I'm sorry it took me so long to write this chapter. I spent the last two weeks reading and learning about writing instead of doing any writing but I think it will be better for the story in the long run. We are now at the point that the game-story begins and this chapter started out with Garrus basically just waiting for Shepard to return. That's boring. So I decided to bring the action to Garrus. Unlike in the game, where shit happens to Shepard alone, in this AU, things are happening everywhere and Garrus and friends will play a more active role.
So, on with the show.
"I hope that this delay in transfer is not your doing." Garrus growled at his father. He had not been able to sit down again, instead he was pacing between his kitchen area and past the couch, back and forth.
Aethius Vakarian watched his son, quiet concern humming in his subharmonics. "I swear, I had nothing to do with it," he said, stretching his throat. "I heard about your reenlistment but I did not interfere. I wanted to, believe me and many would have seen it as my duty as your father to do it but..."
"Why didn't you?" Garrus stopped pacing to look at his father. He realized for the first time that his father was old. He still had the air of authority about him that Garrus remembered from his childhood but he wasn't quite as imposing anymore.
The older Vakarian spoke with a soft voice. "You mother has reminded me that old traditions are not worth losing my son to."
"That didn't stop you from hiring someone to stalk us and record video footage." Garrus hissed at him with an aggressive undertone. The fear inside his gizzard for his mate was easily replaced by anger at his father's behaviour. It was much easier than thinking about Shepard and what could happen to her.
His fathers trill told him that Aethius was embarrassed at being caught. "I just needed to know if you... if you and her..." A shrill tone of confusion left him.
Garrus stared at his father, he had never seen or heard Aethius Vakarian struggle for words. Conversations with his father had always felt more like well rehearsed speeches, presented with conviction and the belief of undeniable truth in his subvocals. The insecurity his father showed now was very unnerving.
Aethius rose from his seat and clasped his hands behind his back. It was a familiar pose, one that Garrus instantly recognized from his younger days. This was his father as he knew him, about to deliver a scathing speech to his son. "I needed to know if you were serious. I wanted to see if this was just a phase of devious... experimentation. You are of course aware that your mother and I... had very different plans for you and I needed to know..."
This speech was not so well rehearsed as others that Garrus had heard. His father's subharmonics told of his confusion, his inability to understand the situation. He had to suppress a triumphant trill at having made his father feel this way. It was a petty victory over this authoritative figure in his life and he felt ashamed for himself for feeling this way.
His father turned and looked out the window. The light of the Nebula filtered in through the patterns of the window pane, slightly darkened to reflect the day and night cycle Garrus had programmed them with. The older man looked like a turian statue in front of it but his posture was wrong. His shoulders were slumped forward in one of the universal signs of defeat.
"The galaxy is changing, son. And I don't mean just because the humans have entered the field with their curiosity and their annoying habit of questioning everything. There is more." Behind them the door opened for Talina to come through. Aethius nodded at her but continued talking. Garrus felt torn, he wanted to know what his mother had said to Shepard but he didn't want to destroy this rare moment of clear words from his father.
"Things are changing on Palaven, and for turians in the colonies." Aethius said with a sigh. "The young are questioning the rules."
"I'm hardly part of a movement, father." Garrus interrupted. He didn't exactly keep up with current events in the turian homeworlds and made a mental note that maybe, he should pay more attention to things like that. He doubted that he would miss out on major revolutions but smaller things, that did not get reported by the big news sites, would probably go unnoticed by him.
His mother put a hand on his shoulder, a soft trill coming from her. "We know son. But somehow, you are not the only one who happens to do things differently. Many from our clan and friends have similar stories to tell. Young turians, acting restless and unwilling to follow the old rules..."
Garrus leaned down to nuzzle his mothers fringe for a second, a habit calling back from his childhood when he had to stand on his toes to do that. Now he had to lower his head to reach down to her. "Let me guess, and people say it's all the humans fault?"
His father had turned around to them and nodded his head. "Yes, some do. A new species entering the Council systems, especially one as loud and demanding as the humans... they have had quite the effect. It has happened before, like when we came in contact with the asari or the quarians but that has all been so long ago, we, the turians, have forgotten."
Garrus turned to his mother, "What did you say to Shepard?"
She looked at him. "I needed to make sure that she is serious. Because I saw how serious it is for you." Her hand cupped his right mandible and the soft hum that came from her told him how much she worried for him.
"I... nothing you will say can change what I feel." He whispered.
"I'm not trying to change your mind," Talina said. "She cares for you, very much. And I like her."
"You do?" Garrus said with a stupid undertone in his sub-vocals.
"Yes, I do, she seems courageous and open-minded and I would like to get to know her better." His mother shot a stern look towards his father on that, and Aethius very wisely did not comment.
Garrus felt strangely relieved. "Thank you." Suddenly the worry about Shepard and this strange emergency shakedown run came rushing back. He had to sit down. His mother trilled at him with concern and he couldn't answer with something calming. The dread he felt in his gizzard just would not go away.
"We will go to our hotel now," Aethius said, taking his wife by her arm. "Please contact us tomorrow after you work, we would like to spend time with you."
Garrus agreed and let his parents out. As the door closed behind them, he finally let out the sad keen that had been sitting in his throat since Shepard had left.
Garrus woke up on his couch, squinting at the light flowing in as the windows removed the tint. He checked his omni-tool for new messages but Shepard was obviously under a communications lockdown. At least he hoped that she would have contacted him if she could.
He had taken the day off yesterday and used it to show his parents around the Citadel. His father had shown him his old route that he used to take on his patrol through the wards. The old man was recalling old cases, telling stories of who he had arrested where and what had happened afterwards. Garrus couldn't remember the last time he had seen his father so excitedly happy.
His mother wore a good-natured smile, seemingly happy to see her husband so relaxed. But Garrus didn't fail to notice the looks she gave him. Her mandibles trembling slightly, quiet concern in her subharmonics. Garrus decided to try to find a way to talk to her alone soon, he had not really spoken to her since he had left Palaven.
In the evening he had brought his parents to their hotel and had spent the rest of the evening on his couch, working on a program on his omni-tool. It kept his mind off Shepard and what could possibly happen to her. He missed her fiercely.
Garrus got up to get ready for work. He felt lost. He was officially working for ANIS but without Shepard, he felt like he didn't really belong there. Still, he could hardly stay at home just because his partner wasn't there.
On the way to the ANIS office near the human embassy, he sent out a message to Frank, realizing that he had not spoken to him in a while. His friend answered him with a call after a few minutes.
"Look who emerged from the depth of the fields of love!" Frank called out in his ear.
"I'm sorry Frank," Garrus sighed. He was aware that he had neglected his friend in the last few weeks. "How are you?"
"Good, good. Left C-Sec, gave out cookies for everyone."
"What? When was that?"
"Last week, you were already busy being a big shot ANIS agent." Frank answered with a chuckle. "I sent you a message but you must have missed it."
Garrus looked annoyed at his omni-tool, messages from Frank should have been marked with a 'friend'-tag, he shouldn't have overlooked them. "I'm sorry Frank, I don't know why I didn't see that. I'm on my way to ANIS, can I meet you later?"
"Hey, why not, birdy? I'm working at the desk on the news-site today, you wanna meet over lunch?" Frank asked.
Garrus smiled, hearing his old nickname. He had missed this simple banter between them. "I don't know what I'll be doing, I have to ask the boss what he wants me to do today."
"Alright, talk to you later." Frank said and ended the call.
Garrus stepped into the big ANIS office and for a change found it busy with people of all kinds of species. People were tripping over themselves, handing out datapads and huddling over them with other agents. It was impressive to see, asari, humans, salarians, and turians working together. In the middle of the room Garrus's boss, Jentarius Keggs, sat calmly at his desk, overseeing the chaos around him with the occasional flick of his mandibles.
His eyes fell on Garrus and he waved him over. "Where's Shepard?" He asked with an impatient undertone.
"She got ordered on board the Normandy last night, Sir." Garrus said, keeping himself straight like a good turian soldier. For all his relaxed demeanor, Keggs still had that air of authority around him that the turian military cultivated so very well.
"The Alliance needs to work on their communications." Keggs grumbled, his eyes fixed on the terminal screen in front of him. Garrus thought for a second that he had forgotten that he was still standing there, until Keggs made a handwave towards the human agent Lorenzo Jorno. "You'll be working with Jorno and Va'sida."
Lorenzo Jorno and the dangerous looking asari Dania Va'sida simultaneously stood up and attached weapons to their light armor. Garrus was a bit surprised, so far they hadn't even heard about having a case yet. But apparently the handwave had been enough of a signal, so Garrus checked his guns and armor as well.
Keggs turned to his omni-tool, typing something and their own omni-tools flared up with the case information. "Small frigate, turian, has sent emergency messages about an attack by dead humans. Came through the Widow-relay half an hour ago. We are going to investigate."
Jorno turned around with a grin on his face. "Dead humans? They've been attacked by zombies?" Garrus paused on the unfamiliar word, waiting for the translator program to give him some references.
Va'sida, the asari, seemed to be not patient enough for that. "What are zombies?"
Jorno raised a finger. "Zombies aren't real, they are just part of human pop culture," he said with a huge grin. "Undead humans, infected and degenerated, who attack uninfected humans to bite them, thereby making them zombies too. They are like a wild horde, stumbling, no clear direction but they multiply so quickly that they overrun the humans who are not infected."
Garrus decided to join the conversation, he didn't want to be an outsider in this team. "Turian pop culture has something like that too."
Jorno raised his eyebrows in surprise and interest. "Really?"
"Yes, they are incredibly strong monsters, vaguely turian-like looking, who draw energy from the surrounding environment and dispense it to their company of transformed soldiers to strengthen them. They're called Marauders." Garrus said.
"Interesting." Lorenzo Jorno said. "With turians it's an organized company of overpowered soldiers and with humans it's a horde of flesh-eating savages. Feels like that should tell us something, but I don't really care. Zombies are a staple of human movies and videogames since the twentieth century of our time. They make for perfect enemies, no one needs to feel guilty about shooting them because they are already dead."
"Why would anybody feel guilty about shooting an enemy in a videogame?" Dania asked confused. Garrus had wondered the same.
Lorenzo sighed. "Let's talk about the ways humans can worry about violence and... you know what? Let's not. Humans worry a lot, that's all there is to say about it."
"I thought it was questioning what they did a lot?" Dania said.
"Those go hand in hand, don't you think?" Answered Jorno, throwing a look to Garrus as if to see whether he agreed or not. Garrus nodded, humming his amusement, even though he was unsure if Jorno and Va'sida understood his subharmonics. He got a friendly smile from Lorenzo Jorno and an almost friendly looking nod from Dania Va'sida in return. Garrus counted that as a win.
"Enough." Their boss walked past them, in full armor and a helmet under his arm. "Helmets and air-supplies. There may be an infection or a leak. Close quarters weapons. Let's go."
Garrus thought about leaving his sniper rifle behind but he would have felt naked without it. He had an assault rifle and a pistol on him and took a helmet from a supply locker on the way out. Luckily, all armor connections were standardized, so it would fit on his armor.
The ship was a dark shadow against the light of the relay. Garrus strained his neck to see it through the window of the shuttle. He had the shuttles sensors transmit to his omni-tool and when he checked the readings, they told him the same thing that his eyes had told him. The ship was dead. No energy emissions, hardly any heat transmissions, no light, not even a single spark. From the outside the ship looked a bit shot up but structurally intact.
Lorenzo was looking at his omni-tool as well. "Some impact marks on the hull but no structural damage, as far as I can tell. I'll make a scan of the marks when we are closer, see who shot up the ship."
"Take a trace off it for Pauline." Keggs said. Lorenzo looked like he wanted to protest but his boss just looked at him with his mandibles tight. It was either that expression or the short sub-vocal growl that convinced Lorenzo to keep his mouth shut.
He sighed. "Sure, I just love zero-G dancing around dead spaceships." He mumbled under his breath.
The pilot spoke over the comm system. "I've hailed the ship on all channels, no answer. I also don't get any answer for docking requests from the ships VI so I can only let you out to close the platform, and then you have to open the door manually."
"Understood," said Keggs and put on his helmet. "Check your seals." They all put on their helmets and had the suit systems run a full check for space worthiness.
The pilot positioned them in front of the stern hangar door and after depressurizing the cabin, they opened the door to let themselves float slowly over to the dark ship. After attaching themselves with cables to the ship, Dania started working on the door panel to prepare the door.
Keggs ordered Lorenzo to walk on the side of the ship to collect the trace on one the impact marks. Lorenzo's feet began to glow blue as a mass effect field formed to keep him attached to the hull. He slowly walked along the ships side, extending the cable behind him. Garrus saw him make a scan and then scratch at a part of the hull's surface.
When he came back to the platform, he made a grimace at them. "We should have taken Terlin with us for this."
Dania laughed out. "He would have thrown up inside of his suit." She said over the comm.
Keggs raised a hand, quieting them down and drawing their attention back to the door. After a nod of his head, Dania let the door open. It opened quietly, no hiss of pressurized air, no atmospheric compensation. After floating inside, Garrus spotted a panel in the light of his flashlight and was surprised to see it respond immediately when he pressed a talon on the input pad.
Dania had let the door close again and the room was completely dark except for the light of their flashlights. Garrus found the controls for atmospheric pressure and the gravity generators on the terminal. There were no error messages. "Sir?" He called out to Keggs. His boss came over to him, looking over his shoulders. "Sir, the ship seems to be intact, someone has vented the atmosphere and turned off gravity on purpose. I could turn them back on from here. The ship still has energy."
He heard his boss voice over the comm and behind him at the same time. "Do you get readings from the whole ship? Are there lifesigns anywhere?" Garrus let the ships VI do a full scan. It was a simple VI, barely more than a bunch of programs thrown together but it worked effectively enough.
Garrus let out a surprised trill. "I'm getting readings from one section of the ship that still has atmosphere. I get one life sign in a room near the CIC."
"So someone is still alive. Good." Keggs said. "I'd like to have atmosphere and gravity back but turn the gravity on slowly, we don't want that last survivor to crash to the ground. Lights would be good too."
"Alright, sir." Said Garrus with a nod, only to receive an angry hum in return.
"Stop calling me sir all the time." Keggs said and turned away. Garrus looked after him in confusion and then turned to Lorenzo, who had walked over to him, glowing yellow from his omni-tool.
He switched his channel to Lorenzo alone. "What else should I call him?"
Lorenzo looked up. "We call him Keggs or boss."
Garrus turned his comm back to everyone. "Turning on atmosphere," air hissing through vents confirmed his announcement, "lights..." the room lit up, "and a fifth of G gravity." He felt the slight pull from the ground and aligned his body perpendicular to it. Now that the lights were on, they could finally see all of the room they were in.
The hangar was empty. Not a single object was in the big room, no boxes, no containers, not even a single screw. But the walls and floors had marks on them, bullet holes and energy burns. There was also blood, blue blood.
"Looks like the turians fought here," said Dania, taking pictures and scans from the marks on the walls. She pointed to deep scratches in the floor. "Whatever had been in here, it got vented out through the hangar door."
"I agree." Said Keggs. He was checking the door to the inside of the ship. Garrus raised the gravity to 35% of council G. It made it easier to walk but they were still bouncing with every step. He programmed it to rise slowly to 90% in the next 10 minutes.
"Let's see the rest of the ship. Do all rooms have atmosphere now?" Keggs asked with look towards Garrus. Garrus made a connection to the ships VI via his omni-tool and walked over to the door.
"Unless a room is sealed airtight, they should all have atomsphere by now and gravity will be at 90% in a few minutes. Boss." Garrus said, listening to Keggs's subharmonics for a reaction. According to the almost quiet undertones, he didn't object to Garrus calling him boss.
Keggs took off his helmet and collapsed it and attached it to the back of his armor. Dania, Garrus and Lorenzo did the same. With a nod towards the team, their boss pressed the panel to open the door and stepped through as soon as the gap was wide enough, his pistol raised in front of him.
Lorenzo and Garrus followed him, pointing their pistols up and down a hallway that seemed to run alongside the ship. There were boxes and broken furniture scattered everywhere, piled up in front of the vents. Garrus started to scan the piles when Dania called them back into the hangar.
"Guys? I'm getting some very strange readings here," she yelled, causing Keggs and Garrus to turn back, while Lorenzo stayed in the hallway, only looking at them over his shoulder.
"What is it, Dania?" Keggs asked, kneeling down beside her. Dania scanned a section on the floor that had some sticky fluid on it but it wasn't blue like blood. Looking around, Garrus noticed a few more spots of the greyish fluid on the floor and on the walls.
"The scan identified it as a synthetic fluid." Dania said, showing the read out on her omni-tool. "I had a comparision run against the database through the Extranet connection from the shuttle and the only entry this fluid matches to by 90% is 400 years old." She looked at the readout again, as if she couldn't believe it herself. "It says, it's the geth?"
"Geth?" Keggs and Garrus asked simultaneously. They all looked at each other in confusion. From the door Lorenzo called out. "Should I know what geth are?"
Dania stood up and shouted over to Lorenzo. "If you knew anything about galactic history you would. The geth are an artificial intelligence, invented by the quarians. They run on mobile platforms. That could be where the fluid came from."
Garrus spoke up, how the quarians had lost control of the geth had always been an interesting story for him. "The geth became sentient and revolted against their makers. The quarians had to give up their home planet and the whole galaxy now has to deal with the uncontrolled AIs."
"But the geth haven't been beyond Perseus Veil for over 400 years." Keggs said. He didn't need to say more, they all asked themselves the same question. Why were the geth here?
"Let's check the rest of the ship and find that survivor, maybe he can answer a few questions."
The trek through the ship took a long time. They opened every door, checked every room. The first rooms were empty but when they came up to the next level, they began to find corpses. Turian soldiers, ripped apart by an unknown enemy. They took pictures, scans and trace samples of every dead soldier but Garrus knew that these injuries looked like nothing he had ever seen.
Their weapons were not all empty but they had been shot multiple times. The dead turians had limbs missing, many had their necks broken or had bled to death. It didn't smell, the lack of atmosphere had prevented any decay. The dead looked like they had died just recently. Blue blood was glistening, not because it was fresh but because it was unfreezing.
They hadn't found anymore geth fluid but they found traces of an unknown fluid. Something black, that scanned as part synthetic, part organic.
As they got closer to the CIC, Garrus's omni-tool flared up with a transmission. He was about to ignore it when he saw that it came from inside the ship. He opened it and called over the rest of the team. "I have a transmission here from inside the ship. It says: Don't open anymore doors, there might still be husks in there. Please help me, I'm in the med-bay." He looked up. "What are husks? Does he mean geth?"
Everybody shrugged their shoulders. "We have to find this survivor and ask him." Keggs said. With his pistol raised, he moved up the stairs and opened the doors to the CIC level. There were more corpses, as cold as the others. Garrus assumed that the CIC had been vented of atmosphere as well. Apparently only the med-bay had been kept under life-support.
The group walked over to the med-bay, carefully stepping over corpses and makeshift barricades, their pistols raised despite not seeing any threat. The door to the med-bay showed a red panel and the windows were tinted dark. With a nod towards him, Keggs ordered Garrus to access the door and Garrus went to work. The lock had been encrypted but it was a simple algorithm, nothing that a simple cracker program couldn't handle.
The door opened and the familiar smell of sickness and decay assaulted their noses. Two bodies were lying on the beds, one a turian and the other a female quarian. Keggs and Garrus both made a surprised trill, a quarian on a turian ship was unusual. The quarians had a bad reputation in council space after they had lost their home planet to the geth and were forced to live on the resources of other species.
Not many turians would let a quarian live on board. She may have even been a stowaway, not able to afford the passage to the Citadel. Garrus wondered if she was the cause of this disaster, if she had brought something on board. Finding traces of geth and then a quarian was just too much of a coincidence.
Garrus and Dania scanned the bodies. The turian was dead, according to Garrus's scan, for at least two days already. The quarian was alive but exhausted and woke up when Dania touched her shoulder. She jumped up and screamed but stopped as she looked at them, her bright eyes behind her mask huge white circles.
"You're real? Alive? Are the others..." Her head whipped from one to the other, her voice coming in gasps from her speaker.
Keggs stepped forward, looking into her mask without any resentment in his subharmonics. He looked calm, friendly even, and Garrus felt bad for his prejudiced opinion about the quarian. So far they didn't know whether she had anything to do with this.
"What is your name?" Keggs asked. The quarian looked around, her gaze hesitating on Garrus and Lorenzo a bit longer. Then she turned back to the turian in front of her.
"My name is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. I'm on my pilgrimage and on my way to the Citadel."
The boss nodded. "My name is Agent Jentarius Keggs of the Alliance Navy Investigative Service. Can you tell us what happened here?"
The quarian was wringing her hands and lowered her head. "I met one of the Lieutenants, his name is... was Gatius Bicatin, on an ice planet near the Crescent Nebula," she whispered. "We were both scanning for a geth presence there, something that had turned up on the scanners. He was better equipped of course and managed to find the upper half of a geth platform with an intact memory core. That is an incredible find, usually geth self-destruct if the platform is damaged and destroy their memory core. I wanted to make a scan, download the data planetside but the Lieutenant insisted on bringing it on board. The captain allowed me to come too."
"Did it activate and cause all this?" Garrus asked with an accusatory undertone. You didn't just drag geth parts on board a ship, everybody knew that.
"No, it's dead, look, it's right over there." The quarian pointed to a table in the corner, where a box stood that looked like it contained scrapmetal. On closer look it turned out to be the "head" of a geth platform. It was inactive and not connected to any kind of powersource. It still made Garrus very uneasy.
"We met a ship close to the Crescent relay, it looked human built. They hailed us and the captain allowed them to dock with a shuttle in the hangar. And then..." She curled up on herself, pressing her hands against her stomach. After a shaky breath she continued. "Then the shooting started, the squad in the hangar said something about geth and dead humans attacking them. I was in the messhall when the alarms started and then suddenly these things came through the door."
"The geth or the dead humans?" Keggs asked, his voice and subharmonics showing no hint of disbelief.
"No geth up here, just these... not really humans. They looked like they had been humans once, but now there were tubes growing out of them and blue lights on their bodies and in their eyes, and they attacked so fast, just ripping and clawing at the soldiers. They were so fast and so strong and..." A cry came from her speaker and she pressed her arms against her stomach.
"How did you end up in here?" The question came from Lorenzo who suddenly stood between Keggs and Garrus.
"The messhall was overrun and the Lieutenant," she pointed to the dead turian on the bed next to her, "pulled me into the med-bay and shot the husks. He locked the door but he was injured. I tried to help him but he was too badly hurt, the infection spread through his body so quickly, he died yesterday, I think, I don't know, what day is it today?"
Keggs ignored her question. "Who vented the ship?"
"I did," Tali answered, "it took me a while to hack into the VI from the terminal here but I could scan for life-signs and control the life-support system. When I saw that all the turians were dead and the husks kept coming to the med-bay, trying to break the windows, I sealed this room and vented the atmosphere. Lieutenant Sertus had programmed the emergency beacon before he lost consciousness."
Suddenly she jumped up and grabbed Kegg's arms. "The pilot! The cockpit is sealed, she has spoken to me, she told me that we had made it through the relay and that help would be coming but now she doesn't answer any more!"
Keggs turned around, "Garrus, Dania, I want you to check the remaining rooms, see if you can find one of these husks, I would like a closer look at them. Lorenzo, go to the cockpit and find the pilot."
Garrus took his pistol back in his hand. "We are calling them husks now?" He wondered.
A small grin played on his bosses mandibles. "Tali'Zorah has discovered them so I think she gets the naming rights. And I refuse to call them zombies."
Lorenzo shook his head at that. "Zombies don't have tubes growing out of them and blue lights are not their thing. Zombies would be inappropriate as a name." He lectured as he checked his weapon.
Garrus shook his head and followed Dania, who had already left the med-bay. They moved up to the next level, the crew deck. More dead turians with claw marks, body parts ripped off, were in their path. Garrus opened one of the washrooms, checking every corner. Even this room had scorch marks on the walls from fighting. A dead woman was visible in one of the showerstalls, twisted in unnatural ways. Garrus turned away, trying to erase the picture in his mind how her beautiful purple markings were covered with blue blood.
A scream from the hallway startled him and only then did he realize that Dania was not behind him anymore. He barged out of the room and looked down right towards where the scream had come from. Dania was fighting with a husk, backed up against the wall on the other side of the hallway, and holding it away from her with one hand on it's throat, her other hand bashing it with the butt of her pistol. The thing was clawing at her, making rattling groans, it's mouth gaping, trying to bite her arm. Garrus saw pieces of her armor fly away, it was just tearing away the gauntlets on her arm and the pieces that protected her sides.
Garrus knew that he had only seconds before the claws would find flesh, infecting her with who knows what. He was too far away to reach her, so he let his pistol drop and took the sniper rifle from his back, aiming while it unfolded and in the millisecond it beeped it's readiness at him, he took the shot. The husk's head exploded in black fluids and the body stilled and dropped to the ground.
Dania slipped down the wall until she hit the floor, desperately wiping at the black fluid on her face until the red markings were visible again. Garrus ran towards her, fumbling a pack of medi-gel from his pockets. She kicked the dead husks once and then turned to him.
"Thank you. That was a nice shot." Her breath came in gasps. "Really nice shot." She kicked the body once more and then took Garrus's offered hand to raise herself up from the floor. They both looked at the headless thing in front of them. It looked human shaped but somehow transformed. It was dark-grey, with marks that had glowed blue when it had been alive and synthetic tubes visible on it's body. Black fluid was oozing out of the pulp that had been it's head.
"There's another one in that storage room over there, a dead one." Dania said and pointed into the room next to them. "Looks like the room had vented and this thing got stuck on a lever. It suffocated, I think, so it does need air, I guess? That's at least something, they are not undead or unable to die, they need air to breath like all other living beings."
"And a headshot kills them too." Garrus said. "That makes them sort of like living but I have really hard time to consider these things to be living beings."
He took pictures and scans, when suddenly his omni-tool chimed. It was message from Shepard and he didn't hesitate to read it.
- Hi Angel! I wanted to let you know that I'm okay. Still on comm lockdown, can't tell you anything. We are about to go planetside on Eden Prime. Something weird is going on. Take care, my angel.
Garrus looked around, taking in the dead turians, the scorch marks on the walls, the husk's body in a pool of black fluid and sighed.
Weird doesn't even remotely cover it, sunshine.
I hate those husks, they give me the creeps.
I'm not using Tali's backstory from the comic, I've only used the name of the relay and that she was on an ice-planet from that.
Finally edited by Credete. Hurrah!