The only thing worse than sitting around waiting for a door to be hacked open, was sitting around with hyped up soldiers, waiting for a door to open.
It had been three days, as much as it was possible to measure the time in the dim, unchanging light of Ilos, and the mood worsened every day. The only one not obviously affected by that dangerous combination of boredom and thirst for fights was Wrex. He had settled down against a wall and slept.
The marines took turns around the perimeter but except for one geth troop that got dropped on the first day, they had had no other enemy contact. Ingrained discipline kept everything under control but Garrus could feel the tension like an itch on his plates.
They worked on the console, trying different approaches and failing with each. At some point the bright green schematics began to dance in front of his eyes. They took turns, Tali and Shepard working on it for a while and then Kaidan and Garrus. After the second day they switched teams, pairing Kaidan and Tali and Shepard with him. Now, after the third day, he was considering letting Wrex try his luck.
"I feel like we're missing something obvious," Shepard said and let herself drop to the floor, next to Garrus.
"I'm certain that you kicked it everywhere," Garrus said.
"Well, you gotta try everything." She turned to him. "Do you think we should let Wrex try his hand?"
"Thought about that too," Garrus said and grinned at her. "By now I'm almost ready to give it to him."
"Bosh'tet, bosh'tet, bosh'tet!" Tali yelled and kicked the console casing. She stomped over to them and sat down next to them. "I'm out of ideas. We have fixed everything, I think we fixed errors that have been there when they constructed it. But the power fizzles out before we can route it, the voltage is too low."
Shepard took a sip from her water bottle. "You know, it feels like something or someone is actively working against us."
"Do you think it's Saren?" Tali looked like she would have wiped sweat from her brow if she could have taken off her helmet.
"I don't know. Actually, I hope not, I hope he struggles just like us on some stupid door because otherwise he's long gone and we're sitting here while the Citadel falls."
A worried silence fell over the group. One of the marines asked for permission to check the door at the gate again. Shepard grunted her permission at him. This wasn't the first time that one of them had tried to get the gate to open with brute force. So far nothing had worked, not even Omar's rocket launcher.
Shepard let her head fall back against the mossy wall. She spoke quietly, so that only Garrus could hear her. "What a fuckshit. We're sitting here, with no exit plan, trapped on a dead planet — what was I thinking?"
"You had no way of knowing," Garrus said.
"Maybe I should have? I put all my bets on catching Saren here, stop him from whatever he wants to do here and now we're stuck."
Liara came over to them, her omni-tool glowing on her arm. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"
"Yes, of course." Shepard nodded and spread out the tarp she sat on for Liara.
"Tali, could you come here too?" Liara sat down gracefully, a stark contrast to how the rest of them were spread out, all bulky armor and gangly limbs.
Tali sat down next to her, her omni-tool flickering as she probably had it overloaded with background programs. Kaidan's tool started to flicker too. Tali quickly issued a command and the tools stopped flickering. "Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack your omni-tool."
Kaidan looked at his omni-tool. "You can do that?"
Tali shrugged and tilted her head. "I thought more resources would help me in hacking the console."
Kaidan was still staring at his omni-tool, his fingers flicking over the interface. "You can just pull processing power from my tool?"
Tali's eyes turned to slits behind her mask and she giggled. "I won't do it again."
"You need to show me how to do that," Kaidan said, more fascinated than annoyed.
Liara pulled up a schematic on her omni-tool. "I was wondering if we go about this the wrong way. This is a prothean system and we are trying to use it like one of our consoles. But we should try to activate it like a prothean."
"And how? We don't have a prothean at hand," Shepard said.
"We kind of do," Liara said and looked pointedly at Shepard.
"Aww, shit."
The galaxy's most reluctant prothean interpreter alternated between staring at the console and glaring at Liara, with no obvious success either way.
"Anything?" she asked Tali, who monitored the console. Tali, standing next to her with her omni-tool glowing, shook her head.
Shepard hunched over the console again. "I don't know what to do, I try to do the jedi mind trick but no matter how hard I think 'open', it's not doing it."
Liara put a hand on her shoulder. "Open your mind, like you would for an asari mind meld."
Shepard scrunched up her nose. "You know how good I am with those."
Liara, quickly turning into the galaxy's most patient asari advisor, nodded serenely. "Let go of your physical shell, open your mind to the universe."
Shepard looked like she was in pain. "How? My mind is running a mile a minute, wondering what we can do, when the geth are going to attack again — "
"Ey, boss!" Omar leaned her rocket launcher against a boulder and came over to them. "With respect, do you trust us, Commander?"
"Of course."
"We got this, we'll watch over y'all. You worry about getting that shit open and we'll take care of geth or anybody else attacking."
A smile spread on Shepard's face. "I wouldn't expect any less." She gave a short nod and Omar dipped her head in answer. The other marines stood up as if on command and gathered around her, receiving short, precise orders as to where to take up positions. With a short yell, they spread out and took up their posts, leaving a wide berth around the console.
Garrus snapped his gun to his back and stepped behind Shepard. He wrapped his arms around her and made her lean against him and spoke quietly into her ear. "Relax. We're all here, I got you, let go."
He felt Shepard shudder. She murmured, "Baby, you keep talking like that and I'm gonna have to ravish you right here on the floor."
Liara turned her face to the side, her cheeks slightly purple and Garrus chuckled. "Just trust us to protect you and do that 'open your mind to the universe' thing." He felt her settle against him, letting her head rest against his cowl.
"I'm trying, I just don't know how."
"Ashley said — " Liara spoke quietly, "when we embraced eternity that it was like a deep prayer or like a meditation." She sighed and Garrus realized that he hadn't even asked how she felt, knowing that Ashley was on the Citadel, injured and alone.
"I'm sorry," Shepard and him said at the same time.
Shepard put her hand on Liara's shoulder. "I'm sure she's fine by now, the doctors said she was on the road to recovery when we left."
"I know," Liara said. "But I couldn't even speak to her one last time."
"Sorry," Shepard whispered.
"It's...," Liara shook herself, "let's just concentrate on this, open the system and then we'll see."
Shepard widened her stance and leaned back against Garrus. She placed a hand on the console, closed her eyes and breathed slowly. Garrus's visor fed him stats from her suit, her heart rate slowed down, her breathing evened out to a slow, relaxed pattern, almost as if she was sleeping.
For long minutes nothing happened but Shepard stayed calm. Her breathing stayed in the rhythm and only occasionally did she frown in concentration. Garrus watched the display on the console. It flickered, differently than before, at least that's what he thought. He couldn't deny some wishful thinking on his part and may have possibly imagined the changes.
Just as he was about to give up hope, Tali made a noise like a choked laugh. "I can see a power spike. I don't know what it does but you're having an effect."
Shepard sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I can't quite get it, it's like one of those visions but it keeps turning away from me." She looked over to Liara. "Maybe you have to be asari for it to work?"
"What do you mean?" Liara asked.
"You said that some scientists think asari share genetic traits with protheans. This system could be coded to prothean genetics."
"But I don't have the cypher."
Shepard turned to her fully now and looked at her with a lopsided smile. "We have to try it together. Embrace eternity and all that."
Liara smiled back at her. "That's the first time you are asking me to do it."
"Don't get used to it." Shepard took Liara's hand and placed it on the console next to hers and closed her eyes.
Liara didn't hesitate, she put her free hand on the side of Shepard's face and murmured, "Embrace eternity."
At the same moment, they both snapped their eyes open, staring at each other, unseeing. Liara's pupils were completely black and Shepard's eyes seemed to have a green shimmer flickering over them. Garrus couldn't even begin to say how much that disturbed him.
Tali was frantically typing on her omni-tool, nodding along as the symbols on the display jumped and scrolled. Her speaker was flashing but Garrus couldn't hear what she said over the nervous hum in his own ears. It took him a few moments to register that the noise came from around them.
Lines in the ancient walls lit up, pulsing in a slow rhythm. Green light crawled along old connections towards the floor and then to the console they all stood around. When the lines connected, the image on the display stilled and one symbol stood out in bright yellow. Neither Liara nor Shepard noticed it.
Garrus looked at Kaidan, silently asking for help and he nodded. Garrus used the tip of his talon to push Shepard's finger over the symbol and immediately it changed colors and a loud crack sounded out behind them. It broke Shepard and Liara from their meditation and they looked around confused as everybody else was pointing guns at the wall behind them.
"What?" Shepard asked, her pistol already in her hand.
Before Garrus could answer, the wall slid upwards and revealed a small room that looked like an elevator car. A panel on the side glowed softly and lines pulsed with the energy lights all around the car.
Garrus let out a breath and relaxed a bit. "Who knew that elevators are the universal constant."
"No kidding. Let's see where it takes us," Shepard said and appointed two marines to hold position with a hand signal and stepped into the car, her gun checking out every corner like a search beam. But the car was bare and looked as unassuming as an elevator car could look.
"Wrex, you're coming with us or would you rather sleep?" she called over to the softly snoring krogan. To his credit, he woke instantly, unfolding from the floor like a battle armature. He stomped over to the cabin and made an grumpy huff as he walked passed Shepard.
She grinned at him. "Unfortunately, I don't have coffee for you."
"I'd rather have some ryncol to warm myself," he mumbled as he leaned against the back of the car.
"When we're done with all this, I will personally plunk you into a desert with a nice ryncol drink," Shepard said.
Garrus stretched his shoulders, the constant dampness of this area was getting on his nerves too. "I wouldn't say no to a nice desert place too, but skip the ryncol."
Wrex grunted with a wide grin. "Hah! A bit of ryncol too much for you, little turian?"
"I like my intestines intact, thank you very much."
"Yes," Shepard cut in as she signaled the rest to step in, "I second that preference." She winked at him.
"Now, let's see what else this place has in store for us." She put her hand against a softly glowing panel. The cabin shook and then slowly descended at an angle. It was almost disappointing.
The doors opened to a dark tunnel. Thick roots had taken over the tunnel walls, making it more narrow that it originally was. The green moss covered everything and it felt even colder and more damp down here.
Liara shuddered visibly. "It feels like we're being watched and not by the geth."
They followed the tunnel quietly, listening for the whirr and clicks of approaching geth but all they could hear was the echo of their own steps as they walked along.
"Tali?" Shepard asked, keeping her voice low.
"Interference on my scanner. I can only tell that we're hundreds of meters under the ground."
Shepard poked at her omni-tool. "Same for me. Let's keep it nice and quiet." She walked forward, her Heavy Pistol raised and the others followed her. Even Wrex managed to be light on his feet next to Shepard.
The corridor made another curve and they could see a large cavern at the end. The doors stood open and a faint hum could be heard as they stepped inside. The lights on their helmets illuminated green and black shapes, statues, holding watch over this dead place that had been untouched for an unfathomable long time. The air tasted even staler here and of rotten water and decay. The statues all seemed to resemble giant people, kneeling in prayer and a cape thrown over them. Garrus was just going to comment, when the familiar click and whirr of a geth made him raise his assault rifle.
The shots came from everywhere. They dove into cover behind the statues but giant red geth, bigger and bulkier than they had seen so far, stepped out of the shadows behind them. Their shots were devastating, one hit turned an ancient statue into floating dust particles. Shepard rolled out of the line of fire just as her cover evaporated. Wrex pulled her towards him, his biotic barrier and his massive body shielding her from at least four impacts.
Garrus felt the biotic field from Liara prickle on his skin. It held for the moment but it wouldn't withstand the barrage of energy shots for long. Shepard pointed to a row of columns at the wall on the side and on her nod, they all ran as fast as possible towards them. Two geth stepped in their way but quickly fell to their shots. Their main problem were the geth giants in their back, still shooting their devastating energy bombs. But at least the columns protected them for now.
The scream of pain made the blood in his veins come to a halt. His body seemed to know before his conscious mind who screamed and why. He vaulted over any obstructions in his way, shooting at every mechanical monstrosity moving towards them and was at Shepard's side before he remembered to breathe again.
Shielding her with his own body, he glanced over to her. Her face was hidden behind her helmet but he could tell from the way she held her side that she had been hit.
"What happened?" he asked, trying to keep the desperate whine of his subharmonics down.
"Just a glance, don't worry about it."
He looked down to her hip where her armor had been discolored and charred. His barely suppressed subharmonics wavered in panicked worry.
She sighed and sat up. "Medi-gel is the greatest invention ever."
Garrus wanted to do so many things, none of them in any way appropriate during a firefight and especially not with a commanding officer. He reigned his subharmonics in and gave her a nod before he turned back towards the line of enemies.
Shepard scanned the area with her omni-tool and called Tali over, using Garrus' fire as their cover.
"Does this look like a defense system to you?" she asked and pointed at a section on the scan.
"Yes," Tali said, lighting up her own omni-tool. "But they seem to be broken."
"If we can fix them, they might solve our problem here."
"Or they could attack us as well," Tali said, ducking as another shot hit Liara's barrier.
"I'm willing to risk that, as long as they take care of those giants first." She readied her assault rifle and got up on one knee, still keeping her head down. Garrus got a clear look of the charred side of her armor and winced, trying not to think about how her skin had to look underneath. "Siddig, Vakarian, you cover us. Tali, behind me. Kaidan, how's your barrier?"
"Pretty and blue, Commander."
Shepard grinned, despite the pain Garrus could still see on her face. "My favorite kind. On my side, keep us inside your barrier."
Shepard waited for the marine Siddig to take her position next to Garrus and then got up in one fluid motion and ran forward. Kaidan stayed on her side, his biotic field extending over them.
Garrus sprayed his shots wide, knowing that Siddig would cover their back. They got shot much less than he expected though, it seemed like the geth had trouble aiming for them. A triumphant "Hah!" came from Tali and he noticed that her omni-tool was glowing brightly.
"What is it, Tali?" Shepard asked as she dove behind the huge aperature she wanted to fix. Lucky for them, a few boulders that must have crashed down from the ceiling centuries ago, had not flattened the machine but provided convenient cover now.
"I hacked the geth's optical processing. They have trouble seeing us now," Tali said with a smug grin in her voice.
There was stunned silence before all three of them asked "What?"
"You did fucking what now?" Shepard pulled off some plating at the back of the apparatus.
"I can't quite get into their short range systems but I overlaid them with a scrambler. Since they instantly share all optical information with each other, as long as they're in my range, they have trouble aiming."
"Damn!" Siddig said. "You're a fucking genius."
"Another point for interspecies collaboration," Shepard said with a grin. She used her omni-tool on the back of the machinery, peering into its open guts. "I think this is just plain corrosion. Everything is covered with this green moss."
"Maybe a short energy blast to fry off the organic film?" Tali suggested. "We have do that on the flotilla sometimes when the environmental controls fail."
"How much do you think, 20k?"
"8k should be enough," Tali said.
Kaidan, his biotic barrier still flowing from his hands, looked over and nodded. "I agree, we don't want to fry it. Do you have omni-gel?"
"Plenty," Shepard said.
"Give it a seed to follow the connections, that should do it," Kaidan said.
"Yes, good idea," Tali agreed.
Shepard adjusted her position, wincing as she had to stretch her arm into the machine. Garrus clamped his mandibles tight as her pain felt like a knife in his own gut.
He leaned down, opening his visor, so that only she could hear him. "Sunshine," he murmured.
She let her visor snap up to reveal her face. "I'm fine." Her omni-tool made the machine glow yellow from the inside.
His helmet scraped against hers. "I know but, please..."
She turned her head, her eyes pleading and loving. "Not now," she whispered.
Garrus fought his subharmonics down. "Just..."
"I know." She fixed his look with her own and it felt like a physical connection between them.
He trilled quietly and nodded. Now was not the time. From somewhere he summoned his turian training and clamped down on his emotions and subharmonics.
Shots were hitting their cover more frequently again. Garrus unfolded his sniper rifle and jammed it through a gap between boulders. His omni-tool fed the visuals to his helmet and he took out the approaching geth without leaving his cover. One of the red giants turned its optics to his position and started marching towards him. It needed more shots to be taken down and his gun warned him of overheating. After five shots, the thing finally collapsed with a stuttering wail but not before it directed an energy bolt at the gap where his gun poked through. He ripped it out and rolled to the side just as the boulder vibrated from the impact and a gust of dust shot out of the gap he had been using.
"I think they can aim again," Garrus said.
"They must have learned to filter out my signal."
"That was fast," Shepard said.
"The advantage of networking," Tali said.
"I wish I could tell your ancestors what a thoroughly bad idea that was."
"They probably wouldn't have listened to you." Tali's long sigh told of many frustrations.
"That should do it. What do you think, Tali?" Shepard scooted to the side and let Tali scan the machine.
"Only way to be sure is to turn it on. "
"Everybody keep your head down." Shepard poked a section with her omni-tool and Tali connected to another part. On a nod, they both shot an energy arc into the machine. Immediately the machine shrieked with a deafening noise, shuddered and unfolded to twice its original size. The shriek stopped and was replaced by guns starting up and mowing down the approaching geth before they had recovered from the noise.
"Best idea ever," Shepard yelled over the noise. "Let's fix the other one too."
It took them a lot less time to fix the second machine. All the geth, including the red giants had focussed on the defence weapon and didn't bother with the puny organics running over the center of the courtyard. Tali and Shepard wordlessly fixed the weapon and it unfolded just like the first one and took down the remaining attackers before they had even managed to find a defensive position for themselves.
With the noise of the battle gone, the silence felt like an absorber over their heads being slowly lifted. Bit by bit, the silence filled with the noise of water dripping, dust crumbling out from impact holes, of decades old structures settling again, and an insistent whistle from the far side of the room.
They hid behind the columns on the other side of the rest of the team. The comms crackled to life, jarringly loud now.
"So, what's the verdict, Commander. Are those things going to attack us now?" Smith asked over the comms.
Shepard stood up and signaled them to follow her. "We'll see."
Kaidan hastily extended his barrier over them and on the other side they could see Liara spreading hers over the group on her side. They walked slowly towards the center of the courtyard, practically on their tiptoes to make as little noise as possible. When they reached the two machines, the upper, head-like parts swiveled around towards them. Their guns were very much pointed at them, following them as they walked between them towards the other side of the room, but the green lights they had seen before on the sides were dim.
When they had passed the machines, the heads jerked back, as if they were watching the entrance to the room.
"Yes, this isn't creepy at all," Kaidan said.
"Can't say I like this much," Wrex said, taking up position next to Shepard.
Garrus shook off all the memories of stories with robot revolutions he had read as a child. Hopefully these things would not decide that they had to wipe out the organics. They already had the Reapers for that.
At the far side of the room, stairs on either side led up to a gallery, where the whistling came from. Upstairs, they found an arrangement of grey boxes, most overgrown with moss but a few had recently been wiped clean.
"Looks like Saren has been here too," Garrus said.
"He has such a head start on us," Liara said.
Shepard had taken off her helmet and was scanning the consoles with her omni-tool. "Liara, can you interpret any of this?"
Liara stepped closer to the box in the middle to scan it and the whistling stopped and the box opened up to reveal a console. Her hand hovered over it and was enough to activate something in the console. A projection started up with someone speaking but it was unrecognizable.
Liara had stars in her eyes. "This must be a prothean language! We are hearing a message from 50,000 years ago from a real prothean! This is incredible, I wish I could understand what he's saying."
Shepard pressed two fingers against the side of her forehead. "I think I understand some of it."
"By the goddess, that must be the Cipher!" Laira had never looked more excited than in this moment. "What does it say, what is it?"
Shepard sighed. "I wish this wouldn't feel so weird in my head. I think it's a log of what happened but it's only fragments, the recording is damaged." She listened some more to the foreign sounds. "They were attacked, then something about the Citadel, seeking refuge, something about the side of the archives." She listened again as the voice got louder and more desperate. "All is lost... the Conduit... act of desperation... cannot be stopped... cannot be stopped," she translated. She stepped away from the console. "Now it starts over again, that's all there is."
Garrus looked around, shock and hopelessness were visible on everyone's face. Wrex looked like he would have loved to shoot the console to pieces.
"Seems like the Reapers found this place," Wrex said.
"I wonder what that act of desperation was," Shepard said.
"Securing their knowledge, probably," Tali said thoughtfully.
"Why do you think so?"
"The protheans took great pain to hide their knowledge but also make it accessible when needed all over the galaxy," Tali said. "The beacons were warning systems for when the Reapers came back and were supposed to lead us to this place. It only makes sense if the knowledge here would actually survive."
"I hope they were successful," Shepard mumbled. "I think this is the security station, let me just..." Her fingers danced over the console, activating symbols that Garrus didn't understand and it creeped him out that she could. The console changed color and Shepard stepped back from it. "I think that was it." She put her helmet back on and listened as she looked at her omni-tool. "I can't connect to Madhav and Langenfeld, we're probably too deep down. We have to go up to see if the gate opens now."
The way back was uneventful. They had to pull Liara away from artifacts and markings as she tried to inspect everything.
"I have to come back here with a team, there's so much to catalogue here, we never had such a rich resource to investigate and it's in such good condition!"
"Yes, but let's save the world first," Shepard said as she pulled Liara away from a decorative sign peeking out under the roots that had overgrown the walls.
"I'm sorry, this is everything I ever dreamed about. "
"You'll get exclusive rights to Ilos when we're done with the rest of this tiny problem." Shepard dragged her into the elevator and hit the control panel.
Garrus watched her face, the tension in her jaw. He read grim determination but also relief on her face.
The elevator doors opened to eery silence in the courtyard and the urgent comm chatter of Madhav and Langenfeld.
"The gate is open. Do you read, Commander? The gate is open, do you read? "
"Loud and clear, Langenfeld," Shepard said as they stepped into the courtyard. "Warm up the Mako, we're going to get that bastard."
Thanks to divadevi for beta reading again.
This is Chapter 50. Fifty!
When I started writing this story, in November 2012, it was just this idea of "what if Garrus and Shepard met before all the events and what if they weren't bumbling virgins? What if they were already in love during the hunt for Saren?". And now look at it. It's over 250k words, it's still growing and to my eternal surprise and gratefulness, you readers still seem to like it.
Thank you, dear readers. Thank you for reading and sticking with me on this journey where I learned how to write at all. Thanks for watching me grow.
And my greatest thanks to all of you who commented, who gave me confidence when I doubted myself, when I wondered who would even read this. Thank you.