David Anderson sat down heavily and sighed. Chakwas pushed a shot glass over the table. He shot her a thankful look and downed the liquid, shaking his head as the heat burned in his throat, ears and eyes. "Thanks, Doc."
Karin looked the way he felt – with the addition of a large bandage covering most of her forehead. To her left sat Hannah Shepard, looking more miserable than he would've ever imagined that proud woman to be capable of. She wore her normal service uniform, and while she wasn't out of line in any way, it looked nowhere near as pristine as she usually kept it no matter the occasion. Her eyes had a red tint to them and were swollen. David gritted his teeth. He hadn't seen her anything like this ever before, and they had served in the fifth fleet together for long enough to have seen some dark days.
"Hannah, I'm so sorry."
She nodded and looked down at her glass. "I know you are." She took a sip. "Congratulations to your promotion, Rear admiral. Been a long time coming."
He didn't know what to say to that, and so he just stared at bottle at the other end of the table. Eventually, he found it in him to attempt a weak smile. It failed miserably. Just days ago, he had been bursting with pride, now he wasn't even sure if he cared about that at all anymore. At least it would give him bigger influence to try and get people to acknowledge the renounced, millions of years old elephant in the room coming to end their civilization. Not that more influence than "practically nothing" was a whole lot. Every last bit that could be thrown in would be needed now that Shepard was gone.
If he was honest, he wasn't sure how the hell he and Hackett were supposed to pull this off now.
"Who did this, David?"
"I don't know."
Hannah's fist came down on the table. David looked up to her and there was the Hannah Shepard he knew, fierce and focused.
"How!? How is this possible!? Don't think I don't have my own contacts! I don't know what they did, but I know the AIS fucked up and almost got him killed on some goddamn backwater in the Terminus. And three days later, he gets blown up by a ship nobody's ever seen before!? And we don't know a thing? Bullshit!"
Anderson met her gaze. "I've been asking myself the same question. If there is anyone who knows more, they're keeping it under wraps."
"What the hell was John even doing out there, again? Three days after he almost died?"
"Mission for the council. They suspected Geth activity in the area."
Doctor Chakwas was following the exchange with a look of pure emotional exhaustion on her face, not having touched her brandy in a while already.
"The counc – " Hannah stopped herself for a moment and closed her eyes. When she continued speaking, it was somewhat calmer, but the strain on her voice was impossible to miss.
"So you're telling me my nephew was chased out into Amada by the goddamn politicians, and the second he gets there his ship gets blown the fuck up, and I'm supposed to believe it's a goddamn coincidence!?"
"I don't. Neither do I. Whoever did this has to be the same party that was behind the ambush on Vostralska." He took a deep breath. "Somebody really wanted John dead. And they had to know about his assignments from the council to prepare this."
Hannah's eyes were wide now. "He told me about these 'Reapers', David. I know the council wanted him to shut up about it. God help me, if you know anything about -"
"No!" David shook his head. "God knows I have no love for these people, but I can't imagine they have anything to do with this. That's not how the council works, killing their own Spectres just because they're a bit unruly. If that was how they operated, half the Spectres would be long dead."
It was clear to see that Hannah was on the verge of bursting out some strong language, but even though it took a while to regain her composure, eventually she just nodded.
"Who else, then?"
David blew his breath through his nose and scratched his forehead. "I don't know. But whoever it was...I think we need to consider they might be working for them."
The women threw him puzzled looks. "Them?" , Chakwas asked.
He shrugged. "The Reapers of course. I think we need to take the possibility into account that they might have some sort of forward element still in the Milky Way, even now that Sovereign has been destroyed. I talked it over with Hackett, and he sees it the same way."
An uneasy silence settled over the three, to be eventually broken by Hannah when she spat into her empty glass.
"These 'Reapers' almost took over the Citadel, battered the fifth and now they killed my sister's boy. From what John said, they're coming to kill us all. And noone's gonna do shit about it."
Garrus put the glass down on the counter with a loud crack.
"Hey! Another one!"
The batarian barkeeper shot him an irritated look, but complied soon enough. Garrus thanked him, closed his fingers around the glass and poured half of it down his gullet in a single gulp. For a moment, a flash of heat made him feel like he was about to pass out as the strong alcohol flushed through.
Everything had gone to shit.
Garrus hadn't even been awake when the attack had happened; nobody had expected anything to come of this piece of busywork in the Amada system. Apparently a couple of ships had disappeared there over the passing months. Not exactly unusual in the middle of the damned Terminus, but for some reason the council had suspected Geth, so they had sent them looking for them - and they had found something alright. Not Geth though. From the little data about the ship thathad survived in the Normandy's blackbox and that he had managed to get his hands on, it seemed obvious that whoever had built that thing, it hadn't been the synthetics. The technology of the weapon that had cut through their shields like butter was like nothing he'd ever heard of, and nobody had any idea how the ship had been able to defeat the Normandy's stealth systems either.
Everything had gone incredibly fast. So fast that as far as Garrus was concerned, there was only one explanation: Amada had been a trap, a well planned and executed ambush. Their attacker had known when they would arrive, where they would be coming from and what the Normandy was capable of. She had been limping through space with most of her engines dead or dying before anyone really knew what was happening; they had kept a safe distance from all planets in system as was standard procedure for entering system on a recon mission like this, but the effective range of the dreadnought that had ambushed them was so enormous that when it had emerged from behind the fifth planet, it was able to keep up precise fire on the Normandy all the way over to Alchera, the fourth planet, where Joker had tried to escape to and where the ship had now found her grave.
Joker. Their cocky pilot had outdone himself once more. He hadn't been able to dodge that hellish beam weapon for very long, but he had kept steering the ship with what little drive she had left until the bitter end. Nobody had noticed at the time, but Garrus had realized soon after that without Joker's maneuvers tilting and turning the ship to present less vital areas to the attackers and keep the escape pods out of the line of fire, most of them wouldn't have made it.
If only that damn console hadn't caved in, he could've saved himself on his own and Shepard would still be with us.
He took another sip from the brandy. How pathetic he had to look. A turian moping around in a bar instead of being out there to seek vengeance.
But Garrus didn't even know who to go after. It was obvious to him that the ambush at Amada had to have been orchestrated by the same faction that had been behind Vostralska, but that didn't help the fact that he had no clue who it could possibly be. That ship hadn't looked like anything anyone had ever seen.
The reapers?
It was possible. But he didn't know. The fact that this perfect trap had been sprung on them in a mission given to Shepard directly from the council refused to leave him rest. They had wanted to shut Shepard up about the reapers, that much was out of the question. But this? Garrus didn't really believe it, but the pervasive thought kept bugging him. And so he sat in a bar drinking himself into a stupor instead of lashing out at whoever bastard deserved it.
Noise came from his right; he flinched and looked over to the source of the commotion. A bunch of humans were drinking heavily and making no effort to not be a damned nuisance with their loud talking and shouting. Irritation flared up in him, and his general mood didn't help in the slightest. He suppressed a growl.
Perhaps he'd find someone to lash out against after all before the night was over.
Garrus shook his head. He felt like he was a loaded gun with the safety off but no target. Maybe Liara could change that at some point. The Asari had left abruptly soon after their arrival at the Citadel, leaving only a short message – that she'd be looking for Shepard, and answers. Garrus was surprised, if he was honest. Liara had liked Shepard, he had known that, but that she cared so much as to try and find the man's frozen and probably mostly burnt body hurtling through space somewhere was unexpected. He had written back and wished her good luck. And to make sure to contact him if she actually did find any answers.
She hadn't even been the first one to leave. Tali had been off just the day after they had got here; Hackett had organized a transport back to the Migrant fleet specifically for her. The farewell had been about as depressing as the disaster itself. The Quarian had screamed, cried and generally lost her mind for a few minutes when it had turned out that Shepard hadn't made it out. Garrus had done his best to try and console her, to no avail, until she had eventually calmed down by herself. But what had come after that had been even worse. She had spent the entire one and a half days they had waited for rescue in that pod in an eerie stupor, staring ahead blankly. When they had been rescued, she had followed instructions like a mindless automaton, not saying a word the whole time. By the time she had left, she had somewhat found her tongue again, but she spoke quiet and subdued. She had said farewell with a few short words and then shuffled into the ship like someone walking towards their execution. Garrus emptied his glass at the thought of how the girl had to be feeling. He knew full well that she had been in love with Shepard; in fact, he'd already been wondering if now that Williams was gone, it was on him to try and finally try and get the two idiots somewhere. After all, Garrus had damn good reasons to assume that the Commander had had a soft spot for her as well.
It didn't matter now.
A shadow fell on the counter next to his spot and he could feel the hear the stool to his right creak under the weight of a person settling onto it. A hand nudged his shoulder. He turned around to see a young human man look up to him. He looked like shit. Duct rat, he concluded after about half a second.
"Hey man, " , they guy began. He pointed at Garrus glass. "Empty again, huh? Been here a while now. Didn't mean to creep on you, but could hardly help but notice that you don't seem to be having a great night right now. You know, the alcohol... that stuff get's pretty pricey pretty damn quick if you keep going like this. And it's not gonna take your mind off whatever shit you're dealing with anyway. Not properly. Not like this."
Garrus had suspected what would be coming for a while now, the only question left had been just what exactly the guy would try to sell him. He studied the pill for a moment; drugs had never been his specialty, but nobody who had ever done any policing work on the Citadel, or anywhere else that wasn't a complete backwater, would have failed to recognize what he was looking at now. Hallex, the classic.
Garrus shifted his gaze back to the dealer in front of him. Upon closer inspection, he was a miserable wretch. He was thin and his left hand seemed to be twitching at irregular intervals.
Probably takes some of the harder stuff himself.
"So? What's it gonna be? Come on man, some Hallex is gonna help you forget your troubles for tonight."
Garrus scoffed. "Getting impatient already? You're not good at this, are you."
The guy looked at him flabbergasted, and Garrus made his decision. He had wanted to vent his rage at someone, so he might as well start with this asshole. His right hand shot forward and gripped the man's collar.
"Who supplies you?"
"Wh-what? No, you buy from me, I-"
"I dont want to buy from you, neither from anyone else. Now. Who. Supplies. You."
He threw a good amount of credits on the counter, not giving a damn that the tip he was leaving this way was pretty hefty, and began to drag the guy outside. The shady bar had gone very quiet; the barkeeper took his time cleaning the glass in his hand very thoroughly and passionately, and everyone seemed to be extremely fascinated by the drinks in front of them all out of a sudden.
On the street, Garrus rammed his knee into the guy's abdomen, stifling his scream before it left his lips,and quickly disappeared into the side alley next to the bar, his involuntary informant in tow who seemed utterly terrified by now.
"Now listen. I don't give a damn about you, and I'll let you go. But only if you tell me who you get your stuff from,"
The dealer opened his mouth, and Garrus knew what the man wanted to say.
"Don't worry. They won't be around to punish you for snitching, believe me."
"M-marneus. Turian. You can find him at the docks, bay Z-84!"
Garrus released the man from his grip.
"Good. Now. Why don't you go and get yourself a proper fucking job? Wait, don't tell me. I think I know why. It's because you're a junky and a miserable failure. If you can motivate your carcass to try and do something useful for yourself, go to the markets. There's a Dr. Michel there, she's got a soft spot for bums like you. Maybe she can find you a place in detox and rehab."
The guy just stared up at him wide eyed and breathing heavily. Garrus turned and left.