6.
Garrus doublechecked the suit's operations. Optic enhancements were online, shields were at full power, and an assault rifle rested with hungry ease in his hands. There was a tickling sense of deja vu under his anger, the dread that came from seeing others go before him. That where he was about to go, others had already tried and died. The only question would be if their bodies had been jettisoned into space, lost to Alliance and to their families, or if they would still be laying dead in the hold for him to step over. His stomach was cold and full of uneasy acid.
The humans crowded around him, and he found he didn't mind. Ravikumar was a small but fast figure in a tactical suit, and Maldives took the point spot, ready to blow a hatch, the deja vu lining her face and adding a look of strain under the harrowing light. She was mumbling to herself, a latin prayer Garrus read in one of their books, a forgiveness for trespass and for a gentle spirit to watch over them and their dead. He respected it, he supposed, though he'd rarely made time in his life for that sort of introspection. His approach to the idea of any active turian faith was even more spartan than most. The spirits might guide, but everything else rested in your own hands.
He looked down at his. Perhaps a salarian neck might rest there soon, as well. That would almost be worth a hungry prayer. He uttered a low sound at the thought, a threatening, flanging hum of potential satisfaction. Krent. He was going to have a chance at Krent, within his own grasp. Krent. Now with more blood on him, more people Garrus couldn't save, didn't have a chance to so much as try.
Soon. The word was sibilant in his mind, his tactical side trying to right his physical vessel, and right now he hated it. He knew patience. He knew waiting. This was long past time for that.
Lieutenant Maldives turned her head to glance at him and he read the tight look on her face, that recognizable pinch of battle tension. Ravikumar swallowed and asked the question Garrus already read on her face. "Have you led this kind of operation before, sir?"
Garrus tilted his head down towards the man, automatically gentling like he would for younger cadets. "I've been leading hot squads since early boot. A lot of sims, too, but…" He trailed off with a shrug.
"I've heard turian sims are no-shitters compared to ours. Don't you get hurt at yours?"
"If you're stupid and unprepared, you can get hurt doing anything." He couldn't resist a soft snort. Training had been not only simple but enjoyable, begun at an early age at his father's knee. It remained fun when it was a formal fact of his life. His memory reminded him. Seiuus had been why. Irreverence. Out of the box thinking. Fun for the sake of fun. Something clicked in his throat as his finger curled tight around the rifle's safety. He shook it off. "It's the job. You adapt to it. If you can't or won't, you're in the wrong place. It's how we live." He gave the human a wry look. "Are you prepared, Agent Ravikumar?"
"I better be." Ravikumar looked up at Garrus, saw something there. "By the look of you, sir, I think it'd be a bad day to be an unprepared salarian." He half-lidded his eyes, about to completely endear himself to Garrus. "I hope he has the worst day of his life."
Garrus resisted the urge to clap him on the shoulder. "Stay low and behind. They're going to be scattered. This time, we really will take them all by surprise. They'll be in small packs at first. Clean-up. It'll take them time to regroup."
Maldives added her own sour mutter. "God, this time. What the hell happened last time?"
Suspicions flickered through Garrus's thoughts, with no time for them to root and flower. Not yet. Not when he was about to take responsibility for a dozen young humans and an unknown quantity of bastards ahead. "I don't know," he allowed. Then, the quiet hunter's thought. But we are going to find out.
A moment later, Cairo's hatch clanked into position with a metallic scree. Klaxons bleated irritably as Garrus and his team silently poured into the hostile vessel. Cairo had overtaken their target smoothly while the team talked, no warning given, no notification sent to Alliance command. A risk on Captain Gabriel's part, both tactical and political. The old human phrase came to Garrus's mind - better to get forgiveness than ask permission.
Garrus wondered if this mission had gone personal for someone other than himself.
The smell of fresh human blood, scorched air, and hot metal hit his senses with the impact of a brick. The last few survivors of the failed assault had tried to fall back to the hatch, believing a full retreat would save them. By then, however, Vaslui had been forced to pull away. Their fates were sealed.
Garrus couldn't stop the enraged, flanging noise from rattling out his throat, an animal's deadly hunting purr. His neck was tight and the flesh under his mandibles felt hot as forged iron. He barked out terse orders, broke the team into three parts, and they surged forward to bring the fight home to Lorben Krent.
. . .
Krent howled invectives in multiple languages, an intricate architecture of anger meant to fence in the news of the latest invasion of Alliance rubbish. He slapped a thin hand against a smashed-open crate, the guts of it gone freshly empty. New weapons were already being handed out, ammo drops refilled to try and slow down the steady advance. It came to little. Each update was worse than the last. This new assault was implacable. Krent suspected he knew why. Turians. Those fucks. All gun, no pity.
And worse, little James thought he saw an opportunity to whine about being right. Humans. He hated the fleshy things. "Krent, I told you that fucking turian was going to be a problem." The man gestured towards the corridor beyond their currently secure lair. "He's tearing apart the entire place. We've lost the lower and first decks, we've got five men down. We weren't prepared for a second strike!"
"No," said Krent with all the coldness he could muster. "We weren't. And who do I have to blame for that?" As he stressed the last, he whipped around and caught the weak human neck in his hand. He wanted to finish it. Snap the vertebrae to pieces. A little biotic push to collapse the internal structure.
James stared defiantly back, smart enough to always be afraid of him, but firm. "They weren't given an order for this, Krent. I would have been warned. They made this push on their own."
"You call me sir, you worthless dredge of evolutionary slime."
"I'll call both of us dead if we don't get out of this. Sir." James spat the word, feeling the hand around his throat, feeling it loosen despite every neuron in Krent's skull telling him to do it. The human was valuable. Krent considered, perhaps too late, that he'd allowed the human to become too valuable. That had been a risk. But Krent accepted his own greed, and James had matched that greed worthily.
Krent came to a different conclusion, leaning forward to squint liquid threat into James's face. Time for the little drummer boy to play real soldier. "Get your suit, James. You're going out on the line."
"I'm not fighting Alliance!" The piggish blue eyes widened.
"As you say, we're dead if we don't get out of this. All in, James. We fight." Krent tilted his head as he controlled his biotic aura, letting it rise, letting it strike the human's skin with that threatening chill. "Or we die. Perhaps I don't really care which." He let a smile play across his face as he let go of the human's throat, enjoying the hostile stare he got in return. "But James. Leave the turian to me, if it'll make you feel better. Besides. I'm sure he will insist upon it."
. . .
The second squad reported in with a minor victory. They'd taken down two more of Krent's men behind an ad hoc fortress of secured canisters and empty crates. Garrus could feel the ship shudder under his feet, ricochet fire through the halls. The smell of fusing metal and scorched wood made it hard to breath. The smoke was rising, but aside from tweaking their HUDs to compensate for the vision impairment, they ignored it. This wasn't about revenge. It was all about revenge. Two thoughts chained in paradox.
The Cairo team had taken two casualties so far. One was injured but mobile enough to retreat to safety under his own power. The other man lay dead, wounds cauterized on impact. The first and second squad teamed back up long enough to clear out the area around the dead man. Maldives stopped long enough to close the soldier's eyes with two gentle fingers, and then she identified and ended her compatriot's murderer with a coldly delivered double-tap to the forehead of the enemy salarian. Then the two squads resumed its hunt down the side corridors, looking to mop up, looking for where to start the next push.
Meanwhile, Garrus marched relentlessly towards Command, the rest of his first squad in tow. He himself dropped two enemy smugglers so far, each one killed without so much as a second look to be sure their corpses weren't the human and the salarian he sought. These two were worthless to him in death and in life.
The opposition had been sharply weakened numerically. Understanding this, feeling trapped, they ramped up their ferocity. Garrus's squad was blocked in at one junction for several tense minutes while a group of Krent's loyalists passed behind the defenders, trying for a pincher. It might have even worked, insults flung aside flashbangs and weapons fire. Finally Garrus unleashed his temper, a cold turian rage, and attempted a dangerous melee rush. Energy shots spanged off his deployed shield while Ravikumar scrabbled to catch up and give him the cover he needed to succeed.
His optical display flashed a warning at him. 2% shield integrity, one shot, maybe two, until Garrus would take the next one to the brain. A smuggler gurgled after his attack, and he focused on that instead. The followup shots from his team did the rest. The danger didn't slow him, he continued down the corridor with the defensive line broken. Ravikumar and the rest caught their breath as he fled on. Towards Krent.
. . .
It was stupid of Garrus to march on alone. That coldly rational part of his mind, with its voice far too much like his father, screeched its warnings at him. Fury pushed him onwards. Both parts of his mind wouldn't shut up, wouldn't stop screaming, wouldn't stop flashing images at him. The faces of the dead. Martin, the ill-fated Marine, became Seiuus. Dead Vaslui soldiers whose names he couldn't remember but whose faces were etched, each of them became Seiuus. The slack face under Maldive's fingers, it was Seiuus. It was irrational. It was a distraction. All of it boiled up, casting his vision in the killer's mindless red.
Perhaps the human traditions had the right of it. Perhaps it was a mistake to permit a man with personal and tragic involvement to continue a dangerous case. Perhaps he was in too deep. Garrus didn't care. His squad wouldn't be far behind. He didn't care. Lorben Krent waited ahead. About that, Garrus cared.
He nearly lost his fight the moment he engaged with it. A heavy plastisteel canister, glowing with that sharp, unnatural biotic gleam, glanced against his shoulder even as he managed a last-second dodge. Pain thudded through him. He didn't care. He recovered from a stumble and threw himself into cover before Krent could ready another biotic toss. Or something worse.
Shots followed up the psychic assault. Unlike Garrus, Krent wasn't alone.
Garrus didn't hate biotics as a rule, but this one was high on his shit list. His breath hissed in surprise and rage, mostly at himself for being caught unguarded by someone that he knew damn well could snap his neck in seconds without laying a hand on him. He cursed at his own temper, staying crouched for cover. By the shots, it meant two more hostiles guarding Krent. That was bad odds. He could remain where he was and wait for backup…
The tactical realization hit him with that cold certainty. The humans would be left open, as he had been. He swore again and committed himself to a far more rash but hopefully effective stunt.
Garrus slunk around to the left-hand side of the crates hiding him, knowing there was no way to keep his movements silent. He paused, scraped his armor against the crate, and let his rifle whine slightly as it charged. But instead of readying his shot, he froze, listening with every part of his body, waiting for that unconscious and ready inhale of his opponent. Once he heard it, he flung himself back towards the other side of his shelter and ducked around, buying himself a clear second as the hostile still assumed his former location.
He crashed bodily into one of the hostiles, a shot at close range leaving him with the burnt smell of ozone. 1% flared his optic warning, and he flung his salarian attacker into another hostile, a smallish krogan.
A familiar smirk dipped back behind a different set of crates. Krent. A biotic toss neatly missed Garrus, causing a topple near the door. He didn't bother paying attention to that. The small krogan took a followup shot that cut through that last percentage and lased high on Garrus's arm. He hissed in pain, mid-charge towards his shooter, but didn't stop. The krogan fell back hard under the weight of one pissed-off alien cop, taking a rifle butt sharp to the face, and then Garrus delivered a final charged shot while the krogan was still stunned.
The corpse twitched slightly as it fell against the wall.
A rapid kill against bad odds. Garrus didn't savor it, falling back into his prior cover. He grabbed at the wound on his arm, feeling it ooze as he winced. It was nothing that couldn't be repaired, but it was fair to say it still hurt like a bitch. Like everything else, Garrus compartmentalized it deep at the back of his mind and listened, feeling a soft vibration under his feet that suggested another skirmish nearby.
Coarse screaming came from the far side of the room, vicious enough to suggest it was poor Krent laying wounded. Uncouth piece of shit, Krent. Garrus let his jaw flex, using the screaming to mark Krent's position. Keep screaming, you bastard. I'll be along shortly.
. . .
Lorben Krent wasn't howling for the reasons Garrus assumed. The room rumbled again, heavier this time. Not another firefight. It didn't matter to Krent if his opponent guessed the real reason, but he knew exactly what was going on.
It meant Krent's trust had finally been betrayed. The human brat launched several of their emergency shuttles all at once. One for him, the rest to confuse followers, give him a chance to not be shot out of space. James abandoned his ship, abandoned his duty. Abandoned Krent. He banged his fist against the floor and resisted the urge to add lyrical asari vulgarity to his screams. The fucker had his finance codes. If James wanted, he could get money out of countless shell accounts. The accountants would give up everything. Why not? He had Krent's personal authority.
Well. When he'd finished with this turian grunt, Krent would simply transmit an order to change all financial permissions. Then he'd hunt the boy down himself. The thought was a comforting one.
But first.
Taunting was always useful to Krent. It created openings. "You're that fresh-faced little one, aren't you? I read all about you. Know. Thine. Enemy. Daddy's favorite child, and him bending knee at the Citadel, yes? You've a terribly honorable family. An old one. I should admire that. I killed your friend. He died well enough for your kind. No mewling. No begging. I like that about you turians. Just that wet little gurgle. All of your kind gurgle. Well… to be fair, I suppose we all do, really, at the end." Krent laughed once, sharp and biting. "Not so much the hanar, of course. Difficult for them, just as fascinating in their way. But I'm sure you take my point."
Nothing from the turian but a soft, soft breath.
"Of course you'll gurgle, too. It's a sweet sound, has a melody to it that's never replicated in the lab. It adds a poignancy to death that's worth treasuring. I actually don't like killing all that much, would you believe? It cuts into profits. But there's no point in ignoring the scientific and spiritual beauty of it. But speaking of profits… I don't suppose we could make a deal, turian?"
Silence was his answer. Krent couldn't even catch the hint of a breath now. Had the man slunk out? Or snuck closer. Krent kept his back to the corner of his safe little space, prepping a silent-mode pistol. His eyes were usefully huge and dark, and he watched all the shadows. An idea occurred to him, a good one. A playful one. "Well, I didn't think so. It's so hard to buy your kind off, I have to get my business through other ways. So that said, I could sell you a… most interesting prize." Was that a shadow flickering along the wall? He lifted his chin to watch it, training his pistol in that direction. His psychic will flickering along the backs of his hands, alert, alive. "Would you like a traitor? I've one for sale. New stock, just arrived today. In a manner of truthfully speaking."
The whisper came, soft, flanging, the turian way of sibilant hostility. "I want nothing from you." Oh, that was close. A delicious lick of death.
Krent tensed, his last credit on the table. "Not even my life?"
. . .
Garrus tensed all of his muscles, and then shoved. Boxes scattered and Krent opened fire at their shadows. Several shots cut close enough for him to smell ozone. He ducked again, scuttled into position, and fell onto his prey with gravity as his backup.
Krent reacted with a close-quarters toss. Biotic energy rippled and then crackled down his arms, but Garrus had him in an unbreakable clench. Krent was dragged along by his own attack, tumbling together and the pistol torn from his hand by the combined force of their landing. He gasped for air, surprised at his own power used against him.
Garrus took his opportunity and swung onto the top of Krent. He punched the smuggler once, and then again, and then more, heavy and satisfying blows, too primal for his training. One side of Krent's face and the skin along his jaw was torn up and pulped before Garrus recovered the pistol and aimed into one staring eye.
"You know, you should take the shot," said Krent, low and almost lizardlike. He choked on a mouthful of his own blood, spat it to the side. "Not that I'm ready to die, but I admit, there's less paperwork all around."
Garrus's hand shook, his finger tight next to the trigger. I could. Yes, I could. No one would mind. One more dead criminal. A justified shot. He'd been sanctioned to do it by Captain Gabriel, even. But would that be enough for him, for his memories of the dead? He leaned down to fix his gaze full on Krent's face, that cold place in his belly turning into sharp ice. His sunken, almost avian eyes stared into the salarian's huge dark ones. His jaw worked as he thought. He could almost see it. That thin face, torn apart by close fire. Dark blood cooked to sludge. The limpid eyes shattered. It was almost reality. It could almost have been enough.
Almost.
"No," he said, letting the coldness overrule him, tamp his fury. That primal hunter had fed enough. Justice was an icier thing. He wanted more, and he could wait for it. "No. I'm taking you in, Krent. This way, you suffer. Probably for a very long time. I'm going to see to it, every step of the way. Make sure it's as bad for you as possible. Death is too easy. I want you to live."
Krent laughed, the bitted sound of it wet against his beaten jaw.
Garrus listened to it, the grimace flickering along his face. One more treat. Calculated. He smacked the pistol sharp between the eyes, thudding the skill against the metal deck. He took satisfaction in the way the face went slack, unconsciousness glazing and shutting those eyes.
He sagged, relieved, the last of the adrenaline leaving him empty. His breath came ragged. He was still sitting atop Krent, the warrior in repose, when the rest of the squad finally caught up to him.