Chapter 34: Coming to Virmire

It was a peaceful day on the Normandy, John and the crew was eating lunch and it the last day of their shore leave. They heard the ship's com. Since dealing with Balak and his asteroid plot, the Spectre was much calmer and friendlier however his sense of serenity was disrupted by the comm opening. "Message coming in John, it's the council! And they request that Ragan stay out of it," Joker said. John sighed. He was not in the mood for the councilors' whining and bitching.

"Thanks Joker, I'll take it in the Comm Room."

"For a group that doesn't like you they sure ask for your help a lot," John smirked when Joker said that.

"Maybe they know how awesome I can be," John joked and the crew tried to hold in their laughs.

"Nope, that can't be it," Tali joked. John looked at her feigning insult.

"Ouch Rookie, you know how to wound me," he said being playfully dramatic. "And here I thought you loved me." Tali giggled. Ragan just busted out laughing.

"God that was good Tali, that was good," Ragan was trying to not laugh in the sentence.

"I do, but someone have to keep your ego in check. Right Ragan," Ragan went wide eyed when he heard his name. He dropped his fork on purpose.

"Oh… aw… I dropped my fork," Ragan went under the table and stayed there.

"And that's why you're my girl, Tali!" He smiled before kissing her on the helmet.

"Will you got and talk to those pijacks? You're giving me indigestion," Wrex said annoyed. Wrex almost gagged on his food. John laughed and walked to the Comm Room.

'Now to talk with my favorite people,' he though annoyed. John pressed a button and the councilors appeared. "Councilors, how nice to see you."

"You can stop with the disingenuous greeting Shepard. It doesn't suit you," the Turian councilor looked at him and shook his head. "But talking to us like you did before you became a Spectre does."

John crossed his arms, "And here I thought you missed my sunny personality, just like I missed yours." The Turian councilor glared at him with a confused looked. "I was being sarcastic." That angered the councilor, he was about to say something but the Asari spoke up.

"I know how much you like to antagonize us, but do try to be professional for once. We have an update on Saren with some bad news."

John stood at attention, it's been a long time since they heard anything about Saren, but the bad news part got to him. "What you got?"

"We've received an urgent message from one of our infiltrations regiments in the Traverse," the Salarian councilor explained.

"And?"

"We currently have several Special Task Groups scattered in the border regions on the Citadel space. This particular unit was gathering intel on Saren."

John sighed, "You know, it would have been nice to know that earlier instead of me running around, like a headless chicken." All three councilors looked at him confused. "Chicken is an Earth bird that doesn't fly very far." All three councilors then got the message.

"We can't have you racing around the galaxy chasing false leads, Shepard. Give your tendency of cause trouble…"

"Trouble… Sure I made a mistake but not as bad as your ancestors did. Releasing the genophage on the Krogan after the Salarians uplifted them to fight the Rachni. You condemned the whole race over a sight of a few ones that caused the Krogan Rebellions. You want to say I caused trouble and Humanity also has, then I should be judging your race as well Sparatus," Sparatus flinched when John just snapped about that. But John was right.

"Commander, I'm sorry for that. I didn't mean," that was shocking to John. Sparatus apologizing for something was never in his mind but something was wrong.

"So what is this significant information?"

"We cannot fully say," the Salarian councilor said. "The message we receive was little more than static. We suspect the team is currently unable to set up proper interstellar communications. But it was sent on a channel reserved for mission critical communications. Whatever they were trying to tell us, we know it was important."

"We know the unit was investigating Saren," the Sparatus continued. "We know they tried to tell us something important and we know they were on the planet Virmire. We can also conclude that they are in trouble and have found something on Saren."

"Given your interest in that case, we thought you might want to know," the Asari said.

John sighed. "I guess some info is better than now, I know better to look a gift horse in the mouth." The three councilors looked at him blankly. "Another Earth animal. Used it to care good but now it is for transportation."

"We'll keep you advised if we learn anything else. Good luck Commander."

After the holographic images had faded, John opened the comm link. "Joker, set coordinates to the Hoc System."

"Got you Commander. ETA in ten hours," Joker said.

As the Normandy is approaching Virmire, Joker pick up a signal from the Salarian STG team, and Kaiden notices the massive defense towers that surrounds Saren's base. Ragan is hacking into the system but is auto booted out of the hacking. John decides to go in by Mako and take them out. Joker flied the Normandy Saren's radar and dops the Mako at low altitude. Once the Mako rolls to a stop, Joker comes over the radio.

"Johh, come in."

John opened the comm link. "Nice work Joker, stay out of range until I bring those AA towers down."

"Roger that Commander." The team looked around the planet; Virmire was definitely a picture of paradise. If it wasn't for the fact Saren and his Geth were here it was the perfect vacation spot, provided they could avoid the pirates that sometimes uses the planet a base. John looked back at Ragan, Tali and Garrus, it seemed they had the same thought too.

"Better than Earth," Ragan was shocked. He activates his cloak and starts climbing a cliff. "I'll meet you at the STG camp."

"Keelah, this planet is beautiful," Tali was in complete awe.

"Too bad it's so close to the Terminus Systems, it could be one for those gem worlds like Illum," Garrus said.

John chuckled and shook his head. "Come on, we can sightsee later, now we have AA gun to destroy." Tali and Garrus nodded and the team gets in the Mako. "John here, Ragan do you read me?"

"I read you. I'm heading to the STG Base now. I'm going to help them. You focus on the AA guns. But be careful, I saw some Geth Armatures around this area. Ragan out."

The team headed off starting the mission, John was careful when approaching the rocks so the Mako wouldn't fall into the water, the tank was great a climbing mountains, in water it would sink like a stone. Around the second corner they encountered some Geth rocket drones and Geth assault drone. Garrus readies the Mako's guns and fired but the Turian actually found it harder to take them out due to them moving around so much, but after getting their flight patterns down, they were taken down fast.

They went ahead on the right are some Geth rocket troopers, surrounded by more drones and a Geth juggernaut fired wildly fired at the Mako. It took all of John's crazy maneuvering to keep from being hit, Garrus took down the troopers and juggernauts first since they were the easiest, and then switched to the machine guns to blast the drones out of the sky. Halfway down the next stretch the Mako was shook hard and then again. "What was that," Turian looked at Tali.

"I don't know. The radar is jammed," Tali said.

"Shit, Garrus anything you see, shoot at it," John then looked around to find what shot them.

"Got it Boss." Without the radar the Mako was riding blind, possible into an enemy trap, Garrus did what he told and shot at anything he could see. With several blasts the tank's machine gun, the Turian was able to take down rocket drones. The Mako was hit again, this time from the troopers, Garrus fired on them only for it to be blocked with a hexagonal energy shield.

"Garrus switch to the main gun," Tali said. "Their shields won't be able to take it." Garrus switched guns and fired, the shields broke and the Geth went flying and they moved along. They got close to the first gatehouse the team start to come under fire from the Geth guarding it, the group consists of Geth snipers, rocket troopers, regular troopers, shock troopers. John drove the Mako back, dodging the fire while Garrus fired the main gun. The snipers and troopers were taken but the rocket troopers were in deep. John drove up and the team exited the Mako and took them down. Tali went down to the edge of the gatehouse, where she found the first console; with a few presses the first AA gun was disabled.

"Done," Tali said.

"One down, one to go," John said. The team went back to the Mako, the next trek was more difficult this time, and the canyons were infested by Geth Armatures and colossi, eventually they made it to the next gatehouse where disabled the second AA guns. As the Mako drove past the last gatehouse, the Normandy could be seen en route to the Salarian camp. The comm opened.

"Commander, Normandy's touched down, but there's a problem," Joker said.

"What is it," John then looked at Tali.

"The Salarain Captain or Ragan can explain when you get there."

John sighed. "Roger that." When the Mako finally reached the camp, they got out to see Ashley and Kaiden arguing with the Salarian Captain. John then saw Ragan come up and gently shoved both of them out of the way. John went to check it out. "Hey, what's going on?"

Kaiden looked at him. "We're grounded."

"Yeah I got that much from Joker but why? What's the situation?"

"Of course, I'm Captain Kirrahe, 3rd Infiltration Regiment of STG," the captain said. "You and your crew have landed in the middle of a hot zone, every AA gun within ten miles have been alerted of your presence."

"What are we supposed to do in the meantime," Ragan asked.

"We stay put until the council sends the reinforcements…"

"We are that reinforcements," Kirrah looked confused, the team looked at each other sheepishly. Kirrah looked at Ragan. "We are here under Spectre authority by the Council permission. Me and Commander Shepard at the Spectres and we are here to find out what Saren is up to before he tries something worse than Eden Prime."