Chapter 6 Garrus?

Miranda asked "Should we make a break for it? With only Tarak and the Blue Suns left this might be the best chance we have."

"Agreed." Garrus said. "You guys go gather up supplies downstairs. I'll finish up here and meet you."

Shepard nodded and they began moving towards the stairs. They moved to the lower level and she and Za-eed began picking up the thermal clips that the mercs had dropped in their haste while Miranda picked up the med-kits that were stashed in strategic positions for fast grabs during a fire fight.

As they finished gathering necessities, the floor began to vibrate and they heard a low rumbling sound. The three of them crouched low with the rifles raised in each direction looking for the source of the sound which escalated, the vibrations causing items on the low tables and shelves to shake. They heard a voice come over a loud speaker "Archangel! You think you can fuck with the Blue Suns! No! You are going to die today Archangel!" As Shepard and her team raced for the stairs, the familiar sound of a machine gun chilled Shepard. As they moved into the room, she could see the A-61 Mantis Gunship that they had crippled earlier hovering outside the warehouse windows looking in over the loft.

Moving low to crouch behind a couch just inside the corridor entrance, Shepard looked to her right and felt her heart stop. "Garrus!" She cried out. He lay on his right side facing away from her in a growing puddle of blue blood. His fingers still grasped the barrel of his sniper rifle. There was no movement and no response to her call. She couldn't tell if he lived or even breathed. She moved to get to him and the machine guns on the gunship began firing again. The bullets whipping past her head, sending pieces of paper, glass and wood flying with the speed of the bullets turning them into deadly projectiles. Even though she wanted to get to Garrus ASAP Shepard knew she needed to deal with the gunship first. She took another quick glance at Garrus and then turned her full focus on the gunship. Most people knew that when you were going up against Shepard, you tried to stay of her radar because if she ever turned her full attention on you, it was like being targeted with a laser-guided missile. Definitely not a good thing if you enjoy breathing. Tarak was about to realize his mistake but he wouldn't live long enough to regret it, she promised herself after another quick glance at Garrus showed no movement. It was time to kill a Batarian bitch.

The A-61 Gunships were the more commonly used gunship in the galaxy. Heavy armor and an eezo-core that allowed the ship to hover and move in every direction made it a great warhorse for battle. It's weaponry consisted of a pair of M350 mass-accelerator machine guns which were currently firing at her, and two missile bays over each wing armed with PKR's or Precision Kill Rockets armed with Inferno ammo. Taking it out was going to be a bitch with that armor and weaponry especially with just three of them. The best way to destroy it would be to try and take out the cockpit. As Shepard signaled her team into position, Blue Suns mercs began rappelling into the open windows. Quickly, Miranda used her warp power and Shepard her shockwave power on the gunship to try and weaken it's armor. Otherwise they would only be wasting their ammo firing on it.

Za-eed focused on the mercs coming in through the windows onto the loft. He began firing incendiary rounds which quickly brought down the enemys' shields and burned through their armor. Their screams of agony rose and fell as each mercenary felt their flesh burn and melt away as the fire ate through leaving nothing but ash.

The gunship rose out of their direct line of site. Shepard followed the sound round to the north side where the gunship dropped into view again and began firing. She signaled Miranda to use overload on the gunship while Shepard again used her power in an effort to further bring down the gunships shielding. Quickly, while their powers re-charged, she and Miranda turned to assist Za-eed in dealing with the mess of Blue Suns mercs coming in through the windows. They were holding their own but with so many mercs coming in they were damn lucky they had re-stocked on ammo and med-gel.

Shepard knew they had to finish this fast. As the gunship moved into visual range at the west windows again she unleashed her shockwave power again and then quickly switched weapons to the Arc projector that had been provided by Cerberus prior to this mission. The Arc projector was an experimental weapon offered to her by Cerberus scientists to try out in a field setting. It would dispense an electrical pulse which would severely deplete or eliminate electrical signals of its victim which meant that taking it up again synthetics, such as the geth, or against a gunship, was a "Hell yeah!" idea for her.

She braced herself and fired. The only down-side to this weapons was the charge time. It took one or two seconds to fully charge which made things kind of dicey for her but when the charge was dispensed, it packed some power. The first blast, hit the cockpit and she saw the anger in the batarian Tarak and the his pilots' face as the effect of the blast took 30% of his gunships functions offline and the machine guns began to stutter irregularly. The second blast caused the gunships' right wing to drop dangerously low as they moved furiously to try and regain control of the gunships. Tarak was looking right at her when she fired for the final time. His mouth opened to hurl obscenities or scream for help, Shepard couldn't tell as the gunship dropped fast and hit the cement hard, flames erupting and encroaching on the walls to the loft as the gunship exploded into shattered pieces of metal.

Shepard felt a large sense of satisfaction as she looked down at the burning rubble but it was short lived. Quickly she holstered the Arc projector and ran back to Garrus, who hadn't moved during the battle. Slowly she knelt next to him and reached out to lay her fingers against his arm to roll him back to her. "Garrus?" she asked softly, hopefully, her heart pounding in her chest. Shepard could feel an emptiness start to roll over her as a sense of loss and futility increased at the lack of response. It felt almost like dying again.