Garrus

The shuttle vibrates under Garrus' boots as it breaks through Rannoch's atmosphere. By the sounds of the comm chatter ringing from the cockpit, Cortez has a small window of safety between still active AA guns, but they can't wait any longer for the geth and quarian fighters to disable them. Not when they still have no idea if the heretics have ships near enough to turn the tables. As it is, there is already too many confirmed deaths piling up on the fighters' front.

If it were any other shuttle pilot, Garrus would question the possibility a successful drop. Cortez has proven himself more than capable - as if this were just a normal flight when compared to the dangerous transports during the war - and has won Garrus' hard to gain trust.

Looking around the shuttle cabin, he finds Bray checking his weapons religiously before looking up to give the turian a chin lift of confirmation. To his side, Rym types rapidly on her Omni-Tool, something she's been doing since first meeting her first geth and being assured he would answer any and all questions. Now, however, she is content to allow Legacy that moment of silent stillness Garrus has only come to believe as the geth programs coming to some kind of consensus. Of course, then there is Jane, his wife, on the seat before him.

She drums her fingers in some rapid rhythm within her head, eyes narrowed as she stares at the wall beside his shoulder. Seeming to feel his eyes on her, her eyes focus and she smirks at him. "Does it seem like some shitty deja vu to you?"

"You mean us fighting heretics again?"

"Exactly," she says emphatically as she throws her hands up. "It all started with heretic geth following this religion of theirs, then we had to fight them for Legion to try and rewrite them-" she looks to Legacy and adds, "- which obviously didn't do shit in the long run. Then we had to fight geth - not heretic, at least - before destroying that fucking Reaper, and here we are now." Pulling her lips into a tight line, she breathes heavily out of her nose. "I really fucking hate this full circle shit."

Trying to lighten her mood, he chuckles and stands as he begins to feel the shuttle slow. "Yeah, but then we wouldn't have that sense of familiarity."

She snorts, but takes his offered hand to stand. "I can happily do without it."

Legacy lifts his head flaps as it sits on the bench as best as his massive body allows. "We do not understand your anger. Your experience with combatting heretics lends to success in combat." The flaps fall with a click. "It would be illogical to request aid from those not versed on eliminating heretics."

"Legacy," she deadpans. "We really need to get you up to speed on organics and their intricacies."

Bray snorts. "I didn't think that word would ever come out of your mouth."

"Why? Too busy imagining things going in it?" Jane retorts with a smirk as it makes him sneer at the visual. Garrus, on the other hand, hums at her with brow plates drawn down in irritation. "What?"

"That's not something I want anyone imagining you doing," he explains and she merely snorts, bumping her shoulder to his.

"Tell me you do it more often and I won't have to go to others to get that attention."

"Like you'd stop." Still, he rumbles and relaxes his facial expression at her playful smile. Leaning down, he nudges his forehead to hers. "Besides, you always laugh at any attempt at dirty talk."

"You just…suck so bad at it."

"If either of you starts trying to prove the other wrong, I'm going to Overload you both," Rym interrupts with a lift of her open Tool.

Bray snorts at her and looks back to Garrus and his wife. "I'd just shoot you."

"Injury between allied members would only impede-"

"Thank you, Legacy." The geth looks to Jane before nodding at this dismissal of unneeded explanation. It's a good sign towards the Prime slowly learning organic interaction and Garrus wonders, with some sadness, if that's in part to Legion's sacrifice to disperse his knowledge to his people. Part of him will always remain within every geth, it seems.

Their two squadmates return to their work for a last check just as Cortez alerts them to their arrival and the shuttle hatch begins to unlock and slide open. Legacy stands, bent over, and walks to drop out first. The distance down is still too high to be safe for them - well, maybe not Jane given her prosthetics - but Legacy can clear the area so they don't drop into open fire without cover.

As the geth disappears in a flash of red, Garrus moves to the entrance of the shuttle to drop next when able and takes the safety handle hanging from the ceiling. Jane motions Rym to go next with her hands before giving another gesture to command Bray to take up the back. As they take position, the sound of gunfire drifts up to their ears in silent warning to get weapons ready.

Taking out his rifle, he shifts impatiently on his feet and glances over the edge to see Legacy slowly advancing to a position to provide cover to the shuttle. With the all clear from Cortez for a safe drop, the squad moves fast as they drop in formation. Garrus is first to hit ground and immediately moves forward as he raises his rifle, letting his new Leviathan caused instincts take in.

One heretic goes down at Garrus' shot as it rounds a large rock with intent to focus on Legacy's drone. The heavy thud of Rym's feet announce her landing just before Garrus catches glimpse of an Overload lighting up another to the left and he drops another. He knows Jane's landing from the streak of blue flying across the field in front of his scope in the same instant that another heretic falls to his weapon as she charges directly into the battle at Legacy's side. Bray is the last to drop and throw a grenade to buy the three of them in the back an opening to get to cover and give Garrus the chance to reload as he moves.

He climbs on top of his own cover and lays down, propping his weapon up to take down a rival Prime's drone down before it targets his wife. She continues as if nothing happened, working on her trust in him to cover her back, as she pushes towards the right to give Bray the opening they need to move forward. Legacy covers the left with his drone as he focuses on the frontward assault. All the while, the massive Reaper looms just down the field.

Resistance is strong, but they slowly make their way towards the heretic structures that look unnervingly like spires of Reaper design. When there is a break in combat that allows Garrus to move up, he gives himself a moment to look up at the Reaper itself to compare and is shocked when he finds destruction over its hull that definitely wasn't there when it was taken down. Are they taking it apart?

What? His wife's voice echoes through his mind as she glances his way from her own cover and his destination. Taking what apart?

Look at the Reaper. He slides into her cover and motions in reassurance that he'll cover her while she peeks out to see what he hopes he doesn't actually see.

"Holy shit…"

"What?" Bray's voice comes over the comm, rough from a huff as he slams his back down against his cover up ahead.

"Ignore her, Bray," Garrus orders, watching Jane wince at her mistake before spinning her cover and charging forward. "It's not immediate. Clear the field."

"Good, because here I thought it was something important."

Smart ass. "Pay attention before I shoot you," Jane says as her shotgun echoes through the crisp Rannoch twilight. "By accident, of course."

"Shepard and Vakarian-Spectres, we do not detect any incoming reinforcements."

Garrus scans the field to count seven heretic geth remaining before nodding and sighting down a sniper taking the rear. "Understood. Take them down."

I love when you talk dirty.

He hums in acknowledgment before pulling the trigger, the sniper's optical unit shatters and it falls limp. Another two fall to Legacy's plasma shotgun and two more to his drone and Rym's combined efforts. The last two go to Jane and Bray each as he tosses a grenade at one's feet and she uses her biotics to rip out the last's optics - along with some vital looking tech.

"That's the last of them. Bag 'em and tag 'em," Garrus announces over the comm as he reloads his heat sink and comes around his cover, heading towards the rest.

"Damn," Rym says as he arrives, her eyes looking over Legacy's drone in apparent awe. "I need one of these."

"We can assist in manufacturing a combat drone to your specifications." Legacy recalls said drone to her disappointment, but she gives a nod in agreement. "Shepard-Spectre," he continues as he looks to her, then Garrus. "Vakarian-Spectre. We must access the main heretic hub before reinforcements arrive."

His wife nods and motions to lead. "I have no clue where we're going, so I hope you do." He nods and begins to move towards the Reaper and heretic base. "Did they really take apart that bastard to make this place?"

Bray and Rym both make their own noises of surprise as they look up and reach the same conclusion. Legacy nods once as his head flaps undulate. "The heretics used the hull of the Reaper for its structural integrity to protect that which is most valuable. This hub contains all heretic programs not operating within a platform."

"Why only one hub?" Rym asks.

"Because any more on Rannoch would be unsafe," Garrus explains as he keeps a constant eye on their surroundings. "There's no doubt of more being on their ships, but they don't have big enough territory to protect any other hubs. Not while there are quarians and geth both on Rannoch and working together to stop them."

"Hence why they protected this damn place so heavily." Jane scowls at the Reaper as they weave their way deeper into the open air building the heretic geth constructed. "Let's make sure the geth and quarians we heard on the comms taking hits haven't died in vain. We'll take down whatever is here and kick these heretic assholes' fucking asses for trying to bring back a Reaper in any capacity."

Bray nods and grins, his pointed teeth shadowed in the dying sunlight. "Sounds like a good enough idea to me."

Their footsteps make a hollow thud on the ground made of Reaper and its odd sound seems to put those not used to the sound on edge. They are fortunate to still have that unease as it only reminds Garrus that they were spared the very possible death he and Jane faced with their crew on that derelict Reaper. Rym and Bray may have seen many horrors in the war, but being within the enemy and knowing its power over minds is a whole new nightmare.

"Legacy," Jane says, her voice sounding dull as it hits the beams and half walls of the structure and seems to just stop. "How much further? This place is bringing back some shit."

Suddenly, the massive geth stops at a smooth, unassuming dead end and turns around. "We have arrived at the heretic main hub."

Garrus rumbles in confusion and looks to his wife as she leans around Legacy to get a look. "You okay, there, buddy?" She raises a brow and looks up at him. "Because that is just a wall."

Legacy lifts his facial plating before lowering them and turning to let them see said wall. To Garrus, there seems to be nothing of importance, nothing to denote a vessel for the heretic collective. Still, he is willing to hear the geth out as he walks towards the wall and runs his fingers over its surface. "The heretics have installed their programs within the Reaper structure."

"Welp," Jane says, shaking her head and turning around. "Sounds like we're blasting this thing. No way we're taking that risk of this fucking thing to actually be able to, I don't know, come back from the fucking dead."

"Shepard-Spectre, readings of the Reaper platform show no signs of activity. Its condition is irreparable as it lacks all coding."

Legacy shifts as he hooks his fingers into a piece of the hull that the heretics have obviously removed in their work, and lifts it from the wall. Beneath is a console familiar to those Garrus has seen before whenever they've come across geth tech, but it holds many differences that show how much of the Reaper that went into it. It's unnerving to be so close again and see within the monster, to say the least.

Jane snorts, shaking her head as she paces behind them. "This is a bad fucking idea."

"Legacy is right," Rym says as she looks back to her. "He allowed me to look at his own coding and, compared to EDI, neither has any trace of code that could be Reaper."

Garrus now shakes his head. "That's not the only thing." He looks up at the Reaper as best he can with the beams overhead. "Someone once said 'even dead gods can dream'. The heretics think this thing still had something in it, but we won't know unless Legacy puts himself in danger trying to interface with their hub."

The geth Prime turns from where he has been tapping out commands on the now lit console. "Without interfacing, we cannot properly obtain the fragments of code the heretics possess. We will not be able to modify our own to repair the corruption in our programming."

Jane sighs loud and runs a hand over her head. "Fuck… Yeah, I know." She looks out towards where they came before nodding. "Alright. Go in there and figure out what you can and get whatever shit they have that you need." Walking to the group, she checks her weapon before looking up to Legacy. "We'll cover you if any reinforcements show up, but put a rush on it."

Legacy nods and returns to the console, pulling on a plating of the Reaper hull to reveal another terminal beside a set of interface pods that bring back memories of their mission during the war in which they had to disable communications to a geth squadron. They lack the front panel, though, and one still has a heretic occupant, but Legacy pulls the platform easily enough and, given its lack of programs installed, it falls motionless to the side.

"We will access the heretic consensus to obtain the means of communication among the heretics. We will then retrieve the heretic coding before disconnecting." Legacy climbs into the pod and the others watch as lights along its side begin to illuminate. "The heretics will most likely send reinforcements to protect this central server."

Garrus nods and turns to the others, getting a nod from his mate and a shift to attention from the other two. Or, at least, an equivalent. Looking around once he has their attention, he scouts the area. The heretics have built their structure to ultimately converge on this spot, putting it at the center rear. They won't have to worry about being caught from behind, but that leaves their sides and front to worry about. With the open-air design, they have a very unlimited line of sight in all directions, but also little viable cover.

"We don't have much cover besides these pillars and half walls," he says as a hum sounds to Legacy joining the collective. "It lets us keep an eye on the enemy advance, but also leaves us open. Bray and Rym, I'm going to have you both focus on our left and right, respectively. I'll cover our front while Jane works on thinning out numbers if they overwhelm one side."

"Sounds good to me," Jane agrees as she rolls her shoulder.

"I'll take the right," Rym adds and Bray grunts before heading left.

Garrus is just about to open his Tool to see if he can pick up signatures when he hears a hiss behind them. All attention turns back toward Legacy stepping from the pod. "That was fast," Garrus says with a rumble of confusion. "What did you find?"

"We have discovered the source of the heretic's fleet communications." He waits until the others draw closer before continuing. "They are using the Reaper to facilitate long range communication between servers."

"Just fucking great. Can you stop it?"

Legacy flicks his facial plates at Jane's question, stating, "The heretics recognize our programs' existence within the consensus. The percentage of success collecting their portion coding while simultaneously transferring a virus program to eliminate any further programs that interface from the fleet is 45.6 percent."

Bray whistles loud as Jane curses, leaving Garrus to be the one to make deductions. "What about one task only? Does the percentages rise?"

Legacy nods and Garrus' mate speaks, denying the geth the chance to do the actual math. "Then destroy the fucks and we won't have a heretic problem. You can do that, right?"

"Yes." Legacy ducks his head a fraction as his head flaps slowly lift and fall. "But we would be unable to collect the coding that the geth no longer have. We will be unable to upgrade ourselves."

"And you all wouldn't be whole again." She sighs and rubs her brows. "Now what? Can you distract them or something? Disguise yourself?"

The Prime seems to contemplate that before nodding once. "When we collect the coding data, the heretics will develop a firewall to prevent us from further accessing the server."

"The geth and heretic thinking are too alike," Rym says. "Even with missing pieces, they have many similar code segments, so they can't trick each other. They can't adapt in a way that the other side would not expect."

Garrus hums in thought. "Would an outside hack work?"

"Negative," Legacy answers, his voice almost carrying a hint of sadness and defeat. "An organic cannot react and adjust programming to account for heretic defenses. Direct interface is required."

Jane snorts. "Yeah. That's not really going to happen. Organics don't work that way."

"All except one," Garrus corrects softly, rumbling as the memories the sight of the pods brought return. Seeing his mate's confused eyebrow lift, he chuckles and motions to the pod. "Don't tell me you don't remember my trip with Legion into the geth consensus. I'm the only one that can go in after David Archer."

Remembrance hits her hard as her eyes widen and mouth drops open. In an instant, she is scowling and shaking her head, firm in her refusal. "Hell no. You're not going in there."

"Jane-"

"That is attached to a Reaper!" Her hand flies up to motion the thing. "When you went into the fighter hub with Legion, you weren't hooking into a Reaper. You weren't having to deal with anything Reaper, then."

"There was Reaper code there too, Jane. Remember?" Only realizing too late that wasn't exactly explained to her in complete detail, he cringes.

"What?!"

"Uh, guys-"

Garrus rumbles in apology. He forgets how much Jane ignores or doesn't remember concerning tech and the like when it doesn't necessarily pertain to the immediate task at hand. He could have sworn she knew about the Reaper code he had to help Legion clean up. "Jane, look-"

"Shepard-"

"Well, now you're definitely not going in there."

"Shepard!" Bray shouts angrily and their heads snap to him, about to ask what's so important when Garrus' eyes land on movement in Rym's Omni-Tool radar. "We have incoming. And fast. So quit your marriage troubles and get ready."

Properly scolded, Jane gives Garrus a last glare in warning before rushing into cover just as heretic geth come into their sights. Garrus, however, knows an opening when he sees it.

Holstering his rifle and turning off his comm, he looks to Legacy and motions the pods. "Will it work? Can I do one thing, you the other, and both make it out?"

"The possibility of success is 95.6 percent."

Still not what he wants to hear, but he knows that a geth would never reach a hundred percent on anything, he nods. "Good enough. Let's hurry."

Rushing to the pod before weapons fire can turn on him and Legacy, Garrus climbs into one of the pods and lays back. He doesn't really like the sensation he knows is coming, but he knows that, if they manage this, they will have given the geth and EDI a fighting chance at returning to normal and get the Council off their back about the heretic attacks. What was it Jane says, one stone and two birds?

It's killing two birds with one stone. He can hear her amusement over their link and hopes she doesn't look back to find out what he's doing. Just a few meters separate them and he really doesn't want to put her in danger if her worry gets the best of her and she gets into the pod to force him out. Wait…

Cursing himself for forgetting she can hear his thoughts in high stress situations, he is not shocked that she turns around and her eyes narrow. "Garrus! You fuck!" Avoiding bullets flying at her, she hops a low wall and comes skidding before his pod. "Get your ass out of there. Now. Before I pull you in."

"Jane, I'll be fine. I promise," he soothes with a purr and flick of his mandibles. "Trust-"

"Vakarian-Spectre, desist any movement while interfacing with the consensus."

"I do trust you, you asshole bastard," Jane says with a frown, hands clenching at her sides as his vision begins to blur. "This isn't over. I'm still kicking your ass when you get out."

I wouldn't want to miss that. He tries to deadpan in his thoughts, but he isn't sure it's coming across.

"Come back…" Her words muffle as a shout calls her attention back to the battle and, just before his vision fades, he sees her look back to him. He isn't sure if his face manages to give her the reassuring smile as he intended when he finally enters the weightless existence within the consensus.