The slaver had just lifted his Mattock, firing a wild shot as he aimed at her when the throw landed, hitting his right shoulder. The Mass Effect field hit him and spread like water across his torso, accompanied by the utterly bewildering sensation of his organs suddenly being jammed in a new direction. The effect had been ubiquitously called 'throw,' but the sensation was more akin to suddenly falling sideways at an accelerated rate. Desmond was off his feet, spinning in the air from the off center strike. He hit the ground, his armor screeching as he bounced and ended up against the far wall. The flashbang that had been carried with the throw bounced off him with a tiny clang, the device having not been armed before Milenya accidentally loosed it at him.<br/><br/>Ashana had barely regained her senses when Kala's flash bang went off. Her head rocked back as it went off, a desperate reflex to throw her gaze from it, but it was far too late. She couldn't see anything, her vision lost. She fell to the floor, the only thing she could hear was her own heartbeat, the cold floor beneath her. All else was silence and darkness.<br/><br/>Desmond's armor did its job when the flash bang went off, his visor automatically darkening, and his audio transceivers shutting out the loudness of the bang - but the systems could only react, not preempt. The shock of the flash hit him and left a giant dark blob in his vision before the visor reacted. He scrambled, aiming his mattock in the direction that might have been where Milenya had been, but the throw had completely disoriented him and the only thing they came dangerously close to was Ashana laying on the floor, though all she could hear was tiny little distant pops.<br/><br/>The moment his vision cleared enough to discern shapes, he was moving. He grabbed Ashana who was lying prostrate, yanking her up with his left hand, securing his grip around her throat and lifting his mattock with his right arm. Ashana coughed and swung her arms blindly, yelling in a panic against her attacker. She grabbed Desmond's wrist, clawing at it, but to her he was a walking, mechanized tank, one that she couldn't even see.<br/><br/>The slaver hauled Ashana along as he fired at Milenya, knowing that any rocket she lobbed his way would kill Ashana instantly.<span style="color: red">Give me the god-damn rocket launcher!</span>He yelled after Milenya. Without it, he would be cut down by the gunship outside before he could escape.<br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/>Kala's Geiger Counter wasn't yet reacting. It was a weapon from before the First Contact War, when humanity had blindly reached out into space, unaware of the ramifications. It was a thermonuclear warhead, a yield of 5 Gigatons, that had been strapped onto a deep space probe and ferried around the galaxy between lunatics trying to make some credits, and now here. The payload was being doused in radiation, destabilizing it in preparation for fissile collapse with a fusion kicker.<br/><br/>A scan revealed a fail-safe trigger, locked out mechanically once the bomb was armed - and in 3 minutes the rods were going to reach critical mass and it was going to fire. There was no way to disarm the trigger except with an exact 10 digit code hard wired into the device. But the weapon had a fundamental flaw. It was inert until tampered with and armed. The weapon had a minimum 3 minute timer, 180 seconds during which it would bathe the fissile rods in gamma-radiation, destabilizing them until they reached critical effective mass and could be detonated, which would then compress and set off the fusion core.<br/><br/>The timer reached 3:30. At 3 minutes the gamma primer would begin.<br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/>Sorv and Firas grappled with the Batarian, eventually managing to get the best of him. They regrouped with Darion, keeping in cover. The return fire from the Batarians was minimal from beyond the large airlock. They made no move to advance.<br/><br/><span style="color: darkorange">Well my last few ideas haven't gone over too well, anyone else have a plan?</span><div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>