It had been well executed, the other engineers were already scrambling for cover behind the downed hulk; returning fire in a chattering hail of bluish white. None of it came close of course but it was there, deadly enough if one of them got lucky.

The real question, of course, is why there was a downed YMIR at all.

Solia had carried none of the two legged tanks into the field with them and even with comms shot all to hell it was pretty obvious that the scattered remnants of the Legionnaires weren't really in a position to do much but

you know

try not to die.

T'was a mystery that may have gone unsolved if a second YMIR hadn't rounded the corner a second later, advancing perpendicular to the sniper and her spotter, it's vast bulk half shrouded by the storm. It ignored the driving rain, sensors piercing the veil of falling water without any apparent difficulty. Rockets cycled up into the claw mounted launcher.

Two shots. Two shots; two gaping holes, two thunderclaps of flame and the prefab tenements started collapsing around the pair like a house of cards.

Job done, parameters maintained, run goodboy.exe.

The mech swiveled about the waist and began to trudge towards the other Suns huddled up around the plaza. Steady. Implacable. Golden armored forms moved around it, darting from doorway to doorway, exposed for only a moment or two before they found cover again. Tech armor spat and sizzled in the rain. Two were wreathed in biotic coronas. Between the relentless storm and the widespread jamming nobody had seen the gunship that dropped the unit off. There could be more. There was probably more. Shock infantry and heavy hitters moving throughout the slums and settlement proper. Breaking the Suns advance, punching holes in the ever tightening noose.

Gunfire chattered in the distance. Then again, closer. One singularly unlucky Eclipse trooper took the brunt of the ambush. He fell, shuddering, as accelerator rounds stitched across his prone form.

And there was the second part of the answer: Carinus's men and all of Charlie squad's Legionnaires. The ambush wasn't too shabby considering that they couldn't have had more than a couple minutes to get into position along the street. Blows were traded, hard and fast; a volley of rockets from the blue, the YMIR's HMG and biotic retaliation from the yellow. The exchange lasted for all of a couple minutes before the Eclipse squad began withdrawing in good order, out back the way they came.

In the muddy square full of shattered buildings and rubble Cass nodded along to his Centurion's orders and prepared to move. This was shitty, but then things were shitty all around. His gun was still in the process of unfucking itself, his shields little better. The turian shook himself like a dog shaking off water and braced for the dash.

And then he heard it. Through the comms, through the shitton of EM jamming. A voice that sounded a lot like Pacey's.

And another. Unfamiliar.

He caught a word and an id. Arrowhead 212.

Oh fuck yeah.

Cass thwacked Dunn on the shoulder and didn't even bother to hide the grin in his voice. "Centurion!"

The Eclipse gunship that plummeted from the dark sky, trailing flame from an utterly pulped turbine before coming to a bone shudderingly loud crash in the center of the square made the rest of what he was going to say more or less irrelevant.

A fully equipped, well trained and disciplined Commando squad with plenty of cover may have been the smallest division of unit strength able to face down a plodding YMIR mech without even a little incontinence. As it was, a shattered, scattered and isolated band of four troopers, from different squads and with non functioning shields or weapons found themselves outgunned to the point of comedic farce. And even Lucas Dunn found tactics, logical thought and emotional detachment slipping under the mental assault of a single, repeating phrase: that fucking tank-bot is going to straight up murder us; my gun does not work and I am totally fucked.

Heart rate considerably elevated, Dunn audibly drew in several long breaths. It doesn't matter if I die, and at least this way it'll be quick. Painless. Easy. Morbid though it was, the fatalistic axiom was enough to give Dunn sufficient calm to decide he'd quite like to live, if that was an option, and that maybe running fast enough would see him home to a large whiskey and a chain of cigars.

All fatalism was promptly set aside, however, by the timely entrance of Charlie squad on the stage of warfare. From essentially a spectator's point of view, the brief pitched battle was exhilarating. The flare of rocket impacts picked out trails of smoke through the rain, a ballet of particle interaction. Electric blue lances of mass effect fields cut through the night in what must have been the world's loudest laser show. Dunn did what he could to contribute, a few well placed Predator rounds chipped away at the YMIR's armour, but mostly he did little more than strip away paint.

And moments later, they were gone.

Scant, disorganised cover fire still thudded away into the rubble at Dunn's back, but with the survivors of the Eclipse presence in the Junction retreated off the field, the shooters prowling the rooftops were slowly peeling back with them. Dunn knew the respite would be brief, however. No matter which way he spun things in his head, the Eclipse had the advantage. Numbers and surprise had done their job, and the Suns had no counter.

Time to go again

"Overwatch, Bravo." He barked curtly into his mic, hoping something might breach the static. "If you've got a visual on my position, we're about to move. Cover fire would be appreciated." He cocked his head and listened, waiting for the briefest of breaks in the Eclipse gunfire.

Tat-tat-tat-tat, tat-tat, tat-tat-tat-tat, tat, tat-tat-tat-tat... A pause. He quickly glanced round his misfit fireteam, clenched a hand.

"Move!" He yelled, bracing his body. As he made to stand, a squawk of static blasted his ear, delivering little more than an ID tag. It was enough to knock all the fear from his body.

He felt a tap on his shoulder. Cass was grinning. And by now, so was Dunn.

The storm suddenly went full auto as Blue Suns CAS opened all across the combat zone with light and thunder. Suspended gracefully in the air to their immediate right, a Mantis gunship poured streams of super-accelerated slugs into Eclipse positions. A rocket strike eliminated a LOKI platoon, sending charred, white mechanical limbs and armour fragments spinning off into the night. The throaty rumble and high pitched whine of contragrav aircraft shuddered through the streets as a dozen blurred shapes shot past above their heads, trailing fire and smoke.

"Yes!" Dunn offered a quick cheer and a fist pump as he watched the flaming hulk of an Eclipse dropship plummet into the prefab jungle.

Another gunship wheeled overhead, motorised cannons twitching as it locked and tracked targets.

Find 'em.

A hail of gunfire ripped through a pair of unlucky asari, even their formidable biotic barriers unable to protect them with the withering intensity of mounted mass effect cannons.

Fix 'em.

The gunship spun deftly on its axis, launching a cascade of missiles into a newly arrived YMIR. For all its firepower and armour, the mech was nonetheless obliterated in seconds.

BLOW 'EM THE FUCK UP!

"Mmm. Was it good for you, baby?" Yes, really. There is absolutely no way Aquila was going to miss an opportunity to needle Cass. Besides, with his implants on the fritz and his SMG whining like a quarian with a sore foot, there wasn't much else he could do. His Phalanx clicked empty, so he stowed it and gave his Tempest another look.

"If my gun doesn't start working again soon, I'm going to have to have a little chat with Eclipse. Maybe get some reparations." He paused, mandibles flickering inside his helmet, and in a fit of pique he gave the Tempest's casing a solid smack on the side. For one, the biotic corona that surrounded his claw let him know that his powers were back under control. Two, the SMG sputtered and winked blue.

"HAH! Fuck all y'all." Aquila telescoped out the stock and shouldered it. "Back in business, ladies."

A grin found its way onto her face at the multiple explosions that found the Eclipse's ranks. She would not in fact, come back in pieces from what had supposed to have been a simple task of watching the Blue Suns at work and reporting back to the President. In addition to being rather glad to have all of her parts attached to her body, she was a little dubious of her second's ability to effectively protect the President.

Luckily, they'd not have to find out.

She spared a glance from watching the enemy to give Aquila a flat look.

Still, the resumption of her biotic barriers was a relief.

"Perhaps we should take the opportunity to get back to our lines?" She suggested to the NCO mildly.

"Copy Bravo. We got your backs"

Avera and Marija had their scopes lined on the road ahead of Bravo Squad, about half a dozen Eclipse troopers were flanked by two LOKIs.

"Bravo, eyes on eight hostiles, six troopers, two mechs." She said while lining up sights on the lead trooper, while Marija aimed for one of the mechs.

They opened fire.

"Hahahah fuck you Maxentus."

There was something heady about how the tables had turned, so quickly, so definitively. Something about how nice it was to go from "hanging on steadily decaying cover for dear life" to "laughing your fucking ass off behind your shields as the corp gutted the shi-"

A spray of accelerator rounds cut that particular thought short, the hypervelocity flecks of metal throwing up sparks as they slammed into his barriers.

Right so. Shit as of yet ungutted from the yellows. Cold clenching fear worming through his guts right on schedule though.

Still, they were booking it out of there, pressure was letting up so that was something yeah?

Up above the gunship's cannon roared and heavy ordinance split the evening air. Chewing apart storefronts and tenements, tearing through homes and commons. All pieces of someone's life, familiar landmarks, holders of memory. Gone in seconds as the Mantis unleashed a thousand bite sized slices of hell upon the complex. The rumbles and flashes a counterpoint to the rolling thunder and cracks of lightning.

The onslaught kept on fore a few moments more before the thrusters fired and the gunship lifted up and away. Across the square another gunship was touching down by their blue armored reinforcements, the men and women jumping in the moment the hatch unfolded; wounded carried across shoulders, on suspended on improvised stretchers between the strongest.

"-eat this is Sgt. Pacey. All units are ordered to-" It dissolved into a crackle of static, wavering for a moment or two. The voice becoming clearer.

The gunship lifted away the moment it was full, a brother touching down on the other end of the barricades, the remnants packing themselves in without ceremony. Streams of fire, Eclipse and militant still raked through the square, disorganized now but no less lethal for that impediment.

The air thrummed around them and a third craft touched down on a fire scarred roof behind them, sending a reverberation through the surrounding structures.

"-y. All units are ordered to fall back for gunship extraction.

We're going to light the fuckers up."

The Scarab's hatches swung open revealing a cargo bay almost big enough to fit an IFV. Heavies and units of troopers were already making their way over the roofs, through the rain choked gutters.

"...Uh. Centurion?"

Casting a bleary, smoke reddened eye around the wastes of former habitation, Dunn suddenly felt as though he'd shouldered a training pack. Acutely aware of a knife of pain down his flank, he drew his left hand across to support the wound. Letting out a deep breath he had not known he was holding, he turned to regard the turian beside him, his blank expression that of a man only dimly aware he had been asked a question.

So that was it. The first major offensive of what was sure to be a long ground war had been, from Dunn's personal perspective, a disaster. He had brought his people in to clean up, and they had walked straight into an ambush. Now, before they could even begin to truly rectify the blunder, they were being ordered to pull out while the heavy ordnance leveled the place. Countless dead, and all Pacey and Dunn's forces had achieved was glorified recon and spotter's work for the air cav. My fuckin' fault...

No, that ain't right!. Things had only gone to hell since Eclipse had shown up announced. They had slipped in, undetected and dropped the hammer on them. An intel fuckup, Eclipse's goddamn sneak, an act of fuckin' God with that storm - that's what cost us here. No use feeling sorry for myself when I can get mad at someone else.

Dunn steeled himself, and gritted his teeth.

"Guess we're pulling out then," he growled at his makeshift fireteam, "but this ain't over, not by a long shot. Eclipse just reminded us they're cowardly, murdering fucks and you better believe we'll make 'em pay double for every poor bastard in Suns' blues they wasted here."

His hardsuit computer had unfucked itself, his barriers were back up and there was a fresh sink locked in the chamber of his rifle. He was ready and able to put the hurt on Eclipse, and here they were being ordered to pull back. Fuckin; figures, he acknowledged with a weary shake of his head.

He begun trudging towards the extraction zone, favouring one leg slightly as he clutched at his side. He nodded curtly at Cass. "You did good." He turned to acknowledge the other turian and the asari. "All of you did, good work. Let's bring it back to these fuckers again."

Blue light flooded the little group's eyes as a translucent, shimmering dome sprang up around them. Ordered to fall back, outnumbered, outgunned, already under fire - perfect time to whip out the bubble. Aquila's aura blazed around him, focuses especially around his arms and upper body. A vein pulsed beneath his forehead plate, his arms quivering a little from the sudden strain.

"Let's hoof it, lady and gentlemen."

Exhaustion was setting in and it was with weary feet and her hardsuit dragging at her shoulders that Akere followed the Suns toward the extraction zone. She nodded at the Centurion, murmuring, "Thanks."

A compliment was a compliment. Her biotics were at full strength-well as full strength as any biotics were after a fight-but they were pulling back. She'd see her bondmate again tonight.

When she saw what the turian biotic was doing, she too raised her hands, trying to take some of the strain off him as they beat a retreat. He looked as if he needed a bit of help.