-Nulia D'ysero POV-
"Shit shit shit." Nulia chanted under her breath as her dwindling group of pirates ran through the mining complex.
It wasn't enough that the Quarian marines they had run into had better tech and gear than they did. It wasn't enough that the fuckers had giant murderous machines like the Geth backing them up. On top of all that, the fuckers were smart too.
They fought like some kind of Turian death squad, always alert, moving, and intent on killing any pirates unfortunate enough to get pinned down.
There were a lot of them too. At least a company worth which meant that while the pirates might have outnumbered them at the beginning, it wasn't by all that much.
Nulia's group had run into two more squads and both times they had lost people before managing to run away without doing any significant damage to their enemies.
"Damn, there goes another group." someone muttered and Nulia looked to where he was talking about.
It was an area below them – something probably used to service the mining vehicles going by the machinery – where another group of those dark armored marines were slowly walking forward, red energy bolts flying while any incoming fire was stopped by their shields until they took a couple hits and the marines took cover or in the case of the Geth units, simply ignored it thanks to their heavier armor.
Nulia watched as the five remaining pirates' morale broke under the Imperial Troopers' unrelenting advance and they tried to run.
The troopers simply and coldly gunned them down from behind.
"Shiiiit."
Fuckers were definitely playing for keeps.
Where the fuck was Lymrase?
"Keep moving." Nulia ordered. "We don't stop until we find the Justicar and find a way out of this mess."
"And if we run into another group of marines, capt'n?" One of her underlings asked.
"Work together to shoot one bastard until he goes down and then move to the next. They have better shit than we do, but they aren't invincible."
"We tried that." One of them grumbled. "Herorm died for it."
Well maybe the idiot should have learned to not peek out of cover without changing up the timing or direction.
"Then do it better." She demanded bluntly. "We just need to bring down their shields fast enough we can get off some Biotics before they duck into cover." She wasn't strong enough to pull off a singularity, but just keeping those troopers out in the open long enough to actually score a kill was crucial with their dwindling numbers.
"And do what? Only two of us are even Biotics and Sul can barely Lift a toothbrush since her amp broke."
"Fuck you, asshole."
Nulia needed to stop this before an actual fight broke out. Normally jabbing at each other was fine, encouraged even to keep the idiots out of the way. But not when they were being herded into a corner by super tech'd out kill teams.
She took a step forward to properly yell at the idiots– only to feel a now familiar flash of heat pass right through the space her head used to occupy that was quickly replaced with the sensation of ice running down her back at the realization she just dodged death by pure luck.
"Sniper! Get moving!"
She didn't wait to see if the others were following her. If they were too slow to get out of a killbox, they got what they deserved.
The sound of several people running behind her proved at least some of them were smart enough to follow her lead, but there was no accounting for shit luck. Nulia took the first turn into a building to get out from the sniper's scope and a few random turns she hoped led to the other side of the compound only to run straight into another squad of imperials.
Both sides opened fire as soon as they registered who was in front of them, but Nulia's group was the one getting shredded. One or two imperial marines might have gone down and half her group was so much dead weight. She looked around and spotted a smaller corridor nearby and didn't hesitate to shove the closest crew she could reach for it before following herself. A couple of the smarter members saw what she was doing and followed after but the rest would serve as a distraction and hopefully stall the imperials long enough for them to get away.
It meant Nulia's group was now down to just the five of them, but she had already written off the entire raiding force at this point. All that mattered was that she got out alive.
"We're fucked, we're so fucked. This is game over, man!" Hudson, one of the newer humans that had joined up, whined once they were far enough the sounds of gunfire couldn't be easily heard close by.
"Shut up, Hudson. We're not out of this yet." Nulia snapped. "Does anyone know where we are?"
"Near the center of the facility," Dhagrom, a Batarian and the only remaining engineer they had commented while consulting his omnitool. "Which is odd because this whole section should have been crawling with security even on a normal day. The main power generator for the whole facility should be just up ahead."
"We didn't have anyone locking this place down?" Sul asked and while Nulia was mildly pleased the other Asari was still alive instead of some of the more boorish idiots that worked for her, she didn't appreciate Sulimia questioning her competence, even by implication.
"According to the engineers that tried, there was some kind of forcefield over the entrances they couldn't get through, so we ignored it. Seems like security is down now though." Nulia said and waved a hand at a thick door that had been raised into the ceiling before a thought occurred to her. "Justicar Lymrase must have come through here. Dhagrom, shut and lock down this door. If we hurry we might be able to catch up to her."
"On it. It'll take a bit though, for some reason the door is on an independent system and–"
"Just get it done." Nulia interrupted. She didn't need a step by step plan, just the Goddess-damned door closed. "I don't want those imperials sneaking up behind us."
"Too late, here they come boss!"
Nulia cursed and spun to look down the corridor they had just come from, half expecting to see another dozen marines lined up to start gunning them down. So when she only saw a pair of Juggernauts and a single asari-like figure in a hooded robe between them calmly walking towards their group, she was initially relieved. The two Geth would be hard to take down, but it was doable…
Then the middle figure pulled something from her belt and Nulia felt a chunk of ice form in the pit of her stomach as a bright red blade appeared with a snap-hiss.
"Dhagrom? Door closed. Right now." Nulia ordered briskly. "Everyone else, shoot the one in the middle."
"The middle? What about the Ge–" Sul started to backtalk, but Nulia didn't have time for her shit right now. If the hooded figure was anything like Lymrase…
"SHOOT HER NOW, DAMMIT!" Nulia screamed, already unloading everything she could at the approaching figure. For all the good it did.
The red blade turned into a spinning wall of light as the figure marched calmly forward, utterly dismissing the four people shooting at her as a threat.
If that was all Nulia would have been scared, but she wouldn't have freaked out over it. Lymrase had done something similar when they had met to prove to the non-asari members of the pirate group why Justicars were a group you did not fuck with, but when she did it there was a weird sense of calmness. Like fighting her wasn't in anyone's interest so it'd be better to just stop.
This person was like a walking black hole. It didn't matter if you tried to fight it because it would just soak up anything you threw at it and then murder you once it was close enough. Fuck the Geth weren't even bothering to follow her or shoot back.
"Dhagrom, door?!"
"Working on it!"
Nulia cursed as her Banshee overheated in her hands, she immediately dropped it and swapped to her pistol just to keep firing.
"Dhagrom!"
"Almost have it!"
Hudson's rifle was the next to overheat, which normally wouldn't have been a big deal since he had one of the newer models with the swappable heatsinks. But the panicky human fumbled the swap and ended up dropping the new heatsink. If it didn't mean it would be two less guns pointed at the enemy, Nulia would have shot him right there.
She settled for cursing him out and telling him to stop fucking around with the one he dropped and just grab the second one on his belt.
If they died because Hudson was too stupid to reload his gun…
At this point she could see the nearly featureless red and grey mask under the figure's hood. Close enough that in seconds they would all be within range of that weapon Nulia knew would cut through all of them like nothing.
More out of desperation rather than anything, she flared her biotics and fired the strongest Push she could muster. It just sucked shit that her 'best' was barely middling compared to what the average huntress could do. Nowhere near enough to bother the monster stalking towards them as it simply raised a hand and seemingly absorbed the biotic energy like it was a gust of wind.
Nulia felt more than saw Hudson try to run for it, the cowardly human deciding to abandon them and run the other way to live for just a few seconds longer. She didn't blame him. If she was a better person she might have done the same.
She wasn't though, so the second he tried to run she grabbed him by his hardsuit fully intending to throw him at the figure as a distraction so she could run instead. The only thing that stopped her from following through was a sudden shriek of metal and the security door slamming shut just a moment before the masked figure crossed the boundary.
Nulia stared dumbly at the door, almost unwilling to believe that they escaped death for now. Then Hudson shifted in her grip and she allowed herself to get angry. To show the others she was still in charge. That she wasn't afraid of that thing being kept away by a foot-and-a-half of steel. Even if that was a complete fucking lie.
She slammed Hudson against the door and pinned him there with a forearm against his throat while jamming her pistol under his chin, "I saw what you tried to pull, scum. If you ever, I mean EVER, try running again without my orders I will carve out your heart and–" *brrrrskrrt!!*
The sight of a red energy blade sticking a few inches from Hudson's chest stopped Nulia's rant in its tracks.
She flinched back – incidentally dragging Hudson's body with her – and watched with the rest of her horrified group as the blade began to slowly but effortlessly cut a circular hole in the security door.
Nulia felt that choking presence return and press down on her mind, a smothering feeling that almost reminded her of a Meld gone horribly wrong.
"Run along, little pirate," the presence seemed to hiss from the shadows. "Run to the Jedi and let them know I'm coming for them. And this time there is nowhere for them to run."
Nulia didn't know if every member in her group heard the voice, she also didn't care. Without a second thought she turned and fled down the corridor and only distantly recognised the sound of the others following after her. The only thought in her mind was that Lymrase had to be ahead of them. She was Nulia's only hope of getting off this rock alive.
-o-
"Revan-Empress, this unit has a query." One of the Sith Empress's bodyguards stated while Revan was busy cutting through the lowered security door. "Why allow the pirates to escape? Allowing the Geth to engage would have been sufficient to disable or eliminate the group." The Juggernaut paused and seemed to consider something. "If this query is inappropriate there is no answer required."
"I do not mind." Revan replied easily. "The purpose is simple. This Jedi has decided to distract my empire while we should be focused on the Reapers. Not only are they disrupting crucial logistics when entire solar systems are under siege, they are using pirates to do it. The same kind of scum that have terrorized the Terminus Systems for decades. So I'm going to give our Jedi a choice, help the pirates escape this place and fail their objective or ignore their allies pleading for help and realise they aren't the beacon of light they think they are."
Revan finished cutting and waved a hand at the door, forcing aside the now cut section and leaving a hole big enough for even the Juggernauts to step through with a little crouching.
"...which option do you expect them to take?"
"If this Jedi is anything like the ones I knew, they will attempt to do both." Revan said. "And in doing so slow and stress themselves caring for a group they know are not innocents. I plan to use that to capture our enemy and force them to tell me about this Order of theirs, the time to wait around playing with unknowns ended when the Reapers arrived."
"And if capture is not possible?"
"Then it will make killing them easier and we can return to fighting for the galaxy's survival. Any other questions?"
"Negative, Revan-Empress."
"Then let's continue on. Our little group of pirates have just managed to catch up with the Jedi, we don't want them to get separated again now, do we?"
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