Dawn
"Wake up!"
Their eyes snapped open, biotics illuminating the otherwise dark room enough to paint their target in blue light. The man's silhouette wasn't one they recognized, so without a second thought they hit him with a Reave. Jumping out of the bed as the man doubled over and stumbled back, they distantly registered the sounds of Garrus engaged in his own fight and what sounded like a drunken krogan ransacking the second bedroom.
Pumping biotic energy into their fist, they punched the man in the jaw, knocking him even further off balance and making him fall on his ass. The Reave still drained him, their biotics so much stronger than ever before, renewing their every cell with his life force. They followed him to the ground, delivering a crushing blow to his windpipe before wrenching the pistol from his hand. Shooting him once in the head while he wheezed, they spun around, sights landing on the lithe human Garrus held pinned against the wall by the throat, light trickling in through the disturbed curtains showing the terror on his face.
Before they could take aim on the intruder, Garrus growled and sank his talons into the human's skin, ripping through muscle and tendons to wrap his fingers around the man's throat and pulled. Blood splattered across Garrus, the walls, curtains, and floors. The sight shocking enough to give Dawn the foothold she needed to assert herself in the chaos once more.
Garrus dropped the dying man and turned, mandibles flared wide, eyes crazed as he searched the room. "Are you hurt?" He sniffed the air before bending down to retrieve the man's weapons.
"I'm good," she said. "I think James is in trouble."
A pained, angry roar followed by the sound of breaking glass punctuated her statement. Garrus nodded once, and she turned, grabbing her pajamas off the chair and pressing her back to the doorframe while she wriggled into her pants. As soon as her tank top was on, she made sure Garrus was behind cover before opening the door, pistol raised and ready. Shots fired down the hall, coming from the living room; James' bedroom was the opposite direction.
It didn't matter which way she turned out, there would be threats on both sides, and she and Garrus would be bottlenecked in the hallway with nothing for cover. She had no armor, no omni-tool, just the sidearm stolen from a dead guy. Garrus wasn't in much better shape, having taken his armor off to sleep next to her for the night.
Frowning, she pressed her lips together and glanced over at him. "Get your armor back on. I need you to act as a shield. I'll surround you with biotics, give you some barriers. We'll make our way down to James' room."
He fluttered his mandibles but jerked his head in agreement, moving swiftly to follow her orders. "Do you want me to call C-Sec?"
"Yes," she said, giving it half a second's thought. "This place is filled with sick people unable to defend themselves." Then, to help keep the attackers out of the hall and buy them some time, she pulled up her biotics and blindly threw a Singularity toward the living room.
Less than a minute passed before a fully armored Garrus sidled up next to her. "Are you ready?"
"Ready." She gave him a quick nod and adjusted her grip on the pistol, pulling biotics up around her and then pushing them out over Garrus.
He stepped into the hall, and instantly shots peppered his shields. He fired back, and she moved out behind him. After checking to make sure the rest of the hall was clear, she turned sideways, using one hand on the small of his back to help guide him while firing past his shoulder at the turian and asari she saw in the living room from her vantage point. Inching their way back, Shepard pushed more biotics around Garrus, thickening the wall helping to keep him safe.
When she reached James' room, she pressed against the door frame and hit the door's release. The door slid open just as James collapsed to his knees over a dead turian. Wearing nothing but boxer shorts, James was a complete mess. Bullet holes oozed from several spots on his chest, side, and shoulders. Talon marks sliced through his skin, cutting down across his face and chest. Another dead turian and a dead human decorated the floor right alongside broken furniture, pieces of a shattered mirror, and a whole lot of blood.
"Jesus Christ, James!" Dawn rushed into the bedroom—ignoring the slivers of glass cutting into the soles of her feet—and over to the man, the best damned example of a marine she'd ever seen.
"Ídola …." He swayed and grabbed her arm. "Ídola, I'm sorry …. You … you gotta get out of here."
"Spirits."
"Not without you, Lieutenant." Dawn shook her head, swallowing back the panic rising in her throat, leaving her feeling slightly disconnected and on the edge of another breakdown. "Just stay with me. I'm going …" She looked around the disaster zone of a bedroom, though she wasn't sure for what. "I'm going to get you some help. Just stay with me, Vega. That's an order."
"You've got to stop the bleeding. See if he has any Medi-gel in here," Jane said, a sickening wave of terror rolling through their connection.
"Do you have Medi-gel in here?" She asked, but he only swayed again, his grip on her weakening. "James!"
Unfocused gaze finding hers, he finally seemed to process the question and started to look around the room. "I don't …." Eyes rolling back into his head, he lost consciousness, full weight falling over onto the dead turian.
"Shit." She dropped to her knees, trying to move him off of the corpse, but he was just too damn heavy for her and too slick with blood. "No, James, come on. Don't do this." Throat closing off into a burning knot, her voice cracked as she continued to pull at the marine. "Stay with me. Garrus," she yelled, looking up at him, "scramble the lock. Help me get him over to his back!"
Garrus fired off a couple more shots down the hall and then closed the door. Holstering his weapon, he opened his omni-tool and scrambled the lock before moving to James' other side. "On three." He wedged his hands under James and glanced at her again. "One. Two. Three."
Together they hefted the man off the dead turian and laid him out on his back. Shepard pressed her fingers to his throat, searching out a pulse. She let out a sound somewhere between a whimper, a keen, and a laugh of joy when she felt the slow, weak, but steady pulse.
"Open his omni-tool and pull up his vitals." She grabbed a few, still mostly clean, shirts out of a drawer hanging half out of the shattered end of the dresser and shoved them at Garrus. "Put pressure on the bullet wounds. I need to see if he has any Medi-gel in here."
She pushed herself to her sore, bleeding feet but only made it two steps before she heard the enemy outside of the bedroom door, hacking through the lock. There wasn't time. Rushing to the night stand, she ripped open the drawer. Her gaze hopped from a jar of hair pomade to his sidearm to a comb and a whole lot of useless crap she didn't need. She slammed the drawer closed again and bent down enough to look in the cubby underneath.
"Shepard, there's not time," Garrus said, his voice filled with regret and determination. "We have to get you out of here. Break through a window or something."
"I'm not leaving him." She moved to the closet and flung it open, grabbing a box off the top shelf and tearing it open. No Medi-gel. She dropped the box, letting it fall to the floor, contents scattering.
"Shepard!" Garrus growled. "They're almost through! We have to get you out of here."
She spun around to look at him. He still held the clothes to James' wounds, but judging by the tight lock of his mandibles against his jaws and the frantic look in his eyes, he was seconds away from disregarding her orders and carrying her ass out of danger. She let out a frustrated growl, helplessness and fury carrying on a war inside of her.
"Move back." The words ground out through clenched teeth as she pulled biotics up around herself.
Garrus scuttled back and stood, readying his weapon as soon as he was on his feet again. Wrapping her biotics around the injured marine, she put him into a Stasis. It was the best she could do for the time being. Scooping the pistol up from the floor where she'd dropped it next to James, she checked the heat sink and turned to face the door.
"I'm not leaving him, and if you try to make me, so help me God, Garrus, I will put you on your ass." She fired the moment the door slid open, not really giving him the chance to argue.
Dawn stripped the dead asari of her light armor. She wasn't exactly the same size as Dawn, but it'd have to do. Garrus grumbled as he picked pieces of glass out of the bottoms of her feet before slathering them with Medi-gel. James was still out cold, he was hurt pretty badly, but they were able to stop his bleeding once they cleared the rest of the suite of intruders.
There would be more on their way, though. She heard the sirens going off all through The Pearson Sisters' Sanctuary. Gunfire, explosions, and the twang of biotics being thrown around filled the hospital just outside of the door. She hadn't checked yet, but she was willing to bet good credits that her Alliance guards were already dead.
"We have to get to Dr. Chakwas." She checked over the collection of weapons while the Medi-gel set, numbing her feet.
"You think she's still in the building?" Garrus stood and moved closer to the door, checking the lock again.
Working her way into the commando-style armor, she grunted. "Yes. Dr. Chakwas wouldn't leave patients under her care." She swallowed down bile threatening to rise in her throat. "She wouldn't leave me." What she didn't say was how much she feared finding Dr. Chakwas dead because she wouldn't leave without Dawn. "And I won't leave her. Besides," she said securing the straps, "James needs medical attention, stat."
He hummed. "What's the plan?"
"They have anti-gravity carts they use to stock supplies throughout the hospital." Holstering two scavenged pistols, she hefted an assault rifle into her hands and moved to the other side of the door. "We're going out there and finding one, and then we're going to put James on it. I can keep a stasis around him until we reach the doctor. It'll slow us down, and we'll have to be careful, but it'll keep him from taking any more hits. We have to help him."
"C-Sec should be out there by now, too. Maybe we'll reach them first. At the very least, they can get to work on James while we find Dr. Chakwas." Garrus searched her gaze, silently begging her for the one little compromise.
Nodding, she took a deep breath and pressed her back to the doorframe. "Let's do it."
She had to rely on Garrus to take the lead far more than she liked, but he had knowledge of the facility's layout. She'd paid close attention when he took her to the cafeteria, noted the exits, security-locked doors, guards, maintenance closets, and air vents. It didn't tell her where Dr. Chakwas would be, though.
He'd been right. C-Sec was on site, but they seemed to be treating it like a hostage situation. They surrounded the building and called out over the intercoms for the attackers to surrender. She saw a handful of officers here and there, those who must've come in the back way to try to infiltrate and quell the situation before it worsened. They were all either engaged in a firefight or already dead, and there was no clear path to the exits.
She had a decision to make. They could either help C-Sec and fight their way to the exit to hand James over to the first responders, or leave it to C-Sec to deal with and go in search of Dr. Chakwas. Either choice endangered James. He didn't have much time left, and all it'd take was for her to let the Stasis slip and one stray bullet get through. Taking the time to help C-Sec meant Dr. Chakwas was on her own for that much longer, though. If she was even still alive.
But … getting more C-Sec inside also meant saving more civilian lives.
"Shepard!" Garrus snapped, shaking her out of a paralysis brought on by the fear of making the wrong decision and losing someone else she cared about.
She looked at him, still crouched down behind the reception desk. Assault rifle in hand, she took a deep breath and peered over the edge, lining up a shot and sending a spray of superheated, mass effect accelerated shards of metal at a salarian on the other side. She followed it up by flinging a Singularity out into the middle of a cluster of armed men and women not in C-Sec blues. "We'll hold here and clear this area," she finally said as she ducked back into cover. "Get the doors opened and James to C-Sec."
"Hold your fire! That's Spectre Shepard!" An asari in a C-Sec captain's uniform called out to her squad, frantically waving her arms before they opened fire on Dawn and Garrus. She jogged over to Dawn, staying low behind vehicles as much as possible. "Shepard, I'm Captain Shayanna. I wasn't aware you were on the Citadel. What's happening in there?"
"Alliance Lieutenant James Vega needs immediate medical attention." Dawn pulled the cart our in front, drawing the asari's attention to the precious cargo.
The sight of James lying unconscious, riddled with bullet holes and deep gashes gave Shayanna pause. After a moment of staring blankly, horror on her face, she turned and whistled, waving her men over. Dawn swallowed, fighting back conflicting instincts, and let the officers lead him over to an EMT.
"What's the situation like inside, Spectre?" Shayanna's laser-like focus returned to Dawn again, James apparently no longer a concern.
"It's bad, and I have someone else in there I need to get to. You need to get your officers in there, Captain. The people attacking this place are killing indiscriminately." She turned, ready to head back inside but stopped and looked over her shoulder when the asari called out to her.
"Davis, Sanders, T'Nari, Tremit," Shayanna called out the names, and the officers broke away from the rest, making their way over to await orders. "Go with Shepard, you're under her command."
The officers acknowledged their captain's orders before turning and saluting Dawn. She wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. She spared a second to glance at Garrus and make sure he didn't have any complaints about those chosen, and when he didn't say anything, she jerked her head towards the door and headed back inside.
Dr. Chakwas stood guard over a row of hospital beds holding unconscious or immobile patients. Gun in hand, the woman had a fierce look on her face and blood on her lab coat. "Shepard? Oh, thank God!" Gaze scanning everyone as Dawn, Garrus, and the C-Sec officers poured into the room, her face fell. "Where's Lieutenant Vega?"
Breaking away from her team, Dawn rushed to Dr. Chakwas and began checking the doctor over, trying to figure out if the blood was hers or someone else's. "He was hurt." She swallowed. "He's with emergency services outside." Glancing up, she met the woman's gaze. "Are you hurt, Doc?"
Dr. Chakwas brushed Dawn's hands away. "Don't worry about me. I've already taken care of it, I'll be fine. What happened to James?"
Frowning, Dawn turned away from the doctor to watch Garrus and Sanders secure the door. Davis and Tremit moved to the other side of the room, checking the hall outside before closing another door and scrambling the lock. T'Nari used her biotics to move equipment in front of the doors as planned. It didn't make sense to try to get Dr. Chakwas and her patients out of the hospital while hostile forces were still present, so they intended to barricade themselves in and keep everyone safe until C-Sec handled the situation.
A warm, gentle hand settled on Dawn's shoulder and with a soft, compassionate voice filled with dread, Dr. Chakwas asked again, "What happened to James?"
"We were all sleeping," Dawn said, voice low, nearly sedate as she fought back the waves of fear and anger washing over her. "There were two in the room with Garrus and I, more about to come in when we woke up." She took a slow deep breath. "We were unprepared. By the time we were able to make it to James, he was already …. He was just wearing underwear, no armor, no weapon ready, no biotics …."
"How badly was he hurt?" Dr. Chakwas rubbed her hand back and forth between Dawn's shoulder blades, the pressure barely felt thought the cloth and leather armor.
"There were two dead turians and a dead human in the room. He'd been shot several times in the torso, and … and the turians had used their talons to slice him open." Tears welled in her eyes, and she let out a soft growl, fighting them back. She'd cried enough. The time for tears was over. It was time for her to be the Commander Shepard again. "His face, chest, and arms are all cut up with deep gashes. He lost a lot of blood and passed out before I could get the bleeding stopped." She paused, the words bouncing around in her skull before finally making their way out of her mouth, "I don't know if he's going to make it."