#takken

“Maltus, Canila, split up so that we can clear this side before the Spectre gets here!” Takken was tall for a turian, male or female, and she used that height to her advantage by crossing the ruined gap in two strides. Her squadmates found places on the opposite side, which had more columns for cover, and she risked a glance forward where !! and three other elites decimated the last of a wave of husks on the right side of the ruins. 

“Another wave, straight ahead!” Maltus snapped into his comm link. If the comm channel hadn’t been tuned specifically to filter out turian subvocals, they would have all been nearly deafened by the anxious whine of stress vibrating though the soldiers. 

Takken leaned out and aimed her Avenger at the flailing, screaming creatures clambering down the jagged tiers of terrain. Blam, blam! Don’t think about who the husks might once have been. Blam, blam! Another fell. Two more. Victus had stalled on one of the higher tiers closer to the bomb, his team catching the husks in the crossfire. 

Blam, blam! Takken snapped off two more shots, dropping a husk that skittered around a broken column. Then she saw the real trouble. 

“Brute incoming!” She bellowed on the open comm channel. “Flanked by three scions!” 

The lead scion shambled unevenly to a halt, setting itself with a feral scream. Their misshapen heads were skewed to one shoulder, leaving room for the canon embedded in their flesh. Blam, blam, blam! Three shots in the body, spraying black ichor on the ground, but it didn’t drop. 

KsshhhBOOOM!! 

Takken threw herself backwards, twisting as she flew through the air. The concussion of the blast hitting her cover slammed her into the ground, shrapnel spraying her armored back. She scrambled up as the scion fell to Canila’s own Avenger. Victus destroyed a second with a shot to the back as it prepared to fire on Maltus’s position, and it exploded in a shower of plasma and gore. The last fell to Maltus himself, though it took four more shots from his pistols. 

The entire area was a roar of gunfire as at least six of her comrades held sustained fire on the enraged Brute, and its spikes gave the hulking humanoid a bestial appearance. She slid her rifle into an opening between a low wall and a shattered column, aiming at the Brute’s left leg to try slowing it down.

Blam, blamblamblam--CHUNK! ksshhh... 

Steam hissed up from the core of her rifle and Takken cursed. She slammed her hand against the release catch for the heat sink, but knew it was hopeless. This wasn’t the first time she’d overloaded an old heat sink, despite careful maintenance. The catch ground on bits of hot metal inside the well and she dropped the gun. Shit. Her heavy pistol wouldn’t have the impact of an assault rifle at this distance, but it was all she had. 

The brute roared again and Takken realized in horror that distance was no longer an issue - the Brute was charging her position at full speed. She braced, digging her armored talons into the cracked stone, preparing to leap… where? Dark stars, she was hemmed in on three sides by rubble from the Scions’ blasts! No time to climb. She fired the pistol at the Brute, point-blank range. 

HoooooOOOBAMM!

The brute was slammed aside in a violet explosion of biotic force. It hit the ground rolling, staggering back to its misshapen feet. In the biotic aftermath stood a lean human in slate grey N7 armor, striped with Palaven blue.