X
Nova: Action
Garrus wasn't surprised when after Horizon, they didn't take a detour before heading behind the Perseus Veil. Apparently the Migrant Fleet had sent Tali on some sort of research mission to an old quarian colony world—in geth space. Shepard had the entire ship on high alert before they entered the system, everyone at battle stations and ready to bug out at a moment's notice. Joker engaged the stealth drive immediately, a gunner was posted at the console, and EDI was monitoring all signals in the area.
Garrus was surprised when he saw Miranda in the shuttle bay with Kasumi, Mordin, and Shepard, until he remembered she was a tech as well as a biotic—Shepard had deliberately called out the team most equipped to do damage to any geth they ran into.
Miranda's mouth tightened when she saw him. "Are you sure we won't need Garrus in the battery, Shepard?" she asked. "That Thanix needs constant calibrations in order to fire accurately. If the geth have developed the technology to detect the Normandy, we may need the gun."
"I wouldn't say it needs constant calibrations," Garrus said. "Just about four hours a day. It packs a punch, but the Hierarchy hasn't quite figured out the technology yet. I'm actually writing down some of the processes I've been using to keep it running and forwarding them to the scientists—"
"Would like to see documentation," Mordin interrupted.
"I can get it to you," Garrus offered. "If you have any ideas, I'm open to them."
"Ship-grade weaponry not my specialty. Still, may be able to offer simplifications for firing algorithms. Anything that helps."
"The point is, I'm not certain taking our gunnery officer groundside in geth space is a good idea," Miranda said again, annoyed.
"Donnelly says the gun's in good shape," Shepard said. "We don't need Garrus to fire the gun, just to maintain it. On the other hand, he's the only other person on board who's fought the geth."
"Besides, I'm not staying back if Tali's in trouble," Garrus said.
Niels walked up. "Counting on some action, then?" he asked Garrus, taking his seat in the shuttle and opening the main door. They piled in.
"Oh, no. We're in geth space," Garrus said. "What could possibly go wrong?"
"No more than goes wrong on most of our missions," Kasumi said, laughing with Shepard and Niels as she sat next to Miranda.
"Just so long as we're prepared," Garrus replied.
"Jeff, we're ready to leave," Shepard called over the radio. "Take us out, Niels."
Despite the danger, they descended without danger, but as they passed into Haestrom's atmosphere, Niels called back, "This was a quarian colony world, right? Before the war with the geth."
"That's right," Miranda said. "When the geth drove the quarians off their homeworld, they seized all the colony worlds as well."
"That was three hundred years ago, wasn't it? Before they had to start wearing those suits everywhere from living in space all the time."
"Not quite three hundred years ago, but yes. What's your point?" Miranda asked.
"Not sure how they did it, is all, ma'am," Niels said. "I'm getting some weird readings out there. Something's up with the sun."
"Of course there is," Shepard said.
"Can't pinpoint your friend's location, either," Niels continued. "According to the last reports, she's up here somewhere, but there's a lot of interference."
"Just set us down," Shepard ordered. "Maybe we can slip in quietly."
"When's the last time we did that, again?" Garrus murmured.
"I live in hope," Shepard sighed. Off to the side, Garrus saw Miranda watching the two of them, eyes narrowed, mouth tight. He'd occasionally gotten the impression Miranda hadn't gotten over their little heart-to-heart when he'd first joined the crew, and he was fairly certain that she hadn't wanted to leave him on the Normandy just because he took care of the gun, even if her reasoning made sense. He was pretty sure he wouldn't have even needed Shepard to tell him Miranda wasn't his biggest fan—since Shepard had dropped a hint about that the day before, though—she probably really doesn't like me. May not even have anything to do with being turian on a boat full of Cerberus. Just my natural charm.
Niels set them down. The door opened, and EDI spoke up. "Our data indicates considerable geth activity, Shepard, and there is an environmental hazard. Solar output has overwhelmed Haestrom's protective magnetosphere. Exposure to direct sunlight will damage your shields."
Garrus stepped out of the shuttle and he felt it immediately. Heat like an open oven door radiating down from the sky and up from the bare rock under his boots. The solar radiation started frying his shields at once, and he started to sweat—but he knew the humans and Mordin would have it worse. Turians had evolved on a world with a harsher sun—the climate was comparable to the tropics of Earth, according to the xenostudies instructors, but the radiation meant everything on Palaven had developed a natural resistance to solar waves. An unprotected turian was miserable and next to useless on a world like Noveria, but here he had an advantage the others didn't. As soon as their shields depleted, the radiation here could do them serious damage.
And it's not like it won't affect you either—it'll just take longer.
"Having serious issues with my shields," he said, trying to balance them. It was no good. All the power he could reroute to the shields would just fry too. The tech wasn't designed to withstand a sun like this.
"And I'm wearing black. Can we get in the shade, please?" Kasumi asked.
Niels had dropped them in a ruin, an old quarian colony settlement. The stone walls, cracked and crumbling, still cast a shadow, and they all ran for it. Crowding inside, their shields started to recover immediately. It was stuffier, almost hotter, given the heat coming off of the walls. On the plus side, they weren't about to all grow five-kilo tumors.
They looked at one another. "Well," Shepard said, summing it up. "This should be interesting."
Kasumi giggled. Miranda scowled. "That's one way to put it. Come on. Let's get Tali'Zorah and go."
Shepard raised an eyebrow at her. "Come on, Miranda! Where's your sense of adventure? A tiptoe through sun-scorched, old quarian ruins, never knowing if we'll be able to get to the next patch of shade in time or the geth might drop in? It doesn't get any better than this!"
"You have a warped sense of adventure," Miranda informed her.
"Hazard of being a career soldier," Shepard said. "Or maybe of being resurrected."
"Don't make this my fault," Miranda retorted.
Shepard hummed, as if unconvinced, and led the way. They hugged the walls and jogged through the open spaces, and Garrus wondered if it was really better to be hot and miserable on a world like Haestrom than it was to be cold and miserable on a world like Noveria. Maybe our friends and enemies just need to start hiding out on nicer planets.
They found a working door and passed into what looked like an old gatehouse. That was when they saw the first sign of Tali. A male quarian was sprawled inside the door. Dead.
All joking forgotten, Shepard knelt beside the body. "He was shot," she said. "Geth, probably, but the wound shouldn't have been fatal. Nasty graze on the upper arm, but there's not a whole lot of blood here. He died of the infection. Maybe shock. Hang on—"
She activated his omni-tool, and a holo of the quarian's head hovered above his forearm. "Emergency log entry: The geth are here. I've stayed to buy the others time. Anyone who gets this: Find Tali'Zorah! She and that data are all that matters! Keelah se'lai."
It was a grim scene. "I hope we're not too late," Garrus said. Back on the SR-1, Shepard had held Tali back most times. She'd only been a kid at the time, the equivalent of a turian fresh out of basic, and pretty obviously hadn't received anything like the education turians received in basic training. She'd been in way over her head, and he'd gotten the feeling Shepard had taken her on more to protect her than anything else. He'd warned Shepard then to train her while they had the chance—the Migrant Fleet clearly wouldn't be as concerned about Tali's safety.
I don't know if this is one of the times where I should hate that I was right—or if Tali's involvement on the SR-1 and everything we taught her actually landed her this mission. But if that quarian died of infection or shock—Tali learned to handle herself, but she's a quarian like the rest of her people. I of all people should know how little it takes—but we'd like to believe our friends are stronger than that.
He studied Shepard's face in profile. She'd come back, but so many of them hadn't. No one can escape death forever. No one's stronger than that.
"Let's go," Shepard said.
Of course, the second they stepped out of the old gatehouse to head deeper into the ruins, there was a whooshing noise overhead. A shadow passed over the sun—and not the kind they wanted to see. "Incoming drop ship!" Garrus yelled.
"We're compromised!" Miranda cried at the exact same moment. She and Mordin dived behind a fallen pillar that had once held up a pavilion. Kasumi and Shepard vanished, and Garrus darted back into the gatehouse and lowered the window as five geth fell from the sky. Clouds of cement dust came up where they hit, and one of them immediately employed cloaking technology of its own.
"Fantastic," Garrus muttered. He'd learned to track Shepard and Kasumi across the battlefield using their heat signatures, but the geth were synthetic, and advanced enough they didn't give off a lot of heat at all—and looking around, his heat sensors were a little fuzzy anyway. They didn't like this sun either. Instead, he had to look hard for the shimmer in the air that indicated a moving mass, where the cloaking technology couldn't quite mimic the surrounding molecules quickly enough. Most cloaks had them—even Shepard's and Kasumi's. If you just looked hard enough, you could see where they were—or where they'd been, anyway. Most people didn't have time to look hard enough in the middle of a firefight.
Gunfire echoed off the stone of the ruins, geth soldiers exchanging fire with the others. Garrus watched for the cloaked unit. Finally he saw it, a slight shimmer in the air, and more—a luminescence at about the height of a head. The cloak hid the geth, but couldn't hide the light its head was giving off. Poor design, Garrus thought. He flicked his wrist and sent an overload program spinning into the air around that light.
The geth's tech fritzed out. It was visible again. It staggered back, shaking its head, its shields completely gone. Garrus fired. There was something uniquely satisfying about seeing their flashlight heads spark and crumple, he thought. No blood, no mess, no fuss. Just a light going dark and one more synthetic bastard down.
The others had taken care of the rest of the geth soldiers the dropship had sent down, but Kasumi had her omni-tool up, and she looked grim. "Guys, EDI was right. I'm picking up electromagnetic signals all over the place. These ruins are crawling with geth. They're everywhere. We should be careful."
"Right. Fighting the geth, lesson one: your tech is your best friend," Shepard told them all. "Use disruptor ammo, overload programs, hack them if you can—they're synthetic, and we can use that against them. They've generally got powerful shields and weak armor. Account for that in your attacks. We want to avoid formations if we can—that's how they work, and they do it much better than we can. They're networked together and coordinate their attacks. Unpredictability is an advantage here. Well. We have to account for the unpredictable shadows anyway. Everyone understand?"
Everyone murmured agreement, and Garrus saw Kasumi's shoulders straighten. Along with Jack, she was one that was a little out of her depth here; Garrus had noticed on Horizon. The two of them weren't soldiers and were more used to avoiding trouble than stopping it. Jack had run into enough trouble on her own anyway that she was adjusting just fine, and with her attitude and a team at her back that wouldn't let her down, it was looking like being on a suicide mission with Shepard might actually be good for her. Kasumi—she was a thief. Preferred working on her own, or making much less noise, anyway, and she was too empathic and compassionate. Very good at what she did, but it made her anxious to do it when there were lives depending on it, and Garrus didn't think she really trusted anyone but Shepard.
"We've got this," he said, ostensibly to the whole team, looking at no one in particular. They moved on after Shepard.
It was slow going, despite the occasional dashes across open areas to the next fallen pillar or crumbled wall. They hugged the shade—but the geth didn't have to. Oh, it looked like their shields fried in the sun just the same, but the synthetics could stand the heat. They didn't have to worry about radiation when their shields burnt out. The geth could move anywhere in any direction, while Garrus and the others were restricted to a few avenues of attack—and the geth knew to aim for them in the shade. It wasn't hard for them to box them in against any wall or pillar, and taking enemies down when cornered always took longer.
Fortunately, the geth were smart, but most of them weren't as smart as your average organic soldier, not now. When the rocket troopers started showing up, Garrus was prepared for things to get really interesting, but they didn't shoot at the walls and overhangs, use the terrain against the enemy. The geth kept aiming right at them.
Shepard was in her element here. She'd learned more from Tali back in the day than Garrus had ever thought. She kept hacking the bastards, seizing their AI and turning them against their buddies for a bit. The geth would be thrown into confusion, and it wasn't unusual for all of them to join in trying to kill the traitor, which gave the rest of them time to take out the others.
Most of the team was good with energy. Electricity sizzled in waves across the field, more frequently and more effectively than bullets. Mordin was the odd man out—he was a professor, a doctor, but his tech seemed to be more tailored toward taking out organics—big ones. Do I want to know what he did in the STG? He worked with Shepard and Miranda. His cryo tech wasn't too useful against the geth on its own, but paired with Miranda's biotics or Shepard's incendiaries it could do a hell of a lot of damage.
But there were just so many. With the sun and the stress, the team was unusually quiet, especially when they came across two more dead quarians. It looked like they had put up a fight, anyway—there were damaged geth around they hadn't shot up. The bodies were still warm, but they were definitely dead.
"This is squad leader Kal'Reegar. Do you copy?" A radio on the ground was still functioning. A male quarian was speaking out of it, trying to reach the soldiers that had been killed here. "The geth sent a dropship toward Op-Two. Tali'Zorah's secure, but we need backup . . . can you send support? Op-One, this is squad leader Kal'Reegar. Come in. Over."
Shepard knelt down and picked up the radio. "This is Commander Beth Shepard of the Normandy. Can we provide assistance?"
Reegar replied immediately. "Patch your radio into channel 617-Theta. We're on a scout mission—high-risk. We found what we were after, but the geth found us. They got us pinned down. Can't get to our ship, can't transmit data through the solar radiation."
Garrus patched them into the right channel. "Any idea where the geth came from?" Shepard asked.
"One of their patrol ships found us," Reegar explained. "Dropships started raining geth down on our heads before we could get offworld. System's under geth control. We knew they made planetary sweeps periodically. We hoped going low-emissions would hide us."
It was a soldier's briefing, concise and to the point. Garrus actually found himself standing a little straighter. Ah, the military. Sometimes you miss working with the professionals. Not that being professional seems to be helping these guys.
"Do we have to worry about the geth sending in reinforcements?" Shepard asked.
"I don't think so," Reegar replied. "Their patrol ship hasn't lifted off again. The radiation blocks all offworld communications."
"All of ours, anyway," Miranda muttered. Garrus couldn't help agreeing with her. This was a geth world now. They'd had plenty of time to develop a workaround.
Shepard kept trying to get a picture of the situation. "What's the status of your team? How many of you are left?"
"We were a small squad," Reegar told them. "Dozen marines plus the science team. We're down to half strength now. Made the synthetic bastards pay for it, though."
Shepard was frowning. "Why are you this deep in geth-controlled space, anyway?" she wanted to know.
It was pretty obvious, actually. Recon. But if the quarians were doing recon in geth space, the rest of the galaxy should know, Garrus thought. The last time the geth had come past the Perseus Veil, the Migrant Fleet had come out of it okay. The humans in the Traverse and the people on the Citadel hadn't got off so easily. The last thing they needed was the quarians provoking the geth into another war.
But Reegar didn't have answers. "You're asking the wrong person, Shepard," he said. "I just point and shoot. Something about the sun. It's going bad faster than it should, some kind of energy problem."
Shepard pressed her lips together, but let it go. Right now they needed to focus on getting Tali out of here. "How are you holding up?" she asked. "We can be there in a few minutes."
"Take it slow and careful," Reegar warned them. "Direct sunlight fries your shields all to hell."
"We hadn't noticed," Shepard deadpanned.
"We're at a base camp across the valley. I left Tali'Zorah at a secure shelter then doubled back to hold the choke point. Getting Tali out safely is our top priority. If you can extract her, we'll keep 'em off you," Reegar promised them.
They'd all perked up at that. "You've got confirmation that the geth haven't reached Tali yet?" Shepard asked.
"Affirmative," Kal'Reegar said. "Left my best men with her. When you get here, you can talk to her on the comm. Every marine on this rock is sworn to protect Tali'Zorah. As long as one of us is still drawing air, she'll be safe."
"Hold position," Shepard ordered. "We'll hit their back ranks."
She dropped the radio—they were patched into Reegar's channel now, but Mordin stopped her. "Shepard," he said. He held up one of the guns that had been on the quarian bodies. "Submachine gun. Light. Large ammo capacity."
Garrus glanced over it. "Elanus Risk Control Services," he said. "Nice. Should be very effective against the geth."
"Not at range," Shepard said. Garrus smiled. She's got up to speed quickly on the latest arms releases. "Take it. Scan it and requisition copies for the armory when we get back to the Normandy. Until then, use it if you want. Your find, your gun."
"Thank you, Shepard," Mordin said.
"Can see I'm going to have to work harder to use the latest tech," Garrus said under his breath to Shepard.
"SMG's not really your style, last I checked, Garrus. But if you want to try it—"She acted as though she was going to hand over her own Locust to him. "You can see Jacob in the armory before the next mission," she finished, pulling it away and smirking. "Come on."
"You never let me have any fun," he lied outright.
Surprisingly, Miranda and Shepard both laughed—very different laughs. Garrus looked at Miranda, but they'd come in sight of another intact building. The door was working, actively locked. They'd found the quarians.
The radio buzzed. "Watch your ass!" Reegar yelled. "We've got a dropship coming in!"
Overhead, the geth ship fired. These ones were smarter than before. The blast didn't hit any of them—it hit the pillar beside the door. The pillar fell sideways, blocking the door as several geth hit the stone all around them.
"Crap, doorway's blocked!" Reegar cried. "Grab the demo charges in the buildings nearby! Use them to clear a path!"
They all made for pockets of shade, preparing to withstand the next assault. EDI spoke over the radio. "Shepard, I have scanned the area and located the demolition charges the quarian commander mentioned," she said.
"Put it on our radar."
"Done," EDI said. White, flashing points appeared on Garrus's visor. A cargo hold or fighter hangar just ahead, and what looked like the ruins of a residence block to the left. "You will need both sets of charges in order to clear the rubble."
"Of course we will," Kasumi said sourly.
"Now you're getting it," Garrus told her, firing an overload program at a geth to their left. It hit, the geth spasmed, Garrus took it down with his assault rifle. Heat bloomed to the right—a geth with a flamethrower was marching their way, sweeping an arc of fire left and right in front of itself.
Shepard clenched her fist around her omni-tool, and her incineration tech rocketed in a parabola over the geth and into the back of it, igniting the tank and sending it up in a conflagration. It walked around for a few moments, still in flames, before its melted limbs could no longer support it. On Garrus's right, Miranda tossed one geth into another with her biotics and hit them both with an overload program. Mordin took down the last geth—the last one Shepard had hacked to fight on their side, and they moved on.
Garrus saw shimmers in the air of the hangar the first demo charge was located in—he could see one or two uncloaked geth moving in there already, but there were far more than there seemed to be. "Enemies!" Miranda warned.
"Some of them are cloaked! Scan for electric signatures!" Shepard called.
The electric signatures weren't a problem. The problem was that the hangar was defensible, shaded, and there wasn't a lot of cover outside it from the sun. They had to go in close—too close. "Mordin, Miranda, we need suppressing fire!" Shepard ordered. "Garrus, Kasumi, we're backing up the geth!"
In other words, Mordin and Miranda are on the perimeter, and the three of us are taking point. Garrus watched for the energy fluctuation that was Shepard's hacked geth, watched for the soldiers that turned on it, and opened fire. The geth were one enemy where an assault rifle was more use than a sniper—bursts of fire took down shields faster, and most geth would keep going through a single misplaced shot.
Garrus and Kasumi focused their fire on the groups of geth firing on Shepard's hacked soldiers. Miranda and Mordin guarded their flanks. But it was a relief when the last cloaked geth had been shot down and the hangar was empty. Garrus, Shepard, and Kasumi all ran separate scans to confirm before they went in to look for the demolition charge.
The quarians had been working here. Garrus saw dead datapads, laptops. And paper maps. "Tech here doesn't last long, it seems," Miranda remarked. "We need to get out of here."
"Naturally," Mordin agreed. "Objective is to leave. Must find Tali'Zorah."
Shepard had found the demo charge and stuck it to her kit, but Kasumi raised a hand to catch her attention. "There's a log entry," she said. "The datapad still has a charge. I think it's your friend."
She hit play, and Tali's voice filled the stone fighter hangar. "We need a core sample to get a timeline on the rate of radiation increase, but our equipment keeps dying on us. Shepard once used a mining laser to clear some rubble back on Therum. Maybe I can do something similar with demolition charges."
"Only if you're very careful," Garrus murmured to Shepard in a low voice as the recording ended.
Shepard smirked, remembering. Tali hadn't actually been a part of that mission—that had been long before Shepard had relaxed enough to give her basic training to come along with them in the field. The mining laser had hardly been an ideal solution to the problem they'd faced there. Brought down the ruin we were exploring, in fact. Might be a good thing we've got the charges.
Sure enough, when Shepard remembered that, she stopped smiling. Hope we don't have to protect Tali from herself and from the geth. "Let's hurry," Shepard said.
They turned around to leave the hangar, and that was when they saw the shimmer in the air ahead of them. The geth had snuck around to box them in. Miranda swore and let loose an overload program. A geth lit up. Mordin shot it down. They spread out in the hangar, taking cover behind cargo, ancient and more recent. Their position was a lot more defensible than it had been outside, but every second they spent here getting out was a second the geth on the other side of the ruin had a chance to get through to Reegar's remaining team and Tali.
Heavy fire started raining down from outside. An enemy drone circled around, equipped with a nasty little combat laser. "Prime!" Shepard called. "Kasumi, you're on drone control. Mordin, watch the others. Garrus, Miranda, help me take this bastard down!"
Geth primes. Twice the size as the other mobile units, equipped with heavy artillery, ranged offensive tech, strong shields, and armor, they were the elite commandos of the geth army. Their only weakness was that they tended not to bother protecting themselves from attack—but that was because they could kill you in half a second flat the second you stepped out of cover.
Miranda, Shepard, and Garrus hit the prime's shields at the same time. The Collector beam weapon sounded out—its shrill, constant scream was unmistakable. The prime's armor melted and twisted. It turned toward Shepard, but Miranda and Garrus fired from separate angles, heavy pistol and rifle. Both sides of the prime's armored chest caved in. The light on its head flickered and died, and it fell forward to the ground. Kasumi joined Garrus cleaning up the right, while Shepard, Miranda, and Mordin handled the left. In a few seconds they were clear. They headed back out into the sun.
The residential ruins where the second demolition charge was located were mostly intact. Garrus saw multiple working doors, and there was a ramp leading up to a bridge to a second level. The bridge went into the residential block on the right and offered a spectacular vantage point of the courtyard the block surrounded. But it was almost completely exposed to the sun. Looking at it, Shepard hesitated. Readings showed a lot of geth camped out in that courtyard. Was the risk worth it?
"Garrus?" she asked.
"There's a window," he said, nodding at the right side of the courtyard. "If one of us can get across that bridge—"
"I'll get in position and cover you," she said. "Then the two of us can hit them from the side as the rest of you go down the center toward our mark. Miranda, you've got point."
"Understood, Commander."
Shepard went dark and started running. Garrus gave her a good ten seconds' head start, then followed her, up the ramp and across the bridge. His shields started sizzling; the geth in the courtyard below started firing. He passed another quarian laptop, recently abandoned, but ignored it, firing back at the geth with his assault rifle as the window in the building ahead opened, and Shepard leaned out with her rifle. Her omni-tool flashed, a geth in the courtyard below turned on the others, and then Miranda, Mordin, and Kasumi's weapons started up as they started their advance.
A high-powered sniper bullet hit a soldier square in its lit-up head with a clang. It was a perfect shot, a beautiful shot, and Shepard wasn't done. Garrus joined her across the bridge at the window, shielded from the sun, but still overlooking the courtyard. Their position was perfect. A sniper's dream.
They worked together, coordinating their tech to take down geth shields and take them down. Syncopated fire, and the geth went down clean and fast. Trying to defend themselves from Miranda's frontal assault, they left their flank wide open, and when Kasumi started dancing in and out of the shaded courtyard under her tactical cloak, things got even more fun. She was enjoying herself now; "Now you see me . . ." she taunted the geth, sneaking behind their lines to take them down from a third angle. It was almost too easy.
It was all over in about two minutes, and Shepard was smiling as they stood. But when she left the room they were in, she jogged out onto the bridge instead of heading down and to the right, toward the charge. Garrus followed her, crouching to avoid the sun as much as possible. Shepard stopped at the laptop he'd noticed.
"Another log entry," she observed. "Tali, why the hell did you leave it here?" She shook her head and played it.
"It's next to impossible to get accurate solar measurements," Tali had said. "The radiation keeps burning out our equipment. This sun shouldn't be like this. It was stable a few hundred years ago. Stars don't die that quickly."
"Sounds like an actual research mission," Garrus said, as he and Shepard jogged back toward the residential block. "If the quarians are right, they could find out something important here."
"Maybe they could," Shepard said. "But I'm more concerned they're looking out here in the first place."
Garrus hummed in agreement. They met Miranda, Mordin, and Kasumi across the bridge and down a flight of stairs in a corridor that led to an apartment. The quarians had stocked more equipment here, including the other demolition charge they needed.
"Got it," Shepard said. "Let's go."
But Mordin held up a hand, looking around the corner. "Get ready to fight," he warned.
"I'll say this for the geth: they don't give up," Kasumi noted.
"Same strategy?" Garrus asked.
"Same strategy," Shepard confirmed, already making for the stairs.
The geth were inbound from two different directions—outside of the courtyard on the ground, and across the bridge on the second level from the ruined residences over there. Shepard signaled Garrus to cover the yard and faced the bridge. Garrus looked down.
The geth were getting nervous. They'd started to realize what they were dealing with here, and once again, they'd sent out tougher soldiers. Once again, there was a prime down there, and more than one geth with a flamethrower. Mordin hit one of them with cryo tech, counteracting the flames. Miranda hit his target with her biotics, crumpling his armor into a twisted, useless mass with a warp field. She'd taken up position on top of what had probably been some sort of artistic feature centuries ago, crouching behind a crumbled rock face to fire over at the geth coming in on her left. She and Kasumi were focused on the prime now, coordinating tech like they'd done before to bring down its shields quickly. Mordin was firing on the destroyers with the flamethrowers from behind a wall in the corridor at the back of the yard, trying to keep them from coming to the prime's aid. Garrus was helping him as Shepard stemmed the tide flowing across the bridge.
But two, dim, blue lights were moving through the air toward Miranda's position, around her right and up the statue she was positioned behind, firing at the prime. "Miranda, fall back!" Garrus called. "They're right on top of you!"
"I've almost got it!" she said.
Her shields went down in a flash of blue as one of the cloaked geth fired, point blank. Miranda was knocked back to the ground, pinned down. If she went left or right, she'd be in the prime's line of fire, and on her own she couldn't take both her enemies down before they got her. "Ugh! I need help!" she cried.
Garrus made a split-second decision. He pulled out his assault rifle and fired full automatic on the prime, standing up, in full view of it and the destroyers crossing the bridge. The prime, shields down, turned immediately to face the threat.
83 . . . 27%!
Garrus dodged behind the wall, and constructing a targeting solution with his visor, kept firing as its guns pockmarked the stone wall outside. The destroyers weren't close enough to use their flamethrowers, but their bullets whistled in the window, hitting the back wall.
Shepard swore. Her omni-tool flashed, and below, he heard Kasumi yell, "Boom!"
The prime fell down dead, and Garrus crouched again to look out over the courtyard. Both the geth that had been around Miranda were dead. The golden energy field around one that was Shepard's hack was just fading, and Kasumi was helping Miranda to her feet.
There was only one destroyer left in the courtyard below; Mordin had taken out the other. Garrus saw the salarian's incineration tech arc toward the other, and it went up as its fuel tank caught.
Garrus took aim at the second geth crossing the bridge, and in a second, he Shepard had taken the last two out.
He followed Shepard down the stairs out to the courtyard again. Miranda was brushing the dust off of her uniform. "Thanks for the save," she told Kasumi. She nodded at Shepard too. "Shepard. We would've been done for without you."
"As stunning as our heroics were," Kasumi joked, "I prefer to avoid situations like that in the first place. "Here's a tip: When Garrus says something, it's generally a good idea to listen."
Miranda's jaw tightened, and her blue eyes froze. "I didn't see them coming," she protested. "I thought I could take down the prime."
"But they were coming, and he did see them," Shepard said. "We were all at risk for a second there because you didn't listen."
"I don't take orders from him," Miranda retorted, glaring at Garrus.
Shepard went very still. She deliberately folded her arms and leaned back on her left leg. "Every one of the dossiers your organization sent me was sent for a different reason," Shepard said firmly. "Mordin for science, Kasumi for tech and infiltration, and Garrus specifically because he's a talented tactical commander. He's got more military experience than anyone but me, he's got specialized equipment to spot threats on the field, but more to the point—if someone on your team tells you something that could save your life, you listen, whether they're human or not."
Garrus watched Miranda. Her eyes gleamed, and her jaw twitched. "Shepard—" he started.
Shepard shook her head. "She works with me, she works with you," she said simply. "Got it, Miranda?" she asked.
"Understood, Commander," Miranda replied, pale with anger, fists clenched. Shepard held her gaze for a moment and then nodded.
"Good." She turned on her heel and led the way back toward the blocked doorway.
Garrus took up the rear, walking after the rest of them. If Miranda hadn't hated him before, she certainly did now. But the thing is, she was smarter on Omega. Told her to fall back then and she listened. She's letting her personal feelings—whatever they are—get in the way of her professionalism. Something's up.
Before Horizon, he would have probably left Miranda to it. She was spying on Shepard, sold out to Cerberus, and her people skills weren't the greatest. But she's too good, and we need her at the top of her game. As nice as it was to know Shepard had his back, he'd have to handle this on his own, because if Miranda was stubborn enough, her unwillingness to work with him could hurt her willingness to work with Shepard. It was time he and Operative Lawson had another talk.
They'd come up on the fallen pillar in front of the building where Reegar and his squad had been hiding. Shepard set the charges and activated them.
"Excellent!" Mordin said. "Should be enough! Have to move quickly! Large impact radius!"
"Move it or lose it!" Kasumi called.
They ran across the field. The charges detonated with a crash. Rock dust rose up into the air. The door was sealed against the blast, but the pillar was broken.
They walked over to the building. Shepard sliced the door open, and they walked into the building.
It was the best-preserved building they'd found yet, fully shielded from the sun outside. It looked like it had been some sort of power center. Dusty terminals lined the walls. There was a workbench up on a dais, datapads on shelves on the left-hand wall.
"These buildings are quarian," Miranda said, laying a hand on the wall, looking at the files. "This colony predates the geth uprising."
Reegar's team had gone. There were two quarian corpses and as many geth on the floor. They'd sealed the opposite door behind them, retreated further into the colony. So much death. Whatever Tali's mission is, it's gone about as bad as it can go. "Whatever the quarians are after, I hope it's worth it," he said.
Shepard had found another log. She activated it, and Tali's voice filled the room. "Our ancestors walked these halls with uncovered heads," she'd said. Her voice sounded awed. "The sun must have been normal back then. So much space. Walls of stone. It's amazing." Her voice turned down then, wistful and sad. "I wish my friends could see it. I wish Shepard were here."
Shepard's head bowed. She tapped the laptop to turn off the log with more force than she really needed to. "She always was throwing that word around," she said quietly. "I'm not sure whether I deserved it."
"You were a little standoffish, but we brought you around. She knows you care about her, Shepard," Garrus promised. "You were the only one looking out for her that year."
Shepard's worry was plain in every line on her face. "Seems like she could use someone to do that now. If we're not too late."
Just then, a comm across the room buzzed. Over the console, a holographic projection of a female quarian was speaking. "Tali'Zorah to base camp," their old friend said. "Come in, base camp."
Relief flooded through Garrus, and Shepard lit right up. "Tali!"
A/N: Time to pull in some more of what might have gone on behind the scenes in ME2. Infighting and resentment! I bet gamers only saw a little bit of what actually went on aboard the SR-2. How does Miranda go from totally sold out to Cerberus to being willing to betray them by the end, tearfully regretting her desire to put a control chip into Shepard in ME3? Can a Shepard who hates Cerberus as much as my Beth does get over that to treat Miranda as an individual who can change? And what, if anything, does Garrus have to do with all of that?
Warning: some of this subplot will be happening off-page. Large portions of it are Shepard and Miranda's story, not Garrus's. But Garrus is definitely involved!
Leave a review if you've got something to say,
LMSharp
