#me3mp

Orochi’s shields sparked at the contact of the toxic rain, weakening further with every drop. He would duck into the doorway for each reload of his SMG to allow his shields to recover slightly. But unless he was willing to let Cerberus close in on the building, he could not remain back for long. In the room that he guarded there sat two children - a brother and sister - huddled together in the corner. Orochi could hear them crying. They had witnessed their family and their would-be rescuers fall in a hail of gunfire, and now their only hope for survival was the lone Phoenix Vanguard, facing multiple waves of Cerberus forces.

His biotics had been active for so long that his head was ringing and there was a dull pain behind his eyes. As he sent out another singularity with which to seize the closest approaching Centurion, he felt his vision lurch. A dot of red light appeared on his chestplate, accompanied by a high-frequency hum. Orochi launched himself out of the line of sight of the Nemesis’ weapon, hit the ground, and rolled into the doorway. As he was climbing to his feet, he heard a noise from the other door on the far side of the room. The children wailed and crawled further beneath the desk under which had taken shelter. The decryption that Orochi had placed on the door was being hacked from the other side, the mechanism was beginning to release. Orochi raced to intercept whoever was behind that door, his biotic whips snaking out of his arms like threads of lightning.

When the door opened, there was a narrow window in which each party thought they were under attack, and Shepard almost detonated a biotic explosion off of the other solder before recognizing him from his file.

'Orochi, right?' Her eyes shifted behind him, there was an unsecured entrance on the far side of the room and she could hear a commotion beyond the door that indicated the incoming Cerberus agents Joker had warned about. Either they were here to kill Orochi or they were here to extract him. 'Where the hell is your squad?'

A whimper drew her attention to a table on the side of the room, underneath which huddled two small children.

'Jesus.' What the hell was going on here? 'Liara, EDI, hold the other entrance.'

She watched them move, keeping a peripheral eye on the soldier she didn’t know before approaching the children. She knelt down on the floor, resting a hand on the table.

'Are you injured?'

What were children doing down here? Benninghad been evacuated since the first Reaper attack. Was it possible these children were left behind? How had they even survived?

Orochi was relieved to clamp eyes on the Alliance colors - something he had never thought he would feel. The helmeted squad leader spoke his name as if the Alliance had been searching for him. He allowed his senses to relax ever so slightly, and withdrew his curling energy weapons back into the sheaths of his gauntlets.

'Evac didn’t go as planned,' he explained, glancing over as the synthetic and asari squad members headed to hold the entrance. 'The Reapers took out communications and transport hubs across the colony. Some civilians were left stranded outside of the main area.'

Shepard hadn't known about the civilians, just the recovered reaper tech and Cerberus trying to take it. Why the hell hadn’t Hackett told her what was going on? Orochi had answered that rather quickly; with no communications they couldn’t tell Hackett that civilians were still here.

With a snort of anger, the Phoenix said: 'Last of my squad went down about an hour ago. We were here to search for survivors - not battle a shit-ton of Cerberus heavies.'

Her face grew darker as she clenched her teeth for a moment. 'Are you three all that’s left of the evac mission?' She indicated Orochi and the two children with a motion of her arm. If that was the case, then she’d gotten here too late to do much of anything. They’d have to fight their way back to the launch pad and get the hell out of here before Cerberus had a chance to get in reinforcements. What a goddamn disaster.

Orochi took a quick glance out of the nearest window, from where he could see a line of foreboding Guardian shields edging closer to the building. When he looked back at the commander he noticed her anger and frustration.

'Your Alliance screwed up, honey,' he said ungraciously. 'Evac crews missed too many civilians, half of them were left to be slaughtered by the Reaper wave. The lucky ones are scattered all over the colony, hiding and fighting these Cerberus bastards - who knows how many are still alive.'

He activated his omni-tool and applied a dose of medigel to a gash on the side of his neck. 'My team was attempt number two, sent in without solid intel. I gotta tell you, my dear, I’m not impressed by the Alliance so far. Let’s just hope third time’s a charm.'

'Liara,' barked Shepard, popping a thermal clip. 'There's a wall of Guardians out there between us and the LZ.'

'Understood, Shepard,' rose the soft voice of the asari. She glided across to the front entrance and stirred her biotics. With an audible hum the air around her began to glow blue.

Shepard gave her a nod, then ducked out of the doorway and laid down a stream of cover fire. At her command Liara stepped forward, hands raised, and cast a sphere of biotic energy at the line of Cerberus shields. The air pulsated and shimmered, and the white shields were ripped from the hands of their bearers, to be raised in mid-air – useless to protect them.

Orochi did not wait for the commander to jump in. With a grunt of exertion, he dove into a roll across the cold floor, sprang up beside Liara, and unloaded a clip into the flailing group of Guardians. He felt the heat of Shepard's assault rifle by his ear as she joined in the attack.

'Commander!' EDI's artificial vocals crackled over the comm. 'They have reached the back entrance.'

The Alliance infiltration unit, molded into a feminine shape, was lithe and agile. She flew through the air towards the approaching soldiers, striking out with acrobatic limbs as her pistol flashed to life. The first two troopers went down.

'Orochi, follow Liara, get the kids to the evac point!' Shepard cast off a steaming clip and slammed on the reload. 'I'll hold off the others with EDI!' In moments she was at the side of her AI companion, launching a concussive shot into the face of the nearest enemy.

The Phoenix Vanguard swung back into the doorway to signal the children. 'Come on, quick!' He let the asari take the lead while his own biotic powers fell to minimum levels. The brief respite from the jarring sensation was welcome. Scooping up the smallest child, he gathered the other to his side and prepared to lead them to safety.

Liara was breathtaking. Moving with a calm confidence, she single-handedly shattered a turret and drew the engineer responsible into a crushing singularity that crumpled him like paper. Not missing a beat, she fired her heavy pistol at a Nemesis who was sighting their weapon on Orochi. The sniper stumbled but did not fall, and then Liara biotically wrenched a shipping container from its location and cast it so hard into the head of the Nemesis that it almost decapitated them. Orochi remained behind the asari as she danced towards the landing zone, shielding the children while firing off frequent shots at the surrounding forces.

A crackling, low bark could be heard across the airwaves, rising from a Cerberus comm: 'Shit! It's Shepard!'

Orochi glanced back quickly. Commander Shepard? In her heavy armor and helmet he had not recognized her. Now it made sense that her team was so efficient – far outclassing the Alliance squad that had fallen beside him just hours ago. Approaching the LZ, he could see a Kodiak shuttle in blue and white speeding down from orbit. It briefly occurred to Orochi that it must have been launched by the SSV Normandy herself. What a day.

'We're here, Commander,' chimed the Alliance comm. 'I don't see you.'

The Kodiak thrusters swivelled into landing position and fired in controlled bursts as the vehicle was lowered to the pad. Before it had touched down, the door launched upwards and a huge, armored figure leapt from the shuttle.

'I'll clear a path for you, Lola!'

Rapid assault gunfire rained down upon the remaining Cerberus personnel. The bulky marine exiting the vessel was fearless, direct, and relentless. No defensive maneuvers, no crouching or ducking – he simply marched into the fray like an invincible juggernaut and cut down the line of attackers. Orochi liked him already.

Shepard and EDI had taken out their half-dozen enemies and were making their way towards the landing zone. But Cerberus had one last surprise for them.

Preceded by echoing thuds that shook the ground, a Cerberus Atlas lumbered out of the abandoned residential area. It turned towards the small group of soldiers and huddled children, both mechanical arms weapons-ready, and stormed forward. Its rocket launcher activated and prepared to fire.

'Hell yeah!' The battle-hungry marine with the assault rifle pounded his fist on his weapon enthusiastically. 'Come and get it!'

Shepard gave a silent signal and her team fell into position among the cargo crates and containers. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Orochi grinning. James Vega couldn't be seen clearly, but she was pretty sure he was grinning, too. Boys. She motioned for EDI to take out the Atlas' shields and the AI vanished as if by magic, appearing instantly behind the metal beast. A swift blast to the exhaust port sent the Atlas careening out of control momentarily. Its pilot swerved the machine to locate the attacker, while Shepard and Vega leaned out of cover to shoot at the armor plates.

Liara set up a crushing warp field around the Atlas, which was followed intuitively by Orochi initiating a biotic throw. The two powers detonated and shattered the cockpit glass that protected the pilot. Rather than defend himself, the Cerberus trooper inside locked his missile launcher onto Shepard's location and fired. The commander threw up her barrier and lunged for cover as the blast exploded the shipping crates around her. She rolled and came to her feet, sighting her rifle at the gargantuan enemy. Her fingers streaked across the weapon's controls, activated the incendiary ammo, and shot directly at the man inside the cockpit.

The trooper went up in a ball of flames, screaming and writhing in his seat. He dropped out and fell to the ground, attempting to roll away the fire, but was caught with a slug to the head within seconds.

As the area cleared and the smoke died down, Shepard checked on her team and the surviving children. Liara drew the little ones to her and led them to the shuttle, where she and Steve helped them on board. Orochi was injured but stable, and looked more exhausted than anything else. James wandered off to poke around the vacant Atlas, which was burnt black and crippled.

'James,' called the commander, taking EDI's hand to pull her up to the Kodiak. 'We're leaving.'

The large soldier placed one foot in the cockpit of the Atlas and looked back at Shepard. 'Can I ride it first?'

'James. We're leaving,' she repeated flatly. 'Joker, you read me?'

'Loud and clear, Commander,' chimed the Normandy's pilot.

'Send a team to reclaim the bodies of the Alliance squad who were killed here. I want to bring them home.'

Orochi mounted the shuttle and dropped down into one of the seats. It had been one hell of a day. Though he was not much of a team type, and he didn't play well with others, he had grown accustomed to – if not fond of – the Alliance marines who had fought alongside him. It was fitting that they were returned to their families. He wondered, though, what would happen to him now. Ex-Cerberus, not navy, he himself had no guarantee of a place in the Alliance now that his collaboration with the team was over.