Kodiak Approaching the Council Overwatch - Garrus Vakarian

The Kodiak slowly approached the large space station hanging over the brown sphere of the Krogan homeworld Tuchanka. The facility was dark, the few visible exterior windows failed to leak any light from the inside, and Garrus struggled to see in and gather a glimpse of what had happened to the Council's peacekeeping force. Garrus heard the quiet sound of Shepard's breathing to one side, and had felt Grunt, moments earlier, push him to the side as he struggled to get a glimpse of what had happened to the guards tasked with watching his people.

The closer the Kodiak came to the primary hanger of the station, the more apprehensive Garrus became. He didn't know exactly how many troops the Council had left to watch over the slow death of the Krogan race, but he knew they numbered in the tens of thousands. For the collectors to wipe out so many? It was hard to believe, but the evidence was in front of him. Shepard attempted to radio the station for the fourth time, "Council Overwatch this is Commander Shepard of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance, do you read?" He waited a moment before repeating the same words, "Council Overwatch this is Commander Shepard of Special Tacts and Reconnaissance, do you read?"

Grunt waited a moment to make sure the Commander was done before complaining, "There's no one there. Let's go in and beat down anyone who stops us." Garrus shook his head at the young Krogan's eagerness.

Shepard nodded once in acknowledgement, "Just don't shoot anything that doesn't shoot first alright?"

They touched down in an empty hanger. Weapons raised, they made it halfway to the door into the next room before pausing. There were a couple of other ships, both larger than the Kodiak. From their rather simple design Garrus discerned that they were freighters. Both had left loading ramps down and possessed cargo in various states of loading and unloading, a few boxes seemed to have been dropped in the middle of the floor and their contents was scattered for meters around them. "Shepard, I don't like the way this feels."

"I don't either Garrus, this is either a trap or a morgue. I don't know what would be worse. Legion, are there any life signs that you can pick up from in here in the hanger?"

"Negative, we detect zero life signs of any known species and have no data to indicate the presence of unknown species. There are also no electronic signatures indicating synthetic presence. Is this sufficient?"

"Yes Legion." Shepard paused and looked down at his omni-tool for a moment. "There are no life signs and no indications of a synthetic presence. Legion, I want you to hack into the surveillance feeds aboard the station and see if they were hit by swarmers. I have a feeling the Council strike team isn't going to like what they find aboard that Collector ship."

Garrus shuddered. He had been horrified watching colonists be turned into whatever that DNA goo was aboard the Collector base, but, no matter his attachment to the crew of the Normandy , the whole thing still felt a little distant from him. He hadn't know why at the time but now he did. He had never thought it could happen to him. Even more than that though, he hadn't been forced to imagine his father, mother, or sister being tossed into a tube and disintegrated in front of him. He gulped. Now he had.

"Garrus, are you still with me?" Shepard waved his hand in front of the Turian's face and Garrus felt himself flinch.

"Yeah Shep, want to keep exploring?"

"I think we need to, if we keep seeing this for the next few rooms we'll wait for Legion to get ahold of whatever he's after in their servers and take off." Shepard led them through the next few rooms and they found little more sign of anything living. They passed through a medical bay, devoid of it's patients but containing puddles of different colored blood on the beds.

No doubt the Collectors had pulled the wounded away from their IVs and respirators to take them with them. They then crossed through what appeared to be a Turian bunk room. Garrus surveyed the space and noted the dull green sheets had been pulled aside and thrown onto the floor. Crumpled clothes lay around as if they were dropped while being hastily thrown on by worried Turian troops. What he saw weren't the clean orderly bunks of Turians who had left to begin their shifts, but rather a room in disarray, one that had been attacked by enemy troops in the dead of night. He mentally said a silent prayer for any who wouldn't be making it home.

They climbed a steep set of stairs up to a room overlooking the hanger, seeing nothing of interest they exited and followed a long, silent corridor to what their omni-tool maps of the facility suggested was the station's Command Center. The hallway was bathed in the red of the station's emergency lights and Garrus could sense Grunt's unease radiating off his massive Krogan body. Garrus shifted his attention back to the door at the end of the hallway. At that moment the emergency lights flickered off and a single shotgun blast rang out right next to him, Garrus spun around and felt for a hole in his armor but didn't find one. He leveled his assault rifle at the spot in the darkness where the shot had come from. A tense moment passed before the regular white lights of the station came back online. At the other end of his rifle was Grunt, who had fired a shot directly at the ceiling when the lights went out.

"Grunt, could you avoid blasting anything that doesn't move? I nearly took your arm off. You're glad I waited for another shot before I took you down." Garrus gave Grunt the best death glare he could and waited for the response.

"Not like it wouldn't grow back!" Grunt boomed in response before turning and pounding Garrus on the back with his oversized paw of a hand.

Garrus was pretty sure that he had broken a rib where Grunt had made contact, but stood as tall as he was able to hide the pain. Shepard just rolled his eyes at Grunt and began to move forward once again.

"Shepard-Commander, we have retrieved footage of the assault on the station. It is consistent with your theory of a Swarmer attack followed by a Collector kidnapping of all personnel."

Shepard looked up at the ceiling before pressing his hand to the right side of his head, "Did you get that EDI? It seems they were taken out by the Collectors. Pass that along to the Council and let them know they better hurry with their assault on the ship we took down."

When he didn't get a response Shepard began to repeat himself before Legion interrupted him, "Shepard-Commander, we have detected that our intrusion activated the main defense system. Lights are active but so are the mechanized defenses. We have approximated 53.7 seconds before 4 YMIR mechanized defense units assault this position."

Shepard just glanced at the others before turning and sprinting back in the direction they had come. They stumbled into hanger control room to discover it already had a YMIR in it, standing between them and the door. Shepard barked out a quick "Go" before sprinting toward the armored behemoth. He waited until the last moment, and as it raised it's cannon arm toward him he slid beneath it. Grabbing the mech's primary weapon in his left, and his Revanent Assault Rifle in his right he slid between the legs of the bot. He pumped rounds into the main weapon's barrel, causing a small explosion that took the arm clean off. Grunt slowly and methodically walked toward the machine, pumping it full of shotgun blasts while Legion and Garrus hung back and alternated between firing at its 'head' and drawing its fire. Just before the mech self-destructed Shepard ducked out from underneath it and began jogging down the stairs to the level below.

The bunk room was empty, and so was the medical bay, but the hanger had three mechs in it. Two were YMIR models and one was unfamiliar to Garrus, it looked vaguely Geth in design but was shaped like a Krogan and was operated by a VI. Legion answered the question he had mentally been pondering, "It appears to be a prototype mech designed to fight Krogan, it is designated KGIR in Council briefing files."

"I am not even going to ask how you got to those files." Garrus turned just in time to see Grunt yell a war cry and sprint out from behind him. He spun around and started firing as many rounds as he could into the KGIR. The stupid Krogan was running into what amounted to a trap, he was going to get all of them killed! Grunt's initial headbutt achieved little against the heavy armor plating on the mech's chest, but his next decision, to pick up the KGIR found far more success. Garrus just stared as Grunt struggled, and then succeeded putting the mech, that had to way several tons, on his shoulders. Which a grunt he tossed the mech into the air and directly toward one of the YMIRs that had chosen the wrong moment to advance on the Urdnot warrior. Before either mech, the one he had thrown or the YMIR it had hit could get up, Grunt had closed the distance between them and unloaded shots from an assault rifle and his shotgun into each of their respective chests.

Grunt screamed out over the sound of circuitry being torn apart, "I will defeat you all! Is this the best the Reapers can do?!". He tossed aside his weapons and stomped on the chest of each mech in succession. Giving out under the force of the oversized Krogan's legs, the lights in their eyes went dark and their servos stopped trying to push them up.

The final YMIR emerged from the other side of one of the freighters just in time to be hit by an overload from Legion. Garrus and Shepard turned and unloaded their weapons into the mech, and it crumbled to the ground before engaging its self destruct.

The moment the final mech fell Shepard and Garrus turned back to look at Grunt, who had taken a seat on the floor and was breathing heavily. "Ah, that may have been the most fun I've ever had! You will need to find me more enemies like these Shepard."

Shepard gave him another hard look before responding, "We need to get out of here and report what we found to the Council, they aren't going to be very happy."

Garrus snorted as they entered the Kodiak and crashed down onto their seats, "You can say that again. They're probably going to blame us to given their track record."

Grunt chuckled as he daydreamed, "If they do I will throw them at each other and stomp on their faces before pulling out their guts."

Shepard smiled at the mental image, "And I might just let you do that if they try to deny anything." Shepard gestured at Legion, "I doubt they will though, we have the whole episode on tape."

"Shepard-Commander, we calculate a 97.8% chance that the council will pursue the Collector threat. We also calculate a 99.7% chances that they will reevaluate their anti-Krogan weapons platforms in light of the footage of Grunt's success against the prototype KGIR platform."

The Kodiak departed from the hanger and began the journey back to the Normandy. Garrus was about to smile when he realized the gravity of what they had found in the Overwatch. The Collectors weren't just gunning for the humans anymore, and that meant the Reapers weren't going to discriminate either. He pulled out his omni-tool and started writing a message to his father back on Palaven. Even if the Council began to accept Shepard's word and prioritized the Reaper threat there was only so much they could do themselves. It was about time that he did what he could to push the Hierarchy itself to act. His father, despite being retired, was friends with Primarch Fedorian, and if he listened to Garrus they might be able to convince the Turian leadership to take action.

Halfway through his message Garrus looked up at the others. Grunt wore his stupid grin, thrilled with himself. Shepard stared blankly out the window, probably considering how running into the Collectors would affect the plans he had just started to work on. Legion was motionless except for the fluttering of the small flaps around his eyepiece. Garrus looked back down and resumed typing his letter, even if they didn't know it, his team was depending on him. He wouldn't let them down, he couldn't let himself fail, never again. The rest of the ride back to the Normandy was completed in silence, with only Garrus' keystroked filling the cabin with noise.