Clyff let out a short pffft before laughing with the krogan. “You know, if both our mothers teamed up, Andromeda would be like ‘what’s a kett?’ Her ability to inflict mental and emotional torment are—well, were—terrifying.” It was always odd to think of all those people back in the Milky Way that he knew, were dead. Long dead, actually.
If Clyff ever thought he was the gung-ho one of the group, he was terribly mistaken. Everyone seemed to be gnashing at the bits to eliminate enemies that didn’t need a soft touch. This wasn’t the Nexus’s uprising all over again, these were nasties that needed to take down with extreme passion—and equally extreme ordinance. The fireteam leader attempted to soothe their needy barking to shoot everything in the face. Sure, Clyff was antsy for a bit of action himself. But after taking more than one—well, more than he had fingers to count—explosion and/or bullet to the face, he was a bit more cautious. Not to mention, they didn’t really have the high ground here. They had ground. It was flat. It was underneath their feet. That was it. It was far from tactically sound.
His comm clicked on about that time with another voice that wasn’t Fireteam 1. He was told to engage the kett. No one had to tell him twice. Well, him and the batarian. Damn, four eyes was on a tiny-ass-hair trigger. Eh well, batarians were… that sort of species. “So much for a squad formation.” Their fireteam leader yelled something out before moving forward to engage the enemies. The turian activated his jump jets and took to the higher ground. Did the aliens not know about squad tactics? How? How in the nine hells had they survived in space this long?
Clyff was going to keep to the ground. This was not from the fact that he was absolute garbage with his jump jets—nooooooo—he just didn’t have accurate guns that were useful from high ground. Also, he wasn’t fond of heights. Not that anyone had to know that. Free falling was a recurring nightmare he had. Naked in school, he was totally fine. Late to class, eh that was normal. Forgetting the curriculum, did his dreams even remember that he was not highly ranked in his class? Falling was an entirely different matter.
So, he moved forward activating his adrenaline rush. In hindsight, maybe twenty-or-so years down the line, he might question how many chemicals and additives he pumped into his veins. Now, though, he was more interested in doing his job. His shotgun was close range, and so he had to move in on them quickly—not too quickly as to outpace anyone that was behind him and probably using him as a meat shield. Some of the grunts sights had followed the fireteam leader as he propelled himself up and over them. The turian managed to take them out, but the body of its dead comrade had caught the attention of a nearby kett. So, Clyff used that distraction to ram the butt of his shotgun into the back of its head. It staggered and turned around, a little off its footing. Clyff then aimed the barrel of the gun against its torso and released his piping hot incendiary rounds into its gut. It fell to the ground, a noxious fume of burning tissue entering the air.
“You’re welcome,” he said to his team. The next kett grunt turned towards the man, and Clyff fired two rounds at it. The tight grouping of metal penetrated its armor. Two shots to the chest, and it tumbled to the ground. His HUD flashed that he needed to reload. Right, he loved his big, angry shotgun, but it did eat through clips like a hog through slop.
Unfortunately, another kett was winding up to shoot him. It was right in-between him and some decent cover to reload. So, doing what Clyff did best, he ran recklessly at the face of danger. A few shots were absorbed by his shields, and his HUD flashed angrily at him. Shove it common sense, he thought as he plowed into the kett, lowering his own body to knock the other one off-kilter. It fell to the ground in a jumble of limbs and angry—or at least he assumed—noises. Clyff then rammed the butt of his shotgun into the creature’s head enough times that it went limp and let out a death gurgle. “Yeah, I bet the cute space-cats don’t use that maneuver against you ugly shits.” A few shots peppered his shields. He really needed to take cover. So, he dove for it and started to reload his shotgun.
“Anyone feel like covering me?” he asked. “I’ll pay you back in beer.”
Simple Unicycle