Work Text:
Zada Ban, Xe Cha system
At first glance it looks tropical, but the steamy haze filling the canyon is close to boiling and the lush green on the walls is a heat-resistant algae. All of it hellishly irradiated. Environment suits are a must for everyone except vorcha, and the Blood Pack’s signature red stands out.
The skull and fist badge shifts out of Wolf’s scope as the krogan lumbers towards the bridge. The priority target, but not his target.
“Krogan target acquired, Shepard-Commander,” Legion reports in his earpiece.
Correction: environment suits are a must for everyone except vorcha and geth. Wolf is still getting used to having one/one thousand one hundred and eighty-three on the team.
“Still think you can take him in one shot?”
“Yes.”
“Even with the helmet?”
“Yes,” Legion repeats without the slightest change of inflection.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Wolf says.
The geth has shown no outward inclination to join EDI in her experiments with humor, but Wolf has no trouble believing they understand it. Legion’s newly constructed and wildly over-heavy rifle has been the subject of much professional speculation with Garrus and even Thane weighing in. As to whether a single shot can really stop a krogan, there are credits at stake.
“Can we get on with this or what?” Zaeed gruffs over the comm.
Might as well, the setup isn’t going to get any better—until suddenly, it does. With the kind of confidence that only a redundant nervous system can give, the krogan pauses on the span, taking in the view. A sheer-sided crevice, a precipitous drop, and a snug staging area concealed beneath the overhang. And unseen—two snipers lying low and a mercenary crouched behind a crate.
Wolf exhales and recenters his aim on the pitted gas tank strapped to an unfortunate vorcha.
“Open fire—”
His rifle kicks. The vorcha blooms into a fireball, taking out a second grunt for good measure. But the familiar sound of his Incisor is eclipsed by a thunderclap that cracks off the canyon walls. The M-98 Widow anti-material rifle: Legion said it was an old design, penetrating with mass rather than the extreme acceleration of modern weapons. It sounds more like an artillery piece than a rifle. Even the echo is something.
Wolf checks his targets, then takes a second to do it properly despite his curiosity. Both are down and very dead. Zaeed is mopping up the remaining vorcha, his rifle spitting in practiced bursts. As for the krogan—
The krogan is charging headlong at the exposed merc.
Wolf sights in on autopilot, disappointment and disbelief falling aside in the face of an immediate threat. He’s dimly aware of Zaeed carping over the squad channel even as he turns and bolts for cover. Something blinky scrap metal bastard. Wolf’s focus stays with the runaway krogan.
He fires. It drops.
An uneasy quiet settles over the scene, nothing but the sound of a distant waterfall crashing into the depths. Further in the complex, the Blood Pack could be scrambling to set an ambush or escape, or they could be none the wiser. Depends on how the sound carries, and whether there are more krogan acting as the brains of the operation. As far as Wolf can tell, they’re one minute in and winning six to none. No alarms sounding, nothing moving in his scope.
Zaeed steps back into view and fires several rounds into the fallen hulk. When it doesn’t stir, he turns a hard gaze in the general direction of the snipers. He’s closer to guessing Wolf’s position than Legion’s, but the rebuke comes across just fine.
“One shot my ass,” he says, the vindicated minority vote. Without being told, the merc sets his omni-tool running to bypass the sealed door.
Legion stays silent while they form up at the entrance, but their silver facial panels shift and tilt in a surprisingly cogent display of uncertainty.
The geth didn’t miss. A thick trail of orange blood proves that. Hell, Wolf can tell at a glance that it did catastrophic damage. Even with his experience of the species, he’s surprised that it wasn’t enough.
He’s disappointed that it wasn’t enough.
Not because of the bet. With Cerberus paying, he doesn’t give half a shit for the credits. The tactical difference between one shot or two is negligible—against a heavily shielded krogan, Wolf counts it as an unprecedented success either way. Worth every credit. But he wanted to see Legion’s matter-of-fact confidence upheld as much for their sake as for peace aboard Normandy. Instead, the geth platform hangs their head. In what, embarrassment? Shame?
As far as Wolf can tell, Legion’s expressiveness is purely for the benefit of organics. It’s oddly reminiscent of Grunt—his other underage killing machine topping six foot.
“Your intervention was unnecessary, Shepard Commander,” the geth says at last.
Wolf can’t help but raise an eyebrow at that.
“We destroyed the primary and secondary cognitive centers, effectively eliminating the krogan target.”
He casts a skeptical eye over the meters-long blood trail.
Legion, faintly offended, angles their metal brows in. “The krogan’s charge was nothing more than motor reflex. It was neither conscious nor aimed and did not pose a threat to Zaeed Massani.”
The geth pauses.
“We regret any distress you may have experienced.”
Before Wolf can formulate a response, it’s time to move. They stack either side of the door as the security system gives way.
Zaeed holds up three fingers. Wolf has to give Cerberus credit for finding him—he’s a good merc up front, made great by his easy knack for slotting in with the rhythm of a given fireteam. He counts them in and opens the single set of doors. No airlock, therefore no controlled environment on the inside.
They storm into a deserted chamber, boots ringing off the raised deck plates.
Sensors flag the exterior temperature at 94°C. If not for that, the place looks totally livable, the same pre-made panels and habitats as every other colony. The walls and roof are all natural, probably an old vol mining operation. Abandoned not because the ore ran out, but because it ran slightly difficult and the crazy amounts of uranium on Zada Ban made it easier to start a fresh bore. All the Blood Pack had to do was widen the connecting passages and bring in their prefabs. Instant weapons facility.
Enemy signatures light up Wolf’s display as soon as he steps in range, though his suit VI is working overtime to pick up anything over the combination of heat, radiation and solid rock. They’re densely packed behind the wide arch leading into the next room, four or five lurking out of sight.
He sends his team into cover and gives it a few seconds. Krogan don’t lurk. Vorcha do, but can’t keep it up for long unless someone’s directing them.
Time creeps on the sixth minute of the op. The standoff holds.
Wolf spies a discarded fuel canister. Empty and light. He punts it towards the arch and is back in position by the time it clangs down.
Their would-be ambushers pile out at the sound. A whole pack of vorcha toting flamethrowers. Before he can get a headcount, they light up, enthusiastically torching every molecule of air within a stone’s throw of the arch. It’s a hell of a display.
Wolf waits out of range anticipating a friendly fire incident—ha—but he has to back up as the temperature climbs. He can’t think of a fuel that would remain stable in this environment. Hell, he can’t even see the vorcha, but the inferno just keeps coming, throwing off unbelievable heat.
“Alert. Krogan advancing,” Legion says. The geth platform steps into the open, barely a meter from the flames. It only takes a second of fluid movement before Legion is set up, inhumanly still and kneeling for stability with the Widow raised. The barrel doesn’t so much as waver.
“You can see through this soup?”
“Yes.”
Wolf senses impatience, though Legion doesn’t move.
“Take him out.”
The Widow booms in instantaneous reply, with no outward impact on the great vorcha firewall.
“Target resistant!” Legion says. They fire once more into the blaze. With an irritated jerk, they fire again. And again. Wolf’s head is thick with the sound of it, despite the noise-proofing in his helmet.
The fire on the left starts to gutter, and he turns his Incisor on the momentary glimpse of a vorcha head. The rifle purrs in his hands, three rounds released almost as one. The flames turn ragged, and Zaeed strafes the arch with a lazy volley.
As the fire dies entirely, Wolf sees a vorcha flinch as a slug punches into the tank over its shoulder. There’s no boom, the gas has finally run dry. The vorcha has just enough time to look surprised before Zaeed follows up.
“Let’s move,” Wolf says, his voice strained and distant. There’s a strike against the Widow, it’s too damn loud, though it has other benefits.
Not two meters past the vorcha line, a mammoth krogan lies in a heap. The biggest Wolf has ever seen, easy, and while dinky in comparison, he recognizes its fallen shotgun as an Omega black-market special. It wouldn’t stop a krogan in one shot, but as for anyone else—
“Nice piece.” Zaeed collects it with a swagger that says he’s not giving it back. “You’re oh-for-two, Scrap-heap,” he says. But he’s trying a little too hard to appear unimpressed, and knows it. “Big son-of-a-bitch,” he concedes as they move on.
Wolf can see light ahead, a sliver of green between metal silos. They advance unopposed, their chamber sloping down to meet the open space.
It’s a good vantage point, and the targets are plentiful, arrayed to make a stand. Would that he could jam his earplugs in further, but it’s deadly hot out.
The krogan commander gestures indistinctly. It’s hard to flip someone off in heavy plate. The vorcha jeer en masse, no pyros this time, but a few red-tipped rocket launchers for Wolf to be aware of.
“All right, Zaeed, you take the left, I’ll take the right, and—
“Alert!”
Legion’s brows cant inwards as far as they can go. The geth doesn’t wait for a response, but rattles off a warning.
“Recommend immediate evacuation. Structural integrity of holding tanks compromised.”
Their objective, the bank of floor-to-ceiling cylinders, seems okay to Wolf, but Legion’s sensors are better. Condensate trickles down the steaming metal. That could be a jet of escaping vapor, or a trick of the light.
Legion holds position but speaks with plaintive urgency.
“Shepard-Commander!”
The krogan below fires a shotgun blast into the air and thumps a fist against his red-armored chest. Spoiling for a fight.
“You heard the man, bail!” Wolf says.
They exfil and it’s uneventful until two seconds after their boots hit the shuttle deck plates. Wolf loses his footing as the lifting shuttle bucks. Zaeed is cut-off mid-curse. Legion saves both their asses from smacking into the airframe—or launching out the closing hatch.
Through the narrowing gap, Wolf watches the multi-phase explosion. Six tanks, five booms after the first, and spectacular jets of flame out the natural chimneys of the main chamber. It’d sound more impressive if he was less deaf, but it’s plenty to bring down the ceiling.
The shuttle door seals, and the radiation warnings tick down. They’re going to be in decontamination for a while.
Legion perches on the bench with their arms crossed over their knees. Childlike, if that child could stand eye to eye with a turian. Beside them, Zaeed is too preoccupied with his shiny new shotgun to get back on their case.
Wolf sits back and waits for the ringing in his ears to subside.
In just over an hour, most of that travel time and surveillance, the Blood Pack is down one weapons facility. A quick, clean mission. Almost too quick to accommodate field-testing the Widow, but the initial results are promising. Wolf has a suspicion about that, in fact.
“How?” Wolf wonders aloud. “How was the structural integrity of the holding tanks compromised?”
Legion pauses. Guilty.
“Our rifle possesses considerable penetrative power.”
“Enough to go through a krogan and still pop the tank?”
“...No.”
“You missed?”
“Yes.”
Wolf smiles.
“You missed one shot?”
“Yes. The target was damaged and moving erratically.”
“And that one shot blew the tank?”
“Yes.”
Legion is still not getting it, but Zaeed is watching suspiciously.
“Pay up,” Wolf says. “You owe Legion, Garrus and Thane fifty. Each.”
“Like hell,” the merc scoffs.
You also stand to benefit from this outcome, Shepard-Commander,” Legion points out, “but we do not share your conclusion. We failed to eliminate either target in a single shot.”
“But the third krogan, the commander by the tanks, is also dead.”
“That is statistically probable. No escape vehicle was detected.”
“How many shots did you fire at the tank that definitely killed him?”
“None,” Legion says stubbornly. They think about it. “One,” they say, turning to Zaeed.
“I’m not paying you shit."
“Your credits hold little value to us. However, we believe the principle is important to uphold."
Legion extends a hand.
They bicker about it all the way back to Normandy.