Edited on 17 MAY 2015.
All the love for my beta Sindrandi.
If you know the enemy and know yourself,
you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.
Sun Tzu
The new recruit got settled into the Normandy without much of a fuss from the crew. Some curious wanderers had peeked around on the crew deck but they scattered with just one sharp look from their commanding officer.
Everyone had more important things to worry about. Shepard had Joker set the Normandy on a course to Haestrom. She figured the sooner they got to Tali, the better. She didn't want any quarian higher-ups delaying things with their bureaucratic bullshit.
Vivian's head was swimming. Her scars were killing her and her biotic amp felt like it was pinching her spinal cord.
Definitely need to have Chakwas take a look at that…
"Shepard, are you even listening?"
Miranda's words cut through Shepard's daze like a dull knife.
Wincing, she rubbed her temples, "Yes, I hear you, Miranda. I've just… I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?"
Sighing, Miranda slid the data pad away from her on the briefing room table.
"If anyone had told me it would be this difficult being Commander Shepard's XO I would have demanded a higher salary," she murmured.
Vivian let out a sigh herself, "I'm sure…"
"Look. How about you go get some rest? You look like you need it anyway. You needn't work yourself so hard, Commander. That's why we're building a team, remember? So you don't have to do all the work yourself."
Vivian knew that despite the chiding manner, this was the closest Miranda came to flat out saying that she cared.
She smiled in spite of herself. "Will do, Miranda. You're probably right."
"There's no probably about it." Miranda smirked.
The door slid open, pulling Garrus out of his calibrations. Expecting it to be Shepard, Garrus turned around smoothly, but was shocked to see someone else.
"Hello Archangel."
"Warden."
Eden took a few more steps inside, letting the doors slide shut behind her, but remained silent.
"What do you want?" Garrus asked shortly.
The turian's tone didn't seem to faze her. "You are upset with me?"
Garrus turned back to his workbench and aggressively punched in calculations. "If there isn't a purpose for coming down here then I'd like to be left alone…"
"There is a purpose. I wanted to clear the air, so to speak. I am sure there are a number of things you would like to say to me an-"
He spun around so fast and stepped so close into her personal space, Eden could feel Garrus's labored breaths on her face.
"You weren't there." Garrus's eyes burned with the memory of finding his team bloodied and torn. "Why weren't you there, Eden?"
"...I was needed elsewhere."
Garrus slammed his fist into the wall behind her head. Eden jerked her head out of the way and closed her eyes in shame.
"You were needed elsewhere?! You were needed at the base!" He knew he was yelling now, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
Slowly, turning her face back to him, she opened her eyes, "Garrus. I did not abandon you intentionally."
"But you abandoned us all the same," he barked, marching to the holo-screen on the far wall.
Eden sighed, "I did not know that the base was attacked until all three gangs were upon you… Aria was the one to tell me."
Garrus's knuckles popped as he clenched his fist.
"I am so sorry, Garrus." Her voice was soft and pained. He could hear that his team's destruction had hurt her too. He felt the fight drain out of him, but not the sadness.
"Oh yeah? Tell that to the ghosts," he said, slumping on to the weapons chest, head in his hands.
Spirits, he missed them. Their faces flashed before his eyes. Erash. Monteague. Mierin. Grundan Krul. Melanis. Ripper. Sensat. Vortash. Butler. Weaver.
He heard her footsteps but he didn't register them. His head snapped up as she took his hands and kneeled before him, face full of emotion.
"I would have been there if I had been able, Garrus," she whispered.
His subvocals whirred deeply before ending in a high whine, "…I know."
He felt her gentle fingertips on his hand, spreading his palm flat.
"I know this will never atone for my absence..."
She placed a small data disc in his hand, and closed his fingers around it.
"… but, I hope it helps you find peace."
Garrus felt the hard metal against his skin. "What is it?"
Eden exhaled slowly, before standing up again, "It lists the location coordinates of Sidonis."
Garrus immediately tensed and stared directly into her eyes; more alert than he had been in days.
"This is your apology?" he growled.
Eden stood stock still, and slowly nodded.
"Apology accepted." He stood up and went to work bench and tuned the intercom. "Kelly, let the Commander know that I need to see her."
"Of course, Officer Vakarian," Kelly swiftly replied.
Garrus was too engrossed in the new found information to correct the yeoman on the fact that he was no longer an officer.
Yet again, he was pulled from his dreams of revenge by the sound of the sliding doors.
"Eden…"
She stopped in the doorway archway, before answering, "Yes, Garrus?"
"…Thank you."
Eden turned and gave a small smile, "Of course… my friend."
Garrus was already so distracted by his own planning that he almost missed her leaving comment.
"Please, Garrus. Don't lose yourself along the way. Hatred has never achieved much."
But, when he turned to answer, she was gone.
Haestrom was hot. Damn hot.
"I'm having serious issues with my shields, Shepard," Garrus barked.
"Shit. Keep in the shade as much as possible!" Vivian ordered, making sure her Tempest was locked and loaded.
Eden hummed as she looked at the sky from her place of shade, "This does not bode well…"
Shepard growled, "Let's move out. The sooner we find Tali, the better."
The sun beat down on the ancient stone of the ruins as they flitted through like silent shadows. In each building they found a new body. Quarian. Geth. They didn't hesitate in picking up spare med packs and thermal clips as they searched. The data pads they found didn't tell them anything they didn't already know. Tali was here. Somewhere.
Eden, Garrus and Shepard moved as a tight unit. They easily batted away the first squadron of geth. Shepard took point, Eden controlled their flank, and Garrus, of course, looked out for their six. Electricity crackled in the air from Garrus's overloads and the static made Eden and Shepard's hair stand on end.
Eden threw powerful, raw shockwaves to knock the now shieldless geth down. The green cascade plowed through them, and before their backs hit the ground Shepard moved through the battle field like greased lightning, crashing into synthetics with her biotic charge.
The group came up to a clearing of stone and were immediately put on alert by the sounds of shouts and gunfire. Shepard spotted a radio on the ground, an anxious voice sounding out from it. She quickly patched into the channel.
"This is Commander Shepard of the Normandy. Can we provide assistance?"
Garrus and Eden patched into the same channel and began to prepare for the next fight. Squad Leader Kal'Reegar rattled off the details of their mission fast. They were there to research the planet's sun, but the geth ambushed them. There weren't many of the quarian team left, and Tali was holed up in a safety bunker.
"Hold your position. We'll hit their back ranks."
"Wait!" Kal'Reegar said over the comm, "Watch your ass! You've got a drop ship coming in."
Two rockets flew out of the ship and hit the quarians that were at the door. Shepard began to run towards the door but was blocked by a falling pillar.
"Damn it," Vivian growled. She tried to move the stone, but it wouldn't budge. And there was no way to climb over and slip through. "We'll have to find a way to blow this…"
"There's some demo charges in the research alcoves to your left. Grab 'em," Kal'Reegar said.
"Will do."
It wasn't long before they had both sets of demolition charges up and ready. The team left the area with nothing but geth corpses and ashes in their midst, but they weren't out of the thick of it yet. A long stretch of pillars was between them and base camp. The sunlight ominously peaked through at every other gap in the pillars.
"Watch your step, people. Don't let the sun fry your shields. Keep to the shadows," she said, crouching into cover.
Of course, that was easier said than done. Four rocket drones came out of nowhere and fired relentlessly on to their position. Garrus overloaded two of them, but the third's rocket came close to hitting him, and while he ducked just in time, Shepard was pissed. She growled and launched a pull at the drone, throwing it into the pillar wall. It exploded and showered embers on to the team below.
"I'll be damned if I let you get hit again," Vivian said fiercely, surprised at herself, and the flutter of his mandibles showed his own shock.
"Appreciate it."
She scoffed, "Can't have you taking too many rockets to the face. You're barely holding together as it is."
Garrus chuckled as he blew the fourth out of the sky as Eden held it with a Stasis field, "Oh, Shepard, you'd be devastated over the loss of my good looks. Don't lie."
She laughed at that, skidding into cover next to Garrus. "Don't flatter yourself, Vakarian," but her warm smile said otherwise. Their eyes held each other for half a second too long, and Garrus's mandibles spread into a turian grin, one higher than the other. She was learning his expressions more and more, and Shepard knew this was his version of a cocky smirk.
Vivian's stomach fluttered with butterflies and her cheeks flushed at his low chuckle.
What am I, a teenage girl? Get a hold of yourself!
"Prime!" Eden shouted.
Shepard jumped to attention, swinging her aim to the giant of a geth that was rapidly approaching.
Garrus overloaded its shields and prepared to hit it with a concussive shot, but was blocked by the Geth Destroyer at his right. Instead he directed the concussive shot towards it, but before it made contact, the geth shot off a rocket which hit him at center mass, knocking him five feet backwards.
"Garrus!" She ran to him as she laid down a nasty swath of suppressing fire. Her stomach turned at the sight.
He was unconscious, lying on the ground, in the middle of the sunlight. She cringed at the frantic pitch of his shield alarm, shrill as nails on a chalkboard.
Vivian dragged Garrus by the cowl to the shade, and sighed in relief when she saw that despite all the screaming, his shields had mostly held. There was a nasty blackened patch on the chest plate, but the shields had taken the brunt of the impact. Vivian activated the medi-gel stream inside his suit with her omni tool and pulled his head into her lap. He was still unconscious.
"Garrus, wake up!" she yelled into his ear, and was rewarded with only a flutter of eyelids.
A tenacious destroyer refused to give the hunt and was closing fast. Shepard fired her Tempest until the trigger wouldn't pull anymore, roaring the whole time. The geth faltered and started to seize. Vivian saw her opportunity and let loose a shockwave, knocking it back like a ragdoll.
Shepard spied Eden battling a Prime. Its shields were down and its armor was cracked, but it was relentless. Eden smacked it with singularity, watching as it floated upward. She bared her teeth and warped the robot, making it explode before she ran back to her CO.
"Is he okay?" Eden asked Shepard.
"Yeah, he's just unconscious. His shields saved him."
"Oh, thank the Void. I thought the worst when I saw him lying there."
Shepard nodded, not looking away from the turian in her lap. She gingerly stroked the unscarred side of his face.
"Joker, I need evac. Garrus is down. Tell Miranda to suit up."
"Understood, Commander."
It didn't take long for a shuttle to find their position and to lift Garrus on to a stretcher. Vivian walked alongside as they carried him on the shuttle, anxiously searching his face for signs of movement.
Miranda didn't hesitate in filling in, and didn't question it when Shepard was slow to step off the shuttle and didn't move until she saw the shuttle dock on the Normandy in the sky.
They managed to recover Kal'Reegar and Tali at the end of the day. Tali had many questions and concerns about Haestrom's sun, but she didn't believe it was the worth the price they paid in quarian lives.
On the shuttle ride back, a thoughtful silence hung over the group. Eden was the one to break it.
"I have a theory as to why your sun is changing."
Tali perked her head up. "Oh?"
"Yes. You said it's due to dark energy, but are not sure where the source of this excess of dark energy is coming from."
"That's correct."
"I think I know."
Shepard became more alert as she tuned into the conversation.
"What is it you know?" Vivian asked.
"Well, I'd say it has to do with the Reapers-"
Tali scoffed, "Doesn't everything these days."
"True, but do you not think it awfully coincidental that the Collectors start taking human colonists around the same time that your sun is aging? Where do the Reapers come from? Dark space. What powers their guns? Dark energy."
Shepard frowned. "Yes, but as a biotic I also can harness dark energy. So can you."
"Yes, but you are limited by your strength and training of course. Also, the power that you wield is different than mine, different than the Reapers."
"How so?"
"The power that I harness, that the Reapers harness, is raw. Not from deposits of element zero."
"I don't follow. From what I understand, all biotics have element zero nodules inside of them. Are you saying you don't?"
"Yes. That is what I am saying."
"Okay. Then explain to me how you are able to use biotics? And what do you mean the power that you AND the Reapers use? Why are there similarities between the two?" Vivian asked suspiciously.
Eden moved her gaze to Miranda and Tali, then back to Shepard.
"Perhaps this explanation would be better conducted in private?"
Tali frowned and looked at Shepard. Miranda gave Eden a cold look, clearly irritated at being kept out of the loop. Vivian shrugged after a while.
"Fine." The shuttle pinged, letting the group know they had reach the hangar. "Come up to my quarters in an hour."
"Understood, Commander."
Vivian hopped out of the shuttle, pushing aside thoughts of dark energy and Reapers, and headed straight for the med bay.
Vivian was confused when she didn't find Garrus in the med bay. Dr. Chakwas let her know that soon after her was brought in, he regained consciousness. She had tried to keep him in there after a quick exam, but he had refused. Saying that he'd be more useful in the main battery.
Shepard shook her head and smiled, "Sounds like Garrus."
The battery doors swooshed open as she approached. Garrus was standing in his customary spot at his workbench, like he hadn't almost been killed with a rocket, again. He turned around at the sound of her footsteps and flashed her a little grin.
Vivian returned it with a small smile of her own, but she couldn't help but worry. "Hey, big guy. Aren't you supposed to be resting?"
He shrugged and leaned back against the console. "I feel fine, Shepard. It was only a rocket."
She couldn't help but laugh, "Only a rocket, huh? You're one crazy ass turian."
Garrus threw her another toothy grin, making shivers roll down her spine, "You wouldn't have it any other way."
She nodded before looking him in the eyes. "I'm glad you're okay, Garrus."
His subvocals whirred before he coughed and chuckled, "Well, you can't expect me to be taken out that easily. Who's going to watch your six if I don't stick around?"
Shepard smirked, "Good point. I'll need you to remember that, Archangel."
Garrus laughed, "I'll do my best, Shepard."
"Good. Well, I was just checking on you. Next stop is Illium, and I want you on the ground with me."
She turned back around to leave, but glanced over her shoulder with a playful grin. "Be ready, big guy. I need you watching my six."
"I wouldn't miss it for the world," he said softly as the doors slid shut.