[h3][center]Present Day[/center][/h3]

Hazan ducked behind a low wall, bullets and slugs pinging off the plas-steel as he changed position. He and the rest of his crew were pinned down by massive gun positions on the other side of a bridge. Even with smoke grenades and their own explosives people returning fire, they were still in a world of hurt. His shields were down, he'd gotten a bullet in his left side, and their medic was stuck on the other side of a veritable no-mans-land. As the slender turian moved around his cover and kept low to avoid the machine gun fire above his head, he searched his visor for the one green diamond amidst the sea of friendly blue squares, hissing softly in paid as he held a talon to his side to try and stop the bleeding, even as he looked around desperately for the quarian medic.

[color=dodgerblue]"I'm not going to make it much longer like this..."[/color]

He slumped up against a wall and pumped his last charge of medi-gel into his side, groaning as he gritted his teeth and tried to power through the pain, even as the cooling gel numbed his injury. But as a rocket tore open a wall next to him, he grabbed his sniper rifle and made sure the clip was a fresh one before he swung out of cover, sighted a machine gun post and blew open the gunner's head like a melon.

[color=dodgerblue]"Spirits guide my hand..."[/color]

Without waiting, he swung his scope to the left and popped another man trying to rush to a new piece of cover. Almost immediately his fire was returned by another set of troopers to his right, forcing him back into cover with an angry hiss. Hazan racked the slide of his rifle, popping the heat sink, as he slapped a new one in and chambered it.

[color=dodgerblue]"The things I do for you, Daro..."[/color]

[hr][h3][center]A few weeks ago...[/center][/h3]

Counting the credit chits in his talons, Hazan walked down the steps to the Lower Wards. His armour still on him in case of an ambush, with his sidearm clipped to his thigh, the mercenary was quite content with himself. Another contract finished with minimal damage to himself and another substantial payout. Enough to get his medi-gel restocked and his old wounds looked over at his favourite clinic on Omega. And, of course, a chance to talk to Daro. One of the few friends he had on Omega, the clinic's only nurse and doctor, all in one quarian package.

Unfortunately for Hazan, there were no elevators at Daro's block so he climbed the several flights of stairs to the top floor, where her clinic was. In doing so, he did a quick scan of the area with his omnitool, idly noting the single friendly signature on his HUD; that of Daro herself, who was at the bottom of the building, quaintly marked by a blue square.

[i]Huh. Must be running an errand. Or taking out the trash.[/i]

He also noted, as his omnitool connected to hers via private network, that her vitals were normal. So no real danger. However, the banging noise coming from her floor drew his attention and he powered down his omnitool while he went into danger mode. He crouched and kept to the sides of the metal staircase, easing his footsteps and progress up to the sixth floor as he peeked round the corner. Sure enough, there stood a gaggle of men, dirty looking mercenaries probably hired by some third-rate scoundrel looking for an extra credit chit. One of them was pounding on the clinic door with enough force to rattle the metal security grate.

"Hey! Open up in there! Daro'Shuris nar Konesh! Your boss wants to talk to you! If you don't open up and come quietly, I'm going to blow open this door!"

Hazan took stock of the situation. There was one man, a burly human, at the door itself. Flanking him were a turian and another human, both armed with heavy pistols and behind them stood one more merc, a batarian, armed with a shotgun. In the relative darkness of the stairwell, he knew that even ol' four-eyes over there wouldn't see him, much less if he had his tactical cloak on. He tapped a talon onto his omnitool and waited for the short moment it took for his cloaking software to engage. His shields bent and refracted the light around himself, effectively turning the slender turian invisible. Then he searched the ground for something to distract the guards with, found a small pebble, and then chucked it at the back of the second human's head. The man with a pistol yelped and swung around.

" 'Ey man! What the hell?!"

The batarian turned around and gave the man a glance, unsure if he was being referred to or not, and shrugged his shoulders.

"What? What the hell did I do?"

Hazan crept forward, keeping low as he attempted to get near the batarian without getting caught. As the two argued, Hazan stood and turned off his cloak.

[color=dodgerblue]"Boo."[/color]

The slender turian shoved the batarian forwards, making sure he was between himself and the other armed men, even as the guards balked and tried to ready their weapons. Hazan moved forward behind his makeshift meat shield, running with enough force to sandwich all four goons between himself and the metal security grate covering the door. All the confusion and chaos elicited many noises of pain from the mercs in front of him, but the turian guard was smart enough to raise his pistol at him. Hazan responded by blocking the action with his left hand, grabbing onto both the pistol and the other turian's hand as he raised it up above his head. A deafening gunshot tore through the cramped hallway, the slug burying itself in the ceiling and leaving him with a ringing in his ears.

Undeterred, Hazan pressed forward, roughly shoving the batarian against his two companions as he twisted the turian's wrist just slightly upwards and then snapped his elbow with a palm strike to the hyper-extended joint. As the other turian screamed in pain, Hazan kept his grip tight on his pistol as the human extricated his gun arm and swung his pistol up at him. The grey turian responded by spinning around counterclockwise, taking the other turian's broken arm with him and causing more pain by bending it round the broken joint around his right side as he turned around.

His back now to the goons, he pushed his weight against the pile, keeping them pinned as he brought the guard's pistol to bear against the one that was being raised at him, their barrels almost touching as Hazan shoved a talon into the trigger guard of the pistol he was holding onto and squeezed. Another round bellowed from the heavy pistol, shearing into the raised gun at close range and knocking it out of the hand of the human guard. He shouted in surprised as he recoiled back from the impact while Hazan let go of the gun and swung around briefly to bury his right elbow into the other turian's face, feeling cartilage break from the impact.

The batarian whose back was against his struggled to get free as Hazan slapped the pistol from the turian's grip. The slender turian responded by swinging his left elbow into the back of his head, followed by him briefly moving away as he spun on his left foot and punched his lower back, making him grunt in pain. He followed it up by grabbing onto the back collar of his jacket and pulled, tripping the bigger man over his outstretched right foot and sending him away through his momentum.

The human guard yelled as he drew a knife from his belt and lunged at Hazan, the intent clear in his eyes. He countered the lunge by moving two steps back and bending his body into a C shape, bringing both his hands in towards his gut to grab onto the man's wrist. As he backed up, he twisted his body to the right, letting the blade pass him by. His left hand thumped into the crook of his elbow and his right hand, still gripped firmly onto the man's hand and the knife, pushed and redirected the lunge back into his chest. The serrated blade sunk deep into him and he screamed in pain, blood seeping from around the blade buried inside his front.

Hazan's attention turned lastly to the batarian, who was struggling to get up. He heard the telltale racking of his shotgun's slide and responded in kind by pulling his buddy's knife, once lodged in his chest, from its resting place and flung it at his last opponent. The blade flew through the air and embedded itself in the batarian's shoulder and, with a shout of pain, he went down too. As he made sure his last opponent was down for the count, he could feel the human guard sag in his grip, the life fading from his body as he bled all over himself and the floor.

The turian let go of the bleeding human, watching him crumple to the floor as blood now gushed from the open wound, creating a dark puddle on the plas-steel floor. Next to him, his turian buddy laid on the floor, groaning in pain as he held his arm, now broken in two places and at an awkward angle. Their boss, presumably, stood against the door to Daro's clinic, arms and hands up in a gesture of surrender. Hazan walked slowly towards him, a familiar glint in his eye as he drew his own knife and pressed the blade against the goon's neck.

[color=dodgerblue]"Heard something about a boss. Who's he? Quick now, I'm pretty sure you want to get out of here alive, rather than in a body bag."[/color]

"I- I- I don't know! All I know is that he's some big shot who works with the Blue Suns! He's just paying for this, I don't know what's going on, I swear!"

[color=dodgerblue]"Huh. Interesting. Well you go back to your boss and you tell him that unless he wants to be haunted by a Ghost, he lays off the quarian and her clinic, got it?"[/color]

"O- okay! Just let me leave! Please!"

Hazan withdrew the knife blade from the man's neck and watched as he ran, gibbering, away from the scene, leaving his men behind. He just shrugged and walked over to the batarian, who was out cold but still alive on the floor. Without removing the knife, he took his shotgun from him and stowed it on a piece of spare rigging strap on his armour. No room for extras, but he didn't want him to wake up and shoot at them while their guards were down. As for the turian with the broken arm...well he was in too much pain to do anything, but Hazan kicked his pistol away just in case. There was no saving the other human; he'd long since stopped moving, his blood creating a big, messy halo around his chest and head.

The turian sighed as he got up against the door to Daro's clinic and hailed her privately on their secure omnitool comms channel.

[color=dodgerblue]"Daro? Hazan here, listen: I found some thugs trying to cause a ruckus at your clinic. I sent 'em packing, but you might want to come up here quick before more of 'em show up."[/color]