Janiri moved quickly to restrain the drells after they collapsed, lest Karnoc decide that it was better to kill these ones too. The drell she was fighting could have been saved, had the krogan shown restraint. That was their mission. Save the drell, deal with whatever was mind controlling them. The krogan had decided to ignore that and simply act as if they were already turned into husks, or whatever the drell equivalent of Reaper forces would be. Not that it mattered anymore. 

The drell was dead and the mission was done. It was time to move on, same as last time she had fought. Janiri finished securing one drell and looked around. There wasn't anything for her to do now. The others were taking care of the surviving drell and there wasn't any equipment that they could safely retrieve. As brutal as Karnoc had been, he was right about one thing; don't mess with reaper technology. 

She paused as she saw the explosion mark that was the remains of their former comrade. She hadn’t known him but he had fought beside them and sacrificed himself for an ally. That was enough. Janiri clasped her hands in front of her, murmuring quietly to herself. “Piares, She-Who-Guides, take the fallen under your wings and usher them quickly into the afterlife. Ensure they do not get lost and trapped in our world. Grant them the rest they have earned.”

That finished, Janiri sent Kuri up into the sky to watch for anything that might have been drawn by the gunfire. Be it desperate scavengers, carnivorous local wildlife, or anything else that would need to be dealt with. She moved back towards the shuttle when Yarik’s panicked voice came through the comms. A shot of adrenaline mixed with no small amount of fear hit Janiri. Of course the Locust was awake. It was the one thing they didn’t want happening. Nothing could ever go right. 

She began moving as quickly as she could towards the shuttle, tapping commands into her omni-tool to bring Kuri back down. They needed to leave. She didn’t know what the Locust could do, but it was powerful enough that it needed to be mind controlled and put to sleep to be safely handled and that was enough for her to be eager to leave it behind. 

She was just about to enter the shuttle when a distant explosion caught her attention. Janiri hung her head dejectedly. “Fuck.” She didn’t even need to hear Yarik’s voice over the comms to know what was coming next. Kuri was launched back into the air, this time with orders to kill, and she scrambled to a defensive position behind a rusted hull. She whispered a prayer to herself, attempting to control the shaking in her hands. “Kurinth, goddess of the hunt and warrior of the night, bless us this day…”

As the Locust appeared behind the infiltration team, Janiri’s heart seemed to leap into her throat. By all the gods it was [i]big[/i]. She swore she could hear that terrifying buzzing right next to her, even though it was over 50 meters away. Her rifle shook and no matter how many times she ordered herself too, she couldn’t pull the trigger and bring its attention to her.

 By the time she regained control of her fear, Kuri and the others had already fired. The Locust was behind a dune and she had missed her chance to fire at it. Cursing she aimed her avenger at the dune. She had to do better, or she was going to end up like the drell that Karnoc had killed. 

As the seeker swarm flew from behind the dune and straight towards the drell, Janiri’s eyes widened in panic. She took a step from behind her cover and reached a useless hand out. She didn’t even have any biotics, what was she planning to do? While Janiri watched with a useless hand held out, the swarm tore the drell they had just saved to shreds and continued straight towards her. Janiri dove back behind her metal ship and activated her tech armor, curling into a ball with her hands over her head as the swarm raced past. 

Fortunately her tech armor and shields held under the assault. The drones ineffective scratching and clawing making her curl even more in on herself. When they had passed she shakily pulled herself to her feet. She took a couple shaky breaths and made herself aim back at the Locust. It was just coming around the dune. She was shaking too badly to properly aim her rifle, but that wouldn’t stop Kuri nor her Overload. 

The assault drone fired down at the Locust, bullets ineffectually bouncing off of its barrier, as Janiri stepped out from behind her cover. She extended her hand again, this time with the omni-tool crackling with blue energy. With a gesture a bolt of blue lightning shot across the battlefield and crashed into the green barrier of the Locust. Janiri didn’t even bother to see how well she had done, immediately jumping back behind cover to avoid any counter attack. She hoped and prayed Karnoc would do what he had done last fight, and take all the attention off of her again. He would like that, probably.