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Cade

"It's only been three days, your wound can still open up," Vyus said to me as the Alliance transport was taking us back to the power plant. Korr and Flarn were checking their weapons, although I had already checked all of our gear.

Vyus had taken his covert ship and followed us through the main relay. He had it on auto-pilot to follow our current transport. When it was more appropriate, I wanted to ask him about where he got his fancy ship with so many convenient, and mostly illegal, features.

"You didn't seem to mind that a couple days ago, when I was only a day or so out of the hospital," I said. Vyus smiled at that remark. He leaned in close enough his breath tickled my ear and said,

"I was careful. And you were on top," he chuckled and leaned back away from me.

That was not exactly true, since he was on top of me, sitting and doing a lot of the work, but I could think about our time together later.

The transport we were taking from the main relay was automated, another measure to keep the facility secret. When we got close enough for short range communication I accessed my Omni-tool and called the facility. I got no answer. A few minutes after that the transport landed at the bay, the same one that had been frequently assaulted by Cerberus forces, we stepped out.

The plant seemed quiet, the power was on, and there were no mechs stomping around and firing rockets at us, yet. Korr and Flarn seemed very serious.

"Damnit, it looks like we were right," Korr said.

"Both of you look really concerned about this mission, Vyus said, "I thought you guys were already used to something like this?"

I interjected,

"We have had missions involving hostages before and it usually turns into a mess."

"So if there are still engineers and employees inside the plant being held hostage?" Vyus asked.

"We prioritize saving them, but we're not putting down our weapons," I said.

"Work for me," Vyus replied.

It was quiet. A few minutes had gone by, we hadn't left the transport, the commander or another Alliance representative should have come to greet us already. After almost ten minutes of waiting Vyus started talking,

"Perhaps, we shouldn't stay out in the open any longer."

We agreed and started getting closer to the plant. I started scanning for things like trip-mines, and I found them. They were not any ones I set. I tried to contact the Alliance and found that my omni-tool could not reach any signals.

"Guess what?" I said.

"Ah, it's a good thing we sent a request for help to the Alliance earlier?" Vyus answered, with Flarn probably not too far behind.

"What?" Korr asked.

"Signal jam, probably before the transport landed," I said while trying to contact anyone inside the plant. I tried a direct line to Paul, but even that was not up and working.That's when we heard some thrusters and saw the power plant's security transports coming. Trying to send out messages over and over gave away our position. We knew that would happen.

Vyus was already cloaked and moving into cover. I was still hopeful that maybe the transports weren't going to be hostile, but they landed between us and the entrance to the plant instead of approaching us. Flarn and Korr got into position at the front and I started marking all the hostiles I could see-

Within the Cerberus forces we saw getting out of the transports there were a few wearing Alliance armor. They were probably part of the team that had infiltrated the plant.

When I saw a Phantom I felt a strong sense of deja vu, one was sprinting right at us and using her biotic powers to block the rounds coming from Flarn and Korr who were both using assault rifles. I hadn't engaged the enemy yet.

A loud gunshot boomed out from somewhere behind us and the Phantom's chest burst open in a way I can only describe as a red flower. I heard the sizzle of Vyus's cloaking wear off. He and I took cover at the transport that brought us back here.

"I looked around with my scope- this place is like a ghost town," Vyus said.

Flarn and Korr were blowing away the basic Cerberus foot soldiers with ease, even the Guardians since Flarn and Korr both had armor piercing rounds.

"If there's anyone left inside or we can get inside we can review the security logs, footage, and find out what's been happening since we've been gone. There might be a dozen heavy mechs inside the plant now," I said.

I threw out my turret ahead of where Korr and Flarn were taking cover. I spawned my drone behind an enemy I could see taking cover. While my automated weapons harassed the enemy Korr moved further ahead and we were practically at the dock entrance, which started to close.

Vyus had cloaked again, but stayed in cover near me while he lined up his shot. Before the door could shut he blew apart a Guardian's helmet through the slot in the Guardian's shield. An awesome shot, I thought.

We left the cover of our transport and regrouped with Flarn and Korr. We were standing at the door.

Vyus was checking out the control panel to the dock's door with his omni-tool. I joined in and saw that he was almost already through the door.

Maybe I should go back to school- I had always been proud of being one of the smartest graduates from the Alliance Academy. Vyus was faster.

"Okay, not as bad as I thought it was gonna be," Flarn said, speaking about the small group that came out to attack us.

"They were probably just testing us, like they have been since they started attacking," I said. Cerberus had sent small groups that gradually grew in size until they finally were able to injure one of us. Flarn and Korr had been able to finish off the significant forces so an Alliance Med-Evac could pick me up, but it had exhausted our supple of missles.

Vyus was finishing up with the door, still poking away with his Omni-tool when he asked out-loud,

"I know I said I'd bug ya about it later, but now that your employer is probably dead or has betrayed you...am I still getting paid?"

"Yup," I said, while Flarn and Korr didn't seem to be bothered by that question. We were mercenaries after all.

"Our employer is the Alliance, the commander here was for security and was in charge of monitoring us. If he's dead or not, we get paid. We might even get a bonus for figuring out what happened here."

"Cade's really good at filling out all that paperwork the Alliance requires to employ someone," Flarn said, "Later, if we're all alive, we can work out a lot of details with you."

Flarn addressed that last bit to Vyus. There were a lot of things we didn't get worked out with Vyus before we came back to the plant. Mostly, I was so nervous about the situation here I didn't want to go through all of it, things like setting up bank accounts for our funds under alias, background checks on Vyus, etc.

I was able to get out of the hospital because when you have a Krogan making a path for you, not even C-Sec security wanted to deal with it inside a hospital. They let me check out with Korr and Flarn standing behind me.

"Alright," Vyus said as the dock opened. We had moved to take cover at the edges and when no gun fire came at us we moved inside.

"You know if all your jobs turn out like this..." Vyus seemed to contemplate what to say next then smiled as he began to turn invisible. I heard the rest of what he had to say in our ear pieces, "I'll be real happy I chased your med-evac to the Citadel."

Ambulance-chaser, I thought, a term I had read in the history of Earth when we still used wheels on transports.

Checking my radar I could see Vyus was no longer nearby.

"Jeez," Korr said, "he's the type to just go off on his own?"

I sent a brief audio message to the Turian,

"Come back soon."

Vyus did not reply, as I figured. He might be near hostiles already.

There were two levels we could try, the floor we were on, stairs going up to a second floor, and deeper into the facility there were half a dozen levels, the cafeteria, our previous living quarters, the dorms for the employees....

Although it might have been extensive, clearing each room one by one was the safest thing to do. There were a lot of problems with his plan, I knew. Any evidence of espionage work might get destroyed before we got to it, hostages, if any, might be killed.

I clenched and grinded my teeth. A bad habit of mine that I thought I got rid of. I didn't want to split us up.

I jumped, so did Flarn and Korr, at the sound of an explosive. Un-cloaked, Vyus was trotting back to us down the stairs from the second floor.

"They have a robot," He said. He probably meant their heavy Mech.

"It missed, only because I sabotaged it's aiming. It can see cloaked units," he continued.

"Refrain from acting on your own," I said, trying to take on a serious tone. Vyus rolled his neck and nodded.

"Yup."

Vyus stowed his rifle on his back and took out a Tempest submachine-gun. Korr equipped his Claymore and Flarn stuck with his Avenger. I had my pistol.

I didn't like attacking a structure and having to take it over, so many variables, when we had to provide security all my gear made it easy to control the battleground.

I wasn't a very agile fighter, even less so now with a superficially patched up impalement wound.

"Flarn and Korr, you guys are going to be our vanguard. I will support you guys like always and Vyus, you make sure to take out any priority targets before they can hurt us."

"Hell yeah!" Korr said. He and Flarn didn't mind an assault mission.