Betrayal - Part 3

The next thing Keating remembered was waking up inside her ruined skycar. There was a ringing noise behind her ears and she could feel pain from cuts due to the broken glass on her face. She grimaced and rubbed her forehead. She had a pounding headache and she was fairly sure she had cracked a few ribs, if not broken them. Neither could she feel her left arm.
Her hands came away covered in blood. She reached for her radio - and realised it had smashed into pieces.
Sophia cursed and groaned in pain. All she could see out of the cockpit was fire, and the same went for the back window.
She tried to open the skycar's cockpit to be able to get out, but it was stuck. There was only the sound of metallic grinding.
Keating drew her M-8 Avenger pistol and used it like a club to smash the remaining shards of glass on the edges of the cockpit window and tried pulling herself out. However, even before her head had escaped from the skycar, her muscles gave way and she fell back into her seat.
Instead, she shot the lock. Normally when, in the enclosed space of the skycar, the sound of the gunshot would have been nearly deafening, there was only a muffled sound as her ears still rang with a high pitched noise. She holstered her gun.
She pushed as hard as she could against the cockpit to try and get the skycar open. Fire started dripping like liquid from the exterior of the vehicle down on to the passenger's seat - on to Henry's body.
She positioned her feet so they were perpendicular to the locking mechanism, then lashed out with all her remaining strength. The cockpit opened and she rolled out on to the ground, feeling several sharp pains in her back as shards of metal and glass cut through her damaged light armour. Her hearing was beginning to return to normality.
Keating crawled using her remaining arm and her legs to try and get a better view of the crash scene. She didn't get very far, but she noticed the gunship, alike to the skycar, was on fire. She wasn't even sure where the crash had happened, only that it had been a matter of metres away from a wide river.
The door of the gunship opened, and an armoured figure stumbled out.
"My, my," the figure said, in a distinctly female voice, "That was quite a crash. You're lucky to survive, Detective. However, I think your luck is about to run out..."
The armoured woman had a shotgun pointed at her.
"... Please..." Keating groaned, "... Why?"
"We can't have you trying to get the Alliance to make our organisation an outlaw. Isn't it obvious? I have direct orders from the Illusive Man to take you out. You've notified the Alliance of our presence and we don't need you anymore. Goodbye, Detective Keating."
Keating threw herself forward as the shotgun fired. She struck the Cerberus operative with her wounded arm, hissing in pain as pain shot up her shoulder. The shotgun blast went wide, and the woman stumbled and fell.
Now she had the advantage. She used her knees to pin the woman's legs down and used her right hand to throw the shotgun away. She then drew her pistol, pointing it point blank into her helmet.
"... Whatever your name is... I'm arresting you for firing upon a police officer and for conspiracy to commit murder, espionage, and everything else Cerberus does. You... fuck this..."
The woman started struggling. Keating moved accordingly to keep pinning her down, but the woman's arm still managed to get free.
A fist hit Keating's cheek and she was thrown off, and accidently bit her own tongue in the process. When Keating recovered, the woman had drawn a sword, and was advancing towards her.
Keating scrambled away, grabbing her gun in the process and pointing it in the woman's direction.
"Stop," she ordered, "For god's sake just stop..."
The Cerberus operative stopped moving. There was the quiet sound of sirens in the distance, probably ambulances coming in response to the crash.
The woman took off her helmet, revealing a face surrounded by long blonde hair which had shaped itself into the curve of the helmet.
"... I said stop!" Keating said, her hand shaking.
"You won't shoot me," said the woman, "The gun is missing a thermal clip. You can't fire."
Keating looked down at her gun quickly, and then cursed.
The sirens were getting closer.
She threw her gun away, and switched to using her biotics. Her arms began glowing with blue energy. The Cerberus operative slowed her pace.
Sophia pushed with her biotics, causing the sword to spin out of the woman's hand, but failed to do anything else other than making her stagger. It was the strongest shockwave she could manage.
The woman growled and launched herself at Keating. She threw another shockwave, but all it did was manage to slow her down, so they collided once again.
When the sirens drew near, the woman looked up. An ambulance skycar and a police shuttle were coming.
The woman climbed off Keating, hitting her in the temple in the process. Keating's vision faded to black once again, and the last thing she saw was the Cerberus operative jumping into the river and vanishing from view.