It was something incredible to see motivated individuals spring into action. She offered Saseen a little smirk and a half-assed salute as the asari took off in a devastating biotic charge, a technique that even after watching it be done several times over her life, she still couldn’t wrap her head around somebody launching themselves over a large distance, unaffected by the world around them and universal constants like gravity were thrown completely out the window. Tanya knew that people often looked at her technological prowess with the same sense of confounded awe, but at least [I]she[/I] wasn’t breaking the laws of physics every time she opened her omni-tool. It wasn’t long until Saseen’s voice came over the omni-tool, “[I]Moving to secure docking arm.[/I]” The asari said confidently. 

Beside Tanya, Kesik was making the most of his situation, wielding the loaner pistol confidently as he engaged the mercs. Tanya wasn’t concerned about their position being overrun, indeed there was a hell of a gunfight going on and the others in the hanger were keeping Siame Industries’ mercs in overlapping fields of fire, almost a textbook ambush. The only way for them to get out of it was to retreat back to the ship, but thanks to Saseen’s aggressive assault, that window was being closed off. When Kesik took cover to avoid retaliatory fire, he offered her what looked to be an amused look. That was surprising, considering how unhappy he was about the whole situation five minutes ago. It went to show how far lending someone who should be your mortal enemy a gun went. 

Tanya offered a series of approving nods in return. “Ask and you shall receive,” she said, fingers moving in sequence with her omni-tool activated. A combat drone materialized in front of her. Tanya snapped her fingers at the drone, as if to catch its wandering attention. “Shithead, sick ‘em.” She ordered. The drone wordlessly levitated in the air and moved towards its targets, a salvo of microrockets being launched towards the SI troopers. She turned back to Kesik. “I’ll race you. Last one to the docking arm loads the luggage.” She said, keying the cart to wheel itself over to the ship as she vaulted over the cover with well-practiced agility and charged hard towards her destination, shotgun at the ready. As she ran, she activated cryo-rounds, the servos in the Katana whirring as its element-zero field provided the energy required to supercool the metal block that acted as the weapon’s ammunition source. She fired as she moved from the hip, the spread catching the exposed mercs in a crossfire as their attention was on other, more immediate threats. Her buckshot caught one of the men in the leg, causing it to freeze over and the victim to scream out in agony. It was short-lived suffering as Valok’s Keshock rifle thumped from an unseen position and a barbed rod lodged itself in the man’s skull, snapping his neck back. Tanya turned away, inhaling sharply, willing herself not to think of Lewis, her squad’s sniper back in the marines and one of the many friends she had to bury on Mindoir. He died much the same way the SI merc did, and it was hardly a pleasant way to go.

[I]The job, Carson. Your friends can’t die more than once, you stupid emotional asshole.[/I] she thought, shaking her head as she hurried to the docking arm, the numbers of mercs now dwindled to next to nothing. Now came the fun part; clearing the ship. She reached Saseen and slapped her approvingly in the arm. “Nice moves. Remind me not to challenge you to a foot race, you cheater.” She said with a playful grin. Tanya activated her omnitool’s comms as she watched another merc detonate under the force of one of Shithead’s rockets. “This is T, we’re moving to secure the interior of the ship. Start getting your asses back to the hanger, preferably not hitting the giftshop on the way out. The bus leaves in ten, ladies and gentlemen.” She said, killing the channel. She gestured with the shotgun to Saseen. 
“We’ll get started, the two of us should be able to deal with most of the assholes left on board, and I imagine Kesik and friends will be able to provide a hand when they finish mopping up. I’ll take point, seeing as I might as well be the de facto captain.” She said with a shrug. “First thing’s first, let’s go find you a cockpit.”

The two women moved up the docking arm in a typical military “leapfrog” formation, each hugging a wall and moving up several meters before taking post and letting the other woman move up from hers until they reached the ship, which was fortunately left open. Tanya didn’t want to try to hack her way into a sealed ship, and cutting off comms was thankfully enough to keep the ship from locking down. She offered Saseen a quick nod before entering the breach. 

Salarian ships were a bit unlike what Tanya associated with an Alliance or even turian vessel, instead of the hard geometric shapes, the interior of the ship almost felt like a semi-claustrophobic hospital ward with sterile whites and hard looping curves that gave each section the impression of being inside of a curved tent, and the various panels and instruments seemed like they were designed for much more narrow hands than what humans were accustomed to. Obvious alterations were done in some sections to be more accommodating to the alien races that helped crew the ship under Siame Industries’ ownership. Overall, the inside seemed to have an identity crisis of several conflicting ideas of what it should be inside, even if it was entirely functional. 

Unfortunately, it was impossible to know what the exact layout of the ship was as there was no way to anticipate exactly what kind of vessel would be docking at Cartagena station. Tanya had brushed up on mainly asari designs, given SI was founded and run by an asari, so finding herself aboard a salarian ship was something of a wrench in the gears of her largely improvised plan. Moving straight through the hull, they ran into no contacts. However, soon the hanger opened up before them, which was largely occupied by a salarian dropship, a model Tanya didn’t readily recognize, but it was nice to know that the team would have options if they had to go planet side. Maybe they left the owner’s manual in the glove box, she thought with a smile. Entering the hanger, there was a few shouts of alarm and Tanya and Saseen took cover behind the dropship as a thunder of feet came from an upper level. There came a shout from a distinctly turian voice to drop their weapons. 

“Fat fucking chance.” Tanya growled, swapping her shotgun for the M-15 Vindicator on her back. Her thumb flicked the fire-selector switch, changing the weapon to automatic. Peering out from behind cover, she fired a suppressive burst at the group of four mercenaries who were bearing down on her position. As the heat gauge approached full, she launched an incendiary projectile from her omni-tool before taking cover again to avoid retaliatory fire. She was rewarded with the panicked, pained screams of one of her victims who was now most likely witnessing her armour being melted off of her body as the superheated bomb did its work. Tanya turned to Saseen. “There’s three more that I can tell. Try to get up where they came from and I’ll cover you; find the cockpit, and get rid of anyone still in there. You should also be passing through the CIC if this ship makes any fucking sense. I’ll hit these fuckers from behind, so it should buy you some time.” She sighed, pumping herself up for action. “Remember when you asked what the stupidest thing I did was? This is getting up there.” She said with a weak laugh before preparing to lean out again. “[I]COVERING![/I]” she shouted, leaning out and firing another suppressive barrage at her targets.