Drew Karpyshyn - Retribution

The turian screamed as the high-velocity rounds tore his arm and shoulder to pieces, nearly severing the limb. His compatriots returned fire as he slumped to the ground, blood gushing from his wounds. The Cerberus guards flattened themselves against the wall as rounds peppered their position, relying on the protruding edge of the vertical beam they were hiding behind to shield them from the assault.

With all the turian fire focused on the guards, the Illusive Man took the opportunity to lean out and let loose with his pistol, aiming at the injured turian lying on the floor before his kinetic barriers could recharge. The turian’s body jumped and spasmed as the Harpy buried a half-dozen rounds into the helpless alien’s torso, then went still. Before the turians could retaliate, the Illusive Man ducked back behind cover.

From the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of something flying past his position. His gaze drawn by the movement, he turned his head to see a small, fist-sized black disk adhering itself to the wall beside the Cerberus guards.

The Illusive Man dropped to the floor and curled up into a ball, covering his head with his hands just as the grenade exploded. The concussive blast tossed the guards like rag dolls, bouncing them off the wall and sending them ricocheting out into the center of the hall. Any chance of their surviving was immediately snuffed out as their twisted bodies were riddled with turian bullets.

The Illusive Man knew his pistol didn’t have the firepower to keep the turians at bay. But he was damned if he was going to let them take him alive. Rolling out from behind the covering beam, he grabbed for the nearest guard’s assault rifle.

Wrapping his fingers around the weapon, he mentally braced to feel the impact of the enemy rounds as they overwhelmed his kinetic barriers. He came up on one knee and raised the weapon, but never fired.

The scene before him was a masterpiece of brutally efficient mayhem.

In addition to the turian shot by the guards, two more were already on the floor. One’s throat had been slashed from behind, the cut so deep it nearly severed the head. The back of the other’s head had been blown off, the result of someone’s firing a pistol jammed against the back of his skull so the kinetic barriers couldn’t protect him.

The remaining three were engaged in close-quarters fighting with Kai Leng. Despite not wearing a combat suit — he wasn’t even wearing a shirt — Cerberus’s top wet-work operative made short work of the heavily armored turians.

At melee range the heavy turian assault rifles proved to be a disadvantage; they were too slow and cumbersome to be brought to bear on a target as lithe and mobile as the human butcher attacking them.

Kai Leng’s weapons presented no such problems.

He stabbed his knife in an upward thrust toward the head of his nearest opponent. The sharply ascending angle brought it in beneath the turian’s protective visor, impaling him through the underside of his chin. The blade penetrated up through tissue and bone and into the brain, resulting in instantaneous death.

The weapon was stuck fast in its victim, but Kai Leng had already released his grip on the hilt. One of the turians had thrown down his own ineffectual weapon and grabbed Kai Leng’s wrist with both hands in an attempt to break his arm, or at least wrench the pistol from his grasp. But his combat suit made his movements clumsy and awkward, and the thick gloves prevented him from getting a proper grip.

Kai Leng slipped free and dropped to the ground, his leg sweeping out to knock the turian off his feet even as his partner fired a round from his assault rifle at the space where his human target had been standing upright an instant before.

Crouched low to the floor, Kai Leng shoved the nose of the pistol against the back of the still standing turian’s knee. The joints of the combat suits were less protected to maintain flexibility; the thin mesh material did nothing to absorb the projectile when he squeezed the trigger. With a scream the turian fell to the floor, the assault rifle slipping from his grasp.

It had all taken less than a second. By the time the Illusive Man processed what was happening and dropped the Gorgon to reclaim his pistol, Kai Leng had grabbed the injured turian’s helmet. One hand slipped beneath the chin, the other braced itself against the crown. The corded muscles of the tattooed human’s bare chest flexed and he let out a grunt as he wrenched the turian’s head at an impossible angle, breaking his neck and severing the spinal cord.

As the last turian was scrambling back to his feet, the Illusive Man shot him in the back. The first five rounds from the auto-repeating Harpy were deflected by the kinetic barriers. The next five were absorbed by the heavily padded layers of the combat suit. The final five pierced the flesh, damaging several vital internal organs.

The turian dropped to his knees, then slumped forward onto his face. Kai Leng added a final round to the back of the head from point-blank range for good measure before standing up.

“Is it clear the way you came?” the Illusive Man asked as he, too, stood up.

Kai Leng shook his head. “Our only hope is to get to the escape pod back in sector three.”

The Illusive Man nodded. “Dr. Nuri’s already there.”

The two of them ran down the corridors of the doomed space station, knowing they could come across another turian patrol around any corner. The only reason they’d survived the last engagement was because Kai Leng had been able to sneak up on the turians from behind while they were focused on the Illusive Man and his guards. If they ran into another patrol, the ending would be much different.

Fortunately they didn’t come across any enemy troops, though less than fifty meters from the escape pod they found grisly evidence that the turians had passed by earlier. Dr. Nuri’s body was sprawled across the floor, her lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling, a gaping shotgun wound in her chest.

Neither man made any comment as they stepped over her and continued on their way. A few seconds later they were in the escape pod. The vessel was capable of holding four passengers, but they weren’t about to wait around and see if anyone else showed up.

Kai Leng sealed the door; the instant he was done the Illusive Man slammed his fist down on the button that jettisoned them to safety. As they shot clear of the station, the older man slumped across the padded seat, panting heavily in an effort to catch his breath.

It had been a long time since he’d seen any action; his body wasn’t used to the intense physical exertions of combat. As he gasped for air, he was acutely aware that Kai Leng wasn’t even breathing hard.

After a few minutes he had recovered enough to speak.

“You eliminated Grayson, I assume,” he said.

Kai Leng shook his head. “There wasn’t time. It was kill him or save you. I chose you.”

The Illusive Man almost replied, “You made the wrong choice.” Instead, he bit his tongue as he realized he could just as easily have asked Kai Leng the same question back on the station, while there was still a chance to do something about it.

The encounter with the turians had rattled him. He had thought he was going to die. Faced with a glimpse of his own mortality, he had decided not to ask Kai Leng about Grayson because he didn’t want to know the answer. Not if it could cost him his life. He was a patriot, but deep down he wasn’t ready to be a martyr.

He also had to accept the fact that this was all his own fault. There had been no need for him to come to the facility to oversee the experiments in person. He could have stayed on his secure station and received regular updates. But he’d wanted to watch Grayson suffer. He’d let his desire for vengeance override his common sense, and it had almost gotten him killed.