Beruut nodded as the brace secured itself to Kala's arm.<span style="color: YellowGreen">That will prevent the blood and puss build ups in the dermal tissue, prevent the blisters you're species are prone to. You may rejoin the crew on the command deck, if you'd like, now.</span>The Salarian stepped aside.<br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">Alright, we've got him. Mr. Falkris, take a look at any possible destinations he may be headed for.</span>Cantenelli leaned on the railing around the holographic display which now showed a readout of the city on Bekenstein that the cars were racing through.<br/><br/><span style="color: Red">Sir.</span>Falkris nodded and stepped up to a console to begin looking over data.<br/><br/><span style="color: Purple">Well let's hope they don't lose now.</span>Shira'Va said sardonically from the sidelines.<br/><br/>Cantenelli grunted in agreement, walking over to Falkris' console to look over the registered locations in the city. The Turian had narrowed his search to local docking facilities and transit hubs. Cantenelli said nothing and walked back over to the central display.<br/><br/>Mickey sat idly in the cockpit, reclined in the pilot's chair with his head on his hand. He watched the chase view on his screen, raising his eyebrows at the suspense of the friendly car's avoidance of the landing pad. A red exclamation appeared at the corner of his console, the indication of the ship's sensor's detecting something unusual. Mickey sat forward in his chair, mumbling an inquisitive<span style="color: Cyan">What?</span><br/><br/><span style="color: Red">Captain, I would say he's headed here.</span>Falkris said. Cantenelli approached and looked at the readout. It was a docking facility for temporary and commercial vessels.<span style="color: Red">His heading would suggest it as a possibility.</span><br/><br/><span style="color: Cyan">Captain...!</span>Mickey called from the cockpit. Cantenelli ignored him.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">I'd say more than suggests. He's probably got his ship docked there.</span><br/><br/><span style="color: Cyan">Captain!</span><br/><br/><span style="color: Red">The tunnel they just entered has an outlet close to -</span><br/><br/><span style="color: Cyan">Captain!</span>Mickey shouted.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">What?!</span>Cantenelli looked up from the console, angrily.<br/><br/>The central display changed as Mickey routed the Acheron's warning information to it. Cantenelli was about to order it back to the cars, but he stopped dead as he realized what he was looking at. The display showed a rotated view of the planet, near the city where the chase was happening. A red circle with a warning exclamation was circled, the readout identifying the area as a battle formation.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">Magnify!</span>The view zoomed, giving a top down view. 6 Kodiak shuttles were making for the city at breakneck speed, in military formation.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">Origin?</span><br/><br/><span style="color: Cyan">Other side of the planet, some kind of cruiser!</span>Mickey shouted in reply.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">Understood. Put us on full alert Mickey, get us under the radar.</span>Cantenelli ordered, standing up straight, still looking at display. The lights running the perimeter of the CIC turned red, alarms sounding the alert status change throughout the ship. Conduits began whirring in the ship's walls as power began shifting from the normal relays into the thermal panels that would hold the ship's heat, masking it from sensors. The mechanical rhythm of servos shifting pieces of the ship's hull to accommodate the change in thermal signature filled the vessel for several seconds before falling silent once again.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">Taseer, how are the relays?</span>He asked, looking at the Asari.<br/><br/><span style="color: Navy">They're shit. Like I've been trying to tell you. We'll need to shut down any non major systems if we want to stay in stealth for long.</span>She answered, giving him a serious look.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">Do it.</span>Cantenelli ordered after a long pause.<br/><br/><span style="color: Red">Captain, we should warn the ground crew. Those ships may carry reinforcements for our target.</span>Falkris suggested, standing and joining the captain at the central display.<br/><br/>Cantenelli nodded grimly, not looking away from the image.<br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/>When Darion opened fire on the vehicles power supply, the assassin dashboard of the assassin's car began flashing red, service warnings and lights appearing instantly. In an effort to reduce the damage, the assassin jerked the car right, slamming it into the team's vehicle, then trying to pull off to the left. But, even with the jolt, Firas held steady, following closely after the car.<br/><br/>Ashana looked down at Firas' rifle on the seat next to her, then grabbed it. She had almost no experience with rifles, or with what to shoot on the skycar, but it hardly mattered now. She lifted the weapon, and propped it against her shoulder, trying to aim from the backseat. Her view was obstructed by Firas' seat so she stood, bracing herself with one leg extended against the back of Firas' seat, the other against her own. As she raised up into the open air, the roar the wind forced her to squint, and made it difficult to steady the flat rifle against it, but she fired anyway. The first round jerked the weapon in her hands, but she compensated, tightening her grip, firing again, then again, squeezing the trigger as fast as she could.<br/><br/>Unlike Darion's close clusters, Ashana's round were spread all over the front of the vehicle. Some made their mark as she followed Darion's target, but others went through the assassin's windshield, making it crack and splinter into a spider web or fractured glass.<br/><br/>The assassin's car jerked violently as something in the vehicle exploded under the barrage and smoke began billowing from the hood. Ashana's assisted fire blew holes in his view, the cracks making it progressively more difficult for him to see. He fought to keep control, but it was hopeless. The dashboard sparked as the lines to the holographic relays were damaged, then shorted out. The system overloaded, and the holographic interface coughed sparks as it flickered madly, dimming as its life came to a rapid end.<br/><br/>A voice sounded in Firas' ear, barely audible over the roar of wind and gunfire around him.<span style="color: Blue">Ground team, you have 6 Kodiak shuttles inbound on your location. Repeat, you have 6 unidentified Kodiak shuttles en route to your location. </span>Firas was strained bad enough trying to keep the car on route, his concentration so absorbed in piloting the craft that he simply couldn't listen to what was being said.<br/><br/>The assassin's car was slowing and jolting as it began involuntarily losing altitude. The assassin looked out the window, flinching as another round came into the cabin, sparking his shields. He just barely made out the space port through the broken glass and smoke. It was near, on the other side of a multi-level shopping complex. He couldn't make it, his car was falling too fast, and he barely had enough control to keep it from plummeting straight into the ground. He let the craft fall, instead trying to keep it steady enough to land near the entrance to the shopping complex. The facility would able to provide more than ample cover to deal with his pursuers.<br/><br/>Firas judged the assassin's car's trajectory, and tried to bring the car in behind him, but the smoke billowing from its engine filled their cockpit, and Firas had to break off, to try to stay above, or around the car. Ashana expended the last round the rifle's thermal clip could manage and dropped back into the car, bracing herself for the landing, which, given Firas' driving so far, she knew was going to be rough.<br/><br/>The people in the parking zone saw the impending impact only half a minute before it happened. Screams, and panicked running preceded the smoking car's impact. The vehicle hit the ground and skipped, spinning as it lifted back into the air, its passenger tensely gripping the controls to hold on. The vehicle touched down again and skidded across the pad sideways, leaving a black burnt streak across the ground, and throwing smoking debris in its wake. The assassin jolted as it finally came to a halt, a dozen yards from the building's entrance. He sat for a moment, breathing heavily, sweat and blood dripping down his forehead where a shard of glass had cut a small gash. He gathered his bearings and looked, seeing the pursuing vehicle angling to set down close by.<br/><br/>He unstrapped himself from the car and hopped out, ducking behind the smoking wreck for cover as more rounds were fired his way, the gunshots scattering what few pedestrians remained nearby after the crash. The assassin's eyes darted as he thought for a moment. He reached into his coat, to the back of his belt and withdrew another of the high explosive yield grenades, slapping it to the side of his wrecked vehicle.<br/><br/>Ashana was ready to get out of the vehicle even before it had finished touching down. Firas had opted to put them a short distance from the wreck, behind a few parked skycars that they could use for cover if the assassin opted to open fire. She squeezed out the back, and was gingerly reminded that of her injuries as her feet landed on the ground, her ankle threatening to let her fall. She winced and stumbled, but pressed on as best she could. Firas grabbed his rifle from the back seat and jumped out. Quickly moving up, putting his shoulder against a car as he crouched down to use it as cover. The red warning on the rifle blinked at him and he ejected the thermal clip, grabbing another from beneath his jacket.<br/><br/>He looked over the cover at the wreck of their target, but the visibility was low enough as it was with the smoke belching from it.<span style="color: Blue">Lets go!</span>He yelled and moved around the car, Ashana trying to follow close behind.<br/><br/>Something sparked in the Asari's mind suddenly, a flicker of doubt, and she saw the assassin hit her in the tower, felt his kick to her ribs, and she slowed. Now, suddenly advancing toward him, she couldn't suppress the memory, so fresh and recent in her mind. She didn't want to get near him again.<br/><br/>As Firas moved, a pair of shots rang out. For an instant his heart skipped a beat. Every time two shots had rang out, one of the security officers had gone down. He didn't think the assassin had a clear shot, but his shield flared, and for an instant and he thought he was dead, his mind telling him a bullet had entered his brain, or his neck, that it had killed him. But as he fell back into cover behind the next car in line, he blinked and looked down at himself. Nothing. No penetration. He blinked, did the assassin miss?<br/><br/>He looked down at the shield indicator on his wrist. It was two thirds full. He said it just as his mind realized it.<span style="color: Blue">Phasic rounds! </span>He yelled, suddenly grinning.<span style="color: Blue">He had phasic rounds!</span>He laughed. Ashana looked at him, confused by his mirth.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">He doesn't anymore!</span>The Turian shouted. It was show his weapon had penetrated the high powered shields so easily. He looked at Darion.<span style="color: Blue">Come on!</span>Firas stood, and as he did, he saw the assassin running away from them through the smoke, toward the complex. As he took a step forward, though, he suddenly felt himself thrown back. He was flying through the air and grunted as he hit the ground. He blinked, dazed and confused. His ears were ringing.<br/><br/>He sat up and saw the huge plume of smoke, the smoking wreck had become a flaming field of debris. Another of the assassin's grenades had gone off, blowing the destroyed vehicle all over the parking lot. He started to stand and felt someone roughly helping to lift him back on his feet.<br/><br/><span style="color: DarkOrchid">Still has those, though.</span>Ashana said sitting behind their skycar cover, her head cocked to the side with a bewildered look on her face.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">That...</span>Firas said, trying to shake off the daze.<span style="color: Blue">Was a distraction. If he's running, he knows he's at a disadvantage. This may be our only chance. Come on!</span><br/><br/>He started forward then slowed as another sound grew in volume around them. It took a moment for Firas to realize what was: the roar of landing engines.<br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/>As he entered the building, he paused at a wall terminal, and ran his omni-tool over it. Alarms began going off though the building, fire warnings. The pedestrians, predominantly human, had already been shaken from their shopping haze by the sounds of the crash, then explosion, just outside. But when the alarms began, they started moving. Shouts of people looking for family and friends and startled yells echoed from the complex ahead of the entrance hallway. The entrance hall led to an open cylinder, ringed by balconies on the various levels of the multi-plex, and a glass walled elevator at its far brim.<br/><br/>A woman, a mother who lifted her young child into her arms when the alarms started made from the front entrance, toward the assassin. As she neared, he reached out and grabbed her arm with one hand. She looked at him, wide eyed and afraid as she saw the blood on his face.<span style="color: DarkRed">Not that way.</span>He said, staring at her seriously, warning her away. She nodded and quickly disappeared into the complex to find for another exit.<br/><br/>He made for the elevator. The top floor of the complex had a tram that ran service for nearby docking facility. It would serve well enough as his escape route.<br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/>Two of the Kodiaks set down on either side of the front entrance, two others hovering above, while two more roared over the top of the complex. Firas and Ashana both shielded their eyes from the wake of wind the hovering craft were putting out, but also from the bright spotlight that shone down on the three from one of the shuttles. They couldn't see anymore than silhouettes as the hovering shuttle's door's opened and large figures with guns aimed down at them.<br/><br/>Then the spotlights shut off, and they got a good look at the shuttle and its the two leaning out the door. The shuttle's were white with black and orange markings. The men inside wore very heavy assault armor, colored similarly to the shuttle. On the men's armor, and the shuttle was an emblem, a vertically elongated black hexagon, split down the center at its base, with two orange, angular stripes on either side rising from the base  along its sides. Ashana didn't recognize it. A woman appeared in the doorway of the shuttle and stepped off the edge, dropping down the two dozen feet, nearly to the ground before she was enveloped by a blue, undulating aura that slowed her descent as she landed. Ashana recognized the biotic field immediately.<br/><br/>Even to Ashana's standards the woman was attracted. She wore now armor, instead favoring a white, very snug fitting uniform  with black boots, and orange accents that showed off her very well trained and toned body. Her golden blonde hair was pulled back into a bun, and her eyes were a blue so pale that they looked crystalline. But, even for her beauty, there was a coldness about her that made Ashana uneasy. She looked at the complex as the biotic aura faded, then at the three before her.<br/><br/><span style="color: RoyalBlue">We'll take it from here.</span>She said dismissively to them.<span style="color: RoyalBlue">Stay out of his sight. I don't want him to know we're here until its too late. And no kill shots. We need him alive.</span>She ordered over some unseen communications device. Then went walking by them.<br/><br/>Firas stood nearly frozen. He knew the emblem, though he had never had dealings with its bearer's before. From their reputation, he was thankful they didn't shoot him outright for being what he was to them. For being an alien. That was the way of Cerberus, from what he knew.<br/><br/>The hovering shuttles lifted up, following the two that had flown over the complex. Ashana didn't recognize any of them. But when the human woman passed by her, Ashana noticed small dots of light on her clothing, strangely placed if they were shield emitters. Particularly since Ashana recognized their placement. They were set where the nodes that element zero formed in the nervous system  of biotics.<br/><br/>Firas moved cautiously, looking from Darion to Ashana. He approached the entrance to the building, the Cerberus troops, heavily armed and armored, filing out of the shuttles that had set down, forming up on the flanks of the entrance in a breach pattern. The woman looked inside from the outside corner, and not seeing the assassin, she ordered them to move in, the two squads following her orders, keeping low in an effort to stay out of sight.<br/><br/>One trooper remained, rifle in hand, his golden visor pointed straight at Ashana, Firas, and Darion. It wasn't hard to surmise he was posted to keep them out. Firas wanted to feel anger, to the feel dejected to suddenly be cut from the chase, but as he stared at the emblem on their armor, he could only feel a cold chill down his spine.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>