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"Jesus!" Natalie Kurakova stared through her rifle's scope and her heart pounded as she watched the huge krogan thrust the knife at Valeria. Val clamped her hands around the merc's wrist and shook with the effort of holding him back.

"I see it, too," Chula whispered. "I'm going in. I know she told us to stay out of is as much as possible, but I'm not letting this happen."

"I've got this." Natalie took a few deep breaths and lined up a shot on the krogan. If the shot didn't kill him, at the very least it'd distract him long enough for Valeria to finish him off. "You're too far away, anyhow."

Valeria's expression shifted ever so slightly, taking on the kind of glint in the eyes that Natalie had seen only a few times before, and her heart rate spiked again.

Oh, no, what the hell is she about to --

Valeria pulled on the krogan's arm, yanking him toward her and letting the knife ram in to the hilt while grabbing the pistol from the merc's hip, jamming the barrel under his chin, and drilling him with multiple shots. He collapsed and she pumped a couple dozen more rounds into him just to be sure he stayed down.

Natalie shook her head slowly as Valeria stared down the rest of the mercs. The retired general shifted her aim from one to another, hoping to get the drop on the first one that decided to make a move toward her granddaughter-in-law. Instead, one of them tossed his rifle away, took out a medikit, and began tending to one of the already downed mercs. The rest of the guys Valeria hadn't already killed holstered their weapons and gave her a wide berth as they made their way toward the compound's main gate.

Valeria reactivated her tactical cloak and vanished. Natalie let out a sigh of relief and kept tracking the departing mercs to be sure they weren't going to turn around and try to shoot Val in the back. They paused at the wreckage of the gunship hangar, several of them shook their heads, having apparently found nothing still intact, and the group continued walking out the gate and toward Polchinski Valley.

"Damn," Dakka muttered over the comlink, "I knew she was a badass, but letting that guy stab her just to get one of his guns within reach?"

"That's the reason the biggest mercenary corporations in the galaxy are terrified of her." Natalie wondered how she'd managed to keep her voice steady. "It's not really about physical strength or the weapons she's carrying. It's how far she's willing to go to kill everyone who gets between her and the mission objective. And when the objective is to rescue her family, she'll pull out all the stops."

"No kidding," Chula said. "I just hope she'll be okay. That looked bad."

I hope so, too. Natalie took a slow breath. "She's had worse injuries that that. She'll be fine." She kept an eye on the area, sweeping her scope slowly back and forth, waiting for another merc to pop up and try to line up a shot on Val. Nothing happened for several minutes, then Valeria finally emerged from the wreckage of the weapons storage tower. Natalie watched her turn around and aim at something moving across the ground.

Natalie zoomed in a little more and spotted a batarian reaching for a shotgun. He froze, then tried to spin toward her. Valeria drilled him with a concussive round that tore part of his head off. Natalie smirked and decreased the zoom to keep watch on Val's surroundings -- as much as she could, at least, with the near wall blocking most of her view of the compound. A human appeared, aiming a pistol at her, and at the same time, a turian popped out of a guard tower on the northeast corner of the wall.

Valeria twisted to the side a split-second before the human squeezed off a shot. Natalie shifted her aim to the turian, exhaled, and pulled the trigger just as Val blasted another concussive round into the human, rocketing her into a dirt mound near the east wall. Natalie's shot smashed into the turian's head and pinwheeled his body off the wall and out of sight while Valeria advanced on the human.

Huh. Looks like she didn't even notice the other guy. Natalie kept sweeping the area surrounding Valeria as she moved closer to the merc. They talked briefly, the merc showed her some images from her Omni-Tool, and Val helped the woman take her armor off.

Interesting. Valeria had already planned to let a few of the mercs live so they could tell others what happened here and cause them to have second thoughts about trying what Lantim Akos had just done, but she'd already shown mercy to more of them than Natalie had expected. Well, if Val still feels like a monster after this is over, I'd say sparing more than two or three of these guys would be evidence against that.

She watched Valeria turn toward the central tower, where Akos was keeping Val's family and the other hostages, and reactivate her tactical cloak. A moment later, Natalie noticed a door in the side of the tower open and then close.

"Well, she's on her way to Akos's command center. One way or another, this'll be over soon."

---

"Everyone's inside," a merc's voice said from the console. "Well, everyone who would show up, that is. We just did a quick headcount and thirty-one of them are missing. They weren't among those already killed by the target."

"Deserters," Akos growled. He leaned on the console and glared at the map with the blips representing his mercs' heartbeats. A couple dozen of them had scattered and were making their way toward the main gates and secondary exits around the compound. Some of the blips vanished suddenly, and Irving guessed they had remembered they were being monitored and removed whatever was tracking their pulses. There hadn't been any more gunfire, so …

"The rest of us are waiting for the target," the voice said. "We've taken up positions on the lower five floors, so if she gets through the first bunch, she'll have a shitload more of us to deal with."

"Good. Do whatever it takes to knock her the fuck out and bring her up here."

Irving glanced over his shoulder at Grula, the krogan merc he'd been trying to manipulate into surrendering, and rolled his eyes.

"Fight through them is exactly what she's gonna do," he said softly. "She'll kill everyone who even points a gun in her general direction."

"I see that. The ones who stood down are still alive." Grula took a slow look around at the other mercs, made eye contact, and shook her head. "Anyone who has two brain cells to rub together would know a lost cause when they see it."

"Shut the fuck up," Akos snapped.

"I've got some of the cameras working again," his lieutenant, Kerensky, said at the same moment. Several monitors on the bank in front of her came to life, showing mercs taking cover in doorways and behind metal crates in the cylindrical tower's curving hallways. On the lower-left screen, one of the mercs motioned with his hand and his men sealed their helmets.

"We're gonna try something to level the playing field a bit," a woman said as she rolled a pressurized tank across the floor. "Once she gets a whiff of this shit, she won't be in any condition to fight back."

Oh, no. Irving's heart began to pound. What the hell is that? Nerve gas? No, wait, Akos still wants her alive. Something that'll knock her out, then?

"If her armor isn't sealed," Grula muttered, "she'll be vulnerable to whatever's in that tank. And since we're all in a breathable atmosphere, she wouldn't have any reason to seal it up."

"What's in the tank?"

"No idea. This is the first I've heard of it."

Shit.

The merc on the screen twisted a valve on the tank and ran for cover. Another couple of minutes passed without anything happening, then the door at the far end opened. Valera lunged through it, sweeping her Revenant assault rifle back and forth, and cocked her head slightly when she didn't find any mercs directly in front of her. She moved forward, keeping the gun pointed straight ahead.

She hesitated again, twitched her head, and spun to the left. Then she whipped back and forth, gasping, shaking her head, and then jumped backward as if something had lashed out at her.

"What the hell?" Grula stared for a few more seconds and then turned to Irving. "I think that gas is making her hallucinate. She won't be able to tell what's real and what isn't."

No …

"Okay, boss," the woman who's spoken a moment ago whispered, "it'll take a while to wear off. Go ahead and vent the gas and recirculate the air in here so it won't affect any of us."

Akos glanced at Kerensky, flicked a hand toward the console, and she tapped several controls. A few seconds passed and she nodded. "Done."

The mercs stepped out from behind cover and took their helmets off. The one nearest the camera sneered as they approached Valeria with a variety of clubs and stun-sticks.

"We're gonna want an unobstructed view of this."

"Yeah," another snarled, "time to pay her back for all the people she just killed."

Irving shook his head slowly as the mercs piled on her, jabbing the stunners into her and crashing their clubs down on her all at once. She lost her grip on her rifle, let out a frustrated scream, swung at several of the mercs, then flinched from something only she could see. She lashed out again, missed the nearest man by half a meter, and the mercs laughed and continued beating the shit out of her.

"Just like a baby seal," one of them crowed.

Goddamn it, no! Get out of there, Val! Just get away from them!

Grula let out a soft growl. "What a cowardly fucking way to take down an opponent. That's nothing but a cheap trouncing. Bunch of goddamn amateurs."

One of the mercs got his hands around Valeria's head and pulled her helmet off, then lunged out of the way so another could slam a meter-long pipe into the side of her head. Valeria managed to block it with her arm, but the impact knocked her over. She screamed again as she collapsed and the mercs pounded her with renewed ferocity.

"Val," Irving whispered. He sank to the floor and slumped forward, unwilling to keep watching but unable to tear his gaze away from the screen. This can't be happening. I'm about to watch my wife die. I can't let this happen.

He knew there was nothing he could do about it. If he rushed any of these bastards, a half-dozen of them would gun him down before he could take three steps. But he didn't care. He couldn't go on without Valeria.

Val managed to get in a couple of solid hits and wriggle out from under the mercs. She pushed herself back to her feet, shook her head quickly, and flicked her wide eyes around at whatever the gas had caused her to see. The mercs exchanged a glance with each other and laughed again. Valeria backed away, sucked in several deep breaths, and tried to calm herself.

Then she closed her eyes, slowed her breathing, and kept her eyes shut. Her panic seemed to fade and she took on a combat stance and waited. The mercs glanced at one another again, less amused and more uncertain this time.

Irving wondered if he dared hope she would survive this. He hadn't seen her fight as much as he'd implied to Grula a while ago, so he wasn't sure what the hell she was doing.

One of the mercs approached her with a long pipe he'd been wielding like a quarterstaff. Valeria's eyes were still closed. The merc scowled at her, took a moment to secure his grip on the pipe, and swung it.

She dodged and the pipe whistled through empty air. Before the pipe finished its arc, she threw herself forward and thrust her right hand toward his face. Irving didn't even notice the knife in her hand until she'd hilted it in the guy's left eye. He collapsed and the pipe clanked to the floor in front of her.

"Fuck," Kerensky whispered. "Oh, fuck!"

After hesitating for another moment, two more mercs lunged at Valeria, one armed with a stunner and the other with, of all things, a golf club. Valeria kept her eyes closed, moved her right foot forward until she found the pipe the previous man had dropped. She kicked it into the air and it rocketed into the golf-club guy's face. The impact knocked him backward and bounced the pipe back to Valeria. She caught it in her hands, snapped it to the left and smashed it into the side of the other man's head. He tumbled forward, hit the floor, and lay there with his eyes open and his left leg twitching for a few seconds.

Irving sucked in a deep breath and let it rush out as tears of relief streamed down his face. She's gonna be okay.

The rest of Valeria's opponents stared at the two fresh corpses and raised their eyes slowly to her. Several of them took a step back when they saw her eyes were still closed. The rest visibly pulled themselves together and advanced on her more cautiously. Valeria's head moved slightly as if zeroing in on something.

She's listening for them. Whatever that gas did to her, it must be visual only. She's going by sound now.

Another handful of mercs stepped into the camera's field of view and approached her from behind. Her head twitched again, suggesting she knew they were there.

Irving clenched his fists and sneered at Akos.

Go, babe! Kick their asses!

---

"I just got into their camera feeds," Lia's voice came over the comlink. "Let's see if we can get a look at … oh."

Scott glanced over at Garusha and found her giving the area outside their shuttle another visual sweep and then scanning the crater and its surroundings with her Omni-Tool. He focused on his console and linked up to the feed Lia had shared.

An in-progress fight appeared on his screen and it took him a moment to process the sight of Valeria fighting off a room full of mercs and another fifteen or so sprawled on the floor. He wondered if all of them were dead or if some were unconscious, then he took a closer look and found crushed skulls, slashed throats, heads pointed at an unnatural angle, and one guy with a knife sticking out of his eye socket.

Yeah … if I had to bet on one or the other, I'd bet on "all dead."

"Still no activity nearby," Garusha said as she returned to her console behind the cockpit. "Looks like they're all focused on capturing Valeria." She watched Val crack several more skulls wide open despite being unable to see and laughed softly. "Which is starting to look impossible."

"Yeah. I'm really glad she's on our side." On Scott's monitor, a woman in heavy armor swung a thick club at Valeria. Val twisted to the right and the club sliced past, missing her shoulder by a few centimeters. She whipped her long pipe around and smashed it into the merc's jaw, then flipped it over, gripped one end with both hands, and slammed the other end straight down on top of her head, smashing the merc face-first into the floor, her body going completely limp before coming to a stop at Valeria's feet. A pool of blood spread rapidly out from under her.

Scott leaned closer to the screen and then recoiled when he realized most of the blood was coming from the merc's eyes.

"Me, too," Garusha said softly, her tone almost awestruck.

"Fuck this," another merc snarled as he dropped his club and pulled the assault rifle from his back.

Valeria opened her eyes just long enough to catch him aiming the rifle at her and flung the pipe at him. He lunged to the right but the pipe knocked him off-balance before he could clear its path. Valeria rushed him, grabbed his rifle, whipped it sideways, wrenched his trigger finger the wrong way back, and twisted the gun around until his finger snapped. He howled, but she shut him up by grabbing the sides of his head, yanking him down while rocketing her knee up and smashing it into his face.

She snatched the rifle from his limp hand as he fell, spun, and gripped the business-end of the barrel in both hands. She raised it above her head and hurled it into another merc's face like a lumberjack throwing an ax. The crunch of his skull fracturing was loud enough for the camera's microphone to pick it up.

Garusha burst out laughing suddenly. "She did that with her eyes closed!"

Valeria deployed her Omni-Blade, sliced another merc in half diagonally, spun and lopped the head off yet another. As the rest took a step backward, she lunged at the next nearest merc and shoved the blade through his chest before letting it dissipate. She opened her eyes again, just long enough to get her bearings and see what the remaining mercs were about to do.

Panicking, four more of them grabbed their pistols and rifles and tried to light her up. A single hit flared her shields up before she dive-rolled out of the line of fire. The mercs sprayed incendiary and disruptor rounds into each other and several of their cohorts before they released the triggers.

Val scooped up a Mattock assault rifle in mid-roll and twitched the trigger before she hit the floor and rolled forward to come up in a crouch. The shot knocked one of the mercs back several steps and his already-weakened barriers collapsed. Valeria braced the gun against her shoulder, leaned into it, lined up another shot, and fired. The gun discharged with its familiar, bass thump and its kick rocked her back several centimeters.

The incendiary round punched through his teeth, out the back of his skull, and began burning what was left of his head up from the inside out. The rest of the mercs paused to stare at him and recoil in horror, and Val took advantage of their hesitation by lunging at the nearest man and ramming the rifle's stock into his face. The impact was slow enough not to trigger his kinetic barriers, but landed with enough force to knock him off his feet. She jammed the barrel of her gun against his left eye and punched a round through his head and into the floor.

She opened her eyes for another fraction of a second and blasted a half-dozen more shots into the next nearest merc. His shields collapsed and two rounds slammed into his chest plate and ignited it. He screamed and pawed at the flames, which then spread to his gloves. The fire burned through his armor and, in a panic, he popped the latches on his chest plate and yanked it off.

Another guy stepped out in front of Valeria and lined up a shot. She snapped to the left and smashed her gun into his chest. He teetered backward and flailed to regain his balance. She yanked the knife from his belt and whipped it into the burning merc's chest. The blade punched in to the hilt and he staggered back into one of his buddies, who shoved him aside and pointed her gun at Val.

The other merc recovered his balance and tried to adjust his aim. Val jammed her rifle against his neck and pulled the trigger. Once was enough to leave his head dangling by a few strands of wet meat. Then she spun back to the one she'd set on fire, tackled him, clamped her hand onto the knife, rock-bottomed him and twisted the blade before ripping it out of his chest. The serrated blade finished what she'd started a few seconds ago.

The camera's mic picked up a man's voice shouting from the mercs' comlinks -- Lantim Akos, Scott assumed. "What are you doing? I told you I want her alive!"

"Fuck that! It's her or us!" The nearby woman squeezed off a quick burst that splattered against Valeria's shields before she could dive through a doorway and out of the line of fire. She took a moment to let her shields recharge while the merc advanced on her and continued firing.

Valeria opened her eyes for a few seconds and took a quick look around the room, then she climbed on top of a nearby equipment locker, positioning herself above normal eye level. The mercenary ejected her rifle's heat sink, waited a split-second for a new one to slot in, then lunged around the corner and hosed down the empty spot on the floor Valeria had occupied a few seconds before.

Val scooted forward enough to put her rifle against the side of the merc's head and the blast vaporized about two thirds of the woman's skull.

God … damn. And here I was, thinking the whole mercenary thing might be a decent career. Scott shook his head slowly. Not if you end up fighting someone like her. I think I'll look for a nice, quiet office job instead.

Valeria swatted at something near her head, grimaced, closed her eyes, and took a few slow breaths. Then she appeared to listen for sounds in the corridor. Scott counted five mercs remaining, and they seemed content to hide behind the crates scattered along the hallway and wait for her to come out.

"What's going on with her?" Garusha asked. "She's kinda twitchy."

"I got into the cameras just as they were opening the valve on a canister of gas," Lia replied. "I think it's causing hallucinations."

"And she still wiped them out." All four of Garusha's eyes opened a little wider as she stared at the screen. She glanced at Scott and added, "Y'know, I think I'll beg her for a permanent spot on her team just so I won't ever find myself on the wrong end of her gun."

---

Ugh, that was so fucked-up. Valeria kept her eyes closed and concentrated on taking deep, slow breaths and listening for sounds outside her room. Whatever those bastards had dosed her with, she'd been tripping balls, as Irving's great grandfather might've said.

She slid off the equipment locker, dropped to the floor, and ducked around the other side of the locker, placing it between her and the doorway. The knife wound in her gut drilled her with a sharp pain that throbbed with each heartbeat. She tried to ignore it, opened her eyes, and wondered if she could trust what she saw.

Pulsating rainbows radiated from every light fixture nearby, but she managed to make out a desk, chair, and a few other cabinets. She squeezed her eyes shut, took a few more rhythmic breaths, and took a closer look at the desk. Not much stuff she could use, just a coffee mug and a tablet and a few other small gadgets used for administrative work. Maybe the tablet or the mug could distract the rest of the mercs if she threw it at them.

At least the worst of the hallucinations seemed to have faded away.

She crept up to the door, scanned the corridor with her Omni-Tool, and counted the remaining mercs. Five. Okay. Could be worse. She peeked into the corridor to get a better sense of their locations. Something on one of the guys in the middle of the group caught her eye as they popped out of cover to open fire and she ducked back into the room -- a half-dozen incendiary grenades clipped to his belt.

Ah-hah. I can work with that. She kept her eyes closed and waited for the shooting to stop, then she swiped the mug and tablet off the desk. Several thermal clips clinked to the floor. They're reloading. Now or never.

She jumped into the corridor and lobbed the coffee mug. One of the mercs sucked in a quick breath and shrieked, "Grenade!" All of them ducked back into cover and flinched when the mug shattered on the floor between them. Valeria waited for the guy with the incendiary grenades to stand back up, then she flung the tablet straight at him. It spun through the air and struck the detonators on two of the grenades before she dived back into the room.

The monstrous bangs of the first two blowing and setting off the other four left a sharp ringing in Valeria's head. Then the secondary grenades launching from the first six filled the hallway outside with a rapid drumbeat of death. When the explosions faded, there was only the roaring of a fire and two distinct voices screaming.

The fire suppression system activated and Valeria waited until it completed its cycle. When the hissing faded, the only sound outside was a soft moaning.

She took a moment to focus through the pulsating colors and wiggly splotches left over from the hallucinogenic gas and then stepped into the corridor. The walls, floor and ceiling were ripped open in multiple places, a breeze from a long gash blown through the outer wall fluttered the hair on several corpses outside the blast radius, and the remaining surfaces were all charred, as were the bits of the mercs ripped apart by the explosions. Two bodies were intact, sprawled on the floor with their skin fused to their weapons and armor.

One of them whimpered as Valeria passed by. She speared him with a contemptuous glare, glanced up at the nearest security camera, scanned it with her Omni-Tool to be sure it was still functioning, and glared straight into its lens.

"Akos, you should not have gone after my family." She turned and walked away without another word, leaving the merc gasping and weeping behind her.

---

Christ. Irving turned away from the monitors and took a slow breath to hold his lunch in. He could understand why Valeria hadn't ended the merc's suffering or taken the camera out -- the same kinds of psychological tactics she'd been using all along to get under Akos's carapace -- but goddamn …

"Shut it off," Akos mumbled, and Kerensky fumbled with the controls until the video and audio from the corridor cut off. She braced her hands on the edge of the console and her whole body trembled.

"We can't stop her," she whispered, then began to hyperventilate as a full-force panic gripped her. "Oh, g-g-god, sh--she c-can't be stopped!"

"Pull yourself together!" Akos pointed at the monitors that still functioned. "She has to fight through four more floors packed with my men before she can get anywhere near us!"

"She will, though. She's gonna kill us all!"

"Not if you put your guns down and let us go." Irving shook his head. "That's all she wants." Well, I'll be amazed if she doesn't torture Akos to death over the next week or two just because he started this shit, but he doesn't need to know that.

"Shut … up." Akos glared at him. "One more word out of you and I'll execute you and that bitch's whole family on camera and then loop it through every screen in this tower to be sure she sees it."

Irving glanced over at Grula, rolled his eyes, and shrugged. She stared back at him for a few seconds, turned to Akos and narrowed her eyes, then she leaned over to her varren and pointed at Irving.

"Friend." She pointed at Val's parents, brother and sister, and the rest of the hostages. "Friends."

The "fishdog" changed its demeanor instantly, trotted over to Irving, sat beside him, and leaned over to nuzzle him. Irving couldn't help smiling despite needing a moment to recover from a sudden burst of fear. Not knowing what else to do, he nuzzled it right back and hoped for the best.

"Thank you," he whispered to Grula, and she nodded.

Several minutes passed with Akos pacing back and forth in front of the console. Irving noticed a number of the blips representing the mercs' heartbeats moving out of the corridors they'd been ordered to hunker down and wait for Valeria. He wondered what the hell they were up to until they exited the central tower and made a run for the main gate. He counted twenty-two of them and grinned. That still left a lot for Val to plow through, but at least it tilted the odds in her favor a little.

If Akos even noticed the deserters, he didn't react visibly. Irving figured the asshole had more important things to worry about anyway, such as a way to escape when Valeria burned the rest of his operation to the ground.

Finally, Akos stopped, leaned on the console, and let out a slow breath. "Costello, any sign of her yet?"

"Nothing, sir. Don't worry, though. If she comes through here, there's no way she's getting past us."

Irving shook his head but kept his mouth shut.

"Hold on," Costello said a moment later. "I hear something."

"What the hell?" someone else grunted. "Do you smell that? Smells like …"

"Rocket fuel," a third guy said. "I think it's the stuff we were planning to use to get rid of the bodies when we're done."

"Oh, fuck's sake, don't tell me someone stored that shit in here?"

Several blank monitors came to life suddenly, showing feeds from the security cameras in a corridor filled with mercs -- Costello's team, Irving guessed.

"Oh, no," Kerensky gasped.

Akos clamped his hands to the sides of his head. "Get out of there! Get out now!"

On one of the screens, Valeria appeared at the far end of the corridor behind them. She placed a metal barrel in the doorway and tipped it over, spilling its contents across the floor, then vanished. Costello and several others sniffed, frowned, and glanced at each other. Finally, one of them noticed the barrel and swatted Costello's shoulder to get his attention. Everyone turned and took a moment to process the sight.

Val reappeared on the opposite end of the corridor with another barrel, tipped it over, activated her tactical cloak, and vanished again.

Costello pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "Evac."

Just as they turned to run, an electrical discharge snapped along the corridor from Val's Omni-Tool and ignited the second spill. The mercs spun back around and one of them slipped in the liquid and flopped over sideways. While he pushed himself back up, another bolt lit up the first spill. Valeria appeared behind the flames, tossed off a jaunty salute, and disappeared.

"They're trapped," Kerensky whispered. "The fire suppression system has engaged, but I don't think it'll work in time."

"Costello, blow a hole in the wall if you have to, but …" Akos's voice was suddenly drowned out by screams. He stared at the monitors, shaking his head slowly, and slapped at the controls until he found the one that turned off the camera feeds.

Holy shit. Irving glanced at Grula and found her gaping at the console.

Trembling, Akos braced his hands on the control panel and rocked back and forth slightly. His mouth opened and closed several times before he was able to speak.

"What have I done?"