Hope you all enjoy! This one will start out with a lot of Garrus' POV and will add POV later.
Garrus Vakarian was about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime. He was no longer going to be bound by c-sec rules and regulations, no longer bound to worry about his actions and his desire to act being impeded by the very things he was seeking to protect.
Garrus Vakarian was about to start his final stage of becoming a Spectre; mentorship under a current spectre. In his case, spectres. He was going to be studying under Saren Arterius and Nihlus Kyrik, two well-known spectres who travelled and worked together out of the same ship.
Garrus was greeted at the ships docking bay by none other than Nihlus himself. Nihlus was a tall turian with a brownish-red skin hue. He had prominent and stark white facial markings that extended along his fringe. The spectre was obviously very relaxed as he leaned against the doorway and seemed to have nothing important to do other than just wait and watch the dock workers scurry about on their day-to-day tasks.
Garrus approached slowly, unsure of how he should greet his new mentor so he decided on a formal greeting and they could go from there.
"Spectre Kyrik, I am Officer Vakarian and I've been assigned to your tutelage, sir." He threw in a salute just to cover all of his bases. He stood there for a long while, waiting for Nihlus to respond. It took a great deal longer than he had anticipated and it seemed to Garrus that the other turian was trying not to laugh.
"Please, Vakarian, we aren't so formal on this ship… Well, I'm not. Saren hates being saluted and called 'sir', but the formal speech would probably tickle him something fierce – seeing as he gets none of it from me. You can relax, can't you?" Garrus got the distinct feeling that Nihlus was trying not to laugh at him.
"Yes, Nihlus? I can do that, the non-formality that is. So where's my bunk? I can set down my bag and we can get started on all of this." Garrus was eager to get started, he wanted to prove himself – to himself and to his father. He wanted to show his father that spectres were more good than bad and that he would not be a "loose cannon".
Nihlus just chuckled and pointed with his thumb into the ship, "Down past the cockpit and CIC area. There's a galley and then our rooms are all situated around the galley, you can choose either of the ones on the left side – the three on the right are currently in use."
The three on the side? Garrus was under the impression that only Nihlus and Saren were aboard the small vessel. "Sir, I mean Nihlus, is there another passenger on the ship?" He felt that it was probably out of place to question something so trivial so early, but his curiosity was getting the better of him.
"No, not currently, but we like to keep it available should someone decide to join us occasionally." That was even a more cryptic answer than Garrus was desiring, but he was comforted that he wasn't going to have to be introduced to a third member of the crew, especially one who he was unprepared to meet. He had read the dossiers on Nihlus and Saren, he had a pretty good idea on what to expect from the two of them, but not a third.
Garrus nodded to Nihlus and entered the ship. True to what he had read, the ship wasn't really much. From the outside the ship looked large enough, but from the interior he figured that a good portion of the ships' size was due to cargo space. Even that couldn't be too large.
He walked through the CIC and peered around as many corners as he could on his way to the galley. One of the rooms off of the galley was a proper, if not small, medical bay. There were also showers in one of the rooms and then three other bedrooms – all on the left.
He briefly eyed the right side doors, there were four and three he knew were sleeping quarters… The fourth was probably a gun room as most ships of this design had one. He was tempted to poke around the other rooms, but decided that should probably be left until later, when he was more accustomed with the other spectres; he wouldn't want to get kicked out before they even left the Citadel.
After sizing up the almost identical rooms he chose the one on the furthest left, near one of the right side rooms (it was a circular galley, after all) and figuring that it would be good if all of the occupants were near each other. Besides, he could always switch to another room if he decided he wanted some space.
The room was larger than he was expecting – a benefit to a ship with little else in it. His bed was against the far wall and there was a gun-modification station and an armor rack. All in all a nice little setup. No windows, as to be expected, but he wasn't expecting a view.
Garrus quickly set down his rucksack and went back out into the galley. Nihlus was already waiting for him as was his second mentor, Saren.
Saren was more severe than Nihlus had been, but Garrus was prepared for that. The other turian was of a paler complexion and had no colony marking to speak off. A bare face, usually thought of as untrustworthy… But Garrus had promised himself he wouldn't let past bias rule him. Squaring off his shoulders, he approached the two men.
"Saren Arterius, I'm Garrus Vakarian. It is an honor and a privilege to be working with you sir." He stood tall in front of Saren, hoping for a good appraisal. He almost deflated when Nihlus commented, "I didn't even get the 'honor and privilege' speech! Look at you, Mr. Big and Known!" Garrus felt like he had already made a huge mistake in not addressing the Nihlus in the same fashion and was about to start backtracking when Nihlus raised his hand and started laughing.
"Vakarian, don't worry, I'm just fucking with you. Like I said, I don't give a shit if you're formal with me." Nihlus was still chuckling when Garrus realized Saren hadn't said anything yet. Garrus tried to relax while looking at the more viciously reputed spectre next to the jokester.
After another awkward and prolonged silence, Saren finally spoke. "Vakarian, Councilor Sparatus spoke highly of you, I hope he won't be disappointed. As it is, I will expect a lot from you and I'll tell you right now that I will not pity fools and if you drag us down I have no issues leaving you to the varren. With that said I've transferred some information to your private data terminal about our upcoming mission, brief yourself and meet with Nihlus first thing in the morning and we'll get started on evaluating your weapons and combat tactics. "
Garrus could only nod and agree with everything Saren said. He wasted no time going back to his room and planting himself at his terminal to read over the next missions' parameters. A slave trading sting, just up his alley. He settled himself in and prepared himself to show his best the next day.
The came upon the seemingly abandoned mine on some backwater planet. The outside air was breathable, barely. They wore combat helmets to keep their oxygen intakes at one-hundred percent, there was no point risking oxygen deprivation if they didn't have to.
They entered the facility under the cover of darkness, they were fortunate this planet didn't have an endless day cycle. The facility was completely dark from all of their exterior readings and Garrus was starting to wonder if this was all a waste of time. He was about to voice his suspicions when they heard voices and suddenly all of their readings were off the scales.
Fifty or Sixty people, probably a good ten of them were gang members. The spectres and their recruit were positioning themselves at strategic vantage points in the rafters in order to get a good view of the captured people, a mix of asari, salarian and humans, and the slavers were batarians, of course.
It was hard to get a lock on how many batarians there actually were, however. A couple seemed to be reporting back to a room that was out of Garrus line of sight and the com chatter between Saren and Nihlus let on that they didn't have a good view either.
Suddenly a subtle, but angry curse from Saren drew all of Garrus' attention. Saren seemed to pause for a moment and then continued to let out string after string of curses. Garrus was about to ask what they hell had happened when Nihlus beat him to it.
"Saren, what is it?" Nihlus asked in a rushed whisper. Saren answered, but it was above Garrus' current amount of understanding, "Isa is here! Damnit, that little pyjack shit is in with the slaves! Now I know why she didn't tell us what her mission was. Little fucking shit of a human!"
Human? Isa? Garrus scanned the slaves, specifically the human ones, to try and pinpoint who they were talking about. All of the humans looked pretty banged up and he couldn't really tell if any of them would be an acquaintance of Saren or Nihlus, not that he could really tell that from a single glimpse. Nihlus expounded on the information by adding, "My little raven haired princess is here?! Why would the Alliance send her here?"
Raven haired princess? Nihlus' undertones stated that he was mocking and also somewhat worried. So the human was at least somewhat important to his companions. Garrus doubled his efforts to figure out who the human was. She was a woman with dark hair, at least which was the synonym of "raven" that his visor was displaying.
Still, nothing. Finally he caught a woman looking up. She was unremarkable, as far as he could tell. Slender-ish, she was wearing a black top with no sleeves and a pair of… Jeans? He thought the leggings were called jeans. Not many humans wore them anymore, not unless they were exhibiting a certain style. Earth-style, was what he had heard it referred to. Her jeans were tight against her legs and even as a turian he could appreciate their shape.
He thought that for a human she was in really good shape, which if the batarians were really thinking they would have been wary of her from the get-go instead of housing her with the general population.
For some reason they were dividing the slaves into two different holding areas – probably based on expected revenue for their sales. Different auction houses and all of that. The woman raised her face towards Saren, uncannily directly looking at him. Garrus caught her close one of her eyes and twitch her head in a greeting. She had just winked at Saren Arterius.
Saren started cursing again and then finally informed the rest of the party as to what was going on, "She's up to something, stand down and move in a protective flank around her. I swear to the spirits I am going to beat the ever living shit out of her when I get my hands on her."
Garrus wanted to question why this human was so important, and more importantly, why they were jeopardizing their mission to protect and possibly save her. He wanted to ask a lot of questions, all of which had to wait until they were back on the ship. Hell he wanted to beat the human himself for being such a huge inconvenience.
As the group of slaves was being divided, one of the batarians zeroed in on "Isa" and separated her from the group. He checked her wrist bindings and then took her down the hallway that lead to the area out of sight. Saren took that as their first break.
"Ok, Isa will just have to take care of herself from there, lets save these hostages and we can work our way towards the back." Saren had to have a lot of confidence in this Isa woman to think that saving these slaves wouldn't hinder her too much. He had mentioned that she was of the human Alliance, so she was obviously military trained. Garrus wasn't quite settled with the idea of leaving her to her own devices, but she had done herself the disservice of not informing Saren or Nihlus that she was here.
On Saren's signal, they began sniping off the batarian guards one by one, luckily there were only eight or so left in the warehouse. The slaves didn't make so much as a peep as the guards started dropping dead and Garrus silently thanked all of the memos c-sec put out about how to react once caught by slavers. "Stay calm, don't scream, let yourself be saved" was always the gist of the bulletins.
They quickly moved down to the ground level and ordered all of the hostages to move towards the front of the building, they'd secure transport for them shortly. Their own ship couldn't house all of the people so a separate transport would have to be routed and was already standing by.
The three turians worked their way methodically down the hall, properly clearing rooms and checking every corner, nook and cranny. Two more guards killed while patrolling the hallways and an additional one before they came to what appeared to be the end of the road, so to speak.
They were about to enter with grand fan-fair, ie bullets and death, when they heard a muffled shout and noticed a blue hued glow coming from under the door frame.
Saren and Nihlus instantly straightened and simultaneously sighed with annoyance. "She just took all of the fun out of this." Nihlus complained as he moved casually to the door and proceeded to open it. Garrus was about to protest the lax behavior when he noticed what Nihlus and Saren had already anticipated.
The woman, Isa, was crouched over a batarian and was choking him… Violently. How could you make choking so violent that you felt the need to point out that an already violent act was indeed violent? Garrus didn't know, but the act was definitely punctuated by the subtle blue glow around her.
A human biotic, rare but not unheard of. Garrus looked around the room and noticed the furniture, and remaining two guards, were violently thrown from one central point – the woman. She was currently trying to kill what had to be the leader, judging by his clothes and the fact that this was apparently his office.
"I'll ask you one last time, where did you take the merchandise?!" She calmly, albeit angrily, asked the batarian. All he was able to mutter was a garbled "fuck you" before she squeezed hard enough to collapse his airway. She stood just as casually and held a hand out to Saren. "Your pistol, please." He dutifully ignored her request and just stared at her with his arms crossed over his chest. She huffed and then moved her hand towards Nihlus.
Nihlus laughed a bit and actually did hand over his pistol, which she used to splatter the batarian's skull over the carpet. She handed it back and smiled at the other two. "Thank you, great timing guys! I was wondering how I was going to get out of this without too many casualties, but you two have the best timing, as I've said before."
Garrus just let his jaw drop. She was talking like she knew them, and like she had half-planned this entire debacle. Nihlus just started laughing while Saren growled, "You little shit, I about had a heart attack when I saw you down there! You could have told me this was where the Alliance was sending you! Goddamn Corsairs think you're all indestructible! Nihlus about had an aneurism as well, you know. Spirits damn it I don't know why I agree to help you so much!" He was pointing by this point, and his mandibles were twitching angrily.
The human didn't even look phased. She just smiled softly and then patted Saren's arm. "I'm sorry." That was all she said, nothing else. Saren looked like he wanted to say more, but instead just sighed and pointed towards the exit. "Let's get out of here, by the way, this is our newest team member, Garrus Vakarian. He's being mentored for the spectres." Saren's change in attitude from angry to compliant was a surprise in and of itself, the fact that he described Garrus as a team member was also surprising.
Garrus was jolted out of all of his surprises by a small human hand jutting in his direction. "Commander Isabelle Shepard, pleasure Garrus Vakarian." He took the hand and mumbled out a response of some sort. He wasn't sure what to make of her, and quite frankly he was perplexed. She spoke familiarly with Nihlus and Saren and she seemed completed at ease with Garrus… If not a little flippant.
He followed the three back out of the warehouse and helped with loading up the rescues on to a shuttle destined for debriefs and probably therapy. The entire time Garrus kept an eye on the petite woman. She wasn't all that petite for a human, actually a bit on the tall side, but she was petite compared to her two… Or three, turian companions.
She was harsh with some of the rescues and shuttle team, and gentle with others, either way her orders were obeyed – eventually – and she seemed to have an air of authority around her. But then she would play with the kids and talk with some of the younger adolescents like she was one of them.
She seemed duplicitous and Garrus didn't like it.
Nihlus seemed to catch on to Garrus' train of thought and approached him after they had returned to their own ship. "She takes some getting used to, but she's a good kid. Little on the 'hell or high water' side of things, but good none the less."
Garrus didn't know what to make of Nihlus sticking up for the tiny human and his nerves were frayed from the day's trials. "Who is she to you? And to Saren? Why do you trust her so easily?" Nihlus seemed to step back and lean on to his hip while he considered his answer. "She's important to both Saren and I, for different reasons. The best explanation you're going to get is that she is a trusted friend to us both. We trust her because she's proven she can be trustworthy and the how's and why's are for a time when I know you better. Suffice it to say, she's going to be around occasionally as she uses this ship as her home in between missions and she has seniority on this ship over you. Bare that in mind when you talk to her."
Nihlus had started to walk away before he had even finished talking and had escorted himself right on to the bridge. Apparently their conversation was done and Garrus questioning the human was not really allowed. Garrus glared at the door the human had walked in to – the room next to his, before going to his own room to contemplate the day's turn of events and to clean and calibrate his gun.
Calibrations always soothed his mind.