Chapter 1
Reunion and Recruitment
It was just another busy, busy day for Captain Garrus Vakarian at C-Sec. The rebuilding of the Citadel felt like it had begun at the dawn of time, construction and plans for new buildings had almost become new job for him to painstakingly sign forms, verify risk assessments, dealing with increasingly shootable politicians, ambassadors, councillors, their ensigns, their personal assistants, their wives, their girlfriends and even sometimes their mothers.
Much to the amusement to the younger officers, he often vocally complained and mocked the whiny and peevish demeanour of these too common diplomats, when they came with more paperwork to sign such as; 'If Senator Jirus mentions his close relations with the salarian consort and her pet varren again, is that a viable reason to commit homicide?' and 'Spirits, please send away the next volus ambassador that tows his many asari girlfriends to his business meetings, their biotic catfights ruin my furniture'.
Another mundane and painful day for Captain Vakarian, even the paperwork came in the same order, he had to remind himself to ask his assistant to maybe shake up the order next time, just for fun. Fun, to him, used to be about overloading an YMIR Heavy Mech while dealing out headshots to Blue Suns mercenaries at the same time. Now it's about rearranging pieces of paper just for chuckles.
He was in the middle of a particularly gruelling ordeal between the planning of the asari councillor's new lavish and very expensive office that required a very expensive communication link to Thessia and she requested some kind of colossal construction of a water feature. He will never understand asari architecture; maybe Liara could explain it to him one day.
Garrus didn't even bother lifting his head when the familiar sound of footsteps entered his office, the new shipment of datapads come to murder him at his desk. But he didn't even hear the sound of an inexperienced officer spilling his specially-made dextro-amino coffee onto the floor (it happened more than he would have liked) and the wave of apologies that came afterwards. Something was different this time.
He wearily lifted his exhausted head up to a recruit who quickly became one of his more favoured assistants, Sarah Hernandez. Garrus quickly straightened up, Hernandez stood straight and neatly at attention to the (as they like to call him much to his dismissal) war hero.
"Ah, Officer Hernandez, you're a sight for sore eyes! Please tell the boys upstairs to keep the paperwork coming they've almost succeeded in murdering me", his cheerful disposition lightened up the small and cluttered office.
Sarah chuckled softly; she always let herself forget the chain of command when she was around Captain Vakarian, she liked his unconventional approach to dealing with the people around him and he always did it with a smile on his face, even when some of the nastiest diplomats came his way. Ever since she joined C-Sec, Captain Vakarian has always been looking out for her, which surprised the new recruit; her presumption was that turians kept the code of conduct closer to them then their own Bible. When she asked about this, Garrus replied, his mandibles depressed and his blue eyes fixed on the desk in front of him, he wasn't 'a very good turian'.
After that Sarah knew that it was a question that led to the bad memories of his past. She always wanted to know more, to learn, to sit and listen to his phenomenal stories about fighting the War (she was only 11 at the time, her memories consisted of many refugee sites and many delayed shuttles) but that look on his face made her hesitant, made her feel regretful, she knew that Captain Vakarian kept a tight and heavy lid on his war stories and maybe that was for the best.
"If the diplomats wanted to kill you sir, they probably would've sent an assassin", she thought for a moment and brightly added, "You must've done something really bad for this form of torture".
Garrus let out a loud chortle and shook his head, at least someone else felt like this paperwork was ridiculous. He relaxed and rested his elbows on his desk.
"How can I help, Hernandez?".
"There's a Kaidan Alenko to see you sir. He's Alliance", Garrus didn't even need her to finish that sentence, his heart skipped a beat, his mandibles widened in sheer shock and his shoulders dropped.
Sarah quickly looked at the door and then at him, just to make sure that a legion of Banshees wasn't behind her, his expression couldn't have told her otherwise.
"Y-yes, ahem, send him in, officer", he shook the shock off his head, coughed a few times and stood up quickly. Spirits, he was nervous. He hasn't seen Kaidan since that particular Thursday.
However the seconds that felt like hours when Hernandez spoke into her omni-tool, he was seriously considering jumping out of his window and into the Presidium Lake to live a more comfortable life with the fish.
She gave a quick salute and left on her heel to retrieve a relic he really didn't want to see. So he just stood, feeling helpless, looking outside to the vastness of the Citadel.
"They couldn't have given you a better view, Vakarian?", called a familiar voice, one beckoning Garrus back into his own memories. The turian slowly and carefully turned, to see an aging human Alliance commander, thankfully wearing the biggest grin he'd ever seen him wear.
"Kaidan!", he quickly walked over to give his old friend a handshake that was well-received. "Haha, well yes, I seem to have pissed someone off evidently", he gave his office a pitiful look and turned his attention back to Kaidan. He was greying, wrinkles setting into his dark eyes and around his mouth but he still held that same familiar 'Kaidan' look, noble and thoughtful.
The aging soldiers both sat down, exchanging pleasantries, catching up on the new and remembering the old. Garrus felt a wash of relief, he refused to let himself dwell in his past but he was damned well glad that Kaidan still held him in a positive light; he was always a loyal and good friend.
"You look good Kaidan, I presume you're still catching some action?", Kaidan laughed heartily at the notion, shaking his head slowly.
"Let's just say I think your paperwork and my paperwork should get together and have a drink sometime".
"I'm relieved even a Spectre such as you still has to go through this political bullshit".
"Are you kidding? Most of the time I'm dealing with new recruits who can't shoot a rifle to save their lives, biotic kids who spend most of their time thinking about asari beaches and diplomats who have their self-interest at the heart of negotiations", after numbering down his new problems with his fingers, Kaidan rested his elbows on his knees and stared down at the floor. He sighed heavily.
"Garrus, it's very good to see you looking well, I have to admit…I was worried", Garrus once again let his upper body become rigid, he was praying internally that he wouldn't say that one name, that godforsaken name…
"Shepard was a big part of our lives and it's just good to see you like this".
And there it was, a bullet to any vital organ in his tired body, it shouldn't had hurt that much. Amazingly, he spent nine years of his life avoiding that name and the debris and chaos that followed after it, for two years of that life he spent locked up in some expensive hotel room, wishing that he lived there. He entertained the idea of moving to some faraway garden world, possibly a colony and living out his autumn years beside a beach away from the 'debris'.
He spluttered and coughed quietly and nodded solemnly, he wasn't going to indulge Kaidan in talking about it, so without shame, he quickly changed the subject and peered over some untouched reports.
"It's good to see you too, what brings you here anyway? Aren't you swamped with Earth and the colonies?", Garrus casually sipped 4 day old coffee, wincing slightly at the surprise. It wasn't like he didn't enjoy Kaidan's presence but him dropping in like this was a little more than strange.
"I was until I received some…", Kaidan scratched the back of his head, unsure on how to continue. Garrus examined at him quizzically.
"Disturbing reports", he finished.
Garrus stopped nursing the coffee. He carefully set down the reports and brought his hand to his mouth thoughtfully.
"Sounds serious", Garrus replied.
Kaidan handed him a datapad, he watched the turian carefully as he quickly scanned through the contents. Garrus' heart skipped another beat.
"…Reaper activity on a colony world? This is more than serious, t-this is…", Garrus was ready to jump up, sprint through the door and catch the next shuttle to the colony but the wave of Kaidan's hand told him to calm down.
"Yes, I know, I felt the same when I received the report from Hackett", Kaidan stared intensely at the datapad, brow furrowed and hands clasped tightly. "I checked with Liara, she says that it may just be a piece of Reaper tech that slipped under the radar of the clean-up operation that took place after the War", he paused. "But you know me, you can never be too careful".
Garrus still felt out of the loop. "Wasn't all Reaper tech destroyed by the Crucible? Just the thought of something slipping by…", Garrus didn't even bare thinking about maybe what the Normandy crew accomplished still wasn't enough, what she did still wasn't enough. That's the thing about the cruel calculus of war, sometimes gung-ho soldiers and a bittersweet ending was just not enough for reality.
"That's not all", Kaidan sighed, wishing it wasn't the case. "Ever heard of Syndicate 12?", Kaidan tapped his omni-tool, bringing up a detailed field report, covering the space between him and the turian captain.
"That name rings a bell", his mandibles twitched, he leant forward peering into the field report.
Eleven haunted looking faces stared at Garrus, he stared back. Kaidan continued, "Terrorist organization, got a pretty nice balance of aliens, so we can rule out any human interest agenda", Garrus nodded, Cerberus left such a stigma that any terrorist activity was quickly linked to 'special human interest agenda'.
"Their leader is a particularly nasty piece of work, war veteran with a grudge", he expanded the image of a gritty looking turian, one of his eyes plucked out, a mandible missing, the other torn up and shredded, no facial tattoos. Garrus could only think of Saren, another ruthless yet delusional turian.
"His name is Riyus Sarasi, codename March. He was former turian special ops officer, Assassin class and he was pretty damn good at it too. He knows how to cover his tracks, annoyingly", Garrus studied Kaidan's face through the orange and blue glow of the hologram, from his tone and the expression on his face it was evident that Kaidan has been having some trouble nailing this guy and his cohorts down.
"And their motive?", Garrus inquired.
"Piracy mainly, they target small and isolated colonies and then retreat back into the Terminus Systems", Kaidan said, scratching the back of his neck and leaning back into his chair.
"Well, shit".
"Yeah, my thoughts exactly, it's like trying to find a needle in hay".
"What?".
"Oh, uh, human expression, they're just impossible to track down is what I'm saying". Garrus could tell that Kaidan was reciting himself with the next explanation. "And you're probably wondering how this links up to the active piece of Reaper tech, well…when we lost communications with this colony-named Cassora-, we got reports of Syndicate 12's ship spotted near the docking bay and then…"
"Reports of Reaper tech", Garrus finished.
"Precisely".
With a whoosh of his hand, Kaidan brought up the garden world in question. "And this is the colony, mostly covered in jungle and beaches, as you can guess, is hell for our probes. We can't get close to any centre of communications and we haven't heard from the ground team in days", Kaidan looked destitute. "The entire thing's a mess, Vakarian", he exasperated.
Garrus then knew what the main reason for the unexpected visit was, it wasn't just a friendly visit from an old long-lost friend; this was recruitment. The turian felt slightly disappointed however he couldn't deny his interest and his curiosity towards the mission and he felt flattered that Kaidan Alenko himself trusted him enough with a very sensitive Spectre assignment.
"And you know what I'm going to say-".
"Yes I do".
"-And I'd really appreciate it if you at least thought about it". Kaidan's omni-tool switched off, orange and blues left the room, returning it back to its florescent office lighting.
Garrus smiled weakly through his mandibles, the enticement of 'the old days' was more than a little tempting but as a man of Citadel Security and even as a failure of a turian, his felt as though his mountains of paperwork came as a surprising priority. Garrus stood up, relaxing his hands on his desk and turned to the view of the Presidium. Kaidan watched him.
"Look at the Citadel, Kaidan, it's just learning to walk again…I-I can't just leave it now", with that his voice-com interrupted him.
"Sir, the volus ambassador is here with some, um, complaints it seems", his assistant informed him. Kaidan raised an eyebrow.
Garrus dropped his shoulders and sighed heavily.
"I'll get my things".