[i]An ensemble of out of prime actors coming together to make a cheesy action flick that's banking in on your 90's nostalgia, [@Mortarion][@DearTrickster][@Zombiedude101][@Rtron][@Hellis][@Dervish][/i]



[I]The Right Fork[/I]


[color=cyan]"Fucking slaves."[/color] Tanya hissed as she heard the ongoing report from Dex, and images of dehumanized people in slave collars and unspeakable violations to their person flooded her mind. She clenched her teeth and fists equally tight as she left off the back of the now useless truck. Her breathing was heavy, and she seethed with rage. [color=cyan]"Not one of those batarian bastards leaves here alive, got it?"[/color] she said to the others who were back with her by the truck and the now cleared gunner's nets, earning a silent nod from Iosif. She shot a glance towards Khosin, but she couldn't stand to look at him for long; she knew, rationally, he wasn't like the beasts they were fighting and he was pulling his weight in making sure they paid for their transgressions, but he shared their face and it was too much to handle. [color=cyan]"We leave the truck, we go on foot, get the drop on them. By the time we repair this fucking heap, they'll be gone. We move in, now."[/color] 

[color=steelblue]"She's right. Can't waste our chance to move in while they're bloodied."[/color] Iosif was inclined to agree with the ex-servicewoman, not least because she'd already proven that she knew her way around rust buckets like this and worse. By this point, he'd taken the opportunity to run a quick diagnostic on his suit to check for any breaches that he might've missed in the adrenaline-packed intensity of driving that thing, yet he breathed a sigh of relief when it came up clean. Medi-gel had done its work on his leg, though he suspected he'd be having to take another look at it once they got back to their rust-bucket of a ship to make sure nothing serious was done. Otherwise, as it stood, the only thing he had to concern himself with was keeping a steady mindset in the face of those four-eyed bastards, particularly when they already had [i]one[/i] among their own ranks.

Serena shifted uncomfortably. It wasn't the fact that they were upset at the slavers. Rather, it was how much pure [i]hatred[/i] she could feel radiating from both Tanya and Iosif. Granted, slavers were despicable people who deserved to be wiped out, but this much hatred often lead to them acting not much better than the ones they hated. Warily, she followed.

Drono hunched and pressed against his little hiding place. One of the Pirates was getting closer and closer. Soon he'd have no choice but to blow his cover and pop the guy. He pursed his lips and took a deep breath. "This better fucking work Drono." He told himself as he tossed a rock away from him, hard enough to cause discernible noise. The second the man looked that way he rounded him in stealth mode and hid behind a larger outcropping of rocks. "Hurry the fuck up." He hissed into the com.
 
Khosin sighed internally when Tanya mentioned that there were slaves, shifting uneasily when she declared that none of the batarian's that they were facing would live. Despite the uneasy feeling resting in his mind, he knew best than to say anything in such a situation since it was certain that whatever it is that he said would only upset Tanya even further. "Understood." He said simply when Tanya mentioned that they were leaving the truck behind, just as he heard Drono speaking into the com.
 
"Hang in there Drono, we'll be there shortly." He said into the team's comms, beginning to make his way further into the tunnel and in the direction were the slaves were being held.

Dex watched the guard get entirely too close to Drono, his little distraction and movement went unnoticed. Letting out a shaky breath she didn't know she was holding. She didn't dare to speak let alone move not with the guards in close vicinity.

The four mercenaries hurried up the path to regroup with Dex and Drono, who seemed to be direly holding on for as long as they could without detection. The fear Tanya had felt grip her was gone; instead a burning need for vengeance filled her heart, and the shotgun clutched in her hands was going to be her instrument. She heard the batarian slavers before she saw them, their coarse voices screaming contact before rounds began to fly downrange in an attempt to suppress the charging mercs. 

Tanya dove into a baseball slide to stabilze herself while making a smaller target, shooting her omni-tool towards the leftmost batarians and hitting him with an energy drain. Her capacitors hummed at the overcharge of energy, but the desired effect was reducing the enemy's shields that the shotgun had no problem chewing through the batarians' armour, four barking shots burying themselves deep within the slaver and killing him near outright. The batarian was dead before he hit the ground. She forced herself back to her feet at the end of her momentum, leading the charge towards the hated foe.

Drono heard the guns open up and found himself drawing a bead on the man closest to him. "Surprise!" He fired into the man's back, through the shields as the Executioner slammed a bullet the size of a grown mans thumb through the man's armor. He stumbled and fell.

Dex took her cue as well pushing up from her hiding spot with an incinerate ready in her hand, a long swipe across her body sent the fiery blast at her target eating away at his shields. Her cloak shimmered away revealing herself with two hands on her pistol firing several shots at the guard's back. Gurgles of pain audible as he went down. 

"FUCK ME, THEY ARE BEHIND US!" One of the pirates yelled and turned to fire at Drono's position, diverting some of the firepower away from the charging Mercs.

With the batarians caught between two fronts, Iosif ducked down low as Tanya made her charge and set his sights downrange, opening fire on the batarians in short, furious bursts of suppressing fire, hoping to give the Englishwoman and the others a chance to move.  His jaw was clenched, the thrum of his rifle music to his ears as some of the batarians scattered and one slaver took a round through the leg as they dove for cover. [I]A little closer to getting even.[/i]

Khosin looked on as chaos engulfed the slaver's camp as Tanya attacked, Drono's and Dex's action behind the enemies lines further throwing the whole camp into disarray as the slavers and mercenaries fought each other. He ran for cover, hiding behind a set of stacked crates before he began to fire at the other batarians when something at the corner of one of his eyes caught his attention.

He saw one of the slaver's hastily shoving one of the few remaining slaves in the back of the truck, taking advantage of the chaos going on to escape in the truck, taking the chance to also escape with all the slaves inside of it for himself. "Hey, guys, one of the slavers is trying to escape with all the slaves, will try to stop him." He said after tuning into the team's comms before he tried to drag down the slaver with a biotic pull, failing due to the shield's stopping his biotics "[i]Shit, forgot about the shields.[/i]" He cursed internally as he stood up and began firing with his mattock towards the slaver, stopping for a second to unleash his drone near him so as to give the rest of the team a few extra seconds to try and help to take him down. 

Incidentally, the warning also caught the attention of Iosif who promptly shifted his focus towards the aforementioned slaver and opened fire in rapid, yet short bursts - hoping to put the slaving bastard down. In the heat of things, it didn't quite occur to him that the [i]batarian[/i] of all things would've been the one to point it out.


The would-be driver didn't make it very far as the combined fire of Khosin and Iosif tore through his shields and punctured his armour, the exit wounds splashing blood against the window as the batarian slumped against the wheel, alive but barely holding onto it. Johark, the batarian squad commander, cursed angrily and pulled the man closest to him towards him. "You! Start killing the hostages. Throw a fucking grenade in there, I don't give a shit." shoving the other slaver away, the batarian began his approach towards the group, his heavy shielding and armour laughing away most of the blows. "You think you're walking away from this?!" he yelled, opening fire with his Striker, the krogan-made assault rifle that fired explosive rounds. The ground leading up to Tanya suddenly began to kick of rocks and dirt, and she was forced to take a leap to the side to get out of the line of fire. Unfortunately, Johark's aim continued to follow her and a pair of rounds struck her torso, knocking her back and nearly depleting her shields. 

Realizing that Dex was close by, the batarian's own enforcer gauntlet took form and he charged the turian, swinging heavily towards her with a laugh that most would consider at least brushing on insane. 

Dex's head whipped around at the war cry of the batarian he had charged her the swing of his terrifying gauntlet aimed directly at her. Dodging the erratic swing with a quick sidestep did Johark take another opportunity aiming for her head. "[color=007236]Fuck![/color]" She gasped taking two steps back keying up another incinerate. At such a close range she had little choice but to throw it. The incinerate ate into his shields as she tried and tried again to create some distance Johark madly raged on still locked on her.

In short order,the team had torn through some of the Batarians. Then, of course, things went to shit. Serena yelped in alarm as explosive rounds began to crash towards her. Fortunately (at least for her) he was aiming for Tanya and she was able to avoid being turned into a fine red mist. Just to make herself feel better, she activated her tech armor. 

Her relief at having another layer of protection turned into alarm at seeing a slaver about to throw a grenade into the slave truck. [color=hotpink]"No!"[/color] She shouted, throwing a bubble barrier around him just as he drew his arm back to throw it in.

Left with a ticking time bomb in his hand an little other choice, the slaver tried to break down her barriers. He failed, and Serena released the side that wasn't protecting the slaves. Chunks of slaver went everywhere. [color=hotpink]"Drono, grab the slaves if you can. Del! Support protocol. Don't hit the turian. Split off and help with the other slaves."[/color] One of her drones began to circle Johark and Dex, taking brief bursts of pot shots at the Batarian's back. The other began to circle around the battle, finding slavers to rain bullets down upon.

Del's appearance was well timed, distracting Johark from the turian in front of him. Dex stepped further away firing her pistol picking away at his shields and his armour. Her heart rammed against her chest, teeth locked and her mandibles flared. Looking the part of a terrifying turian. Her pistol ceased up with a cooldown timer and then decided to make a run for the slaves allowing Del to distract the Johark. Long legs carried her quickly but not quick enough to catch up to Drono.

Drono looked at the chaos. "Shit." The he was running, blasting with his Executioner and his SMG as he made sure to move in such a way the heavily armed Bartarian couldn't just swing around and turn him into minced drell meat. For good measure, he tossed one of his scavenged grenades towards the lumbering, immobile juggernaut. A concussive charge to be precise. Perhaps it could buy some time for the others. He dived in behind the car as he scrambled up to the slaves. 

 "C'monnnn" He grumbled as the terrified slaves stared at him while he tried to work the chains. Another of the pirates started to sight downwards at him when Drono had a idea. He shot off the chain connecting the collars to the car, rather then work each one separately, whilst Iosif quickly jumped aboard the back with the others to throw down some suppressing fire on their tail. The he got into the car and used corpse to step on the pedal before sending the car down range towards the the remaining mooks, forcing them to scatter. One wasn't so lucky as the truck ran him over.

"[color=007236]Drono! Watch your ass![/color]" Dex called falling to her knee and grabbing her Viper off her back. Quickly taking stock and aim she laid down several shots against the batarian still reeling from the grenade. The batarian's shields dropped with her disruptor ammo and with a final pull of the trigger she killed him with a headshot.

Khosin looked as the slaver that was trying to escape in the truck fell under the combined firepower of his mattock and Iosif's avenger assault rifle. Yet that only seemed to worsen the situation as the commander of the group they were fighting ordered one of his underlings to kill the slaves. 

He looked on as the slaver prepped a grenade to throw into the back of the truck. A biotic aura manifested around him as he prepared to pull the grenade from the slaver's hand when -suddenly- he saw a barrier forming around Johark's underling, caught in the middle of the motion of throwing the grenade. Khosin was momentarily confused, but he soon understood who had stopped the slaver when he saw Serena, a dim azure glow around her body as she held in the barrier around the slaver "[I]So she's a biotic too.[/i]" He mused internally, but his thoughts quickly returned when he heard the grenade going off and Serena shouting to Drono to take the slaves away.

He looked as Drono began running towards the truck where the slaves were, trying to release them from the chains which bound them but one of the pirates seemed to have taken notice of him. Raising his mattock he shot in short bursts at the approaching pirate, managing to draw his attention away from the drell. He cursed as he took a few hits to his shield, his armor suit starting to give warnings that the shield would be soon compromised. Raising his omni-tool, he tapped a few commands and, shortly afterwards, his tech armor activated but by that time the pirate had already managed to reached him. "I got you, you little shit! What do you think you are doing, playing the hero?" Said the slaver, condescension clear in his voice as he raised his shotgun and shot at Khosin.

Luckily, his tech armor saved his life but it was obvious that he wouldn't survive for too long in a close-range gunfight with his attacker. In a desperate bid to gain more time, Khosin did the only thing he could think of and tackled the pirate to the ground. Gathering biotic energy around his fist, Khosin unleashed a punch against his adversary but the pirate's heavy armor protected him from the worst of the blow and he was soon on the defensive as the other batarian activated his enforcement gauntlet and charged him.

Tanya coughed as she picked herself off the ground, blood dripping from her nose onto her visor. [color=cyan]"Oh, that's not good."[/color] she muttered, still shaking off the effects of the concussive force. Her shields and armour held up just fine, but it still didn't mean there wasn't a soft body that couldn't be rattled beneath it all. And how she ached! Using the stock of her shotgun, Tanya forced herself to her feet, and she stumbled back into the fray, shotgun at the ready, activating the Cryo ammunition. 

As it turned out, there wasn't much left for her to do, the batarians were effectively neutralized, and the hostages were safe. In the corner of her eye, she saw a slaver charging at Khosin, omni-tool glowing with a gauntlet. Pivoting into a firing position, Tanya drew a bead on the charging slaver and opened fire with her Katana, the shotgun barking in quick succession as the spread dug into the slaver bastard, effectively halting his charge. As his shields broke, frozen molecules worked their way from the shot pellet and expanded in the batarian's flesh and armour. Between the agony and the freezing limbs, he couldn't keep moving his legs if he wanted to, tripping over his own momentum and landing at Khosin's feet. 

Khosin panted tiredly as he kept dodging the slaver's attack, his stamina reserves quickly depleting the longer the fight went. After having called upon his biotics three times during the mission, coupled with the glancing wound he had taken from that kishock rifle, had sapped him of most of his strength while the pirate that was charging him still had most of his energy, having not taken part in the other battles that had taken place in the Twin Stars hideout.

Barely dodging the last strike from the pirate's gauntlet, Khosin made some distance between the two of them as he decided to stop dodging the slaver's attack and stand his ground. Activating his own enforcement gauntlet, he prepared to fight the charging batarian head on when, suddenly, a cry of pain left his foe's lips as he suddenly froze, tripping under his own momentum and landing at his feet. Deactivating his gauntlet, Khosin took his Executioner and fired a single round in the head of his frozen foe. With the slaver dead Khosin put his pistol in it's place and turned to look at the source of whatever had frozen his enemy, surprised to see Tanya holding her Katana in the direction of where he had been fighting, his eyes shifting to the small holographic display on the shotgun's side indicating that the rounds were set to Cryo. "Thanks Tanya, without your help I wasn't sure if I'd have managed to kill him." Said Khosin, motioning with his hand to the corpse  of the slaver, as he approached the ex-servicewoman, his shoulders sagging tiredly as exhaustion began to catch up with him. 

[color=cyan]"Uh, yeah..."[/color] Tanya responded, still feeling like she had been hit by a car and was walking under nothing more than willpower and stubbornness. She also wasn't quite sure how she felt about having come to an aid of a batarian, even one who for all intents and purposes seemed to be an upstanding guy. She hated herself for her prejudices, because she knew that had Khosin been literally any other species in the galaxy, she wouldn't be holding him up to the standard of the bastards like the ones they'd just taken down. [color=cyan][I]He's just a guy, nothing more, nothing less. He's not a slaver, he fucking killed them... he's not like them.[/I][/color] she thought closing her eyes and trying to inhale, instead she found herself sucking back blood. 

Pulling off her helmet, Tanya spat her blood on the mine floor and breathed the non-filtered air, which rang heavy with the scents of blood and eezo discharge. She nodded to Khosin, not looking at his face but at his armour, in a vain attempt to fool herself that he was a human, like her. [color=cyan]"Don't mention it."[/color] she managed, before awkwardly limping away to the bed of the truck. She wished she could have said more, something that didn't feel like a half-hearted acknowledgement, but it was a good enough day when actually talking to a batarian didn't make her totally lock down. One step at a time, she thought. The worst part of it all was she simply reacted to a threat; she wasn't entirely sure if she would have intervened if she'd consciously thought of Khosin being in danger. Her self-resentment only grew deeper.

The faces in the back of the truck were a welcome distraction; all were alive, terrified and abused, but none of them had been killed. She forced a smile, probably looking ridiculous with blood seeping down her face and over her lips. [color=cyan]"So, who wants to go home?"[/color] she asked, genuinely cheerful and relieved as she climbed into the back of the truck and yelled to the others, [color=cyan]"Hey, check to see which one of those bastards has the key for these shackles."[/color]

[Color=steelblue]"I've got a hunch."[/color] Iosif grunted, clearly discontented by his trip with the slaves. Truth be told, it was a haunting reminder of what could've happened to him if he hadn't escaped. [I]Fucking batarians.[/i] Acting on that hunch, he wandered over to one of the dead overseers and opted to rifle through the corpse for the shackle release - eventually finding it. With a grunt, he tossed it over to one of the poor bastards, before taking a moment to check on his leg wound.

Dex wasn't quite ready to put away her rifle while she watched the former slaves pass the key amongst themselves to unlock their collars. Her omnitool blinked at her with a reminder of her shields. A shaky breath and she spoke up, "[color=007236]Good job everyone. Let's get these people up top.[/color]"

Khosin nodded at Tanya's words, easily able to tell that she was feeling uncomfortable over the whole situation and, as such, doubted that there was anything that he could say that would make the situation any less awkward for her. He looked as the ex-servicewoman limped towards the truck full of slaves and debated whether or not he should go as well. In the end he decided against it, the least thing the former slaves wanted to see was a heavily armed Batarian approaching them "You guys take care of the people in the truck, I'll stay behind, see if there is some weapons or anything we can give them." He said once he was in the teams comms before he began searching the slaver's camp for anything that could help the ex-slaves on Omega.

The team began to wrap things up. The now freed slaves were told to take what they needed from the slavers, weapons, credits, anything they could make use of, and the surviving vehicles for their own personal use. After the indignities they endured, it was the least they could do. With Kapan Nasa'dor and the other prisoners in custody, the team made their way back to their own transport after the bomb cluster was defused and dealt with. All in all, the group felt pretty accomplished. Saving a few of the chains and collars, they slapped them on those who used them on others and brought them back to the Borealis for detainment until they could be delivered. The Alliance was contacted, and proof of capture was provided, leading to the team receiving half of the promised payment up front, the other half on delivery. Back in the questionable comforts of home, the unlikely and as of yet unnamed mercenary team could take pride that they, against all odds, accomplished their mission.

[center][h1]MISSION COMPLETE: THE TWIN STARS[/h1][/center]