XLIX
The Other Side of Impossible: Through the Looking Glass
The two-minute warning sounded, alerting the crew to be at their stations near a seat or a safety harness prior to a relay jump. Garrus stepped out of the bathroom, his hide still wet from the shower. He was wearing his bodysuit, but his plate armor was still back in the battery.
So of course, that was the moment Lawson picked to round the corner from the XO office, headed for the elevator to the command deck. She saw him and stopped dead in her tracks. She looked him up and down. Her lips went white. Her jaw went tight. Her nostrils flared, and her eyes narrowed.
There was a reason Garrus had wanted to wait until just before the Relay before heading up to Shepard's cabin in any sexual capacity. He met Lawson stare for stare, waiting. She's professional about it, but she's Cerberus to the core, or at least she started out that way. No Alliance frat regs, but I'll just bet Cerberus has opinions on fraternization with aliens, particularly with turians.
But Lawson surprised him. She just took in a breath and lifted her chin. "Is the commander ready?" she asked.
He didn't deny he'd just seen her. "She should be." After all, she didn't have to head to a different deck for a shower.
Lawson nodded. "Get to your station and arm up. We don't have much time, and we're going to need you."
Garrus nodded back and passed her without another word. But he smiled as he headed back to the battery.
Tali was already on the comm, on a private channel between her terminal in Engineering and the main battery console. "Garrus, come in! We need you at the battery console. Garrus, are you there?"
Garrus triggered the radio remotely with his omni-tool and started fitting his greaves on by the workbench. "I'm here, Tali."
"I have Caleb at Donnelly's station," Tali told him, "but he's a shuttle pilot. He won't be able to respond to changes in our power draw needs in advanced aerial maneuvers and starship combat the same way as a trained engineer. I'm projecting a monitor twinning his feed from my omni-tool, but I don't like this, Garrus. We don't know what's waiting on the other side of that relay."
She was speaking too fast, her voice higher and her accent thicker than usual. Garrus snapped his breastplate over his head and picked up his gauntlets before walking over to the security harness straps waiting by the gunnery console.
"EDI's backstopping everything we do, Tali," he told her. "Main reason Cerberus fitted the Normandy with an artificial intelligence in the first place. We aren't going into this fight without a safety net."
"But can we trust her?" Tali wanted to know. "She saved Joker, but what if she betrays us to the Collectors? They work for the Reapers. She's free now. It would make more sense for her to side with other AI than the people who shackled and enslaved her."
Garrus shook his head. Tali couldn't see him, but it still felt right. "Her self-awareness filters all through the Normandy now. If the ship goes down, so does she. She'll fight for us—at least in this battle." He finished buckling his gauntlets down and began fastening his security harness just as Joker's voice sounded over the ship's speaker system.
"Approaching Omega-4 Relay," he announced. "Everyone stand by."
Shepard's voice answered, speaking to Joker, but so the entire crew could hear her. "Let's make it happen."
Tali's voice came through the battery terminal, soft and small. "I'm scared, Garrus."
Garrus's heart clenched. He felt cold all over. "I know," he managed. "Me too."
EDI's tones echoed through the ship, perfectly calm. "Reaper IFF activated. Signal acknowledged."
A muffled shout came from the terminal—Niels, cursing down in Engineering. Alarms sounded all through the battery, blaring out like klaxons as power demands on the Thanix cannon and secondary weapons systems made the current settings completely inviable. Garrus sprang into action, bracing himself on the console. The ship bucked and shivered all around him.
Ignore it. Just ignore it.
"Drive core electrical charge at critical levels," EDI reported.
"Rerouting!" Joker's voice called.
"Filtering through the propulsion systems," Tali said. "Venting heat sinks. Caleb, not into life support! Send the charge to crew deck lighting!"
"I'm balancing the influx to the guns," Garrus said. "Hold it steady!"
All around him, the ship's bulkheads strained and whined. The Normandy hurtled through space and time. Of course, the ship did this on a daily basis, but this time was different. This time, they were hurtling toward the dying core of the galaxy, hundreds or thousands of exploding stars and ravening, expanding black holes. Trusting to enemy technology that it wouldn't tear them apart.
The Normandy wasn't designed to survive the Omega-4 Relay. The technology was different from every other relay in the galaxy. The Reapers had built the others to encourage galactic expansion, maybe to speed up the harvest. This one was a gate no one but the Collectors was ever meant to go through. Garrus could feel the relay, looking them over, deciding whether they ought to be allowed.
EDI's voice rang out. "Brace for deceleration."
Garrus gripped the edges of the battery console and planted his feet, gritting his teeth against the change. Even with the Normandy's inertial dampeners, it was a jolt as they left the other side of the relay, entering regular space-time and Collector space. Garrus's stomach rebelled, and he had a wild moment where he was grateful he and Shepard hadn't gotten to the dextro wine he'd brought up to her cabin.
"Energy levels normalizing," Tali said.
"Lights are out on the crew deck," Niels reported. "All power to the doors is down. I couldn't control the surge. The system's overloaded."
"I'll work on fixing the doors, Caleb. You need to calibrate what we have now and divert it to shields and weapons systems."
As frightened as Tali had been before the jump, now her voice was calm and steady. Garrus took a minute to admire his friend. He'd gone through the Conduit with Shepard during the Ilos Run and nearly burned up in the Mako doing it, but the SR-1 had had its own fight to collect the Alliance and get back for the Battle of the Citadel in time to engage Sovereign and the geth. He'd known Tali's engineering expertise had been instrumental in the Normandy's contributions to that fight. Now here she was again, with a shuttle pilot and a gun tech subbing in for the rest of her engineering team, keeping their girl flying past anywhere organics with souls were ever meant to fly. And we're doing it.
"Garrus, you still with us?" Niels asked.
"Receiving," Garrus answered, entering adjustments into the battery computer with the virtue of weeks and months of practice calibrating the weapons systems. "We've got secondary laser guns back up. Working on reintegrating the Thanix." They all knew there would eventually be a space fight here. The Normandy needed to be ready.
"I have detected an energy signature near the edge of the accretion disc," EDI told them all.
Shepard spoke next. "It must be the Collector base. Take us in for a closer look, nice and easy."
Target sighted, Garrus thought. But even as he thought it, the proximity alerts began flashing on the targeting computer.
"Careful, Jeff," EDI said, still projecting her voice for the combat team, strapped into stations all over the ship, some without light or locked in rooms without windows due to overloads during the relay jump. "We have company."
"Taking evasive maneuvers," Joker said, and the inertial dampeners kicked in as the Normandy began to spiral and dance through a series of aerial acrobatics tight and complicated enough to shear a freighter in half.
"I can't get a fix," Garrus said, watching the dots on his screen that represented automated Collector drones or possibly fighters on their perimeter. The ship shook, and he knew at least one of the bogeys on their tail wasn't having the same problem. "EDI, going to need your help with this."
"Ready," the AI said, speaking over the private engineering channel instead of on the comm. "Seizing calibration controls for secondary weapons systems. Keep a consistent power feed."
"Aye-aye," Garrus said, watching the numbers on the secondary weapons screen shift without his say-so. He felt a swooping in his stomach that had nothing to do with Joker's flying or the vibrations of the ship as more Collector weapons made impact. They were helpless, completely dependent on the good grace and proficiency of an unshackled Cerberus AI. If we survive the next few minutes, I'm going to have to reevaluate trusting her.
"Okay, they're just pissing me off," Joker cried over the comm. "EDI, take these bastards out!"
"I've restored power to crew quarters," Tali said. Garrus let the announcement pass out of his mind. Honestly, unless they had to head to the escape pods, it couldn't matter less whether or not the crew doors had power. And if we have to do that, this far into the Core, all we'll be buying is a few extra minutes.
Over the comm, he heard Joker's voice, triumphant, urging on EDI or the Normandy. Is there a difference anymore? In this fight? On the targeting computer, he saw they'd hit at least three of the bogeys on their tail with secondary weapons.
Then the ship bucked and rolled under a greater impact than any so far, and over the radio, he heard Caleb and Tali both shout. Another alarm began blaring, and EDI said some of the worst words you ever wanted to hear in a space battle: "Alert: Hull breach on engineering deck."
Panic surged through Garrus like a drug, then he heard Tali—"Mass effect envelope in place. Atmosphere and pressure holding, but there's—"
The shriek of a beam weapon sounded in the distance. "It's in the cargo hold!" Joker yelled.
Shepard's voice came over the comm. "I'll take a team and deal with the intruder. You get the rest of them off our tail."
"Aye-aye, Commander." Joker.
Garrus's eyes flitted to the workbench, where his Mantis, Mattock, and Vindicator were waiting. He couldn't go this time. Whatever enemy had breached and boarded the ship, Beth would have to handle it without him. And he'd have to stay and listen to the enemy right outside Tali's door. Tali. Vas Normandy with him, Shepard, and Joker now Chakwas was gone, one of the best and only friends he had left.
Shepard was on an open radio channel to the entire combat team now, talking fast and breathing hard as she ran through the ship. "Tali, Caleb, seal engineering," she ordered. "Jack, stay put! Grunt, seal your compartment! Thane, grab a helmet and meet me on the engineering deck! Massani, we'll see you there!"
Garrus frowned, wondering why she wanted Krios instead of Grunt or Jack, who were already down in Engineering. Then he got it. Grunt's a planetside operative. All krogan are. They aren't used to fighting situations where gravity or air might go out. Krios has probably trained to kill in any possible environment. And Jack's sealed in engineering proper, back with Tali and Niels. If the mass effect envelope gives out, we don't want her breaking airlock.
Anyway, a biotic, stealth-trained, long-range operative at her back gives Shepard a little more flexibility.
"Jack, what the hell are you doing here?" Tali demanded, voice muffled as she spoke over her shoulder instead of into her work station terminal. "Shepard told you to stay put!"
The biotic's voice was faint, a ways away from the radio speaker. "I am staying put!" she argued. "I'm staying put right here in Engineering. But if Shepard thinks I'm going to stay down in the subdeck where I can't do shit when there's an invader just outside, she can get spaced! And just in case she does, you need someone at your back so you can keep the Normandy flying, whatever happens!"
"It's a good call, Tali," Garrus said. Jack wasn't the most disciplined member of the team, but she was smart. "Tell me what's happening."
"Can you hear the beam breaking up? I think someone's engaged," Tali reported. "There's an assault rifle firing."
"Any further breaches to the bulkheads?"
"I don't have access to a live feed of the ship's schematics," Tali told him. "Mass effect field is maintaining. Grav and pressure in the shuttle bay is consistent. Life support still active."
"If that thing trashes the Kodiak . . ." Niels threatened.
"Or the Hammerhead," Garrus said grimly. "Don't have a lot of time right now to make repairs." He heard a distant crack over the comm. "That's the Widow," he said immediately.
"Shepard must have reached the shuttle bay," Tali agreed. "What do you think got in here?" Her voice had gone high and anxious again.
Garrus gripped the edge of the console. "Ignore it," he ordered finally, as a pop-up feed he had reporting on systems in engineering began to flash. "You two have to balance the propulsion systems with power to kinetic barriers. That thing's friends outside haven't stopped."
"Right," Tali said. "Caleb, we need to vent the heat sinks again. I'll see if I can direct the vents toward the largest groupings of the enemy fliers. Garrus, can you give me a direction?"
Garrus smiled fiercely. Tali was planning the space combat equivalent of shooting out a power coupling—weaponizing a natural process of the Normandy against the enemy. He shared his screen with engineering, showing her the coordinates she wanted, the flashing targeting computer with its array of Collector bots and drones.
"Garrus," Caleb said suddenly. "It's stopped. The fire outside in the shuttle bay."
Garrus's stomach dropped, and his mouth went dry. Silence crackled over the radio, and he knew in that moment, he, Tali, Niels, and Jack were all wondering the same damn thing: Why had the fire stopped?
Is Shepard alright?
Normandy shuddered again, taking still more fire from outside the hull.
Joker was done taking fire. "We're sitting ducks out here!" he shouted. "I have to try to lose them in the debris field!"
"Keelah, the shields!" Tali cried. "Garrus, we're going to have to take back power from weapons."
Over the ship-wide radio, Garrus could hear EDI and Joker, arguing in the cockpit about the same thing the rest of them were.
"I'm going in," Joker snapped. "Find some room!"
The knocks against the Normandy changed size. The hull wasn't taking targeted gun and laser fire now—it was being battered by ships and asteroids from across the millennia. From engineering, Garrus heard Tali murmuring something his translator implant didn't catch—a quarian prayer or a succession of curses. His translator did catch Jack's language, fuzzy in the background. She was yelling, cursing Shepard and Cerberus and the Collectors and Joker in one blue, incoherent streak.
Garrus tightened the straps on the harness lashing him to the battery railing.
"Kinetic barriers at 40 percent." There was an edge of anxiety in EDI's artificial voice, usually smooth as the glass on a Cipritine skyscraper. Garrus wondered if the AI was scared.
"Reroute noncritical power," Joker said. It sounded like he was gritting his teeth. "This is gonna hurt."
There was a loud bang and a shearing sound on the other end of the battery—outside, the impact on the ship would be totally silent. But in the confines of the pressurized battery, the bulkheads whined.
Garrus couldn't be too unnerved, though. The shockwave had hit. He'd fallen into the battery terminal in a crash of armor plating and tangled limbs.
The battery lights died. Emergency lighting came on all around, red and eerie in the sudden darkness. Another impact. Some wiring shook loose from the ceiling, falling down to swing over the main gun.
Ignore it. Ignore it.
The battery terminal still had power, glowing in the dark. Garrus staggered to his feet and hit the sequence to transfer all weapons power back to Niels in engineering, to EDI and to Joker. He watched as power drained away from the guns, leaving the Normandy lame and toothless.
I've just gambled everything on the skill of our injured, disabled pilot, operating independently without any of his usual crew. Garrus's ears strained, trying to hear the debris they were passing—metal and real bones in a starship graveyard, a virtual minefield of the failures of the ages.
He closed his eyes and thought of his mother.
Then it stopped. The Normandy leveled out. Impacts against the hull stopped coming. The ship went quiet, and behind him, an access panel Garrus hadn't even noticed go dark lit up green again as power came back to his own door. He let out a long, shuddering breath.
"Damage report!" Joker barked over the comm.
EDI's voice returned. "Kinetic barriers steady at 30 percent. No significant damage."
Out of his terminal speakers, Garrus could hear Jack and Niels, whooping and cheering like complete and total lunatics. But Tali spoke to him. "Are you alright, Garrus?"
"Alright here," he answered, as Joker breathed a sigh of relief over the comm and told EDI to take the helm. "There was a big impact on the hull at the other end of the battery here, but it didn't breach. You?"
"The drive core's getting something of a workout today," Tali told him. "It's taking some doing to keep it in check—I think Cerberus forgot some of the coolant systems the flotilla installs on all its military frigates. But now, I think we'd better get some power back to the guns. Ready?"
"Ready."
"Wait—" Tali said, and EDI's voice cut over the sound of hers.
"I have detected an enemy headed for the cargo hold."
A crack sounded over the radio—the Widow again. Garrus's legs nearly buckled. He closed his eyes again. Until this second, he hadn't processed just how worried he'd been about Shepard. He hadn't given himself the chance. Shepard's alive.
"Shit!" Jack yelled in the background. "That thing's back, isn't it?!"
Garrus listened to the gunfire through the radio and watched power come back to Normandy's guns. Secondary weapons and then the Thanix. He started up a calibration sequence, warming the cannon up to fire. Just in case.
Then another radio channel crackled to life over the speakers—Shepard. "Got it," she said, sounding completely calm. "Engineering, stay at your stations. Stay sharp. But the immediate danger's past."
Another round of cheering broke out in Engineering. Garrus bowed his head. Thank you, spirits.
"Better get back up here, Commander," Joker said over the comm.
Lawson chimed in right behind him. "We're about to clear the debris field."
For nearly two minutes, it was quiet all over the ship. Tali and Niels fed more and more power to the gun. They'd heard the same thing he had—in a second, they'd be out in the open without any cover. As violent and problematic as Joker's debris field was, it had probably saved all their lives. If they got caught in another Collector drone-and-fighter crossfire, now, they could be done for.
"There it is: The Collector base." Miranda's voice on the ship-wide bridge channel sounded awed, a little amazed they'd gotten this far.
Shepard had obviously made it back up to the bridge. Her voice came next. "See if you can find a place to land without drawing attention."
"Too late!" Joker cried. "Looks like they're sending out an old friend to greet us."
With a cold, focused hatred, Garrus stared at the EM profile moving slowly over the screen of the targeting computer, out from the hulk that had to be the Collector space station. Bit by bit it emerged, the outlines of the ship that had hit Horizon, the ship he and Shepard and Miranda had fought their way off of in a frenzied rush. The ship that blew up the Normandy.
"Engineering and gunnery team," EDI's voice said, her voice sounding out of his terminal channel instead of the bridge radio this time. "Thank you. You have been rebooting and calibrating weapons systems. Locking onto the Collector vessel signal now. Garrus—ah, yes, I have the trajectory."
If "hull breach" was the last thing you wanted to hear in spaceship combat, the next words Shepard said were words Garrus had been waiting to hear for months. "Time to show our new teeth. Fire the main gun!"
Garrus gave over control to EDI. All the systems on the Thanix blazed red. His visor registered a change of 10 degrees in the battery. The cannon screamed, and so did Garrus, yelling as the targeting computer displayed the trajectory, the broadside hit on the Collector vessel. "Yes!"
"How do you like that, you sons of bitches!?" Joker cheered.
Shepard's voice over the comm was cold and satisfied. "Get in close and finish them off."
"Everybody hold on!" Joker yelled. "Gonna be a wild ride!"
And the Normandy started gyrating again, diving and spiraling and circling past anything the inertial dampeners would ever be able to keep up with. Garrus tightened his harness straps again and held onto the battery console, punching in power draw corrections to maintain the Thanix's fire. The ship was moving too fast and too much for him to have any chance of calculating another firing solution; the calibration numbers changed automatically as EDI manned the gun.
"Give 'em hell, girl!" Joker cried.
The Thanix shrieked—the Normandy, shrieking defiance at her enemies. And a strange feeling came over Garrus, as he thought he could hear EDI shrieking too, as loud as he'd done earlier. Not with the soft, harmless-sounding helpful voice Cerberus had programmed her to have, but with everything she'd become since—in what had only been a few hours from an organic perspective, but could be lifetimes to AI. He could sense her, in the dented, wounded bulkheads, the energy pulsing through his terminal, to Tali's and back again. The shrieking war cry of the Thanix was also EDI, fighting for the ship, everyone still inside her, and everyone they'd lost.
She's vas Normandy too, he thought, dizzier with the idea than he was with Moreau's maneuvers. It was too big to comprehend, an insane combat dream or a flash of intuition, but suddenly he felt he got the ship AI, that he could trust it, like Shepard, like Joker, and that he'd always been able to. The ship isn't just her home; she's become the ship. And she loves us like the Normandy does. She's like . . . like a living spirit. Or she's become one. The spirit of our home and the spirit of our cause.
Then, on the targeting computer, he saw the Collector vessel break up, pieces as big as meteors flying out from the point of impact. "Oh, hell . . ." he swore.
A massive blow shook the Normandy. Garrus was thrown off his feet and would have fallen to the deck if it weren't for his safety harness. It caught him with enough of a jerk that he knew it was a good thing his hardsuit absorbed and dispersed the impact. That would have been my pelvis . . .
His visor'd been thrown off of his head. The guns behind him flew into a wall. One of the loose cords from the ceiling actually broke entirely, showering sparks like rain over the battery.
The Normandy was spinning, hurtling through the air without direction. Then she began to strain—Joker, fighting to regain control. Alarms were blaring, emergency lighting flashing. The door behind him opened, and the crew deck elevators to ship's escape pods, on either side of the walkway to the battery, lit up.
In a glance over his shoulder, Garrus caught sight of Krios, Goto, and Samara on the other side of the mess, meters away. The asari was lit up with biotics. Evacuating . . . but there's no time . . .
"Mass effect field generators are offline!" Joker was shouting. "EDI, give me something!"
"Generators unresponsive," EDI replied. "All hands brace for impact."
There was no time. Not to evacuate, not to eject. Garrus tightened his harness again, lashing himself to the battery railing this time so his back was to the gun. By the emergency lights on the Normandy, Samara's biotics shone like a star in the distance. As the Normandy went down, caught in some other gravity, Garrus saw the justicar taking Krios and Kasumi into her arms. A biotic shield bloomed around them.
Then the ship hit. He blacked out.
Garrus woke up to the taste of his own blood, pooling in his mouth under his tongue. He spat, breathed in—noticed that in fact, he could still do that. Life support still working then—or at least, we've got air enough for now.
Every limb in his body ached, like his bones were still rattling from the crash. He groaned and spat again. He'd bitten a hole in his tongue and gumline in the crash, it seemed. He unfastened his harness, fell to the deck, and lay there, staring at the ceiling.
It was dark except for the ship's red emergency lighting. Sparks were still falling to the metal floor from the ceiling. An alarm was still blaring. But the radio was dead.
Someone called his name.
Garrus stretched out with his fingers, reaching for something. His gauntlets touched something, his fingers curled. He lifted his visor back to his face and put it on. Static scrolled over a few of his screens from the fall. But the visor itself was intact, and when he rebooted the programs, they all came up—targeting matrix, biometric readouts, infrared, playlist, and integrated extranet mail feed—all of it.
"Garrus! Are you alright?"
Garrus groaned. Samara.
He climbed to his feet. Grabbed the Vindicator and the Mantis and clipped them to the magnetic holsters on the back of his hardsuit. He left the Mattock where it lay. "Yeah, I'm alive," he called out to the mess. "There's some damage up here, but it—" he scanned the battery systems with his visor—"it all seems superficial. You and the others. You were trying to evacuate. Are you alright?"
He limped out of the battery, trying to shake it off, looking for the asari. She was leaning against one of the tables in the mess. Goto stood a little ways away, braced upon her knees and looking paler than usual under the cover of her hood. Krios was sitting in one of the dining table chairs, both pairs of eyelids closed.
"I was able to seal the three of us in a biotic envelope prior to the crash," Samara said. "Does the battery have a radio connection?"
"Everything's dead," Garrus said. "The console, the Thanix, the lighting. Think we're using emergency power. We might have to take the ladder to get to the CIC or Engineering."
Kasumi tilted her head up from where it was bowed between her knees. "Is it safe?" she wanted to know. "There were some big impacts near the portside observatory, and I heard EDI say something about a hull breach?"
"In the shuttle bay, yeah," Garrus told them. "And the mass effect field generators failed right before the crash. Engineering's sealed, but they may be trapped down there. If they made it. I don't know what happened on Deck Two at all."
The comm crackled, and EDI's voice sounded over the speakers again. Garrus relaxed just to hear it. They weren't alone down here. "Multiple core systems overloaded in the crash," EDI told them. "Restoring operation will take time."
It was all she said, but it was enough. They all blinked and frowned. "So, EDI can restore operation?" Kasumi repeated. "Is she saying we're still spaceworthy?"
"If the systems have just overloaded, we may be all right after a reboot," Krios said. "Provided the Collectors do not discover us on the exterior of the station." It was the first thing he had said.
"Alright, Thane?" Garrus asked, at the same time that Kasumi asked if he really thought they had landed on the space station.
Krios blinked, flared his biotics, and opened his eyes. "Yes," he said, answering Goto's question first. "The AI spoke of an impact prior to the crash, and if you've noticed, the ship's center of gravity has changed. We have landed, most likely on the surface of the station. And I am well. Ready to fight."
The radio crackled again. "All able-bodied combat crew, report to the conference room," Shepard ordered.
"Then I suppose that's our cue," Samara said.
A/N: Lost all my prep work in the interim back there, and I had to revert to backups and play through Beth again to get the game dialogue, but we're back up and running now. I'm hard at work on the Relay Run chapters, and I hope to get them all to you in the next little bit, though the DLC chapters will take longer.
If you're still here, thanks. If you drop a review to tell me so and give me some feedback here, I'd really appreciate it.
Best Always,
LMS
