Shepard let go of Tali and turned to the bleeding mercenary who had propped himself up on the railing. Shepard walked over to the heaving man and crouched beside him, Garrus joined him.
"Tell him what you told me," Garrus told the mercenary.
The wounded man's eyes looked pleadingly over to Shepard. His voice sounded raspier and more broken by the minute. Shepard took the hint and spread some medi-gel on the man's wounds. The man gave a sigh of relief.
"Thank you Shepard," the man said.
"How do you know my name?" Shepard asked the man trying to hide his surprise.
"How do I know your name?" the man asked sarcastically trying to laugh, but giving up with a jolt of pain. "How don't I know who you are?"
"That's a fair answer, Shepard," Garrus said turning his attention to Shepard who gave Garrus an understanding nod.
"What were you going to tell me?" Shepard asked bringing his attention back to the man.
The man gave a heavy sigh. Shepard assumed he was collecting his thoughts or that he couldn't believe that he was giving Shepard this information.
"We were only the guards…" the man said providing a small pause to see if Shepard understood what he was hinting at, obviously he didn't so he continued, "Our group consisted of only a dozen to about the hundred that are further in this base."
"I didn't think the Blue Suns could expend this many mercenaries," Shepard said giving Garrus a quick worried glance.
"It's not just Blue Suns," The man breathed with pain and grabbed his side. "It's everyone: Eclipse, Blood Pack, and other minor mercenary bands."
"Why are they all here?" Shepard asked.
"It's a plot. A plot to kill you. That message you received was planned. You are going to die here Shepard. You and the rest of your crew. We found a way to get to you, but we needed enough firepower to guarantee it." The man tried to laugh menacingly, but coughed instead.
Shepard stood quickly and turned to Tali who was still standing where he left her.
"We need to get out of here!" Shepard said pointing to the door they came in.
The door suddenly exploded causing the ceiling and part of the wall to fall over and cover the doorway. Shepard ducked quickly behind the wounded man. When Shepard rose and the dust cleared he could see that escape was impossible.
"Normandy! Normandy do you read!" Shepard yelled activating his ship radio. "Normandy!"
"They can't hear us remember." Tali said. "The sand storm is blocking our messages to the Normandy."
"We planned this perfectly, Shepard. Perfectly." The wounded man said as he drifted and slouched to the right. He died on the spot with no more information.
Shepard walked over to the wall and kicked it, and put his hands on his head. Tali raised her hand to say something, but couldn't find anything positive to say at that moment. Garrus stood up and looked over to the commander and waited further command though he too wanted to say something.
"What's the only other way out of this complex?" Shepard asked trying to collect himself.
"On the other side of the complex, Shepard." Garrus said bringing up schematics of the complex.
"Well, find some thermal clips and rest you legs. This is going to be a long day." Shepard said walking over to a tiny port window and looked outside.
They only waited an hour before they moved on. The rest of the complex appeared to be in better shape than that first hallway which was probably just a seller of the trap. They entered another big room. Luckily, it was empty, or at least they thought it was.
The lights blew out at once and the other side of the room erupted into a strobe of muzzle fire. The burning hot inferno rounds sent beams of light around the room. Shepard dove quickly behind a small center crate as Tali and Garrus moved far left and right hiding behind outcroppings of the wall. Garrus ran behind a large crate that was against the wall giving him excellent cover. Tali on the other hand became pinned behind a small jut of the wall. The gun fire switched almost instantaneously over to her causing her miniscule cover to quickly burn away. She stooped down and put her hands on her head and screamed into her radio.
"Shepard! Help me!" Tali screamed as more of her wall cracked away.
Shepard rose, but was greeted by the Gatling cannon of a YMIR Mech that appeared out of one of the boxes.
"Garrus! Draw its attention!" Shepard yelled into his radio.
He watched Garrus stand up and fire a concussive shot at the mech. It turned and aimed at him for only a moment, but turned to where Tali was still desperately hiding. The mech lifted its other hand and fired a rocket. Everything slowed down as Shepard stood up quickly and following the rocket as it flew towards Tali. He watched as Tali reached out to him. He felt the energy course through him as he readied his charge. He flew past the missile and landed directly in front of Tali in the missile's path. Tali looked up to Shepard and began to say his name as the missile exploded on his back. The explosion caused the wall to give way and fall. Garrus ran towards the explosion continuing to fire upon the mech. The armor of the mech gave way and the top diodes and cyber tonic brain blew into pieces sending the machine crashing to the ground.
"Shepard! Tali!" Garrus yelled into the rubble.
Gunfire whizzed by him causing him to hide behind the coffin that Shepard and Tali were now encased in. He loaded another concussive shot. He fired an overload into the containers behind the unknown number of enemies causing the one half of the room to explode. He fired his concussive round into the machinery above the other half, causing it to crash to the platform. The gunfire ceased as the other side of the room burned. Garrus crouched beside the rubble and began to dig through the rubble.
"Shepard! Tali! Do you read me!" Garrus yelled pleadingly for the first time in his life. "Shepard! You can't die! Not now!"
Some rubble moved in the middle of the pile as a shaking hand rose from it. Garrus climbed up the rubble over to the three fingered hand reached helplessly around. Garrus ripped the rubble away from around Tali. Tali rose out of rubble obviously upset.
"Tali? Where's the commander?" Garrus asked.
"He's, I, It's, I…" Tali stammered out turning away from the rubble.
Garrus only stood staring at Tali as she started crying. He turned back to the rubble and he could only stare at it.
"Shepard…" Garrus said quietly to himself. He felt his eyes get misted, and he couldn't believe that he felt like this. I mean he's already died once.
He did the only thing he could do at that moment. He walked over to Tali and extended his arms. She fell into his hands and cried heavily.
"It's all my fault! I should have never… I… I should have picked better cover. I should have never of fell in love with him. Stupid." Tali stammered off.
"Tali…" Garrus began, but stopped when he heard rubble begin to move again.
They both looked over hopefully at the rubble, but quickly became surprised when another YMIR Mech rose from the rubble. They both hid behind the rubble and regained themselves. Tali's sadness instantly transformed into anger as she rose from the rubble and ran full bore at the mech which luckily was held up on some cables. Garrus, too, felt a strong wave of anger envelope his feelings as he joined her charge. His concussive round disintegrated the face armor while Tali's shotgun disintegrated the head. They ran quickly away from the self destructing mech.
They both sat, breathing heavily, on the rubble trying to collect their feelings. Garrus rose first and turned slowly to Tali.
"We need to keep going." Garrus said.
"I know…" Tali said as she rose.