Just One Night with a Justicar (Excerpt - Opening Scene)

“Kill the asari bitch!” the batarian pirate shouted. He and his cohorts opened fire with their assault rifles, ejecting thermal clip after thermal clip. To no avail. 

When she found a gap in their gunfire, Samara dropped the biotic barrier she used to shield herself and sent it hurtling back at them. The batarians cried out as they were all thrown off their feet, the five of them being slammed back against the metal wall of the building behind them. Now shaken and disoriented, the five of them were helpless as the asari justicar vaulted from cover and returned fire, killing all of them with a precise hailstorm of fire from her assault rifle. 

“Find peace in the embrace of the Goddess,” Samara said calmly, coldly, surveying the corpses of the pirates. 

She reloaded her rifle, the tall asari matron hearing screams off in the distance. Human screams. She sprinted off in the direction of the noises, hearing gunfire and explosions to coincide with the panic she heard coming from deeper in the colony. She had to hurry; every second she delayed meant that more innocent lives would be lost. It would be all the worse for the colonists if Morinth was somehow in league with the batarian pirates. It wouldn’t be the first time she corrupted others into doing her bidding - even to the extent of killing for her. Even if her murderous Ardat-Yakshi daughter had nothing to do with the pirate attack and that was mere coincidence, Samara would help put a stop to the raid all the same. 

Of all the places Samara expected to end up in, a human colony far away from asari space was not among them. Perhaps that was why Morinth had strayed out this far to hide - because she assumed Samara wouldn’t expect Morinth to venture out into the midst of the galaxy’s newest member race. 

Indeed, Samara had very little experience with or understanding of humans. It was only a few years since the First Contact War had ended and humans had joined the intergalactic community. Many asari, Samara included, had still never met one. But she had admittedly always been curious about them. Under better circumstances, she would have liked to exchange pleasantries with these colonists. Perhaps after the colony was safe, if she was fortunate. The most she’d done was exchanged a few words with the human docking officer before she went to investigate the fringes of the colony, where an asari that fit Morinth’s description had been reported in hiding. 

The most she’d come up with was evidence that Morinth may have been here at one point, but she no longer saw any sign of her still being present. The batarian pirate attack came soon after, which put pay to the idea of Morinth using it as a distraction to escape off-world. Morinth had used similar diversionary tactics to evade Samara in the past, such as when she’d perverted an entire village into worshipping her, throwing their lives away in droves just to slow Samara down while Morinth made her escape. Morinth, for all her cunning and biotic potential, had never dared to face Samara in a straight fight since going on the run.  

Samara ejected a thermal clip from her rifle and made haste toward the center of the colony complex. The sound of gunfire off in the distance suggested to her that the human colonists were still putting up a fight. These colonies on the fringes of the Terminus Systems had parted ways with their Alliance and thus had to fend for themselves. But valiant as their efforts were, they could not hope to fend off a well-coordinated raid from well-armed batarian slavers. 

Then again, they had not accounted for her. Samara had spent many years disposing of batarian pirates and slavers during her many travels. For the people of this colony, this was likely the most calamitous incident that had ever befallen their home. For Samara, this was just her duty.

She came upon the colony’s central complex, scanning the area. A couple of the central buildings were in flames, but thankfully most of the colony still seemed intact. The batarians had a couple of their smaller frigates docked on one of the landing pads in the colony center. 

Samara heard what sounded like a male human voice shouting, followed by the guttural barking of the batarians. As she watched, a small group of batarian slavers were dragging what appeared to be a human male behind them. The boy had a shaggy mop of brown hair, fair skin and a skinny, slender build. Despite the fact that the batarians were all taller, larger and burlier than him, he was evidently kicking up quite a fuss as they struggled to get the first of their quarry onto their slave ship. 

“Let me go, damn batarians!” the boy cried out defiantly. 

The batarian to his right delivered a punch to the boy’s abdomen, causing him to cry out in pain, curling up from the blow. 

“Shut it, human! You’ll lose that defiance soon enough, once you experience just a week in a Hegemony slave camp.” 

The boy scowled at them, his fight-or-flight instinct actually seeming to kick into higher gear as a result of the threat. Rather than cowing and submitting, the boy managed to wriggle free of the two batarians that had him in their grip. Showing surprising foolhardy bravery, he delivered an upper cut to the batarian that had punched him in the stomach, staggering the batarian and sending him back several feet. When the boy tried to make a run for it, another batarian grabbed him from behind and threw him to the ground, pointing his pistol down at the boy. 

“Try that again, human whelp, and we take one of your hands.” 

With the boy no longer in the line of fire, Samara made her move. She bolted out of cover with her assault rifle at the ready, letting loose a three round burst into the head of one of the batarians with pinpoint accuracy. A second batarian spun in her direction, returning fire. His shots pounded against the side of a cargo freighter that she hid behind. She rounded the corner and took another shot, piercing through the second batarian’s torso with several high-velocity slugs. 

The remaining two batarians cowardly abandoned the fight and attempted to flee into their ship. Samara dropped her rifle and clenched her first, her blue body flaring up with raw, biotic power. She used her biotics to pull the two batarians down the ramp of their ship. She snapped the neck of the first and slammed the final one against the roof of his own ship after lifting him in the air with her biotics, shattering his spine and killing him.