the door to land heavily on the ground.
Grissom jumped up from the chair where he’d been holding a nightly vigil ever since Kahlee had arrived and raised the gun for another shot. He’d recognized the blue flash as the intruder’s kinetic barriers that absorbed most of the initial blow. But the point-blank hit would’ve drained the shields, and one more good shot should finish the job.
Lying on his back, Skarr yanked the knife from his belt and flung it end over end at his attacker. The blade sank deep into the muscle of Grissom’s left bicep as he squeezed the shotgun’s trigger again, knocking him back and throwing off his aim. Instead of blowing away the krogan’s head, he left a scorching hole in the ground just beside him.
The shotgun’s barrel slipped from Grissom’s suddenly nerveless hand. Skarr was on his feet and back inside the house before the old man could use his one good arm to bring the weapon to bear again. Bellowing in anger, the krogan slapped the gun away with one massive fist, sending it skittering into the living room. He grabbed the human and flung him against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.
The blade slipped from Grissom’s arm as he slumped down to the floor, all the air knocked out of his lungs. The alien loomed above him, turning its head slightly so it could fix one of its cold, reptilian eyes on him. Grissom was no coward, but he felt fear grip his heart as he stared up into the dead, black pupil.
Then he heard a loud crack, crack, crack — the familiar retort of an Alliance Hahne-Kedar P15-25 — and the krogan staggered away. He’d been shot three times in the heavy hump of muscle and bone on his back, but he was still standing.
Lieutenant Anderson stood in the doorway, pistol drawn. He came into the room, firing the pistol a half dozen more times as the krogan turned to face him. He aimed low, looking to take out the legs. One of his shots found the exposed joint at the knee where the hard plates of body armor were connected by a flexible, but vulnerable, padded mesh.
Roaring in rage and agony the krogan crashed to the ground, clutching at his wounded joint.
“One move and the next shot goes right between your eyes,” Anderson warned, taking a bead on the bony ridge running along the top of the krogan’s skull.
Grissom was impressed. It wasn’t easy to take a human in full body armor down with a pistol, never mind a krogan.
“I’m glad to see you here,” he managed to gasp once the wind returned to his lungs.
“You didn’t honestly expect me to be fooled by that little performance you gave the other day,” Anderson replied, never taking his eyes or his weapon off the krogan in the corner. “I’ve been watching this place ever since I walked out your door.”
Grissom struggled to his feet, his left arm still dangling uselessly, his right pressed against his heavily bleeding wound. A moan of pain escaped his lips.
“Your friend is hurt,” the krogan growled.
Anderson wasn’t distracted, even for an instant. “He’s tough. He’ll live.”
The krogan was bleeding from the shot to his knee. The armor on his chest was peppered with small holes, the padding beneath scorched and burned. Dark blood oozed from three of them. Anderson guessed at least one of the shots to the back had penetrated deep enough to do some damage as well. But he’d seen krogans take a hell of a lot more punishment than this and keep coming.
The alien on the ground was a wounded beast — angry, desperate, and unpredictable. He was panting, though whether from pain, exertion, or pure rage it was hard to say. His scarred, brutish face was a mask of intense concentration; his muscles were tensed as if he was gathering himself to make a move.
But if he tried anything Anderson would shoot him in the head from inside of three meters. Even a krogan couldn’t survive that.
He heard a door open and footsteps come running down the hall. “Oh, God! You’re hurt!” a woman screamed.
Anderson wasn’t stupid enough to turn his head. But for a split second his eyes glanced in the direction of her voice. That was all the time the krogan needed.
He lashed out with a fist, sending a shock wave of rolling energy rumbling across the room. Anderson had never been hit with a biotic attack before, and he hadn’t expected one from a krogan. In the split second it took him to realize what was happening, he’d been swept up in the vortex and thrown all the way into the living room, where he crashed to the ground. It felt like being in an artificial gravity chamber when somebody switched the polarity: an instantaneous, inescapable, and irresistible force.
He couldn’t recover in time to grab his pistol from where it had fallen, nor could he reach the shotgun laying only a few feet away. Somehow the krogan, despite his injuries, was already back on his feet and nearly on top of him, swinging his fist with enough power to cave in Anderson’s skull. He ducked and slipped to the side, avoiding the punch. The follow-through landed square on the living room table; it disintegrated into splinters at the impact.
Everything had descended into chaos. Grissom was shouting at Kahlee to run, she was screaming at Anderson to grab one of the guns. The krogan was roaring in anger, flailing about the room, flinging and tossing the furniture like it was made of balsa wood while Anderson dodged and scrambled for his life, only able to avoid the killing blows because his opponent was still hobbled by his wounded knee.
From the corner of his eye he saw Kahlee rush forward into the fray, lunging in a desperate bid to get the shotgun. The krogan saw her, too, and wheeled on the young woman. He would have killed her right
then if another bullet hadn’t ripped through a seam in his armor at his hip, making him stagger off balance and misdirecting his blow.
Anderson whipped his head around to see a turian standing in the door where he had been mere minutes before, firing a pistol at the krogan. The lieutenant had no idea who he was or why he was here… he was just glad they had somebody else on their side.
Most of the shots ricocheted off the krogan’s armor as the beast ducked down and tried to cover his head, the only exposed part of his body. He glanced back at the turian, then leaped through the living room window, smashing through the plate glass. The krogan landed on his shoulder on the grass outside and rolled to his feet in one smooth motion. He took off in a lumbering run, his gait awkward because of his injured leg, but moving far faster than Anderson would have believed possible for a creature of his size.
The turian stepped outside and fired a few shots into the darkness, then turned and came back into the house.
“Aren’t you going after him?” Grissom asked their unknown ally. He was still sitting on the floor, but he’d used the belt of his bathrobe to tie a tourniquet around his upper arm, stemming the flow of blood from his wounded bicep.
“Not armed only with this,” the turian responded, holding up his pistol. “Besides, only a fool faces a krogan biotic alone.”
“I think what Admiral Grissom actually meant to say,” Anderson said, coming over and extending his hand, “was thank you for saving us.”
The turian stared down at the offered hand, but made no effort to extend his own. Embarrassed, the lieutenant pulled his hand back.
“I know why he’s here,” Grissom said through teeth gritted against the pain, nodding his head in
Anderson’s direction. “What’s your story?”
“I’ve been tailing Skarr for two days,” the turian replied. “Waiting for him to make a move.” “Tailing him?” Kahlee asked as she came over to check on her father’s wound. “What for? Who are
you?”
“My name is Saren. I’m a Spectre. And I want some answers.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Anderson and the Spectre sat in the kitchen, staring across the table at each other without speaking. The living room would have been more comfortable, but none of the chairs in there had survived the krogan’s
