With Veier's retreat, Oliviar finally loses the extreme focus she'd had drawing all of her attention. Without the salarian to direct her intense hatred at, she is left with the sound of Devin's skull being slowly caved in, the threatening shimmer of Faskan's blade reflecting the sunlight, ill intent scratched into its edge.
"Enough."
Oli stands, staring down first those batarians whose guns were trained on her, then the four eyed officer that lead them. "You're not laying a finger on him or anyone else," the turian growls defiantly, having long since reached her breaking point and left with seemingly no regard for her own well being. "I don't know what the hell Devin did to piss Nabor off so much, and I don't care. I don't know where you get off promising us safe passage, then threatening to start maiming people, and I don't care. He's going to stop," she points at Nabor, "and you're going to stop screwing around and take us back to your ship. Or I am going to make sure the only thing you have left to show the Hegemony for losing the majority of your men and your fleet is a bunch of corpses that will have no value to them."
Tempting fate, the scrawny turian takes a step forward, daring one of the guards to put a round in her. "You want to demolish my armor, fine. But I'm not going to stand here and watch you brutalize my crew, and I know I'm not alone. So go on and swing that sword if you want to. We might all die, but I promise you one of us will make sure to take you with us when we go. So back off, before I decide to take my chances just for the hell of it. Because right now, dying with your entrails on my talons is looking pretty damned appealing, and I know I won't need my armor to do it."
"Sit. Down," Yan hisses, his throat bubbling with intensity as he snaps his gaze towards Oli with a quick motion, eyes looking to meet hers through his mask, "You'll only get people killed. Sit down."
Turning back towards Faskan, the batarian clearly savoring his own victory with that blade weighing in his grip. It would be short-lived, Yan swore, steadying the fear threatening to take over his mind and calming his breath. "Don't look at her, look at me. Look at me," the pirate prince insisted, his stare hard and sharp and filled with venom, "Come on. At least you have the courage to swing the blade yourself."
The batarian had paused, four eyes swinging between the now standing turian and the still supplicant quarian, the planet's sun at his back. His soldiers aren't as still, several of them pointing their weapons directly at Oli. Small shifts of their heads suggest conversations going on among their own communication net, obscured by the helmets all by Faskan himself wore. But finally it's their leader that speaks, the heavy blade he now held point at Oli-- even as he speaks to Yan.
"What am I to look at," he asks, before violently flinging the machete into the sand, where it impacts and remains upright buried halfway to the hilt. "A foolish girl at the end of her options, making threats she cannot possibly back? You may not be a Prince, not truly, but at least you understand the reality of your situation. Words are wind, actions make a man. Define him. When I return home, they will see that my fleet has been all but lost, and they will not care, for I will bring them you lot-- and whatever your destination, this mysterious Lyonesse holds."
Devin, for his part, had taken to being curled tightly up on the ground in a protective position; his arms protecting his neck and head from Nabor's relentless attacks to save him from any serious damage. His biotics also played a part; keeping a small shield around his body to deflect as much as possible. It wasn't a perfect system--more than a few of the turian's blows managed to make it through and connect hard with his body--but at least Devin wasn't having his bones ground into powder by the alien's armored attacks.
"I'm fine," he said, his voice muffled by his curled-up position. "Got'em right where I want 'em. I think he's getting tired."
Nabor seems to take the comment as a personal affront, another growled curse coming alongside another strong blow to Devin's side with his booted foot.
The reigning Acquisition Officer, meanwhile, reaches down once again. The blade is back in his hands, anger rising in his voice as he turns on Oli. "
You're starting to look like more trouble then you're worth, though,
Oliviar. Maybe I should cut your throat right here--"
Now Nix is on her feet, as more guns fall upon the standing turian pair. "Like
hell you will!"
Naier is next, her fingers rolling in motion, as if ready to make a lunge for something-- anything. "Slaver throats are getting cut not ours."
A wall of shadow passes slowly over the rolling dunes.