Chapter 1: Ghost
Kima District, Omega, during Dossier: Archangel. Published 4/13/22, last updated 7/19/22.
"How are your thermal clips?"
He ejected a sink, watched it roll against the trash beneath his perch. Tried to keep his subtones casual when he answered, but his mouth was too dry and his larynx too tense.
"You know how it is. Could always use a couple more."
Bullets slammed against the wall where he'd taken cover, grinding down its strength chip by chip. Rounds fired too high gouged chunks from the ceiling, rained plaster on the corpses of the fallen men and women at his back.
He didn't look. To look was to remember, and to remember was to invite a mistake.
Garrus opened his Mantis and shunted sinks mechanically into the breech.
Rearm. Review, he said silently to the mercs. Just stop jumping that barricade for a half-minute.
A half-minute—that was all. Time to patch new wounds, flex stiffening fingers, drink his dwindling supply of water. Thoughts of escape, or survival, had vanished hours ago. Only one goal remained: to take as many of the bastards as he could when he went.
He dragged his rifle back into position. Dad was talking over the comm, a shield against the admission of weakness, a reminder of what he had done and must still do. Discipline, duty. Success at all costs.
The turian way.
He closed his eyes as his muscles burned, protesting the resumption of a position he'd held for hours. He always thought he'd remember life before C-Sec, at the end. Solana, Mom, Dad. Before everything had gone to hell. But even now, Dad on the line and Palaven dialect in his ear, the commander was here too. The quiet days between missions, tinkering with the Mako on the SR1. The MSV Fedele, Saleon down the barrel of a gun and Shepard, talking him down. Ilos.
She'd been like Dad, in a way. Principled. Unflinching. Rejecting the possibility of a no-win scenario. He pulled the trigger and felt a bullet graze his arm, tearing flesh.
"And so he dies anyway. What was the point of that?"
"You can't predict how people react, Garrus. But you can control how you respond."
He knew he was here because of her. He'd left C-Sec to join her crew. Returned because she pushed him to, hitting home when his father never had. He'd watched when the flag was draped over her empty coffin. Watched when the Council turned tail, dismissed the Reaper menace. He'd watched 'til the one disillusioned day he could watch no more, and then he'd watched himself quit, turning his back on the ones who'd turned their backs on her.
"No matter how bad things are falling apart around you, as long as you have at least one bullet left, you can still get the job done. Understand?"
"Yeah. I do." He shifted his shoulders back to readiness and straightened his finger along the trigger.
Three mercs had jumped the barricade. Freelancers, armor secondhand. Untrained. Green.
One less.
Dad's voice was a constant in his ear, bracing by the fact of its presence.
"How many targets are there on the field?"
"Not many. Not yet."
"Then reload."
To obey was instinct. He reached into a pocket for another brace of sinks.
Touched seams.
He froze. Breathed, and checked another pocket.
And another.
And another.
His fingers returned to the grip automatically. Grimed with dirt. Tacky with blood. A single thought pierced the glacial stillness in his mind.
End of the line.
He knew without counting that there were seven clips in the chamber. Seven clips—seven shots. Seven kills, then he could rest.
It was more difficult than it should've been, to say it. He flexed his mandibles and spoke, cutting over the channel. "Can't. This is it."
He looked down the scope. Figures were scurrying around the laser dot, magnifications in miniature. "Thanks, Dad. For everything." He fired through the sudden silence over the comm.
Six clips.
"Listen, son." His subtones were steady, pitched midrange with iron control—the same they'd been every day of Garrus's life. "You finish up what you have to do there, and then you come on home to Palaven. We have a lot to sort out."
A final, necessary lesson. He nodded once, tersely, against his scope. "I have to go now. Don't worry about me—I'll make it home when I can. The." His throat was tight. "The odds just got a lot better."
Last wave. He realized with a part of his mind that Dad was still on the line. Waiting with him.
They dropped onto the bridge singly and in pairs. Moving towards the wrong cover, looking in the wrong directions, stepping in the wrong places. Amateurs, leaderless.
He exhaled—five clips. Drove the rest into cover.
Bought himself a little more time.
Three marks, hanging back at the rear. Weapons well-used, handled with ease. Ex-military or professionals. Meant intent, not uncertainty. Meant organization and threat.
He turned his reticle on them. Humans. Two females, one male, shielded, unhelmeted. One female looking left. Her mouth moved, and the others nodded.
Vertical angle, 62.2 degrees. Ambient air density, 0.068 grams per liter. Spin drift, 43 millimeters.
She drew her gun, signaling her team. Alliance hand-and-arm signs. Shepard would've been disgusted.
He exhaled. The world narrowed to the stillness of her body, the symmetry of the crosshairs, the steadiness of his talon on the trigger.
Then she looked up, and their eyes met through the scope.
His rifle jerked and slipped off the ledge. His shoulders slammed against the wall, yanking him into cover.
"You've stopped shooting. What's wrong?"
The commander glanced over the platform's edge. Saren sprawled on the grass, blood pooling under the hole in his head. No life signs.
He was breathing too hard, too fast. "I thought I just saw—"
Her face was hidden by her helmet, her voice expressionless when she turned away.
"Make sure he's dead."
Shepard.
Dad's voice cut through reeling shock. "Garrus. You need to focus."
It couldn't. He'd seen her because he'd been thinking of her. That was all. He shut his eyes, steadied his pounding heart, and looked down his sights.
There, advancing down the bridge. Squad at her flank. But the freelancers were leaving cover, confirmed hostiles and closer.
He fired. Four clips.
He swapped in a concussive round and fixed crosshairs on her shoulder. Set instinct against the logic that told him it couldn't be her, and need for certainty against the training that told him not to waste specialized ammo.
Time was up anyway. One bullet less wouldn't change that.
He squeezed the trigger. She staggered and glanced up at his perch, face unobstructed in his sights.
Shepard's face.
She looked down the bridge again and picked up her pace. "Shields're down," he heard her report. "Let's move." Low, competent, confident.
Shepard's voice.
...I'll be damned.
Garrus took cover and ejected his sink, relief mingled with uneasiness. The how of her presence was a question for later. The why was problematic. The Shepard he knew would never take a job like this. Even as a Spectre she'd toed the line, requiring her crew to do the same. But two years was a long time.
His omnitool flashed. Freelancers were closing.
Shit. Focus. He raised himself into position, training sights swiftly on the nearest target. Shepard wasn't the fucking problem. Not yet.
He exhaled. His finger curled over the trigger—and his mark crumpled.
"They're with Archangel!" someone screamed.
His scope snapped to the commander. Tearing left, shields flaring against the mercs' barrage. She skidded into cover and reappeared to lay down suppressing fire.
"Watch your ten, Massani! ML's got a bead on ya. Lawson, mercs go near that gas tank, you stop 'em going anywhere else!"
An explosion tore through his base, mingled with the freelancers' yells.
He grinned. "Dad. I'm going to go. I'll see you soon."
The sincerity carried this time. There was a shift in his father's subtones to match when he answered. "Then get it done, son."
The line went dead.
Backup teams were mounting the barricade. Garrus reached for his assault rifle, reserved as a last defense.
Wouldn't be needing that anymore.
He opened it, transferring clips clumsily to the Mantis. Shepard would deal with the intruders. He'd hold the rear.
Methodically he shot, ejected, and fired, eyes on his targets, half his attention on the battle advancing audibly through his base and up the stairs. He knew Shepard wouldn't let the mercs roll him up. Knew that, as surely as he knew Palaven was hot as hell. Still, when the doors finally gave it took all his will not to glance rearward and verify that the intruders were friendlies. He focused on his mark as the man scrambled into cover.
"Archangel?"
Target was about to move. He could feel it in the lull, hear it in the restless scrape of the man's armor and the compulsive taps of his finger against the trigger. He raised a finger without turning from his scope.
Silence, seconds stretched into days as his helm moved inch by inch into view.
Exhale...beat...fire.
He lowered his Mantis in the boom of the report and checked his mark for vitals.
Dead.
He unfolded from his defensive position, levering himself up on his rifle. Tried not to limp when he crossed the room, and settled onto a stack of empty munitions boxes before he could embarrass himself by falling over.
Or by grabbing her to confirm this was real and getting shot full of holes for the presumption.
He removed his helmet. "Shepard," he said, as casually as he could. "I thought you were dead."