Garrus frowned as Admiral Raan approached the mess hall table where he and Vega waited for some news about the mission. For once, Shepard had not taken the whole crew—just Alenko and Liara—and it worried him. He'd grown so used to the unit sticking together, and on a hostile world like Rannoch…

"What's up, Admiral?" Vega asked, once he noticed the woman standing in the doorway.

Garrus had to tamp down on a growl neither the human nor the quarian could hear. He hadn't realized how deep Shepard's dying-in-space trauma went and had not expected it to manifest. She'd been shaky getting to the geth ship, but he'd though that was as far as it went. It was awful for her, but she'd been master of it.

And then it had been space and a lack of gravity, and he wanted to hiss at Gerrel for putting Shepard in a position to lose face (or so she expected), lose heart (she wasn't used to being out of control of her own reactions), and lose faith in herself. It was unforgivable in his books that Gerrel had not only nearly killed them all, but he had undermined a capable and necessary leader; having failed to adhere to the mission parameters, which rendered the mission a failure, was just syrup on the sticky-cake.

Thus, he was not disposed to be particularly friendly with Raan, either. Personally, he would have called Gerrel's bluff.

"There's been news…I am not sure…who is Shepard's second in command?"

Garrus and Vega exchanged looks. "That's us. Vega's her first Alliance officer, I'm her second."

"What he said," Vega agreed promptly.

"You remember I spoke of the planetary defense cannon?"

Both men nodded.

"Shortly after the Captain shuttled down to the surface, Admiral Koris crash-landed his shuttle into that cannon. He is alive, as is much of his crew…but they will not be for long. The Admiral's personnel are all civilians. Most will not have even held a gun before, much less been asked to use one," Raan explained.

Garrus and Vega exchanged looks. Garrus knew quite well what Shepard would do if she was here: she would save Koris' ass in hopes of his concrete support at a later date.

He also knew that she was grooming Vega for the N program, that she was molding him into a leader of men, refining and tweaking here and there so he would be a good one. Well…he knew what he was going to do. It didn't hurt to give Vega the opportunity to feel he was taking part in command decisions.

They needed Koris, otherwise there was one less reasonable person on the Admiralty Board.

He felt sorry for poor Tali stuck with those idiots for so long. It was no wonder she seemed so much tougher than the last time he saw her. More up-front. He had to smirk to himself: as someone who knew her when she was still a kid, she'd come such a long way.

-J-

Vega glanced at Garrus, fully expecting him to say 'let's go save the Admiral' because that was what Shepard would do, no question. But the turian just stood there, studying Raan and flicking his mandibles thoughtfully.

Vega frowned. He got being pissed off with the quarians—he was definitely still pissed off…poor Lola…—but this was one of those times where the job had to come before personal considerations. It was clear to him that an N7 had to be good at that: compartmentalizing personal and professional issues to get the job done.

So why was Garrus, Shepard's oldest and steadiest comrade, just standing there like a frog on a log?

Raan began shifting uncomfortably.

"We need to go get this Admiral," Vega said, hoping he sounded more robust than he felt. Garrus might have cited him as Shepard's number two within the Alliance, but the fact remained that everyone expected things to be in Garrus' capable claws if he wasn't with Shepard himself.

"You think?" Garrus asked, looking over at him.

"You don't?" Vega glared.

Garrus shrugged. "You have a plan?"

"Kinda sorta like," Vega answered cagily.

"EDI, call the ground team in. Things just got complicated," Garrus said, uncrossing his arms. "We'll meet in the war room. Admiral?" he indicated she should go first, clapping Vega on the shoulder before following her out.

Vega frowned at the retreating turian's back. Suddenly, he wasn't so sure Garrus was as nonchalant about whether the Admiral lived or died. It was almost like he'd wanted to see what he, Vega, was going to do after having been identified as Shepard's Alliance number two guy.

It smacked of Shepard's teaching style: grab him by the scruff of the neck and toss him into the pool until he either climbed out or realized he wasn't really in over his head. Somehow…he doubted Shepard had actually brought Garrus in on this training thing. More like the turian had noticed and took the initiative.

He could either bitch about it or suck it up, so he started for the war room. "Hey EDI? We're gonna need to talk to Cortez. Can you call him back?"

"I will do so. He wishes to know if everything is alright."

"Yeah, we're setting up a rescue mission." He knew for a fact Cortez would be exceptionally unwilling to risk not being able to pick up Shepard and her team. He knew Shepard had helped Cortez deal with some heavy stuff…

…which brought him back to Shepard's own heavy stuff. He'd never expected to see her so freaked out…rather than unnerving him (though he'd been more than a little unnerved at the time) he found himself surprised that something like that had happened only now. Maybe this rescue mission would be good for her, let her know that they trusted her to be able to get on with business as usual and not need the whole crew angsting over her well-being when there was work to do.