Chapter Three: IEDs, Bullets and Other Presents

One of the good things about being a sniper is that you develop a finely honed patience. You need to be patient when performing recon for days on end, because even the dumbest or most minute detail could be important. It's the only way to locate high-value targets, track his or her movements, factor instuff like environmental variables or obstacles, and pick the right time to pull the trigger.

That patience comes in handy when you're stuck in a crate with nothing to do. It's not as if the crate offered much to see or explore. It wasn't tricked out with the latest entertainment hardware or toys. After all the effort I'd gone to clear it out, it was completely empty. Boring. All that training and experience was the only thing that kept me from getting bored to tears. Almost made up for all the sleep I'd lost.

I managed to find a few ways to pass the time, though. Cracked open the mods that Morgan sent me and started slotting them in. The heat sinks went into the pistols and assault rifles. It was important to keep rapid-fire weapons—especially something like the assault rifle—from overheating. Conversely, I installed the high-caliber barrels into my shotgun and sniper rifle. Only the most delusional of civvies would mistake them for rapid-fire weapons. The increased damage from the barrels was worth the risk of overheating, especially if it meant the difference between a dead pirate and a dead Alliance operative like myself. Of course, there was the chance that the weapons would permanently seize up instead of cooling down. That's what my other weapons were for.

After installing the accompanying software. If there was ever a downside to weapon mods, that would be it—I swear, it takes forever to get it up and running. You wouldn't think that weapon mods needed software. Certainly the vast majority of customers—law-abiding and otherwise—didn't think so. With any luck, the manufacturers would figure that out sooner or later. Until then...

Normally, I'd put that off until I had nothing better to do. Surprise, surprise: right now, I had nothing better to do. So I sat by and patiently waited for the installation window to pop up, clicked 'No' to the inevitable prompt of whether I wanted to register my mod online—after all the work I'd gone to find this ship and hide in this dull and depressingly drab crate, it would be ridiculous to scrap all that by opening an unauthorized and unsecure extranet link that any idiot with half a brain could detect.

Then I sat back and twiddled my thumbs. I suppose I could've double-checked the ammo blocks to make sure they didn't need replacing. But it was a bit too late for that. I mean, where was I gonna go to find new ones? Maybe I could pop outside, knock on a few doors and—

—hey! The installation was finished. Time to start the next one. Yes, I was only installing one weapon mod at a time. You can't fire a weapon while the mod software is installing. Not unless you want to thoroughly screw up the targeting auto-assist, the magnetic accelerators, the mass effect micro-generators or—with my luck—all of the above and a whole lot more. Point is, if I installed the mod software on all of my weapons simultaneously, and I got caught, I'd have nothing to defend myself with. Except my foul language, which the pirates were probably used to. And my charm, which I didn't want to use after the admin lady debacle. And the grenades, which I had a limited supply of.

Besides, by doing things one at a time, I could kill a little more time. And a little more patience. Both of which were better than having someone kill, say, me.

So I holstered my newly upgraded pistol and started on my sniper rifle.

And then my assault rifle.

And then my shotgun.

And then...

...

...uh...

Time to calibrate my hardsuit!

And maybe my omni-tool. Why not?

While I was doing that, I should—no. Wait until the calibrations were finished. Which was far too soon for my liking. But once the calibrations were complete, then I could run a full security sweep. You never knew what computer viruses you might pick up while downloading files. Granted, you could minimize the risks by staying away from dodgy sites like certain little bearded NCOs who shall remain unnamed.

I waited—and waited and waited—for the calibrations to finish. Can you believe that some people get paid to do this? Sit around doing calibrations all day. Must be the dullest, most boring job ever! Mind you, at least those people don't get shot at. Or dragged into life-threatening situations despite their best efforts. So maybe there's an upside to all that drudgery.

Sadly, the calibrations were soon complete. The security sweeps finished just as quickly. Which left me with nothing to do.

Except think about how the heck I was gonna pull this off. Granted, the idea of me actually thinking was just as dangerous as it sounded, but it was a whole lot better than getting killed. Knowing my luck, Ellie would probably find my bullet-ridden corpse and bring me back from the dead, just so she could throttle me herself.

At least, I wouldn't have to worry about the turrets. I would have dreaded the prospect of facing those things without a fully-armed Mako to blow them up—or, more likely, use to make a fast getaway if things went completely pear-shaped—particularly since I didn't have one. All thanks to Beckman and Graham unfairly questioning my driving abilities.

But, luckily for me, the pirates would shut the turrets off. Accidentally blowing up a ship carrying your supplies wasn't the best plan in the playbook, after all. Especially if it meant detonating a starship-grade eezo core right on top of you. All I had to do was sneak my way through and out of the cargo hold across whatever the pirates were using as a landing pad and get into the compound.

And then...

...

...well, that was the problem, wasn't it?

Even with the rosiest estimates, I was still looking at 10-to-1 odds. Which might be okay if they were all spread out and I could take them out one by one. But they'd all come clustering together at the first gunshot, either by my hand or by one of theirs. And then I'd be screwed—and not, alas, in a good way.

Ideally, I'd just take them all out. Commandeering the Kerrigan's Blade, setting it on a collision course with the compound and ejecting at the last minute would be the simplest way. Pirates wouldn't suspect anything until it was too late. Unfortunately, I couldn't say that the crew of this ship 'deserved' it. All I knew for sure was that the captain was heavily in debt after one—or two or ten—too many games of Skyllian Five poker and desperately needed the cash. Killing the entire crew for the captain's financial problems seemed a bit much.

Maybe I could blow up the compound with the grenades I scooped from the Customs building. It's not as if I regularly used them. There were two problems, though. First, grenades couldn't level an entire building just by randomly throwing them around. Believe me; the galactic casualty rate would skyrocket if they were that powerful. Since they didn't have that much bang for the proverbial buck, I'd have to find a key place to plant them. The compound's eezo core or the coolant systems, perhaps.

At least, I'd know where to look: there was a very good chance that the compound on Treagir would be like every other ground-based compound out there. Seriously: every contractor in the galaxy used the exact same blueprint: an entrance area that was long and narrow, opening up into a large central area that would inevitably be packed with a veritable maze of disorganized and haphazardly arranged crates, with a T-shaped corridor at the far end that led to two smaller rooms. Governments and military REMFs encouraged this, citing that it would make it easier for troops and security officers to defend if they had a standard layout to work with. Grunts, pirates and everyone else with half a brain knew that this standard layout would also make it embarrassingly easy to devise a plan of attack.

Of course, what I was looking for was probably in one of the rooms at the end of the T-shaped corridor. Which meant I'd have to actually go through the compound and avoid all the pirates. That part wasn't so easy, embarrassingly so or otherwise. But I'd cross that bridge when I got to it.

The second problem was that I had grenades, not bombs or other explosives. Unless I wanted to toss the grenades at the eezo core or whatever and run like hell, I'd need to set them on some sort of timer or remote detonation switch. Not that big a deal, except for the minor little fact that grenades don't come with those things.

Hmm...

Maybe I could tinker with the grenade circuitry and alter the detonation sequence. I opened one grenade up and started poking around...

...

...was that red light blinking a second ago?

...

Aw, crap.

I hastily reversed whatever I did, hoping I got it right. The red light went out.

Holding my breath, I waited for another minute, just to make sure the damn thing didn't blow up in my face. It didn't.

Time to think of another plan, since I clearly wasn't a bomb expert.

Hmm...

I could create my own timer and sync it with the grenade. Or grenades, since I might need more than one. But that would require cannibalizing something else. Hardsuit was out—with my luck, I'd just damage or disable something important. Like life support, for example. And I wasn't even going to touch my omni-tool—my song list is on the damn thing, after all!

The only other items I had the weapons. Sniper rifle was out, of course. So was the pistol, simply because it was the most accurate of any of my weapons. Hell, on my last mission, I killed half a dozen targets with my pistol, when they were far enough away to warrant the use of my sniper rifle. No way I was giving up the pistol. That left the shotgun and the assault rifle. I stopped to think about the kind of firefights I might wind up in. Close quarters, potentially bumping into hostiles at point-blank range, the clear and present need to take them out right away... that was right up the alley of the redneck's favourite weapon: the shotgun.

That left the assault rifle, by process of elimination. I contemplated having a moment of silence. Something to acknowledge the sacrifice that was required.

Then I reached over my shoulder, pulled out the assault rifle and began disassembling it.

Taking the assault rifle apart didn't take long. The tricky part was finding the necessary components and figuring out how to jury-rig a remote detonation timer. Yes, I did actually learn how to do that in N-School, but that was with Hahne-Kedar weapons. The instructors would actually put on dance music while we stripped that crap down to its basic parts. Unfortunately, Haliat Armoury built their weapons differently. Not because they were turians, but because every weapons manufacturer had to stroke their own ego by building things in a completely different configuration. So I wasted a bit of time double-checking and triple-checking everything.

I suppose it was worth it in the end. Managed to scrounge up enough components to build two bombs instead of one, and I only used up four grenades.

After that was finished, I had nothing else to do.

So I took a nap.

I woke up when the Kerrigan's Blade landed. And by landed, I meant dropped down and hit the landing pad with enough force to make the ship shake and my teeth rattle. Plus, my head wound up bouncing against the crate. I wasn't too concerned about that last part—the fact that I got stuck in this idiotic solo mission when I could be having turkey dinner with Ellie was a clear sign that I had already suffered serious brain damage. Though maybe I should have her run a scan, just in case. Even though she had yet to get that neurology fellowship, she'd devoured and memorized every paper and procedure ever published in the field. She always was a keener.

But I digress. Time to make my move.

Opening the crate, I took a quick peek around. There were a couple people in the area, judging by the muted voices I heard and the contacts picked up by my hardsuit sensors. However, none of them were actually looking up, focusing more on unloading their clients' supplies.

Taking advantage of their distraction, I left my temporary, albeit spartan, home and began climbing down the mountain of crates. As I clambered, shuffled and hopped down, I helped myself to a few goodies. I wasn't stupid enough to actually rummage through the crates. Not this time, anyway. But if I happened to pass by a spare omni-tool or mod that just happened to be sitting out there in the open, I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity.

I may have paused to stare at the omni-tool and silently curse myself for not swiping thatearlier. If I had grabbed it, I could have used its components to jury-rig my timers instead of using up my assault rifle. Note to self: be more alert next time. You never know when spare loot could come in handy. Besides, if the knuckleheads who owned it were lazy enough to leave it lying around, then they clearly didn't deserve to keep it.

Getting to the bottom wasn't that hard. Sneaking out of the ship, though, that was another story. What this situation called for was a distraction. I hefted a nearby crate. Bit too heavy for what I had in mind. I rummaged through my pockets and dug up the loot I'd found so far. Which was more valuable: a Mark II Bluewire omni-tool from Aldrin Labs or a Mark I Combat Scanner? Actually, both of them were pretty useless. But the Bluewire would fetch more creds on the market. So I put away the omni-tool, tossed the combat scanner up and down a couple times to get a sense of its weight, then hurled it across the cargo bay.

It made a loud clang when it hit the wall and an even louder crash when it knocked over a couple cans of soda that hadn't been properly packaged for some reason. The resulting cacophony got everyone's attention. I ducked down behind a crate and checked my HUD. According to the readings, anyone who wasn't rushing over to investigate the unexpected crash was certainly moving in that general direction. So I quickly zipped out of the cargo bay like a heavily-armed Quasimodo.

I found cover behind another crate just as quickly, before the pirates could see me. There were two of them, stationed on some sort of patrol route. I held my breath and waited as one of them got closer, closer... and stopped, ten metres away. A few seconds passed as he casually looked around. Then he turned and headed back the way he came. I left my hidey-hole and scrambled towards a set of barrels. So far, so good.

My next target was a really big shipping container that was sitting outside the compound entrance. The second pirate was standing right in front of them, however. Fortunately, he was facing the other way.

Keeping a close eye on him, I double-timed it from the barrels to the container. No reaction. I waited a few more seconds to make sure before making my move for the entrance.

Surprisingly, no one saw me. The reason for that became clear when I entered the first room: the pirate stationed there was listening to some media program that was being streamed over the extranet. One of those extreme nuts, going on and on about genetic and cybernetic augmentations and how they were polluting the human body. All that ranting made it really easy to slip by him.

Now for the central cargo area. There was a life-sign right at the entrance, about nine metres from me. Eight metres... seven metres...

...still seven metres...

...eight metres... nine metres. Peering around the corner, I saw a pirate walk away, his back turned to me. I quickly entered the room, hopping over a crate and ducking behind a piece of machinery before he could turn back.

The next hiding spot was a pair of long crates, stacked one on top of the other. Unfortunately, there were three pirates that were a bit too close for comfort. As I watched, one kept walking, disappearing behind another stack of crates. Another turned around, tapping on his omni-tool. And the third walked towards me, stopped, casually looked around, then turned back. No one was looking in my direction, so I went on my way.

I almost made it to the far end. Almost being the operative word: if it wasn't for my sensors giving me a heads-up, I would've walked right into another pirate. He was a big guy, bald, with skin almost as black as the hardsuit he was wearing. Definitely not the kind of guy I'd wanna mess with. So I waited until he left before making my way to the door and into the corridor.

Now which way should I go? Left or right? Left, I decided.

That led me to a room full of lockers. It waskinda funny, considering none of them were actually, you know, locked. Remembering the unnecessary sacrifice of my assault rifle, I started going through the lockers. Empty, empty, chit for 20 credits, empty, empty, empty, empty...

...this could take a while.

Empty, empty, empty, empty, emp—ooh! Hahne-Kedar pistol! Can you say omni-gel?—empty, empty, empty, empty, empty, empty, combat scanner mod to replace the one I used as a distraction, empty, empty, empty, empty, empty, empty, empty, empty and... empty.

Well that was disappointing. The only other thing of importance in this room were a pair of thin cylinders that stretched from the floor to the ceiling, with a console embedded nearby in the wall. If memory served, that was the satellite communications grid. I quickly set up one of my improvised explosive devices there before continuing on my way. Hopefully the other room would prove more fruitful.

I headed across the hall, pausing only when I heard footsteps. The footsteps grew softer before fading away. So I continued on my way.

'Paydirt!' was the first thought that crossed my mind when I stepped inside. There was a big honking piece of machinery right in front of me. This big contraption with three boxy things around a round pivot that kept spinning and spinning, letting out a deep thrum and a soft pulse of blue light with each revolution. I had to resist the urge to cover the family jewels—even the most basic eezo core has at least two or three safety features built-in. No one wants to get accidentally sterilized. Or risk giving birth to a kid with brain tumours or physical deformities—yes, yes, there's also a chance that the kid will be perfectly normal or become a somewhat-functional biotic, but who'd want to take a gamble like that?

In any event, it looked like this was the ticket. I could set the bomb up, sneak out and set the bomb off from a nice, safe distance.

Before I did that, I thought I'd do some more investigating. Find out what the pirates were stealing and selling. I found a nearby computer console and started poking around. Looked like they weren't targeting anything in particular. Luxury furniture, skycars, cutting-edge fabricators—anything that would fetch a hefty price, in other words. Their latest shipment...

...

...well...

...I guess I could blow it up. It wouldn't cause any immediate damage.

But if I could somehow preserve those items, they could do a lot of good.

Now how could I do that?

"Hey!"

Aw, crap.

I turned around. There were five or six pirates. All with guns pointed at me.

All of a sudden, I had a much better question on my mind.

"Who are you?"

The pirates dragged me back into the central room and brought me before their boss—the big bald black guy I'd spotted earlier. "You'd better talk fast," he told me in a deep, bass voice. "My boys haven't killed anyone today. It's an unofficial quota thing, you see. Nothing personal."

"Right," I said dryly.

The big bald black guy reached down—did I mention he was at least two or three feet taller than me?—and pulled me towards him. "Now," he growled. "I'm only gonna say this one more time: Who. Are. You?"

"Han Solo," I deadpanned.

"Okay, 'Han.'" Judging by the way he said that, the big bald black guy probably didn't buy my act and assumed it was some sort of legend or alias. Either that or he'd also watched Star Wars. "People call me Mr. Colt."

"Nice to meet you," I said.

"Now that we've been properly introduced, tell me everything."

Colt shook me when I didn't immediately respond. The sad thing is, it worked.

"Okay, okay, okay," I hastily replied. "See, the thing is I was gonna spend a nice quiet relaxing vacation with my sister who's not really my sister and her boyfriend who's definitely her boyfriend when I got sent all the way out here because I kinda sorta do random stuff for random people at random times—I sorta bounce between jobs, or at least I call it a job, most people wouldn't call the stuff I usually get hired for a job, per se. And in this case, the job is, well, getting you and all your buddies to turn yourselves in."

Colt stared at me. As truthful as my ramble had been, it was vague enough to be completely and utterly unhelpful—all that time slumming around with REMFs and politicians had finally paid off. "So you're some kind of negotiator?"

"Something like that," I shrugged.

"And you want us to turn ourselves in?"

"Yep."

"Why would I tell my men to do that?" Colt asked.

"Because people find me imposing," I tried. "Go ahead. You can be honest: I was going for imposing."

Colt looked down—and down and down and down—at me. There was a long pause.

"That is the single dumbest thing I have ever heard," Colt said at last.

"Fair enough," I allowed. "But if you kill me, you should know that a number of people will be really, really upset."

"Well, I have to kill you anyway," Colt admitted. He moved his left arm up and across to his right, grabbed it with his right hand and pulled. "No matter how many people are gonna be upset. See: you saw my face. You heard my voice. You know my name."

"So? I forget lots of things," I said. "Ask anyone: I forget things all the time. Faces, names, passwords—you name it, I forgot it."

"Can't take that chance," Colt told me. He moved his right arm up and across to his left, almost as if he was… "What exactly are you doing?" I asked.

"Stretching. Getting limber."

"Why are you doing that?"

"So I don't pull a muscle when I break your neck or pull your limbs off."

Aw, crap.

"Maybe you should get limber too."

I slowly looked around. There were eighteen pirates surrounding me, plus Mr. Colt. Add the three pirates I saw outside—none of whom I saw in here with me—and that made twenty-two. I also saw the weapons, grenade and improvised bomb in a pile on the side, where they had been sitting since the pirates frisked me.

"What are you waiting for?" Colt asked, looking up at me as he reached down to touch his toes (or boot tips). "Don't you get it? You're all alone, Han—if that is your real name."

And that's when I came up with a plan. Not a great plan. Just an ad-hoc, last-ditch, kinda sorta plan that might keep my neck unbroken for another minute or so. I gave him a cool, confident glare and pasted Hero Smile #3 (Give Up Now, and No One Gets Hurt) on my face. Colt paused at this sudden change.

"My name is Charles Carmichael of the Systems Alliance, and you're the one who doesn't get it," I said.

Colt started to smile.

I kept smiling back. "I don't think you gentlemen understand the gravity of the predicament you're in. We've known all about this compound and the others in the Hong system. That's right. See, all the piracy you've been up to over the last six months? Yeah, we traced that. Right now, this compound alone is currently surrounded by twenty-three Vanguards, sixteen Infiltrators, seven Soldiers, four Adepts and enough ammunition to send a clan of krogan into orbit."

As I talked, some of the pirates started shuffling and exchanging nervous glances. The rest of them looked at me as if they were wondering what I was smoking. "That's fifty guys with military-grade weapons and biotics, for those of you who can't do math or don't know Alliance terminology," I continued. "You're outmatched and outgunned. Those peashooters you're packing? Might as well be sharp sticks and foul language, as far as I'm concerned."

Everyone was looking at Colt now. He looked at two of them and gave a nod. One of them tapped a command on his omni-tool. The other one lifted a hand to his ear, clearly contacting someone. "Nothing there, boss," the first guy said.

"We're clear," the second guy confirmed.

Colt chuckled. "Good try," he offered.

"Of course you don't see them," I interrupted them with a sneer. "Who do you think we are? A bunch of FNGs?" I turned to Colt and stared him in the eyes. "The only thing you're gonna see is a muzzle flash, followed by a first-class ticket straight to Hell. So why don't you make the smart choice and give up?"

Colt rolled his head around, evidently stretching his neck muscles, before taking a step towards me. "Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait," I stopped him. "I wouldn't do that. You don't believe me?" I motioned towards my omni-tool. "Why don't you ask my friend? I think you'll wanna hear what he has to say."

"Put it on speaker," Colt ordered.

"Sure thing," I shrugged. I tapped in the last call relayed through my omni-tool and let it ring, hoping that I could establish a decent real-time connection all the way out here.

To my relief, Morgan picked up. "Hello?"

There was a bit of gunfire in the background. Probably from his extranet games, but the pirates didn't know that—they make some incredibly realistic games these days.

"Hey there," I said calmly.

"Hey! How's it going?"

"Same old, same old," I replied. "Listen, I'd like you to tell me the exact specs for the team surrounding the compound."

"The whole shebang?" Morgan asked.

"The whole shebang," I confirmed.

"Yes, sir. We have twenty-three Vanguards, sixteen Infiltrators, seven Soldiers and four Adepts."

Any grin, sneer or look of confidence washed right of the ugly mugs of every single pirate in the room. Even Colt.

"I should tell you that we got a little impatient and took out one of the sentries. Don't worry, it was a headshot. He didn't get a chance to tell his buddies. Oh, you should have seen it, man. It was beautiful! His head exploded like a watermelon!"

"Thanks," I said before cutting the comm transmission—and carefully setting a countdown—on my omni-tool.

"They must've gotten Fritz," one of the pirates fretted.

"I thought he was going to the can," another one said.

"That was ten minutes ago!"

"One more time," I told Colt, unleashing a fresh dose of Hero's Smile #3. "Give up."

...

...

All the pirates jumped as an explosion rang out. That would be my first IED taking apart the sat com and cutting the pirates' communication link—and mine, unfortunately—with the rest of the galaxy.

"Damn it!" Colt cursed. "Spread out, everyone. Keep your eyes sharp and check everywhere. Don't let anything get past you!"

Too late: while everyone was distracted, I grabbed my gear, hastily shoved everything onto my person and made a run for it.

As I sprinted past the crates, I hastily tried to hack into the compound's PA system. I figured that I could insert a couple soundtracks of gunfire to randomly belt out from the speakers, keep everyone off-balance. Unfortunately, hacking and running doesn't really go hand in hand. One slip of the hand tripped a countermeasure and locked me out of the system.

Great, I thought sourly. Could anything else go wrong?

"Hey!"

One of these days, I'll learn to stop handing the universe lines like that. Without thinking, I whipped out a weapon and fired.

Turns out a shotgun tricked out with a high-caliber barrel, fired at point-blank range, can make short work of a pirate's head. Especially when there's no helmet to get in the way. Almost made the **ERROR** message I got over the HUD when the shotgun overheated worthwhile. One down, twenty-one to go.

Of course, that attracted everyone's attention. Time to run. Faster.

As I sprinted my way—no, take a left, right turn's a dead end—I started plotting my next move. Twenty-one armed pirates, eighteen of which were stuck in here with me. No allies. Three guns, one grenade, one IED. Even with virtually infinite ammo, the guns would only take me so far. Grenade would only help take out one or two pirates. IED might bump the count up to four or five, but that was it. Not much, since they were all spread out. If only they were all clustered together...

Clustered together...

Hmm...

I hopped onto a crate, jumped forward and pushed off the wall. In the vids, such a move would send the protagonist soaring effortlessly over some nameless bad guy or obstacle. In real life, I kinda collided with the stack of crates I was trying to clear and knocked the whole damn thing over. Got a lot of attention. Even more so than the shotgun. I scrambled to my feet and kept moving, trying to dodge the crates—and their contents—that were now strewn everywhere.

The bullets flying in my general direction might have given a little encouragement, come to think of it.

Diving into the entrance area and skidding on my chest plate, I sighed as the doors hissed shut behind me. Then I looked up. The pirate who'd been listening to the extranet broadcast earlier was now paying very close attention to me. Our eyes met briefly. In a 'Oh crap, this guy's gonna kill me, what should I do?' kind of way.

I reached for my gun. He reached for mine. I shot first.

Two down, twenty to go.

"Sorry," I apologized to the corpse, reaching over to grab a crate. As I dragged it to the doorway to provide some cover against the pirates about to storm out of the central cargo room, I added: "It's not your fault that sniper rifles were never meant to be fired at such close range. If it makes you feel better, my ears are still ringing."

Over all that ringing, I thought I heard sharp barking sounds. A few staccatos here and there.

Then my shields rippled as it absorbed a high-velocity impact. Guess I wasn't hearing things.

Lifting my head up, I swivelled my sniper rifle over the crate and fired. And missed. Damn it. Guess I needed some more practise time on the target range. Well, I could do that when I got back.

I ducked as a hail of bullets cut through the air. If I got back, I amended.

Popping back up, I lined up a shot. Ignoring the bullets draining my shields, I let out a breath and fired. This time I didn't miss.

Three down, nineteen to go.

It wasn't worth losing any more shield strength just to see the brains spray out of my target's head, so I ducked back down. While the bullet storm resumed, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my second IED. Time to set it—wait, what was that?

Another pirate burst in. Not from the cargo area. From outside. Guess he heard all the commotion and wanted to see what was going on. Unfortunately for him, I already had my sniper rifle aimed. He was a bit taller than I'd guessed, so I wouldn't have scored a headshot. But the bullet did rip right through his shields and hit his hardsuit, sending him staggering back. Before he could recover, I dropped my sniper rifle—damn thing had overheated—lifted my shotgun and fired.

Four down, eighteen to go.

I switched over to my pistol and fired a few random shots back into the cargo area before turning my attention back to the IED, hoping that I'd bought myself a little time. With two weapons frantically trying to vent heat, I had nothing but a pistol and a grenade to defend myself while I set things up. It would only take a couple seconds—ten, tops—but that required focused concentration. The kind of focus that can let someone sneak up and get the drop on you.

For once, the universe decided to throw me a bone and let me finish in peace. Maybe my luck's changing. Heck, I even had time to hack into the PA system. It's amazing what you can do these days with a dead guy's omni-tool. Before you sell it for scrap, that is.

The sounds of the orchestra—led by the clear, clarion call of the trumpet—distracted the pirates long enough for me to shoot another one in the head. Even managed to wait long enough to see the body collapse.

"It's the most wonderful time of the year!"

Minus the head, which was, you know, gone.

Andy Williams continued to sing 'It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year', his crooning voice slightly muffled by the resumption in hostilities. All those bullets and gunshots kinda drowned out the kids jingle-belling and ruined any chance of good cheer in the near future.

I got up and fired another shot. From my sniper rifle, which had actually cooled down remarkably fast. Guess the geth really did know how to build them. Another pirate went down for the count.

Five and six down, sixteen to go.

"It's the hap-happiest season of all!"

Was it me or were the gunshots getting louder? I checked my HUD.

Nope. Wasn't imagining things: the gunshots were getting louder. So were the pirates. They were packed together so tight, my HUD couldn't distinguish them. It just gave up and showed them as one big red blob. Good enough, I decided. Aiming over my shoulder, I fired a few pistol shots. The cry told me at least one or two bullets actually penetrated. Good. I armed the IED and ran for the door, holstering the sniper rifle and pistol.

"There'll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for roast—oof!"

That last part came from me when I barrelled out the compound door and ran right into the last pirate guard. Knocked him right over. But he got back up. I hit him, knocking him back down. But he got up again. So I hit him, knocked him back down and fired my shotgun. This time, he didn't get back up.

Seven down, fifteen to go.

Switching to my sniper rifle, I looked around. The Kerrigan's Blade was still on the landing pad. Guess the crew hadn't finished off-loading supplies yet. A ship would provide as good a vantage point as any, so I ran over and started clambering over crates.

"Hey! Whaddaya think you're doin'?"

I looked down at some guy with a sweat-stained shirt, some grubby overalls and a day's worth of mustache and raised an eyebrow. He looked up at a guy wearing a full hardsuit and armed to the teeth with guns. "Never mind," he offered.

Smart guy.

"Keep your head down and don't go anywhere," I instructed. "This'll all be over soon."

Getting on top of the Kerrigan's Blade, I pulled out my sniper rifle and made myself comfortable. If my timing was right, the IED should be going off just... about...

"BOOM!"

...now.

I boosted the gain on my sensors and did an active scan. Aside from the crew of the Kerrigan's Blade, there were four dots on my HUD. That meant the kill count was up to eighteen.

Call me greedy, but I was hoping for more.

Letting out a sigh, I peered through the scope of my sniper rifle. Sooner or later, someone would come out. Like the guy slowly sticking his head out. That's it…

…come out…

…just a little further…

I exhaled, centred my shot and pulled the trigger. Guy staggered. I kept one eye on him through the scope. The other eye watched the feed streaming from the sniper rifle to my hardsuit HUD, waiting to see when the heat meter dipped enough for me to fire another shot. Thankfully, I didn't need it, since the pirate finally collapsed.

Nineteen down, three to go.

There was a pause. Then all three pirates—including Mr. Colt—came barrelling out and charged towards me. No doubt they were banking on strength in numbers. I had to give them credit—they did not appreciate me offing all their buddies like that. Guess there's still a little honour amongst thieves. Or pirates

Only problem was, it wasn't gonna be easy taking out three fast-moving targets. I peered through the scope and centered on one of them. Small, wiry guy. Kept darting back and forth. But there was a pattern to his movement. It was just a matter of extrapolating his path and firing at the right moment.

Twenty down, two to go.

Colt and his last pal broke into a sprint. Just my luck. I watched their progress uneasily, silently urging the sniper rifle to cool down. I didn't need it to vent all the heat. Just enough for me to fire another shot—aha! Aimed, adjusted the shot and fired. Not my best work, but it did the job. Twenty-one down, one more to go.

Now where was he?

"Looking for me?" a deep bass voice asked as a big shadow loomed over me.

Aw, crap.

I whirled around and pulled the trigger. Nothing. Sniper rifle had completely seized up. I tossed it at him, buying myself enough time to grab my shotgun and fire at point-blank range. Colt let it bounce off him like it was nothing and kept coming. Scrambling to my feet, I grabbed my last grenade, lobbed it at him and jumped, hoping to clear the blast radius. A loud explosion added a little extra impetus—and a lot more heat—to my leap. I landed on the roof of the Kerrigan's Blade—hard. Coughing, I got to my hands and knees and turned around.

A big, armoured hand reached down, got a firm grip and yanked me up.

"No hard feelings?" I tried, grinning at Mr. Colt.

He glared at me before ripping the shotgun out of my hands and throwing it away.

"Right?"

In response, Colt lifted me up over his head and tossed me off the Kerrigan's Blade without breaking a sweat—or pulling a muscle.

The phrase 'They don't make 'em like they used to' is usually employed to express how things have gone downhill. How standards have dropped. How the bottom line is more important than the values that used to be touted. How stuff available in the present is so cheap, poorly made and completely inferior compared to past goods.

When it comes to hardsuits, I'm happy to say that that phrase does not always apply. If it did, the sensors wouldn't have detected my sudden descent and reconfigured my shields accordingly. Specifically, my shields wouldn't have switched to a configuration that distributed the tremendous force of the abrupt stop when I belly-flopped onto the pavement as evenly as possible. Otherwise, I might have either smashed into the pavement because my shields were too weak or smashed into my shields because they were too strong.

Don't get me wrong: it still hurt like hell. But at least I was still alive. Which was another thing that modern hardsuits were good at: slowly administering medi-gel when needed to take the edge off.

The sudden impact of bullets against what was left of my shields reminded me that even if they do make 'em like they used to, if not better, that doesn't mean they can handle anything. There is a limit. And my hardsuit was starting to reach it. Time to move. If I didn't, Colt would kill me. Or Ellie, if she ever found out.

Standing around wasn't much good—Colt had the high ground and, judging by how quickly those bullets were hitting me, a very fast and powerful assault rifle. I couldn't hide on the other side of the compound, since Colt's vantage point—my old vantage point—gave him a clear line of sight. Heck, I couldn't even run for the hills, since Colt would just cut me down before I made a hundred metres.

So that left going back inside. Back into the lion's den. I felt like I was being herded into a trap, but what else could I do? Part of me figured I could just duck in, hide, wait for Colt to storm in, then sneak back out.

That was also the part that still believed that Santa had awfully girly penmanship that looked suspiciously like Ellie's.

There was nothing I could use in the first room, so I ran into the central cargo area. Nice, big, lots of places to hide. And nothing to use as a weapon except the pistol I had in my hand. And a few crates full of supplies. And…

…

…hmm.

A canister, you say?

And what exactly were those readings?

You know, that just might work.

Colt wasn't here yet. Guess he wasn't in a hurry to break his legs by hopping off the ship. That bought me some more time, which I could use to do a thorough scan of the area. I needed to know a couple things. The configuration of this impromptu maze of crates I was in. Where the dead ends were.

And, most importantly, just how many of those canisters there were.

When Colt came in, the first thing he heard was a cheerful "Heads up!" from yours truly, followed by a canister thrown straight at him. It ruptured upon impact, spewing a thick green cloud of noxious toxic fumes. Not that it mattered, since he was wearing a helmet and had established atmospheric seals in his hardsuit. But that cloud did obscure his vision long enough for me to reach for another canister. The kind that had very volatile chemicals that didn't take kindly to being jostled or tossed around. The kind that made a very satisfying explosion upon impact.

Then I ran a little deeper into the room and to my right, stopping near another explosive canister.

"Chuck," Colt yelled. "You're starting to upset me."

"Story of my life," I yelled back. I watched on my HUD as Colt followed me. A little further… close enough. I tossed that canister and ran to the next hiding spot. One that was right behind him and had another canister close at hand. I watched him stagger a bit. Man, he could take a beating. Ditto with the hardsuit. Still, I had a fair number of canisters lying around. I figured I could keep this up for a while.

Tossing another canister, I was on my way to the next stop when it blew up. I skidded to a stop, lifted another canister and hurled it at Colt. This one, however, didn't blow up. So I had to stop again, double back, pull out my pistol and double-tap the canister. Then it went boom.

"How long you gonna keep this up, Chuck?" Colt called out.

"I don't know," I shouted back. "How many canisters do you have?"

He didn't respond. Probably because he didn't hear me, what with the ears ringing from yet another canister exploding upon impact against his hardsuit. That was fine—he'd managed to tag me with a couple dozen shots from his assault rifle. Really did a number on my shields. Time to find some more canisters.

Turned out that there were four canisters that could blow up at the slightest disturbance. Plus one or two more canisters full of gas that really, really shouldn't be inhaled. Unfortunately for Colt, all those explosions—plus several careful pistol shots—kinda cracked his helmet. Which meant the atmospheric seals were broken. Which meant he got a couple lungfuls of toxic fumes. Which meant he was in no shape whatsoever to put up a fight.

I tossed the last toxic canister at him and let him choke on it. Just to make sure.

Then I dragged him back to the locker room. I was gonna give him a dose of medi-gel, but then he got to his feet. So I dashed back to the door.

"Nicely done, Mr. Carmichael," Colt said approvingly. "Don't think anyone managed to beat me before."

"Always a first time," I pointed out.

"Ain't that a fact. So now what?"

"Now my bosses come, pick you up, take you to somewhere out of the way and ask you a whole lotta questions," I replied. "And if they like your answers, the next stop might be a little cozier."

"So you're doing this for the Alliance?"

"Maybe," I shrugged. "And maybe I like the idea of a big guy like you owing a little guy like me a favour."

"If someone ever hires me to take you out," Colt offered, "I'll do it nice and clean. You won't feel a thing."

"I was thinking more along the lines of saving my life or doing me a solid," I admitted.

"Yeah, I was afraid you would."

Funny thing: I think he'd actually do it. One professional to another, that sort of thing. Not that I was gonna stick around and verify that. I reached for the control panel, then paused. "Thanks for the tip," I added.

"What tip?"

"Stretching before exercise," I clarified. "Didn't pull a muscle hauling your ass all the way back here."

Colt was still laughing when I closed the door.

Once I locked it shut and made sure he wouldn't be able to open it from the inside, I ran back outside. Hopefully, the Kerrigan's Blade hadn't taken off yet. Though with my luck…

…

…will wonders never cease. It was still there. I activated my comm, setting it to broadcast on multiple frequencies. The ship was bound to be listening to at least one of them. "Hey!" I called out. "You listening?"

"Yeah," a lady replied after a pause. "Look, we don't want any trouble. We're not bad people. We just needed a paying job. Bad."

"I get that," I replied. "And I'm willing to look the other way. You can keep the credits."

"Really?"

"Really."

…

…

"So what's the catch?"

I looked back at the compound. "How do you feel about making a free delivery?"

The crew of the Kerrigan's Blade was so grateful that I wasn't going to turn them in, that they pulled out all the stops. They loaded all the food supplies that were originally going to the pirates, plus all the crates I'd spied in the pirate compound, within a couple hours. Then they proceeded to talk my ear off. How they were really sorry. How they had nothing but the utmost respect for the Systems Alliance and her laws. That they had never done anything like this before and would never, ever do it again. That times were bad, bills had to be paid and families had to be fed. And did they mention that they were really, really sorry?

As sincere and genuine as they were, it made for one very long and tiring trip back. It was almost a relief when the Kerrigan's Blade finally docked at Arcturus Station.

In the time that I'd left, the staff of Arcturus Station had really gone all out. Thin patches of fake snow, outlined with Christmas lights and faux-candy cane fences outlined designated paths. There were Christmas trees everywhere, with lots and lots of lights and decorations strewn across their ersatz branches. Icicle lights and wreaths of holly dangled from the walls and the ceiling. A model-sized Santa flew by overhead on his sleigh, driven by Rudolph, the other reindeer and a small mass effect field. I gave all that a brief glance before focusing on the welcome party that had assembled to greet me.

"CHUCK!" Ellie cried out, just before she tackled me in a fierce hug. My ears were grateful that her squeals of joy only lasted a minute.

"Chuck!" Morgan shouted—not quite as loud as Ellie, but his grin more than compensated for that. "You made it back in time for Christmas!" He tried to shake my hand or give me a high-five, but soon conceded that that wouldn't be possible. "Hey, I was meaning to ask you: did you actually call me in the middle of a mission to ask about my gaming strategy?"

"Yep," I confirmed. "I needed a distraction."

"That's a story I'd like to hear," Morgan chuckled. "Or I would if it wasn't classified, of course."

"Of course."

Morgan then wrapped me and Ellie in a hug of his own. To my surprise, Ellie didn't flinch. Maybe she was just too happy to see me alive and intact. Maybe the uncomfortable relationship between Ellie and Morgan had thawed somewhat in the last couple years. Or maybe it was a Christmas miracle. Who knows?

"Group hug!" Awesome approved, grinning from ear to ear. "Awesome!"

Of course, he had to join in. My ribs were in pain again. The rest of me didn't care.

"Come on," Ellie urged when we finally separated. "You can still have leftovers before it's officially Christmas Day!"

"Actually," I said. "Let's wait a bit first. There's something I wanna show you."

Ellie threw a questioning look at me. In response, I jerked my thumb over my shoulder towards the Kerrigan's Blade, where the crew was offloading supplies. Ellie's eyes followed...

...her jaw dropped.

So did Morgan's.

Awesome too.

"So Ellie?" I asked casually. "Do you think anyone might have a use for 20 metric tonnes of food, 3000 litres of medi-gel or 700 metric tonnes of drugs and other medical supplies?"

To her credit, Ellie was quick to recover. "I'm sure we can find someone to take it off our hands," she replied, her voice equally nonchalant.

Awesome and Morgan left us to help unload the rest of the supplies. Before I joined them, I reached over and pulled Ellie into another hug. "Merry Christmas, Ellie."

"Merry Christmas, Chuck."