he'd dropped it after being hit.
A second later the woman materialized from around the front of the vehicle. She smiled and aimed the weapon at him.
Then suddenly she was flying across the room.
Lemm followed the path of her body as it arced high through the air before slamming into one of the walls and crashing down to the floor. She lay there motionless, her neck twisted at a gruesome angle. It was only when he heard Hendel screaming at him that he realized what had happened: the man was bi-otic!
'The rover! Hurry!'
The quarian knew it would take thirty or forty seconds before Hendel recovered enough to use his bi-otics again. . time they didn't have. Gritting his teeth and hoping he wouldn't pass out from the pain, he used the rover's front bumper to haul himself up. Standing on his one good leg, he pulled the driver's side door open and crawled inside. Blocking out the pain as best he could, it took him half a minute to override the operator codes and get the engine fired up.
There was no windscreen on the vehicle; it was more like an armored transport carrier, with a navigation screen on the inside to give him the layout of his surroundings. Organic creatures picked up by the vehicle's infrared and ultraviolet sensors showed as small dots on the nav screen, revealing the locations of everyone in the warehouse, both friend and foe.
The rover wasn't equipped with weapons, but it was four tons of bulletproof metal. He threw the vehicle into gear, the tires leaving patches of smoking black rubber on the garage floor as he peeled out and spun in a crazy circle, fighting with the steering in his haste.
He careened into a pile of crates, sending the heavy metal boxes flying. He spun the wheel and stomped on the accelerator. Ignoring the agonizing jolt of pain as his wounded left leg bumped against the side door, he headed straight for Kahlee and the others.
Along the way he plowed through the containers providing cover for the remaining two slavers on the ground, mowing them down under his wheels before bringing the rover to a skidding halt, only inches short of running over Hendel.
Lemm threw open the door and the biotic clambered up into the backseat of the vehicle, the still unconscious girl gripped tightly in his arms while Kahlee lay down another stream of cover fire at the last two surviving slavers atop the landing. They returned fire, the sound of their bullets ricocheting off the armored roof and hull in a metallic, staccato symphony.
'They're loading up a rocket launcher!' Kahlee shouted, tossing Lemm's bag into the back with Hendel as she leaped into the front of the vehicle. 'Get us the hell out of here!'
'You better drive,' Lemm panted through clenched teeth as he tried to slide awkwardly over to the passenger seat.
She glanced down at his mangled leg, then shoved him out of the way as she slid behind the wheel, causing him to scream in pain.
'Sorry!' she shouted, slamming the door shut and throwing the rover into reverse.
She pinned the accelerator and they took off backward. A fast-moving projectile appeared on the nav screen: an incoming missile fired from the rocket launcher. Lemm thought they were all dead, but Kahlee wrenched the wheel to the right at the last possible second. Instead of blowing the rover apart, the missile struck the ground beside them. There was a deep boom as it detonated, and the vehicle bucked hard from the explosion, the wheels on the near side lifting high into the air before crashing back down to the ground.
Somehow Kahlee kept control, using the nav screen to steer as they raced in reverse across the length of the garage, quickly building up speed. Lemm was horrified to see she was about to send them full tilt into the garage's heavy metal loading door.
'Everyone hold on!' she warned them. 'This is going to hurt!'
They hit the door with enough force to wrench one side partially off its rails, the metal twisting in its frame. The back end of the rover crumpled, absorbing the brunt of the impact. Everyone inside was thrown against the rear of their seat as the sudden deceleration of the crash brought them to an immediate stop.
Lemm's leg slammed against the dashboard as he was bounced around, and he screamed again, struggling not to lose consciousness. He glanced over at Kahlee, who was lolling to the side in her seat, momentarily dazed from the crash.
'Kahlee!' he shouted. 'You have to drive!'
His voice seemed to snap her back to full awareness. Sitting up with a shake of her head, she slammed her foot down on the accelerator once more. The vehicle lurched, still traveling in reverse, and slammed into the door again. Kahlee kept the engine revving as they tried to force their way through the twisted metal sheet blocking their escape.
'Come on, you son-of-a-bitch!' she swore. 'Give me all you've got!'
The door bent and buckled under the relentless push of the rover's six churning tires, but it refused to give way completely, leaving them sitting ducks for the next inevitable assault from the rocket launcher.
Pel had been thinking this one thought over and over, ever since he'd heard the first of the shotgun blasts down in the barracks.
Screaming at his team to get out of their bunks and over to the warehouse to cut off that avenue of escape, he and Shela, the only other member of his crew not already in bed, had grabbed their weapons and raced upstairs. They'd arrived to find the guards dead and their biotic prisoners gone.
Racing back down to the landing that overlooked the warehouse, they'd taken a high point above the battlefield, firing down at where the woman, Kahlee, had taken up a defensive position. There was a half- assembled rocket launcher on the landing; a new addition to the warehouse's defenses. He briefly debated slapping it together, then decided against it; he still wanted to try and recapture one of the biotics alive so they could sell them to the Collectors.
It wasn't long before he regretted that decision. From his vantage point above the action, Pel had a perfect view as the rest of his team was slaughtered by a mix of Kahlee's gunfire, Hendel's biotics, and one of their own rampaging rovers.
She scrambled to put it together even as he fired in vain at the prisoners piling into the rover, the position of the vehicle preventing him from getting a clear shot. There was only one way to stop them now, and it didn't involve taking any of them alive.
'Armed and ready!' Shela cried out as the rover began to speed away from them in reverse.
'Fire, damn it!'
The rocket shot toward the vehicle, but the target swerved at the last second and the missile exploded harmlessly into the floor of the garage. The rover continued to accelerate, then crashed into the reinforced-steel loading door with a deafening crash. The door buckled, but held.
'Finish them!' Pel shouted, and Shela took aim with the rocket launcher for a second, and final, shot.
Grayson wound his way through the unfamiliar halls and stairwells for nearly ten minutes, hopelessly lost.
The only thing that kept him going was the fact that the sound of gunfire was getting steadily closer, and the knowledge that whoever had broken the others out had taken Gillian as well.
He was on the verge of slamming his fist through another wall in frustration when he heard an incredibly loud explosion, like a grenade or rocket launcher, followed by a tremendous crash coming from beyond the corner just up ahead. Moving quickly but quietly, he rounded the bend to find himself standing on a small landing overlooking a large, two-story garage.
Crates and containers were strewn about on the floor beneath the landing, along with several bodies. At the
