The Battle of Menae
Quick Little Note: I love the Turians. The Birds. The Blue-bloods. Despite what they did during the First Contact War/ Relay 314 Incident, they are an impressive species in the galaxy, instrumental in the fight against the Reapers. They also command the largest (and arguably most effective) military in the Milky Way.
The question I'm hoping to answer with this short story lies in ME3, when Shepard is sent to Palaven's moon, Menae, to get the Primarch. There, we meet Garrus after Shepard has repaired the comm tower. As you all know, Garrus goes with Shepard to get Primarch Victus, then General Victus. Upon the squad arriving at Victus's outpost, he asks "Vakarian, where did you go?" to which Garrus witfully replies, something about a "Heavy Reaper Unit" and that Victus wanted him to "get that thing the hell off [his] men." So, what really happened to Garrus during the Battle of Menae? Please review!
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Interceptor (n): a person or thing that stops or catches (someone or something) going from one place to another
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The situation was dismal. Every turian soldier, as hardened as they were, knew it.
Garrus Vakarian, blue and chrome armor stained with blue turian blood, sat on an ammo crate on a raised barricade. He was a sharpshooter, this time. Doing what he did best. The Reaper attack had halted for the moment. Well, halted as much as the Reapers can halt an attack. Their troops never actually stopped coming. The flow just eased up to a more "manageable" level.
Turian troops used an old method to combat the wave method of the Reapers- the buddy system. Every soldier would fight alongside another man. Normally that man would be part of a certain squad or fireteam assigned to a particular element of a mission, but when the Reapers hit? Chaos. Garrus didn't even know the name of the man who was taking shots at incoming husks while he reloaded his supply of thermal clips and ate the turian equivalent of an energy bar.
As he ate, his mind couldn't help but wander. He thought about his turian brothers and sisters in the military, fighting for Palaven on Menae. To look up and see their home, glowing orange with the flames of cities burning? To see their own troops, mutated into Marauders and firing back at them? To be facing an enemy that a month ago they didn't' even believe existed? With Shepard, Garrus saw and fought things that used to only be in children's nightmares.
Now their nightmares were becoming reality.
"Vakarian!" Garrus looked down from the barricade to see a messenger running over to him. "Sir! You're needed by General Victus!"
Garrus stood, slinging his favorite M-92 Mantis onto his back and jumping down from the barricade. He stood in front of the messenger. "Soldier, take my post. I'll go see the General."
The messenger, red armor and white face paint, saluted, and climbed the ladder. Garrus looked back and thought about what he had just done. The messenger couldn't have been more than 17- turians started their military training at 15. Young enough to learn the military way, but far, far too young to fight. And there he was, manning a barricade on the front lines against the Reapers. The thought crossed Garrus's mind that he might be sending the youth to his death on the barricade if the next Reaper wave hit.
Garrus put the thought away, picking his pace up to a jog to get over to the General. Vaulting up onto the floating shelter, he addressed Victus. "Need something, General?"
"Vakarian. A destroyer-class Reaper just broke away from the fight and is headed towards Menae. Trajectory puts them in a strategic location to attack this airfield." Victus pointed out the Reaper and the airfield on his holographic map. "I know your task force is spread thin, but we need-"
Alarms sounded. Several soldiers, taking a rest, immediately stood and grabbed rifles, posting up on barricades next to their battle partners. Some took cover behind rubble and rocks. Then, gunfire erupted. From all sides. Both Reapers and Turians shot, and both sides were taking casualties.
Garrus started climbing to the top of the floating command center, as Victus turned, unshouldered his rifle, and yelled to his men. His voice was loud. Projecting. Even over the shots and explosions, the men knew what he was saying.
"ALRIGHT, MEN! LET'S SHOW THEM WHAT TURIANS CAN DO! GIVE 'EM HELL!"
Garrus took up a prone position on the roof of the structure, pulling the Mantis off his back and sighting over the top of troops at what he knew were weak points in the perimeter. All he saw were husks. Lots of them. Even more than a normal wave. The turian soldiers were doing all they could- their rifles sending bullets ripping through the hordes, their grenades turning creatures that were once human, batarian, and turian into thousands of half organic, half synthetic pieces.
Garrus adjusted his rifle to zoom a little farther, and he saw the reason for all the husks.
"Oh…. That's not good…."
Brutes. Three of them. Crashing towards one of the chokepoints he saw. It was well defended, but against three Brutes? And hordes of husks? Not a chance. But maybe he could do something about it.
Brutes were well armored, but Garrus was a crack shot. He waited, knowing how Brutes struck. Suddenly, the lead one stopped, and started to dig its feet in. Garrus took a breath, held it, and fired. A single armor-piercing round flew through the air and hit it clean in the face. It didn't kill the beast, but it weakened it. Enough so that one soldier- the messenger who took Garrus's post- could post up on the top, and finish it off with a few final shots.
Garrus pulled the heat sink on his Mantis, jettisoning the thermal clip from the inside. Pulling a fresh one from his armor, he slammed it into his rifle and took aim, hoping to do the same with the second Brute.
"MEN, KEEP FIRING! YOU'VE KILLED MORE OF THEM THAN THIS!" Victus's voice could still be heard erupting across the battlefield.
Garrus lined up for another shot, seeing the second Brute getting within charging range of the line. This one, however, saw him, and put up one of his armored hands to protect his face.
"Damn it."
He didn't have a shot. It didn't matter though. Off to his right, he saw a large shape looming overhead. It wasn't a Reaper. But it was almost as bad as one.
Harvester.
It landed, little more than a hundred meters from the perimeter. Its wings folded, and it began firing, its shots landing all around the turian outpost.
"VAKARIAN, GET THAT THING THE HELL OFF MY MEN!"
"Yes, sir!" Garrus didn't hesitate replying to the order, despite how suicide it might have seemed to any ordinary soldier.
He got up, taking a running jump off of the barricade. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see turians exchange doubtful glances. They didn't panic or leave their posts, but… after spending time in the military, he knew when his brothers in arms were losing hope.
Garrus went from a run to a sprint. He had to do something. Fast.
The motto of the turian military echoed through his head. Victory, at any cost.
Separating himself from the camp, Garrus found a ledge to kneel behind. Pulling a grenade from his belt, as well as a concussive shot, he rested his gun against the ledge and loaded it.
He knew that he couldn't kill a Harvester on his own, but if he could get its attention for a moment… just maybe…
He fired, letting his instincts do the work and not his thoughts. Just after, he stood up and threw the grenade. Both attacks practically bounced off. But it was more than any soldier in Victus's vicinity had done so far. The Harvester turned, focusing on him.
"Oh crap…"
Garrus ducked under the ledge as the Harvester's first shot landed close to Garrus. It sent rocks and gravel over him, but it did give him adrenaline to run. He started charging away from the outpost, towards an area he didn't recognize.
Bounding over boulders and skimming down ledges, the Harvester kept firing at him. Thankfully, Garrus's shields were holding for any that landed too close for comfort.
But he wasn't worried or scared. If anything… he was pissed off.
"One, you're a terrible shot..." He said, somewhat breathlessly as he kept running. "Two, your damn insect friends are uglier than Shepard." Garrus's voice rose, the words boiling through his blood. "Three, what the hell did I ever do to you?"
Still running, Garrus pulled his Mantis off of his back again. Slowing down a bit more, he muzzled his enemy and fired a shot. It hit somewhere around the head, but didn't do much damage as far as he could tell.
Then he got an idea. Dumping the spent clip from his rifle and loading a fresh one, he turned abruptly, heading straight for the massive machine.
His last grenade in one hand, rifle in the other, he tore at his foe like a charging krogan. The Harvester fired from a firing port on the head, something that much resembled a mouth.
Garrus, still boiling with a rage he hadn't felt since he had a shot on Sidonis, muttered in his monotone voice: "I hope you're hungry…"
When he was close enough, he stopped, pulled the pin, and launched it. His throw was spot-on. The grenade flew through the air and landed right in the Harvester's firing chamber. Seconds later, it exploded, taking the head off with it. The follow-up explosion, however, knocked Garrus backwards. He tumbled, hitting the ground and rolling.
Garrus laid in a daze for a long moment. Palaven loomed in his eyes, splotched with orange, red, and yellow. He could see ships- fighters, Reapers, cruisers, even a dreadnought- weaving together in ship-to-ship combat.
His fight was here. On Menae. Soon, it would be on his home. Palaven.
His senses coming back, he stood slowly. Checking his surroundings to be clear for a moment, he looked back up at Palaven. He gazed at the ships in combat, knowing that those souls were in just as much as peril as he was a moment ago.
Weaving through the battle, however, was a new ship. It looked faintly turian, but it didn't have the markings of the Seventh Fleet… It wasn't Reaper, either. And it wasn't being engaged. By either side. It was faintly familiar…. Garrus looked at it a little longer, eyes squinting to get a glimpse of the markings.
Alliance. Normandy. SR2.
Shepard…? Garrus thought to himself.
That couldn't be right. Earth was hit harder than Palaven. Shepard was under glorified house arrest. No way he got the Normandy back. And no way he was here.
"Soldier!" A platoon crested a nearby hill and signaled to him.
Garrus signaled back. "It's clear.
He looked back to the skies as the platoon traversed the terrain toward him. The Normandy seemed to slow, and release a shuttle that touched down not terribly far from his position. However, the way the shuttle bobbed and weaved meant that there was heavy fighting in that area.
"Sir!" The approaching soldier interrupted his thoughts. "Sergeant Aulus, 357th Regiment, Picturion Squadron." Aulus was a darker skinned turian, with a mixture of gold and white war paint. He saluted Garrus as he approached.
Garrus returned the salute. "Sergeant, do you know the status of General Corinthus's battalion?"
"It was operational when we left 45 minutes ago. Airfield, as well, sir."
"Good. I need to get there. Soon."
"Yes, sir."
15 minutes later, Garrus and the Picturions led by Aulus were moving through a trail lined with the dead. Turians, Cannibals, Husks, a Brute or two… Both sides were getting obliterated by the fighting. And this was only the beginning.
It wasn't an easy trail, though. Some of the turians were nearly lost to ambushes set by husks.
Garrus kept going, eager to meet that shuttle, whoever it was carrying. If an Alliance ship was in turian space when both the turians and the humans were getting decimated by the Reapers, it had to be important.
He turned a corner and came face-to-face with a Marauder.
Instinctively, his arms came up, his omni-tool smashing into the kinetic barrier of his enemy's shields. Turian omni-tools were designed to immediately decapacitate upon contact with foreign shields. In the case of the Marauder, the charge completely blew its shields. Garrus gave the Reaper soldier a shove, knocking it to the ground. His foot rose, and he stomped, the boot of his armor crushing clean through its skull.
Aulus let out a roaring laugh. "That's how you do it."
Not a moment too soon, a multitude of husks charged towards the small squad. Just as they were trained against melee enemies, they circled up, guns pointed outwards to cover every angle.
Moments later, the last husk fell. Surprisingly enough, Garrus didn't have to fire a shot.
"Sergeant, is this the same Picturion squadron from Krolask?" The Krolask incident involved rogue geth in turian space, where turian colonists were impaled on the same spikes Shepard saw on Eden Prime.
"Yes, sir. We've seen Reapers before."
Garrus turned, somewhat addressing the whole squad. "We need soldiers like you. So stay alive. You're our best shot in this war."
Another turian, black armor with blue trim and face paint to match, piped in. "Thank you, sir. We'll do our best."
"Let's move out."
A few more minutes of running, and the squad walked through the barricade to central command on Menae.
The soldier on watch waved them through. "Vakarian! Command's around the corner, past the first structure. Corinthus would want to see you, sir!"
"Aulus, it was good to fight with you. Good luck."
"You too, sir."
Garrus overheard Corinthus talking. Something about the Primarch being shot down and how Victus was the new one.
He stopped, and smiled when he saw the friendly faces. In truth, Liara was the first one he saw. The new Shadow Broker, here on Menae. And she wasn't the one talking. Which meant that someone important was here, too.
"I need someone, I don't care who, as long as they can get us the turian resources we need."
Garrus walked up the platform, a smile across his face.
"I'm on it, Shepard. We'll find you the Primarch."