Where we've been: Havil Shepard's psyche is beginning to fray and she's still not released to full combat duty, but she has orders to solve Sha'ira's problem and deal with a shady club owner.
Wrex knew Shepard wouldn't actually let him kill Fist, at least not when she was around. Like Turians, most Alliance types were all about orders, duty, and protocol, filling their short lives with reports and rules that bore faint relation to actual honor. Busy, skinny, little squishy people, humans were. Even three of their prime fighters, like these three, jiggled when they walked. Males and females alike were especially vulnerable at their twiggy, exposed necks that offered quick access to their spinal cords. They also lacked redundant systems except for their waste-filtering organs. Without specialized armor, they were and susceptible to heat, cold, dehydration... the list of their weaknesses went on and on. Not that Wrex minded; creative outlets weren't always so easy to come by in a merc's career.
He usually avoided the young, curious, and thriving species. Their females regularly reeked of fertility, and unlike the Krogan, the Council hadn't hindered their rapid population growth and spread to colonies. But Shepard was soldier he had to see in action himself. In her flimsy excuse for armor, a mere vest over the cloth soft-skinned species donned to avoid aggravating their sensitive skin, Wrex did not fear her. Holding off a bunch of Batarian terrorists... he could do that. Surviving a thresher maw... he had done that. But most humans couldn't, and like all Krogan, Wrex measured himself up against the best.
It was a tight fit for the four of them in the elevator, and from his vantage point, he could clearly see the implants on the back of Shepard's and Alenko's necks. Biotics. Of course he knew about Shepard, you'd have to be hiding under the loneliest hunk of concrete on Tuchanka to have missed the media reports. Humans loved to broadcast everything about themselves: where they were settling, how their families were doing, their favorite foods... for a species that died so early, it's like they had to proclaim themselves to the universe to forestall the day it would forget three, though, were quiet. He was sure that had to do with him. The inferior female, Williams, kept facing him despite the cramped car. Smart. He snorted. He wouldn't trust him either.
"These Citadel elevators take too frak'n long. If the Protheans built the relays, you'd think they could make an elevator, too." he opined to no one in particular. Even the ancient lifts on Tuchanka-those few that still functioned in the ruins when he was a whelp-were faster.
"Well, you're in luck," Shepard replied over her shoulder. "Here we are." As the door slid up, Wrex felt something was off, and the thrill of danger hit him like a shot of ryncol. Time slowed as his hearts quickened, pouring blood to his muscles and sharpening his vision and hearing. He had a hand on his shotgun before the door cleared; the C-Sec officer usually posted outside each elevator entrance wasn't there. As he brought his shotgun to bear, he heard fire and watched drops of blood, Shepard's red blood, splatter on his armor.
The crests of three Turians poked from behind pillars facing the elevator in an ambush. They bore the high collars of full armor and long barreled weapons with silencers: a professional hit. "This is going to be fun!" Wrex bellowed to no one in particular as he pushed the slow humans, still arming themselves, aside and plowed into the nearest assailant with a thunderous crash. Wrex's headbutt cracked the plates on Turian's carapace, and his body went slack. Before it hit the floor, Wrex pivoted to his right and leveled his weapon at the thin waist of the second. He crumpled as well, though with considerably more dark blue plastered around him. To his surprise, when he turned back and pumped his weapon to nail the third, Shepard was already standing over the unconscious Turian. "Thanks, Wrex," Shepard squeezed her eyes shut-a silly reaction to pain that left her vulnerable-grunted.
Her left arm dangled at an odd angle. "You want me to kill him for you, Shepard?" At the thought, Wrex's brain lit up with anticipatory hormones. He leaned toward her with the hint of a smile. "It would be my pleasure."
"No, no. We need one to interrogate," she shook her head with that human waggle of negation and pointed at hers-the only one that might survive.
"Fine. Less fun that way, though." Williams was checking the perimeter, and Alenko had quickly tied up the Turian. Humans and their protocol. He felt a light tug on his shoulder plate as Shepard wrapped her slender Human fingers on it for support while Alenko pressed medigel into a wound that perforated Shepard's arm muscle. Shepard didn't move, but she bared her teeth with a hiss until Alenko had finished with the clear gel now smeared over the area. "Wrex," she looked him in one eye, now hugging the limb to her torso, "know a doctor?"
Dr. Michel's clinic wasn't far, though when Wrex offered to carry Shepard the short distance, she glared at him. Alenko's eyebrows raised in surprise and his subtle head wag suggested to Wrex that the Commander would not appreciate it.
He kept scanning the crowds for Turians heading towards them. "You piss in someone's coffee, Shepard?" Wrex rumbled as they walked to the clinic. "Quite the trick to turn C-Sec."
"C-Sec?" Alenko questioned.
"Elevator guard was missing," he answered.
Shepard paused for a moment, and narrowed her bright green eyes. "Saren. Saren Arterius." She breathed in sharply between words, and began walking again, "Spectre. Know him?"
"Know him," Wrex didn't hitch his gait, but he did give her a quick look with one eye, and then the other. "The whole Terminus systems knows him, or at least, knows not to get in his way." Wrex's battle high came to a screeching halt as he remembered the only mercenary contract he'd broken, and the off-smelling Turian behind it.
"He got in my way, actually."
"Impressive, Shepard. We Krogan respect those who have worthy enemies. Though Saren... well, it will be a fun fight." He thumped his chest and banged the access panel open with his hand. Perhaps the universe would grant him a chance to avenge the Krogan mercs who hadn't deserted the Spectre, and who, Wrex thought with a rare shiver, had all died, supposedly at their own hands. The suspicious massacre had been just days after he, one of the few remaining Krogan biotic battlemasters, had left them.
"Down!" he heard Shepard shout. Through the open door he spotted a hostage situation: four armed men, one C-Sec officer, one terrified lab coat: the doctor. Shepard went crashing into cover behind a half wall between the door and the medical beds beyond. She was silent for a moment after, but as fire spattered against their cover, she held out her right hand, shouting, "Pistol!" He dropped his in her hand and knelt to gather his aura.
More shots, from an assault rifle, sounded. That was neither Shepard nor Alenko: C-Sec or hostiles. A Human doctor was in the corner, and a Turian C-Sec officer was taking on the hostiles, but he didn't have cover. Wrex waited for Shepard to steady his sidearm, and then he unleashed a biotic lift. All three Human hostiles were airborne, and he smelled the tang of hot metal as Shepard fired at them. She and the officer had dropped one by the time the other two fell from Wrex's field. He hopped over the wall with a thud and a roar to let them know a Krogan was coming.
Out of deference to Shepard, Wrex knocked both unconscious. Natural stimulants thrilled through his system. He would have disabled the third, were it not for the hole in the man's head clear through his eye socket. Shepard gave Wrex another negative head wag again.
"Nice shot," Wrex said to the Turian C-Sec officer with unusually good aim. He then turned to Shepard. "You know, if you are always walking into a firefight, I might just have to join you," he laughed. "After we get Fist."
"Thanks for the distraction," the officer replied, "Commander Shepard, I take it. And, of course, Urdnot Wrex."
The Turian had the grey face and blue markings of a common clan, and the standard blue armor of C-Sec detectives, like those he had just been trying to get to shit themselves. Wrex smiled. This one had half a quad.
"Reckless, both of you. You trying to get her killed?" Shepard pointed to the Human in the white coat, who was huddled in the corner.
"Oh," the officer cooed with surprise, "Dr. Michel, are you ok?"
"I'm fine, Garrus," the Doctor said as the Turian helped her stand. "Just a little shaken up. Please call for emergency assistance for... them." She waved her hand at the assailants.
"Right away, Doctor." Garrus tapped his comms, "This is Detective Vakarian, code 2-5 in the upper wards, I need med support for two..." he paused and pointed to Shepard, but she wagged her head, " that's two assailants, Dr. Michel's clinic."
Humans were weak in mind, too, Wrex thought as the doctor, shaken by the firefight, slowly realized why Garrus had indicated Shepard. "Oh, mademoiselle, you need medical attention!"
"Only if you're up for it, Doctor. Wrex, would you mind keeping an eye on the door?"
Wrex's translator did not explain why his ocular organ should be on the door, but he figured she needed him to ensure more trouble didn't follow. His stomachs rumbled, and he faintly smelled Salarian street food.
"No problem, Shepard. I could use a snack anyway. Suppose I'll have to pay for something since those Turians we got are dextro!" He chuckled at Garrus's frown and patted him on the shoulder on the way by. "Don't worry, too much carapace to make it worth it, anyway. Heh, heh, heh."