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"Pathfinder, the compound's alarms have been triggered," SAM intoned coolly.
Avitus couldn't shake the impulse to nod even though his SAM wasn't a physical being. It couldn't see such an action, nor was it remotely necessary to acknowledge SAM in such a manner, but the urge was still there. Instead he slid his helmet into place, letting the soft sounds of his suit sealing be his answer.
"We're here!" the angaran pilot called from cockpit as the shuttle slowed and settled into a stable hover just above the ground.
Holstering his Phaeston, Avitus hopped out of the shuttle and briefly touched his fingers to the shuttle's hull plating, a useless ritual born from many past deployments. It was just something meant to ground him before he went into a combat zone.
As the shuttle pulled away, he turned his attention to the sprawling compound ahead of him. It had originally been a kett facility as was evident from the almost organic appearance of the structures, the drab greens that made no visual sense on this grey moon, but the original occupants weren't the issue. The issue were the new inhabitants: pirates that had grown too bold for both the Initiative and the angaran people's peace of mind.
While the shuttle had come in low to avoid detection and there was already a distraction in progress pulling any eyes away from his insertion, Avitus still did not like the idea of being caught in the open. He sprinted the short distance across the small moon's open plain to an open balcony (did no one teach the kett's architect's about defense?) and vaulted over the rail. Even outside, there was just enough atmosphere to here the wail of the alarms.
Impulsively, Avitus activated his comms and asked, "Pathfinder Ryder, are you certain that you don't need assistance?"
"Hey, Avitus," Ryder said over the sound of gunfire and the blaring klaxon, "glad you could join the party but I brought a krogan. And Liam."
Over the comm, he could hear said krogan bellow a taunt at their opponents.
Avitus knew humans didn't vocalize the same as turians, the same cues weren't there, but he'd heard enough of their idioms to understand the imagery of "hearing someone smile" and he also knew Ryder was doing it.
Or grinning. There was apparently a difference. Who knew?
"Well, if you don't need me," Avitus let the joke trail off.
Ryder's response was immediate. "No! No, stay. Or, you know, do your part of the plan."
"If you insist," Avitus said.
"It's a date," Ryder said. There was some indistinct chatter for a moment, something out of Avitus's hearing, but it apparently prompted a response from Ryder as he continued, "It's an idiom! I can think of plenty of better places to take him than a pirate base for an actual date."
Avitus flared his mandibles under his helmet in a turian approximation of an amused smile that only got wider as the krogan apparently decided to switch to comms for some reason unknown to Avitus.
"I dunno, kid, invading a challenging enemy's stronghold seems like the perfect place to take a potential mate: get to show off your prowess, assess your mate's skills, smash a few heads for fun! And afterward you can put all that left over adrenaline to good use if you know what I mean," the krogan, a member of Clan Nakmor if Avitus remembered correctly, said with a downright lascivious chuckle.
"Drack!" Ryder yelped.
"I don't know why you're getting your armor in a bunch," Drack said, dismissing Ryder's attempts to distract him with too much enjoyment, "He understands me. Right, turian?"
Avitus nearly jumped. He desperately hoped that the "turian" Drack was addressing was another one. Except he knew that the turian on Ryder's squad was female. He coughed and shakily tried to steer this discussion back to safer shores.
"I believe I'll get to work on my end of freeing the hostages."
There was a gusty snort from Drack. "You do that."
Feeling buoyed with the knowledge that Ryder and his squad were doing fine on the other side of the compound, Avitus let the comms fall silent. He drew his rifle as he stepped inside the building. The room attached to the balcony was massive and lit with a saturated yellow light, with boxes were stacked fairly neatly against the walls leaving a lot of open floor to cover.
"Pathfinder," SAM chimed.
"Yes?" he asked as he swiftly crossed the room, keeping to what little cover that was available. He paused at the next door and checked the corridor.
"If you find a terminal I could attempt to acquire a map of the facility."
"Understood," Avitus said. He started to enter the hallway beyond but paused to awkwardly add, "Thank you, SAM."
The was a brief moment of silence--a reminder that his SAM was in the same position as Avitus, still testing the waters of their partnership even after so many months together--before it responded, "You're welcome, Pathfinder."
Satisfied with that, Avitus glanced down the hallway again to make sure it was still empty before he proceeded farther into the base. The alarm was still bellowing, echoing through the empty hallways that he passed through. If he didn't know that most of the pirates were scrambling to stop Ryder's team the lack of life would be down right creepy.
Suddenly a door swished open and a red armored merc stepped out. The human drew up short, clearly surprised to see an unknown turian. As his hand reached for his pistol, Avitus fired. As the the human collapsed back into the room, Avitus could already hear others shouting inside.
Pressing his back to the wall, Avitus picked off a pair of the pirates that were still standing in the open as a shotgun blast hit the other side of the door.
That was definitely close range.
Staying in cover, Avitus fired blindly into the room in a few short blasts. It wasn't meant to to actually meant to do any damage to his opponent. What it was meant to do was get the pirate to fire back.
Which they obligingly did.
The first blast caught the adjacent door jamb whose splash radius actually managed to include the hallway wall opposite to the open door. A second shot hit close enough that shrapnel ate through his shields.
But the tactic had done its job. Avitus could hear the gun being reloaded. Taking it as his cue, he darted into the room while his shield was low, running the risk of another shooter being in the room besides his target, and unleashed a burst of fire. He continued his dash into the room, the echoing sound of armor hitting the metal floor a minor detail as he was focused on ducking behind a low partition.
Feeling hyper-aware of his surroundings, Avitus checked the room for any standing enemies. No one moved.
He walked back over to one of the fallen pirates and spared the moment it took to check for vital--negative--before he gingerly pulled the the pirate's arm towards him. He gestured to the exposed omni-tool and asked, "Will this do for the map?"
SAM did not answer. Instead the omni-tool flickered to life and switched through a multitude of screens and images faster than Avitus could process. Then his own omni-tool flashed on and coalesced into a semi-transparent blueprint of the compound.
"Yes."
Avitus could feel the smugness radiating off of his SAM. They may not all be practically unshackled AIs like Ryder's SAM--which had become the worst kept secret, at least among Pathfinders--but there was still individual behaviors, even if they were sometimes subtle things.
"Showoff," he huffed, amusement coloring multiple layers of his voice.
A line traced a path across the map. "I calculate that this is the likeliest location for the command center."
Avitus dipped his head without thinking and then added a quiet thanks.
The command center turned out to not be far from the small commissary, but it was not as quiet as the out edges of the compound. He encountered multiple groups of pirates, usually only in small packs. Between his time in the turian military and his time as a Spectre he had years of experience to draw from in how to neutralize the opposition.
SAM had been correct (of course) in its calculations: the room was the operations hub. It was also where Avitus hit the greatest amount of resistance. The firefight lasted over fifteen minutes (not that Avitus was counting) and his shields had not only been depleted twice, but his armor now sported a few scorched gauges. It had held, but he was absolutely feeling the ache now.
While he scavenged for any the appropriate ammo, SAM hacked through the systems and called out all sorts of relevant data: access codes, munitions, the location of the imprisoned colonists. He tapped a terminal and shut off the alarm system and deactivated the remaining defenses (there was, amusingly, a clear line of destroyed turrets carved through the active ones).
"Ryder," Avitus said, activating the private comms channel without further ado.
"So the sudden lack of noise-" Ryder began only to be interrupted by a burst of gunfire. Avitus heard the distinctive noise of biotics being fired off and a quiet grunt from Ryder before he continued, "No alarms was you?"
"Hm, yes. My SAM access to their systems now. The turrets are deactivated and I'm forwarding the location of the colonists and the codes to their cell to your omni-tool," Avitus informed him even as he tapped the send button.
Ryder hummed in appreciation--Avitus found certain things sounded roughly the same no matter biology or culture--and said, "You're the best. Why don't we do this more often?"
"It's seems a little redundant: two Pathfinders on the same team," he said as he laughed in response. He paused for a moment as an impulsive thought streaked through his head. Blaming it entirely on his unconventional companions' influences, he picnhed his mandibles in close and quickly asked, "So where would you take me?"
"I- what?"
Avitus felt a frisson at the thought that maybe he'd misread the earlier discussion wrong. Spirits, he wasn't used to being the instigator of flirtation. Macen had been the true pioneer, willing to throw him into the unknown in both exploration and in matters of the heart. Avitus had been more than willing to hang back.
But all the options were to advance or retreat; if he did mess things up here, he could probably play it off as an admittedly awkward joke.
"Where would you take me if there was a date? Hypothetically."
"Uh, well," Ryder said, "I mean it would depend on what you like to do."
Surprised and amused, Avitus laughed. "That's almost 'answering a question with another question' level of avoidance, Ryder."
"Hey!" he scoffed in response, all mock affront. "I'm trying to be considerate. You could try it too!"
"Oh? I'm not considerate?" Avitus asked as he was mildly distracted by his SAM unobtrusively chimed in that it was finished downloading all the information the pirates' had on their systems. "And here I was planning on sabotaging a half-dozen Hydra mechs on my way back to the pick-up but if you-"
"No, no. I wouldn't want to deprive you," Ryder interrupted him. "If you're finished up there, you can meet us at the landing zone?"
Avitus murmured an affirmative as he let the line go quiet.
He left the room and headed to the east through a network of hallways and intersections that eventually lead to where the pirates had stashed the Hydras. One of the mechs could be a pain but six was too much of a risk to allow any non-Initiative or allied angaran to get their hands on. The fact that a faction of pirates had managed to get so many was worrying and someone was going to have to figure that issue out.
There were more pirates, more hired gun, in the mech garage. Fortunately no one had actually activated any mechs, or at least it didn't look like it from Avitus's vantage point as he looked down at the hangar from above. What he needed to do was figure out how to disable the mechs without tipping off the pirates.
"Any suggestions, SAM?" Avitus asked as he quickly scanned his surroundings in the hopes that the AI would spot something useful.
"There is a central electrical conduit that could be accessed and cause an overload," SAM said.
"All right," he said. Hopping down from his perch, Avitus ducked into a smaller maintenance shaft and headed a hundred meters away. Pulling open a panel, he easily spotted the necessary conduit.
"Pathfinder, when the conduit is overloaded power in the base will momentarily be interrupted until it is rerouted," SAM cautioned as Avitus began rigging a grenade into a mine capable of disrupting the system. "I would also suggest retreating to a safe distance with the method of... disruption."
"Noted, SAM. Let Ryder's team know about the power situation," he said.
Satisfied with his handiwork, Avitus stepped away and continued down the maintenance shaft and back into the main corridor. He checked his omni-tool as he stepped into a small room, fortunately empty, and tapped a button. There was a lag of five seconds and then a very faint explosion. Then a larger explosion followed a few moments later. The ground actually shook and the lights snapped off, instantly drowning him in darkness and silence. He touched the door and found it sealed behind him.
For a few utterly nerve-wracking moments nothing happened.
And then the power shuddered back on, the lights flickered back on and there was the subtle sensation of the air filters powering back on as well. And the door opened when he neared it this time.
He was glad for his helmet when he stepped back out into the corridor. Even though he had put some distance between himself and the hangar, there was still an unhealthy amount of smoke clinging to the ceiling that had yet to be filtered out.
Shouldering his rifle, Avitus made his way back to the mech bay. He had to make sure that the deadly toys were taken out of the equation.
The room itself was a charred mess. The makeshift charging stations for the mechs had been blown open, the blackened green metal was grotesquely peeled back from still sparking wires. The Hydras themselves had been thrown about the room like children's' toys abandoned mid play session, arms and legs and glass strewn about like confetti. The blast would have caught any of the pirates unawares and not left much alive.
Satisfied, Avitus made his way back through the compound to where he and Ryder had established their meeting location. It would be the landing zone for the shuttles that would be called in when Ryder had rescued the colonists.
Avitus launched himself to the roof and took cover behind an antennae. It gave him a good view of incoming traffic. Avitus wasn't one given to useless worrying (in fact, he'd been told often enough over the years that he was surprisingly optimistic for a Spectre), but he was not a fan of not being part of the action. He wasn't a fan of not knowing if his help was needed or of knowing if he had been in a situation he may have been able to salvage it.
The inactivity gnawed at him.
"On my way with the colonists," Ryder's voice suddenly told him over comms after he had been waiting nearly ten minutes.
"Affirmative," he automatically responded as he shifted on his perch. A quick glance up informed him that the shuttles that had just been out of range were already inbound and there were no new waves of pirates. Avitus hoped they decided to play it safe and stay away from Ryder's team.
The shuttles landed just outside the compound and a few armed Initiative members took up defensive positions on the ground, which further bolstered Avitus's morale. It also meant he could turn his attention back to watching the compound.
It was another ten minutes after the shuttles had landed before a mixed group of civilians and Ryder's team walked out of one of the doors. The eleven colonists were mostly humans with a few asari and turians mixed in with them. The pirates had targeted them likely because they were engineers, getting proper maintenance outside the legal channels was pricey and difficult. It was apparently easier in some outlaws' minds to raid for that expertise. Just another issue to get used to in Andromeda.
Avitus vaulted over the side of the building to land heavily on the ground while Ryder's team transferred the colonists to the Initiative security personnel's custody. Avitus nodded to the others and headed to his shuttle.
Once everyone was on board and the door had sealed, he pulled off his helmet. Flexing and twisting his neck, trying to remind his body of movement outside armor, Avitus chose a spot on the shuttle's bench seat with a good view outside. He placed his helmet to his left and idly watched at Liam, Jaal and Ryder talked by a weapons locker. They were mostly quiet, though occasionally a loud exclamation or gesture would snag Avitus's attention.
For his part, Drack walked past where Avitus sat and found a spot at the back of the shuttle. He forewent the seats and simply leaned against the wall. It was a good spot to observe everyone inside the main cabin.
Ryder dropped onto the seat beside him and pulled off his helmet. His hair was mussed and sweaty, his cheeks were flushed a bright red from either emotion or exertion (or both) as he grinned at Avitus. There was something so open and accessible about him, not even taking into account the vulnerabilities of his physiology. He settled his helmet on his lap.
"Hey," he said, "fancy meeting you here."
Avitus hummed and nodded his head in the vague direction of the other shuttle. "Nice job with the colonists."
"It was a team effort," Ryder said, leaning as far back in the shuttle's seat as was humanly possible. He stretched his legs out in front of him and let his head loll to the side so he could eye Avitus. "Which, by the way, included you. Nice work getting all that information. We got their trade partners and their routes. That'll help everyone out."
If Avitus was honest, he enjoyed all the parts of a mission: planning, putting the plan into action, and he enjoyed the lassitude that followed an op done well.
Though clearly not as much as Ryder as evidenced by the sprawl the human Pathfinder was currently achieving despite being in full armor.
"Yeah. It wasn't so bad being part of a team," he admitted.
"Oh? Starting to think about getting your own?" Ryder said as the artificial gravity kicked on in the shuttle's cabin. They'd escaped atmo.
"Any advice?"
"Ugh," Ryder let his head loll again so he could stare at the ceiling with a look of disgust. He gestured to a krogan, a human male, and an angaran that had suspiciously given the pair of Pathfinders a wide berth and a false sense of privacy. "Find boring squadies. These jokers don't understand respect."
The last was said a little louder, letting the eavesdroppers know they invited into the conversation.
"I've seen you walk into a bulkhead, Ryder," Liam said. His nonchalant shrug was contradicted by his gleeful tone.
Ryder levered himself upright so he could glare indignantly at Liam. "I was exhausted!"
Avitus was happy to sit back and observe the camaraderie between this team. As a Spectre he had been used to handling things on his own and even as Macen's right-hand in the turian division of the Initiative he'd been fairly independent.
"And were you tired when you set the Tempest's kitchen on fire?" Jaal asked.
"All right," Ryder said with a swipe of his hand through the air. "You are uninvited from this conversation."
The back and forth mix of jokes and insults washed over Avitus like a gentle wave as he transferred his gaze to the shuttle's window. The expanse of space to up the entire view with the moon they'd been on growing distant, the planet it orbited dwarfed it's grey shape. It was a rather soothing view.
There was a mix of laughter that drew Avitus's attention and he watched as the group settled back onto their seats, ignoring or pretending to ignore Ryder and Avitus. He risked a glance at Ryder only to find him gazing up at Avitus.
A faint flush dusted his cheeks when he realized that Avitus had caught him looking at him,.
Avitus could only find human physiology so weird. Trying to affect some sense of nonchalance, he flared his mandibles and said, "I think... it's the standard that the first date is dinner. Right?"
A slow smile broke out over Scott's face. Then he nodded and replied, "Yeah. I hear it's a pretty popular thing."