Shepard burst out into the deadly cold, the frostbitten air cooling her molten fury on contact. A hissing-steam sigh greeted the battered, but present, Mako. Relief pushed back the cold, and if it wouldn't have earned her some extra-strange stares, she would have kissed the ugly old tank. She just prayed that it started and got them the hell out of there before it fell apart.
Stabbing a finger toward the Mako's back end, she called, "Legion, help the queen get in through the back hatch." Garrus on her heels, she ducked around the front, leaping over a piece of the still-burning Grizzly. On the far side, she threw that hatch open and jumped in. "Garrus, give me a hand with Benezia."
They took Benezia's body from the queen and laid it on one of the bench seats, then scrambled into the cockpit, leaving Legion to shoehorn the rachni into the troop compartment. Luckily, despite her size, the queen was mostly leg and long, slender body, so she folded down with enough room to spare for Legion to squeeze into the seat at the cannon.
Shepard glanced back as she started up the tank. "Now there's something you don't see every day." Legion and the queen both just stared at her. "Okay, let's get the hell out of here."
Garrus activated the electronics suite. "Getting arrested with a geth, a rachni queen, and a dead matriarch should prove interesting." He shot a glare across at her, his mandibles twitching in an aggressive way she wasn't used to seeing from him. In fact, she couldn't recall seeing it since he went after Saren on Feros.
She nodded as the Mako rumbled to life. "Keep a weather eye on those damage sensors. I'm going to need to push the poor old girl as hard as I can." She activated her omnitool so that she could see the chrono counting down, then slipped the tank into gear, backing it away from Peak 15.
The hours they'd spent inside the facility had not been kind to the roads. Not to mention that the snow had drifted and blown down through the hole in the cockpit, covering most of the control console in a thick layer of crystals. She brushed it off and ducked her head, trying to see past the miniature squall blasting directly into her face.
"Legion, grab a panel off something non-essential and stick it up here. I can't see a fucking thing." Shepard swiped a hand across the face plate of her helmet to clear her vision, unable to see the sensor readouts.
"Might have been something to consider before ramming a colossus and getting it stuck on the front of the Mako," Garrus grumbled. He cursed as Legion wedged itself between them, and sparks filled the air from its omnitool.
"Shut it, Vakarian, and just keep your eyes on the damn sensors." Shepard hit the eezo core, increasing the positive field to give the tank more traction as it leaped off a drift and bounced dangerously close to the cliff edge. Steering it toward the mountainside, she brought the six-wheeled menace back under control.
"Maybe slow the hell down before you get us all killed. We've got twenty minutes to make it four and a half kilometres." Garrus reached over in front of her to hit a control. "We've got the time, and if you keep going like this, we're going to break down. Only four wheels are turning, the entire front end is twisted … ."
"Just keep it running for another twenty minutes. I didn't ask for a laundry list of how I—"
"Look out!" Garrus hollered, pointing to the LADAR screen as a mass of snow the size of an apartment building broke free of the mountainside above them.
Gritting her teeth, Shepard manipulated the eezo core to increase the tank's mass and steered into the torrent, driving directly toward the mountain. Fighting the current, the Mako slewed hard, the tires churning as the tons of snow pushed it toward the edge. The tank punched through and reared up the rock face, tilting off to the starboard side to crash back onto its wheels.
"Spirits, Shepard," Garrus shouted, adding a choice turian curse. "Do you have to drive like a lunatic?"
Shepard clenched her teeth and set her jaw, fighting to keep her trembling hands steady on the controls. "Watch the damned screens. Last thing I fucking need is someone screaming at me from the passenger seat."
Legion finished its work and retreated silently out of the battle zone. Shepard gave it a nod of gratitude, glad to be able to see what she was doing. They passed into the first of the avalanche tunnels, and she took advantage of the calm to remove her helmet. Sighing with relief, she shook her hair out and cracked her neck. God, she hated wearing that thing while driving or flying.
The road between the first and second avalanche tunnels widened to a far more comfortable margin. She still stuck like a tick to the inside of the road, however. If another avalanche hit, she'd much rather it buried them then swept them out into a long drop with a deadly stop.
"How far until we're clear of the blast zone?" She glanced down at her chrono. Twelve minutes.
"Two kilometres." Garrus reached over her console again to hit a couple of controls. As annoying as it was, she let it go. They needed the damned thing to carry them another two klicks before it conked out. If he needed to sit on her lap and braid her hair to accomplish that, so be it.
"Is the last avalanche tunnel outside the zone?" she asked as the Mako did a small jump down the ramp and back onto the snowy road.
"The last half of it, anyway," Garrus answered after a second of fiddling with the map.
"We'll let our passengers out there," she said. "They can get a head start toward Port Hanshan, take shelter close to the city. Once we're clear of the bureaucracy, we'll pick them up." Shepard course corrected as the road under them broke loose and slid toward the edge. "We can sit in the tunnel for a bit to buy them time."
Garrus grumbled, but remained focused on his task as a grinding sound from underneath began to accompany the wobbling thump-thump of the ruined wheels..
With a klick left to go, smoke began to drift into the cockpit. Shepard glanced over at Garrus to see how concerned she needed to be, but he just shrugged and nodded ahead to the opening of the last tunnel before the city.
"There's nothing left to do but hope," he grumbled.
"Understood. Look for some shelter for them on high ground. The blast is likely going to shake every last bit of snow off the mountain, and I don't want them to end up down there, somewhere." She jerked her head toward the drop.
Garrus hunkered over the topographical terrain display without arguing.
The smoke had reached the point where Shepard thought she'd have to put her helmet back on when they entered the tunnel. At the far end, Shepard checked her chrono. Despite nearly dying, they'd made good time, and Legion had nine minutes to get high enough to avoid being buried in an inevitable avalanche.
Shepard turned in her seat and passed the geth a card of trackers. "These are in case we lose radio contact for any reason. Make sure you're both wearing more than one. Radio in when you find shelter outside the city. Just send your location." She glanced to Garrus, but he remained hunched over, searching. "Here's the matriarch's OSD. Don't lose it."
She studied the pair of them for a moment. "Are you both going to be okay in this cold?"
"This platform is designed to withstand the cold vacuum of space," Legion informed her.
"We shall be fine. Rachni are accustomed to far more hazardous environments than this," Benezia said with the queen's voice.
Shepard shuddered.
"I found a cave high on the mountain. They should be able to make it if they move now and move fast," Garrus called out. "Sending coordinates to Legion's omnitool."
"Excellent." Shepard pulled on her helmet and climbed out the side door, riding up Legion's heels. When they extricated the rachni queen from the troop compartment, she and Garrus helped her with Benezia. "Be quick and careful," she ordered as the odd pair turned and ran toward the end of the tunnel.
"Sweet baby Jesus, I hope they'll be okay," she muttered under her breath once the swirling snow swallowed them whole.
"They'll be fine. Let's get back in the Mako before my limbs snap off." Garrus climbed in the back, while Shepard ran around the side.
Once in the driver's seat, Shepard put the tank into reverse, backing down the avalanche tunnel just far enough to clear the end. Any part of the structure might collapse in the case of a massive disaster, but the ends seemed the most likely danger zones.
Neither she nor Garrus spoke as they waited for the timer to run out. A couple of times, she inhaled and opened her mouth to ask him if some of the rachni might escape and survive, or how he thought Saren planned to escape. Each time, she glanced over at him, sitting there rigid and furious, his mandibles tight to his face and twitching, and the mission aborted before getting off the launch pad.
She'd just started the transition from hurt sadness to puzzling through why he was so furious with her when the ground shook, a single, massive jolt. A sound like an old-fashioned diesel freight train rumbled toward them, then God slammed His fist down on the Mako. Shepard flew out of her seat, bouncing off the divider to crash onto the floor as the machine rocked hard to starboard. Bouncing and swaying, it settled onto all six tires.
No sooner had silence fallen than she felt the ground tremble again. The roar accompanying the cataclysm of rolling snow grew louder and louder until Shepard covered her head and curled into a ball, waiting for it to end. An avalanche that strong should smash through the tunnel, a charging bull that bore them over the edge to smash them against the rock far below. But then the monster passed over them and she peeked out from under her arms, heart pounding, head light. They were okay. She let out a giddy sound, not sure if it was relief or her cheese had finally slid off her cracker.
"Shepard? You all right?" Garrus moved, alerting her to the fact that he'd wrapped himself around her. His voice sounded nearly as shaken as she felt.
She uncurled and pushed herself up off the Mako's floor. "Yeah, I'm fine, just rattled." Clambering to her feet, she checked herself for injury. Other than the vague burning and nausea left over from the rachni goo, all of her bits and pieces seemed present and accounted for. "How about you?" She sat in the driver's seat and checked on the Mako.
"Yeah, fine." He thumped down into the other seat and brought up the LADAR screen. After a minute, he let out a grumbling sigh. "Well, we're stuck."
"What do you mean stuck? Did the tunnel collapse?" She craned her neck to get a better look at the readout. The immediate area seemed clear.
Garrus chuffed. "I mean that we can drive back and forth along this fifty metre stretch of tunnel, but there is no way in hell we can get out either end." Garrus slowed down, speaking to her as if she was three. "The antimatter explosion shook the mountain. The snow rolled down the mountain. The snow buried us in this tunnel." He got up and moved to the cannon seat in the back. "I'll power down everything that isn't essential to survival. We're going to be here awhile."
Shepard let out a long, angry breath, her nostrils flaring. "Excellent. Behaving like a petulant, condescending ass is definitely going to make being trapped here a whole lot easier. Thanks so much."
Garrus turned off the cannon and electronics suite before moving to the front seat and setting to work on the machine gun and navigation controls. "And you called me a jinx. You're the jinx. How many times have your decisions gotten us trapped somewhere, Shepard? Therum, you decided to blow a magma pocket to kill the krogan. Feros, you insisted we run down through the building. Omega … ."
Shepard looked over at him and deadpanned, "You're joking with me, right? Therum, okay, I own Therum. Feros was your hot-headed stupidity. If we'd evacuated with the colonists, we'd have been fine. Omega ... who was it yelled, 'They went in here'?" She threw her hands out. "And this? What the hell else was I supposed to do, C-Sec? Wait two days for Nihlus to get us permission to check out the crater that used to be Peak 15? Try to make it down the road to Port Hanshan and get us swept off the side of the mountain?" Her eyes burned, hating the sick, aching pressure that threatened to blow open her chest. Had she just been naive about Garrus being her friend all those weeks?
No, surely she hadn't, but then why was he acting so much ... so much like Nihlus? Well, Nihlus before he started trying to avoid assholery. She pushed that out of her head and reached up to open a radio channel. "Legion, it's Shepard. Do you read?"
"Affirmative, Shepard-Captain. We avoided the avalanche and are undamaged. Proceeding toward Port Hanshan," the geth replied.
"Excellent. Talk to you soon, Shepard out." She closed the channel.
"No, dropping and going in was the right move," Garrus continued. He leaned back against the side of the tank, the rod up his ass returning full force. "I just wasn't counting on being arrested outside of council space on espionage charges." He held his hands out, gesturing around them. "Do you know how much the executive board will fine us, Shepard? They probably won't take the Normandy because it would provoke an incident with the Alliance, but us personally … ." He leaned toward her. "I will never make enough money at C-Sec to pay the fines. Not to mention what being arrested for corporate espionage does for the career of a C-Sec investigator." He thumped back against the side of the tank.
"I guess that depends on whether or not you're a C-Sec investigator, doesn't it?" Shepard turned to stare straight ahead. Sighing, she growled a little, then said, "What the fuck is your problem, Vakarian? Is this just a case of 'I'm having a bad day, and I feel like being a complete ass to Shepard', or is there something else going on?" Deflating a little, she shook her head. "I'm doing the fucking best that I can. I got us all in there, got the information, and then got us out alive." She tried not to let him see how deep his words cut. For so many years she'd cultivated a life where no one's opinion of her mattered, and now another turian was causing that 'surely it must be a heart attack' pain. She swallowed hard, trying to loosen her throat, preparing herself for whatever he said.
"Vakarian?" Garrus asked, his voice sounding nearly as strangled as hers.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him nod, a small thrill of satisfaction lancing through her as his mandibles dropped for a moment.
He took a quick, deep breath and nodded again. "Well, if I have to be Vakarian to keep you alive, then I guess I'll live with that. You went somewhere stupid and ugly back in that tram station, Kahri, so yes, I have a problem beyond 'it's been a bad day'." He leaned forward, spine rigid, mandibles tucked in hard against the sides of his mouth. "The most important person in my life is a suicidal, reckless idiot, and I'm getting a little tired of having to babysit her."
"Most import … . Babysit … ?" She scoffed even though her heart raced and her hands tingled. Why hadn't she seen what a condescending ass he could be? Fury boiled inside her gut, making her stomach flutter. "You're impossible. Why did I even bring you along on? I should have left you on—"
He chuffed, cutting her off. "Me? I'm impossible? Oh, honey … ."
Shepard spun to face him and lunged across the cab, grabbing his armour by the yoke. "You did not just 'honey' me. I'm your fucking captain, C-Sec Investigator Vakarian." Giving him a single, hard shake, she leaned in, glaring at him. "We've had this discussion. Little sister pushed the limit of disrespect you could show and keep what little ass you have. Honey ... a hundred turians don't have enough ass for 'honey'."
Garrus folded his arms and pulled his head back. "Yes, we've had this discussion, Shepard. But do you want to know something? Sometimes the terrible Captain Jane Shepard, most feared woman in the galaxy ..." He leaned in, staring into her eyes, an angry glint challenging her. "... as long as she's behind the wheel, needs to hear that she's being a—"
A furious growl rolled from her throat. "You … ."
Then his mouth mashed against hers, and her lips moved over his rough hide. Leaning into him, breathless, her heart beating hummingbird-fast in her chest, Shepard dragged herself the rest of the way across the space, kneeling on his seat between his thighs. She arched into him, the keel of his armour scraping between her breasts with a metallic-ceramic rasp as his talons wrapped around her arms, pulling her into him. Moving of their own volition, her hands slipped from his armour, circling his neck. She didn't know whose tongue ventured into whose mouth first, but then it didn't matter as they wrapped around one another, straining to get close enough past the barrier of the ceramic plating between them.
Shepard yanked back, throwing herself backward into her seat, chest heaving as she struggled to catch her breath. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth then stared at a narrow streak of blood that marked her glove from where one of his teeth had nicked her lip.
"Where … ?" she gasped. "Wha … ?" She let out a startled, gasping cough. "Sweet baby Jesus, C-Sec. Where the hell did that come from?"
He slid forward on his seat, staring at her for a long moment, then hit his knees between the seats. "Do you care?" He reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand, his thumb running across her brow and down the bridge of her nose.
She swung around to kneel on the driver's seat, bringing her to his eye level. "Hell, no." She leaned forward, kissing him softly, more tentatively until his arms wrapped around her, pulling her into the contact. Then their tongues tangled around one another, hands roaming everywhere they could touch, bodies pressed together despite the armour. Shepard pulled off her gloves, running her fingers over his face and down his neck.
What are you doing, Janey? You know this is stupid.
"The fringe," he whispered against her lips, distracting her, "particularly the underside." He nuzzled along the line of her jaw, then under her ear. He chuckled. "Oh, I like this spot." He tickled the short, silky hairs with the upper plate of his mouth, then his tongue. "So soft."
Shepard purred low and throaty. "What a coincidence, I like that one too." She tilted her head, giving him free roaming as her fingertips slid over and between the long spikes of his fringe, lingering in all the places where he moaned and rumbled.
You know that you're dooming your friendship, right? You're way too far gone to have a real, functional relationship, Janey.
Shepard stiffened and pulled away, pressing her palm against Garrus's cheekbone. The ache in her chest deepened as he looked into her eyes, then leaned in and touched his brow to hers.
"Stop freaking out," he said. "Breathe, Shepard, and just stop thinking."
"There it is again, that C-Sec magic," she said, trying to force a chuckle. "Levitation and now mindreading."
"I told you ... one hundred percent pure magic." His mandible ticked her cheek as it flicked in a smile.
"Captain Jane Shepard?" a stern, female voice called through Shepard's radio, shattering the moment.
Shepard sighed and pulled away, her hand reaching up to her radio. "This is Shepard."
"Captain, I'm Sergeant Kaira Stirling, Elanus Risk Control Services. I'm here to detain you on behalf of the Port Hanshan Customs and Immigration Authority for unauthorized landing on Noveria Executive Board property."
"Understood, Sergeant," Shepard replied. Experience had taught her it was best to keep things simple and direct in those sorts of situations.
"Our scan shows two of you in there. Is that correct? Are you armed?"
Shepard chuckled. "Yes, there are two of us and yes, we are incredibly well armed, but neither of us is prone to firing on peace officers unless we are fired upon first."
"You're buried under about fifteen metres of snow, Captain, so it will take us several hours to get you out of there." The Sergeant grumbled, her distaste coming through loud and clear as she continued. "It is my duty at this time to inform you that all fees, equipment rental and loss, expenses, and wages incurred during your rescue are your responsibility and, regardless of other outcomes, will be due in full requiring payment prior to your vessel being released from impound."
Shepard laughed, waiting until she could wrestle the humour down before she replied. "Understood Port Hanshan Authority. We aren't going anywhere. Shepard, out." Sighing, she rested her head on the yoke of Garrus's armour. "Well, we're being rescued. Again."
He chuckled. "Probably going to be stuck in here for a few hours though. However will we spend the time?"
Shepard leaned into him and nuzzled his mandible. "What in the name of the sweet baby Jesus do we do about this, C-Sec?"
He sighed and turned to nuzzle her brow. "Have you made Nihlus any promises?"
"Nihlus?" She jerked back and frowned at him. "No. Nihlus and I aren't like that."
"Nihlus is," he said, his voice warm and gentle.
Shepard nodded. "I know, he kissed me, and I care about him. I do."
"But?" His talons combed through her hair.
"I gave him a knife, and he turned it right around on me. I understand why ... I think, but I don't think I'll ever trust him to where I just leap on him and stick my tongue in his mouth." She chuckled and pulled back, pressing her lips to his mouth. Her eyes drifted closed as she inhaled the rich, warm, gun oil and male smell of him. "So, is this just a moment of snowbound insanity?"
He nuzzled her lips and down her neck. "Now that I've done this and felt this … " His tongue flicked the spot under her ear. "... I'm going to be thinking about it pretty much every second of the day. My vote is for giving us a shot."
Shepard pulled back and stared into his eyes, the left side of her mouth pulled back in a considering smile even as her heart fell, pounding hard but slow, as if her blood turned to sludge.
What are you going to do when he leaves you?
"Okay. We'll see what happens, but C-Sec ... you know me. You know it's not going to be smooth sailing."
He nodded toward the back and reached up to cup her neck between his hands. "We're going to be here for a while, so let's do our best to keep warm."
"You're going to be a constant distraction, aren't you?" she whispered. Despite the teasing tone in her voice, the words laced very real bonds of fear around her heart, tying it tight. She'd worked so hard not to have anything she was afraid to lose, anything that took her mind off the job in front of her. She watched him crouch and squeeze into the back, dragging the cushions off the bench seats and lying them on the floor.
He gave her hope, and damned if that wasn't the most dangerous force in the universe. It couldn't last. Between how fucked up she was, the danger of the job, and the fact that sooner or later, even if they both survived, the mission would end and they'd go back to their lives ... whatever they developed would destruct.
He dug into the chest under the seat, pulling out blankets, water, a lantern, and rations bars. He held up the ration bars. "I packed dextro this time." He grinned, then sobered as their eyes met. "You're already talking yourself out of this, aren't you?"
She nodded. No point in lying to the C-Sec investigator who saw everything.
He spread out one of the blankets, jerking his head to call her over. "Come here." When she didn't move, he did it again. "Come here, Shepard."
She turned to her controls, powering everything down except the emergency lights and the heater. Once she shut it down, she turned to look at Garrus only to find him still watching her.
"Did we know that would happen eventually?" she asked, her brow furrowing even as the one side of her face quirked again.
He frowned, but his mandibles spread and fluttered. "Then ... no. Now, I think it was going to happen from the moment I turned around in the gym, saw the way you were watching me, and my heart started racing so fast that I thought I'd pass out."
Shepard raised her eyebrows and nodded. "Yeah, I can't complain about that view."
Garrus looked down and away, his mandibles fluttering a little.
Shepard got up and ducked through into the back, kneeling beside him. Laying her hand on his arm, she asked. "What?" She waited a second, then cocked an eyebrow. After so many days of the confident, badass friend, his bashfulness surprised her, but it also made her neck flare with heat that crawled up her cheeks. "C-Sec?"
He chuffed a little. "After we met Martin … ."
She chuckled and slid her hand down to hold his talons. "You really going to make me drag this out of you?"
He met her eyes at last, his expression as intense as she'd ever seen it, but different. It wasn't the intensity of the sniper's honed laser sight, but an intensity with a profound gentleness behind it. "Since the Citadel, I've wanted it, Shepard. The way you threw your arms around my neck when that artifact let you go … . The time we spent with Martin and Anderson … ."
She smiled sadly and reached up to press her hand against his cheek before pulling on her gloves. "I like you, C-Sec. I do ... you're the best friend I've had in a long time, but that's what has me scared. I don't want to fuck what we already have up because of my craziness." When she opened her mouth to continue, he caressed her bottom lip the pad of a talon, silencing her.
"Shepard, take a drink." He shoved a bottle of water into her hand. "Are you hungry?" Not waiting for an answer, he pressed a protein bar into her other one. "Eat, and then we'll just keep warm and wait to get arrested."
Twisting the cap off the bottle, she took a long drink then passed it to him. After looking at the protein bar for a couple of seconds, she set it aside. Her belly tied itself in knots, caught in the middle between how badly she wanted to reach across the centimetres separating them, and the fear that crawled through her.
Garrus set the bottle aside and took both of her hands in his. "What you're feeling right now is your fight or flight response. You live by it, and it almost always demands that you fight. Right?"
She smiled and squeezed his hands. "Yeah, I've never been much of a runner." Still, her guts insisted that she shut it down before it had a chance to go anywhere. It had to be less painful in the end.
Garrus leaned in, tugging her toward him until their brows touched and he could clasp his hands behind her back. "Don't run, Kahri. If you give me a chance, I won't let you down."
The pressure eased, the knots loosening as warmth spread through her. "What is that you keep calling me?" she whispered. Her eyes drifted shut as the steady, safe ... groundedness of him pulled her in. He felt like home.
Damn him.
"Kahri. It's a word in the turian closed dialect, the language of the home world." He nuzzled her brow. "It has a few meanings, one of which is light."
A barely imperceptible sigh escaped her lips to drift in the silence between them. "I'm no one's light, C-Sec."
A crooked talon pressed under her chin, tilting her face up. "You're such a bright light that you blind yourself, Shepard. Why do you think people are drawn to you, as ornery and sarcastic and stubborn as you are?" He pressed his mouth to hers then nuzzled her cheek, his breath the gentlest of caresses on her skin. "If you'd left me behind on the Citadel, I'd have followed. If you don't want to be with me, I can learn to live with that, as much as I want it, but, Shepard, I'm in this to the end." A wry chuckle rumbled deep in his throat. "No matter how much you piss me off."
"Okay, C-Sec. Okay, but I'm going to want to run." Pulling back, she slipped her arms around his neck. Something settled deep in her chest, something that felt as if it had been floating for fifteen years. "I've never done this. Never wanted to before now." She smiled and tucked her face in under his jaw. "Remember that though, when I'm being terrified, impossible, and obtuse. I do want this."
He held her tight. "Deal." Without pulling away, he picked up one of the emergency blankets and pulled it around her. "You're going to be okay, Shepard. We'll figure all this out."