Sienn let her drink drop to the ground as she leapt from her seat. The room around her seemed to slow to a crawl as her adrenaline kicked in and her mind and body raced to react to the attack. Around her, the other mercenaries appeared to move in slow motion as they readied their own weapons and dove for cover. Sienn didn’t bother going for her handgun, she would be too heavily outgunned. Instead, she pulled the rifle from her back with one hand and snatched a fragmentation grenade from her belt with the other. She sidearmed the grenade towards the hostiles and leveled her rifle.

The Mattock kicked against her shoulder as she pulled the trigger, and while she was firing the weapon as fast as she could, an eternity seemed to pass between each gunshot as the weapon cycled. She was used to the heavy recoil, and at this close range it made little difference to her, her shots hitting their intended target with deadly accuracy, overloading his kinetic barriers and punching through his armored chest. Her grenade detonated, sending shrapnel flying indiscriminately among the enemies and anyone around them. 

Suddenly,time seemed to speed up again in a burst of motion. The armored man she had shot quickly collapsed to the ground like a puppet whose strings were suddenly cut. Gunfire roared around her, tables were being overturned, people were running and some were screaming. 

She swivelled and made a dash for the nearest effective cover, the bar. The asari was fast, but far from fast enough to avoid being shot. Enemy gunfire slammed against her armor's kinetic barriers, and she hoped the shield would last long enough for her to reach cover.