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"Where is she?" Akos flicked his widening eyes from one monitor to another, checking every camera in the compound, and pointed at his lieutenant. "Kerensky - scanners! Find her!"

Hah. Good luck with that. Irving took a slow look around at the dozen other mercs surrounding the hostages in the center of the room. A few of them kept their eyes and their guns aimed at the captives, but the rest kept flicking nervous glances at each other. Looks like some of 'em know Valeria's reputation. Maybe I can turn a few of 'em, or at least get into their heads enough to shake them up a little.

"I didn't sign up for this shit," the krogan woman standing behind him grumbled, and Irving decided to start working her over first. "Maybe if you'd told us who we'd be facing before this started, it'd be different, but …"

"My father died in prison because of that bitch," Akos snarled, glaring first at her and then at Irving. "That's why I want her alive. She's going to know how it feels to lose someone she loves before she joins them."

"Nope." Irving smirked at him and glanced over at the krogan. "If you don't walk away, you're already dead."

"You seem pretty confident," she muttered.

"I've seen her in action. Valeria fights like something's trying to tear its way out of her." Irving nodded toward Akos. "First time I saw it was when his daddy tried to kill her a couple years ago. We weren't hurting anyone, we were just on a tour promoting a vid we made for Fornax. He was holding a grudge from the First Contact War and hated the thought of a human and a turian doing what we were doing. He couldn't let it go, so he broke into our room and waited for us. He tried to stab her. Two seconds later, he was laid out on the floor with his spinal cord severed by his own knife." He fired off a shit-eating grin. "I asked her to marry me that evening."

"Heh." The krogan tried to grin, but couldn't hold it more than a fraction of a second. "How romantic."

"I like to think so."

A soft whine came from the far corner and Irving looked up as a varren trotted up to her, its metallic silver scales glittering in the light coming through the windows.

How'd I not notice that? Irving tried not to let his heart race. He'd never been this close to one of them before, but he'd heard plenty about how vicious they were, though some he'd seen in videos were oddly cute. Krogan and batarians often used them in combat.

The creature nuzzled her leg and she clipped her rifle to her back and crouched in front of it. She scratched the top of its head and said, "Easy, Jaws. I'm just a little nervous."

"With good reason." Irving wondered how he'd kept his voice steady.

"So you keep saying." She shrugged. "We'll see how it goes."

"There," Kerensky finally blurted, pointing at one of the monitors. "That's not one of ours."

Irving leaned over for a better look at the screen and spotted a turian in black armor with red trim sprinting up to one of the nearby towers, kicking its door open, and darting inside.

"Send the nearest teams to that location," Akos said. "Approach from all sides and box her in. And remember, I want her alive."

Kerensky relayed his orders to the rest of the mercs and, moments later, four teams surrounded the tower.

The monitors suddenly blanked out. Akos and Kerensky stared for several seconds before she poked at the controls and turned to gape at her boss. Only the bio-monitors remained, showing pulse, respiration, and brainwaves, and the blips showing the location of each merc's heartbeat.

"Cameras are down - all of them, all over the compound."

"Get them back!"

Distant gunfire erupted. Seven of the displays flatlined within a split-second of each other, and an equal number of the blips vanished. Kerensky clamped a hand over her mouth. The shooting continued and four more readouts flatlined, followed two seconds later by another six.

"No," Kerensky whispered as the blips in the tower scattered, probably diving behind whatever cover the mercs could find. The shooting continued until the rest of the blips vanished.

A beep came from Akos's armor. He twitched, woke his Omni-Tool, and frowned at something on the interface projected around his left arm. He tapped a glowing button on it and Valeria's snarling voice came from the device.

"You have my family." She closed the channel without another word.

Akos stared numbly at the interface as if unable to comprehend what was happening. His eyes opened wider as he turned back to the blank monitors.

"Send reinforcements. Send them all."

Kerensky passed his command on to the rest of the troops and glanced at the dozens of blips converging on the tower. She looked down at her trembling hands, braced them on the console, and whispered, "Oh, god …"

---

---

"You have my family." Valeria cut the connection and took a moment to scan the bodies sprawled on the floor and the winding staircase around the wall. Once she was certain they were all dead, she continued up the stairs. The tower's interior reminded her of a lighthouse she'd seen when she and Irving visited his parents on Earth last year, except it was the size of a missile silo. The ground floor was a workshop for repairing and modifying combat armor and weapons. Catwalks and platforms lined the walls, functioning as upper floors while leaving the center completely open, probably to keep everyone and everything in plain sight. The lockers and cabinets and crates on the upper levels told her that they were mostly for storage.

She scanned the area with her Omni-Tool and found multiple waves of mercs approaching the tower from every side. From their slow, cautious pace, she estimated several minutes before they tried to enter. If they were smart, they'd split up and come in through the doors on the ground floor and through a window or door on the roof and try to trap her between them.

She opened a few of the lockers on the first level and found an assortment of tools and nuts and bolts. She hurried up to the next level, checked the crates, and laughed softly.

Paydirt. Looked like this tower was where they kept their weapons, ammo, and grenades and whatnot. She chose a half-dozen sticky bombs, linked them to her Omni-Tool, and stuck one in each crate and locker. Once she was far enough away, she could pop all of them with a tap on a single button.

She scanned the area again. They're almost here. Okay, what else have I got? She leaned on the rail and ran her gaze slowly over the ground floor. A stack of power cells caught her eye and she charged down the stairs. She pulled two of the power cells out, placed them against the wall, grabbed another pair, and repeated the process until all of them were lined up within each other's blast radius. A single shot into one of them would cook the rest off.

One more quick scan confirmed her prediction - half of the mercs had gathered around all four ground entrances while the rest had started climbing a ladder on the side. She activated her tactical cloak and bolted up the stairs until she reached the top level, then she took a few seconds to work out the next step. What she had in mind would, at the very least, injure her significantly if she couldn't find a workaround, but there was no other way to get past the mercs without being noticed. If she tried to just go out through one of the doors, they'd see it open up even if they couldn't see her.

She glanced out one window and then another until she found something promising. The tower was near one of the walls around the compound. Maybe close enough to jump onto it from here. Maybe.

It's all I've got. She leaned out, thankful that someone hadn't bothered to close any of the windows up here, and glanced around the side of the tower. A set of pipes ran along the side from the roof to a tank on the ground. Could've been used for water to wash grease and grime off hands. Could've been part of a sewer system. Didn't matter. It was within reach, so it'd do nicely.

She stuck one leg through, perched on the sill for a moment, and made sure she had a straight shot toward one of the power cells. Then she drew her Phalanx pistol, aimed, and waited.

Finally, all the doors on the ground floor burst open at the same time, while another door almost straight across from her flung open. Akos's mercs flowed through all of them, spread out across the floor and around the top platform. Valeria waited until the nearest guy was barely a meter away, then she fired a single shot into the power cell and ducked through the window. The sharp bang of the power cell and the screaming of several mercs caught in the explosion made her want to giggle as she braced her feet on the wall and launched off toward the pipes.

The rest of the power cells blew in succession, each detonating the next, and beautiful visions of the mercs being torn apart and burned to a crisp filled her mind as her hands caught the nearest pipe. She glanced down and glimpsed the wall ripping open in multiple places. The tower trembled and what was left of the base started to buckle under its own weight.

Unable to hold in a laugh, she slid down the pipe until the tower began to drop straight down and then tilt to the left. She braced her feet against the wall, kicked off, and managed a sort of belly-flop onto the top of the thick wall. She slid off the edge, but grabbed on and ended up dangling from her left hand. She pulled herself up, hooked a leg over the top, brought up her Omni-Tool interface, and jabbed the icon that would detonate the sticky bombs.

The side of the collapsing tower burst open like a rupturing pustule and she caught a glimpse of a couple of bodies and several arms and legs rocketing out and tumbling to the ground. Valeria took a moment to catch her breath and enjoy the sight as the tower toppled over, its roof slamming into the side of Akos's command tower and scraping along it until it hit the ground and crumpled. Through the dust kicked up by the impact, she spotted a few dozen mercs retreating in a panic. Laughing softly, she scanned the destroyed tower and found no life signs. She found the nearest camera, reactivated it, switched off her stealth system, and stared straight into the lens.

"Found your armory." She resumed jamming the camera and reengaged her cloaking system. On to the next batch.

---

---

"They're all gone," Kerensky whispered. She turned to Akos, slumped against the console, and shook her head slowly. Tears filled her eyes. "Most of them died when the tower exploded. I think the rest were crushed when it toppled over."

Akos stared back at her and then turned his eyes on the monitors for a moment. "Fifty-eight of them. She killed fifty-eight of my men in one shot."

Well, that's what they get for abducting a Spectre's family. Irving shrugged and smirked at the other mercenaries.

"I keep telling you." He let his gaze settle on the krogan woman. "The only way you'll live through this is to surrender. When she kicks that door down, drop your weapons immediately."

"Shut up," Akos snarled.

"Lithia," Valeria's father mumbled, "what has our daughter become?"

Irving raised an eyebrow. "I'm surprised this shakes you up. Aren't turians required to join the military when they turn fifteen?"

Desentos nodded. "Lithia and I both served in non-combat roles. Administrative, mostly. That's how we met." He narrowed his eyes at Irving. "We weren't well suited for the front lines, and we don't trust the Spectres. No one should be above the law."

Ah, so that's one of the reasons Val has so much trouble getting along with them. Sounds like it started before she and I met.

"And look what it's turned her into," Lithia whispered.

"Yeah," Actana said. "A badass."

Her parents gaped at her and Irving had to choke back a burst of laughter. In the corner of his eye, Akos spun around and opened his mouth, probably to tell them to shut up again, but several of the monitors suddenly came back online, showing various angles from exterior cameras. One of them had the destroyed tower in the background.

That must be the second wave of mercs who weren't in the shitstorm Val just dropped on the others.

"Everyone else to that location!" Akos snapped. "Beat that bitch unconscious if you have to and bring her to me!"

"Bad move," the krogan said, and he whipped around to glare at her as dozens more blips slid toward the remaining mercs from the previous battle.

"Shut it, Grula!"

"Why do you think those particular cameras came back online while the rest are still being jammed?"

Akos stared at her as it sank in over the next few seconds. He turned back to the monitors and his eyes nearly popped out of his skull. He let out a slow breath and kind of sagged.

"She wants us to see this."

On several monitors, Valeria disengaged her cloak and rippled into view right in the middle of the mercs. Before any of them could react, she shoved her Phalanx into the soft, flexible part of his armor around his waist and blasted four rounds into him to incapacitate him. She whipped her gun around, jammed it into the side of another guy's neck and blew his throat out, then returned her attention to the first merc. She jammed the pistol under his chin and fired once. The round ripped through his head and popped his helmet off like a cork.

She charged another man while the rest recovered and tried to get her in their sights. They held their fire and watched as Val locked her arms around the next guy's head, twisted and lunged to the side, throwing her entire body mass into the move. The merc's helmet mic picked up a sickening crunch and his limp body flopped to the ground and sent up a puff of dirt.

"What is she doing?" Lithia whispered. "Don't get within reach! Shoot them from a distance!"

"I think I see what she's up to," Grula said. "You can wear down an enemy's kinetic barriers with sustained fire. It happens more quickly if you use disruptor ammo and then switch to warp or incendiary ammo to punch through their armor, but it still takes time and leaves your enemies enough room to return fire and outflank you. She's getting right in the middle of them so they can't shoot at her without hitting each other. And notice how she's pressing her gun against their bodies before she pulls the trigger. That puts it too close to trigger their shields."

Irving nodded and grinned at the images of his wife wiping the mercs out. "It also makes one hell of a display."

"That too, yeah. There's definitely something to be said for adding a psychological element to your warfare. I can see the up-close killing is shaking them up already - they're fumbling their weapons, hesitating, getting clumsy with their attacks." She chuckled. "It's probably been a long time since those guys have been genuinely afraid and they're not handling it well."

Val suddenly started using her stealth system to vanish and reappear behind one of the mercs, slit his throat, and disappear again. The remaining mercs grew more panicked, snapping their rifles back and forth and backpedaling as they tried to anticipate her next attack.

"Why does she keep turning her cloak on and off?" Galadin said.

"Probably to conserve the power cell," Desentos replied.

"That's part of it, yeah." Grula smirked. "I think she's also doing it just to scare the shit out of them."

On one of the screens, Valeria appeared behind one of the mercs, jammed her gun against the back of his neck, and pulled the trigger. In the background, another merc charged, tackled her, and her Omni-Tool interface appeared around her arm. She slapped her hand against Valeria's helmet and fired an electrical discharge. Val let out a strangled scream, staggered away, and dropped her pistol. She grunted, shook her head, and fell to her knees. She tapped the side of her helmet, snarled, and yanked it off as the merc rushed at her, pulling the Revenant assault rifle from her back and flinging it away.

Valeria whirled and swung her helmet around, smashing it into the woman's jaw and spinning her off to the right. The merc collapsed, clamped both hands to her chin, curled into a fetal position and screamed. Valeria regained her footing, pulled a knife from her belt, and took a step toward the handful of remaining enemy troops. One of them, a huge krogan, laughed and lumbered toward her. He shoved the others out of his path, charged, and plowed into Valeria before she could jump aside. He wrenched the knife out of her hand, turned it around, and thrust it toward her chest.

No … A chill rushed through Irving's guts as Val clamped both hands onto the krogan's wrist and strained against him. He pushed a little harder and her arms trembled. He stared into her eyes and laughed again. Valeria's expression shifted slightly and, for the first time since they met two years ago, Irving could see fear in her eyes.

Even with the servos in her armor, she's just not strong enough. Only another krogan could …

Valeria's expression changed again. Hardened with determination and rage and an unhinged gleam in her eyes that made Irving shiver. Suddenly, she stopped resisting and instead pulled on her opponent's wrist, yanking him toward her and letting the armor-piercing blade plunge into her gut.

Irving's heart pounded and he couldn't breathe.

Without taking the time to cry out, Valeria snatched the pistol from the krogan's hip, jammed it under his chin, and drilled him with seven shots before he flopped over backward. She crouched as he tried to push himself up, somehow still clinging to life. She held the gun against his left eye and blasted away until its thermal clip couldn't absorb any more heat. She popped it out, a fresh one slotted in automatically, and she kept firing until he finally stopped moving. She ejected the heat sink and stood as another slotted in.

The knife was still sticking out of her armor.

"Oh, god," Kerensky moaned. "She's insane! She's fuckin' crazy!"

Valeria turned to face the last of the surviving mercs, pulled the knife out of her gut, and waited for one of them to make a move. A guy on the right shook his head, threw his rifle away, and walked over to the woman with the broken jaw. He dropped to his knees, took a medical kit from his belt, and gave her an injection to reduce her pain. He glanced up at Valeria, held his hands up, and shook his head again.

"I'm out."

She turned back to the others without comment. Most of them backed up a few steps, then turned and bolted. The three remaining stared at the dead krogan, holstered their weapons, and raised their hands while backing away. Valeria sneered at them.

"You're goddamn right."

One of them pointed at something past her. "We're just going around you. Heading for the main gate. We're done with this shit."

She nodded and reactivated her tactical cloak. The cameras blanked a few seconds later.

Akos took a few ragged breaths. "Recall everyone to the command tower. Pack the lower levels with whoever's left. She'll have to fight her way through all of them."

Kerensky relayed it to the rest of the squad, then shook her head.

"It won't make any difference."

---

---

Shit! Shit! Oh, shit! Valeria double-checked the camera network to be sure they were still jammed as she stumbled toward the armory tower's wreckage. She squeezed through a gash torn in the tower's outer wall, deactivated her tactical cloak, found the warped remains of a workbench, turned it over, and plopped down on it. Gasping for breath, she reached for one of her belt pouches and pulled out a vial of the experimental medi-gel she'd brought along. Normal medi-gel would stop the bleeding long enough to get to a hospital, but the nanotech in this stuff would get a head start on repairing the damage.

She shoved the injector through the hole in her armor and into the wound and pushed the button. Liquid fire squirted into her guts and she held her breath so she wouldn't scream at the pain. A soft whimper slipped out anyway and tears streamed from her eyes. The next few seconds might as well have been the lifetime of the universe, but the agony finally faded and she sucked in deep, sobbing breaths. Everything spun around her for a moment and she braced both hands on the bench to hold herself upright.

I'm still a little rusty. Really let myself go over the past two years. She held still for a few minutes, gasping and panting until she finally caught her breath. Then she gave it a few more minutes to be sure the medi-gel had time to do its thing and to regain her strength. Well … gotta get back to it. Can't stop now. Not after everything I've just done.

Soft gasping and grunting caught her attention and she glanced over her shoulder. She ran a quick diagnostic on her helmet to be sure its systems were functioning after the zapping that one twat had given her a few minutes ago. Everything came up green. She ducked through the hole in the wall and turned slowly to sweep the wreckage from left to right until she found a batarian dragging himself out from under a twisted slab of metal. Nearly every centimeter of his armor was scratched up but seemed intact otherwise.

Well, shit. How'd I miss him when I scanned for life signs? She grabbed the Revenant rifle she'd retrieved before staggering over here. Maybe the scanner just glitched.

The batarian pushed himself to his hands and knees, coughed, and tapped the side of his helmet. He shook his head, tapped it again, growled, and pulled his helmet off.

Valeria leveled her rifle at him, centered his head in her sights, and primed a concussive round. He dropped the damaged helmet, glanced around, scooted toward an M-27 Scimitar shotgun, and clamped his hand around its grip. Valeria cleared her throat and he froze. After pulling himself together over the next few seconds, he turned his head slowly and stared at her. His expression shifted subtly, his jaw clenching, his face hardening ever so slightly.

She didn't even wait for him to point the shotgun at her. She twitched the trigger and the slug smashed into his forehead. The impact snapped his head back, threw his body into a pinwheel motion, and when he came to a stop, his head dangled from his neck by a bit of skin and muscle tissue.

A scuffing sound came from behind her - someone crawling through the dirt. Valeria nudged the switch on the side of her rifle, prepping another concussive round, and concentrated on the sounds behind her. Muffled grunting, ragged breathing - and the click of a trigger being pulled. Valeria whirled and twisted to the right a split-second before the gun fired. She caught sight of a muzzle flash and the high-pitched discharge of an M-3 Predator heavy pistol as the shot pierced the space she'd just vacated.

She fired the concussive round and the impact rocketed the merc backward, jolting a roaring scream out of her that cut off when she hit the ground, rolled, and plowed into the side of a hill with enough force to leave an oblong crater when she bounced and rolled to the bottom. She lay there, cradling her left arm and sobbing and whimpering.

Valeria marched over to her. The merc fumbled with her helmet with her right hand, pulled it off, and dropped it. She held her hand up and tried to scoot away from Valeria.

"No," the merc moaned, waving her hand and bursting into tears. "Don't kill me! Please!"

"What the fuck do you expect, after what you just did?" Valeria lined up the final shot.

"No! I have a family!"

"You should've thought of that before you kidnapped my family and threatened to murder them. And let's not even pretend you weren't going to kill them even if I'd turned myself over to your boss."

"Please! I have a daughter! She's only three years old!"

Valeria hesitated. Maybe the merc was telling the truth, and maybe she was just stalling until she could figure out a way to get the upper hand. But if she was being honest …

"Look." Weeping, moving slowly, the merc activated her Omni-Tool and pushed one of its holographic buttons. A photo album appeared in the air above her arm and she touched one of the pictures. It enlarged and Valeria found herself staring at a photo of the merc wearing civilian clothing, cuddling with an asari in a T-shirt with the Eclipse logo on its front. Both of them were tickling a laughing asari toddler. In one of the other thumbnails, both women were making goofy faces into the camera. In a third, the human held the kid out to the asari, who was pinching her nose closed and backing away with a grimace. A fresh diaper sat on a nearby table.

Oh, hell. Valeria glanced at the wreckage and corpses behind her. How many of those people had families like …?

No. Don't even go there. They were trying to kill me and my family. They brought it on themselves.

Still …

"That's them." The merc sobbed again. "That's my wife and little girl. Don't do this to them, please!"

Shit. Valeria lowered her gun slowly but kept it aimed in the woman's general direction, just in case. "Hell of a career choice you made, with a kid to take care of."

"I was already doing this years before Nela and I met." The woman wiped tears from her eyes but continued weeping. "Nela's in Eclipse. It's … it's just what we do."

"Not anymore." Valeria sighed, put her rifle away, and held her left hand up. "This is the only chance I'll give you."

The merc let out a long sigh, which turned into an even harder burst of weeping. "Th … thank you."

"Just don't ever forget how close your wife and daughter came to having to bury your remains. If you're smart, you'll find a civilian job, because if I ever hear about you abducting innocent people and holding them hostage again, a DNA test will have to be done to identify what's left of you."

"I - I'm done. I swear!" She fumbled with the latches on her armor and finally managed to release the chest plate. She removed it and let it fall, sending up a puff of dirt when it hit the ground. She removed the armor on her left arm, whimpering and grimacing with every motion. She tried to reach over to unlatch the armor on her right arm, but cried out and cradled her left arm again.

"I think you broke my fuckin' arm."

"Here, I'll get that." Val released the latches and gently pulled the armor pieces off.

"Thanks." The woman began discarding the armor on her legs, finally taking everything off except her boots and her tight-fitting undersuit.

Valeria pointed at the utility belt. "You might want to dose up on some painkillers and medi-gel. And, uh, if you want to find someplace to sit tight until this is over, I have some friends who can give you a lift into town so you can have that arm fixed."

"Thanks," the woman whispered. Her lips quivered. "I … I owe you. A lot. Everything."

"The only repayment I want is for you to get out of this line of work so you can be there for your family."

"Don't worry about that. I'm out. I don't ever want to go through anything like this again." She glanced around, scooted back against a large enough chunk of metal, and leaned against it.

"Glad to hear that." Valeria glanced over her shoulder at the central tower. "This is almost over. I assume Akos is holed up in there?"

"Yeah, him and his right hand, Kerensky, plus eight or ten others, I think. They're keeping all the hostages in the command center so they can keep an eye on 'em. And Kerensky just recalled everyone else to put them between you and Akos. I don't know how many. Just … whoever's left. I don't know how many you haven't slaughtered yet."

"Home stretch, then. You should be safe out here, but be sure to stay under solid cover, just in case."

The woman nodded and fumbled with her med-kit.

Valeria reactivated her cloak and strode toward the main tower.

Time to finish this.