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The approach to Sur'Kesh was a tense one, largely because Wrex couldn't stop pacing back and forth. He was shaking the shuttle, and Shepard could see Cortez wanting to yell at him and then deciding not to piss off the krogan over and over again.
"Wrex," she said at last, hoping to calm him. "We'll get there."
"In time, Shepard? That's the future of my planet down there, and who knows what those salarians have done to them."
"With that attitude, I'm certain the salarians will welcome us with open arms," Garrus said dryly.
"They'll be unhappy enough just having Wrex arrive on their planet. Best behavior, huh, Wrex?" Shepard suggested.
"No promises."
"Look, we land, we get the females, we get out before anyone changes their mind. Anything you do to make them angry will just make it take longer."
Wrex frowned at that one. "All right, Shepard. You make a decent point."
"Thank you."
"We'll bring them home, Wrex," Garrus promised. "Your people have waited long enough for this day."
Wrex nodded. "A lifetime. I appreciate the assist, Garrus."
"Eh, I figured you'd gone soft sitting on your throne, forgot how to hold a gun."
"Commander, I have the salarian base on sensors," Cortez reported.
"Great. Let's get started. Set her down, Lieutenant."
He piloted the shuttle toward the landing bay, then held a hand to his ear, listening closely through his earpiece. "They say we don't have clearance to land, Commander."
"Tell them the dalatrass authorized this visit herself." Shepard was not about to turn around and leave without what she came for—for Wrex's sake, for the galaxy's sake, and for the sake of those krogan females who had already endured too much.
"I knew they'd never keep their word!" Wrex exclaimed behind her. Before she could calm him down, he stormed his way to the door, wrenching it open. "Let's see them try to stop a krogan airdrop!" And he leaped out the open door, landing on the ground far below.
"Only a krogan could make that jump and still be pissed off," Garrus observed.
"It takes a krogan to be pissed off enough to make the jump in the first place." Vega shook his head. "You hombres have some interesting friends."
"You should talk, you're one of them."
"I make you look good," Vega boasted.
Garrus chuckled. "You sure do."
As Cortez gently dropped the shuttle onto the landing pad, they could see Wrex surrounded by armed salarians, clearly considering some kind of do-or-die charge.
Even as Shepard readied herself to jump out of the shuttle, hoping to get between Wrex and the salarians before he got himself killed, another salarian came rushing toward the landing pad. "Stand down! Lower your weapons!" he was calling. He reached the pad just as Shepard's boots touched it. "Commander Shepard, restrain your colleague."
"After this reception?"
"We only found out about this transfer moments ago. There must have been a delay in transmission."
"I'll bet there was," Wrex growled under his breath. Shepard didn't disagree—it might well have suited the dalatrass's plans to have the shuttle shot out of the sky.
"I'd like to avoid a diplomatic incident," she said, with a warning glance at Wrex.
The salarian nodded, relieved. "As would we."
"But you have something valuable to the krogan people here, and we came to bring it home."
"Something worth dying for," Wrex agreed.
The salarian hesitated, looking from Wrex to the armed salarians surrounding them. "This matter can be resolved, Commander Shepard, but I must insist that he remain under guard."
Wrex bristled at that, but Shepard glared at him. "I can handle this, Wrex."
They both knew that if he went down there, he was in no mood to be tolerant, much less diplomatic … and with so much salarian firepower around them, only diplomacy was going to bring the females home.
"Fine," Wrex snapped. "But anything goes wrong and all bets are off."
"That okay?" Shepard asked the salarian.
He didn't look happy, but he agreed, and his men took a step back and lowered their weapons.
The salarian motioned to Shepard, and she followed him, with Garrus and Vega just behind her. The other salarians formed a circle around Wrex, and tried not to flinch every time he growled at them.
"I hope we can resolve this matter without reenacting the Krogan Rebellions," the salarian muttered to her.
"That's up to you. Are there going to be any problems with handing over the females?"
"There … will need to be some discussion. One of our senior scientists will explain. But unlike many of my colleagues, personally, I believe curing the genophage will bring the galaxy some much-needed closure. In the future, the krogan may yet play some role we can't even imagine."
"I'm hoping I can imagine it. I hope they can be a significant asset in the fight against the Reapers." Shepard watched the salarians loading a transport pod with a yahg inside it—an unhappy yahg who very much wanted out. She supposed there might be a way to make the yahg a weapon against the Reapers as well, but she had no time to investigate that one. Maybe if they lost, fifty thousand years from now the yahg would lead the next fight.