Interesting Times - Chapter 47

October 27th, 2173

04:21 

Illium, Tesale-System

Nos Astra

Operations Chief Lukas Pirot

He didn't know when it all went pear-shaped, but it had to have happened at some point. 

Was it when they started their attack? 

Was it when Iyara Nesta proved herself to be so full of biotic-enhancing drugs that even an electrical charge enough to power a starfighter for a few moments wasn't enough to put her to sleep? 

Or was it when the second heavy mech, even more armed than the first one, crashed through the rooftop right into the middle of the main hall? 

If Lukas was completely honest with himself, he would say that he didn't care for the exact moment, just that it did happen. 

And that he wished that it would be over soon. 

To think that the first few minutes went relatively well for the five-member team, and yet, now all they could do was hold out long enough for reinforcements to arrive and save their collective asses. 

----------

Ten minutes earlier:

Lukas' finger applied a bit of pressure on the trigger of his rifle, ready to fire a short burst of bullets toward the Eclipse mercenary in his sight. 

Normally, he would have aligned his shots with the head of his target, but considering that the first act of their assault would be an explosion, he instead aimed at the body to account for any sudden movements. 

"Long-distance jammer is running," announced Ellie, one of his teammates, and right at the moment of her announcement, the display of his helmet informed him that their connection with Ad Astra's network had been severed. 

"Alright," acknowledged Lukas without ever moving his eyes away from his target, "Torsten. It's your show now." 

"Got it," replied the mentioned man and detached one of the three tubes attached to his right leg. He flipped the tube around in his hand so that he was holding the opening of his tube toward one of the containers standing in the main hall of the building while his left hand came up to his right forearm to brace it against the recoil that would come from firing the mini-rocket. 

It shouldn't surprise Lukas how much destruction a rocket that was barely longer than his hand could cause. After all, he had seen and used some of the things that came right out of the labs for field testing. 

Yet, the gap between the the rocket's size and the amount of destruction it could cause still send shivers down his back whenever he thought about it. 

Thankfully, they would never be released on the open market because they were too dangerous and too easy to hide for them to fall into the hands of someone with nefarious reasons, and, secondly, they were far too expensive. 

The three rockets Torsten carried probably cost more together than any average person could make in a decade. And now they were about to blow up that amount of money in a fiery explosion. 

Well, it wasn't his money, and Lukas was glad he was on the side of the people firing them. 

It was only a very quiet sizzle that announced the impending launch. 

The next thing he knew was that one of the containers containing Eclipse's mechs got turned into scrap metal, which flew all throughout the main hall, hitting Eclipse mercenaries and collapsing their kinetic shields. A few unlucky ones, standing too close to the explosion, got thrown around and crashed against the floor or the walls with sickening crunches, and Lukas hoped for them that their deaths had been swift. 

He may not like, no, scratch that. He may hate Eclipse and what they had done to the innocent members of Ad Astra, but he still could hold life itself dear and not wish suffering onto anyone. 

That's why, when he saw that his target's kinetic shields collapsed due to the metal flying around, Lukas didn't hesitate and fired a short burst into the Salarian's body, dropping him to the ground dead. 

He felt more than heard how the three rifles of his teammates went off almost at the same time as his. The sudden release of energy, the energy of around a dozen bullets firing towards their targets, more than half of them electrically charged, and the fact that they were standing close to each other sent vibrations through his body in tact with every bullet release. 

His crosshair moved from target to target, always jumping toward those whose shields had collapsed or were about to. Anything else would take too much time, and the sudden confusion and panic after the explosion wouldn't hold for much longer, losing them their momentary advantage. 

It wouldn't take much longer until Eclipse regained some of their equilibrium and started their counterattack. 

Sadly, it happened quicker than he had expected, and the form it took almost took him completely by surprise. Only a shouted: "Biotic projectile!" from Shez made it possible for him to jump a few steps back from the edge and curl his body together before the ground under his feet gave away, and he and the rest of his team fell down toward the main hall.

Falling from any height and landing awkwardly on one left side could potentially lead to injuries, something which was especially dangerous in the middle of combat, but Lukas' combat suit's padding and his training helped him mitigate the force of the fall into a roll onto his stomach. Without wasting time, he pulled his rifle forward and fired wildly into a group of Eclipse mercenaries. Instead of trusting in their shields and using the opportunity to take him or a member of his team out while they were disorientated, the mercenaries threw themselves behind cover, wasting their golden chance. 

A hand grabbed his right leg and started to pull him backward. The grip wasn't too hard, and the pull was not uncomfortable, so he took the chance of it being one of his teammates pulling him to keep firing to give them much-needed covering fire.

Luckily, his gamble paid off, as he found himself behind a crate when the hand let go of his leg. He stood up in a crouch, turning slightly toward the left to see Torsten giving him a thumbs up. 

"Sound off!" Lukas ordered, hoping that everyone got away from the nasty fall without any serious or hampering injury. 

"Ellie and I are alright," came Shez's immediate response. 

"I'm fine too," answered Tonio, and a second look toward Torsten showed him that Tonio was behind the same crate as them. 

Torsten responded much the same, if only for Shez's and Ellie's state of mind, as they weren't behind the same cover as the three men. 

"What happened?" asked Lukas, wanting to get a picture of what happened while he peeked out behind the crate to get a reading on their current situation. 

"That bitch happened," growled Shez, throwing a grenade toward a group of mechs that were starting to come out of one other container and toward their position. 

"What she means is that while we hit Nesta with enough electric bullets to bring any other Asari down to the ground with spasms, she only fired up her biotics to stop a second round of burts and seemed right as rain to me," explained Ellie, clarifying Shez previous statement. 

Lukas had to pull his head back quickly as enough bullets flew through the place where it had been before to ignore his shields and turn his head into mush. He took a deep breath, taking a short moment to calm his heart from this near-death experience so that the adrenaline wouldn't hinder his thought process. 

"Think you can turn those mechs against Eclipse?" he asked Tonio while returning to taking potshots at every Eclipse mercenary who dared to stick their head out of cover. Getting the current situation under control was more important right now than asking about their newly acquired special target. 

"First thing I tried," came the answer from the team's engineer immediately. "Their inner functions and systems are blocked off from any outside signal. It seems like someone got intelligent and made it so that they could only be accessed by their ports." 

"How the fuck are they giving orders to them then if any outside signal is blocked?" asked Torsten, swinging his Gatling gun around to fire away at a group of mechs coming from their left. 

"Signals still can get through," corrected Tonio. "Just not any dealing with their main systems. Orders still get through, too, and if I had the key, I could change them, but that would take far too long. Yet, I can do this!" 

Tonio's Omni-tool brightened up in a glowing orange, having activated his combat configuration, which shut off any unnecessary applications, including the color change for stealth operations to make room for more important processes, and threw his hand toward a group of four mechs walking between two crates. 

At first, nothing visibly happened before the first mech started sparking, followed by the other three. Something like a warning shout could be heard from behind one of the crates, but the warning came too late to change the outcome as the group of mechs exploded, and the shockwave threw two mercenaries out of their cover. 

Not wanting to waste this opportunity, Lukas quickly fired a burst into one of the mercenaries while Shez took on the other. 

"Now that we have a bit of breathing room," said Lukas. "Can you tell me why the floor suddenly collapsed?" 

"Nesta reformed the biotic barrier she used to stop our bullets and fired it as a projectile right at us. Thankfully, her aim was off, and she only hit the supporting pillars right below us. I think she took some of those biotic-enhancing drugs. Otherwise, she probably wouldn't be as strong or have terrible aim."

"At least, there is some trade-off with those drugs. Would be mighty unfair if there wasn't a downside to them," threw Torsten in, his voice shaking a bit from the vibrations of his Gatling gun. 

"I think it's about the sudden surge in power. If you're not used to it, then you can't control it, and if the person taking those drugs gets used to them? Well, then you're fucked," came the helpful comment from Tonio. 

"So, it's probably like with any other addict. The more they use it, the more they get used to the side effects." 

"Alright, we can talk about that later," interrupted Lukas before the discussion could continue, "but we have more pressing concerns right now." He pulled back into cover, stopping his defense against the still-oncoming Eclipse and mechs to let his rifle cool down. Overheating in this situation wouldn't help in the slightest. "Does anybody have an idea?"

"Killing them all?" came Shez's unsurprising answer.

"That's still our end goal. I was asking about ideas on how we end up at that outcome," Lukas sighed. 

"Advancing from two sides? Push them from two sides and eliminate everyone between us? That way, they won't be able to pressure us from all sides," suggested Tonio after taking a quick look at the situation. 

"Not possible," disagreed Torsten while changing his Gatling gun's heat sink with one of the spares magnetized to his back. He secured the one he replaced in the new one's old position, where the heat could slowly dissipate, after which the heat sink would become usable again. "There's a gate on the right side. If anything, that's the way the heavy mech is going to come from, and I wouldn't want to be close to that thing when it's coming in." 

"Good argument," Lukas noted before he came to a conclusion. "Here's what we are going to do," he announced and got everyone's attention. Or at least all the attention they could spare while keeping Eclipse busy. "We're moving in three groups along the left side of the hall. Two with two, and one with one. Shez, you're going to be the one. Only move and attack when your camouflage is active. I don't want them to get a clear reading of your position. Tonio, you and Ellie are moving together, slightly behind me and Torsten. Leave enough space between us to force Eclipse to see us as two separate groups. That way, we can pressure them from two different angles. Just don't keep too much distance that they can separate us from each other. Shez, keep an eye out for anybody trying and take them out before they can do this." 

"Understood!" came the reply immediately, and Torsten and Lukas got ready to change their position further toward the left. They would play the vanguard of their group and pull most of Eclipse's attention to them so that the others would have a slightly easier time moving forward. Something that would be much easier thanks to Torsten's Gatling gun, which definitely couldn't be overlooked. 

"Now!" Lukas ordered when he heard that the number of bullets coming their way and crashing against the crates lessened for a moment. 

He made sure not to overtake Torsten by too much, keeping himself close to his teammate so that they would arrive at the next piece of cover roughly around the same time. 

Due to his heavier equipment, Torsten couldn't sprint as fast as the lighter Lukas and would become the single target of opportunity if he was the only one not behind cover. Yet, with Lukas out there, too, Eclipse would spread their attention to the two of them. Thanks to that, the damage to their kinetic shields wouldn't be as high and, hopefully, not collapse while they were moving. 

Behind them, Lukas could hear how the rifles of Tonio, Shez, and Ellie went off, giving them much-needed covering fire that reduced the amount of Eclipse mercenaries that dared to stick their heads out.

Yet, that didn't prevent some still daring to get out of cover, and the mechs didn't care about it in the first place. 

Out of the corner of his eyes, Lukas could see how the readout of his shield slowly dropped ever lower as more and more bullets crashed into his shield, and he knew that Torsten had the same problem. 

He threw himself into a forward roll when the next crate was only a few meters away. His feet barely positioned themselves correctly on the floor when Lukas turned around and fired his rifles into a group of mechs targeting Torsten, destroying three of the mechs with rapid fire, he gave Torsten enough time to fully dive behind cover. 

"Did they get you?" he asked when he heard a pained groan coming from behind him. 

"My shield broke on the last meters," replied Torsten while fiddling with his Omni-tool. "One in the arm and one in my side. But Medi-gel should fix the issue, no problem. I'm going to be at a hundred percent in a moment." 

Waving his Omni-tool over the hit parts, Torsten applied enough Medi-gel to seal the wounds and numb the pain for a time. He couldn't afford to be distracted by flashes of pain whenever he moved wrong. 

The Medi-gel was only beginning to work when Torsten grabbed his Gatling gun, which he had dropped at his side, and returned to turning mechs into scrap metal. 

"Ellie, Shez, move forward!" The command was given, and Lukas knew his two females would wait for an opportune moment to run for the next cover. And with Torsten's and Lukas' renewed pressing, this moment came sooner than later. 

The two women ran toward the cover Tonio was waiting behind and slid behind it in less time than Torsten and Lukas had needed for their cover change. 

Shez only took a moment to gather her breath before she activated her camouflage system and crossed the distance between her and Lukas. 

Thanks to her invisibility, she crossed the open space without becoming a target and reappeared moments later next to Lukas. 

"Already here?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the enemy. 

"Thought it would be better if I defend this position whenever the two groups are moving," Shez explained, and Lukas understood what she was saying. 

That way, there would be no empty gaps between the two groups after Torsten and Lukas moved to the next cover, and they would always have two or three attack vectors. It would be more dangerous for Shez after the enemy caught on that she was moving unseen when they got attacked from a position they previously thought vacated. 

Yet, Lukas had faith in his teammate that she knew the risks and prepared herself appropriately.

He gave her a short nod to signal that he accepted her adjustment of their plan. Instead of talking more, he already eyed the next piece of cover that would put them firmly on one side of the mass of Eclipse mercenaries and mechs. 

"When Torsten and I reach the next position, wait for a moment and concentrate your fire on Eclipse. Three grenades should move them out of their positions enough to eliminate a good chunk of their forces in one go." 

"We should also keep an eye out for any biotics," added Tonio. "Right now, we're dealing only with mechs and the usual Eclipse grunts. And I don't like that we're not seeing any combat engineers or biotic users, and the heavy mechs is also unaccounted for!" 

"Good point," acknowledged Lukas without missing a beat. The circumstance that no biotics had been thrown their way since the attack that got them to the ground level worried him. There shouldn't be more than one or two handfuls of Asari at this location, but every single one was able to use biotics. "They're probably preparing a trap or big counterattack. Using the grunts to soften us up and then hit us with a devastating attack," Lukas concluded and shared his thoughts with the rest of the team to get them to keep an eye out for anything unusual or indicating that the attack was coming. 

Nevertheless, they had to keep moving to make the best of their current advantage of only being up against the grunts. Should they not use it and the battle evolve into trench warfare, the enemy would have too much time to prepare, and when they hit, Lukas and his team would have to fight against their heavy hitters and their grunts at the same time. 

Over the next few minutes, Lukas and his team slowly advanced along the left side of the hall, taking only small or grazing wounds if Eclipse managed to get through their shields and armor while changing their cover. Their confidence that they would get out of this situation, no matter what Eclipse decided to throw at them, rose with every mercenary they dropped to the ground. 

Yet, the situation changed at the drop of a hat. Perhaps overconfidence made the team sloppy, or maybe it was just plain surprise that caught them off guard. In the end, Lukas would replay the next seconds over and over again and never see anything, never think of anything that could have changed the outcome. The advantages had been on their side, their position had been well, and the crate they used as cover thick and sturdy enough to stop all kinds of calibers. 

But nothing could stop bad luck from happening, and that was what Lukas decided to categorize the fact that when a literal hail of bullets flew through the closed gates on the other side of the hall, Torsten's side had been a few centimeters out of cover. 

The bullets tore right through his shield and armor, turning his side into a bloody mess. 

Torsten screamed and pulled himself into cover, reflexively putting a hand over his wound to try to stop the bleeding. 

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" the curses spilled from his lips without stopping, and with a hand pressing on his wound and distracted by the pain, Torsten didn't think of activating his Omni-tool to dispense the Medi-gel. 

Thankfully, Lukas had already dropped his rifle and ducked behind cover to activate his own the moment he heard Torsten's pained scream. 

A wave of his hand was enough to start the diagnosis function of Torsten's combat suit, which identified the breach and automatically ejected Medi-gel and an emergency paste that closed the hole in his armor one after the other. 

The pain-killing components of the Medi-gel didn't take long to kick in, and Torsten's previously erratic breathing calmed down. 

"How is it?" asked Lukas, his voice full of concern for his teammate and friend. 

"It hurts, but I won't let it stop me," replied Torsten with conviction, and there was no doubt in Lukas' mind that he would soldier through the pain and support his teammate no matter the cost. 

"Normally, I would say take it easy for a few minutes, but I don't think we even have a few seconds to take a breather," said Lukas while glancing over the crate and looking toward the gate from where the bullets that hit Torsten came from. 

A steel claw grabbed onto the side of one of the slowly opening gate doors and pulled it to the side to quicken the process. 

In the gap between the two doors, the metallic face of a mech appeared two meters above the ground. 

Yet, to call it a face would be a disservice. Instead, it was a dark grey, almost black globe with dozens of ominously glowing red lights that functioned as its eyes. 

Only half its body was visible through the doors, but Lukas could recognize the heavy armor around its main body painted in Eclipse's colors, protecting its vital systems. 

"Here, a staggered double shot at that thing should bring it down," gasped Torsten, the pain momentarily returning as he turned his torso to grab the two remaining rockets at his side. 

He rolled one over the ground to Lukas, who took it while asking: "Think that should be enough?" 

"As long as we hit roughly the same spot. One to break its armor, the other to turn it into scrap." 

"And if that doesn't work?" Lukas hat to ask about the scenario where it didn't work. He had to have all possible information to react quickly if things didn't go the way they wanted.

"As long as nobody misses, it will be damaged enough that it will go down with enough rifles pointed at it. And if we miss? Well, then we're dead."

"Then better not miss," Lukas said, grimacing at the thought. 

"I don't plan to," came the confident reply from Torsten despite the fact that he was beginning to feel a bit lightheaded. 

Meanwhile, the gate's doors had opened wide enough for half of the heavy mech to be visible from the inside, and it slowly lifted its right arm, the arm with the heavy Gatling gun attached to it. 

Despite the danger, Torsten and Lukas didn't hesitate to prime their rockets and lean out of cover to get a good shot at the heavy mech. 

The rockets fired without much problem, and the two men immediately leaned back into cover to avoid the sudden gunfire coming from the heavy mech. 

Due to his unintended jerking back when he saw the Gatling gun pointed in his direction and the lightheadedness he felt, Torsten's rocket was slightly off from its intended target, and, instead of hitting the torso like Lukas' rocket, it hit the equivalent of its neck. 

The shields of the heavy mech couldn't deal with the power behind the rockets at all and collapsed almost instantly. The rest of their power shredded its armor but couldn't reach any truly important system deeper inside. 

"Did it work?!" called Torsten, his head and ears ringing from the explosion. 

Lukas took a quick peak over the crate and, at first, couldn't see anything besides the smoke created by the explosion. Yet, it didn't take long until he noticed the glowing red eyes inside of it, and he pulled his head back, cursing loudly. 

"Its eyes are still glowing, so it still had energy!" 

"Not for long!" announced Shez, and Lukas' head shot up to look, uncaring of the fact that any Eclipse mercenary could have used his sudden freezing to take a targeted shot at his head. 

At first, he didn't notice her. Only after the systems of his helmet outlined Shez's form on his display did he understand that she took the opportunity of the smoke and the confusion left by the explosion to use her invisibility to get close to the mech. 

She used the mech's right leg to give herself a small boost and jumped up to its eye lever, two grenades in her hand, which she dropped in the opening of its armor created by the two rockets. 

As soon as her feet touched the ground, she turned around and sprinted back to cover as fast as she could, her camouflage running out halfway. 

The Eclipse mercenaries closest to her tried to react quickly to her sudden presence, but before anyone could do anything, a second explosion happened, ending the heavy mech for good this time and taking the few grunts too close to it who had wanted to check up on it with it to a fiery grave. 

"That was reckless!" scolded Lukas more out of habit than anything. 

"It worked, didn't it?" responded Shez, and every member of their team could hear the cheekiness in her tone. 

"Next time, tell me when you're going to save our asses with a crazy idea. A little support from one of us could make it at least a little bit safer!" 

"Knew you would understand, Leader-man!" 

"Did anybody else notice the lack of gunfire?" interjected Ellie, who had until now kept herself out of the team's conversation to keep an eye on the battlefield. 

"Now that you mention it," replied Lukas and slowly leaned around the crate's edge to take a look. 

There were still some Eclipse members in the hall, but they weren't shooting anymore and, furthermore, they were retreating to the other side of the hall or toward the gate to retreat. 

"They're leaving," informed Lukas, and a small smile appeared on his face. 

"Couldn't get them all, but we definitely hit them hard. But," a frown replaced the smile, "where are their elites? We only faced the grunts, and not once did one show up who could use biotics or used their Omni-tools like combat engineers would do." 

Before any of his teammates could reply, his heads-up display announced an incoming call from headquarters. The frown deepened. The call should be impossible to get through as long as their jammer was active. 

"Ellie, Shez, check the jammer," Lukas ordered before accepting the call. 

"Great, we're finally getting through," said a male voice with audible relief in his voice. "Your signal appeared again a minute or so after you activated your jammer, and then your signal got distorted, so we couldn't contact you. It took us a will to get the signal strong enough to reach you." 

"The jammer is off!" called Ellie when she found their jammer where they first dropped down into the hall. "It got hit by debris!" 

The implications let the blood freeze in Lukas' veins. Their jammer stopped working minutes after the beginning of their attack, which must have given Eclipse the ability to either call for reinforcements or coordinate their members around the warehouse to a far better degree than Lukas had previously thought. 

"Anyway," continued the voice of the operator at HQ, "support is on its way. ETA: three to five minutes. But you should get out of there fast. There's an Eclipse transport coming, and it's carrying something big." 

Suddenly, something crashed through the roof of the building and created a huge cloud of dust when it landed right in the middle of the hall. 

As the dust disappeared slowly, Lukas could make out the silhouette of a mech that was at least a meter taller than the heavy mech that had tried to enter the hall. And with every second that passed, the mech got more visible, and the dread that Lukas felt got more intense. 

"I think your warning came a little too late," he answered the operator, speaking for the first time since the call began. "Three to five minutes, you said?" he repeated while unconsciously checking over his rifle with a pained grimace on his face. "Tell them to hurry up, else I don't know if we will still be here when they arrive." 

Lukas ended the call and looked around for his teammates. He found them easily, and one look at their body language was enough to know their thoughts about fighting this machine. 

Yet, they would do their best to try and survive the next five minutes until the reinforcements arrived. 

"At least it can't get any worse," commented Torsten with a despondent chuckle. 

"Hope you didn't forget me!" screamed a shrill voice from the other side of the mech, and after a quick flash of blue light, an Asari appeared on the shoulder of the gigantic mech. "I still have to skin you alive for all the trouble you caused!" 

The manic smile on the face of Iyara Nesta promised a painful end, and the pulsing blue biotics around her body didn't help calm down anyone's nerves. 

"You were saying?" came the sarcastic question from Ellie, who never really used that tone with anyone.

"I take back what I said and stay quiet from now on," promised Torsten without hesitation. 

"Doesn't really help now, but I take what I can get," Ellie replied. 

"Five minutes guys," Lukas reminded. "Five minutes, that's all we need!" 

Yet, he knew that those five minutes would probably be the hardest five minutes of their lifetime, but that didn't mean they would try and do it. 

With a silent shout, they threw themselves back into cover to survive the coming onslaught.