DIVINE INTERVENTION

THREE: CONCERNS

Just once.

Just once, I'd like to work with someone who doesn't have an obvious personality disorder. Is that too much to ask?

Then again, maybe that's what makes people good at what they do. Broken on the inside means they're perfect on the outside. Interesting theory, if not one that bodes well for mental stability among the elite. Next thing you know, and they'll have psychologists on the bridges of battle cruisers.

The rain was just as heavy as they left the building, maybe even heavier. Garrus welcomed it. Just being in there had left him feeling vaguely dirty, and the cool beat of rain on his head was doing something to clear that away. Water was swirling around his boots, constantly draining away into large grates set into the concrete, presumably being used to generate energy or just being ferried away back into the ocean. The streets of Valac were as crowded and noisy as in any other megacity in the galaxy, but they were cleaner; almost sterile, perenially scoured and scrubbed by the downpour. It felt almost like the Presidium had, the same sense of purity filling the air, but here it felt rougher, more natural. Nice city. Shame about the people.

"God," Sidonis said, as the door banged shut behind them. "You know how cities get nicknames? Nos Astra is the Shining Star, Medior is the Metal Heart, New York is the Big Apple, that sort of thing. They call Valac 'Fuck-Up City'. Easy to see why."

"Why did she want to stay?" Garrus asked. "We were offering a way out, free of charge-"

"And there's your problem. What made Vunas good... and what screwed everything up, I guess... was that she's honest."

"Honest."

"Yeah. It means she's trustworthy. She'll do whatever she can to help us. She'll give us our money's worth, that's for sure."

"How can that hurt her? Surely it would get her more business-"

Sidonis rolled his eyes and set off down the street. "You need to get into the Deinech mindset," he said over his shoulder, as Garrus followed. "You assume honesty is a good thing. It's not. This is a crooked city. If you're straight, you get bent all out of shape. She'll never ask for more than's fair. She'll never slack off, never drag a job out, never sabotage her competitors for her own gain. It's not that she's naive, she understands exactly what's happening."

"So she'll never accept anything she doesn't think she's earned."

"Exactly. She's the wrong species. She should have been a turian."

"She'd have been better at it than we are," Garrus said.

"Well, that's not exactly difficult, is it?"

"Was her father a turian?"

"Actually, I heard volus."

"Volus? Really?"

"If it can be fucked, you can bet your life that there'll be an asari at the head of the queue," Sidonis said, shrugging. "I've seen all of them. Asari-elcor. Asari-hanar. Asari-vorcha, if you can believe it. They say it doesn't have any actual genetic effect, but I don't know. All I know is that the one asari I ever knew with a vorcha father was a fucking psychopath. Make of that what you will."

"You'd expect the daughter of a volus to be more, you know, dishonest and avaricious, if that were true," Garrus said.

"Well, it ain't a perfect science, you know? I mean, my dad was a religious guy, followed some salarian cult... well, religiously. Doesn't make yours truly the same way, but it'd have been more likely for me to join up than a random turian plucked off the street."

"Yeah," Garrus said uneasily. Words came floating back unbidden from the depths of his memory, harsh, shouted words - some of them his own, some of them his father's. Last words we exchanged. Most of them curses. Wonder if we'll ever do it again?

They came out into the main street again, pausing at the edge of the swirling mass of people. Those hoods really were popular. There were very few uncovered heads visible among the crowd, but those that went bareheaded were, as often as not, human. The one species that's inconvenienced most by the rain and they're the ones who like it? I don't get humans. I don't think anybody does.

"So," said Sidonis, raising his voice above the crowd's hubbub. "We have a contact investigating for us. We have no more contacts left. We have more or less no money, no thanks to you. What do we do now?"

"Hell, I don't know," Garrus said. "Wait for her to tell us what we need, I guess. Head back to the ship. We have nothing else to do."

"I thought so." Sidonis inhaled deeply. "I just feel... so helpless, you know? It's ridiculous. We've got the ship, but there's no way we can destroy it. We're looking for whoever built it, but we don't know who, why, when, where, how..."

"I know. But we can't let up. We have to stop this and we're the only ones who know." As he said it, he sent a request for a cab off into the ether.

Sidonis shivered, and glanced up at the dour sky. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I guess so."

Problem is, you're absolutely right. I don't think we'll ever find out, not with the resources we have. In the end, we'll just have to destroy the ship without Golf knowing and hope nobody ever uses the technology again. I don't like that. I don't like that at all. But what else is there to do? There's some sort of darker game being played here, but it's a game in another room, a game with rules we don't understand played by people we can't see, and I don't know if we're players or pawns. Maybe we're not part of it at all. Maybe the game's already over. Maybe it hasn't even begun.

There are too many variables, too many unknowns. It'll be tough. As if I expected anything but. Why is nothing ever easy?

"This is the one?" the salarian said.

"Definitely."

"They called it the Hortensius. And they covered it up with civilian parts. Philistines." Contempt hung heavy in his voice as they stared up at the ship. "I mean, why would they do this?"

"As a disguise."

"Well, yes, but doing it this way is just wrong!"

The volus by his side cocked its head and glanced up at him. "Some might consider it an aesthetic improvement."

"And some might shut the hell up. You're absolutely certain?"

"Yes. My sensors have penetrated the outer hull completely. Sensat has equipped me well."

The salarian smiled thinly. "Can't deny that. And if this is our prey... then all we need to do is wait."

"And prepare."

"Well, yeah. You reckon it'll be Deus himself who comes for it?"

"Unlikely. He is cautious. It will be agents of his, probably Manus members. His most faithful ones, with whom he can trust the codes."

"Yeah. We can dream, though. What I wouldn't give to ram a grenade up his... then again, I guess Sensat would probably want him alive."

"Deus remains a secondary priority," the volus said calmly. "All we are concerned with is the acquisition of the codes to the ship and returning it to its rightful owner. Do not forget that. There are more important things at stake."

"He won't survive the week."

"I hope that will be the case."

The ship loomed huge, angular and grey in front of them. The docking berth was empty but for the two figures and the reason they were there, aside from their aircar - but that was well hidden, perched neatly behind the bulk of the ship. It was belching out huge, invisible clouds of anti-com chaff, just in case anyone had been left inside the ship that could have sent a warning, but it was apparently devoid of organic life.

"A cab is inbound to this berth section," the volus said suddenly. "No other vessels in the area are likely to be attended to at this time. It is possible that it contains Deus' agents."

"Shit," the salarian spat. "We need more time!"

"It is a lone car. It may be that preparations are not necessary."

The salarian squinted at him suspiciously. "What are you planning?"

"I am planning that they will not suspect the volus."

The cab flashed away into the sky again, two passengers lighter and a few dozen credits heavier. Sidonis watched it go with obvious distaste.

"Fucking asari. Even their damn cabs are overpriced," he said, as they left the cab rank for the docking superstructure. "You can't trust them with anything."

"Didn't we just trust one with several billion lives?" Garrus said, smiling.

"Hey, Vunas doesn't count."

"So you can't trust any asari... except for the ones you can."

"Yeah!"

Garrus shrugged. "Well, I have to say I probably agree with you there."

The door to the interior slid open, and they went in. The roar of the rain was suddenly cut to a faint, muffled patter as the door closed behind them. Garrus shook his head, dislodging a flurry of droplets from the crevices and chinks in his face. He could feel a few small patches of wetness between his skin and the plates covering it, a distinctly irritating sensation. I need to buy one of those damn hoods. This can't be good for my silky-smooth, unblemished visage. Women across the galaxy will mourn the loss.

"I don't know if we can actually trust Vunas to get us the information, though," Sidonis mused, as they walked down the simple metal corridor. "I mean, we can trust her to do what she can. But you have to be prepared for the outcome that we're left with nothing. No leads, no idea where to look, just one big fucking galaxy giving us the finger."

"I am."

"What do we do then?"

"We have to destroy the ship. That's all we can do."

"Not gonna be easy."

"Nothing ever is," Garrus said, as they approached an elevator. It opened, revealing a trio of humans, who pushed past them without a moment's notice. They went in, and Sidonis punched in their destination. Just a blank box? No windows? Even those ridiculously slow ones on the Citadel had windows.

"Seriously, how do we do it, Garrus?" Sidonis said. "It's impossible. We can't, like, crash it or something because it'll just take away control. And I don't want to be stuck on this damn planet again. I'd rather have Omega."

"We'll have to work out some way of disabling Golf, then. I don't know. We can't talk about it on board, anyway."

"Agreed. I know it's not an AI, but it's too damn close for my liking. Of course, you know a bit about that."

"Yeah," Garrus said, as the elevator whirred upwards. "You'd think people would learn not to create AIs. It only leads to violence and philosophising about the meaning of life and attempted mass murder. Well, I've already got the first two down."

Sidonis grinned. "Not planning on the third, I hope."

"Well, you know how it is. I like to keep my options open."

"Any mass in mind?"

"Politicians, possibly."

"Hey, you can't murder the barefaced," Sidonis said indignantly. "They don't count as alive."

They were still laughing when the elevator doors slid open, revealing another blank corridor. There were a few people moving up and down, in and out of various berths and elevators, but no more than a handful. Not as much travel these days, I guess. Nothing like an extragalactic invasion to make people stay home. Stupid, really. If the Reapers had succeeded, a ship would have been the safest place to be. At least then you could try to escape.

"This takes far too long," Garrus said, as they set off for their berth, following the grimy signs set into the corridor's ceiling. "We need a car. That way, we could just fly right up."

"Forget it," Sidonis said shortly. "I'm not paying for a damn car. In fact, I'm never driving a car that contains you again. Not after last time."

"Hey, that wasn't my fault. Mostly."

"I think you're bad luck."

"...yeah, that's true," Garrus admitted. "And you don't even know about half the stuff we ended up in under Shepard's command."

Sidonis raised an eyebrow. "Like?"

"Well, there were all those times thousands of hostile robots tried to kill us," Garrus said, scratching his chin. "That was fun."

"Geth, mercs. Way I see it, they both go down if you put a hole in their heads."

"Point. I can't say what I've been up to since is really an improvement. At least we didn't have to worry about money back then. It seemed like we were getting thousands of credits just for killing geth."

"What, like a bounty system? Battle of the Citadel must have cost a fortune."

"No, they just had a lot of credits on them. Not sure why."

"Maybe we should join the hunt for the last few geth," Sidonis said thoughtfully. "Thousands, you say?"

"Yeah. By the end, Shepard was buying the whole team new armour and weapons every time we met a vendor. Not sure what happened to all of it. I think the Alliance requisitioned it back."

"Bastards."

Garrus shrugged. "Well, it was all old stuff. Technology marches on, and we're left scrambling in the wake. Take this new-fangled thermal clip system, for example."

"Doesn't really make sense, does it?" Sidonis said. "I mean, six months ago the best weapons could fire five shots a second for two minutes before overheating, and these days you're lucky if you get fifty shots before you need a new clip. Plus they take so long to cool down that once you're out of clips, you're pretty much out of shots."

"I still had an old-configuration sniper when the team split up," Garrus said. "It was beautiful. Steady as a rock, customised tri-vis sights, powerful enough to hole a wall at half a klick. You'd get fifteen shots before it overheated, and that's if you fired it like a pistol. I tried using it on a merc a couple of months ago, and it didn't even get past his shields. It cost something like two hundred grand new, and one tech jump later it's worthless."

"Couldn't you have had it upgraded?"

"I tried, but it was too highly engineered. Would have cost a fortune. I just bought a new one. 'Course, that went bye-bye when our friends in the Blood Pack decided they hadn't committed enough murder and made a move for the ship. Shame. I'd paid ten grand for that."

"Any good?"

"Not bad," Garrus said, as they turned a corner and came into another empty stretch of corridor. "I had a little money, at least. Prophetic Visions had to pay me twenty thousand credits as part of the agreement when they bought the rights to make a holo about the battle of the Citadel."

"Only twenty?"

"Hell, I'm lucky to get anything. Shepard demanded that everyone on her crew get paid as part of the deal. Without that, she'd have been about a million creds richer." Not that it would have exactly made a difference.

Sidonis whistled appreciatively. "That mean I'm gonna see your name in the credits? Assuming I live to see the flick, that is."

"Don't think so. Last I heard, Garrus Vakarian had been replaced with Gara Velancia."

"Wait wait wait. They made you into a woman?"

"And an asari."

Sidonis snorted with laughter. "God, that's fucking brilliant. Didn't you already have an asari on your team?"

"You say that like you think racial diversity is a factor they care about."

"Ah," Sidonis said sagely. "Sex appeal."

"No, you've got it the wrong way round," Garrus said, struggling to hide a grin. "See, with me in it there would have been too much sex appeal. Audiences can only handle so much, you know."

"You're not nearly as funny as you think you are," Sidonis said, but he was fighting a losing battle against his own smile.

The signs hanging from the ceiling at intervals of a couple of hundred metres had been counting up from B-125 since the corner. When they finally came to the sign proclaiming B-127, it came as a relief. Dammit, this place is enormous. Couldn't they put more elevators in?

I can't believe I just thought that. I've had enough elevators to last a lifetime. Besides, this place is too cheaply built for luxury like that. The bloody signs aren't even electronic! Probably some half-assed krogan construction firm- hey, that's not right.

That last was what went through his mind when the door to the pad hissed open. The bulk of it was correct - the blast of rain-specked cold air from the open side of the platform was present and correct, while the ship was also definitely the former if probably not the latter, thirty-odd metres away from the door. The debris of waist-high crates that always seemed to accumulate everywhere and general mechanical detritus were there, as usual. But what wasn't usual was the volus standing about ten metres in front of them.

He looked like... well, he looked like a volus. Short, squat, with that inevitable air of looking congealed rather than grown, and suited head to toe in dark material. The suit design was slightly unusual, at least; it was a dull red, and both the main material and the joints looked of higher-quality engineering than most of the suits you saw. The headpiece was thinner and more streamlined, the orange eyes somehow a little more menacing in design, the mouthpiece flatter and smoother. Two thin strips of what looked like black rubber ran up the crown as raised ridges.

There was something else, as well... something in the way he stood, in the way he was built. Your average volus, they look like a big, heavy sphere resting on two detached thighs. This one looks trimmed, as much as a volus can, and those legs are strong, almost stiff. Interesting.

Very interesting.

He found himself nudging his assault rifle with his shoulder. It was still hanging over it, comforting as ever.

Interesting doesn't mean good. I don't like this, even if he is just a volus.

"Afternoon, friend," Sidonis said, pronouncing the last word in that special way that made it sound a lot like 'asshole'. "Looks to me like you're lost."

"Lost, yes," the volus said. "That must be it. My mind tends to wander, and my body with it. My apologies."

"Bull," Garrus said flatly, and yanked his gun from his shoulder, bringing it up to bear in one fluid motion.

"You sure?" Sidonis asked. He'd drawn his own piece, a powerful pistol, but had kept it pointed at the floor. "He's just a volus, man. Not even armed. What can he do?"

"He shouldn't be here. He's not lost."

"I don't know what you mean," the volus said. "I'm sorry that I accidentally came into your berth-"

"That corridor is hundreds of metres long," Garrus said. "You've been waiting here for us. We'd have seen you if you'd gone in in the last few minutes."

"He's right," Sidonis said, and levelled his pistol at the volus's head. "Who are you, and what the fuck do you want?"

"Interesting questions both," the volus said. "Almost all of us believe we understand the former and many of us the latter, but is that really the truth?"

"Uh, yeah," Sidonis said. "Start talking, rubber boy."

Something was niggling at the back of Garrus's mind, something that he couldn't put his finger on. Something was wrong. Something small, but something significant. Dammit, think. What's missing?

"Certainly. Do you have a particular topic in mind?"

Sidonis snarled. "Don't fuck with me and maybe I won't fuck with you. Why are you here, who are you, what do you want. Simple. No tricksy answers."

Breathing.

Volus always make that hiss when they breathe, that sharp inhalation. He's not making it.

What does that mean?

It means his suit is well-designed. Much better than the standard crap the volus churn out. That means one of two things: one, he's rich, very rich. That's troubling. But two is even worse: some sort of special-forces armour. That's high-quality engineering, and the design's meant to be less ridiculous than normal. They're a client race... but who knows what their clans have cooked up? Or maybe he represents a Valac family, or a syndicate... could be anything. All bad.

Very bad. What's his game?

The volus was speaking again, a calm, measured, deep voice. Very un-volus.

"-well, if that is all you wish to know. My name is Melenis, to answer one. And to answer the further two: you are in possession of something that belongs to my employer. I am here to repossess it. If you are willing to comply, violence will not be necessary."

"Violence will not be necessary, he says," Sidonis said contemptuously. "Who the fuck do you think you are? We don't have your thing, whatever it is. Get out of here before I send your fat ass over the edge and watch you splatter like a paia fruit."

"It's the ship," Garrus said aloud. "He's after the ship."

"Oh, fuck," Sidonis pronounced.

"Yes," "Transmit the codes now and you will not be harmed."

"I don't know how you know we're here, or what this ship is," Garrus said coldly, "but I will not allow it to fall into anybody else's hands. Who is your employer?"

"You might call him a friend of yours."

"Ours?" Sidonis said. "Sorry to disappoint, tubby, but we don't work for anyone but ourselves."

Melenis didn't speak for a second, as if thinking it over. When he spoke again, his voice hadn't changed at all.

"Perhaps this is the story you have been given. It is a pointless facade. I know all too well of Deus's involvement – and your employment by him."

"Deus?" Garrus said. "Listen, I don't know what-"

"Do not play dumb with me any longer, Palaven-clan," Melenis said, and though his voice was as calm as ever, it suddenly felt a lot more threatening. "I have told you: it is useless."

"And we've told you that you can take your Deus, whoever the fuck they are, and shove it up your ass," Sidonis said. "Our ship. Us. Only us. Not yours, not this 'employer' of yours': ours. You're not getting those codes. Full fucking stop."

There was another brief pause before the volus sighed audibly. "I wish this could have been resolved with words alone. In this galaxy, perhaps this is a futile wish."

He fell silent. Garrus glanced at Sidonis, who was looking as confused as Garrus felt.

What is this?

He was answered after a fashion by a sudden loud hum, rising in pitch, from the direction of Melenis. The volus wasn't moving. That made it all the worse.

"Bomb?" Sidonis asked, backing away. His voice was taut, terse. "Weapon? What do we do? Tell me what to do!"

"No idea-" Garrus started to say, and then the volus exploded outwards.

Its legs suddenly more than doubled in size, the whir and clank of metal suggesting some sort of expansive engineering. They propelled the torso up by well over half a metre, lengthening and widening at the same time as the suit expanded to cover the sudden increase in height. The feet drove outwards until they were two dinner-plate-sized metallic cups, massive supports for a massive body. Even as every thought fled from Garrus's mind, he couldn't help but wonder at the sheer technology behind it, the level of the engineering that had to be behind the change – the mind of a technician always looks for the explanation before the solution, and this was one hell of an explanation.

The arms did a similar thing – starting as short and stubby, useless for anything more strenuous than using a computer, they doubled in width and in length, developing elbows as the suit moved to cover it. The whole thing was done under a storm of mechanical grinding and shifting as the volus grew and grew, until after less than three seconds there was hardly a trace of the short, fat, bipedal sphere that had stood before them.

In its place was a red giant, over two metres tall, supported by legs far thicker and heavier than Garrus's own, bearing arms that looked stronger than those on heavy mechs. The head looked almost comically small perched atop the heavy mass, but it had gone straight through ridiculous into terrifying. What had been a fat, useless body now seemed huge and powerful – stronger, bigger, a lot more dangerous. Two sharp, narrow orange eyes glared down at them like miniature searchlights.

There was a second's pause as Garrus mentally rebooted. Sidonis was the first to speak.

"What."

Somehow, it said it all.

"This... this is bad," Garrus said slowly. "I think this is a bad thing."

"Yes," Sidonis said. "I think you're right."

"I offer one final chance," Melenis said, in exactly the same glass-smooth tone. "Transmit the code package, or I will take it. I cannot guarantee your survival."

Garrus narrowed his eyes, and forced his assault rifle's stock hard into his shoulder, letting the sights wander up to the volus's head. Incredible. That's technology I didn't even know existed. Has to be some serious nanoengineering, maybe smaller still. Someone with a lot of know-how is backing this guy. We're up against the big guns, and you don't get much smaller than us.

But we can't afford to lose.

"Sorry," he said, and tightened his finger on the trigger until it seemed like a gentle breeze would be enough to set it off. "That's not going to happen. You want this ship? You and the rest of the galaxy. Take it if you can."

Everything seemed to stand on edge for a second, all the colours infinitesimally sharper, every tiny sound – the short, soft rush of his breath, the triple bass boom of his heart in his ears, the barely perceptible scrapes and clinks of his armour and rifle as his position shifted ever so slightly – rushed into the foreground, impossibly loud, as the volus – that's not a volus any more, he's more machine than flesh – simply stood there.

Adrenaline. My old friend. People talk about all the best drugs, your vesh and your iolu and your FFC – I've tried every one of them, and not one can come close to this rush, when you know everything's about to go straight to hell and you're riding along and laughing all the way, when your blood's singing and your brain's burning and you feel like you're just about ready to explode... the most dangerous addiction in the galaxy, and god help me, I love it.

Movement. The volus had been ten metres away, but somehow that had shortened to less than five and closing like a shark in the blink of an eye, and the pounding of those terrible feet on the ground was roaring in his ears – and his finger, bypassing conscious thought with the soldier's instinct he'd worked on all his life, had shut tight on the trigger. Bright snaps of energy hammered out of his rifle and drove it hard into his shoulder, every one of them a direct hit on the vast target; every one snuffed out in a blue wink against shielding that had to be stronger than you'd see on most combat vehicles, and still the volus was coming – Sidonis's pistol was spitting away to his left, but even his heavier shots were being evaporated instantaneously – and suddenly a piston fist was coming up faster than anyone without cybernetic enhancements could have possibly reacted, and then everything went sideways.

It seemed to take an age, as if he was stuck in one of those bad holos where everything seems to be filmed in slow motion. The cartwheel through the air was flawless, one complete rotation as the world span gently in front of his eyes. The landing wasn't.

Garrus's back and head hit the ground first, and those familiar purple spots started their stately dance in front of his eyes as what little breath was remaining was driven out of him. He tried to get up, but his legs had staged a minor mutiny and decided they would rather lie quietly for a while.

Oh, and the judges won't like that! rang out a voice in his head, and then his gun clattered to a stop a couple of feet away, its strap snapped and torn away on one side. Ignoring the pain as best he could, he stretched out an arm for it – and then a lump of heavy metal screamed down from the sky and crushed it utterly in a spray of sparks and brief burst of heat.

Garrus looked up.

Melenis looked down.

A hand – but it feels so mechanical, it's not a real hand, can't be – closed around his head like a traditional fairground claw and lifted him bodily until his legs were dangling uselessly in the air beneath him. He tried to make out something through the pain, but all he could see was that those orange beams were below him now.

"I do not enjoy this," something said, and then he was flying backwards, his head free of the hand if not of the pain. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something odd, something he couldn't make sense of – as if in a photograph, he saw a freeze frame of Sidonis being catapulted off his feet by what looked like a brilliant orange sphere a few feet away from him, and he could make out every detail of his face, of the mouth open in a shout of pain and surprise, spittle flecking the air in front of him, eyes wide and pupils narrow. Only once he hit the ground and heard, dimly, as if underwater, the heavy shockwave and felt the heat on his face did he realise it was an explosion, and then pain took over again.

Who did that? He was concentrating on me...

The question didn't seem relevant any more. He tried to get up, pushing himself upwards with his arms, ignoring the blood jetting into his mouth, but those damn legs wouldn't listen. He tried again, willing every atom of his body to move, to defend itself, and the legs creaked and screeched under him as he rose unsteadily to his feet.

Sidonis was on the ground, unmoving. The volus, or whatever the hell it was, was standing over him, inspecting – but as Garrus struggled upwards, those burning, unblinking eyes snapped around to him again, and metal crashed into metal as tree-trunk legs marched towards him.

All he could do was stand, it was taking everything he had just to stay upright. Vision blurred, sounds mixed together. All that was certain were those eyes and the clang of those feet.

Two hits... two hits did this to me.

What is this thing?

It was already in front of him, towering over him as he swayed gently beneath its shadow.

"Transmit the codes. Now."

No change in tone.

Garrus tried to speak, but forgot about the blood in his mouth. Some of it spilled down his chin, dying it the same colour as his tattoos; the rest he swallowed, forcing the coppery taste down his throat.

I'm far too familiar with that taste.

He tried again.

"I don't know who you are," he said, and his voice was little more than a hoarse wheeze, all he could manage. "I don't know who you work for. I don't know who this Deus is, I don't know why you think I work for him. I don't know why your employer wants this ship. I don't know how you know it's still intact, I don't know how you found it, I don't know what the hell you are. I'll tell you what I know." He breathed in, and his bruised lungs burned agonisingly. Every second was a fight for consciousness, every word a battle that was getting harder and harder to wage. And when I go down, who says I'm getting up again? These could be your last words, Garrus. Pick them carefully.

I know.

"I know that you," he said, staring straight into Melenis's blank eyes, "and anyone else in the galaxy who wants to use the ship, can go fuck yourselves."

There. That should do.

The volus looked down impassively, and knocked him onto his back with a jab to the midriff. Consciousness started to fade, blackness eating away at the edges of his vision. Before that, a shape moved to the side of the vast figure of the volus-thing, and said a few words. He could only catch some of them as his ears gently shut down.

"...just out... this one?"

"Unconsc..."

"...d … take them..."

A hand closed around his leg and dragged him away. As his head bumped and scraped along the floor, the last few scraps of light in his eyes died away, but not before one last thought had time to flash across his mind.

Oh no.

Not again.