Dekunna, three Earth-standard weeks ago

The volume of the explosion through the radio had him shouting in pain, releasing his grip on the stock of the Black Widow just long enough to clap a hand to his ear. The audio spectrum on his visor was a violent scribble of peaks and valleys. As the booms rolled to a close, there was a loud, discordant hum left in their wake. The sound pressed against his skull. All other noise was muffled, as though he'd been plunged deep underwater. He staggered into the side of the Kodiak in disorientation.

"Fearful; turian, are you injured?"

Garrus ignored the elcor arbalest who had come loping up to his side out of the lee of one of the nearby civilian cellars. The hum was already fading to a whine, and the sounds of his immediate surroundings began to filter back in; panicked elcor stampeding out of their underground hideaways into cargo bays of the evac transports behind him, their young crying out for parents who had boarded a different ship in the confusion. The metallic grinding of husks stumbling up the hill and through the ramshackle gate at the other end of the village, trampling the waving yellow grass into mulch. Snapping cords as teams to his left and right fired bolt after bolt from elcor-mounted ballistae into the approaching horde. The thin, high-pitched shriek of a Banshee as she drifted at the back of the mob, her unstable biotic energy distorting the air.

And the empty fuzz of his radio.

He looked up at the young soldier, who was still watching his face with the same placid, neutral expression all the rest of the elcor wore despite the carnage. A piece of shrapnel had embedded near his eye and the wound was oozing a trail of red blood. He watched it descend slowly, curving over the side of the fanned mouth. It was far too dark and glutinous to be mistaken for human blood. But to Garrus, these days, the colour red was associated with little else. Earth refugees in medic bays, dangling bags attached to their arms. The colour of Vega's face after a chinup contest. Scraps of pink limbs on a husk feeding pile. And of course, dead Alliance soldiers strewn on the battlefield.

His insides were going numb. Shepard had just done it again. Gotten herself killed where no one could help her. He felt inert, as though someone had thrown a switch and a bustling city block had gone dark.

The Banshee wailed in a deafening scream, seemingly having lost her patience. A gust of blue wind sent handfuls of husks flying, carving a path through the mass towards the vanguard. The elcor headbutted him roughly as a captain droned for him to return to the firing teams. Something shifted in Garrus, ejecting him back into reality. With an enormous exertion of will, he pushed aside the shock threatening to descend like a lead blanket. He knew the civilians cowering behind their line would die if he couldn't start functioning. Training, he told himself. He began repeating in a mantra the same words he'd drilled into his own squad on Omega. Back to basics. Second by second. Keep thinking, keep moving, or you're all dead.

"Joke-" he tried. His voice was hoarse, stuck to his throat. He swung his rifle back up into his hand and shook his head, throwing off the suffocating fog. "Joker, report!" he shouted, and fell to a knee. Loud cracks ricocheted off the walls of the village square as the Black Widow fired, and the elcor captain let out a crow of relief.

"The... the signal is... oh christ, the Commander..."

"Concentrate, damn you!" Garrus snapped. The husks were halfway up the natural gauntlet formed by the close rows of huts, about two hundred metres from the elcor's entrenchment. The mines Garrus had ordered to be laid earlier were detonating in rapid succession, scattering chunks of grey bodies with sprays of dirt and smoke. But the writhing mass was reforming swiftly around the holes they formed, advancing onwards over corpses of their own. His hands were a blur, dropping target after target and reloading without pause.

"The signal is down," EDI interjected quickly. "The ships should be restored to full -"

"Time to leave!" Garrus interrupted with a shout, looking up from his scope towards the captain. "Tell those pilots to get in the air!" He turned towards the dormant convoy and waved an arm over his head in a rotating motion, pointing up. The ballistae teams paused in various stages of firing to look towards their superior, who began repeating Garrus' orders in a bellow. The Banshee screamed again, taking an angry swipe that left a gash in a nearby house the size of a skycar.

The ships arrayed behind their line thrummed to life. The first row of husks were close enough now for Garrus to see the sickly, glowing pulse of their internals. The walkers on the periphery scraped along hand-plastered walls, the throng too large to fit in the narrow lane. At this range, his shots were taking down two husks with one bullet, but he was chipping at a boulder with a toothpick. Militiamen began abandoning their gear around him and galloping away, sending vibrations through the packed mud road and up through his legs. He continued firing until the last of the elcor had retreated back into the cargo bays and their doors began to roll down.

"Garrus, I can't raise Lieutenant Vega," EDI said. Her voice had a strange electronic stutter to it, like she'd been overtasked and had no resources left to eliminate the lag.

"On my way," he responded tersely. A final bullet into the chest of the Banshee stumbled her briefly. The contorted asari flung an arm outwards and a ball of concentrated energy hurtled down the street, air whistling in its wake. He sprinted into the open back of the Kodiak and cast aside the Widow with a clatter, hearing the biotic strike explode in the dirt behind him. He gripped the doorframe of the cockpit and vaulted into the pilot chair, too small for a turian to sit down normally. Punching the ignition and door close simultaneously, his other hand reached for the Predator he knew Cortez kept under the seat. Twisting uncomfortably, he braced one arm on the dash and levelled the pistol out through the open doorway. He could hear the grinding and rasping of the horde drawing closer.

"EDI, program their coordinates into the shuttle nav," he ordered. It felt like the hatch was closing in slow motion.

A second's silence, then - "Done. Initiate autopilot routine."

The doors were almost drawn together. Garrus heard several bangs, like fists pounding on the Kodiak's metallic shell. He dropped the gun in the copilot chair and began typing into the haptic board, fingers flying on the keys. The thrusters kicked in with a roar, incinerating two lines of husks in their wake. The shuttle lurched forwards and upwards, shuddering under the added pressure of Dekuuna's gravity. As they finally began to ascend, Garrus heard the shriek of the thwarted Banshee, and the sickening noises as she began venting her fury on the surviving husks.

He fell back, short of breath, feeling his spurs mash awkwardly against the seat front. Vertigo tugged on his stomach as the shuttle rotated and picked up speed. Staring out the window, he saw the elcor ships settle into orbit trajectory, their jets spewing blue and green fire.

"Make sure the Hieronym and Edictus' Claw are aware of their inbound," he said, referring to two turian warfleets he knew were stationed near a mass relay on their flightpath. He watched as the transports rose higher and higher into the atmosphere until they were nothing but shimmering dots in the sky. "And tell Citadel Docking they've got a fresh wave of refugees arriving."

He knew EDI probably replied with something, but he didn't hear it. Despite his heart still pumping blood with thuds he could feel in his ears, he felt cold. Flat and lifeless grassland rolled out ad infinitum under the window, beyond his notice. A glance at the dash told him he was ten Earth-kilometres away from his destination, and he closed his eyes.

Ever since she'd descended on Menae with her usual knack for timing, the same old Shepard but not quite, a strange feeling had begun tickling the back of Garrus' mind. A phantom breeze on his neck. It was similar to the sensation he'd felt when he'd walked back into his squad's HQ on Omega and found it eerily silent. A glimpse of some future catastrophe whenever he found Shepard collapsed over a navigational console, her skin hanging loose from lack of nutrition and sleep. He'd said nothing when he'd begun walking the full length of the ship every two days, finding wherever she'd passed out and silently depositing her on her bed. He was afraid that giving his fears the physicality of words would turn them into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And damn it, sometimes he just wanted to be selfish. To take strength from Shepard as a mythic figure like every other star-struck grunt on the ship. Ignoring her fragility made it so much easier to unload the weight of a galaxy onto her shoulders. He was no hero; he had no strength to bear grief other than his own while he waited to be told if his family had lived or died.

But he was a details man. It was a skill that had made him a good C-Sec officer and now made it impossible not to notice as his Commander, his closest friend, quietly abandoned life by degrees. He couldn't stop marking every change, every silent moment where she'd usually been ready with a witty backhander, every dead-eyed stare that had once surged with capability and intelligence. Sometimes when he caught her with her head in her hands, surrounded by mission briefs and mayday signals, he felt there were some theatres of war in which Reapers had already won. After all, if they could break Shepard's spirit, what hope was there for the rest of them?

It had only been a matter of time before he'd failed in his self-nominated duty; keep her alive, at any cost. The closing days of the galaxy would be ringing with the words; 'Shepard dies to save no one of great consequence, Reapers advance on all fronts.' On no news bulletin would there be a mention of an ex-soldier, ex-cop, ex-vigilante, ex-everything who had slipped into despair for a reason other than ravaged planets and widespread genocide. One unnamed turian mourning the death of an alien rather than the death of his own civilization.

The numbness was starting to give way to an ache.

"Officer Vakarian." EDI's voice seemed strange. Too nasal. Too male. "Officer Vakarian, please respond."

Present Day

He opened his eyes. The huge, void-like pupils of an elderly drell female stared back at him, two displaced black holes in a sea of grey and green scales. He murmured something incomprehensible, and the stare morphed into a glare. She indicated downwards with her chin. One of his elbows was wedged in her ribs, and his neck ached where his head had lolled onto her shoulder. He readjusted himself with a jump, apologising quickly. She rebuked him in that strange way unique to creatures with lips, pushing air out of her mouth with a shhhhh. She patted her mouth with all four of her mottled digits and repeated the sound. Glancing around the lowlit cabin, he saw that most of the inhabitants that lined the walls on hard, universal seating were asleep. Stars drifted in spatial pantomine outside square windows. Graffiti was scrawled on almost all available surfaces in various alien alphabets. An evacuation procedure was nailed to the wall opposite, with instructions repeated in the Citadel languages. Beneath it, his Commander was dozing, holding a kit bag to her chest as her head swayed with the subtle motions of the ship. He exhaled slowly, irrationally relieved.

Full awareness returned. He was on a public civilian shuttle, attempting to circumvent Cerberus detection of military incursion on their territory. Dekuuna was over. Now it was his sister he was expecting to arrive too late to save. As he watched Shepard shift in her sleep, he slowly drew the handles of his own bag sitting on the floor between his knees into a tight fist. His jaw locked, his teeth leaving pinpricks in his gums as he remembered her drunken ramblings in the gunnery. Anger had been trickling into his system since the first day his father had missed their daily contact ping, and now he was wading in it. Anger that shunted him into dark places, where assigning blame on others for his misery made perfect sense. The pleasant sensation of discovering he'd only been reliving that day on Dekuuna in a dream disappeared like a wisp of smoke.

"Last call Vakarian, are you reading this channel?" The tinny voice reappeared in his ear. "Always the same with these turian lunks. Haeena, attach a log on the next packet back to the humans, tell them I've checked the ID code three times already-"

Garrus gave a sideways glance at the drell, who was still watching him with narrowed eyes. He turned into the corner made by his seat and the beige interior wall, touching his omnitool with a tap. "This is Vakarian," he said quietly, trying to keep his voice below the general hum of the ship.

He heard a muffled 'finally!' before a vidlink request chimed loudly from his forearm. His fellow passenger looked on the verge of shushing him ostentatiously again, so he stood and slung his bag over one shoulder, making his way to the stairwell connecting the floors of the shuttle and sliding the door closed behind him. The cheap fluophosphate lighting buzzed overhead. He touched his visor as he dumped his bag under a tattered poster for the latest Blasto movie, hearing the deconstructed pieces of his rifle clink together. The projected image of a salarian appeared over his left eye. He was no particular expert on salarian emotion, but if he had to hazard a guess, he'd say this one looked bored.

"Garrus Vakarian, this is the Special Tasks Group Intelligence Division contacting you on behalf of -" He looked down to consult a screen. "Admiral Hackett of the Alliance Navy." He began to speak in a rapid monotone, eyes roaming lazily over text just to the left of the screen. "We have been instructed to provide you with data pertaining to your current operation. You have been cleared for level four privileges, including access to limited STG ground services, satellites and periodic updates on your nominated interests. I am obligated to remind you of Charter 718-42 under Citadel Council rulings of Citadel-cycle 5829, which renders you liable for prosecution should you use STG services for financial, commercial, or otherwise mercenary gain, disclose classified information to individuals without clearance, or use STG intelligence in the pursuit of military action against salarian civilian settlements. Please acknowledge in the affirmative if you understand these conditions." The whole spiel was delivered in less than two breaths for the alien.

Garrus nodded. He was surprised to hear his clearance had gone up so high. He supposed the dubiously merited title of 'Reaper Advisor to the Hierarchy' had unforeseen perks.

"Please acknowledge verbally, Officer," the salarian snipped, already looking into the middle distance and typing rapidly into a haptic board.

Garrus leaned back on a plastic railing, crossing his arms. "I understand the conditions," he said deliberately, swallowing a more vigorous response.

"I hope that wasn't too tricky for you. You seemed to struggle with answering your calls." The salarian chortled before leaning back in his chair and rolling his eyes at an unseen coworker.

Garrus ran his tongue over the tips of his teeth. The rational part of his mind knew this operation would roll out a lot more smoothly if he could resist the urge to put an STG handler in his place. But that part of him was quickly outvoted on days like this.

"My apologies," Garrus replied, his voice deceptively mild. "So tell me, is your division chief still Fari'id Skee? How's that old bastard doing these days?"

The salarian narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "I'm not at liberty to discuss STG personnel. Sir." The last word was tacked on reluctantly.

Garrus waved a hand in disinterest. "Well, the thing I'm really wondering is why he's loosened up on his substance abuse policy." He shrugged and shook his head, feigning confusion. "He used to be a real hardass about it back when we investigated a Citadel candy racket together. Is he getting soft in his old age?"

On the screen, the agent began glancing side to side, one finger tapping his desk erratically. "I... don't know what policy you're referring to."

"No? I'd assumed he's allowing on-duty agents to take stims during their shifts now? Seeing as you're chewing red sand tabs at your desk." Garrus' tone remained conversational even as the salarian's eyes widened in panic.

"What are you insinuating, turian!" His voice had ratcheted up about an octave. "I'm not-"

"Hard to forget what that wrapper looks like when you've pulled hundreds of them out of the pockets of Darkstar dancers. But I guess you know better than me - if Fari'id won't care, it's not a problem leaving it on your desk, right?"

The agent whisked the garish purple sachet out of view. He coughed and straightened in his seat, eyes darting left and right.

"I thought that might be the case. So can we dispense with the 'enlightened salarian versus turian meathead' clichés and proceed with a little cooperation?"

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir." The salarian struggled to keep his nervous fidgeting under control, practically writhing in his seat. "I'll, uh, bring up your information now, sir."

"My thanks." Garrus stretched his back, feeling his joints click. He watched Shepard through the scratched plexiglass of the cabin window, still slumped over her gear. To his irritation, his victory felt a little hollow knowing he wouldn't recount it to her later in triumph.

The twitchy agent began to pull holographic folders across his desk. "Sending you a planetary dossier now, Officer."

A file began downloading to his omnitool. Its size confirmed Garrus' fear that the STG had still not learned the value of brevity. "Give me the highlights," he said, flicking the file into the overflowing 'to read later' subsection of his mailbox.

The salarian nodded eagerly, both sets of eyelids blinking. "Of course. Anything you like." He fingered the drawer to his desk nervously. "You're en route to a planet probably known to you as Kiprin's Burden," he continued, raising a satellite image of a nondescript reddish planet into 3-D.

Garrus glanced it over, recognising the distinctive swirling duststorms. "I've heard of it. A turian expedition mapped it in the Exploration Age. It's a dud, right? Too much sulfur in the atmosphere?"

The agent nodded again. "Originally, the atmosphere was 17% sulfurous gases and uninhabitable to all known complex life. Salarian astrocartographers didn't bother to assign it a name, only a number; 17-4227-651908."

There was a moment's pause. "I'll stick with Kiprin's Burden, I think," Garrus replied.

The salarian cleared his throat with a tinny echo. "Yes, of course. About seventy years ago, the Kiprin star changed density as it entered its final life stages, causing the detachment of several metal-rich asteroids from a belt on the outer reaches of the system. Subsequently, the asteroids entered the nearby orbit of Kiprin's Burden. Several companies and private contractors have since financed the terraforming of the atmosphere, making it... relatively habitable. The small planetside town is used primarily as a staging ground for the mining operations conducted on the asteroid surfaces."

"Alright." Garrus rested his weight on one shoulder by the porthole and began absently carving the first glyph of his name into the thick plastic with the tip of a talon. "What about the Cerberus forces groundside? Can we expect heavy resistance?"

The salarian traced the length of his jaw with the tip of his finger, a nervous idiosyncrasy Garrus had seen often in Dr. Solus when left alone in close proximity with Grunt. "Unfortunately, the STG has limited information on planetside activities. We, uh, didn't deem it a prudent investment."

He sighed. "Then just give me the location of their operations. Where are they keeping the hostages? We'll make up the rest as we go."

"I'm afraid I don't have that information," the agent said in a quick, small voice.

Garrus back straightened like he'd been pulled by a string. "What?"

"We don't -" He paused to lick his lips. "We don't know where they are."

"There was a tracker attached to their ship." he said in measured tones.

"When their ship descended into low orbit, we lost communication – our contact on the ground, he couldn't reestablish -"

A rattling thud rang out in the narrow stairwell as Garrus slammed a fist on the window frame. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shepard's head jerk to attention. "So... what are you trying to tell me?" he asked in a low voice, straining to keep his voice level. "That we're dropping in blind? That the hostages could be anywhere from here to the Veil by now?"

The salarian visibly recoiled. "It's- it's just what it says on the screen!" he bleated. "I'm just a communicator, I don't know how this stuff gets handled!"

"Then you'd better find someone who knows something before I call the Sur'Kesh Nationalist Crimes Bureau and you spend the rest of your brief and miserable life in a cell, you hopped-up little -"

"What's going on here?" Shepard interjected as the door rattled closed behind her.

"They've lost the tracker," he snarled. Garrus knew he was letting his emotions control his thinking but he couldn't care less. "They've got no intel groundside. We might as well be dropping into the damn Void for all they can help us." He began to pace. His mind was suddenly flooded with images of the blood-stained floors beneath Cerberus torture devices on Pragia. It was no great leap to imagine his sister strapped into one of those chairs. Her face rose up towards him, contorted and screaming. He suddenly felt short of breath.

Shepard seemed to connect the dots within moments, and she opened up a portal into the vidlink. "STG Intelligence Division, I'll assume?" she asked the now quivering salarian.

"Commander Shepard? The Commander Shepard?" The look of fear slackened, and he leaned forward into the camera. "Wow. The vids make you look shorter."

"Only when the channel doesn't like me. What's your name?"

He seemed taken aback. "Jareet," he ventured nervously.

"Alright, Jareet. What's the Cerberus story in this sector?"

"Are you listening or not?" Garrus interrupted angrily, coming to a standstill. "They've got nothing! We're getting the scraps they've swept out from under the table because they're too incompetent to keep a single tracker in range!" He kicked his bag clear across the tiny space, his heat sinks clanking loudly.

"I'll be the judge of that," she replied calmly. All traces of the slurring, sloppy Shepard from a few hours before had vanished. There was a hard edge lining her words that almost triggered the last die-hard shreds of turian obedience he had left. She stared him straight in the eye until he was forced to look away, a frustrated hum starting in his chest.

She put her hands on her hips and returned her attention to the vidlink. "So," she said, and instantly all the steel in her face was gone. "Cerberus loves the smell of money. Is this a trade planet?"

"Kiprin's Burden. Yes, an asteroid mining planet." Jareet said eagerly, smiling. Any other day Garrus would have been amused by Shepard working over such an easy dupe. Today, he felt nothing but revolt at the simpering display. It seemed like everyone in the universe except him was queueing up to fall at Shepard's feet.

"Interesting." She returned the smile, easy and disarming. "What can you tell me about the big players dirtside? Who's controlling the money?"

Garrus shook his head, surpressing a growl. "That's not going to tell us which damn door to kick down, Shepard! Solanna will be scuttled into a desert hole somewhere before we finish even a preliminary recon. We need schematics and latitudes of the Cerberus facilities and we need them now." He moved to face the Commander front on, chin raising defiantly. "Call Liara."

Shepard muted the feed before shaking her head. "No."

"Shepard-"

"No."

Garrus felt his chest tighten. His sister's face was seared onto his mind's eye, smoking at the edges. It's my fault if she dies here, his thoughts chanted in a loop. He took a step forward, not knowing what he was doing but feeling compelled. Anything to stop being helpless. "I'll do it if you won't." He swallowed, watching Shepard meet his gaze, and realised he would do it, even if the traces of an orthodox turian in him were horrified at the thought.

"No, you won't," she said mildly. Her eyes had a familiar look in them; Garrus realised he usually saw it turned on an uncooperative informant.

"Shepard, it's my sister, damn it- " he began desperately.

"For three reasons," she continued as though he hadn't spoken. "One; I doubt she'd have any more intel than STG on a rock in a backwater system. She has no agents in play here; as soon as I had our coordinates, I checked. Why would the Broker have had cause to monitor a place like this too closely? And you know as well as I do that we can't risk details of the mission becoming public knowledge on the Normandy."

He turned his back to her and put a hand either side of the porthole, leaning forward and trying hard not to grind his teeth together. He heard her moving closer.

"Two; we could well be touching down on a planet that could now be entirely in Cerberus' pocket. A giant early warning system. We go in guns blazing, they cut their losses and all we find are empty warehouses and warm corpses." His talons curled into the wall. She continued, unfazed. "The Illusive Man brought hostages here for a reason. He's been trying to pilfer turian ships for weeks. He's got something out here he needs them for. Something he wants to protect."

"What the hell makes you so sure of that? For all we know he just thought this place was far enough out of the way to stash them," he accused. Her reflection watched him from over a shoulder.

"Because I spoke with Miranda while you were cuddling that charming drell. Cerberus has about a dozen boltholes between here and where they were lifted, all of which would have been far more secure and protected. They're on this rock for a reason. Which means we need to find out what and put a stop to it. We move with circumspection until we know what we're dealing with."

He felt his temper spike, and whirled to face her. "Circumspection? Like hell I'm asking polite questions around town while my sister is tortured by Cerberus maniacs!" he snapped, putting his face aggressively close to hers.

In a split second, he was on the ground, a knee in the small of his back and an arm twisting up towards his cuff. His visor tumbled off with a clatter. He groaned in pain as his injured mandible was pushed into the filthy beige floor. "And the third reason, you son of a bitch," she ground out between clenched teeth somewhere over his head. "Is that I'm your Commander, and when I issue an order I expect my subordinates to follow. So unless you want to fly solo on the rescue op for your own sister, you'll start remembering who calls the shots here. Understood?"

He closed his eyes, letting his arms slump. He knew she was right. They had no knowledge of the terrain, no intel, and no backup. But that didn't make Solanna's screams any less painful to imagine.

She stood, releasing the grip on his wrist. He sat up, retrieving his visor and readjusting it on his face. His mandible throbbed angrily. After a moment, Shepard stuck out a hand to help him up. He looked up into her face. She looked solemn bar a muscle jumping slightly in her jaw.

"If you think getting your sister out of here safe and sound isn't my top priority, then you're dead wrong, Garrus," she said as she pulled him to his feet. "But I hope you knew that already." Her expression softened slightly with concern.

Ah, he thought as their gazes met clearly and free from anger for the first time in weeks. For a moment there I'd forgotten. She's better at this than I am. The pain in his jaw faded into nothing.

Then he heard an obnoxious, nasal snickering down his earpiece. The salarian had leaned back in his chair and casually folded his arms behind his head. "That was quite a show, Officer Vakarian. Should I call Skee over in case there's a round two?" he asked with a smirk.

Garrus tapped the disconnect on the feed. He recovered his kit without meeting Shepard's eyes, but he could feel her stare burning on his back as he pulled the cabin door open with a thump.