A/N: In Greek mythology, the Phlegethon was one of the five rivers of the Underworld. It was a river of fire that flowed into the depths of Tartarus, the deepest of all the hells. In Dante's Inferno, the Phlegethon is associated with rage and violence and bloodshed, and in the seventh circle of hell, murderers, tyrants, and those who have made war are immersed in the river of boiling blood forever.


XXXIII

The Rivers of Hell: Phlegethon

Two hours after the Normandy left the Citadel, Garrus got a page on his omni-tool.

See me at your earliest convenience.

Miranda

Garrus dismissed the message and set his sniper down on the workbench. He gripped the side of the workbench. "Text reply," he told his visor then. "'You know where I am.'" He looked over the text on his visor, sent it, and picked up his cleaning rod again.

Sending a reply like that could get him booted down from Hammerhead maintenance and shuttle bay cleanup to dishes, plumbing, and swab details for a week, but he wasn't going to cater to Lawson's chain-of-command crap today. If she doesn't like it, tough.

But if he'd thought it would get him out of the lecture, Lawson proved him wrong right away. She was in the battery in five minutes.

"You know why I'm here," she said without preamble.

Garrus didn't bother to stand or offer her a seat. "Was it Goto or the AI?" He ran another patch through the barrel, examining it closely.

"Jacob can do that," Lawson said, irritated. "Running and maintaining the armory is part of his job."

Garrus switched out the patches for a brush and solvent. "And you're at the armory fifteen minutes early inspecting your own weapons before every mission. I clean my own guns. Goto or the AI?"

Lawson's hands were on her hips. "Both, naturally. For a thief, Kasumi likes her gossip. Of course, she didn't tell me what had happened directly." She pursed her lips. "The crew are nearly as protective of you as they are of Shepard. I had almost come to agree with them. But ever since Gabby told her off a few weeks ago, Kasumi hasn't run her scramblers in engineering. We heard what happened down there."

She stopped. "Garrus." Garrus looked up at her finally.

"I'm not afraid to recommend Shepard remove you from the ground team," Lawson told him. "If I see or hear of anything like what happened down there happening again, I will."

Garrus started wiping down his action. "Shepard stopping someone from taking down some guy who deserves it? In case you hadn't noticed, she does that at least once a week."

"She doesn't stand in one of her squad's crosshairs for minutes on end to do it once a week," Miranda retorted. "You had that gun on her for minutes. If I'd been there, I'd have shot you."

Garrus reached over to place the action on the workbench with the rest of the parts of the Mantis. His hands shook. "I wasn't about to shoot Shepard." She knew that. She used that.

Miranda's ice-blue eyes raked over him. "Weren't you?" she demanded.

Garrus remembered that poisonous thought, fiery and insiduous. A shot to the leg won't kill her. He swallowed. His mandibles tightened and without his permission, his fists clenched at his sides. "I wasn't."

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Lawson's boot against the floor was the only sound above the humming of the Thanix. "Whether or not I believe you, I'm not sure that's our primary problem here," Lawson said at last. "The point is that Shepard stepped there in the first place."

"She'd do the same for you. For any of us."

"No one else would ever put her in that position," Miranda snapped. She took a breath. Tap. Tap. "We're expendable, all of us. Every one of us but her. Our job is to protect Commander Shepard. If you're determined to be stupid enough she feels she literally has to take a bullet for you, we'll find another gunnery officer and lieutenant."

Garrus scoffed. "It's generally a bad idea to make threats you can't carry out. It just makes you look like an idiot who's lost control. You're too experienced not to know that."

He had her, and she knew it. At this point, the relay team was set. Shepard was running her last drills, making sure everyone knew how to work together and everyone was ready for the mission, but Garrus guessed they'd hit the Omega-4 relay in three weeks, if it took that long. There were maybe a dozen engineers in the galaxy who knew how to calibrate a Thanix cannon. The tech was too new, only implemented on perhaps four Hierarchy ships so far. Recruiting someone else to work the gun—work it on a Cerberus ship—would be a long shot to begin with. Recruiting someone else that could work the gun and serve as a lieutenant in Shepard's ground team, working with her and everyone else, this late in the game? It would be next to impossible. Cerberus could hire two guys to do Garrus's job, but that got into a question of resource allocation, and timing would still be a bitch. At this point, Miranda and Cerberus were stuck with him, whether they liked it or not.

Miranda glared at him for a long moment. "As if I ever had any control here," she spat finally. Her voice was bitter. "Less than ever since you showed up."

"That's not my fault."

Miranda slashed her hand through the air, dismissing it. "Forget it. Just tell me: are you compromised?"

At first, Garrus didn't answer. "Not anymore," he said. Saying it was almost as difficult as lowering his rifle had been in the first place. He just felt tired now. Tired and empty—but somehow free.

Miranda's next question surprised him. "Is Shepard?"

Garrus looked up again. Miranda's gaze was serious, searching. Suddenly, he got it. She actually thinks if it was me or the mission that Shepard might hesitate.

Garrus stood and walked over to the gunnery console. He didn't know if he should be offended on Shepard's behalf or amused at the idea, considered both, and decided he didn't have time or space for either right now. He had even less time for the small, far-off, ego-driven part of himself that wanted to believe Lawson, was in fact flattered to do so—especially now.

But I know Shepard, and after months on her crew and spirits knows how many times reading her file, Lawson should know better too.

He told her as much. "You know, on Virmire, Shepard left Ashley Williams and a bunch of salarians to die because if the geth killed Kaidan and managed to override the bomb he was arming, our mission would fail."

"I've read the reports," Lawson told him. "And, as a professional, you don't think that, in a similar situation, Commander Shepard would be more hesitant to sacrifice you than she was to sacrifice Chief Williams on Virmire?"

Garrus shifted. He wanted to bring the calibration controls up, but he at least had it together enough to know that anything he tried to do right now would be crap. He stared down at the console.

Surgery without anaesthesia. Fighting in a krogan hospital. Getting reamed out by Pallin. Dinner with Dad. Garrus could think of a hundred nasty places he would rather be and a hundred unpleasant things he would rather be doing than professionally evaluating Shepard's detachment from him to Miranda Lawson. He didn't want to think about Shepard at all right now.

Finally, he shook his head. "I think she'd feel it more," he said. "Maybe a lot more. If there was any way she could save me, she would. She would've saved Williams and those salarians if she could. But if it came down to it, she'd do the right thing. I hope that answers your question."

Behind him, Lawson didn't reply. Garrus shifted again, then turned to face her. She'd tilted her head, listening to some sort of report over her radio. She straightened then and looked at him again. "EDI's picked up a report that was just filed in the C-Sec database," she said. "It seems a turian named Lantar Sidonis just turned himself in as a conspirator and accessory to ten counts of murder on Omega. They couldn't charge him for a crime committed outside of Citadel jurisdiction. Captain Bailey booked him for illegal immigration and fraudulent documents."

Garrus couldn't help laughing. The sound came out strangled and broken. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, bracing himself over the console. It was a moment before he could speak. "Can you go? Please?"

He felt Miranda still standing there, watching him for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was unreadable. "I'll see you aren't disturbed." Her heels clicked away, and the door hissed open and shut behind her.

Hours later, when Garrus checked the duty roster, half expecting a punishment there, instead of an assignment, he saw another note by his name. Duty optional, 1d18h14m, by order of Executive Officer M. Lawson.


The next morning, Garrus took a shower, changed undersuits, and reported to Doctor Chakwas for his semiweekly bandage change. He didn't actually need one anymore. The risk of infection was over, and there was a limit to how much more topical treatments on the scarring every day could improve the feeling on the right side of his face. He'd already got almost all of the range of motion back, and with such a severe burn, that was about as much as he could have hoped for, maybe more. It still looked raw enough that he preferred the bandage.

He left the med bay to grab breakfast from Gardner, but he stopped when he saw Shepard in the hallway outside the battery. Her hand stopped on its way to the access panel, dropped. She leaned back on her back leg, pivoted, and saw him watching her from the other end of the hallway. His visor picked up her flush.

He took the three steps up into the hallway and walked down to her. "Looking for me?"

She opened her mouth, shut it again. Then she sighed. "Want some breakfast?"

Without a word, Garrus gestured for her to proceed him back down the hall. "Garrus!" Gardner greeted him, standing over the range with a smile. "Saw you coming. I've already got some of yours in the pan. Have it out in a couple of minutes. What'll it be for you, Commander?"

"I'll just fix myself a bagel, Sergeant, thanks," Shepard said, slipping behind the counter and reaching up into the pantry. She pulled out the bag of bagels Gardner had defrosted yesterday, but before she got a plate or started fixing her meal, she pulled down the ariita beans from the top shelf and poured some into the left side of the coffee maker.

Gardner saw her doing it. "Shoot, I always forget. One of you is always doing it for me. Sorry, Garrus."

"Don't worry about it, Sergeant," Garrus said, as Shepard turned and began looking over the fixings Gardner had out for the crew's omelettes. "There's a lot of early risers on the Normandy. Pretty sure the coffee and the ariita pot are usually going before you open up shop, aren't they?"

"Still," Gardner insisted, "Feel like I'm slacking off. You shouldn't have to make sure the man gets his turian coffee in the morning, Shepard."

"If I'm here making sure I get coffee in the morning it takes all of one minute longer," Shepard replied, pouring herself a mug from the pot already full on the right as she spoke. She closed her bagel and picked up her plate right as Gardner plated Garrus's breakfast and handed it to him.

"Well, let me pour some for you anyway, Garrus, and tell me how your breakfast is, won't you? I really think I am getting better. As good as any human dextro cook with an allergy can be, anyway." He filled a second mug for Garrus, and Garrus nodded thanks and followed Shepard over to a table.

"Is he really getting better?" Shepard asked.

"Well. I've stopped feeling nauseated after meals." Garrus took a bite and considered. "Gardner seems to have graduated from 'absolutely revolting' to 'tasteless' or 'overdone.' So I guess you could say he is getting better."

"If it's just tasteless or overdone, we should get you some sauce or something. Drown your food and you'll be eating like most of us on a bad week."

Garrus managed a laugh. "Three cheers for the military."

Shepard swallowed some of her coffee. "So. Optional duty."

Garrus hummed. "Guessing it's no longer optional?"

Shepard shook her head. "It's optional." She paused. She wouldn't meet his eyes. "I work you hard, Garrus. I know that. Harder than anyone. And after yesterday—"

Garrus put down his fork. "I'd just as soon be back at work, honestly," he interrupted. "Stay busy."

"If you ever need some time—"

Garrus cut her off again. "I'll request it. What have you got?"

"Previous contract of Massani's, actually," Shepard told him. "Contingent of Blue Suns have seized an Eldfall-Ashland fuel refinery on Zorya. Eldfall-Ashland wants the Suns out and the refinery back, and they wouldn't complain if the workers being held hostage there and worked like slaves were liberated either. Liability issues." Shepard's voice was sardonic, but her face was soft. "If you're not up to it yet, you don't have to come. I can ask Krios or Samara, and it won't make a whole lot of difference. But I figured you might want to be there."

"Who's in the team?" Garrus asked.

"It's Zaeed's mission, so he's coming. I want Taylor and Jack along too."

Massani and Taylor and Jack. Garrus or Krios or Samara. Shepard was weighting the team toward experience today. And apparently expecting heavy resistance.

Garrus tapped his talons on the table. He acknowledged that part of him wanted to leave her to it. Just this once, she can do without me. He'd done everything but beg Shepard, more than once, to just do what he needed her to do. Not even that. Just to let him do what he needed to do, and in the end, she'd done the same thing she always did.

Well. At least she's consistent. And there's nothing like shooting a couple dozen bad guys to work off some frustration.

The Suns were illegally occupying a refinery, stealing resources, terrorizing several innocent civilians to do their work for them. Massani's mission sounded straightforward and uncomplicated, no messy moral quandaries or philosophical soul-searching required. Just like old times taking out gangs in the Traverse or freeing hostages for Hackett and the Alliance. But just like then, it had the potential to get ugly if they didn't handle it right. Did he really want her going in without him?

No, he decided. Not yet. Probably not ever. "I'm in, Shepard." he said finally.

Shepard searched his face. There was a tension to her this morning that he hadn't noticed before. There was a cool formality to the small talk, the way she'd requested him to join the ground team instead of just ordering it, that he hadn't seen from her since very early days on the SR-1, but the uncertainty he'd seen by the battery door was something else. Finally, she nodded. She stood. "We'll be in orbit in four hours. I guess we'll see you in the shuttle bay then.

"You will," Garrus promised. Shepard left, carrying her tray. Her breakfast was only half finished.

She doesn't know if we're okay, he realized.

Well, neither do I.

Garrus drank some ariita and started thinking about what guns he should bring down to Zorya.


The moisture in the air on Zorya hit before the heat; the humidity was thick enough that it had a taste. Garrus stepped out of the shuttle, and the moss underfoot squelched. The mud beneath sucked at his boots, and everywhere, as far as he could see, was green. Vines stretched from tree to towering tree. The light of Zorya's star, Faia, filtered down through the leaves overhead, and from the ferns and shrubs of the undergrowth that competed to receive it, Garrus heard the incessant, thrumming buzz of large insects.

Jack's face was the picture of disgust. She raised a hand and wiped her fingers across the front of her leather shirt—a Citadel acquisition that didn't protect her any more than the Purgatory harness had but at least covered a few more of the dizzying tattoos. Her fingers came away already damp with condensation. "Fuck!" she complained.

"It's a shithole," Massani agreed. "See Chakwas for the allergy shot? If you have any sort of allergies, this planet's a goddamn death trap."

Jack laughed. "Good thing Twitchy's not here then. One whiff, and the plants here would kill her dead."

"Actually, Tali'd probably be safer than we will without helmets," Shepard corrected her. "Her suit has some of the best antitoxin filters in the galaxy. They've probably burned away most of the harmful flora near the refinery, but if your eyes start watering or you start wanting to sneeze, put on a helmet. We're trying to be sneaky here."

Taylor rolled his eyes. "Cerberus's antihistimines should hold a full day after we're done here, boss, but we'll keep that in mind."

Garrus actually found Zorya a nice change of pace. The jungle world wasn't anything like the galactic hubs, nuclear wastes, and junkyard planets they'd visited recently. The tropical climate was definitely more to his taste than some of the frozen rocks Shepard had dragged him to—more alive than anywhere he'd been in a while.

But Massani was done with the travel notes. His omni-tool was up, and he was already in a ready stance. "Tapping into Blue Suns communications," he said. "Stay tight and watch for ambushes."

A new hiss sounded over the radio. "Squad Bravo," a man was saying. "A shuttle landed near your location. Check it out."

Garrus pulled out his sniper rifle.

"Go ahead and take point, Zaeed," Shepard said.

Massani nodded, terse. "Here we go. Keep close."

By this time, Garrus had a good idea of how to work in any grouping of Shepard's ground team. Taylor and Massani would lead any assault here. With the two of them up front, Jack would fall back. She wouldn't have as much fun, but she would actually do more damage, focusing her efforts mostly on biotic support. Garrus would be in the rear and at the edges of the line with Shepard, sniping at range; flanking, when they could. This particular team was probably one of the most classically military that Shepard could have fielded, tailored to take on a large number of well-trained Blue Suns soldiers in an entrenched position when there might be several complications.

A Bravo Squad meant there was also an Alpha Squad, which mean they were looking at at least sixteen Suns here. In fact, this contingent was probably closer to platoon-strength, since they had the civilian workers of the refinery under control. The five of them would have to root out the Suns, avoid firing on any civilians, and resolve any hostage situations that came up—all while avoiding damage to the refinery, if Massani was to succeed in his mission. Then the path twisted, and they saw a jumpsuited corpse lying on the ground.

Garrus stopped at the body. He was human. Garrus guessed he was middle-aged. He'd died from a gunshot to the spine, but the ripe smell rising from the corpse and the ants and flies already crawling over it made it hard to tell more than that. He'd obviously been dead at least a few hours. "Think it's just this one, or have they killed more of the workers?" Taylor asked.

"We won't find out from here," Garrus answered.

Massani grunted. "Shot in the back and left to rot. That's definitely Vido's style. Let's push ahead."

Garrus glanced at Massani. "Vido?"

"Vido Santiago," Massani told him. "He's the guy in charge."

The name was familiar to Garrus, and he frowned, turning to Shepard. "I know him," he said. "Ran across the name back on Omega, doing recon on the Blue Suns. Shepard, this isn't some random cell. Vido Santiago runs the whole organization."

Shepard's eyes narrowed, and she turned to Massani, but just then, the insects stopped chirping in the underbrush. Around the next bend of the path, Garrus heard the wet thud of other boots on the soft ground, the rattle of ceramic plate.

Jacob and Jack lit up blue with biotic barriers. All five of them fanned out, Shepard activated her tactical cloak, and Garrus moved back into the shadows of the trees beside the path. As they rounded the corner, they saw Bravo Squad, eight humans, turians, and batarians stationed around temporary-looking concrete barricades that had obviously been trucked out here and set up to impede progress toward the refinery.

Two of them saw Massani, Taylor, and Jack. "Intruders spotted!" one yelled, opening fire.

Jack's barrier shoved the shot to the side. She hit the ground, and a shockwave went up, pulsing out from where she stood like a freight train. Six of the eight men were thrown off their feet with the force of it. Massani opened fire before they could rise again, his Vindicator echoing through the trees. A turian's shields blinked out, only for his face to be blown away in a hailfire of bullets. Shepard's Widow cracked out from the east, and a batarian went down in a heap.

Vido Santiago's voice cut through on the radio. "Command to Bravo: Take the position! Likely these people are not runaways."

Garrus aimed and fired twice from his position in the trees, making the headshot each time. Taylor floated the third for him—Garrus's third shot hit the human's head at the same time as Taylor's shotgun blast punched right through the armor on his abdomen, leaving a messy, gaping wound.

Bravo Squad was eradicated in another three seconds. They'd been on patrol, unprepared and mostly in the open, but Garrus didn't expect they'd take out the next ones so easily. Shepard gestured the four of them on, and they continued down the path.

The trees opened up ahead, and Garrus saw the first signs that the refinery was close. Over the path, a more permanent scaffolding had been set up—rusted, so it had obviously existed before the Suns had arrived. Here, outgoing shuttles would have been able to pick up cargo and inbound ones would have dropped off supplies. Trucks would have carried the cargo both ways to and from the more secure refinery up a more established road.

As they approached, the radio crackled. "Report to base: Armed intruders incoming at the southern checkpoint!"

"Heads up," Massani called, gesturing with his gun toward a catwalk over the checkpoint, where the Blue Suns were setting up a crossfire.

Garrus adjusted his path to line up shots toward the catwalk, as more troops streamed out on the ground level toward them from the north. "I'm on it."

There was cover on the right, a column of metal and cement that would serve as a landmark for incoming shuttles. Garrus took up a post behind it, bludgeoning a man down and out of his way as he went. The butt of his rifle to the head put him down; a hard stomp on his throat took him out and saved the ammo. Garrus felt the guy's windpipe crunch under his boot before the guy had a chance to bring his combat knife around.

Immediately in front of him, Jack and Jacob were tag-teaming their biotics to tear the guys on the ground apart, while Massani was watching the advance position.

"Reinforcements incoming," some Blue Sun said over the radio. "We've got your backs!"

The shots to the top of the catwalk were easy ones, even from the low ground. Garrus took out both snipers in four seconds. Shepard knocked the turian climbing up the stairs to strengthen the position right off the steps and over the railing with her Widow, and sent an incendiary after him—just in case she hadn't killed him already.

It was easy. It was play. When the reinforcements for the checkpoint started coming in, they'd already sewn the road up into a bottleneck—a foolproof kill zone. Stupid, Garrus thought dispassionately. They had the entire jungle to set up scouts and snipers in, and they picked the obvious positions. Either they'd been reckless enough to think no one would really show up to take the refinery back, or Vido Santiago was old and powerful enough he'd forgotten what it was like to be vulnerable. Well. We can teach him that.

His men weren't quite so stupid. After about six of the reinforcements had gone down, someone called the retreat. "All squads, fall back!"

Santiago countermanded the order right away. "This is Commander Santiago. If any of you retreat while the intruders are still alive, I'll kill you myself. Now get the hell back out there!"

But there were maybe four of them left outside the refinery itself. Garrus saw them. By now, he'd taken the catwalk position for himself. He saw them, coming down the road, stalking toward the entrance to the checkpoint. Two actually did try to leave the road and head for the trees. "Watch the treeline," he warned.

"They want to play games?" Jack snarled. "Cute." She used her biotics to rip one out of the trees. Taylor fired his shotgun, and Jack's target went limp, dead weight until the field that held him suspended collapsed. Massani mowed down the other, and Garrus and Shepard took out the last two.

The bottleneck into the road to the refinery was choked with corpses by now—ten of them. Red and blue blood ran together into the dirt, and the metallic smell cut over the scent of the trees and plants. Massani pushed the bodies aside with his boot, and Garrus and the others followed him through the checkpoint.

The road broke off ahead, cut in two by a river that ran through a deep, rocky ravine. The refinery wall was on the other side, rising up on the other side of the bank. The access panel on the door glowed an angry red—locked down, but they could fix that. The more immediate problem was the bridge across the ravine. It had been retracted. Fortunately, there was an access panel on this side of the road. Normally, the bridge would probably be extended with an employee access card; they'd have to hack the terminal.

Shepard walked up to it, taking her time. To her left, mist rose up from the waterfall that thundered down into the ravine from hills to the west. Garrus noted the humidity on Zorya had done a number on the product she usually used to keep her hair gelled down. Tiny curls were forming a fascinating nimbus all around her head. Only humans, he thought, amused. The corner of Jack's mouth was twitching as she looked at Shepard too. I wonder if that's why she keeps her head shaved.

But Shepard didn't seem bothered by the way her human hair was taking on a life of its own. She was only half paying attention to the access console, watching Massani, who was staring at the refinery, a tic in his jaw.

"Vido," he growled, almost to himself. "Sounds like he hasn't changed."

"Leader of the Blue Suns," Shepard observed. "I'm not too impressed so far. You know more about this guy than you said, though, Zaeed. You've got a past."

Massani gripped the rail that ran along the side of the ravine. "I knew he was a sadistic bastard back when we started the Blue Suns. The Suns only got meaner after he staged his little coup twenty years ago. So, yeah. We have a past."

Garrus stared at the merc. He'd guessed Massani was bad news from the beginning, known he'd had a past with the Suns, but he had never suspected this. "You're the founder of the Blue Suns?!"

Massani flashed his teeth in mirthless amusement at Garrus. "Surprise," he deadpanned. "Vido wiped me out of the records," he explained. "He ran the books, I led the men. Worked real well for a while. Then Vido decided to start hiring batarians. 'Cheaper labor,' he said." He made a face. "'Goddamn terrorists,' I said."

Shepard folded her arms and leaned back on one hip. She was angry. "You didn't tell me about this for the slaves, did you?" She asked it like a question, but they all knew the answer. "Twenty years is a long time to hold a grudge."

Massani exploded. "A grudge?!" He shouted, flinging his arms out and stepping up into Shepard's face. Jack lit up blue with her biotics, but Garrus held up a hand. Wait. "Vido turned my men against me," Massani was saying. "He paid six of them to restrain me while he put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger! For twenty years, I've seen that bastard every time I close my eyes, every time I sighted down on a target, every time I heard a gunshot. Don't you call that a goddamn grudge!"

Jack's biotics died down, and there was a strange expression on her face. For the first time, Garrus had some idea of what might be going on in her head, and he shifted at the idea he might have it in common with her. There was a sour taste in his mouth and a knot in his gut. Every time I close my eyes. Every time I sight down on a target. There was a nasty echo here he wasn't liking at all. First mission after Sidonis walks, and this is what we get. I would have been better off taking Miranda's optional leave.

Shepard couldn't have known. Could she? He looked over at her, and saw her eyes flit to him too. No. She hadn't known, but she saw the parallels just like he did. She turned her attention back to Massani, gesturing at his cybernetic eye, the scarring on his face. "Your head. You survived a gunshot to the head?"

Massani grunted. "Yeah." He jerked his hand toward Garrus. "He took a rocket. You survived your ship getting disintegrated. A stubborn enough person can survive just about anything. Rage is a hell of an anaesthetic."

Something stiffened in Shepard's face. She didn't like Massani identifying with her. She shook her head. "We're here to free these people," she said. "Let's get moving." She hacked the bridge access terminal in a few deft strokes, and a metal bridge shrieked out from the other side of the ravine to connect with their side of the road. And Shepard folded up her sniper rifle, drew her Locust, and took point from Massani. The message was clear: our mission, not yours.

Some of that rage Massani had mentioned crossed his face again. Garrus frowned. Massani wasn't any innocent. Seizing control of a mercenary gang from another hardened killer wasn't the same as betraying people who had once been your friends to their enemies. But he got where Massani's head was at. It was a little much that the former leader of the Blue Suns settle his score when Shepard had stopped Garrus from settling his. Garrus was willing to bet that if Massani had held onto the Blue Suns all those years ago, they wouldn't be too different from what they were today, whether or not they took on batarians. Still, if they could manage to take down Vido Santiago within the narrow confines of Shepard's moral principles, Garrus would be happy to help Massani out, and he figured they would do a lot of good.

But Massani had lied here—kept back information about the mission that might have helped them out, anyway—and there was something ugly in his face. And if Massani hadn't been lying about the rest of the situation here, circumstances were very different than they'd been yesterday on the Citadel when Shepard had stepped into Garrus's crosshairs. Vido Santiago and the Blue Suns contingent here had a bunch of captive civilians in their power. The safety of the refinery workers came first, and Garrus would support Shepard in that, whether Massani liked it or not.

Garrus signaled Taylor behind Zaeed's back—Watch him—and Taylor signaled back a discreet affirmative.

Santiago's voice came over the radio. "They're at the southern access," he said. "All squads, mass at the gatehouse, now!"

"They know we're here," Massani muttered. "Bring it on, you son of a bitch!"

"Squads Charlie, Delta! Mass at the gatehouse!" someone ordered.

"Sounds like it'll be fun in there," Jack remarked.

"If this is the gatehouse, maybe not just yet," Garrus replied. Shepard was hacking the door, and he switched his sniper for his assault rifle.

The door opened, and the five of them walked into the refinery gatehouse.

The Suns were waiting for them. The squads Santiago had sent for hadn't arrived yet: Garrus saw just five other men in the room. Two on either side of the exit to the refinery courtyard, and three on the catwalk that ran over it, the guard post of the building.

The man in the center checked when he saw them. From the silver growing in at the temples of his gelled black hair and the fine lines across his face, similar to the wear on a turian's plates, Garrus guessed the human was in his fifties, maybe older. Roughly Massani's age, anyway, but while he was in the same excellent physical condition, the Blue Suns armor he wore was of a much higher quality than Zaeed's battered yellow plate. His face wasn't as rough, but looked crueler. So this was Vido Santiago, leader of the Blue Suns.

Santiago smiled slowly, white teeth flashing with amusement. "Zaeed Massani. You finally tracked me down."

Massani's hands tightened on his assault rifle. His face was so contorted it was almost unrecognizable. "Vido," he ground out.

More Blue Suns were filing in the gate now. Charlie or Delta Squad, it looked like, but not both. Santiago's smile widened. "Don't be stupid, Zaeed," he counseled. "I have a whole company of bloodthirsty bastards behind me, ready to kill or be killed on my command." He scoffed. "Actually, take your shot. Give my men a reason to put you down like the mad dog you are. Again."

Massani's chest was heaving. They were in a bad position, and it was getting worse by the moment, but Garrus still didn't expect it when Zaeed broke off in a run to the left, firing his assault rifle with a scream.

In a second, Garrus saw what he was doing. Massani's bullets had hit an exposed gas line in the gatehouse. It was the same move Shepard had made to even a tactically disadvantageous room back on Tuchanka, but here in a gas refinery, it would have far more dramatic consequences.

"No!"

"No, Zaeed—" Shepard started at the same time.

Santiago laughed as the gas hissed out of the pipes. "What was that? Gone nearsighted, old friend?"

Massani grit out the words between his teeth: "Burn, you son of a bitch!" He fired again.

Jack and Taylor saved their asses. Jack hurled Massani back from the explosion and threw up a barrier in front of them, but it would have failed in a second if Taylor hadn't done the same thing. The flames from the gas explosion licked over the barrier and couldn't pass it, but the heat still left Garrus gasping as oxygen rushed to feed the flames.

In the shadows behind the fire, Garrus saw Santiago and his men hurled back, shields flickering but not taken down. "You just signed your death warrant, Massani!" Santiago yelled.

Massani staggered to his feet and fired on the gas line in another place. More flames shot up. Garrus heard breaking glass and screaming in the distance.

"What the hell are you doing?" Shepard demanded. "There are civilians in there!"

"I'm opening the gate!" Massani snarled. The Blue Suns had retreated from the fire, heading toward an alternate exit. The gate was left undefended. They were free to charge into the refinery. But in the courtyard, the fires in the gas lines were already spreading.

Shepard was squared off against Massani. She was livid, eyes blazing as bright as the flames, SMG raised. "We don't sacrifice lives for the sake of the mission! There's always a better way."

Massani sneered. "Like on Purgatory? We could wander around the jungle for hours looking for another way in. You want to waste time out here, go ahead. I'm gonna kill Vido."

He turned away from Shepard, and in a flat second, she'd holstered her Locust, caught Massani's shoulder, and hit him with a hard hook to the jaw. Massani fell back, sprawling, glaring up at her.

"We completed our mission on Purgatory," Shepard snapped. "You're endangering ours right here—dozens of innocent people—for your own selfish revenge."

Zaeed staggered to his feet. Behind him, around him, in the courtyard beyond, the flames he'd started were beginning to crackle, gaining strength, spreading. "You really want to do this, Shepard?" he challenged her.

Jack started glowing again, and Garrus raised his gun, but Shepard just turned on her heel. "I ought to knock you the hell out," she said, disgusted. "But thanks to you, we have a burning refinery to save."

Massani wiped his mouth, where blood was running from a split lip. He spat. "Let these people burn! Vido dies, whatever the cost!"

His mismatched eyes glowed with the reflected flames, and despite the growing fire, Garrus felt cold.


A/N: So I wrote huge chunks of this chapter and the following three back in February and March then lost all that work in a save failure. I tried to retrieve it in multiple ways but couldn't manage it. So I got sulky. All that work, gone! I could never recreate exactly what I had done. I was depressed. I was irritated. And, I discovered, I was a little burnt out. So after I got done sulking, I took several more weeks off, to rest my brain, and to rejuvenate my love for this story. But now I'm back at work on the second half of Sometimes Grace. I hope some of you people who were enjoying the story prior to my unexplained absence are back too. If you're new instead, welcome! Hope you like the fic too. I'm going to try and press forward a little more regularly now. This is an interesting phase of the story as well.

Reviews are never required but always appreciated, and I reply to every one.

Best Always,

LMSharp