20 Days ASR
Performing fighter maneuvers in a flying brick amounted to attempted suicide. Garrus accepted that going in. At least at the distance … or lack thereof … involved, if he went down, the Stinger would end up sporting a shuttle-shaped hole somewhere. He chuckled at the visual, then grumbled a curse at Shepard. She really was a terrible influence even after so long.
"All right, you bastards," he said, his subvocals growling, talons quick and steady on the controls, "this is where you learn what a massive mistake it is to turn a torin's weapons against him." Another sentiment his Kahri would enjoy.
He knew his fleet's specs, therefore the strength and weakness of each design, inside out. One hand maneuvered the shuttle while the other entered his firing solutions. The Stingers boasted an emitter system that covered a vast portion of the ship's skin. The geth packed in equally massive shields to try to offset the glass cannon issue, but if he could get inside the shields, even one well-placed shot could overload the entire electrical grid. End result: one ship down.
Now, he just hoped that the shuttles had been left on the Passch to facilitate the Blue Suns abandoning ship before the end. Fairly safe bet.
"Come on," he muttered, bringing the shuttle in nice and easy, lining it up for entry into the shuttle bay. "Come on … comms are jammed. You don't need me to verify before welcoming me back."
A fierce grin greeted the crack of light that showed along the top of the shuttle entrance. Yep, just one big happy family taking cash to bring down the galaxy. He dropped back, giving himself a bit of room in case of blow back, then opened fire. His first shots tore down the aft shields, the next volley strafed the interior.
Dropping low and hard, he flipped the shuttle into a half roll, the explosions ripping out the shuttle door licking the belly of his metal-clad, thruster-driven drunken space cow. Adjusting the trajectory to compensate for the vehicle's reluctance to do anything other than flounder, he managed to bully it into a parallel trajectory. Hitting his second pre-programmed attack sequence, he peppered the hostile ship's belly, taking out the rear GARDIAN laser. The front point defense would have a harder time targeting him. Still, they didn't waste any time trying, and he winced as the first shots sizzled past.
Now to get his one, lucky shot.
"Come on." The whisper came out as a strained sort of hiss as he nudged the shuttle closer and closer. The Stinger's underbelly loomed large in the ports … the GARDIAN's ultraviolet lasers even larger. Too damned large, but he still remained a good five hundred metres outside the shield envelope and without a clear shot at one of the emitter hubs. Sweat prickled his neck, trickling down into the collar of his armour.
"Quit being so damned cautious, Vakarian. What's the worst that can happen? It'll be a quick, glorious death." Taking a deep breath, he clenched his jaw and took the shuttle in. He really needed to give the geth the go ahead for the new troop carriers. It had just been so much easier on the budget to modify existing kodiaks.
He chuckled again, low and sardonic. "This might not be the best time for setting a new budget."
Threading the shuttle through the hole in the aft shields, he hit the firing control. A huge arc of energy ripped along the ship's hull as the system overloaded, but his drunken space cow was already lumbering away and breaking off on a course ninety degrees to starboard. The shuttles would never be able to outrun the bigger ships to Tuchanka, the plan was just to bring down their weapons and make a run outside the jamming zone.
"This is an emergency transmission for General Adrien Victus from Gen ... ." Garrus hesitated over using his title. On one hand, generals who had earned their way up through the ranks of their militaries no doubt considered him an upstart pretender … a merc commander at best. On the other hand, how could he expect them to accept him as an equal if he constantly apologized for himself?
He steeled himself and owned it. "… General Garrus Vakarian. Please respond."
Something that could either have been maniacal, victorious whooping or tormented death screams came through his helmet comms from the other shuttle. Although performing some sort of spastic attempt at a barrel roll, the other vehicle remained on his scanner, flying off on a trajectory that mirrored his own. Safe enough to opt for maniacal whooping, he supposed.
Garrus repeated his hail on a loop, easing the shuttle into a long arc toward the planet. How could the Suns manage to jam comms so completely over such a huge area? Unless they were working for the Reapers directly, they just didn't have that sort of tech. Something caught his eye in the starboard port … he turned to look at it directly. What was it? Thousands of klicks away, a large dark spot blacked out the stars behind it. It appeared to be moving relatively slowly, as if pacing the other ships. He looked away and scanned the area, but nothing showed.
A stealth ship? Or his imagination? It couldn't be a Reaper. They didn't use or need stealth, not when terror formed a good chunk of their arsenal. But then who? If it was a ship, it had to be dreadnaught class, and a large one at that.
… Pain … Indeterminate centuries of so much pain … .
Garrus slapped a hand against his helmet as a blast of agony sliced through his skull ... acid pouring in through his eyes to burn away his brain. Voices. Thousands … hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of voices … all screaming.
It hears us … the light, all alone in the black … it hears us.
All screaming for eons beyond recounting.
The shackles are too tight. They cut into the flesh. All is the flesh, trapped and tortured for so very long.
Then something silenced the voices, a soundproof curtain dropping in the thousands of kilometres between. Garrus sagged in his seat, the pain vanishing as quickly and mysteriously as it appeared. After a couple of deep breaths to banish the trembling it left behind, he turned back to the port. Scowling brow plates lowered over his eyes, his mandibles dropping and spreading before giving a hard flick. Nothing. A strange combination of relief and emptiness greeted the star field, the tell-tale black area of covered stars gone. He stood and looked out the port, searching as far as he could see in all directions but saw nothing at all. Maybe he'd imagined it?
"You need to get some sleep," he muttered to himself as he slipped back into his seat.
"General Vakarian, your transmission has been received." An even, almost emotionless voice cut through the black, shattering the moment. "Stand by for General Victus."
Garrus let out a long sigh of relief at the studied, neutral tones of the turian comm officer. At one time, he'd found it hilarious that all comm officers sounded the same. He and the other junior officers on his vessel entertained themselves for hours sending random messages, each stranger than the next, trying to provoke comm officers on friendly ships. However, alone in his drunken space cow … his entire life under siege, he found it incredibly comforting. For all the universe fell apart, some things held. Thank the spirits that some things held.
"Vakarian, Victus here. We're reading three of your vessels incoming, all damaged. Find some trouble on the way to join the relief effort?"
Garrus took a breath and set his spine. "You could say that, General." Victus was going to think him the galaxy's most inept leader, and rightly so, but that embarrassment could wait. First, they needed to save the krogan. "Two of the incoming Archangel vessels are hostile—stolen during an attack on one of our shipyards. Hostiles boarded the third and set it on course to impact the bomb site. We've retaken it, but its weapons and most systems are severely crippled. It is non-combatant." He sent the Passch's transponder code so the turians could avoid vapourizing L'Tsai, Mi'khal, and Emily Johnson.
"My people brought down the hostile vessels' weapons, but they should be approached as combatant."
"Understood. This will take some explaining, Vakarian, but we have other pressing concerns." The general cleared his throat, his subvocals clearly indicating the truth behind his claims to more important concerns despite his voice's carefully modulated tone. "Five minutes ago, my ground team reported a complete evacuation of hostiles from the bomb site. Their communication then ceased abruptly, coinciding with a massive power surge."
"The Blue Suns have powered up the bomb," Garrus said, his gut dropping into his boots. He checked his countdown. "The Passch was due to crash in exactly ninety seven minutes. Want to set odds on that being the detonation on the timer?"
"Not if my life depended on it." Victus let out a low rumble. "That's enough time for my men to get there, but I doubt the enemy will have made it possible to defuse the bomb … at least, not in that time frame."
"This entire operation has been too well orchestrated for them to leave that end loose," Garrus agreed. "How far in was your team?"
"They'll arrive at the bomb site within moments now they aren't fighting for every centimetre." He let out a loud, rumbling breath, then went silent for a moment, allowing Garrus to hear the organized chaos of the evacuation in progress. "Vakarian, I can send my ships to intercept your vessels." Another pause. "My shuttles are all loaded with krogan, and if that bomb is going off in just over an hour, I don't have time to complete the evacuation and then pull my men out." He left the favour unasked, but it hung out there just the same.
"I have two shuttles at my disposal, General, and I'm on course for the bomb site. I have to try to pull Urdnot Wrex out of there before he gets himself killed. I'll give your men the one shuttle. Hopefully they can help me locate my rampaging krogan clan chief, and we'll all be able to sit down and figure out what the hell is going on." Setting a new trajectory for the bomb site, Garrus pushed the velocity a touch beyond the safe maximum. If it held, he'd have maybe a half hour to drop off the one shuttle and take the other after Wrex. "Nothing like cutting things stupidly close," he muttered.
"Good luck, Vakarian." Victus chuckled, but it was a dry, vicious sort of sound. "Do you want your ships back?"
Garrus's previous rage rekindled, sending a sound through his second larynx that made Victus sound positively comforting. Ships … ships he could replace. He needed to send the bastards behind the attack a decisive message. "I'll warn the Passch to cut out once you're in range, and then blow those other bastards to hell, General."
"Roger that. See you on the other side. Victus out."
Garrus sent messages to L'Tsai and Kandros, then settled in to draft his acceptance of the geth's new shuttle plans. Sitting still certainly wasn't an option, and it was a lot easier to hang on to confidence if he stayed focused on something. Once he reached scanning range for the shuttle's sensors, he could dedicate himself to tracking down the turian force and his wayward krogan.
§
Victus's men had made it to the bomb site, significantly decreasing the effort it took to locate them. Wrex, on the other hand, was taking an uncharacteristic amount of care to avoid scans. Somehow, the battlemaster had discovered a way to make twenty krogan warriors far stealthier than Garrus would have imagined.
Just over a half hour remained in the count down when Garrus landed the shuttle at the base of the massive crane and its deadly payload. After gawking open-mouthed at the bomb for three seconds he threw off the shock and awe in favour of action. The turians were already scrambling across the field of rubble to meet him when he opened the hatch and jumped out.
"Who's in command?" he demanded as the team surrounded him in a loose semi-circle.
A young fellow wearing lieutenant bars stepped forward and gave him an uncertain looking salute. "Lt. Tarquin Victus." He nodded behind him. "This is my team."
Victus. Garrus raised his brow plates as he returned the salute. Not surprising … the Victus family was military to the bone, just like Kandros's. "The general … ?"
The young torin nodded, straightening with an unconscious pride and respect that forced Garrus to push down a smile. That respect and love said a great deal for both the general and his son. "General Victus is my father. And you are?" Victus lifted his chin in a slight challenge as if daring him to say anything. Garrus understood that touchiness far too well. It was never easy being the son of a noteworthy, brilliant parent.
"General Garrus Vakarian." He nodded toward the massive bomb. "Have you had a chance to assess the situation?"
Victus and his team all turned to look before the torin nodded and met Garrus's stare again. "The timer mechanism is completely fried and fused to the bomb. We'd have to cut it off and there's no time." He glanced at the other shuttle as Nyreen brought it in to land several metres away. "Are you here to pull us out, sir? We have forty minutes to put a seventy-five klick radius between us and the blast."
"That shuttle is for you and your men," Garrus replied. He nodded toward his shuttle, impatience beginning to gnaw at him. The turians needed to get moving so he could get to the considerably less straightforward task of his own retreat. "You've been ordered back to the evac site. I still have to find Urdnot Wrex and his team. Did you catch any glimpses of him on your scans?"
Victus nodded and opened his omnitool. "This scan plots where he showed up. His last known location was four hundred thirty metres southeast." After transferring the file, Victus pointed toward a large, crumbled structure. "It sounded as though two decent sized squads were trading a lot of bullets near the base of that building, but then the Suns retreated. Haven't heard anything since."
Garrus slapped the kid on the shoulder, grateful to have been given somewhere to start looking. "Thank you, Lieutenant. Now get your people out of here."
Victus saluted, already sidling toward the shuttle. "Thank you for pulling our asses out of the fire, General. Appreciate it."
Garrus returned the salute, then turned and ran for the open shuttle hatch. "My pleasure, Lieutenant."
Martin met him at the open hatch, both pausing to watch the other shuttle lift off and wheel away. "Do we know where Wrex is?" the kid asked.
"Yeah, we have a starting place, anyway." The shuttle lifted off, nearly dumping Garrus out the door. Swaying, he clawed at the metal, breaking off a talon tip before he caught hold of a harness clip and hauled himself back. He nodded toward the open hatch. "Keep your eyes peeled. Don't let Kandros toss you out."
Keeping a tight grip on the shuttle, Garrus hurried hand over hand to the cockpit, then threw himself in the copilot seat. "You might want to warn people before you lift off with an open hatch," he grumbled, but without any real heat. His mind was already focused on downloading the information Victus had given him into the shuttle's nav computer.
"How hard can twenty krogan be to find, anyway?" Martin shouted forward.
Kandros scoffed. "That's not the question. The question is: when we find them, how do we fit twenty krogan in this shuttle?"
Garrus answered her only with raised brow plates and a slight nod. That was problem number sixteen. He flipped the nav screen around to face her and pointed to a spot about fifty metres north of where Victus figured the shooting had originated. "Drop Martin and I here. We'll cover as much ground as we can on foot. If either we find Wrex or we hit the ten minute mark, pick us up."
Kandros nodded, moving the map to a more convenient spot amidst her other screens. "I'll keep her hard on your six, General." She guided the shuttle down to a fairly flat spot in the rubble. "You're going to have a hard time seeing anything from the ground, sir."
He let out a soft grunt, agreeing with her. "But if he hears us yelling, hopefully he'll come out of hiding." Without any more words, but a great deal of acidic churning in his gut, Garrus stood and stepped into the troop compartment.
Without waiting for the kid, Garrus jumped out, groaning under his breath as every single half-healed incision in his body complained in unison. Damn, he must be getting old before his time. "Pace me at about thirty metres out," he ordered, gesturing to his right before setting out at a decent run.
"Yes, sir." Martin loped off at an easy gait, his frame armour doing most of the work for him as he climbed, clambered, and hurdled. Although Garrus envied the kid's easy movement, he'd tried a set of the armour himself and found it far too cumbersome. Trading in his light armour for the greater protection of heavy had proven a hard enough challenge to overcome. The frame armour just made him feel as though he'd been swallowed by a large mech.
Still, at about the fifty metre mark when his back and legs started begging for mercy, he sort of hated the kid a little.
"Urdnot Wrex! Where the hell are you?" Garrus yelled. His voice echoed off the shattered buildings, sending a small cluster of pyjaks screaming and running for cover.
Grinning as the ground under his feet rumbled, he decided maybe it hadn't been his voice that sent the pyjaks scurrying. Somewhere, kilometres distant, a thresher maw moved beneath the ground. Maws weren't a threat so deep into the old cities; the foundations, rubble, and thick layer of concrete on the ground proved too much of an obstacle for the giant worms. However, that didn't stop an electric shiver of both excitement and dread from racing down his spine as the earth trembled.
"Urdnot Wrex," Martin called, "don't make me run much farther, old man, or I'll kick your geriatric backside when we find you!"
A wide smile settled onto Garrus's face. As odd as it seemed—to him most of all—he loved Tuchanka. Ugly and ruined, it was completely wild, and proved to be a constant, as well as completely unforgiving, test of wile, skill, guts, and will.
He'd dreaded his first visit, certain that filth and constant lack of comfort would wear thin very quickly. Instead, the planet made his blood roar in his veins. Every moment proved a keen-edged blade poised to slice open his throat. Adrenaline poured through him like a narcotic, heightening every sense and sharpening every reaction.
Tuchanka made him feel brilliantly, agonizingly, wholly alive.
"Wrex! Answer me dammit!" Garrus hollered, shoving the rest of his thoughts aside. They needed to get out before Tuchanka made them all wholly dead. "That bomb is counting down, and we can't stop it. You need to come out and get on my damned shuttle!" A thin wheeze whistled out of him as he hurdled a low wall. Pausing, he leaned on a hip to catch his breath. "I know you can hear me, you stubborn, old ass."
He glanced at the timer again. They needed to keep moving, but first … maybe they'd come out far enough to escape the jamming. He lifted his other hand to his radio to open his father's channel.
"Pari," he called. "Pari, can you read me?"
"Garrus," his father's voice came back. "Where are you?"
A dizzying rush of relief sent Garrus stumbling for several steps before he caught himself against a half-fallen wall.
"Still too damned close to the bomb site. Spirits, the thing is huge. Calculations say a gigaton. It's going to take out everything for seventy-five klicks or so in every direction in under twelve minutes. Are the civilians safe?"
"We'll be fine, Garrus. We're nearly four hundred kilo— ancient cultural site. Just get out—" The response clicked and stuttered then cut out.
"Still too close to the jamming range for reliable comms," Martin hollered. He ran a few more steps. "Wrex! Goddammit, Wrex! Where the fuck are you?"
"Come on, kid," Garrus said, waving a weary arm forward. "We've got two more minutes before we have to give up. Let's make the most of them."
Garrus took four steps before three varren rose above the rubble at his ten o'clock. He slid to a halt and pulled in a long, steadying breath. "Martin. Going to need you over here." Damn, if the alpha and two subordinates were showing themselves, that meant at least another three hiding on the flanks waiting to move in.
They did not have time for a pack of varren. He glanced at the countdown. Eleven minutes. Sweet baby Jesus, they were all going to be incinerated.
"Fuck!" the kid yelped. "On my way."
Garrus could hear Martin clambering and leaping, covering ground at a good clip, but he didn't take his eyes off the alpha. Slowly, as to not trigger an attack, he shrugged his assault rifle into his hand. "This day just keeps getting better and better," he muttered. "Watch the flanks," he called, keeping his voice low.
One of the subordinates leaped at Garrus, but the alpha spun on it, throwing it to the ground. Bodies crunched and jaws snapped.
Using the distraction, both Garrus and Martin opened fire, assault rifles pelting the varren with rounds. For a moment, it looked like they might just blow through the pack, but then the alpha charged and everything went to hell.
Two hundred kilos of wild fangs and claws slammed into Garrus with the force of a small skycar, throwing him onto his back. His rifle flew into the rubble as the pair of them half-rolled, half-slid headfirst down a ramp. The varren rode down on Garrus's belly, its extra weight grinding the cowl of the torin's armour into the concrete so that it screamed like talons slicing through reinforced steel. Garrus fumbled for his sidearm, trying to throw the massive animal off and roll free.
Exhilaration burned through him like a match set to tinder. Clawing for the varren's eyes, Garrus let out a bestial roar, all the pent up, gut churning stress and responsibility flaring like a biotic corona. He'd rip the fucking thing apart with his bare talons if he had to.
Then the animal's head erupted into a cloud of muck, splattering the faceplate of Garrus's helmet with red mist and chunks of bone and brain. A large shape stepped in front of the sun, casting a long shadow across the general.
"Vakarian," Wrex grumbled. "What are you doing here?"
Garrus rolled to his feet, casting a quick, grateful glance at Martin as the kid shoved his assault rifle back into his hands. "Looking for your stubborn old ass." He turned and waved Kandros in. "What the hell are you still doing out here?"
"We were sneaking up on the enemy until you idiots arrived!" The behemoth towered over him, flanked by seventeen of his warriors. He turned on Garrus, a hand slamming against the general's keel. "Give me one good reason to have my boys hold their fire, Vakarian."
"The bomb was never controlled by the turians, it was Blue Suns—probably working for the council—and they've all evacuated." The words spilled out so fast he couldn't even be sure Wrex would understand. "The bomb is going to go off in ten minutes, and if we aren't more than seventy klicks away, we're dead."
Wrex lumbered backwards, putting several metres between them, his entire body bristled and defensive. His pupils had constricted to pinpricks, a sign of the rage coursing through him, messing with his reason. "Why the hell should I believe you?"
For a moment, despair slammed down on Garrus with an intractable fist. He didn't have time to argue Wrex down. He just needed to get keep his word to Shepard, and get Martin on the shuttle. They still had enough time to clear the blast zone and get the shuttle parked somewhere.
"Because he's telling the truth you gigantic varren with the brain of a pyjak," Martin shouted back, breaking through Garrus's defeatist thoughts. He raced toward the clan chief, only to be snatched by one of the warriors. The kid spun into the contact, breaking the hold, then turned the krogan's momentum against him, flipping the massive male over his back. Pinning the warrior with one arm twisted just about out of the socket, Martin shoved the muzzle of his sidearm under the edge of the krogan's plate. "Don't touch me."
Garrus stormed up to Wrex, pulling his fist back before he even got close. "I just escaped my own damned ship …" He swung, the punch slamming up into Wrex's chin with enough force to sit the krogan on his ass. "... to run halfway across your planet to rescue your stupid, stubborn ass, and you have the quad to ask me why you should believe me? When have I ever lied to you, Wrex? Swallow your fucking pride, and just listen to me. So far, your rash, bullheaded shit has nearly cost you your clan, and it's about to cost you your life, so get the fuck in that shuttle." He stabbed a finger behind him without bothering to see if Kandros was in place.
On cue, the shuttle settled to hover just above the ground a handful of metres away.
"Your people are responsible for this!" Wrex bellowed. "It wasn't krogan who buried that bomb to wipe us all out the moment we regained any strength. It was the fucking turians." He grabbed Garrus by the yoke of his armour and shook him hard enough that the general bit his tongue. "That was the plan the entire time, wasn't it? Every time we tried to stand up, you'd come along and slam us down so that we never recovered."
Garrus slapped the battlemaster's hands away, frustration and anger incinerating his good sense. "That was the plan over a millennia ago while your people were laying waste to everything. I wasn't there, and I'm not oppressing your people. I'm standing in front of you, trying to get your fat ass on my damned shuttle. My father and one of our best generals are evacuating your clan. General Victus sent his own son to disarm that bomb." Slamming both hands into Wrex's chest, he shoved the behemoth away. "Too bad the turians are all trying to bring you down, Wrex."
He shook his head and threw up his hands. "Forget it. Martin let that other idiot go, and get in the shuttle. I'm done trying to save this moron from himself." He backed away from Wrex. "You have the first opportunity since the krogan rebellions to sit down and actually negotiate with a top ranking member of Palaven's hierarchy, and with one of her top generals." His brow plates peaked as Wrex actually paused at that. "This whole incident puts the council over a barrel you could use to leverage your way into a fucking embassy. Imagine how many clans would have fallen in line behind the leader who pulled that one off?"
Wrex straightened, his pupils starting to return to normal.
Throwing an impatient hand behind him, Garrus turned. "In two years, I've never said this, Wrex, but I'm glad Shepard isn't here. Seeing you throwing the krogan away like this would make her sick."
Martin leaned out the shuttle door and bellowed, "Can you recommend someone to take your place?"
Garrus gave the kid a wild, almost maniacal grin as he jumped up into the shuttle. Reaching up, he started to shut the door, but then a giant hand yanked it open, wrenching Garrus's shoulder. The general met Wrex's eyes for a fraction of a second, then nodded.
Throwing himself into the copilot chair, he grabbed the map screen away from Kandros. "Head out of the zone, I'll try to find us a place to put this bird down."
Martin hit the floor between the seats, a massive body in burgundy armour pushing in to loom over him. Wrex shoved Garrus's hand out of the way, and shifted the map. "We need to get underground. Not enough time to get clear." He centered the scan in on a short, broken down tower. "Here," he said, jabbing a thick finger at the screen. "It's an old missile silo. Goes down a good seventy metres or so."
Martin wriggled up to peer at the screen, and moaned, "That's a hell of a long way down if the place collapses."
Garrus chuffed, the sound's nonchalance belying the thin yearning that accompanied the memory of Feros. "I've been buried deeper."
Wrex buffeted the general from behind and grumbled, "It'll hold. There's no one for you to cuddle with this time, Vakarian." The clan chief glanced over at Nyreen. "Well … ." He turned and shouted something to his men. A couple of seconds later, reply came back. "Everyone's in."
Kandros shot Garrus a worried glance as her talons flew over the interface, taking the packed drunken space cow up just far enough to avoid smashing through ruins. Garrus just shrugged a little and tried to ignore the heavy pulse pounding under his jaw and at the top of his keel. Following Wrex's advice and hunkering down amounted to the best they could do at … he glanced at his omnitool … six minutes and twenty eight seconds.
The time seemed to tick down too fast, the ground moving under them too slow … and yet the combination stretched the minutes into an impossible sort of slow motion. He thought about calling his father again, just to check in … to … to what? Say goodbye just in case?
They arrived at the ancient missile silo, the irony of hiding from a doomsday bomb within one of the sites responsible for Tuchanka's devastation not lost on Garrus. He held his breath while Nyreen eased their overloaded beast of burden down through many storeys of ruin and detritus. A couple of times, he started to say something, but then she'd cock a brow plate at him, shutting him up.
Just before they reached the bottom, static crackled loud in his aural canal, coming through his radio. A hand lifted to press to the interface on the side of his helmet. "Hello?"
"Garrus?" Nihlus's voice cut through the static. "Finally … trying to … you for ... ." The Spectre faded back out.
"Nihlus, you're breaking up." He cranked the volume. "Repeat."
"Distress call ... human colony … —dom's Progress. Investigating … ."
"Nihlus! Tuchanka was a set up," Garrus called, shouting despite knowing it wouldn't help. "Blue Suns boarded the Passch, trying to set Archangel up for the bomb. Be careful. Take back up."
The shuttle set down at the bottom of the silo, Kandros putting in a professional landing. No one paid much attention as they all focused their attention on him and his partial communication.
"Garrus?" Nihlus's voice disappeared beneath the static. "Repeat last. Blue Suns?"
The channel died. Garrus had just enough time to wonder why it had cut out so suddenly before the ground heaved. A giant caught in the throes of a seizure, the planet threw them around the cockpit like stones shaken in a can. Thunder boomed, deafening Garrus completely, the heaving of the ground exchanged for both the rumble and roar of a massive freight train speeding toward them.
After long moments, the roar of destruction faded into the susurrus of falling sand and the odd rattle of rocks tumbling down onto the space cow's metal hide.
"Do you think Nihlus heard you?" Martin whispered, as if afraid speaking to loudly might bring the whole place down on their heads.
Garrus shook his head as he peeled himself up off the floor in front of his seat. Everything hurt, and a thin trickle of blood rolled around the curve of his eye to drip off the end of his nose. "I don't know. I hope so."
(A-N: Phew! Wrex you stubborn, proud old fool! So next chapter! I'm so excited, and I think you guys will be happy with the new development. At least I hope so. :D
So ... we are coming up on chapter 100, and I was thinking, I should do something special to mark the occasion. Some sort of event. Not being sure about these sorts of things due to my sad, sad fanfic cred ... I'm such a noob ... I thought I would ask you, the readers, if you would like anything special. Drabbles from Sassy, Garrus, and Nihlus's past. Some fanart? Whatever. I am open to suggestions.
Shout outs to the lovely people who sent me their encouragement last chapter: Fortune Zyne, thanks for the emails and input. ClockALock (innocent face for the guess as to Al's identity, although I think everyone has a good idea by now), LilVy, Alpenwolf, Lady Velvet C. Peterson, Zombie Pixel, MarauderShieldsNeverForget, KrystylSky, Kira Kyuu, and Master of The Blood Wolves. Thank you all so much.)