Tarin - Female turian over the age of majority.
Ungentira - A large warm blooded, cat-like predator native to the high mountains of Palaven. It is neither mammal or reptile, but has aspects of both. (See bottom for full description.)
Parsophin - Ancient turian version of cavalry. Warriors rode into battle on Loraus Montum (large armoured four-legged reptile analogues that have since gone extinct due to a highly selective breeding process that effectively devastated the gene pool.)
500 Days ASD
"Tell me a story."
Garrus tilted his chin up just far enough to meet Shepard's eyes above the curve of her ribcage. Skating a mandible over a nipple, he half-closed his eyes, savouring the silky texture of her skin against his. "Seriously?" He lowered his face to nuzzle her sun-warmed flesh, making his way between her breasts until his tongue teased the hollow between her ribs. "Am I boring you?"
She laughed, the sound bright and sharp as it bounced off the thick wall of grass that towered above them, and stroked his fringe, moving languidly beneath his arm and against his side. "Not in the least. I didn't say you should stop what you're doing."
He teased a breast with the upper plate of his mouth. "And how would you have me do both?"
Eyes closing, she arched into him a little, rolling over to lie on her side, facing him. "You're a talented torin; you'll figure it out." She caressed his face with loving fingers, the warmth in her smile forcing his breathing into shallow, quick pants.
Leaning up a little, he kissed her, tongue fluttering against her bottom lip. "But I really liked what my mouth was doing," he whispered, his hand sliding down over her ribs to the soft hollow just above her hip bone. Every touch, every scent, every sensation … no matter how they faded in the real world, in his dreams, she remained exactly as she'd been.
His Shepard.
True, her humour didn't bite as hard or as quick, and she didn't rise to the highs and lows that she once had. Death had mellowed her, but her love provided the rest and shelter he sorely needed, holding him above the yawning abyss that haunted his days. Out there, a bone-deep weariness gnawed at him until some days he needed to check his reflection to be sure that it hadn't consumed every last cell.
Turning his back on those thoughts, he stroked her skin, the sun washing out the freckles that dotted its surface. Strange how before Shepard, he'd never fantasized about humans or asari. He'd been attracted to his share of tarins, even found his way past the stumbling awkwardness with a few, but Shepard, as alien as she was … he could completely lose himself in exploring every centimetre of her over and over. He slipped his thumb talon beneath the waist of her trousers, leaning up to watch her eyes as he unfastened her belt and popped the button on her trousers.
She smiled, but it didn't blossom past her lips, her eyes blank—almost sterile—the corners of her mouth and the delicate planes of her face flat. "Going to try to take your expedition afield, are you? Chart the unknown?" Despite the teasing words, he felt her freeze under him as he eased down the zipper. "Beyond this point, there be dragons."
A sigh, arid and famished, wafted over her skin, and he winced, hoping she hadn't heard it. Laying the material open, he nuzzled his way up her side, his thumb caressing just below her navel. She never moved. Damn. "You're not still afraid?" he asked quietly, not wanting to upset her.
"No, my love, I'm not afraid," she replied, her voice as expressionless as her face. "You are, because you know there's nothing past this point. I'm exactly as I was when I died, Garrus. I'll never change, never grow, never expose new ground for you to explore. All I can ever offer you along that road stops—"
"Okay, a story," he said, his voice slicing over hers. Even as her words detonated inside his chest, shards of ice and slivers of glass tearing through him, he nodded toward a large, hardcover book lying a couple of feet away. "Do you want me to keep going with that one? We were being chased toward Bree by Ringwraiths yesterday."
She shook her head. "I want to hear one that your mari or pari told you when you were young." Her expression remained flat, almost sad. "I feel … " She shrugged, just a quick, helpless pop of the shoulders as she fought to find the words. "… thin, I guess. Help me feel real, Garrus."
Leaning up, he blinked rapidly, a splinter of panic burrowing through the tough hide to lodge in his neck. He kissed her. "Okay," he whispered, his mouth still brushing hers. He stretched out along her side, curling his arm under her neck. Smiling—one that crinkled the skin at the corners of her eyes and lips, warming him with its delight—she burrowed deeper into his side. He shook his head and nuzzled his way down her jaw. "You and your stories," he whispered against her neck.
Closing his eyes, he tucked his face in under her ear. "A very long time ago, when turians started to move into great, fortified city-states, one rose above the others, a jewel of architecture, engineering, and art." A rumble rolled along under his words, matching the slow, lazy sensuality of Shepard's fingertips as they whispered along the ridge where his hide transitioned into cowl. Spirits, he loved the way she touched him.
"Cipritine?" she asked, her voice muffled as she nuzzled his temple.
"No. In fact, it stood as Cipritine's, or Gemmarin as it was called back then, greatest rival. The other city was called Aerearis. The primarchs of the two cities had been good friends in their youth, but grew apart as they assumed greater responsibility and power. Things only became more complicated when both fell in love with the same tarin." Smiling, he flicked just the tip of his tongue against the beat of her pulse where it thumped, restive and strong beneath the skin. "As these things usually do, the whole affair quickly dissolved into war. The way my mari told the tale, it featured heavily on the war and social cost, while my pari's version emphasized the romance." He shrugged and grinned. "I think Mari was trying to encourage me to treat relationships and their consequences with a degree of gravity."
"As she should," Shepard agreed. "Can't tell you how many of mine led to war, famine, social upheaval … ."
"With you, I'd believe that." A chuckle smoothed his words as he continued, "Anyway, both primarchs were great warriors and generals, but their priorities couldn't have been more different. The primarch of Aerearis, Tunarus, desired to be remembered and exalted as a great visionary, to survive the ages in legend. He sent explorers out to discover new lands and rich new resources, leading massive armies out to conquer what land he couldn't just claim. His city rose up the Cliffs of Laertus, the citadel high enough to be seen from Gemmarin."
"Lots of statues, temples … that sort of thing?" Shepard asked, a brittle rind of humour crackling along the underside.
He kissed her ear. "Definitely. His state towered above all others, rich, prosperous, and beautiful." He paused to run his tongue around the inside of his mouth and swallow a few times to ease the sandy roughness rasping through his voice.
The breeze ruffled her bronze and copper curls, caressing them against his mandible and throat, the delicate touch drawing a festered splinter of longing from his throat.
Shepard pulled away to meet his eyes, all humour bleeding away in favour of concern. "Garrus?" She stiffened, supple flesh turning cold, ephemeral, and spun-sugar fragile against his.
Panic drew her back in, none too gently. He just shook his head and tucked her into his warmth, returning to the story. She wanted to hear a story, surely she wouldn't leave him until he finished. "The primarch of Gemmarin, Callor, was a very different sort of torin from Tunarus." He stroked his talons along her arm, massaging until her porcelain tenuity softened.
As she melted into him once more, his heart slowed, and thawing neurons allowed the tale to flow back through. He nuzzled her temple. "Although one of the most skilled and talented warriors of his generation, Callor chose only to defend the lands and lives passed into his care. Instead of exploring and conquering the world, he dedicated himself to culture and art, to writing and education. In fact, he left behind one of the most prolific collections of treatises on war and ancient turian history. They're housed in the Palaven national archive."
"Mmm, I like Callor already," Shepard said and grinned, her eyes slipping closed as she sighed with contentment. "I think this story may be rigged." She stretched next to him, languid almost to the point of purring like an ungentira as she slid the pad of her foot up his lower leg and along his spur. Her toes teased the sensitive nerves, launching white-hot bolts of ecstasy up his leg to lodge in his groin. She'd done it a couple of times by accident during the nights they'd shared her bed, each time sending him darting for the far side of the mattress before she caused an … awkward issue.
One truth about turian physiology … the pointy, vulnerable bits were chocked full of nerve endings for their own preservation, making them natural erogenous zones.
A soft, throaty moan rolled up from his gut, gratitude and relief and pleasure all tangling into a knot that loosened his plates. "Do you want to hear this story or not?" he whispered, pulling back to look into her eyes. An impish expression that struggled to police itself into innocence stared back at him. Shaking his head, he continued, warning her, "If you keep that up, no more story, because my mouth will be too busy to talk."
Shepard shrugged, her eyebrows climbing toward her hairline as her lips pressed hard together. They wriggled like a worm caught in a maraquil's beak for a moment before she got them under control and said, "What? I'm not doing anything."
A crooked brow plate called out her lie, but she ignored it, just settling back against his chest, her arm draping over his side. "So, who did the fair tarin choose?" she prompted.
"You're getting ahead of the story," he chastised, setting his face as firmly as he could. "Katrana was not the sort of tarin who wanted to be chosen or even courted." He winced as he used the word, but then a reluctant nod forced its way out, jarring and wooden. "Yes, once turians were all about the traditional courting rituals."
Shepard kissed his mandible, dragging the tip of her tongue along the edge. From the corner of his eye he saw her grin as her efforts produced a throaty purr. She tickled the tip of her nose against his cheek in what she called a bunny kiss. "I sort of love that. I've always known there are hopeless romantics hiding behind all the really big guns. You and Nihlus can't be the only two."
A long, grumbling breath spirited out to ride along the back of the wind. "Anyway, she fought at her family's side to defend their territory—a small state several days north of the coast—was known for her talent with musical instruments, and almost all the Loraus Montum used in the Parsophin of every major leader was trained by her hands." Smiling, he rubbed her arm. "Strong and independent, Katrana was sort of like someone else I know, so when Tunaris sent envoys laden with rich gifts to declare his intent to court her, she sent everything back unopened."
"As she should," Shepard sighed. "Didn't even go himself. I hope Callor showed a little more sense." Stretching again, she slid her palm up the long, flat plane of his lowest chest plate, draping herself against his chest.
Garrus rolled over onto his side, settling his keel against the ground so he could pull her in tight, their noses touching. "Stop jumping ahead. Spirits, you're impatient." He reached up, talons brushing through her hair. "Tunaris responded to Katrana's refusal by declaring war on her family's state."
"Not the best way to try to bring the girl around," Shepard sighed and shook her head, a grin hiding beneath her disapproval.
"True. Katrana's father marched south to meet Tunaris's army, but secretly he sent Katrana to meet with Callor, asking for aid in the war." He nuzzled her lips. "Katrana's family controlled a large territory, but didn't stand a large enough army to hold Tunaris at bay for long. Even with Callor's forces, the odds weren't in their favour." He grinned. "You know, telling you this, I realize that all those cycles, my parents were disguising a lecture as a story. The whole thing is an object lesson."
Shepard chuckled but just caressed his arm with soft, lazy fingers, and waited for him to continue.
"When Katrana arrived in Callor's city, he fell for the intelligent, talented tarin almost instantly, and agreed to help her father protect his state from Tunaris. They both knew that they needed to take an unorthodox approach toward the coming battle, or Tunaris would end up conquering all their lands." He sighed and closed his eyes, just savouring the sun beating down on them, the whisper of the grass that made up their little hideout, and the woman in his arms.
"Katrana fell for Callor as well, but didn't want to admit it, so she told him that if he could find a way to end the conflict without the loss of a single life, she would be his bond-mate and they would join their lands. Callor didn't care about the extra land, but he did care about his people, and he wished Katrana to be his bond-mate, so he agreed."
"Quite the challenge, indeed," Shepard said, brushing her lips against his mouth. "So, how did Callor manage his miracle?"
"The reason you can't walk around on Palaven without an environment suit is the weak magnetic field. Because it's so weak, Palven's animals are very sensitive to any disruption. We have to carefully manage our technology to prevent it from causing interference with the established patterns. Callor used that weakness to his advantage. He set up high magnetic sources to redirect all the routes, sending every animal that migrates to Tunaris's city. His beautiful city became completely uninhabitable. He and his army returned home to try to deal with the problem, but Callor had created a magnetic fence around the city, and the people ended up having to flee, leaving almost everything behind."
"And they had to live as refugees in Callor and Katrana's lands?" Shepard laughed. "Smart cookie. I imagine that Katrana found him completely irresistible after that." She pulled back, reaching up to trace the lines of his face with tender fingers. "I would have. Love a torin who uses what's between his ears." She leaned up and looked at both sides of his head. "Or in the case of turians, I suppose … ummm … aural canals? Tympanic membranes?"
He dragged her back down and rolled over to pin her down as he kissed her. Passion and joy roared through him, everything about her building the flood until it swept him away. The taste of her mouth, the softness of her body under his, the way her fingers couldn't seem to stop seeking out places that made him moan against her lips.
"Did they end up joining their states and finding their happily ever after?" Shepard whispered, nibbling along his mandible between words.
"Near enough. They had a long and prosperous rule, several children … a statue dedicated to them stands in the courtyard of the Hierachy's Seat in Cipritine." He kissed her again. "At this point my mari would say, 'All because he used his wits instead of less keen weapons'."
Shepard smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. "What does the name Callor mean?"
He pulled back just far enough to stare down into her eyes and frowned, brow plates lowering as he thought. "Light, but more of a glow, like candlelight on a wall. It also means bright in the sense of intelligence … for obvious reasons." Leaning down, he nuzzled the tip of her nose. "Why?"
Her chest caved a little in an awkward shrug, trapped beneath him as she was. "Callor … " A smile accompanied a sharp nod. "I love it. I think we've finally found your nickname."
"Gah! Massani, why is that creepy-ass painting back in the sitting room?" The sharp cry of disgust sliced through Garrus's dream, snatching him by the fringe to drag him from Shepard's arms.
Opening his eyes, he sighed and rolled over, pulling his pillow over his head in a vain attempt to muffle the angry asari as she continued.
"You do know the story behind it, don't you?"
"Yeah, so?" The grizzled old merc replied. After a moment, Zaeed's voice rose to rival the asari matron's, and that said something. Melanis possessed a true gift for volume. "God. That's bloody horrible coffee. Who made this shit?"
"I did," Martin replied. "You think that you can do better? Do it."
Garrus threw back his blankets and sat up on the side of the bed. Why had he chosen the room right above the common area? And why did Zaeed have to keep hanging that bloody painting—quite literally—directly beneath his windows?
Callor. I love it. I think we've finally found your nickname.
He smiled as Shepard's voice whispered through his still-foggy thoughts, a siren call to start his day. The sooner started, the sooner ended. Still, he leaned forward, hands braced against the edge of the mattress, arms tight against his side, and waited for the Mako of exhaustion to either roll off his shoulders or crush him. Of course, he knew better. It would do neither, he'd just shoulder it and get on with the million things he needed to do in the course of a day.
"Speaking of … ," he said, subvocals rumbling. He hoped Nihlus had reported back to the Normandy, and Martin had their inspection tour itinerary—
Footsteps ran up the stairs then his door reverberated with a heavy, familiar cadence. Spirits, he hated Martin's energy some days. "I'll be down in ten minutes, and you'd better have confirmations from every stop on the tour," he hollered.
"Wow," the kid called back, "someone got up on the wrong side of the bed. Everything's ready, but some stuff has come up. I'll fill you in once you get a strong cup or two of amarceru into you and shake off the growling bear routine."
Before Garrus could reply, the young man's footsteps trotted down the stairs, returning to the common room.
Closing his eyes, Garrus tried to pull forward a picture of Shepard, but after so many days … . He swallowed past the iceberg lodged in his throat, his head dropping to hang from braced shoulders.
"Don't leave me," he whispered to the pale ghost painted on the insides of his eyelids. "I'm so tired, Kahri. I couldn't find the strength to keep Archangel running without you. It's so damned huge, Shepard. So damned huge and so damned heavy." After another couple of long, deep breaths, he squared his shoulders and cracked his neck. Time to get another day started.
"General, did you know that Massani hung that damned painting back up here?" Melanis demanded the moment Garrus appeared on the stairs. The asari raced up the stairs to meet him, fury flushing her skin a dark, mottled violet across her cheeks and down her neck.
"I did," Garrus said, thumping down a couple of stairs his earlier weariness returning. "It's just a painting, Melanis. Those people have been dead for a couple thousand cycles." He took her by the shoulders and turned her toward the kitchen. "Do the two of you have to argue every second? Go to your corners and take a time out. Eat some breakfast or something."
"But the artist mixed the blood of each victim into the skin pigments, boss," Melanis whined, spinning back to lean into him, her big, leaf-green eyes staring up into his.
Spirits, they were so like Shep—
Garrus cut his gaze away to look at Zaeed, stepping back from the asari. She tended to stand too close and behave in too familiar a fashion for his comfort. "Like I said, they've been dead longer than the sum total of all our lives." He held out an arm to usher her down ahead of him. "Still, It's probably not safe here, Zaeed. The thing is worth a half billion credits. Do you really want to just leave it sitting out in the open in the slums of Omega?"
The grizzled old merc spun and looked at the large canvas, pride of ownership radiating through the tilt of his head. "Who's going to believe that its real?" he asked, letting out a throaty snort.
"Whether they believe it or not, Omega's combination of desperation and lawlessness can push people to take chances they might not ordinarily." Garrus shrugged. "You want it stolen, leave it up."
Garrus followed Melanis down the stairs, stuttering to a stop at the bottom as a tiny, white-haired human woman passed him, a gigantic cup of coffee held between her hands.
She looked up, wrinkled but still pretty features meeting his curious stare with a pleasant smile. "Good morning, sir."
Nodding, he fought back his confused scowl enough to return her greeting. "Good morning." The moment the words escaped, the scowl slammed back into place. Trying not to stare, he watched her hobble up the stairs. She shifted her cup to one hand, clench the railing with the other to haul herself up. The whole procedure looked so entirely painful that Garrus barely resisted the urge to scoop her up and carry her to the elevator.
"Does anyone know who that was?" he asked once the elevator doors closed behind her. He continued on to the kitchen, bypassing the serving line for the cupboards.
"I think her name is Susan," Melanis replied. "She works on the fifteenth floor in the accounting department." The asari shrugged and grabbed a plate. She passed it to the floor matron, who began heaping it with breakfast. As strong a biotic and as great a teacher as Melanis was, Garrus was pretty sure she ate enough to pay the wages for three biotics instructors.
"She's been coming down for coffee every morning since she started here," the floor matron, a human named Marcie, said. "Lovely woman. Very friendly and polite."
"There's a kitchen on the fifteenth floor," Garrus said, brow plates lowering, his eyes looking back to the elevator. "Why come all the way down here for Martin's crappy coffee?" Something cold and wary raked its talons down his spine. He shook it off and grabbed a covered mug of amarceru off the counter and a couple of ration bars from the cupboard, and turned to head up to his office.
"Oh, no you don't," Marcie snapped, stepping into his path. She snatched the ration bars from his hand. "You're going to be living on these for the next couple of months. This morning you eat properly." She dished up a heaping plate of krellar eggs, puala fruit, and strips of fried drellak roast. "Go sit down and eat. The affairs of the galaxy can take care of themselves for a few minutes." One eyebrow lifted up her forehead, higher and higher every moment he stared back.
Having slogged his way uphill through the bramble-laden swamp of that argument more than once, Garrus sighed and took the plate. Giving in meant reaching his office on the twentieth floor fifteen minutes faster than trying to get past Marcie. "Thank you," he grumbled, not even attempting sincerity, and threw himself into the nearest chair. Knowing he looked like a petulant ten-cycle-old tweaked his mandibles into a faint smile.
Zaeed poured himself another cup of coffee, took a sip, cursed, and then sat across the table from Garrus. "So . . . you want me to take a platoon to deploy those sensor nets in the Sol system?"
Garrus glanced up from shovelling in his food, grateful for the distraction of work. "No, Hackett has people installing them in all the Alliance systems." He grinned, sussing out the merc's intentions. "No sunny caribbean beach for you, at least not until after you've taken two of the stealth frigates into the Kite's Nest." Resting his forearms on the table, he gestured with his fork, punctuating his words. "Deploy the new nets along the edge of the batarian systems. Hopefully, if we slip them in there without being detected, the nets themselves will escape batarian notice."
The general managed another couple of mouthfuls then sighed as Melanis walked up to glare down at him.
"What about the painting, Garrus?" she asked, her tone demanding, bordering on insubordinate. "It's an abomination, and the asari who live here shouldn't have to look at it."
He looked up at her, glad to see her quail in the face of the annoyance he allowed to bleed into his stare and expression. "If it bothers you, don't look at it. The two of you need to figure out how to get along, because if I wake up to you screaming at one another even one more morning, you'll both be moving down into the sub-levels." Holding her stare, he cocked a brow plate. "I have a thousand more important things to worry about than whether or not you don't want to look at a painting. Am I making myself clear?"
The asari flushed a deep indigo and nodded, looking both contrite and embarrassed. "Of course you do, sir. My apologies."
He softened his expression and nodded. "Accepted. Go ahead and eat your breakfast."
The sound of motorized joints and servos alerted Garrus to Martin's approach even before the young man strode around the stairs. "You packed and ready to go?" Martin asked, grabbing one of the reinforced chairs necessary to support the extra weight of the battle frame he wore. He thumped down into it and rested his forearms on the table.
"No." Garrus finished the last bite of his breakfast, washing it down with a long swig of the bitter amarceru. "How did the squads do last night? Are they ready to ship out with the Banquan and the Aesarus?"
Martin nodded, a huge grin spreading across his face. "The flight crews' scores ranked in the ninety-six percentile, but the ground squads … ." He practically cackled with delight. "They blew the top off the score chart. The new battle frames are forty-eight percent faster and more agile. Theta squad ended up chasing the enemy to the base of this cliff. The Blood Pack all jumped into the lift the miners use. Theta squad didn't even hesitate. They practically ran up the cliff to reach the top before the lift did." He aped wiping a tear and gave a melodramatic sniff. "I wish you'd seen it. It was beautiful."
Garrus nodded. "So the Blood Pack are out of those mines, and the instructors have all signed off, passing the crews on to active duty? I want those two frigates on their way to the Kite's Nest by 1500." He opened his omnitool, but waited for Martin to answer before entering the information.
"They're cleared to go, and the only Blood Pack left are corpses." Martin jumped up and grabbed a plate. "I'm starving."
"We need to focus on turning more mercs rather than killing them." Garrus scrolled down the list of tasks he needed to clear up before leaving Omega in the hands of his senior staff for nearly three months while he toured Archangel's many and varied operations. "The geth are delivering five frigates, four cruisers, and two dreadnaughts this month, and we're going to have to mothball them for lack of crew." He muttered and shook his head. "I'm going to have to get Wrex to start sending us potentials."
Looking up, he skipped ahead to the next concern. "Has Nihlus checked in?"
"Yeah." The kid stuffed an entire biscuit in his mouth while he waited for Marcie to fill his plate, spitting crumbs everywhere as he tried to talk around it. He swallowed and thumped his chest a couple of times. "And Tali called. She seemed pretty upset. Asked me to make sure you got back to her ASAP." Sitting back down, he frowned. "Actually, Nihlus seemed off as well." He shovelled in a couple of forkfuls. "And General Oraka wants to know about the battle frame modifications for turian forces. Do you want me to handle getting those prototypes sent up to him?"
Garrus stood. "Yes. Take care of that and then check in with Mordin about the samples from Trident. Seven million souls do not just vanish without a trace. I want answers to send on to Nihlus." After dumping his dishes in the sink, Garrus headed for the elevator. "I'll see you at the briefing."
He closed the door and hit the controls to take him up, then froze and spun, suddenly sure he felt someone behind him. A faint, electrical tingle shivered along his forearm. No one there. He turned around to face the front, a scowl settling in, promising to stay with him for the day.
Garrus stepped out on the twentieth floor, a faint headache moving in behind his lowered brow plates. Technically, the twentieth floor and the five above it were dedicated to Research and Development rather than administration, but the elevated energy level and suppressed bullshit level of the department suited Garrus. And if he headed out to tinker on the latest electronics from time to time, who was to object? He was in charge of the whole damned thing; the big cheese as Martin would say.
He lifted a hand to the geth working in the first lab. The ten platforms rarely quit working, just taking a couple hours a day to hook up to their hub, recharging and networking back to their servers on Rannoch. Each of them were part of the new generation of platforms based off Legion's prototype, as independent as geth could get. Their current project both teased his imagination and scared the living crap out of him.
He glanced at the wall of schematics for the new combined missiles. The geth had come up with the idea of backloading Wrex's thresher acid missiles with nanites. The acid got the missile through the shields and weakened the Reaper's armour, allowing the nanites to penetrate and sabotage the machine from within. After a few generations, they stopped replicating and terminated, clogging up all the systems they'd invaded, thus weakening the Reaper's defences to more conventional attacks.
Pushing the door to his office open, he suppressed a shudder. The idea amounted to inspired genius … until the Reapers found a way to turn the nanites against them.
"Good morning, General," his assistant grumbled, the batarian sounding as though his morning had been anything but good. Of course, he always sounded like that. Vartash's distaste for affected niceties and small talk made up a large part of why Garrus had chosen him to be his right hand.
"Good morning, Vartash." He stopped next to the captain's desk, taking the small stack of datapads the batarian handed him. Skimming down the list of calls and messages he needed to return, he said, "I'll be in the QEC room for the next hour or so, then do you want to meet to go over the marksman classes for while I'm gone? The only one that will make you want to kill someone is the new Iota squad. If you actually locked them inside a building, they still wouldn't be able to hit the walls."
"I'll handle them all right. Besides, you'll be glued to the ship's QEC the whole time you're gone anyway. If I start shooting, you'll know within the day." He nodded toward the window that looked out into the hall. "Mordin's on the move, you'd better run if you want to get any work done before noon."
Garrus glanced out into the corridor, then spun on his talons and bolted for his office door. Luckily, the salarian scientist's attention remained focused on Martin, sparing Garrus a couple of hours worth of fascinating, but time-consuming rapid-fire conversation. With the gang population dropping like a stone, and Garrus authorizing a public comm channel so that anyone who needed safe transport to medical aid got a ride thanks to Archangel, the salarian had been able to move his clinic to the twenty-fourth floor.
Archangel outfitted the doctor with a fully equipped hospital and three labs, then provided him with a budget that allowed him to hire another two doctors, three researchers, nurses, and techs. All the organization asked in return was that the salarian work on indoctrination, curing the genophage, and other priorities as they arose. At the moment, those priorities involved helping Nihlus and Anderson figure out what happened to the almost seven million people living on Trident.
Garrus locked his office door behind him, pausing to look at the miniature of the Normandy's galaxy map as it spun lazily in the corner of the room. White markers showed the positions of Archangel forces galaxy wide. Gold markers indicated Hierarchy forces while blue flashed the locations of Alliance vessels. A single red marker indicated Trident's position.
A colony that functioned pretty much outside the law, made up of mercs, pirates, and shady business people, one expected people to go missing on Trident, just not all seven million humans. And definitely not overnight.
Garrus walked over to the map, staring down at that single glaring red dot. Two weeks ago, it appeared. Two weeks since a group of turian gun runners arrived in the main port city to sell their wares only to discover a ghost town. Anderson and the Normandy responded immediately, taking Nihlus along, but they found no signs of battle, no toxins, nothing at all to explain the disappearance. The only evidence of foul play showed up in the dead comm and electronic systems. All vid from surveillance and other cameras had been wiped.
He looked up at the vid monitor on his wall, the image frozen on the second last frame before the spaceport went dark. No matter how many hours he spent going through the footage, everything remained completely business as usual. Someone had committed the perfect crime, on a scale that terrified Garrus. He knew the hands behind it belonged to the Reapers, but so far Nihlus had turned up nothing to tell them who or what or how.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another red marker appeared on the map. His heartbeat stuttered.
Spirits. Another one.
Garrus tossed the datapads onto his desk, hurrying through his office to his private comm room. A year before, the R&D department had earned them a massive grant to develop and install quantum entanglement communicators based on a quarian/geth design that proved far more elegant and cost-effective than the one in Alliance development. The only condition imposed on the cash infusion involved handing over the designs to the Alliance and Hierarchy so they could install the same systems fleet-wide.
He opened a channel to the Normandy, not surprised to see Nihlus ready and waiting. "What's happened?"
The Spectre shook his head. "We received a message from Eldfell-Ashland headquarters saying that they'd lost contact with their people on Caleston." He nodded in response as Garrus stiffened. "Their on-site management is required to check in every twelve hours. When they didn't get a call in from Caleston, they went on alert." He shifted from leaning on one hip to the other and crossed his arms over his keel, the tell setting off all Garrus's alarms.
"Spirits. Caleston. They're the largest supplier of drive core material in the Traverse." Garrus shoved that aside for later consideration, focusing on the immediate issue. "How long before you heard about it?" he asked, leaning forward, his hands braced against the console.
"They contacted Arcturus as soon as they couldn't raise their people, and Hackett called us as soon as he got word." He shrugged, his mandibles flicking once. "Maybe five hours. It's a straight shot from the Hades Nexus to the Rift, but when we arrived, we found the exact same thing as on Trident. Nothing. Not a soul left, alive or dead." Losing a bit of composure, his mandibles dropped, and he cracked his neck. "At least on Trident, when we got there, everything had shut down other than lights. On Caleston, the machinery was still all running as if the people had just walked away. Damned creepy."
A deep, unsettled rumble rolled from the Spectre's throat, making Garrus wonder how fast Nihlus would head from the QEC to his quarters and the bottle hidden in his pack. Despite having pulled himself out of the pit he'd started digging after Shepard's death, Garrus knew Nihlus still drank almost constantly.
"Okay," he said after another moment spent trying to figure out what to do, "I'll have Mordin contact you directly. Gather whatever samples he needs, and get them back here. It looks like only human colonies have been attacked, but that still leaves too many targets to keep our eyes on. I need you to organize a defensive deployment of all available vessels. Scatter them where they have the best chance to get to a colony as soon as it goes dark." He shoved himself away from the QEC. "We need to figure out what's going on out there."
"You're pulling out today? Heading for Tuchanka?" Nihlus asked, visibly trying to shake off the aftereffects of the colony.
Garrus took a step back as he nodded. He understood his fratrin's reaction, but hated to see it. Nihlus had been doing so damned well. "I was leaving tonight, but I think I'm going to delay until 0900 tomorrow. Something is off here." He glanced around, feeling as though eyes watched him. "Something has me on edge, and I want to figure it out before I go."
A cracked cement cough of laughter erupted from the Spectre. "You're always on edge, Garrus. The entire galaxy worries you." He gestured toward the galaxy map spinning over the secondary QEC. "Although with this missing colony situation, I think you're dead right to be." He turned to look behind him as if checking to make sure no one would overhear. As he looked back, Garrus could see the walls and shields going up.
"What is it?" Garrus prompted, stepping back up to the console and leaning in. "Talk to me, Nihlus. I see connections coming together inside that head." One mandible twitched in a faint smile as the Spectre chuffed.
"What did Shepard tell you about the visions the rachni queen helped us unravel?" he asked without humour. He cut the air with a hand, then glanced over his shoulder. "Did she tell you how Sovereign was created?"
Realization crashed down on Garrus, nearly flattening him. "Someone could be harvesting the humans to build another Vanguard?." His elbows shook as they reluctantly took his weight, fists braced against the metal and polymer of the QEC interface. How had he missed it? He should have seen it. His whole career consisted of putting pieces of puzzles together. "Who?" he asked, hating the desperation in his own voice. "And where?"
Nihlus just shrugged, although the fear trembling over the comm channel from his second larynx said everything his rigid posture tried to hide. "I don't know, but I think that's our mystery. It's not what is being done with the humans, but how and by whom."
"Okay." Garrus braced himself. "We both have mysteries to solve. You contact Mordin, and I'll hopefully solve mine before I head to Tuchanka." He gave Nihlus a solemn frown, and changed the subject. "Are you okay?"
The Spectre nodded, firm and quick even though his expression relaxed. "Yeah, I'm fine." His mandibles flicked. "But you look like crap."
All Garrus could do to respond to that was nod. "Yeah, well, maybe I'll get some rest during my inspections." His talons hovered over the disconnect control. "Be careful, Nihlus. I'll be in touch."
"Stay safe," Nihlus answered, then his image vanished.
Garrus turned away from the QEC, his mind already puzzling through both mysteries … surely his uneasiness in the base and the missing humans couldn't be connected.
"Spectre Kryik is closer to the truth than any of us know, I expect."
Garrus spun around, coming face to hologram with a human in a dark suit. A cigarette burned in one hand as the man sat, legs crossed casually at the knee. Even though the image on Luna had been so badly damaged that Garrus hadn't been able to make out more than a human male in a suit, he felt sure of the encroacher's identity. He stared into the eerie blue lights glowing from the man's irises. "Armistan Banes."
The man shook his head. "Armistan Banes is dead, General. He died some time ago." He lifted a glass from a holder on the arm of his chair and drank down a respectable belt of amber liquor. "I'm called The Illusive Man."
Ungentira - A large warm blooded, cat-like predator native to the high mountains of Palaven. It is neither mammal or reptile, but has aspects of both, featuring a heavy, plated hide along its back, and a rich, luxurious pelt along their underside. They are ferocious predators, frequently taking on prey three or four times their size, which is approximately the same as a labrador retriever. Three, five-centimeter- long claws on all four feet and large fangs are their primary weapons, but they also have a poison spike at the end of their tail used for defence. They are known for climbing partway up trees and stretching to leave territorial claw marks in the bark of trees to intimidate foes with their perceived size.