---

Raa stood there in horror, her mind numb in panic. She had just come farther up the corner after hearing the fighting die down and someone coming up the hallway, her figure huddled with the other civilians in their growing anxiety. It had been thick enough to suffocate them all. At first she was relieved to be away from there but now, she wished she had stayed. Her eyes wide open and stared in fear at the behemoth now barreling down her while her heart seemed to have stopped in her chest. The Krogan was coated in his own orange blood, his suit riddling with bulletholes and made him look like swiss cheese, as he wheezed toward her to escape.

Run...Run damn it! She cursed at her legs that refused to move, believing stillness would allow her to hide. Her mind was getting numb by the edging fear rippling in her figure and spread, burning her insides into a cold sensation.

Her arm was pushed against the wall and struggling to keep herself upright, her sickness only a few minutes in. The immuno-booster had helped to delay, but only just. Before hand, her skin had gained a slight fever. In another hour she would be hot and sweating, effects of her immune system adapting to the evironment, while she laid up in bed. Through it might now matter now, she realized closing her eyes and expecting to feel the Krogan’s arm backhand her into the wall.

It never happened. Instead he howled a new when a blue streak clipped him and caused the alien to stumbled. A moment passed before Raa realized it was Voira who had intercepted, her body covered in enough violet blood that she should’ve been passed out. Already her hand was reaching for her shotgun then unloaded several rounds into the Krogan’s body, spraying more orange blood across the hallway’s floor. A Turian, Tacticus, came rushing up behind the down Krogan and joined the already win fray by pounding the dead corpse until he was covered in orange.

Raa hadn’t noticed. Her eyes were fixed on Voira with fear and worry, her feet stirring at last, then brought herself close to the collapsed Asari. She dropped hard on her knees as her trembling hands reached for the crumbled form.

“No...please...no...NO!” Her soft pleads nearly went into hysterical screams while she pulled Voira over, her ears unable to hear the frantic demands from RK about her own wellbeing. At this point, she didn’t care if tending to Voira would’ve made her worse as long as the Asari lived.

---

"Raa? RAA? Answer me, DAMN it! Are you hit? What happened?" Raa continued repeating her questions, over and over, her voice irritated and worried through the comm. She was unable to download herself back into the Quarian's omnitool as she was out of range. That meant the AI couldn't get a reading on the situation and by Raa's reaction, it was seriously bad. The program sparked in frustration at her helplessness then attempted to contact Voira. The same thing happened causing another angry spark in her system. Organics were such idiots at times she thought bitterly while she contacted both Avatar and Solares.

"Something's happened. I can't get a read on it, but neither Raa or Voira are answering my comms. This means one of two things: They are out of range or..." RK didn't finish her observation but it clear of the last option, one she didn't want to consider. "Check on them, I'll get the ship ready for loading so we can patch our wounded on board then get the hell out of here. If the Asari so much as tried to get herself killed, she will wish she had succeeded!"

Voira wasn't quite sure when she had collapsed. Or when she had lost consciousness. What she was sure of was that one moment she was firing into the Krogan's body, making quite sure the bastard's redundant organs didn't help him get back up, and the next she was on the ground Raa screaming above her and RK screaming in her ear. Voira tried to tell the AI to shut up, but merely ended up groaning in pain and coughing (which only brought more pain). She took a breath, wincing, and opened her eyes to stare at Raa. Despite the situation, a wry smile crossed the Asari's face.

"It's okay Raa, we've only got a broken rib and a bunch of other broken shit. This is nothing compared to our state after our clash with a Drell assassin. Well, clash is an exaggeration. We just kinda got our ass kicked while the Drell efficiently beat us down and threw us through a window pane and then moved onto her target. Lucky for us we landed on a car." With a hiss of pain the mercenary bent into a sitting position. Her shotgun was going to be useless for a while, she saw that much at a glance. Holstering it again she spoke into her comms.

"RK would you please shut up? We're fine, well, we're alive. Raa's fine. Just tell us that the ship is ready to go so we can get Raa onto the damn thing and away from this hellhole." Voira tried and failed to stand up, her strength failing her. She looked around for anyone that could carry her and allow Raa to be mobile and not in danger's way, but only found the tactless Turian continuously punching the Krogan's corpse. They are all, useless. Voira sighed, looking at her Quarian friend. "Alright, Raa. Can you support us? We'll do the shooting, if necessary, but we can't really walk.

Avatar was monitoring its allies’ communications, but was only dedicating a negligible percentage of its processing power to the task, apart to those originating from RK. The safety of its allies was a strong concern, but from its current position, it had no ability to render aid to them beyond the range of the airlocks. The only action it could perform to improve their chances of survival was to clear the room of hostiles as quickly as possible. As such, that was where it placed the vast majority of its focus.

Fortunately, the enemy could not defend effectively against such overwhelming force. There was no cover in the room of sufficient strength to stop fighter-mounted weaponry, and between the two interceptors, they could eliminate the majority of threats before they reached the exits. Some attempted to return fire on the interceptors, but the mercenaries had not equipped themselves to deal with armored targets while aboard a space station. In under 90 seconds, all hostiles within the room were either killed, or critically wounded. As such, Avatar proceeded quickly to the next stage of the escape. It sent two instructions, one to the shuttle pilot, and the other to RK. It told the shuttle pilot to fly through the hull breaches and land in the room and await the others, while RK was meant to keep her interceptor ready to deal with any sudden threats that entered the room. Meanwhile, Avatar turned its interceptor away from the station to defend against any potential external threats.

“The room is currently within safe parameters. Proceed quickly to the shuttle for evacuation.” Avatar instructed over the group’s shared communications channel.

After some furious combat, the Geth and RK managed to clear out the next room of hostiles. Seraph spoke over the comms for her soldiers to move. "Get the non-combatants and wounded in first. Scope, Briar, stay with me to watch our rear. We're not out of the fire yet everyone." Donny lowered his gun and looked towards the others. Eleanore was being sufficiently protected while the other members of Donny's crew went to provide security to the turian diplomats. Assuming that the cabalist are taking point, that left very few others for DOnny to watch over. The only ones left were Raa and Voria. Donny took a quick glance at Voria's rifle, which she gave him. He wasn't really sure if he did had much effect with it but he was thankful nonetheless. Voria looked wounded however, so Donny went to her aid. "I'll help you out. We're almost home free, so let's get going quickly. And thanks for the gun."

As Donny went to help Voira, he noticed something. She had his blanket tied over her shoulder like a tourniquet! He felt somewhat offended, but that wasn't important right now. Perhaps he could joke about it later, when the threat of getting shot again wasn't looming over their head. "How sever are you injuries? I'll do my best to get you all the medical care we can offer once we're on the shuttle."

Raa could only stare at Voira, her eyes filled with tears as she finally turned over her friend. She had expected the worse. Her fear seeming to plant the thought in her mind and wouldn’t completely let go, her expression flashed a weak smile at the downed Asari. Her ears caught the groan that was enough evidence that her friend was alive and relieved her worries. Her breath exhaled slowly while she ignored the throbbing in her knees, her hands retracted to her thighs where they rested at. When Voira made a small, reassuring smile, Raa’s own lips tried to make a meek mimic of the gesture.

Her hands raised and gingerly hovered, ready to help, while Voira rose to a sitting position. The Asari leaned her head into her comms then spoke to hush RK up, wanting to be informed when the ship was ready. Finishing up, Voira tried to stand upright only to fail as she crumbled back onto her ass. The Turian, the one that had nearly gotten them shot with the civilian, beating the corpse that had been the Krogan. Her heart felt pity for the Turian, though she could only guess at the cause and knew trying to stop him was only going to end up getting her hurt. Swallowing her anxiety, Raa’s head turned to Voira when she made her request for help. Absorbing it a moment, Raa took several seconds to react while she nodded.

She had just been about to lean into Voira and help her to her feet before she noticed Donny arrive. His figure tracking toward them causing her to cease, lowering her friend back down to the ground. Raa listened to him thank Voira for the gun as the Quarian stepped back and allowed the human to tend to the Asari. She didn’t know first aid after all and while she felt she could do something, in reality she didn’t want to make anything worse. Avatar’s voice came over the comms causing her attention to the Geth’s request. Her hand paused over the button then answered. “We’re coming, Donny’s patching up Voira. Give us a second as we need to prepare.”

She patted Voira on the shoulder then turned to the Turian still pounding into the dead corpse until he became exhausted, her body raising upright to her feet. Cautiously she approached the Turian, her hands folded up in front her and stood there watching him in worry. She wanted to help badly. It was visible on her features, along with the fear, that she thought twice about approaching him. “Please, we need to get on the ship. He’s dead… he’s gone. Can you hear me?”

Raa edged a little closer hoping her voice would reach the Turian, who was still in shock over what she assumed was the experience. “Please, you need to snap out of it or you’re going to hurt yourself.”

He's not dead. He's not dead. He's not dead. Tacticus kept pounding the now paste that was once a Krogan further and further into the bulkhead. The best he could figure his hands had made some dent in the floor as there was very little resistance to his punches now. Even the once Krogan body was only serving to slow down his assault. Though his voice had long since gone hoarse from yelling he was still managing out grunts as he kept bringing down his biotically augmented fists. He was completely covered in the Krogan's blood and could feel the new blood coming up to find a place on his face starting to get cold. Numso wasn't dead, there was no way. When he walked back over he would be totally fine right? He was always the one that had close calls but they always laughed it off, this was like that right?

He could feel his fists begin to become heavy from the extreme exertion of his arms. His body was starting to become fatigued as he had exhausted his biotic talents so completely that he could feel his eyes wanting to close and his body to fall into the paste he had created. When the Quarian spoke to him he didn't hear the words but he knew that something was being said to him. He paused for a moment from his task to stare at the women with a wild look in his eyes. He growled deeper than he thought possible at her as he could feel his body start to suck down oxygen quicker than it should be. As he exhaled with tensed jaw and mandibles low growls continued to eek out of his throat at her. There was nothing in his eyes that displayed any sort of rational thought before he collapsed into the mess he had created and laid motionless for a moment eyes starring half at the destroyed body half at the wall. Cactus couldn't think at all, his mind just kept turning back to his friends blown open skull littering the floor.

Tacticus felt a hand grab his arm near the shoulder and try to pull him up but he immediately brushed it off. He managed to get a enough of a grip on the bloody and slippery bulkhead to push himself onto his knees. For a moment he let his jaw go loose and he leaned back on his haunches for a moment with a dead expression on his face. For some reason he began to feel a sort of peace, like something had decided his retribution was complete. His ears ringing he picked himself up off the ground and without looking up he reached down to pick up his dropped rifle. When his eyes came back up he was met with Sura's stern gaze. He quickly averted his eyes and solemnly looked down the hallway that Numso hadn't died in. He managed to choke out a sentence which tried to mask his sorrow with at least some modicum of control. "I..... you're right." He paused for a moment and swallowed hard. "We should go...I'm.....sorry. I shouldn't have..." His thought trailed off and he avoided eye contact until he could no longer feel the gaze of his team and the strangers on him. He looked up as he entered the area they had been assaulting to gain control of and saw the bodies littering the room. He could only think to himself was he worth it? It should have been him, why hadn't it been him? As he walked aboard the shuttle he avoided making eye contact with the crumpled Geth on the floor, well, as much as a Geth optical receptor that looked almost like it was off could be anyways.

He made his way to the back of the shuttle still clutching his stolen rifle, here he found a seat and strapped himself in to the chair. He re-gripped the rifle in his hands and looked blankly at the floor while he tried to not to smell the blood that he was covered in.

Avatar maintained a distance of under five hundred meters from the station in the interceptor to minimize the risk of detection from any other ships. It could not detect any ships moving towards its position, but it did not have access to sensors which could accurately track the movements of vessels on the other side of the station. As the station was between itself and the allied fleet, it could not detect them as well, at it was still too close to the station to be beyond the communications jamming the enemy had been performing. It would not be able to warn allied forces of the attack until the shuttle had departed entirely from the station.

After Avatar had messaged the others, most of them had quickly made their way to the shuttle. The non-combatants were escorted to safety first by several of the Human soldiers. Avatar's platform was mostly deactivated in the shuttle, but it did have a few sensors still passively scanning the area around it, so it had a count of how many allies had made it to the shuttle. It did not know the exact reason why, but not all had yet arrived, and there had been enough of a delay to warrant concern.

Once more, Avatar sent a message across the team's communications channel. "My platform has detected that not all allied forces has reached the shuttle. There is a 76% chance of enemy reinforcements arriving at the airlocks within sixty seconds; do you require assistance." It asked.

Voira smirked at the human. "Lets see. We have a bruised lung, a broken rib, a cracked rib, a shot hand, a shot shoulder, we're coughing up blood, and we have blood loss we think. All in a days work of suddenly being ambushed and then fighting for our lives in a ship we were supposed to be welcome in. If we missed anything, it's because they're such small injuries that they're not even worth mentioning." Voira's head snapped over to see Raa, the foolish girl, approaching the Turian and trying to calm him down. In a second Voira had her pistol up again and was aiming at clearly berserk cabalist. "Raa! He'll snap out of it or one of his teammates will. Get away from him." More quietly, she spoke to the human carrying her. "If the bastard so much as looks at her wrong, we're putting a bullet through his head." Fortunately for all parties involved, someone got ahold of him before Raa did something stupid and she had to start shooting. Something told her that the rest of the Cabal would not have appreciated that.

"We here you, you whiny piece of scrap! Give us a break!" Voira gestured emphatically at Raa, sighing in relief when the Quarian obeyed and headed towards the shuttle. "When we get aboard, we're going to drink as much Ryncol as we have left, pass out, and deal with all this shit when we wake up. Good plan? Good plan."

The pilot of the shuttle waited for final confirmation that everyone had boarded before closing the door and taking off through the hull breach. Their destination was the Turian cruiser Intrepid, which was serving as the flagship of the allied fleet. As the shuttle set off from the station, Avatar and RK’s interceptors flew in formation alongside it for protection. If they were engaged by hostile fighters, then the interceptors would be able to defend the shuttle without regard for their own safety, as it was ultimately expendable hardware. Both Avatar and RK would be able to reupload quickly to the shuttle if their new hardware suffered serious damage.

The trio of ships circled around to the other side of the station in order to set themselves on a course for the allied fleet, but as it came into view, the team learned all at once about the battle that had been raging outside of the station. The allied fleet, which had consisted mostly of unarmed or lightly armed transport ships escorted by the cruiser and a few frigates, had been all but destroyed. In its place was a fleet of nonuniform, but organized ships of varying classes up to frigates. An initial visual scan of the debris, crossed referenced with the stored catalog Avatar possessed of the vessels taking part in this mission, revealed that the allied fleet had been greatly outnumbered. At minimum, the enemy possessed triple the number of ships, though based on the distribution of the debris, the enemy fleet had suffered severe casualties. Over 66% of the enemy fleet had been destroyed. However, all of the allied fleet was either destroyed, or missing in action. Most notably, Avatar could not detect the cruiser itself, nor its wreckage.

“I recommend diverting to the allied settlement on the planet.” Avatar messaged to the shuttle pilot. Despite the shock of seeing their fleet in ruins, the pilot quickly complied. It would take a few minutes to reach the planet’s surface, and for the moment, those aboard the shuttle could see through the windows the terrible carnage that remained after the battle. Most of the ships destroyed had been unarmed transport vessels.

Volair's gun wasn't the only threat trained on Tacticus. Few of the individuals within the ship's battle field aftermath would notice it, but RK's gun had shifted and pointed in the direction of the hallway where the Krogan had gone the moment RK noticed his direction. She had finished off her targets, making her too late to adjust her aim, and now just parked in the direction. Seemingly inactive. That fact wasn't completely true, as Avatar would notice on his read outs, while RK held her breath during the conversation over the Comms. She hadn't allowed Raa's or Volair's to shut off completely, allowing her to eavesdrop on the scene.

Tacticus was clearly going through the stages of grief, a thing no one needed. It actually surprised her a bit to notice him taking the loss of his friend so hard and she shifted through the data collection over Nasyrius Revex. The Turian was also a Cabal, though an ex one after the lost of his legs, which at least explained the attachment factor. However, Cabal were trained as soldiers despite their distance from the Turian military’s inner workings, loss being a factor they were trained to cope with and overcome should the experience arise.

So, RK wondered, why was Tacticus breaking down so rapidly? The only explanation she could conclude was because this death was the Turian's first brush with death.

She recalled, on research into the Cabal, that Nasyrius never did take his first loss too well like most Turians. While she could now understand, RK lacked the ability to sympathize. Mainly because they were in the middle of a hostile ship and with the enemy about to close into their position, this not the time to have a mental break down and head into the five stages of grief. After all, he wasn't the first alien to experience this. RK had watched both her creator and Noami'lie slip into a lengthy depression stage, Pai'Seef unable to pry himself away from work to eat let alone sleep for months without her reminders. It was even worse when Devyrn died and for a dreadful moment, RK's calculations of his survival was at their lowest. It made her miserable.

Logically, rage was often the first stage to appear. Especially in the heat of combat since it was easiest to tap in during the moment and it was often followed by the others, hitting the individual at their weakest. Acceptance was always the hardest and usually the last stage to reach since afflicted had to finally face what happened and acknowledge it, healing being more emotionally tormenting than the denial itself.

This made her glad she wasn't organic. So much drama, she thought in an acidic tone.

Her data tensed as she listened helplessly over the Comms, her worry increased upon what Raa was likely to do and her knowledge proven accurate from Voira's words. The Asari's words warning Raa to get back before she got hurt. If he so much as touched Raa, RK would end his life the moment she got a chance. The ship was easily enough to create small spaces and isolate Turian long enough to eject him into space should he prove a threat to Raa. And unlike the organics, RK had little problem jettisoning the trash if it came down to it.

Though her worry turned to relief when Raa obeyed Voira and made her way timidly into the shuttle, her sensors decided to keep tabs on Tacticus. She didn't trust the Cabal, despite how helpful they had been, in keeping their pal under control. One thing about her, she didn't trust either the humans or turians to keep their own in line and she was ready to put down any unexpected hostiles to keep her own safe. Even at risking Raa never forgiving her.

They departed without further incident. Her interceptor gliding through the black space easily and humming like a kitten, her eyes peeled for trouble. When they reached their destination there was an unwanted surprise waiting for them. A graveyard of ships, or rather ship pieces, floating among the vast void and scraping against the barriers coating their ship's outside. The blue energy buzzed in protest but RK ignored it. Her scanners already searching the area for answers and downloading the data back to Avatar for his own analysis.

Upon recalling Raa's emotional state, RK opened her Comm up to give Voira aheads up. “Might want to hold Raa and keep her from looking out the window, she won't enjoy the view. The whole turian group was wiped out.”



Raa froze in place. Her figure abruptly halting in its motions and eyes widen in shock, her ears catching Tacticus' low growls and wiggling mandibles that showed his stress rising higher at her offer. Fear ran its cold claws down her back causing her spine to shiver as it spread through out her rigid skeleton. She tried to move her limbs, to slowly reach for her gun, and grasp it for protection the more it seemed the Turian was about to attack her. Finally, her foot took an instinctive step back to increase the distance. Her purplish eyes were filled with worry and pity, her helplessness washing over her. A loud click, followed by Voira's warning snapped her away from her frighten state.

Raa's head jerked to her friend and her jaw quickly tightened in terror. The Asari held a gun out and pointed it in Tacticus' direction, the blue woman's eyes harden in warning. It was such a look that Raa doubted her ally would hesitate to take him down. It wasn't something that was acceptable as they were suppose to be working together, not fighting among themselves.

She had been about to do something when Tacticus was approached by his commanding officer. Unable to get her throat to work properly, the quarian merely stood there in silent and watched him speak to his deceased friend. Her heart hurt in desire to help him through this rough time but her experience in grief was greatly lacking thanks to the effort of those around her. She had blessed to see the world's best rather than its worse, her eyes sheltered from the horrors they were likely to face. Upon hearing Voira's orders, she felt the tension leave her body and began to move toward the ship. The humans, most seeming nervous to her over either her encounter with the Turian or their situation, started to shepherd everyone into the shuttle quickly.

She found a small, out of the way corner here she settled in. Her arms held her tightly as she laid against the cold metal seat and felt the immuno-boosters wearing off. She coughed slightly and merely watched the passing of bodies enter the shuttle. Each new individual filled out the space as she tried to make herself as small as possible, giving everyone enough room to fit onboard.

Raa had kept silent during the trip, her body pulled upright and eyes studying the outside the ship when RK’s voice interrupted her thoughts. Though she barely listened to the sound, letting it become background noise. She had been reflecting over the scene which had happened during the station and relieved it was finally over. They were heading to safety which meant they would be parting their ways again. Something that drew a slight hint of guilt that seeped into her conscious.

Would the Turian be alright?

Twisted metal and melded hull floated by her window, her eyes widen as the thought slipped past her focus to a new, more morbid subject. She blinked, questioning the reason there would scrap metal out this far until it came to her what the origin might be. She gasped, her hand jerked up in a gasp. No… no! The group they were suppose to meet up with later was now nothing more than a massive grave, their corpses lingering among the ship remains. Her imagination naturally filled in the blank and lacking details causing her to jerk into Voira’s arms, her face buried in the asari’s shoulder. She had forgotten Voira’s condition in order to purge her mind of those unwanted images.

Everyone got on the shuttle and left. Donny wished he could say things got better from there, but at this point Donny wasn't sure what was going to happen now. They weren't even safe; their exit surely has alerted the others on the space station of their escape. While they have an escort, there may be even more fighter craft just now being launched. Even if they escape those, where would they go? There's no cruiser nearby for them to dock in. The Charlotte was way to far for mere transport communications to reach, if they can even communicate out of here. And if things weren't bad enough, tensions between the turian cablist and the humans were growing. Donny can say honestly that he doesn't like them, and wouldn't mind not having to interact with them any further. But as it were, they were allies because everything else may be trying to kill them. But between the stress of losing soldiers, the cabalist leader threatening immediate execution for perceived insubordination, and perhaps xenophobia on both sides, these allies may end up trying to kill each other too.

This was too much for Donny. This wasn't something he was trained to handle. He could rescue hostages, keep his head in a firefight, hell he could administer first aid. But this? This was out of his league. He needed to handle something within his abilities. So standing up, Donny went to look into the ship's medical supplies. While Donny and the other humans were relatively fine, he figured the others might be injuried. A few looked at him, wondering what he was up to.

As Donny checked on their supplies, he also noticed that they had chocolate. And a lot of it too; at least ten bars. Some came in a different package, but it said chocolate nonetheless. Figuring his team could use a moral booster, he grabbed some of this chocolate and went back to his people. Wordlessly he showed them what he found, getting a few smiles. he passed out the chocolate bars to his fellow teammates when Seraph stopped him. "Hold on, we can't eat these." She was holding up one bar of chocolate with strange writing on it. Perhaps it was Japanese? "This is Dextro-amino chocolate. I... Won't go into the details, but basically this is for Turians and such." Looking at the chocolate, Donny looked between it and the cabalists. As if reading his mind, Seraph spoke quietly. "I don't want to make enemies out of them either, Donny. We have enough problems as it is. I won't stop you, but don't push yourself, okay? If they say no, just go."

Well, that was more or less approval from his superior officer, so after handing out the human chocolate, Donny went over to the cabalist with a few bars of dextro-chocolate. He figured he'd go to the leader first, uncertain how he should approach. "Ah... We have chocolate. Dextro-amino chocolate... If you want it. I'll just leave it here for you to decide..." Leaving most of the chocolate for the cabalist leader, Donny also decided to check up on Voria and Raa. If he remembered correctly, Quarians also share a similar diet as Turians. Or could be wrong of course, but better safe than sorry, right?

But when Donny went to go check up on Raa, she seemed to be in a slump. Voria wasn't in great shape either. Donny felt intrusive bothering them, but at the same time he couldn't just stand by and do nothing. So he approached, chocolate in hand. "Voria, Raa. Do you need anything? We have a surplus of omnigel on the ship, and I think some immuno boosters somewhere... I also have chocolate, if that's your thing."

Tacticus sat in the back of shuttle close to his squadmates simply staring into the floor expressionless and motionless. Sura had decided it best to give the kid some time to process his best friends death by himself. Besides she had some burns from bullet grazes on her arms that she needed to tend to. Solares however decided to get over to the window and look out towards the station. Thus being the first among the Turians to see the carnage. "By the spirits they blew it up! Did they blow up the cruiser!? It's game over man, game over-.."

"Quiet down Solares." Sura said making her way up behind him and putting her hand on his shoulder to calm him down. She looked intently out the window for a few moments at the wreckage. "I don't see the Intrepid anywhere in that mess. She may have gotten out, which means we arn't quite dead yet. I would also suspect that a fleet will be organized within a few days when the Hierarchy realizes there is no response from their troops. Week maybe before they send a recon frigate through the relay, well, assuming that execution video hasn't already hit their desks." Sura grabbed a hand hold in the ceiling and looked back at her troops, most of whom were applying medi-gel to themselves for minor burns and atleast two bullet holes. "We should probably head planet side and see if we can get a communication uplink strong enough to broadcast to the system, see if we can't get in contact with our boys." She turned to head to the cockpit to tell the pilot but the ship shifted and started moving towards the world before she could even tell them. Hopefully the Humans had the same idea at this point but knowing them they might just go to ground as soon as they hit dirt. Sura decided to shelve that idea until they actually got down to the planet though, no need to start an argument in a tube hovering through the vacuum of space.

Sura decided to make her way down the line of her cabalists making sure they were all good to go once they got off the shuttle. Luckily it worked out that Tacticus was at the end of the group. He was just staring at the ground not moving at all like he was in shock. She forgot sometimes that not everyone in the squad had seen combat before. The dead blank stare was not something that she was unfamiliar with. It was a common response to seeing your friend's head get blown off. Still leaning on the ceiling but standing in front of Tacticus she spoke "Hey Cactus, you dead or are you alive?" Tacticus didn't move at all so she grabbed his shoulder and shook him a bit. "Hey, you don't get to check out soldier."

Tacticus jumped a little bit as he looked towards the hand that had grabbed his shoulder. His eyes took a moment to focus on Sura before he was able to stammer out "Yes...good sir, I'm good, sir." Tacticus realized that he had zoned out thinking about Numso for a minute there. He blinked his eyes to get the dried blood off his eye lids quickly before moving his still wet hand up to his eyes to try and clean them out. He ended up just mostly covering his face in more krogan blood and just elected to stop trying as he was only making it worse. "Do we... are we heading back to the fleet sir?" Sura simply shook her head no. "The planet then right? Maybe the uh...locals are still willing to help?"

Sura removed her hand from his arm shoulder and responded to him. "We'll work on that once we get planetside, don't worry about it. Get your head clear, Numso embodied the spirit he's fine now. But we still have to get out this, be ready to move once we hit land." Sura hit Tacticus on the shoulder with the bottom of her fist lightly and turned around to be greeted by the Human that had almost killed them all earlier. Sura accepted the chocolate from him and was hesitant for a moment as to what to say. "Thanks Human." She quickly divided it up evenly among her troopers and even gave some to their diplomat. She figured that this may be the last sweets any of them saw for awhile may as well enjoy them.

Tacticus was given the chocolate and to take his mind off the death he had just witnessed he poured all his concentration into opening the candy carefully and deliberately. He even made sure to bother breaking it along the lines. He passed it into his mouth past his mandibles and worked with his razor sharp break down the candy. It would keep his mind off it for the time being but Sura was right, he was alive, atleast for the next few minutes. He could grieve later, there was still a job to do. He sat upright on the bench and hit Tuvea in the side of her arm with the back of his hand. "How long do you think this stuff has been sitting in here?" Cactus tried to say with a more light hearted tone.

Tuvea quickly responded "I don't think I wanna know." This got a half chuckle out of both of them.

Raa’s face buried into the asari’s smoother, grimy skin. It was smeared with blood, dirt, and worse since their last fight. The woman struggling to breath against Raa’s additional weight as she held her close, trying to comfort the crumbling Quarian. Her lids squeezed close while she bit back the sobs edging into her throat, her heart growing with grief and fear. It tried to crawl up her windpipe, not caring of her own desires, and escape through her lips in muffled whimpers she bit back. Tears had started to trickle down her cheeks where they damped the purplish toned flesh, her body shaken with the undeniable proof they might not escape this nightmare after all.

She wasn’t as strong as Voira. Never was and she knew deep down, hated it even.
It was painful to acknowledge she was a burden, a weakling, without combative skills or traits able to be used in extreme gunfights and life or death situations. If anything she almost gotten her friends killed several times over and still, Voira still put her life on the line for her.

Anymore negative was erased when Raa spotted movement out of her peripheral vision. She tilted back and raised her head, noting the human holding out a bar of chocolate. She blinked, her hand raised to wipe away dampness, then her face cracked into a warmer smile. “Thank you, and Voira needs medical attention. Can you bring the first aid kit or ask the Turian medic to look her over.”

Her hand raised to check the Asari’s temperature, then the heart rate at her wrist. “As for me, just bring some blankets, fluid and show me a place I can lay down so I can wait this out. Better to get ready to adjust to another place rather than suck down all our medical supplies just to keep running.”

After briefly checking Voira, she raised a hand to take the chocolate and shifted to adjust her front. Her fingers slowly unwrapped the tin, the aroma filling her exposed nose. Immediately she was reminded of a tale by her father about her people when their immune systems were so dangerously weak, even the action she was committing use to fatal to them. It was thanks to the Geth her generation had the luxury to walk around a planet without being restricted to their suits all the time.

Before Raa took a bit, she continued to speak. “Funny really. To think what I’m currently doing, with my helmet off and destroyed, would’ve been fatal to Quarians like my grandfather Pai’Seef’s generation. If we hadn’t evolve since the Reaper Wars then I would worse than just sick right now. And no amount of immuno-boosters could save me, pretty lucky uh?”

She broke a small chunk off, missing the dividing line and instead cracked a jagged one across another small section. It made it much better than the designed proportion was suppose to be but she didn’t care. She easily popped it into her mouth then sucked on the rich favor. Pushing to her check side, she continued as politely as she could without showing her food. “At least the tensions have died out. With any luck, and hope, we’ll arrive on planet and be back to our normal lives. Through it’s frightening to see the damage caused and lives loss.”

At mentioning death, her body leaned forward to spy Tacticus concentrating on unwrapping his own chocolate. His eyes squinted, mandibles wiggled in little movements, and fingers scratched away at the fragile foil. When he finally started to bite down on it, his beak breaking it down, he shifted to another cabal’s bench then swatted her arm for her attention. Through Raa couldn’t hear the conversation, it was a nice sensation filling her up to see the Turian who so upset and angry trying to heal.

Nodding his head Donny looked towards the others. The cablist seemed to be talking about their next plan, but looking at his own people Donny could see they were patching up their injuries and checking their weapons. They weren't out of the fire yet. Knowing that the turian's ship had be destroyed, or something, and that the Charlotte was long gone, Donny knew that they'd have to go planet side. There wasn't much other choice; this shuttle wouldn't make it to the nearest Mass Rely point before getting found, and they lacked the supplies to make it that far anyways. Humorously, Donny wondered that if he was trapped here with everyone, how long it'd take before they would all have to resort to cannibalism. But the humor of that thought was quickly drowned out by the idea that it's more likely that tensions between the Cabalist and humans would turn violent long before any of them would start starving. Shaking those thoughts off, Donny decided to focus on more immediate concerns.

Raa wanted someone to check on Voria. She wasn't looking too hot, even for an Asari. Either a medkit or for one of the turians, but Donny didn't want to impose on the cabalist anymore than he had to. They had some medkits, so that wasn't a problem. Getting Raa some blankets and such shouldn't be too hard either, though this was hardly a luxury craft. Thermal blankets and chairs were all he could offer as bedding. At least they had plenty of both. As for fluids, once more Donny was uncertain. This was a human shuttle, and while nearly all their supplies were up to Alliance Standards, Donny wasn't sure if they meant standard for humans or for all aliens. Just to be safe, he'd ask Seraph about it.

Before he'd leave to get the things Raa start musing to herself. A few generations ago having her helmet off like now would be fatal to her; Donny suppose even doing something as simple as eating chocolate would be gambling with death. If it weren't for the geth and their partnership, things would have turned out much differently for her. Donny wondered if she was trying to tell him something or if she was just delirious. Honestly, Donny wasn't exactly operating with a full deck of cards either. He was... Mechanical, in action and mindset. He wasn't thinking very hard about the dangers, the deaths, the things they'd have to do in the future. All he was thinking was about the next step. He wouldn't blame Raa for her current state of mind; at least she was lucid enough to know what to back down. If Donny was commanded to start opening fire, he may have already pulled the trigger before he would begin to wonder what he was suppose to be shooting at.

Donny went to retrieve the medkits from the cabinets. "Good for lacerations, perforations, and mild incineration." Donny mumbled to himself. Hopefully Voria wasn't too injured, because short of filling her with omnigel this was the best they got. While he was here he also grabbed a couple of military blankets. They were made of a thick synesthetic wool, very multipurpose. They could choke out a fire, retain heat, be used to deflect/gather water, and staunch bleeding. They were 50x50 inches. In Donny's head that meant the blanket was just a little over 4 feet length and width. "Heh... Blankie was only a little bit smaller. Maybe." Lastly Donny grabbed a single bottle of water with some tablets he found in the cabinets. He recognized the tablets as being the sort you put into non-purified water in order to kill the hostile bacteria in them, but he wasn't sure how a Quarian would react to it. "Or, maybe I'm just overthinking it. It's water. Not like she's from some cliche alien movie from the 20th century..."

Donny returned with an armful of the things Raa asked. Medkit for Voria, a some blankets, fluids, and tablets for Raa. Dropping off the medkit for Voria, Donny set the blankets with Raa. "There's some extra chairs you can lay down in. If you can rest sitting up they should be fine. Also got some blankets and water for you. I uh... Don't know if quarians can drink... Human water, so here's some tablets I think that might help. I think. Hopefully... Right, I'll go help Voria with her injuries now. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask." Donny was about to turn towards Voria when he remembered something important: his name. he wasn't certain if Raa ever heard his actual name. "Oh, I'm Donny by the way. Donny Yang." Looking towards Voria, Donny cracked open the medkit and turned towards the Asari. "Now then, is there anything you need help with? I'm trained in first-aid and battlefield medicine." Of course he didn't mention that it was only basic training, and that he's never worked on an actual living person. Sure he's worked on holographic simulations before, but it was easy to become desensitized to just the visual stuff. To actually feel blood and bones... Not something Donny's ever dealt with before.

Once the shuttle diverted towards the planet’s surface, it would only be approximately ten minutes before they would be landing at the temporary settlement. The interceptors remained close alongside the shuttle in case they were threatened by enemy fighters. Although, Avatar’s scans of the enemy fleet did not indicate that they had been detected. Or, if they had, they were not giving a response to the escaping shuttle. Based on Avatar’s scans of the enemy frigates, they were venting heat at a level consistent with what it would expect within ten minutes of the end of heavy usage. As such, it could predict with 73% certainty that the engagement between the two fleets had ended shortly before their departure from the station.

At first, the three ships headed towards the surface at a steep angle in order to get deeper into the atmosphere, which would reduce the ability of the enemy fleet to detect their heat signatures. However, once, they were in the lower stratosphere, they redirected their course to take them straight to the temporary settlement. The areas which they were flying over were not heavily populated, but even so, they remained within the clouds whenever possible in order to reduce their visual signature as well. At the high speeds at which they were traveling, it only took five more minutes before they started to slow to an approach velocity and radioed ahead to the settlement. There was no response from the settlement at first, but once Avatar transmitted the identification code it had been given as a diplomat on the mission, they were cleared for landing.

The settlement itself was small, and consisted entirely of prefabricated structures placed in a cleared section of a temperate forest. According to Avatar’s records, it had 127 inhabitants, including security personnel. Most of the settlers had a role in preparing the planet for the larger planned colonization, such as botanists, geologists, surveyors, and the remaining diplomats who had not been in attendance in the meeting aboard the space station. Unfortunately, the settlement was not heavily defended, as it was meant to rely primarily on the fleet for protection at this early stage of colonization.

All of the settlement’s landing pads were currently occupied when the three ships arrived, so they were directed to land in a cleared area of the forest a few meters outside the main settlement, along with several other shuttles and other vehicles of various classifications. There were Turian, Human, and Quarian shuttles, some of which were military models, which suggested that at least some other ships had managed to escape from the battle above.

Once they had landed, Avatar transferred itself back into its platform within the shuttle. The Geth seemed to spark back to life suddenly, then lifted itself back to its feet just as the shuttle’s ramp was being lowered. Once it was, it revealed four Turian soldiers, all with their rifles trained on the shuttle’s passengers. However, it only took seeing the uniforms of the Humans and the Cabal for them to recognize that they were allies.

“They’re clear, stand down.” One of the Turian’s ordered, prompting them all to lower their weapons. Behind the soldiers, Avatar could see a veritable swarm of activity in and around the settlement. Soldiers and settlers alike seemed to be stripping the settlement bare and loading anything they could into both ground and air vehicles.

The Turian stepped forward and looked into the shuttle. “A passenger shuttle; good, we’ll need it.” He said, more to himself than anyone. “Apologies for the rush, but as you can see, we’re evacuating the settlement. Twenty-five minutes until we leave. If you have any spare room in there, we have settlers in need of transport. We’re trying to bring as many supplies as we can, so we need all the space we can get. Do you have any wounded aboard? We still have spare medical supplies, for now.”

Voira, slumped against the wall of the shuttle as she was, winced as Raa suddenly buried her head into her shot shoulder. Still, she didn't complain, merely putting an arm around the Quarian and comforting her as best she was able. "Shh Raa, it's okay. Don't look." She murmured, ignoring how everything seemed to hurt and she couldn't breathe quite right. Raa needed her and she wasn't about to let something as simple as physical discomfort get in the way of that. She continued to murmur softly to the Quarian, up until the point where the human walked up. Voira let Raa do the talking. She was too damn tired to put enough effort required into explain all that they would need. Voira waved away the chocolate. "We don't like chocolate." She gave a weary smile as Raa rattled off all the things they would need after checking her.

As she watched the human moved away she turned to look at Raa. "And you thought you'd never be in the position where you were taking care of us. Granted, we'd have preferred it where we were sick, or something similar, rather than shot all to hell. Still, we'll take what we can get." She winked at Raa, before turning to watch the remainder of their group. The stupid Turian was recovering as best he could, given what had happened. RK was suspiciously silent. No sarcastic comments, no little quips, just silence. It made Voira wonder what the bitch of an AI was up too.

Before the Asari could muse any more, the human returned with the supplies and introduced himself. "Pleasure to meet you Donny. We're shot in the shoulder and hand, have a broken rib, a bruised lung, lacerations on our face, shrapnel in our other shoulder, and Goddess knows what else that we haven't noticed. We managed to tourniquet our shoulder and Medi-gel our hand. The rest we were to busy being shot at to fix." She gestured to the blanket wrapped around her shoulder. She smirked at the human preparing to try to patch her up. "Start where ever you please Doctor Donny. We've got nothing but time and Ryncol."

After the shuttle landed, Voira finishing her glass of Ryncol, the Asari reacted instinctively to the sight of more people pointing guns at her. She pulled her own pistol and threw a barrier on Raa once more, waiting for the bullets to fly again. When they all stood down and the Turian began talking, largely to himself, Voira spoke up from her position on the floor. "Where, exactly, are you all evacuating too?"

"Eh heh, right. I'll get you fixed up ASAP." Of course, Donny could only deal with some of the injuries personally. After helping Voria out of her armor, Donny did his best to remove the shrapnel, set bones, and liberally apply medi-gel to all injured areas. It was rather.... Intimate, as Donny was having some skin-contact with an asari in places very close to sensitive areas. But Donny's own nervousness and the fact that Voria was bloodied and bruised made it far less erotic than rubbing down an asari with medi-gel could have been. When Donny went to treat Voria's shoulder, he learned that her "Tourniquet" is actually his baby blanket, tightly coiled up and covered in asari blood. "Dwha!? This is my blanket!" Donny exclaimed somewhat loudly. He didn't make too big of a deal out of it though, folding it up neatly and putting it aside as he continued to operate on Voria.

Eventually Donny did everything he could using his limited about of first-aid knowledge. Her surface wounds would heal, and assuming she doesn't get hit by a vehicle and shot again her bones should be fine. Or so Donny hopes. The fact that Voria wasn't screaming bloody murder or tried to murder him bloodily for trying at least told the human that what he was doing wasn't hurting her. So after patching her up Donny cleaned himself down as he noticed the ship entering the colony planet. Donny had to buckle in as the ship made it's decent, grabbing his equipment as everyone got ready to hit the ground.

Once the ship landed Donny and his crew got ready to leave. They were greeted by turians and their rifles, but fortunately before any shots were fired they were identified as friendly. From here Donny kept his mouth shut and let Eleanore and Seraph do the talking. Mostly Eleanore since she was the ambassador. "We have a few wounded, yes. But what is the status of this settlement? It appears that everyone is being relocated. Have those terrorist made any moves to make an assault here?" Indeed, seeing the settlers fleeing for their lives was unsettling. They weren't even going to fight for their homes, which either marks them as cowards or they were fleeing from an obviously larger threat. Donny gripped his grandfather's knife, hoping to gleam some determination from the blade.

The Turian commander motioned quickly to one of his men. "Get a medic over here as soon as possible." He ordered before returning his attention to those in the shuttle. "The enemy hasn't moved on our position yet, but we think it's only a matter of time. Our fleet gave them more trouble than they were probably expecting, but they're regrouping as we speak. I don't know the exact coordinates of where we're going, but the orders came down from General Artus himself, just before we lost contact with his cruiser. Until we know more, we're following that order."

The Turian's gaze shifted towards the two interceptors on either side of the shuttle. "You also have fighters. Those will be useful, just have your..." He began, but interrupted himself when he saw into the cockpits. "...where are your pilots?"

"These interceptor craft were piloted remotely." Avatar answered simply. The commander, finally noticing the Geth among the group in the shuttle, regarded it strangely. "Um, right. Well, we have pilots in need of ships, so we can make use of them. Just stay here in your shuttle; we will get moving shortly." He responded.

The soldiers left quickly, though the medic they had called for was not far behind. As she was properly supplied and trained, she was able to give Voira and the other wounded more comprehensive medical attention. At the very least, their bleeding was stopped completely and they were given an anesthetic to dull most of the pain. They would need time to recover, but they were all stable.

After the medic left, several civilians, and one or two soldiers, from the settlement were directed into their shuttle as well. The vessel had already been crowded, so by the time the pilot was ordered to close the loading ramp and prepare for takeoff, there was standing room only in the shuttle's hold. Those who were not in the best physical condition, such as Raa and Voira, were given priority for seating, but most were not given that luxury.

Because of the crowding most in the shuttle could not see clearly out of the windows, but the sounds of the engines roaring to life around them told them that they were taking off. Presumably, they would be flying over the ground vehicles in a convoy to whatever destination the Turian general had given them. Other than that, however, they had not been told much of the plan. Pretty much everyone who was not sitting was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with someone else. Many of the civilians from the settlement seemed to be only a few steps short of panicking. Some tried to keep it to themselves, some sobbed quietly, while others did what they could to give support to those who needed it. Despite these conditions, this was the first chance that anyone from the station had to actually stop and rest, mentally and physically.

Near to Raa, a young, nervous, blonde-haired Human woman glanced down to the unconscious Quarian nervously. A few minutes passed in silence, but she eventually spoke up shakily. "S-she looks sick. What does she have? Is it...contagious?"

Raa

Raa leaned into Voira’s front, sleeping. Due to the crowded state of the shuttle, most people had to stand and keep each other up as the machine rocked to life. A low, monstrous rumble sounded through the interior . Her forehead leaned against the cold metal and allowed it to cold her growing fever. for every moments she just laid there, her body propped up by Voira and just being bounced around by the shuttle’s movements. Her heart beated softly while she rattled in her breathing yet she knew she was going to be fine. A blanket was wrapped about her and she snuggled deeper into it, trying not to hurt her friend anymore than she already had.

She was too tired to care for the sounds filling the scene until someone spoke. It was a woman causing her eyes to slip open and look with a tired expression. Her voice was strained through a budding sore throat as she sat up weakly. Her arm stretched out and helped brace her upright, her head slightly dizzy in the sudden change in position. This caused her right hand to reach and touch her temple, hoping to stop the spinning. For a moment Raa thought she was going to be sick. Her stomach curled and tightened, souring with the jarring, as she inhaled slowly. After a few breaths she turned to the human woman with a faint smile.

“Not unless you’re a Quarian and even then, you would have to have not properly braced yourself for an environment change.” Ras said politely, then added to clear her statement up. “My illness is because my body is adjusting to being outside my suit before I prepared for it. So no, it’s not contagious.”

RK’s voice scoffed from the omnitool as she snipped off in her snide voice. “Humans, expect to be treated like equals yet they don’t even educate their own species over others. Typical.”

Still weak, Raa lifted her arm meekly and frowned at her AI friend. “RK, please not today. I’m not up to it.”

RK looked to the side, her holographic bust floating near Raa, in a sheepish manner then sighed. “Alright but she pops off about something just as stupid... Quiet is the last thing I aim to be.”

The young woman had briefly been seemingly placated by Raa's answer, but was obviously both surprised and confused by RK's sudden appearance. For a few seconds, she was wide eyed and speechless as she stared down at the holographic projection. But once the woman had the chance to process everything, RK's insulting and combative tone rubbed off onto her. She became offended, and scowled at the holographic projection. "I...I...no! I have a right to be afraid you stupid machine! I hear of this attack on our fleet, but no one will tell us what is happening. Then suddenly we're being packed into these shuttles and evacuated to I don't know where, for who knows how long. No one will tell me if my brother is still okay up there, and...I just want this all to be over!" She screamed, with tears in her eyes by the end of the outburst.

Nearby, one of the other passengers, attempting to distract himself from the argument on the other side of the shuttle, kept his gaze looking out of one of the shuttle's windows. Out in the distance, there were a dozen or so dots on the horizon, which were growing larger as they approached. After a few seconds he was able to make out that they were, in fact, ships. "W-what is that? Out the window? Have they found us?"

Immediately, Avatar accessed the shuttle's exterior cameras to give it a better view of the approaching vessels. Zooming in, it identified the ships as A-74 Wasp gunships: military craft designed to replace the aging Mantis gunship. They were similar in aesthetics to the Mantis, but had four vectored engines and more powerful armaments. They were used by multiple militaries, but these in particular had the markings of the Turian military.

"There are thirteen approaching craft of gunship classification. They appear to be allied vessels." Avatar explained flatly, not necessarily aware that some of the passengers might doubt its assessment of their allegiance.