Hyalus - A particular type of spun glass used to make beautiful figures. It is always the natural blue/grey of the sand from which it is fired, although threads of precious metals are frequently spun and worked into the glass.
Numas - Ancient turian coin that was the base unit of their monetary system before they adopted the galactic currency of credits.
Buratrum - The realm of the spirits of dishonourable association.
Morumplacus - Restless spirit, undead, ghoul.
Hideth Turram - Popular sport of turian origin. (full explanation at end)
37 Days ASR
"Thanks for helping talk the hierarchy into assisting with this mission, Adrien." Try as he might to hide his amusement, Garrus's mandibles couldn't help but flick, betraying him. Primarch Fedorian had spent the entire QEC conference glaring at the two generals. Near as Garrus could figure, the primarch had alternated between trying to figure out how badly an alliance between Victus and Garrus would throw the galactic political balance off-kilter and attempting to fill them both with lead using the power of his mind.
As the conference went on, Garrus's gut had tied itself in a tighter and tighter knot. He didn't dare strip Omega so bare so soon after the attack, but the intel he'd received on Krellid's operation listed a defense force of hundreds. If they wanted to avoid civilian casualties, they needed company strength strike teams.
Just when he thought Fedorian was going to tell them where to shove their request, Garrus's father stepped in. Fedorian and Herros had been friends for decades, having served together during their youth. When Herros confirmed the intel, stressing all the same points Garrus had, the primarch had stopped looking petulant, exchanging it for thoughtful. At least he trusted and respected Herros's word. End result, distrustful as he might be of Victus and Garrus, Fedorian agreed to lend two turian strike teams to taking down the slaver holding Lucille Shepard.
"Don't thank me. Thank my hyalus tongue," Adrien joked, "it glitters with platinum filaments and riches can't help but pour from it." He chuckled and gave Garrus a jaunty sort of salute. "Did you see the way Fedorian was looking at us? Every single disaster he imagined we could create working together appeared on his face as they occurred to him. I'm not sure if I'm glad Hierarch Vakarian was able to talk him around or not. I detest crawling around dark, filthy mining tunnels." The general's smile faded as he leaned forward, talons hovering over the disconnect control. "Time to go. Good luck, General. We'll see you on the other side."
"Good hunting, Adrien." Garrus returned the salute, grateful to the council for that one great thing that had grown out of their treachery on Tuchanka. "Vakarian, out." He closed the channel, then checked the chrono on the console. An hour until drop, and he and Martin still needed to shuttle over to the Normandy. Taking a page from Shepard's book, Garrus intended to land the frigate right on the slaver's front step. Nothing like a couple of ship-mounted mass accelerator cannons aimed at your door to make an impression.
As he left the comm room, headed for the elevator, his plans cycled through his mind on a constant loop. Five strike teams attacking five targets all timed to the second … it had taken a hell of a lot of planning, and any tiny thing could throw it off.
To his mind, the weakest link in the plan was Kandros and the third strike team. He hadn't had enough time to get to know her or her competence as a leader, but when faced with taking out the slaver's compound that included a public sales venue, brothel, and gambling facility, she'd come up with an inspired plan. It was a complex area filled with innocent civilians and slaves, and though her plan to set up a barrier and blanket gas the entire block needed a solid tactical infiltration team and split second timing, it was their best shot to avoid collateral casualties or escaping slavers.
He, Anderson, Martin, and a team including Normandy and Archangel personnel were taking down the slaver's headquarters while the other, much larger, Archangel team secured the breeding facility. Garrus's C-Sec contact claimed that this single bastard was responsible for the birth and subsequent sale of over eight hundred slaves a cycle. Some of them were raised and sent to his mines or brothels as soon as they were big enough to work. Most were sold at auction on Khar'Shan.
Leir'Darak Krellid's eighteen cycle career included no fewer than twenty-three raids on human colonies, thirteen on turian colonies, the murder of fourteen C-Sec officers, and two Spectres. Time had come to end it, and end it they would thanks to Lucille's intel.
"General Vakarian?"
He stopped and looked up, realizing that he'd passed through the computer room to the guest compartments. A quick smile and nod greeted the young reporter. "Miss Wong." With deft talons, he fixed the bad seals on her armour. "Ready to do your first combat reporting?" He nodded for her to fall in.
"Yes, sir. I'm probably going to throw up in my helmet, though." She jogged next to him to keep up. "I was really happy with our previous arrangement. You went into the scary places with bullets and brought me back a story and a souvenir."
Garrus chuckled, but it faded as he nodded. "This bastard and his network have been plaguing human and turian colonies for eighteen cycles. There isn't a clean politician in either government who isn't going to be grateful he's gone." He clenched his teeth hard enough that his jaw protested. "Not to mention all the families who have lost loved ones."
"And might get them back?" Her eyes shone up at him, so earnest that it made his jaw ache.
"We can hope so, but let's not get ahead of ourselves." The fear in Lucille Shepard's eyes when they'd met burned in a pool of hot, churning acid in his gut. Nineteen days had passed since he let her return to face punishment and imprisonment. "Either way, I want the galaxy see Archangel, the hierarchy, and the Alliance working together to take him down."
Wong nodded and opened her omnitool, setting it to record through the cameras on her helmet and armour. "General Vakarian, you've orchestrated an intricate plan to bring down an entire slaving empire in a single strike, how do you like your chances? Will today see the end of an organization that has terrorized humanity's colonies for well over a decade?"
He stopped and looked into the camera. "Today, I hope to offer everyone who has suffered at the hands of Leir'Darak Krellid's organization some small measure of closure. In an act of unprecedented cooperation, the turian hierarchy and Systems Alliance have joined Archangel in executing today's raid. It's my sincere hope that it's a sign of things to come as the galaxy moves toward facing the Reaper threat."
She grinned and turned off the camera. "Can't miss any chance to beat the old Reaper drum, eh, sir?" Stuffing her helmet under her arm, she started running alongside again, puffing a little when he stopped at the elevator, no doubt due to the extra weight of her armour.
"Have you given any thought to running the PR and fundraising on my Sanctuary project?" he asked, feeling a combination of admiration and affection as he watched the young woman decide how to answer his question. Two cycles earlier, she'd been inexperienced, eager, and far too reckless, but passionate about making Shepard's senseless death count for something. In the intervening cycles, she'd lost the inexperience thanks to Archangel's guiding hands, her reckless passion tempered a little.
Emily shrugged. "It would be a huge undertaking, General. There have to be people better suited to the task."
Garrus studied her for a moment. Although he might be reading her wrong, she seemed excited, but intimidated, and for that, he couldn't blame her. It would be cycles of hard work and organization. The elevator arrived and opened. "You'd have as experienced a staff as we could find for you, but like it or not, Miss Wong, you have become the credible face of the Reaper threat." He chuckled. "The rest of us are considered lunatics bent on bringing down galactic civilization."
Once he sent the elevator to the shuttle bay, Garrus turned to face the reporter head on. "The Illusive Man was right the day he told me that we're going to have a huge upsurge in recruits as soon as the Reaper threat manifests." He shrugged and forced all the logistics of that to the back of his mind. "Their price for service is going to be the safety of their families, so we're going to need somewhere to keep thousands of people as out of the way of the war as possible."
She took a deep breath and shook her head. "I just … ."
Gripping her shoulder, he gave her an encouraging smile. "I believe you're perfect for the job, but if you decide it's not for you, fair enough." He stepped back as the carriage stopped on the crew deck, the door opening to let Martin on. The young man was carrying on a thousand klick an hour discussion with Emily Johnson. The moment the young engineer saw Garrus, she grinned and turned bright pink.
"Hello, Engineer Johnson," the general said, smiling. "Glad to see you made it back from Tuchanka in good form."
She nodded, as bashful as she was animated the moment before. "Yes, sir. Thanks to you and Instructors Weaver and Kandros."
"Thanks to you as well, Engineer," he corrected. He glanced over at Martin. "That sounded like an ardent discussion."
The kid grinned and gave his head an enthusiastic shake. "Em is a genius with robotics. We were discussing ways to improve the battle frames. If turned loose on the armour, she'd turn us into tanks with nearly equivalent fire power."
Garrus's brow plates lifted. "Then, by all means, turn her loose. It certainly wouldn't hurt to have different classes of the frame armour. Some soldiers will want to stick to the lighter version, but others, like Martin, can never get enough firepower."
The elevator stopped on the engineering deck. As the doors opened, Johnson gave them all a bright smile, ending with Martin. "I'll talk to you when you get back. Good luck, Martin … General."
The rest of the ride down to the shuttle passed silently. Garrus could see Martin clicking over from techie to soldier, not that the one existed to the exclusion of other. Emily Wong busied herself all the way over to the Normandy sending messages, setting up all the last minute details for the live feed once they made planet fall.
Garrus sat quietly, rereading through the few messages Shepard had sent before the Ypres reached Thessia. He'd expected to hear something from her or Nihlus by then, but he trusted them to keep one another alive. He let out a soft chuff. Yeah, they'd look out for one another right after discovering all sorts of things to need being saved from.
He closed his eyes and walled away the sick twist and yank in his gut. A day out of touch was nothing, and he needed all his attention on the mission at hand. When Shepard returned from Thessia, he hoped to welcome her with the best homecoming gift of all time. His heart thumped hard and quick against his keel as reality washed over him again. Shepard was coming home to him. She wasn't gone, not a prisoner in his dreams, but away on a mission, and at the end, she'd come back and wrap her arms around him, lips warm and soft against his mouth.
A pleasant, but altogether inappropriate heat settled in behind his plates. Clearing his throat, he shifted in his seat and closed his omnitool, unable to curb the gratitude that set his mandibles fluttering and balled up in his throat. He'd been given his future back … a future filled with warm kisses and making love and curling up with her arms around him, her breath caressing his neck.
"Oh, stop it," Martin grumbled, a wide grin belying his tone. "Wipe that smug, stupid, 'I got my girlfriend back' smile off your face." He kicked Garrus's shin. "Show some respect for those of us who haven't found one yet and focus on the mission."
Despite muttering a few choice words under his breath, Garrus kept the smile. Landing on Lorek would wipe it away soon enough. When the shuttle set down on the Normandy's deck, he jumped up and strode to the hatch, pushing it open, his mind focusing on the business at hand.
"Haven't heard from Kandros," he muttered under his breath as Martin stepped up beside him. "The port authorities in Jalnor could be giving her a hard time." Running a mission on a hegemony controlled world constituted a major, almost unacceptable, risk. The batarians refused to admit slaving was a huge source of revenue for their flailing empire, and they really weren't prepared to lose that income. To keep their businesses operating and the eyes of the law turned the other way, slavers like Krellid paid millions in kickbacks to local and hegemony politicians.
However, the batarian government's denial of sapient trafficking and its offshoots—prostitution, illegal gambling, and smuggling—would also allow Garrus to bring the bastard down; no official protests or reports filed with the authorities. They'd quietly and dangerously hunker down and wait for a chance to exact retribution.
"Nyreen is smooth," Martin answered. "She'll get them in there, General. Now whether or not she manages to get a barrier up over that block, deploys the gas, and takes out the slavers without the authorities closing in … ." He shrugged. "But we've always known that hers was the trickiest leg of this op."
Garrus's omnitool pinged, but when he opened his messages it was Adrien letting him know that both of the turian teams were in shuttles, on their way to their separate mining operations. The teams had started a friendly war over which one attacked the island closer to the sunward hot-polar region and which attacked the island at the terminator into the dark cold-polar region. Adrien resorted to flipping a numas in order to settle it, then promptly assigned himself to the hot-polar team.
"It's good to be the general," Martin said when Garrus showed him the message. The kid laughed and headed over to talk to Kaidan and the other Marines.
Garrus nodded. Being the general did have its moments and its perks. He looked up when the elevator pinged, then strode across the cargo bay to meet Anderson as the captain stepped out.
"Been awhile since I strapped on the old armour," Anderson groused, wriggling a little. "I don't remember it being this heavy ... or this tight." A warm grin belied the complaints, and he held out a hand to grip Garrus's elbow in greeting.
The step up in familiarity from wrist to elbow threw the general off stride for a moment, but he supposed that with Shepard back, Anderson saw the writing on the wall. He liked it, he decided, and gripped the captain's elbow in return.
"Must be the armour," Garrus deadpanned. "You know how it shrinks in storage."
Anderson chuckled and slapped his shoulder. "Been sitting at desks too long," he announced. "It'll be good to stretch my legs."
Garrus nodded, falling in beside the captain, a sudden feeling of profound connection spreading through him like warm water under his plates. He'd listened to Shepard talk about the feeling as a golden web that tied her to people, but he'd never understood until that moment. He loved his people … even Martin, spirits save him … but the new feeling … it felt as if they'd moved in to live just under his hide. He shook his head, pulling himself back. Mission, no word from Kandros, getting the slaves out alive, that was where he needed to focus his attention.
Nyreen reported in ten minutes later. It took a little bribery but she got her team on the ground and they were moving in to place the emitters. Every ten minutes, the teams reported in, green across the board. Then the Normandy began her descent, the shuttles containing the second team ready and waiting in her hold.
Garrus headed up to stand behind Joker, watching space give way to a rolling torrent of sky and seemingly endless ocean below. A rare jewel—a garden world in orbit of a red dwarf star—Lorek came with its share of issues including being tidally locked to Fathar, and a geography that allowed for a great deal of underworld activity. The whole habitable surface being a widespread mass of islands made policing nearly impossible. But, it was a beautiful world.
Joker brought them down quick and steep then skimmed the ocean surface, handling the frigate expertly through the turbulence, another of Lorek's quirks. Being a tidally locked ocean world made for ferocious thunderstorms along the terminus from hot to cold.
"We'll be on top of them before they see us in this soup," Joker called over his shoulder. "One second our slaver will be sitting at dinner twirling his moustache and saying, 'Oh ho! What a fine life of villainy I lead,' the next he'll be screaming and running."
"Do batarians even grow mustaches?" Garrus laughed then patted the pilot's shoulder. "Good work, Joker."
"Better get down there, General." The pilot grinned. "Don't want to miss the screaming and running."
"True. And when you put it that way, I think Shepard just might be pissed off she missed it." He turned and strode the length of the CIC.
Garrus stepped down off the Normandy's ramp into chaos. Thunder crashed, the weather twisting through the weapon fire, and the rain drove at them sideways, lashed by a wind that gusted over eighty kilometres an hour. No, Shepard definitely wouldn't be angry for missing out; she refused to wear a helmet in survivable conditions and hated rain running down into her armour.
"Let me guess," Martin hollered over the wind, "you didn't check the weather report?" The kid's omnitool glowed as he lowered his armour's center of gravity and mass effect field. Once anchored a little better, he sent a handful of rockets sizzling through the weather toward one of eight guard towers. Two hit, the others impacting the tall, solid concrete wall.
Movement through the thick canopy of trees alerted Garrus to the second team's shuttled landing on the other side of the wall. C-Sec drone recon sweeps had shown the wall was far too well guarded and solid to breach quickly. While they bashed at the two metre thick concrete, Krellid's guards could be killing every slave in the breeding compound, so they'd decided right from the start to land a second team inside the wall.
"It said eighty percent chance of hurricanes; I decided to play the odds," Garrus shouted back as he dug in, pushing against the wind toward a garden planter. He needed to get into cover and help take out those towers. Wind that strong played bloody havoc with rockets. Of course, gusts that strong didn't make for ideal sniper conditions either. Throwing himself toward the leeward side of the planter, he rolled up, his back shoved against the concrete. Two quick breaths, he spun, taking a knee and using the edge of the box to steady his rifle.
Five shots brought down the two guards in the closest tower, buying the team a slight reprieve as they floundered, trying to find cover from both the wind and bullets. Garrus pulled his rifle in, wiped both ends of the scope to clear away the fog, and shifted to line up the second tower. Further away, the wind gusts threw off his aim a little, not because it pushed the rounds—they were far too small and moved far too quickly—but because it shoved both him and his rifle.
Seven shots to clear the tower that time, and meanwhile Martin and the others had cleared two more.
Anderson hit the planter next to Garrus, huffing a little. "Definitely too much time behind a desk."
"Need to move inside," Garrus called, reaching up to his radio. "Weaver, beta squad … finish clearing the towers. Alpha squad, front door with me. Charlie, rear door with Anderson." He spun out of cover, and leaning at a nearly forty degree angle, pushed toward the front door. Luckily, the mansion had a fancy porch structure that effectively blocked both wind and bullets, allowing him to bypass the door lock in relative peace.
Kaidan took cover on the other side of the door, nodding his readiness. As soon as the door opened, he ducked out, his Vindicator sweeping the entry before he stepped through. Garrus pulled his sidearm, lifting the Phalanx into high ready, opting for ease of movement over rapid firepower.
Two guards swung out and opened fire from behind a pair of krogan statues on either side of the corridor, falling before they even corrected their aim enough to do damage. Garrus winced as stray bullets dug into the statues; Lucille was going to kick their asses for damaging the art.
And priceless art and furnishings littered the entire home, filling shelves and covering tables. Larger pieces stood in corners, along hallways, and flanked windows. The squad made their way through a marble-floored parlour and a dining room replete with enough gold trim to tip the decor from rich to gaudy. Between the two rooms, the contents could fund opening Archangel's third building on their own.
"You could fund a small colony," Kaidan said, voice twisting with disgust.
Every empty room and token pair of guards hammered another six inch spike straight into Garrus's spine until a frustrated scream climbed up to dangle from the back of his tongue. Damn their luck. Did every mission have to end up being a trap?
He took cover next to a door, and nodded to Kaidan. The door opened, revealing a very large, serviceable kitchen, the room deserted. Kaidan sidestepped toward a stove and peered under a lid. Steam billowed, releasing the scent of roasting meat. The appliances had all been turned off, but moments before.
He returned to his position at Garrus's ten. "He's pulled all the household staff back to use them as hostages."
Garrus nodded, but the snapping eels slithering through his guts said something else, something a lot worse than that. He raised a hand to his ear. "All teams report in. Anderson? Martin?"
Martin's voice came back, his voice muffled and distorted by heavy interference. "Towers cleared. Hear heavy fire from inside the breeding compound. Moving toward your position through the side door. Over."
Garrus paced a little, half his attention on puzzling out the reason for the eels chomping at his guts. "Anderson?"
"On our way to you now. Met a little resistance … not enough," the captain said, suspicion treading heavily through the words. "Something's off. Feels like there's a piano hanging over our heads."
Garrus scowled, that image making no sense, but then pushed it aside. "Roger that. We'll wait here until—"
"Emergency transmission from Strike Team Challir. Team ambushed. Unknown enemy." The comm officer's voice came through as badly distorted as Martin's, but even through the static and broken comms, Garrus could hear the fear in the young officer's subvocals.
"Dear spirits, what are these things?" Another voice, just as young and just as terrified.
"General Victus is down. Retreat back to the last cross tunnel."
"Whatever these things are, they're spit straight from the pits of buratrum!"
"There's hundreds of them."
Calls for help and general chatter swelled for a moment, then Victus's voice broke through the rest. "Enough! Squad leaders get control of your people! Essential comms only! Pull back to the last cross tunnel. Set up portable cover." He paused, a soft grunt making it over the interference, and the eels started to gnaw their way out as Garrus heard the pain resonating through his friend's voice. "Garrus, if you're reading this, ambush two hundred and fifty meters into the mine. Unknown aliens. Bipedal … insectile … huge hea—"
The channel died, but the silence lasted only a second.
"General Vakarian, how good of you to visit." Garrus spun toward the voice, his Phalanx bullseyeing an intercom. Damn. The batarian chuckled. "I have some friends who are very eager to meet you. Do come in, but please try not to shoot up too much of my home. Lucille has spent so many cycles dedicated to my collections. It would break her heart to see so much history riddled with bullet holes."
Garrus reached up to his radio even before the bastard stopped talking. "Joker, do you read?"
"Barely," the pilot's voice came through. "Someone's doing a hell of a job messing with comms."
"Ambush. Lock the Normandy down and get her off the ground, and then I need scans of this house and the breeding facility, as detailed as you can get them." He barked the orders as quickly as he could, not trusting the comms to last. "Try to contact the other teams. Warn them that Collectors are waiting for them."
"Understood. I'll get back to you. Joker, out."
Kaidan moved in to stand with his back to Garrus's eight, his assault rifle pointed at the side door. "So, a trap. Any ideas so far?"
Garrus shook his head, but let out the breath he'd been holding, appreciating the Lt. Commander's levity. "Nothing yet, but I'll keep you up to date." He nodded to the rest of the squad then opened his omnitool. "Keep an eye on the exits. Don't shoot our incoming squads."
Sucking in a long breath, he forced himself to focus. Work the problem, just like every other problem. The other teams had experienced leaders who could take care of their own people. Their job hadn't changed, just gotten a little more complicated. He brought up the partial floor plan of the house and overlaid a heat signature scan. As he suspected, the house jammed scans. No slaver worth his shock collars would leave his properties open to scanning, but sometimes inside the building, scans could pick up short range.
Sure enough, when he pulled the scan radius in to twenty metres, faint heat signatures showed Anderson's team heading their way as well as three large masses of heat. He bumped Kaidan with his elbow, pointing to the second of the three … the one he suspected indicated most of their Collector welcoming committee.
"Their fielders." He pointed to a mass of heat in the basement. "The hide." Then the one upstairs at the back of the house, behind what he was sure amounted to at least a platoon of Collector troops. "And what they think is the hide. We need to muddy the field," he whispered. "Right now, they've got the hide at their tower. We need to kick with the spur, bring down their wall."
"Remind me to get a hideth turram manual, so I know what the hell you're talking about." Kaidan sighed, but then gave a single nod. Whispering so low that Garrus only caught eighty percent of it, he said, "Martin's on his way in. Between us we can probably get into the network, make a mess, maybe get a decent set of blueprints."
"We need to play the slow game, move their fielders into position. Muddy the field enough to capture the hide and get it down field before they know they've lost it." He wished Martin was there. The kid had become fluent in hideth turram strategy as code. Still, from the way Kaidan looked at the scans, Garrus believed he'd captured the shape of the plan if not the specifics.
First goal, take away their advantages by killing the power to the entire place. No power, no jamming.
The side door knocked twice, then three times, then once and cracked open. "Lucky charms," whispered through the crack.
"They're magically delicious," Garrus replied, letting out a small sigh of relief as the wind blew Martin's squad in the door, minus three.
"Collectors for sure, boss," Martin said. "Two injured. The third got them onto the Normandy before Joker pulled out." He turned to headcount his team, then stepped to the door, scrambling the codes. "Locking this down to my code in case we need an exit."
The kitchen door knocked in the same two, three, one pattern and, "Hey, diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle," came through in Anderson's grumpiest grumble.
Martin cackled, then replied, "The cow jumped over the moon." He returned to stand next to Garrus, head craned trying to see the general's omnitool.
"I'm getting you a proper recog, ident, and signal protocol manual," Anderson said as he entered.
Martin shrugged. "Save your credits, Captain. The boss gave me one a year ago. Haven't cracked the cover." When Anderson stepped up beside Garrus, the kid nodded to the omnitool readout. "So, we've got at least two hides on the field, and it's pouring down rain."
Garrus nodded, checking to see if Anderson had understood.
"I've seen enough turram to follow," the captain replied. "Might not be fielders here," he continued, pointing to the center group.
Garrus nodded. "Weaver … Alenko, muddy the field and get a tarp up to cover the team." He turned to Anderson. "The close quarters gives us the ability to spread ourselves thin," he whispered. "Take a team down into the basement. Hopefully there won't be too many guards. Get those slaves out, call in Joker."
"It'll be slow going," Anderson said, his scowl deepening as Garrus saw him starting to work the numbers. "I doubt he's just going to let us walk in." He nodded. "We'll get it done." He turned to his squad, but then stopped and looked back. "He knows who you're here for."
His churning gut not needing that pointed out, Garrus just nodded and swallowed, forcing his gullet back where it belonged. No doubt Lucy would be a shield of last resort, and held either with her master or in a location only the slaving bastard knew. Not bothering to whisper, Garrus turned to face everyone. "We're up against Collectors. We know they have been taking humans and that they work for the Reapers, so expect husks as well as Collector drones and unit commanders. Weaponry unknown, and my intel is fifty thousand cycles old, so err to the side of caution. The protheans had widespread biotic abilities, so expect that possibility."
He shrugged. What else could he say to prepare them? Unknown enemy, sketchy details … all they could do was be careful. "Take your time, keep your eyes open for traps." Darkness fell, deep enough that it took Garrus's eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light coming in the windows. A soft 'whoo-dee-hoo' from Martin told him that the computers were down, a fact that a quick glance at his omnitool confirmed. The scan still showed signs of interference … probably built right into the materials of the house, but they'd cleared up a little.
"Okay," Martin whispered, letting Garrus know they faced a good chance of continued audio surveillance. "We got a decent floor plan out of the computer." He uploaded it to Garrus's omnitool. Emergency lights flickered on, and the kid shrugged. "Oh, and they've got generators for the power."
Garrus let out a long breath. Of course they did, living in a veritable hurricane zone. He nodded to Anderson, slapping the captain on the shoulder as he moved his people out, heading down to the sublevels. When the kitchen cleared out a little, the general turned to organize his team, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw an unfamiliar face staring back at him. It wasn't until the soldier smiled that he realized it was Emily Wong. With the entire mission tilting dangerously toward the pits of buratrum, he'd completely forgotten about the reporter.
His mandibles flicked as she gave him a jaunty salute. "Don't worry, General. I'm getting it all." She tapped the camera on her helmet. "The live feed died as soon as we entered the house, but all systems are go for recorded footage."
Setting his teeth, Garrus nodded. With Collectors coming after them, Wong's footage would be more important than ever, but spirits, he hated putting her on the firing line. If … when they made it out of there, he was going to insist she take the lead on the Sanctuary project and get some old crusty turian and human ex-military to be their field reporter.
He gestured to Kaidan. "Keep her safe." The Lt. Commander nodded and moved in on Wong's six.
"We're going up to the second floor. Check your fire. I doubt the Collectors will use slaves as shields, but neither will they care about killing them in the crossfire. The bastard behind all this will definitely have shields, and very likely the one closest to him will be Captain Shepard's mother." He sent the floorplan to the entire team's omnitools. "If you get separated, make your way back here. Pair off, five metre spread, keep your eyes open. Alenko, Wong, and Leri'Alek take drag. Weaver, point with me."
Jaw clenched, pistol in low ready, Garrus headed through the door into the rear corridor, his eyes sweeping for traps. He didn't expect anything explosive—Krellid loved his things too much—but a whole lot more than explosives could disable his people. Martin moved lightly and easily despite the weight of his armour, his shotgun up and ready.
Pulse pounding out a warning in his head, Garrus climbed the stairs three at a time, taking cover at the top to check the hallway. Staircases were death traps, giving attackers elevation over an effective bottleneck. Pistol leading, the general leaned out—
Darkness … no … not darkness, just blindness. White … everywhere. No air! Garrus's talons leaped to his throat. No air. He sucked in a ragged, heaving breath, inhaling something thick and viscous that sealed his nostrils and mouth even as he choked, struggling to clear it without any air in his lungs. Vomit surged up his esophagus as his body struggled to rid itself of the suffocating goo and sent him rolling onto his hands and knees. Still throwing up, he lunged up off the floor, desperate for air. Frantic talons clawed at his face, trying to clear whatever was blocking his airways and vision.
His hands came away thick with white foam. Foam?
He threw it aside, still sucking in lungfuls of air that did nothing to ease his body's demands for oxygen. Black spots flashing across his vision, he shoved himself up off the floor, climbing the wall hand over hand. Once most of the way up, the air began supplying oxygen again. Gasping in huge gulps of air, he regained enough of his vision to really see his surroundings.
Fire suppressant foam clung to every surface, explaining the lack of oxygen at floor level. Under the rapidly dissolving foam, fire damage blackened the walls, spreading out from hunks of shrapnel buried in the panelling. He spat, cleared his throat and spat again, then snorted, clearing one nostril and then the other.
Dear spirits. So much for his heroic rescue mission. Where the fuck was his team?
"Martin?" One hand buttressed against the scorched wall, not trusting his trembling legs, Garrus picked his way down the hallway. "Weaver? Do you read me? Anyone?" No reply. But neither did he see any bodies along the hallway, so there might yet be hope they managed to pull back before whatever took him out. What had happened?
He paused, talons lifting to press against the pounding behind his brow plate, trying to remember. Pain distracted him, forcing him into a quick inventory. Body parts all at least semi-functional, every one of them aching and letting out intermittent, stabbing cries. The stench of burned polymer and ceramic curled from his armour in thin, smoky tendrils that stabbed down into his sinuses.
But what happened?
He and Martin called clear on the hallway and moved up. Then … his memory fogged over. A sharp pain drew his attention to the side of his head, distracting him for a second. Seeking talons discovered a chunk of metal and circuitry embedded in his neck just behind his aural canal. A sharp yank ripped it from his hide, and he held it up, face complaining as he scowled at the scorched hardware.
Husks. He remembered husks. And … and … a huge energy weapon? He closed his eyes, trying to draw the memory forward. Yes, a massive, powerful energy weapon, but whatever was behind it … he either hadn't seen it or couldn't remember it.
He went back to the husks. When had they appeared? Second floor? Five or six husks had lurched out of a door no more than eight metres in front of them, but then … they caught fire? They glowed red as if combusting from the inside, then flame wreathed their bodies like morumplacus. They moved like husks, taking as long to orient and manage a straight line as their counterparts. He took the head off the first one six metres out, then it exploded, spraying the hallway with burning shrapnel.
As the rest of the flaming husks closed, Garrus ordered his team back, but each successive explosion grew nearer, the fires in the hall finally triggering the fire suppression system. The last of the exploding abominations … .
Blood running down the side of his head and into his collar reminded him of his injuries, and he hit his medigel. As the cool relief of the medigel sent pain to the bottom of his priority list, he shook his head, trying to clear away the lingering fog of oxygen deprivation. The last husk … it exploded in his face, and then … Collector foot soldiers with assault rifles and a few command units with devastating beam weapons attacked—
He reached up to his radio. "Weaver. Anderson, report in." Static. "Do you read me?" He waited a second, then opened the main channel. "This is Vakarian. Anyone receiving this signal, please respond."
"I'm afraid none of your people can hear you, General," a voice spoke over the intercom, clearly disguised, but just as clearly not the batarian.
Garrus shoved himself away from the wall, a searching stare dropping to the floor when his hand slapped his hip and found nothing. His pistol … he must have dropped it. Damn it, where were his people? If he needed to take the entire facility down alone, one fucking Collector at a time to find his teams, that's what he'd do.
His head laughed at that idea, but then he spotted his pistol five metres away, and he laughed back. He'd been in worse shape on Haestrom, and he'd still got Nihlus out of that hell. He ran the three steps and bent to scoop it up, the entire hallway swooping around him in a heavy wave of dizziness that just about threw his assless over his head.
"You are hard to kill, aren't you? They warned me you would be."
Garrus snatched up his gun and spun to face the new voice, that one young, female, and definitely not batarian. He stumbled backwards a couple of steps, unsure if he was hallucinating. Near the end of the hall, a woman stood, aiming a shotgun at him. Tall and willowy even in armour, she walked with the natural swing common to beautiful females galaxy wide, her long red hair twisted into a plait over her left shoulder.
He sagged against the wall—the entire fifth flotilla firing Thanix cannons inside his head at once—barely managing to keep his pistol trained on her as his hand migrated back to his brow. "Bunny?" He shook his head a little, regretting the action as it drove a wedge between the two halves of his skull. Squinting, he managed to get her to stop floating around his field of vision. "Are you Beatrix Shepard?"
"My name is Qua'tien Krellid. Bunny Shepard died nearly fifteen years ago." She stalked toward him, loose-limbed and confident. "You don't need to introduce yourself. General Garrus Vakarian." She stopped and cocked her head. "Funny, you don't look nearly frightening enough to warrant all of this." A quick flick of her shotgun's muzzle indicated the destruction.
"Where are my people?" he demanded, his head settling back to a tolerable level; enough that he pushed away from the wall, fairly solid on his feet. He took a step toward her, his pistol steady between the sea green eyes. Pain and doubt crystallized into determination. "What happened?"
She shrugged, but he saw the way her jaw tightened, making a lie of her nonchalance. "Your … um… Anderson is aboard your ship as far as I know. The rest of them grabbed the surviving slaves and evacuated when the entire second floor went up in flames, then collapsed." Another shrug. "Well, except for the smart mouthed kid. He insisted you were still alive. He's either dead or still down there searching for you."
"Beatrix … or Qua'tein … whatever your name is … what happened? I was on the second floor." He took another step.
She nodded. "The Collectors attacked with their flambe husks, but you fought your way through those pretty well and the troopers. The floor was on fire. You ordered the team to push on, then you saw me and charged. Walked right into their trap." She nodded over her right shoulder. "Come on, the fire's out, but the house is coming down. Their giant beetle monster thing cut it to ribbons with it particle beams … while trying to kill you, actually."
Turning away, she picked her way through his vomit and the remains of the foam. "Disgusting. Turians are such pukers. Whack them in the head and they just spew chunks everywhere."
"Stop! Wait! Where are the slaves?" he demanded, not moving. He couldn't keep his gun steady and move at the same time without his head trying to dump him on his ass. He swallowed a sour mouthful of vomit as the pain spiked. He'd be deep in the pits before he proved her right. "We came here to find your mother. She is the one who told us how to find him."
The teenager stopped and nodded. "Yeah, I know. You walked into that one too. Good thing your people are such good fighters. You were all supposed to die. Instead, my father's empire lies in ruins, the Collectors betrayed him … never trust bugs who promise the universe … and he's upstairs with half his head missing." She let out a long breath. "Once again, my bitch sister pulls my entire life down around my neck." Another nod. "Let's get going before we end up buried under all his expensive junk."
"Where's your mother?" He followed, keeping a good distance between them. "I'm not leaving without her."
"Father sent her to the shed as soon as she got back from baiting your hook. She's dead by now. They never last more than a week in the shed." He opened his mouth to demand that she take him there, but she slapped a hand up to stop him before he got a single word out. "Don't bother, not even I know the codes to get you in. Even daughters get sent to the shed once in a while. Can't have them able to let themselves out."
"I don't care." His feet felt like someone had coated the soles of his boots with grease, forcing him to pick his way carefully down the hall. Luckily, a large scrap of smoldering rug graced the marble floor in the next room. "Hold up," he said, layering an impatient grumble under the words that sent pain shooting through his head. Spirits … he couldn't function like that. He slapped his medigel twice, then scrubbed the soles of his boots clean.
Arms crossed, hip cocked, Bunny stood a few metres away, watching him with an appraising stare. "Is it true that you and Captain Shepard are a thing?"
He jerked his head toward the exit. "I want to see your master's body and his office. Take me there."
She rolled her eyes and let out a long sigh. "Fine. You always this suspicious when you win a battle?" Another sigh punctuated an eye roll before she spun and headed out.
"I haven't won anything until you, your mother, and all my people are safely back at Archangel." Keeping the pistol aimed at her spine, he followed. "How did your master die? You said half his head is missing?"
"Father, not master. He saved me from the cages, raised me … trained me to be the captain of his personal guard. And, yeah, he's missing the half I shot off." She made a sound like a vocal missile slicing through the air. "He forgot the one lesson he drilled into me the hardest … making people family just lets them get close enough to shank you."
As deserving as the bastard had been of a grisly death, her explanation didn't sit easy. He raised his gun, the spikes the mission had hammered into his spine bristling and digging into the meat. The day was a long way from being done screwing with him. "Why? Why did you kill him?"
Armoured shoulders popped in a careless shrug. "He made promises, but when he brought in the Collectors, started trading slaves for some bullshit promise of immortality and a return to glory for the batarian empire ... ." A harsh, derisive cough cut from her throat. "When he fell for their bullshit, he broke the only promise that meant a damn … that one day, I'd get to stand toe to toe with the bitch who betrayed me, betrayed my mother … let them kill our father, all to save her own damned skin." Bunny stopped and turned to face him. "He promised that one day, I'd get my chance to kill Jane Gwendolyn Shepard. Now, you're going to make sure it happens."
(A-N: Thursday, we hop back to Sassy and Nihlus, then Monday back to Garrus. These Collectors really are a pain in the butt. ) Thanks as always. All the love.)
Hideth Turram - A game played by two teams of fifteen players. A drellak hide is hung on a six metre tall pole in the center of a field that measures one hundred and fifty metres long by thirty metres wide. A twenty-four metre tall scaffolding tower stands at either end of the field. The field, which begins as turf, is soaked to provide a further obstacle, one that becomes only more and more difficult to surmount as it gets churned to mud.
The object is simple, although the execution is anything but. Teams compete to take possession of the hide and move it down the field to their tower, climbing to hang it from the pole at the apex of the tower. There are few rules regarding what means may be used to take possession of the hide from another player, and center on conduct once another player has hit the ground. They may not be struck once any body part above the hips touches the ground. Games are not considered to be good sport without "Blood hitting the mud".
Players: Both males and females play on equal footing and there are no rules governing how many of each should make up a team. What females lose in brute strength, they make up for in speed and agility, often being the teams 'advancing' players, although many are very effective in blocking roles as well. The game is played wearing little clothing as it proves to be both a liability and easily shredded. Light, skin tight leggings are the norm. Bare talons-hands and feet- give the player better purchase. Players of non-taloned races use heavily cleated boots.
The turian saying "Kick with the spur" refers to a move in the sport where one player disables their opponent by hooking the opponent's spur with their own and dragging them to the ground. This move is extremely painful for both involved, and usually results in torn ligaments in the opponent. Although the saying remains popular, the move has become less so.
Origins: Clan gatherings during the turian "dilacul venatiar" or early hunter period, where dominance amongst the clans of a given area was decided by the outcome of a hunting competition. A drellak was marked and the clan that brought it in had first choice over hunting territory, resources, and mates. The elder of the dominant clan also had final say in matters of law as the head of the elder council.
Trivia:
One game between regiments of the External Forces lasted for three days (86.4 Earth Standard Hours), the players falling asleep on the field in shifts.
The first game played against an all asari team lasted 7 minutes, the asari coming out victorious. (Use of biotics and bare breasts have since been ruled illegal)
No fewer than 6 Primarchs have been killed participating in the sport.
No fewer than 13 Primarchs and 68 other members of Hierarchies have been assassinated at games.
The oldest player to ever plant the hide was General Aldus Pallian at the age of 93