Endure
Garrus wasn't watching his HUD when Alenko and Nayar's team connections went dead. He was firing his rifle at the drones, trying to make himself concentrate on one target at a time. The automatons didn't make it easy, sliding and swerving unexpectedly, melting into the swarm when their shields failed. He'd never seen so many in one place. The high ceilings and open alleys of the warehouse gave them plenty of room to maneuver, and he, Shepard and Wickham had wedged themselves into the meager cover afforded by an assortment of oddly-shaped crates and an automated industrial forklift parked near the back wall.
He realized something was wrong when Shepard's voice cut through the comms, calling their names, and nothing came back. Garrus finally looked at his HUD and saw they were both completely off the team channel.
"Lieutenant, Corporal, respond!" Shepard tried a second time, her voice rising with urgency.
The commander made to dodge past Garrus but quickly retreated, shouldering into the turian as a withering hail of the drones' gunfire deformed the skin of a metal crate.
"Godammit, Kaidan, answer me," she breathed between her teeth. The cowling of her shotgun creaked under her grip.
Garrus' heart writhed with sympathy and sudden worry in an echo of the commander's obvious distress. He tried resetting the team connections, but his comm system's search came up empty.
Some fifty feet away, the maintenance entrance finally burst open and Venrik's C-Sec squads stormed in. Garrus was glad for the support of the older tetrarch, a solid soldier seemingly devoid of ambition, the kind of turian who exemplified Palavan's hierarchical tradition. In past years, Garrus had resented Venrik's strict adhesion to rules, but his reliability was beyond reproach. It stood in strange contrast to his occasionally problematic love of gambling, but it seemed Venrik saved all of his risk-taking for quasar machines.
Mercifully, the tetrarch's squads were well-prepared for what awaited them inside the warehouse, and they led with a hail of charged ECM grenades. Confusion erupted among the swarm as the drones tried to compensate for the new invasion.
Shepard, for her part, didn't hesitate to take advantage of the change in the battle's momentum. She pushed past Garrus and tore away toward the far end of the room, heedless of the gunfire impacts across her shields.
The turian's breath hissed between his teeth and he tried to force his scattered thoughts back together as a barrage of bullets continued to spark and chatter around him. He remembered the loading docks at the far end of the warehouse, the only other exit he'd noticed.
"Tetrarch!" he said, "Get a squad to the rear doors and secure them! We've lost contact with two of our team members!"
"Understood, Praetor!" Venrik answered crisply.
"Come on, Chief," Garrus shouted to Wickham over the din, "We can get to the control console!"
Wickham nodded and fired an ECM grenade at the disorganized drones, and the two of them broke from cover and ran after Shepard. Some of the drones took off in pursuit, and Garrus and Wickham had to dodge between stacks and rows to avoid their fire. Garrus' lungs were burning when they finally rounded a corner and sprinted the last twenty feet to where Shepard stood.
The commander herded the two of them into the drones' dead zone. "Shut them down!" she barked harshly.
Wickham skidded to a stop in front of the console and began entering commands into her omni-tool. Garrus looked around in confusion. His HUD clearly showed this was Nayar and Alenko's last recorded location, but there was no evidence of either of them save for smeared boot-prints in the blood spattered on the dark floor.
"Loading doors secure," Venrik reported over the comms. "I've seen no other possible exits, Praetor."
Garrus acknowledged the tetrarch as he continued to look for any possible clues. He knew Nayar had been hit, and it didn't seem like there would have been time to attend to the wound. Logically, there should have been more blood spatter leading away from where they had disappeared.
A long minute and then another dragged past as Shepard continued to fire on the drones, occasionally calling into her comms, or just yelling incoherent insults at the unfeeling automatons.
It was with stark suddenness that the drones stopped in mid air, as one, and their gun mounts retracted into their housings. The abrupt silence echoed hollowly. Shepard dropped the heat-shimmering muzzle of her shotgun and jogged a few steps away, examining the floor for signs as Garrus had.
"Venrik," Garrus said, "keep a guard on those loading doors and sweep that end of the warehouse. We have no sign of Lieutenant Alenko or Corporal Nayar at their last known location."
"Yes, Praetor. I've summoned an aerial to scout the exterior street."
"Good," Garrus responded. The automated aerial drones could be deployed quickly from any C-Sec garrison, and their speed and high-resolution optics were excellent for securing intel on street activity.
The turian was trying to decide the next course of action when he suddenly felt something through his feet, a subtle burst of vibration. His first impulse was to dismiss it, but when he glanced at the humans, Shepard and Wickham had frozen and were looking around.
"What was that?" the commander asked, striding back toward the chief. "Did you feel it?"
"Yes Ma'am," Wickham said. She crouched down and laid her palm on the floor, omni-tool lit. "I'd swear it came from below us."
"That's not possible," Garrus said with a shake of his head. "There's nothing below us, this floor is the base of Ward, the Citadel itself."
Wickham looked skeptical as she continued to stare at the ground, moving her omni-tool around.
"They can't have gone far," Garrus continued, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
Shepard stalked toward him, teeth set with barely repressed fury. "They didn't vanish into thin air, Garrus!" she grated, her voice rising.
Garrus swallowed hard. "I know, Commander, we-"
There was a yelp of surprise and Garrus turned sharply back to see the chief vanish from sight. The turian watched in open-mouthed astonishment as Shepard reversed course and peered down into the impossible rectangular portal that had opened up in the floor. Without hesitation, she pulled her shotgun off her back and hopped down into it.
A burst of gunfire rattled noisily from within. Forcing his stunned body into motion, Garrus lurched forward to the perfectly straight edge of the hole, pulling his rifle off his back. The floor dropped away to a smooth, angled plane some eight feet below. Fighting the sense of wrongness of the situation, Garrus quickly let himself down and landed on the smooth floor, then immediately slid sideways.
He braced himself on the wall to avoid falling over as he skidded to a stop next to Shepard and the recumbent form of Chief Wickham. The floor leveled out into a featureless, perfectly square hallway perhaps seven feet wide. Right next to them, what was left of an automated turret sputtered fitfully.
The chief clambered to her feet, eyes round with surprise. "Look, there's blood and... ew, what's this gunk?" She held up her hand.
A flash of recognition ran through Garrus as he saw the grey-green residue sticking to the armor. It was what had been scattered all over the station after Saren's attack; the dissolved remains of Keepers.
"Chief, what did you do?" Shepard asked, shining her light around the dim corridor.
"I don't know!" the chief spluttered. "I picked up this faint signal, an open port, so I pinged it and the floor just... went away!"
"We... shouldn't be here," Garrus said reflexively, staring at the smoking gun turret. It was wired into a small terminal and a back-up generator; loose cables snaked away down the hall along dusty footprints and crimson spatters of human blood. Another cable ran up the wall toward the opening above them.
"Well, then they shouldn't either!" Shepard snapped. "Come on, let's move!" She turned off her lamp and jogged away.
Garrus glanced up to the open space above him. "Venrik!" he said into his comms. "Call for additional squads to secure this warehouse, and converge on this position, we've found an entrance!" He hurried after Shepard and Wickham.
"Praetor..."
"Do it!" Garrus barked, trying to cut through the uncharacteristic hesitation that bled into the stolid tetrarch's voice.
Garrus couldn't help but feel profoundly troubled himself. All his life, the Citadel had been the shining symbol of galactic civilization, a stable core as inviolate as the mysterious, ultra-hard metal that made it up. One didn't question the Citadel itself, nor its Keepers, as one didn't question the rock that made up a planet- it simply was.
Saren had been the first to so deeply profane the spirit of the Citadel, and the revelations he and the Reaper Sovereign brought shook that foundation to the core. Garrus could never have articulated what the symbol of the Citadel meant to him until it seemed to betray him.
But the turrets set up near the entrance to gun down Keepers, the cables and lights burrowing through the skin of the station, were not the work of some million-year-old god-machine, they were the work of mortals like Garrus, those not blinded by the immovable traditions of the Council. And now it took humans, upstart newcomers in most people's opinions, to shine the light into the depths of the Council's refusal to look any further than their own beliefs about their mastery of the galaxy.
Garrus followed the humans as the hallway veered abruptly, then opened up into a vast space with an arched roof. Great flanges of dark metal bisected the walls, running down into deep recessed gaps in the floor. Arcs of coruscating blue-white electricity lashed the air between the exposed ends of massive electrodes, filling the walls with strobing shadows.
"I, uh... I guess even the Citadel has to dump charge," Wickham ventured over the buzz and crackle.
Garrus couldn't find his voice, awestruck by the display of the Citadel's mysterious inner workings. Shepard cautiously approached the arcing bolts.
"They got across," Shepard said, pointing. Down on the floor, along one of the beams that crossed under the electrical discharge, the flashing light highlighted smears of red.
"Somehow I don't think this has an off switch..." the chief said, voice trailing off doubtfully.
The commander didn't answer, abruptly striding forward. Garrus' heart jumped into his throat when one of the massive bolts leapt off the wall and enveloped Shepard. She flinched, but remained standing as the charge continued to connect to both sides of the room as it played across her armor.
"We aren't grounded," Garrus realized aloud. "I don't think... the Citadel itself is conductive."
"Don't think I would've wanted to be the first to test that theory..." Wickham muttered.
Shepard turned and beckoned them forward before turning and carefully walking across the narrow beam. Garrus stepped up onto it, instinctively bracing himself. But there was no impact, just his HUD skewing and distorting as the powerful energy fields toyed with his armor systems.
As he approached the far side, he looked down. Between the broad beams, deep down through the shafts in the floor, he glimpsed the purple swirl of the Serpent Nebula. He swallowed and focused on the solid ground, hurrying to join Shepard on the far side. Trying to shake off the disquiet, he quickly tapped out a message to Venrik instructing the tetrarch how to cross the electrical discharges.
Once regrouped, Shepard led them quickly through an opening and into a tunnel that branched seemingly at random. Passages both large and far too small for any person fed off into darkness, following some unfathomable pattern. Shepard used her helmet lamp to follow dirty footprints, cables and the occasional spot of blood.
The dark corridor twisted and turned before spilling into a wide room illuminated by yellowish utility lamps. Medium-sized boxes had probably once been stacked neatly, but were now scattered haphazardly across the floor, scorched black along their sides. The twisted shell of a chemical drum lay at the center of the blast.
Shepard scuffed the blasted floor with a boot. "We're losing the trail," she said.
Garrus looked around, noticing four doors leading away. "We could split up," he suggested.
"I don't... want to lose anyone else," Shepard said in a taut voice.
"It's the fastest way, Commander," Wickham pointed out. "Otherwise we're guessing."
Shepard closed her eyes briefly, brows knotted together. "All right," she said finally, "you two go that way, but stay together, and don't engage anyone if you can avoid it." She turned and jogged away through one of the room's exits.
Garrus pulled his assault rifle off his back and led the way through another, advancing quickly but as quietly as he could manage. Frustration gnawed at him as they wove through more narrow, meandering corridors. Finally, the main corridor split in two. The loose cables on the floor trailed away to the left, and Garrus elected to follow the only familiar signs.
After two more bends, light spilled into the hall. More utility lamps illuminated a room beyond crammed floor to ceiling with small boxes. The ceiling itself was deeply recessed with wide grooves, creating beams that hung down low enough to force Garrus to duck his head.
"This place doesn't make any sense," Wickham muttered, edging into the room and trying to see around the stacks.
"It wasn't made for us..." Garrus replied absently.
On impulse, he planted his foot on one of the small boxes and shoved it sideways. It upended onto the floor, the flimsy card splitting at the seams. He was not remotely surprised to see the small, single-dose inhalers that spilled out.
"Is that red sand?" the chief asked.
"It would be my first guess," Garrus said, turning away. "This is a dead end, come on."
They hurried back to the intersection, and had started down the second fork when Shepard's voice came over the comms in a harsh whisper. "I think I see them. Get over here!"
"On our way," Garrus answered quietly, reversing course. A rush of nervousness flashed through him.
"Damn," Wickham growled, "they better be all right."
Garrus didn't answer, dread crawling up his back as they jogged back toward the scorched storage room. If Alenko and Nayar were still alive, it probably meant a hostage situation, in a totally alien environment.
They broke through to the room at a dead run, weaving through the scattered boxes and crates and heading for the door Shepard had taken.
They were barely a dozen feet down the hall when Shepard spoke again, breathless. "Oh god, they've got..."
"We're coming, Commander!" Wickham said.
"Stop!" Shepard yelled, a distorted crack of imperative over the comms. "Stay there! Stay there or they'll be killed!"
Garrus rocked to a halt, flinching at the sharp edge of panic in her voice. Beside him, Wickham swore acidly.
After a few seconds of tense silence, an idea abruptly popped into Garrus' head. His first impulse was to dismiss it outright, but the desire to do something was too strong.
He pulled out an ECM grenade and lit his omni-tool interface. He scrolled quickly through the programs he had stored on it, finding one he had written himself during the Normandy's long FTL flights. He'd never field-tested it, but necessity called on it's use. He executed the program, and the grenade began to charge in his grip as his armor fed power from its own stores.
Garrus paged Venrik. "Tetrach," he said quietly, "I'm going off-comms briefly. You and your squads are ordered to remain clear of this area until I or Spectre Shepard contact you."
"Yes, Praetor," Venrik answered. His signal warbled with interference.
Garrus reached up with his free hand and cycled the neck seal of his helmet open, then pulled it off. He laid it on the buttress next to him and then quickly unclipped his guns. His tool beeped softly- the grenade was charged and ready. He touched the program start icon on his tool.
A quick burst of code spread down his eyepiece as the program now nested in the grenade synced up to his armor. With the perfect timing he had so patiently coded, his armor systems powered down just as the grenade powered up, spoofing his transponder signal and putting out an energy signature mimicking a kinetic shield. Unless someone was watching very carefully, the rollover would be virtually seamless.
"What... What are you doing?" Wickham asked nervously.
Garrus laid the grenade next to his helmet. He looked the chief in the eye. "I'm staying here," he said evenly, scooping up his sniper rifle.
Garrus turned and jogged down the corridor. Without his network map, he had to rely on memory and direction sense, though the faceless corridors of the Citadel's underworld were little help in that regard. His armor dragged on his limbs, deprived of the power-assist that usually compensated for its weight.
Thick bundles of cables ran along the ground, an obvious trail left by the intruders as they tried to link their equipment. There was a certain cunning in the choice to eschew any kind of wireless signal, thus avoiding the possibility of leakage and interception. But Garrus was beginning to suspect practicality as well- the Citadel's dark metal seemed to deaden communications.
The garbled echo of loud voices bounced down the corridor. Suddenly an alcove opened to his left and Garrus noticed a metal ladder leading upwards into an opening in the ceiling. The majority of the cables split off and trailed up into the dim, narrow shaft. A pale light was visible at the top.
"Burn as a clear flame...," Garrus muttered to himself as he gripped the ladder and began climbing as quickly as he could manage with his bulky rifle.
Garrus crested the top of the ladder and quickly hopped up to the landing, a small chamber leading to a hallway. The cables snaked along the wall toward an opening that spilled ruddy artificial light. He hurried through it.
Another room in the nonsensical maze that was the Citadel's skin opened before him, deeper than it was wide. The wall to his right seemed to open onto a larger space through window-like gaps. In front of those windows were set up several banks of computer equipment, fed by cables that led off in various directions.
In the center of the room, peering at an amber holo-display, was a batarian in dark red armor. The helmetless alien turned and started to speak, as if expecting someone else, but froze when he saw the turian.
Garrus lunged. His thick outstretched talons punched the batarian in the throat, and though they were too blunt to puncture the armored collar, the force of the blow crushed the alien's shout of alarm into a strangled gurgle. With the weight of his armor carrying Garrus forward, he barreled into the batarian and the two went down in a heap.
The turian tried to force his forearm against the batarian's throat as his opponent squirmed and slammed his fist into Garrus' face, cracking his mandible hard into his teeth. Garrus brought his knee up sharply into the batarian's gut, but the alien's armor stiffened against the blow.
The batarian's teeth were bared and his labored, choked breathing washed against Garrus' face as the two of them grappled and strained to get the upper hand. The batarian swung at Garrus again, and this time the glint of metal warned the turian in time to get his forearm in the way of the carbon-steel combat knife that suddenly flashed in the orange light.
Garrus barely twisted out of the way of another stab aimed at his face and locked his hands around the batarian's grip. He wrapped a leg around the batarian for leverage and doggedly began twisting the knife around. With his free hand the alien tried to stop the inexorable reversal of his own blade, then swung again at Garrus' face.
The turian gritted his teeth and took the increasingly frantic blows, ducking his head and redoubling the pressure. Unable to breathe properly, his opponent's strength was flagging. Implacably, Garrus forced the point of the knife into one of the batarian's eyes. The alien convulsed and gave a strangled scream, and as his strength failed Garrus leaned in and used his weight to punch the knife through the alien's skull and into his brain.
The batarian bucked once, limbs thrashing, then went limp. Garrus rolled to his feet, panting, and cast about for his discarded sniper rifle. His head and arms throbbed, and he could feel hot blood seeping along the ridges of his face. He scooped up his rifle and crossed to the wide windows, catching the faint echo of what might have been distant voices.
The window edges were deep, and Garrus was able to hop up and slide on his knees to the edge. He overlooked a wide, cavernous space whose bottom opened straight into the swirling mass of the Serpent nebula. Across the roof, near Garrus' perch, thick bracing struts arced clear across to the other side. From them was supported a jury-rigged hangar bay, complete with docking clamps, a charge dissipater array and two loading gantries that snaked up alongside the ship docked there. The cold fury that curdled in his chest only redoubled at the sight of the small, clearly turian cargo freighter.
Down on the gantry to the right of the ship, Garrus thought he could see movement, but his vision was partially obscured by the blocky bulk of the freighter. With a deep breath, he swallowed the nervous fear gnawing on the edges of his mind and shimmied out along one of the support beams, dropping to a crawl as the space over his head diminished with the arcing roof.
Garrus forced himself to breathe evenly to try and still the adrenal trembling running through his body as he deployed his sniper rifle and looked through the sight, the scene below snapping into close focus. He could see Shepard standing at the bottom of the gantry, weaponless, but poised with repressed energy.
He swept the view up the gantry where several figures stood near the hatch to the ship. He immediately recognized the black and red of Alenko's armor as the lieutenant hung limp between two people, one a batarian and the other, to his shock, a turian. The batarian held a pistol to Alenko's head as he yelled down to Shepard.
Behind the batarian stood two armed and armored humans pointing their guns down toward the commander. One had his free hand clamped to the side of his face, and the front of his chest was splashed with gory streaks of red. On the gantry floor between them, a third human whom Garrus guessed must be Nayar lay in an unmoving heap.
From his high perch, Garrus couldn't make out what the batarian was saying, but he could guess. A bargain, no doubt, some new and terrible burden to weigh on Shepard and the spirit of the Normandy.
Blood oozed down his face as his mind raced. He'd made a choice and disobeyed an order, and was now committed. But in his haste he was stuck not knowing all of the variables- he didn't know if his interference would help or doom his friends.
The opportunity came mid-thought as the batarian's vehement, imperious speech caused his hand to move the pistol fractionally away from Alenko's head.
Garrus squeezed the trigger.
The rifle bucked in his grip and a gout of black blood exploded out the far side of the batarian's skull. Garrus waited the half-second necessary to confirm that his target was well and truly dead, then swung his gun around and picked the next dangerous targets, the armed humans. They were already moving, forcing Garrus to aim high in order to avoid hitting Nayar, but he clipped the shoulder of the unwounded one. As the man staggered under the blow, Garrus tightened his aim and fired again, hitting him in the torso.
He could feel the burst of heat venting out of his rifle's sinks and he gritted his teeth and forced himself to wait a heartbeat. Down on the gantry, the wounded man was firing at Shepard when suddenly the air distorted around him and he flew backwards, slamming into the gantry's thin railing and flipping over it. Garrus heard his high, thin wail die suddenly as he tumbled down and out into the nebula beyond.
He watched as Shepard ran up the gantry and scooped up one of the discarded rifles, then turned and started firing toward the hatch of the freighter, which faced away from Garrus' position.
Garrus swung his rifle sight back down the gantry to where Alenko lay next to the dead batarian. The turian that had been standing at the batarian's side was still there, rocking back and forth on his feet, hands spread, as if confused. Garrus watched in dawning horror as the turian's mandibles flared as wide they could go and his head snapped back. A distant howl of pain echoed hollowly through the docking bay.
Shepard came into his field of view, rifle pointed at the turian as she tracked him. Blue blood began to flow freely from the unfortunate turian's nose as he convulsed and screamed, hands clamped to his head.
Garrus could see the muzzle of Shepard's rifle trembling. In a moment of agonized decision, he snapped his aim back to the writhing turian and fired one shot cleanly through his forehead. As the turian fell dead, Garrus caught the flash of metal- the slave jack in the back of his skull.
On his high perch, Garrus pulled his rifle to him and dropped his forehead onto it, shuddering. Dissipating heat from the gun washed across his face, eddying in the cold air.
Brother... I'm sorry.
Garrus powered on his armor as he crawled back toward the windows to the makeshift control tower. The suit began hardening around him as it cycled through its startup checks, and his comms came back online.
"Tetrarch!" he said, steadying his voice. "I need a medical team to Spectre Shepard's position, quickly!"
"Yes Praetor," Venrik answered immediately.
"What's your status?"
"Additional squads from second branch are securing the warehouse, Praetor. We're in the process of searching the tunnels, there is scattered resistance but we've secured at least five prisoners and... a great deal of contraband."
"Good," Garrus said as he scanned the terminals in the room, ignoring the dead batarian cooling on the floor. "Secure the tunnels and get a forensics team down here."
"Praetor, should we not lock these tunnels down?" Venrik said. "It's highly... unusual, the Executor-"
"Executor Pallin will learn of it soon enough," Garrus said bluntly.
He sympathized with Venrik's hesitation, but the taboo against questioning the Keepers and the Citadel itself had to fall. Especially if all it took were well-placed automated turrets to circumvent the station's sanctity.
"Venrik... we endure," Garrus said.
There was a pause, then the tetrarch answered. "The spirit endures."
As Garrus had hoped it would, the traditional words seemed to steel the older turian. Satisfied that there was no one left to disengage the docking clamps on the freighter and allow it to escape, Garrus headed for the ladder and clambered down to the lower level. He made his way toward Shepard, striding through a long hallway with several branching corridors that finally emerged into the bay.
Garrus stopped at the bottom of the sloped gantry. He was relieved to see Alenko sitting back against the railing, apparently conscious, with Shepard crouched beside him. A little further up, two C-Sec agents were attending to Nayar with the chief hovering beside them.
The sprawled bodies of the pirates trailed blood down the gantry. Garrus forced himself to look at the dead turian, conscious that his actions had probably cost the slave his life even before he'd ended his suffering with a single shot. He hadn't been able to prevent someone from activating a kill-switch.
He stepped aside as the C-Sec agents carrying the stretcher with Nayar hurried past him, Wickham on their heels. He watched them vanish into the dark tunnels, then turned back to see Shepard walking toward him.
"Garrus, you..." she started, then trailed off, mouth set in a hard line.
Garrus squared his shoulders. He'd made the decision when he'd pulled the trigger, and even before that, when he'd taken out the ECM grenade.
"Commander, I take full responsibility for this operation and my actions as Citadel Security Praetor. C-Sec will secure all prisoners and evidence and report to the Council on this. The depth of your involvement remains at your discretion, but on behalf of C-Sec I extend our thanks for your invaluable help."
Shepard peered at him from under the rim of her helmet. Garrus returned her gaze, tired, somewhat nervous, but resolute. Formality made things clear, but in his experience, some people could mistake almost anything for a challenge to their position. He had no desire to undermine the Spectre's authority, so he prayed she would understand his intentions.
Some of tension seemed to go out of her stance. "You're going to have a hard time keeping this quiet," she said finally.
Garrus nodded. "Good. Executor Pallin needs to see clearly what's been hiding under his nose. The Citadel isn't some sacred totem, it's a weapon. And if we don't learn to use it, our enemies will.
"And Commander... Shepard, thank you for trusting me."
Shepard shook her head. "You earned it, Garrus," she said wearily. "I don't know if I'd wish the title of Spectre on anyone, but if you take it, I know you'll do a good job. Terra Nova lives because of you."
She rubbed her eyes with thumb and forefinger, shoulders slumped with exhaustion. He knew the last few days had been difficult for her in ways he didn't completely understand, something to do with the unspoken bond she shared with Alenko. It grated on Garrus, but he could offer nothing except silent support and the willingness to take some of her burden.
Garrus placed a hand on her shoulder and gently steered her back toward where the lieutenant sat by the railing. "Go, Commander," he said quietly. "Nayar will be taken care of, and... I will carry this."
The Normandy endures.