The Exalted were nothing less than a force of nature on the battlefield. 042 reaped a bloody toll on the landing zone's forces, its cannons turning nearby troopers into clouds of red mist. Judging by the ticking on John's Geiger counter, Esone was probably racking up his own butcher's bill as well. John could trust them to do their jobs. Their new doctor was an unknown, but any Exalted worth her salt would have the sense to maintain a healthy network of personal defenses. That left Liara.<br/><br/>'Commander!' the asari yelled, 'Singularity!'<br/><br/>Sure enough, Liara had manifested a biotic singularity above a clutch of Cerberus soldiers, lifting them and slowly but surely crushing them together with the sheer gravitational force it generated. It was the perfect setup for a biotic combo. With a slight Essence-fueled boost, John charged into the mass, his fist connecting with the singularity itself. The resulting explosion pulped the unfortunate soldiers and hurled their comrades to the ground. John took a moment to scan his surroundings.<br/><br/>The team had landed directly on top of Liara's target dig site. Terrain was uneven and unstable, mining equipment and vehicles lay scattered all around, and more and more Cerberus forces poured into the area. Well, at least there was no shortage of props. As an Atlas mech lumbered into view, John punched into the flank of an enemy Mako IFV, lifting it one-handed and hurling it towards the hapless machine. Without bothering to see the results, he turned and charged into another cluster of enemies. With each strike, his fists and feet shattered bones and pulped vital organs. John barely registered the mortal threats around him--they were easy pickings, and the sheer destructive potential of the Exalted made them far more important targets than Liara.<br/><br/>A pack of Dragoons leaped into the fray. One got a lash around John's arm and used that as the set-up for a flying kick. That poor fool. John parried the kick aside and landed a Heaven Thunder Hammer strike on the man's groin. The resulting force propelled the Dragoon into another nearby Atlas, toppling the mech and leaving it helpless against 042's guns. Two more Dragoons attempted accosted the Solar. One received an inferno round to the face for his trouble. His partner tried pulling John closer. John indulged her with a biotic charge and a flurry of strikes that shattered her skull, trachea, ribcage, and spine. The Zenith was ablaze with Essence, deliberately flaring his anima banner to make himself a target. Small arms glanced harmlessly off his barriers, while explosives and heavy weapons were turned away with biotic shockwaves or tanked with judicious use of the Adamant Skin Technique. This was almost too easy--the Cerberus forces here were far less numerous than the Collectors he, Esone, and 042 had fought, and they fought without the support of Reaper possession. In a way, this started to feel like as much of a vacation as their brief sojourn on the Citadel.<br/><br/>A quick glance at John's motion tracker told him that the area remained awash with hostile signatures, but judging by the carnage all around, they would soon put paid to that. The Cerberus occupants were already dead men walking. It was just a matter of time before the rest fell to 042's guns, Liara's biotics, the doctor's robotics, or a mixture of radiation poisoning and massive blunt trauma. Then they could get to work on uncovering the dig site's secrets.