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Alchera was cold.

And turians weren't generally on good terms with low temperatures – Galrun kept reminding this to himself as he sat perched in his sniper nest high in the mountains, overlooking a large clearing where his target would soon pop up. Momentarily darting his eyes at the leftmost lower corner of his heads-up display, he noted that his external sensors were picking up temperatures which weren't exactly fatal or even extreme – but he'd rather have his fringe bent upward than be exposed to the −20 °C of freezing air reigning outside his sealed thermal suit. I'm definitely getting military-grade heavy armor after this.

As an elite agent of The Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel, Galrun was bound to have access to all the resources needed to ensure his assignments went as planned, including personal funds for purchasing armament and other standard-issue items for any top-of-the-line Spectre – except this wasn't a Council assignment at all. Translation straight from the rulebook: "As of embarking upon independent operations unbeknown to high command, Spectres are authorized to use all means necessary in order to complete their objectives, albeit with limited support from the Citadel Council."

Galrun snorted as he mentally recited the line, his right eye never leaving the scope of his M-29 sniper rifle. "Limited support" was a nice way of telling you to mind your own ass in case you decided to go hero, including coming up with original ways to supply yourself. He couldn't help but wonder if the Council was actually losing trust in the "instruments of their will", as they called them – after all, he decided to dust off this assassination job only because his bosses had been surprisingly short on demands for the last couple of weeks. Then again, any doubt regarding the Spectres could easily be justified – after what Saren Arterius caused along with his Geth army, even the best of the best became a matter of suspicious glances and silent accusations.

Ironic where chain of thought can lead you. He glanced down at the remains of the only real reason why the rogue Spectre hadn't succeeded in reducing the entire galactic government to dust – the corpse of a ship which relentlessly hunted the turian and his Geth allies across the galaxy, never resting as they took the battle to the Citadel itself. The human commander of the vessel - the first human to actually join the ranks of Spectres - had issued warning after warning regarding Saren's plans to attack, to which his precious Council had turned the deafer of their ears. And now, after fighting and winning against impossible odds in a world which he had every right to hate, Commander Shepard was dead.

Galrun shifted uncomfortably as he once again found himself sympathizing to the human Spectre who had saved the hide of Citadel Space single-handedly. He shuddered as a gust of wind swept through, chilling his bones and allowing his aim to fall for a few centimeters. Unacceptable. He forcibly interrupted his own trail of thought and focused, correcting his aim at the airlock of an uncharacteristic shuttle parked amongst the remains of the Normandy – a shuttle where his old "friend" was most likely finishing calibrating takeoff vectors beforehand. Anticipating the upcoming conversation with the human he hated more than anything else in the world, Galrun couldn't help but rehearse a bit and ask the first question to himself, the question which ensured his sniping would not be fatal for the target, just this once: what the hell is he doing here?

Contrary to the human Commander he had just been thinking about, his current occupant of thoughts – the person who would soon drop limp from tranquilizing rounds – was a personal grudge Garlun had been itching to settle since the Battle of the Citadel almost a year ago. He had-

He jumped as his omnitool beeped, jerking him back to attention. He flinched at his reaction a second later – turians were raised to keep their emotions in check, and Spectres were honed to keep them non-existent. Hardening mentally, he quickly ran possible scenarios without leaving his eye off the shuttle hatch; only a few people knew his Extranet address, and, excluding the Council and a couple of other operatives from his branch, there remained a painfully few contacts who'd be willing to send a happy postcard to a turian Spectre in the Terminus Systems.

Galrun snarled. It was next to impossible for the slimy bastard to have picked up his signal, and pinging his omnitool – for what, secondary distraction? - seemed stupid, even for him. Besides, the shuttle seemed to pack quite the punch – if he did notice him, he'd have either done the coward's act or would've fired at him. He quickly realized the stupidity of his own actions - preconceptions - as a quick peek on his left wrist relieved him of any sense of danger, and returned his attention to the task at hand.

Growing paranoid, you filthy pyjack? It's only your little brother asking if you're all right. Galrun sighed, noting his apparent mental state and tried to focus, tried not to fall into the whole bunch of family dilemmas he'd created in his life. As he was failing and his mind was trailing off to his hot-headed sibling, the shuttle hatch started to swing upward, ever so slowly, but never slow enough for Galrun.

His whole body snapped into attention as adrenaline flooded his system. This was it. This had to be perfect. Surgical.

A single form stepped down from the shuttle, snow crunching under the weight of his heavy armor – unknown make. As the man looked around the dead wreckage, the turian examined his armor with surprising curiosity – the sealed fiber coating and armor plates were molded into an unfamiliar design, which looked as advanced as combat gear could get. He made a mental note to look this up with the requisitions officer back at the Citadel - he hated being caught off-guard, and a combat gear he wasn't sure how to pierce would seriously foil his plans. Knowing its wearer was a coward of rare make, he only had one chance to either subdue the bastard or watch him escape.

The form started moving around, and the man in Galrun's sights activated his omnitool, sweeping the area around him. Good. Let me take a nice 360 look at all the weak points you got. The gear showed signs of extremely well-concealed third-party mods, including a redundant shield generator smuggling the likes of which could get you jailed for years. Kinetic barriers were out of the question, they would only provide icing on the "cake" - three layers of pretty sturdy ablative plating. The man had a personal firearm and if his omnitool could scan for specific items - whatever they were - on a tolerable radius, it might as well could pack some nasty tech offense. It was obviously a "covert" insertion, and the guy was looking for something in a year-dead wreckage where salvage teams and scavengers have bored themselves three times over. What was he looking for? Why prepare like this?

In the end, those questions were irrelevant - at least for the time being. Adaptation, it was the first and last tenant of every Spectre in a similar situation. Galrun focused on the immediate specifics. The armor looked tough, but it wasn't invincible – it never is. As Galrun looked for a formidable non-lethal round spot between the coatings on the man's limbs, the latter started off towards the crash site of the cockpit – and would soon get shielded by an enormous thruster conduit jutting out from the ground.

Galrun swore. Luck never was my best friend, or even a distant ally. This position was the best he could come up with in the time he had, allowing for the crash site to pan out in its entirety beneath him - except for the damn cockpit. The only weakness, the only blind spot he counted as necessary sacrifice was about to be exploited. His curses shifted towards turian engineering – oversized thrusters were obviously there for the "turian trademark", never serving actual purpose to the advanced stealth vessel, and now about to get in the way of his task. Like hell. He managed to keep his temper at bay as he quickly adjusted the targeting parameters, applying subtle modifications for the ammo system to register the muscle paralysis doses needed for every bullet slice. 4 seconds.

He leveled the gun once more upon his target, quickly scanning his body for the tenth time and halting at an opening right above his hips – a thin layer of fiber was being revealed every time he took a left step. Galrun grinned. Timing was the key here – and he always nailed timing. After giving his gun some final tweaks to avoid lethal damage to the man who so much deserved it, he beamed inwardly. 7 seconds.

"After you're done with all that analysis and similar confusing stuff, it's just a matter of triggers and fingers".

The humorous tone of his instructor echoed through his head just as his gloved claw softly applied pressure to the trigger, releasing rounds with pinpoint accuracy. He knew the M-29's rapid-fire feature would save him someday, and he reveled at the truthfulness of his assessment as the first round overloaded the kinetic barriers of his target, the second punctured the hip cleanly, releasing the toxin through his system in an instant, while the third bounced off harmlessly as the small opening in the armor was closed off in a split second. An irrelevant miscalculation, since by the time his ejected thermal clip hit the ground beside him, dust had already settled around Galrun's target as he lay motionless, but fully aware in the cold embraces of Alchera's soft snow.

The assassination was far from being complete, but the assassin was already celebrating victory. As Galrun's whole form was unmoving, assessing the fallen target for any signs of defective reactions to his rounds, the usually stoic and ice-cold Spectre was smiling mischievously without even fully understanding why – most probably enjoying the warm feeling of a tedious job being finally close to an end. He gazed for another two minutes and, satisfyingly clicking his mandibles, started rounding up the sniper assembly and getting ready for a long way down. The target would be out for two hours – and, judging from his high-end hardsuit, freezing-to-death wouldn't be a problem – which gave him more than enough time to take a careful trip down the mountains and to the wreckage, where he'd administer countermeasures to speed up the human's recovery. Or, maybe he wouldn't – he suddenly realized that the message on his omnitool was still flashing for attention, it's status boldly flagged as "urgent".

Always the smartass, aren't you little brother? Galrun smiled to himself as he glanced at the Normandy's graveyard and its serene, but practically depressing tranquility. It wasn't the comfiest places to decide getting in touch with his family again, but everything had to be done sometime. Besides, he'd just completed the only job he'd postponed more than once - his spirits were high enough to tolerate his younger brother, who always managed to tease him beyond insanity. And to think I just picked off a backstabbing terrorist without as much as a twitch in my mandibles.

His smile was short-lived as he raised his left arm and took in the remaining details on the message he'd received.

*ENCRYPTED TRANSMISSION*

From: V., Garrus

Title: I decided Omega

As the worried turian became engulfed in his brother's parting letter, a ship of insect-like design began circling the crash site, looking for a place to land. Galrun Vakarian never noticed as it completed its objective, landing behind an enormous thruster conduit jutting out from the ground.

Author's note:

Heyall. This is my first-ever fanfic - it expands upon an idea I've been harboring for a while. After playing through both Mass Effects (and becoming a devoted fan of Bioware), the only holes I felt in the plot were all these convenient situations Shepard runs through, so I decided to have this undercover agent aiding Shepard, against the orders of the Council, setting up soil for some of his actions in ME2. I plan it to be as canon as possible, but I'm not sure where the overall plot will go, or how Galrun's adventures will end. I know it's pretty vague, but you'll understand what I'm going for as the story progresses.

About Garrus. Well, I never caught confirmations that he DIDN'T have brothers, so I decided to throw in an additional link to Shepard's team, and an additional problem for the main character to untangle. I will most definitely introduce a bunch of secondary characters from both games, and may even cross paths with the recruitable squaddies. It's all a work in progress, I want to thoroughly think this through before I steer major plost turns, but I've got the introduction planned out already.

Next chapter is finished, now undergoing heavy corrections. It will introduce a bunch of NPCs Shepard will later interact with (and yes, that includes Galrun's "target").

Anyway. Thanks for reading this through, I'd appreciate any quick reviews. As a true fanfic, this is my very first, but I've been writing for quite a while as I review games, extensively.