The Kodiak Shuttle piloted by Chifuyu Orimura landed a bit roughly on the landing pad, and we were immediately fired upon. It was expected, so a Biotic Barrier was deployed and we took no damage. We were able to disembark perfectly calmly.
"Damn, you're strong... really strong..."
Despite the fact that we had already had joint training sessions, Jack couldn't keep quiet watching how I protected us from enemy small arms fire.
"Too bad this isn't always applicable."
"Well..."
Chifuyu Orimura, not hiding behind cover and thus drawing fire to herself, raised her Sniper Rifle and fired several shots.
"...I must say that so far, it has only failed to help us when the SSV Normandy was attacked in space. The rest of the time, due to the large number of biotics in the team, we could almost march openly to the destination."
"Tsk..."
Jack shook her head disapprovingly.
"Don't 'tsk' me; we practiced this with you too."
Liara, who had stood up near us, addressed the girl who couldn't restrain her own feelings.
"I actually didn't believe this was your usual tactic. I thought you were joking and that it was actually just a last-resort tactic."
"No."
I shook my head.
"This is our standard operating procedure. Or would you really prefer to hear bullets whistling over your head? To wait and see exactly where the next shot hits, and wonder if your armor will hold the next round..."
"No, I wouldn't want that, but still..."
She couldn't find anything to say, especially since everyone had already disembarked from the two Kodiak Shuttles and, under the cover of my barrier, simply shot down the opponents who hadn't expected this.
"...I'm not used to biotics acting as mobile shields for the whole squad. When you're a pirate, as a biotic, you're supposed to break through to the enemy's strongest fighters and kill them, not protect everyone around you. When you're a mercenary, you basically do the same thing, and the army guys who fled from all sorts of militaries said roughly the same. Only instead of running forward headlong, you're supposed to move forward with the squad and hand out beatings, not defend."
"Don't worry, you'll get used to it."
Jane shrugged casually.
"Alright, moving out. Jane, I'm leaving everything here to you."
"Understood."
She nodded, after which my group moved forward and fairly quickly reached the positions from which we were being shot at.
"Tali..."
"Give me two minutes."
The girl quickly bent over the first opponent, who turned out to be a Krogan, then over the second and third, who were Vorcha, after which she smirked contentedly.
"Amateurs... all their communications will be in the palm of our hand."
After the Quarian's words, we indeed heard the conversations of our opponents, who didn't understand what had happened to the squad left to guard the entrance until the Kodiak Shuttle with equipment returned.
"So, reinforcements are supposed to arrive for them?"
Jane said this in a slightly thoughtful voice.
"So, maybe we use that? Our Kodiak Shuttles can be hidden at some distance, and then..."
"It's your call."
I left the decision to Jane and made a gesture, suggesting my group finally go inside the facility on Pragia.
"Here..."
Jack walked up to a bloodstain on the wall opposite the entrance.
"...everything is just as it was before..."
Her hand touched the dried stain.
"This is where I smashed a Cerberus bastard's head, threatening the Kodiak Shuttle pilot that if he didn't take me off-planet, I'd smash his head too. Actually, I killed him anyway, but I didn't smash his head; I just killed him with Warp, plain and simple."
"Serves him right..."
Tali grimaced, as she knew Jack's story and understood that sympathizing with a bastard who participated in experiments on children would be an utterly disgusting act.
"Though it's a bit of a shame he got off so easily."
"Hah, that's our girl."
Jack nodded approvingly to Tali, after which we continued our way, but hearing the conversations of our opponents, we froze and prepared to open fire, while still covered by the Biotic shield.
Three...
I counted down with my fingers before starting to shoot.
...two, one, go!
A short gesture and we immediately opened fire on the enemy who appeared around the corner and clearly didn't expect our attack.
"A land of unafraid idiots..."
Chifuyu Orimura shook her head.
"They're just very cheap mercenaries. This isn't the Blood Pack; it's some parody of them. So it's not surprising we're carving them up like this."
Tali immediately gave explanations for what was happening, while meanwhile, the opponents began to shout and demand answers from those who had just died. But none of us intended to answer the enemy and tell them their subordinates were dead.
"What the hell is going on here?"
Jack decided to vent her bewilderment into the air, but no answer followed; instead, we continued our way. However, Tali delayed again to dig into the opponents' Omni-tools, and after a couple of minutes, she laughed somewhat wickedly.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing. One Krogan moron had recordings of his voice messages on his Omni-tool, so theoretically, I can forge his reports."
"Don't bother."
Jack shook her head.
"Think I can't pull it off?"
"Well, why not?"
She shrugged, looking at Tali with a slightly mocking gaze.
"You could probably forge the voice and send a message. But with types like these..."
She nodded at the dead body.
"...they don't have friends, only temporary allies, and as soon as you get in touch, they'll swear at you so hard..."
Mockery was audible in Jack's voice.
"...that you'll feel sick. And then you won't be able to answer the way this specific Krogan would have, because you just don't know what style he used with his temporary comrades. Plus, you'll show that there are definitely enemies here. They realize it anyway, of course... But realizing isn't the same as knowing, and their reaction when they meet us will still be delayed. Well, ideally..."
We all snorted at Jack's words, which she ignored.
"Alright, let's go..."
I gestured for my comrades to continue following me, after which we began to speak more quietly again so as not to attract the enemy's attention. However, we all already understood the level of training of this opponent, so we could say we relaxed slightly. But only slightly... after all, you can't relax completely, no matter who the opponent is. Our lives depend on it.
The fire opened upon us was taken by the Biotic shield, and it just showed that we were right not to relax fully.
"I am Krogan!"
A Krogan ran toward us through a hail of bullets, taking them on his armor's Kinetic Barrier and intending to burst into our formation, but Jack created another one in front of my barrier, which the Krogan crashed into. When he stopped and shook his head, his armor's shield turned out to be overloaded, and the rest of the shots hit his body.
"Gra-a-a-a-a-a!"
The Vorcha didn't shout anything articulate, only growled, and we shot them down for it.
"How many of them are there?"
"Well... it's meat... you could hire quite a lot of it."
Chifuyu Orimura said this with a light smirk.
"So all that's left is to shoot them all and finally destroy this place."
We walked forward a bit and found ourselves in a fairly large, semi-ruined room.
"Ha... and this is where they made us fight, for the amusement of the guards and scientists."
"Specifically for amusement?"
Tali said this in an extremely tense voice.
"Yes, specifically for amusement. You know, I've tried many times to understand what and how they did things here, even put myself in the scientists' shoes, and in my understanding, if they were just running an experiment, making children fight to the death made no sense."
We didn't know what to say to that.
"And over there..."
Jack pointed to a mirror with her hand.
"...that was my room. At the time, I didn't even know you couldn't see anything from this side. It always seemed to me that I was just being ignored, and that's why when they let me out into the arena, I fought especially fiercely."
She smirked tensely.
"Though in reality, I always wanted to kill specifically those who were watching us, but I understood then that I could do nothing against armed adults. So I had to wait for the moment."
She shook her head.
"Let's get out of here!"
With those words, she hurried to move further, but soon stopped near one of the terminals. It was working, or working partially, and there, one of the doctors was scolding his subordinate because the required result had not been achieved.
"Always knew they didn't consider us human."
"Tali..."
I nodded to the girl toward the terminal, and she smirked understandingly.
"...get me a name list of all the employees of this facility. We need to get everyone who's still alive."
"I'll do that with pleasure."
Jack only smiled at us embarrassedly and yet gratefully.
"And why did I get so lucky?"
She shook her head.
"This is your last chance at a normal life."
A light mockery was audible in Missi's voice.
"Normal? And what is a normal life?"
"Well..."
Missi shrugged.
"...friends, acquaintances, hanging out together, without robberies and killing innocents. Something like that. Though in our time, the life of any sentient being who knows that the end of the world is coming soon because of the Reapers won't be ordinary anymore."
"That's true..."
I sighed.
"...however, even so, living near those who will lend a shoulder, or wandering the galaxy in the hope that the next partner turns out to be more decent than the previous one and you won't have to stick a shiv under their ribs."
Jack shuddered, clearly realizing that we were working on her now. Но to my surprise, she wasn't against it. Everything happening around her was making her think about what was going on and how to live further. And those thoughts were clearly in our favor.
"Shall we go?"
And despite everything, she tried to run away from these reflections.
"Wait..."
Tali gave a slightly casual shrug.
"...I still need a few minutes to hack the terminal. Then we'll go further."
Jack had no choice but to listen to Tali, and only when she finished hacking the terminal did we continue our way. This time we encountered two more terminals, after which we reached the room where Jack had been kept.
"Yes... this was my friend..."
She walked up to a table that was welded to the floor.
"Friend?"
Chifuyu Orimura clarified with some shock.
"Yes, my best friend... you could hide from the cameras installed here under it..."
She pointed to the remains of the cameras in her room.
"...and cry. Because for tears, if they were seen, you could get hit very painfully. With it, I could talk about everything, but only in a whisper, because all our conversations were overheard..."
There was a very sad smile on Jack's lips. It was clear that it was painful for her to remember this, but she didn't stop and, walking around the room, which turned out to be quite small, told about the bed, the window—which, as we already knew, was a mirror from the other side—the toilet, and how ashamed she was to sit on it under the cameras...
And all these words made us all want to destroy all those responsible...
"Jack, they will regret it. I will ruin their lives; all their relatives, friends, and acquaintances will know what they were doing. And then the Spectres will come for them and either lock them up or send them to the other side without question."
Approaching the girl, I put a hand on her shoulder, and she, smirking bitterly, nodded gratefully to me.
"Can we plant a bomb here?"
"One of them, definitely..."
***
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