Massive Disaster 5-18

“Thanks.” The word came out as a rumble, like wet gravel in a washing machine, enough to resonate in your chest even from a distance. “I mean it.”

Emergency lights strobed a bright red as the cavern strained above their heads, cracks spreading in realtime.

“For taking care of that energy field for me.” The heavy metal doors of the freight elevator hissed all the way open, scraping against the uneven track as more than just four Geth marched out of the lift.

And standing right in the middle of it was a mountain of scarred dark plating, aggressive posture, and a shotgun the size of Zedd’s own hip to go with it; the Krogan Battlemaster in their way looking as menacing as ten feet of alien muscle could be.

The Krogan didn’t even bother aiming the shotgun as he just lowered it from his shoulder, letting the weapon sit lazily across his chest plate. A mouth full of oversized yellow teeth, blunt as the alien’s hammer-like head, opened with a grin aimed their way. “I’ll be taking the asari now. Alive or dead, doesn’t really matter much.”

Behind the hulking murder-turtle, a full dozen Shock Troopers stepped forward, the red optics on their Geth heads nearly as threatening as the matching beams of their targeting lasers. 

“I’d play nice if I were you.”

The Commander’s assault rifle came up, John Shepard not one to hesitate as the barrel was leveled directly at the krogan’s face. “How about no?”

“Funny.” The Battlemaster’s words came out with a laugh that didn’t sound all that funny. More like an engine block cracking open than anything else, it sounded friendly on Wrex, not so much on this guy. “Saren wants her, and Saren Arterius gets what he wants.”

Tension shattered into a thousand different pieces as Geth weaponry, Alliance mass accelerators, and VI kinetic packets traded real estate in the same micro-second. 

“Down!” John’s voice cut through the noise.

The good doctor didn’t need to be told twice as Liara T’Soni let out a scream and scrambled backwards. By the time the asari made it behind a column, Commander Shepard had already rolled to a knee, a punishing burst of auto-fire sparking against the lead geth’s barrier.

I thought this was a simple retrieval job! Zedd rushed toward the elevator car, boots hitting the grated floor of the staging area as pulse fire tore through the air where his head had been. His helmet slid into place as his glasses folded out, handcannon already up and ready to fire as his targeting suit painted three bright red lines through the smoke. 

Heavy recoil kicked off his palm, feedback bleeding off into his body as three blue slugs of concentrated kinetics crossed the space far faster than he could. A Geth shield shattered as the first landed, the second punching clean through its white chest plate, and the third left a Trooper entirely without a head as its sparking chassis dropped to the ground. 

Kira was a half-step behind him, moving with grace worthy of any Asari huntress as her hands flared with dark energy, hard and lethal. Her Hammerdown stayed holstered at her back alongside her Jawbreaker, scattergun ready and waiting to see action. A localized Warp whipped across the staging area, a Fastball right behind it.

Both biotic distortions screamed through the air and met each other in front of a cluster of three Shock Troopers, the explosion a feast for the eyes as the dirty fireworks barely lasted a full second. In a blink, three sparking chassis were scattered across the cavern walls; Victors, Leng and Shepard adding to that number as best they could. 

Aiming for the Krogan was a bad move — the shields on almost any battlemaster far tougher than the raw durability built into them over a thousand years of life — so Zedd didn’t bother.

Two blue slugs punched through smoke, a Trooper’s barrier popping an instant before its frame blew apart. John’s own fire was enough to force the synthetics back against the walls of the cavern, shields chewed down as the M-8 continued its assault.

“They’re breaking line!” John ducked a shot from the Krogan, a chunk of wall blown apart by the heavy blast from the oversized mass-spitter. “Keep at it!”

They were dropping the geth fast. 

Even the battlemaster wasn’t stupid enough to deny that simple fact as the last one fell and the Krogan looked around to find himself all alone.

“YOU…” The battlemaster roared, rage bouncing off rock from the force of its bellow, and charged forward.  “YOU DIE!”

John shifted his aim, rifle centered squarely on the charging mass, finger tightening on the trigger.

Before he could fire again, Kai stepped forward.

The Rogue Spark sat holstered at his back beside his SMG — the Nightletter, a compact weapon nearly as silent as the Rogue — along with the long monomolecular sword Zedd had made for him. Instead, Zedd watched — a slow smile spreading across his face — as Kai reached to his hip and slid out a single matte-black combat knife.

Six inches of tungsten-carbide vanadium was tossed into the air, the weapon flipping blade over hilt, before the silent shadow caught it in a reverse grip.

“Leng, get your ass to cover!” John’s eyes went wide as he started moving himself. “The hell are you doing?”

The doctor pressed herself tighter against a rusted console, hands at her mouth. “What is he—”

“Shhh. Shhhh!” Zedd threw a hand up in their direction, both eyes on the assassin as he set his glasses to record the action. “You’re gonna love this.”

At least I am.

The battlemaster closed the gap, metal deforming under his charging feet as his gun swung up, a point-blank blast his way to open the fight. The weapon roared with as much power as its owner; sparks, smoke, and shredded metal filled the corridor as mass-accelerated buckshot tore apart the wall where Kai wasn’t. 

Before the krogan even pulled the trigger, Kai was already moving low; one hand skimmed the grated floor, the stealth expert sliding entirely beneath the line of fire as the shot took apart the space behind him.

Debris rained down as the krogan charged right through the smoke, clearly expecting to trample a corpse. 

Kai Leng was far from dead as he sprang up the side wall, three simple steps taking him across the vertical rock face. Gravity failed to hold him for at least a single breath, enough time for Kai to push off.

He flipped backward, body arcing directly over the krogan-sized shotgun as the alien swung it like a club into the air. 

Before the krogan could blink, Kai had already dropped; landing a soundless thing right behind the battlemaster’s hump.

The knife flicked out, motion a near-blur as it cut at the tiny gap in the armor behind the krogan’s thigh plate.

No barrier flare. Zedd’s smile widened further as Kai’s own lips twitched, the krogan’s roar of fury sounding it loud. Oh, hell yes. The battlemaster spun his bulk around; an armored backhand that could splatter the skull of anything not krogan. 

Kai ducked the swinging arm, momentum carrying the krogan past him. A single boot planted against the krogan’s knee, Leng using the alien as a stepladder as he kicked off into a backward twisting flip a split-second before the shotgun fired off with another wild wall-cracking blast. 

Entirely upside down in midair, Kai flicked the knife from his left hand to his right, a shallow line cut into the flexible seal of the krogan’s collar on his way back down.

Blood sprayed as the krogan roared again, the shotgun swinging out wide in a brutal sweep.

Kai spun, twisting into a fluid cartwheel as he landed low to slide on the grit — darting right back in under the weapon’s slow recovery arc.

Knife to the ankle seam. 

Pommel into the eye.

Heel kick driven into the side of the injured knee.

One step left sent the krogan stumbling with another missed swing, Leng immediately bursting to the right. A slide took him directly between tree trunk legs as a fist the size of a cinderblock cratered floor plating exactly where Kai’s had been a split-second prior.

The knife came up, diamond-edge tip driven straight into that same knee seam.

The krogan’s roar went ignored again, but the glowing barrel did not.

Kai twisted around the muzzle in mid-air, left hand palming the scalding barrel as the shotgun fired wide to leave another hole in the ceiling. He swung around the gun, free hand punching the knife hard under bicep plating. The weapon buried to the hilt before he yanked it free, Kai let the barrel go free and dropped back to the floor. 

Gene-modded muscle proved its worth as Leng sprung back up, knife spinning over his knuckles in a blur of black steel. 

Slash. Jaw. 

Slash. Wrist. 

Slash. Ankle. 

Slash. Knee.

A blood-flecked scream, equal parts pain and fury, filled the space as the wounded krogan lunged with massive arms ready to crush the life out of anything in its path.

The knife flew upward from Kai’s grip, the weapon hanging in the air — spinning slowly in the scarlet strobe of emergency lights.

The krogan charged, its attacker finally unarmed, and reached out with limbs that could heave tons.

But Kai was already underneath the blade.

One hand hit the floor, his entire body twisting into an impossible upward kick.

A heavy combat boot struck the very bottom of the knife’s pommel with all the force of a hydraulic press.

The blade shot straight up, a sharp bullet straight into the roof of the krogan’s roaring mouth.

Kai followed the weapon in the same exact motion, a boot on the barrel of the shotgun as the bleeding krogan desperately tried to bring it around. Launching himself off the gun, Kai grabbed the hilt of the knife jutting from the krogan’s jaw with both hands. 

He drove it upward.

Through the roof of the mouth. 

Through the layered redundant bone of the skull. 

And directly into the brain.

The krogan’s entire frame locked rigid, eyes rolling back as the alien’s nervous system gave in to the final bit of trauma. 

Kai Leng dropped to the ground, a perfect silent crouch on the deck grating; knife caught smoothly in his right hand as it slid free from the skull on his way down.

Silence rushed back in after the battlemaster’s corpse crashed to the ground, the hum of the elevator and still-sparking Geth frames the only thing to interrupt it. 

“What the fuck?” Commander Shepard stared at the mountain of dead muscle, the silent assassin wiping the blade on his thigh rig before he slid the weapon back. 

“I… I didn’t know…” Behind the column, Liara slowly pulled herself to her feet, wide blue eyes fixed on the corpse as she took a few hesistant steps forward. “…humans could do that.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Zedd grinned, walking forward as well. “Been waiting three years to see that.” He held a hand up as he passed by Kai, the other man’s lip barely twitching as he delivered a crisp high-five, perfectly-timed. “And you didn’t believe he could do it.”

“I still don’t believe he did it before.” Kira kept pace by Zedd’s side, the biotic’s arms crossed over her chest as she rolled her eyes. “We had the same training and nothing the Allaince teaches you is letting you kill a krogan in a bar fight.”

“What the hell are you people talking abou-?”

“John! What’s wrong?” John Shepard’s shout was interrupted by a crackle through the comms, breathless and urgent as her voice cut through heavy static.

“N-Nothing.” John shook his head, physically forcing himself to look away from Kai and Zedd and the brain-dead krogan bleeding out. “Nothing’s wrong. Joker!” The Commander raised his voice, shifting back into absolute authority. “Bring the Normandy in hot! We need an immediate evac at the main entrance, on my mark!”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The open air of the cavern was absolute chaos, a maelstrom of violent energy as the elevator hit the top-level of the ruins. 

Biotic explosions shattered rock to dust, blue shockwaves scattered through the dust. Geth phasic charges crisscrossed the open space with standard shardfire as Jane’s squad — Ashley, Garrus and Wrex — laid down a punishing volley of retreating fire against a swarm of Geth advancing from another set of tunnels.

“Move! Move! Move!”

John’s squad stayed right on their tails, all of them hitting the ground running as they dodged debris, weapons raised and firing at the pursuing geth reinforcements flooding into the cavern.

“STAY. THE. FUCK. BACK!” Zedd brought up the rear, Full Stop booming a steady rhythm to drop any synth that got too close to the retreating asari.

The ground buckled beneath his boots, a fissure cracking open with a jagged line across the cavern floor. Tearing rock was loud enough to deafen, the sound of the mountain coming down around everybody’s head drowning out almost any other noise as boulders the size of skycars rained down.

“Joker, now!” John roared out, assault rifle barking a long burst to take out another Geth Trooper.

The sky above the cavern entrance darkened as the SR-1 appeared overhead, massive thrusters screaming against atmospheric pressure. 

Cargo bay doors already open, the ramp extended over the sheer drop.

Jane and Wrex hit the ramp first, Garrus next as the Turian pulled Ashley in behind him; all four of them diving into the safety of the cargo bay. John and Kira sprinted up the narrow crumbling ramp of rock leading to the cargo bay, the ground literally breaking apart under their heels as the Commander fired blindly over his shoulder.

Boots clanged loudly against the metal decking as John and Kira made their landing, Kai Leng vaulting the gap behind them and landing in a smooth roll. 

Zedd laid down one final, three-round burst from the Handcannon, checking his six only to flinch at the sigh of a blue-skinned hassle slowing them down. “Come on, doc!”

“I… I’m coming!”

She was not.

At least not at any good pace.

The doctor was struggling, the academic clearly struggling to keep up a dead sprint through the collapsing mine. Her breathing came ragged, no hardsuit to provide her filtered air and the heat was clearly having more of an effect on her than adrenaline could make up for.

“I-Ah!” She stumbled on a chunk of loose rock, her breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps.

“Oh, you’re kidding me!” Zedd doubled back, weapon tucked away behind him, as he grabbed her arm and hauled her forward.

Ten feet from the ramp, the ground gave way.

The rock beneath their boots cracked apart and vanished, shearing off into the massive hole opened up beneath them, nothing below them but magma and death.

Liara screamed out as gravity took hold.

“Zee!”

“Zedd!” John lunged toward the edge of the ramp, hand outstretched, eyes wide with the undeniable math of the drop.

Zedd didn’t bother to reach out.

One hand grabbed Liara by the hips, hoisting the screaming asari over his shoulder as she froze out of sheer surprise. 

“THRUSTERS!”

He didn’t need to scream, but nerves were still nerves.

The soles of his boots flared.

Bright, blinding blue light erupted from the treads, built-in kinesis nodes engaging with enough thrust to act against gravity. Btiting back a scream, Zedd shot straight up into the air, momentum carrying them up and forward in a smooth arc.

They cleared the gap, dropping with a metallic thud directly in the center of the Normandy’s cargo bay. Zedd stood up on legs that were more stable than they looked, the distant heat of magma still on the back of his mind as he set a frozen and wide-eyed doctor down on the deck plating.

With a grunt, he dusted off the sleeve of his coat, looking up at the stunned faces of both Commanders Shepard.

“What?” Zedd drawled, adjusting his aviators. “You think I’m gonna go down that easy?”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

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