Drew Karpyshyn - Ascension

They weren't quarians at all — the prisoners were human! A man and two women. No, his mind corrected: a man, a woman, and a girl. The woman sprang to her feet when she saw him, but the others didn't move. To his great surprise, Lemm thought he recognized her.

"Are you Kahlee Sanders?"

She nodded quickly. "Who are you?"

"Not now," he told her, his mind casting back to the achitectural plans he had memorized. "We only have a minute or so until reinforcements get here. Come on."

"I can't leave them," she said, nodding to the two on the ground.

The girl was small enough that she could be carried, but the other one was far bigger than either Lemm or Kahlee. He rushed over to the man's side and dropped to one knee, scanning him quickly with his omnitool.

"I think I can wake him up," he said. "Grab the guns from the guards outside and let your friend out of the other cell."

"Leave him behind," she said, her voice dripping with venom. "He's one of them."

Lemm pulled a booster shot from his pack and administered it to the unconscious man as Kahlee disappeared into the hall. By the time she returned with the guards' assault rifles, the man was moaning and trying to sit up.

"Help me get him to his feet."

Kahlee set the weapons down and came over. Together they managed to lift the big man off the ground. To Lemm's relief, he was actually able to stand on his own.

"What's his name?"

"Hendel."

"Hendel!" he shouted, hoping to penetrate the narcotics that were still clouding his mind. "My name is Lemm! We're going to get you out of here! Do you understand?"

The big man nodded, though the action caused him to sway on his feet. Lemm realized that even if he woke the girl, she probably wouldn't be strong enough to walk for a good twenty minutes.

"We'll move quicker if I just carry the little one," Lemm said.

Kahlee nodded, and the quarian adjusted his backpack, bent down, and scooped the girl up with his left arm, carrying her over his shoulder like a sack of flour. She was heavier than she looked, and even with his right hand free and the weight of his pack offsetting the load, he knew it was going to be tough for him to carry her and still shoot effectively.

"Did the Alliance teach you how to handle one of those?" he asked Kahlee, tilting his head toward the assault rifles on the ground.

She nodded and bent to pick them up. "How did you know I was in the Alliance?"

"Later," he answered. "We need to move."

Kahlee handed one of the weapons to Hendel, but it slipped through his hands and clattered to the floor.

"Forget it," Lemm said. He couldn't bit the broadside of a building right now anyway. "Follow me!" he added, shouting in the hopes the drugged man would respond to his voice.

He led them through the twisting hallways, knowing their best chance was to get to one of the vehicles in the garage. Unfortunately, the enemy probably knew that, too.

When he reached the stairs leading down to the

ground floor, he cast a quick peek behind him. Hen-del was keeping up, thanks in part to Kahlee half pulling, half carrying himalong. With the girl still draped over his shoulder, the four of them stumbled awkwardly down the stairs, across a small landing and into the garage. Various containers and shipping crates of all sizes were piled haphazardly about the room; perfect cover for any guards waiting to ambush them.

"Over there," Kahlee said, pointing to a pile of metal boxes stacked in the corner of the far wall. "You three make a run for it. I'll lay down some covering fire."

Lemm nodded and took off, moving as quickly as possible while carrying his awkward load. For a brief moment he was aware of Hendel lumbering after him, and then movement on the other side of the room drew his attention.

A woman popped up from behind one of the crates, taking a bead on him. He realized with horror that while his kinetic shields gave him some protection, the girl and Hendel were completely vulnerable. Before the woman managed to get off a shot, however, Kahlee let loose with a spray of bullets that forced her to duck back down again.

From the corner of his eye, Lemm saw a man half-hidden in the boxes off to the right. The human fired his pistol as they ran by less than a dozen feet away, concentrating his fire on Lemm rather than taking aim at Hendel or the girl. The quarian retaliated with a pair of wildly aimed shots that echoed like thunder in the cavernous warehouse.

At this close range accuracy barely mattered; the autotargeting systems of both weapons ensured direct hits. Lemm's kinetic barriers deflected all the rounds from the pistol except for one that embedded itself harmlessly in the padded shoulder of his combat suit and another that ripped through the corner of his backpack. His opponent wasn't so lucky. The concentrated scatter of the shotgun blasts overwhelmed his shields, and a handful of pellets penetrated the kinetic barriers. The impact tore great holes in the exposed flesh of his face and hands, and the man dropped lifeless to the floor.

And then they were sliding into the safety of the cover behind the containers. Lemm quickly shook the pack loose from his shoulder and lowered the girl to the floor, then popped up to provide cover for Kahlee. Seeing what he was doing, she sprinted across the warehouse toward them, keeping her head low.

A shotgun wasn't the best weapon for laying down a field of cover fire. Unlike an assault rifle, it didn't spray a nearly endless stream of bullets. But Lemm remembered where the woman who had popped up before was hiding. If she was foolish enough to peek out again without changing position, he'd have her right in his sights.

The woman did exactly that, and Lemm pulled the trigger the instant her head came into view. The echo of the shotgun rang out once more, and the crate she was using for cover actually shifted from the impact of his shot. Her kinetic barriers saved her life, absorbing the tightly packed cloud of incoming projectiles, and she ducked behind cover once again. Lemm doubted she'd make the mistake of showing herself in exactly the same place a third time.

Kahlee skidded to a stop beside him, breathing hard. At almost the same instant two more guards, a man and a woman, burst into the warehouse through the same entrance they had come through only a few seconds before. A coordinated barrage of shotgun and assault-rifle fire sent them scurrying back around the corner.

"They'll go around to the other side," Lemm warned, recalling that there were two entrances to the warehouse, along with the landing up above and the big vehicle doors on the far wall. "Try to flank us."

"You think you can get to those rovers?" Kahlee asked him, pointing at the two vehicles parked out in the open near the center of the garage.

"There's not much cover. I'll have to work my way around to the far side. Can you hold position here?"

"For a little while. Any idea how many we're up against?"

"They started with nine, as far as I know. Two dead upstairs, one more down here."

"Six against two," she muttered. "Without one of those rovers we don't stand much of a chance."

Hendel mumbled something neither of them understood. He seemed to be more alert, but his words were still incomprehensible as the booster fought against the drugs still coursing through his system.

"You stay here with me and Gillian," Kahlee told him, patting him on the thigh. "And keep your head down."

Peering through a small gap between the wall of boxes shielding them from enemy fire, Lemm tried to plan a route from cover point to cover point that would eventually lead him to the vehicle. It was there, but he'd have to keep moving. And Kahlee would need to stay sharp.

Even as he was wondering if she was up to the task, another slaver appeared in the door they had used to enter the garage. Kahlee popped up from behind her cover and took him down with a short, well-aimed burst from her assault rifle.