Chapter Ten
Garrus relied on stealth as he made his way down the maintenance shaft Shepard had indicated. Turians were large creatures, taller than most other Council races. The only race he'd encountered larger were the krogan and the elcor. Turian's had something that the krogan didn't, however: speed. Krogan charges were dangerous, and fast, and easily one of the most terrifying experiences a person could have in their life, but those were short bursts of speed, meant to terrify. While turian's weren't nearly as nimble as humans or asari, they were capable of producing great infiltrators built on their speed and their strength.
Not to sound cocky, but, Garrus was pretty damn good at what he did. His aim was impeccable, his speed unquestionable, and his tech indomitable.
Well. Unless your name happened to be Tali'Zora.
He pushed the thoughts of the Normandy aside as his headset crackled slightly, Shepard's voice filtering through: "Garrus?"
"What is it?" he asked, keeping his voice low.
"The main door to the deck is guarded by two batarians," she said. "And it looks like the deck is full. Five life signs. I don't know if the original pilot is still up there, or what. You're going to have to be careful."
"Don't worry, Shepard," he said. "I know what I'm doing."
It was then that he heard sharp cracks over the headset, the sound of Shepard cursing, and then her bleated warning: "Enemies are in the shaft!"
"Shepard?" Garrus called, panic choking him even as he came to a stop, the external picture of calm. "Shepard, are you alright?"
"Keep going!" she barked. He could make out the sounds of a struggle. "I'm going dark!"
He practically growled at that, his mandibles fluttering violently in protest. "Shepard!"
No response. The connection was gone – or at least muted – and for a moment Garrus considered turning back. But there were batarians up ahead, a ship to regain control of, and he had to hope that once he secured the flight deck he could backtrack his way to Shepard and help her fight her way through batarians. Regaining control of the vessel was top priority – he knew that – and it was with another muted growl that he continued on his path, stalking down the hallway and towards the batarians in wait.
As he walked, he planned. He would have to move quickly – the moment he took out the pirates in the flight deck, the two guarding the door would notice. Gunfire wasn't exactly quiet, and while he could use hand-to-hand, that was a risk he wasn't willing to take up against possibly five armed targets and an unknown number of hostages. He wasn't exactly small, and the likelihood of them landing a shot before he could get out of the way was too high for him to consider. Not when he was faster with a pistol.
For all intents and purposes, the pirates had every advantage. But Garrus had something they didn't: foresight. He knew they would be there. They didn't know he would be.
He carefully pushed his rifle into his duffle, which was slung across his back. It was a nuisance, but it had all he owned in it. Call him sentimental, but some things he couldn't leave behind. Keeping his steps soft, he moved closer to the grating at the end of hall – the gateway to the flight deck.
With the barest amount of sound he removed his duffle, placing it carefully on the floor. He lifted the grating with carefully fingers, delicately pushing it aside before ducking under the hall.
Garrus didn't have time to linger – he moved forward, his steps as silent as the dead. It was a tight space, barely enough room to maneuver. When he reached the underbelly of the deck, he was positioned under one of the pirates. If the batarian looked down, it would be all over. Garrus held his breath, his mandibles clenched to his face as he waited. Until that batarian moved from the grating, he couldn't get up from below.
In the back of his mind, he was still very aware that he hadn't heard from Shepard in nearly ten minutes.
The batarian moved and Garrus finally had the opportunity to scan the area to the best of his ability from his limited vantage point. There were five lifesigns, as she'd warned him. Two were humans, dressed in uniform, and three were batarians dressed in mercenary armor.
His attention turned to the grating again, his mind racing for possibilities. With soft movements he pressed his hand to the grating, wincing as his pistol connected a little too loudly with his exit.
"What was that?" a low-pitched voice demanded. Garrus didn't give them time to investigate.
The grating was tossed out of the way with a throw and Garrus straightened, half in the deck and half below. The batarians shouted in alarm, but Garrus was fast. His pistol fired off four rounds – one between a batarians eye, two in anothers chest, and another in the temple of the pirate furthest from him.
The bodies dropped to the floor and Garrus barely had time to pull himself to level ground before the door opened, and two more pirates stepped in.
The first batarian dropped an instant later, the chestplate of his armor buckled under the pressure of the rounds and blood bubbled out ominously. The second one barely had his pistol aimed before Garrus silenced him with well-aimed shot between the eyes.
The firefight was over as soon as it began, and when Garrus looked to the humans running the ship their mouths were hanging open in shock. "Are you alright?" he asked.
"Fine," the smallest agreed, a bit hesitantly. "What – what's going on in the rest of the ship?"
"I don't know," he admitted. Spirits, did he hate admitting it. "Right now we need to focus on regaining control. Can you help?"
The larger nodded, quickly rising to offer assistance. "We have these monitors," he explained as he guided Garrus to the wall of the deck, eight screens glowing with split screens, all showing the rest of the ship. "It looks like the pirates are in the engines," the human continued. "We can't move until they're out – otherwise they could shut us down, permanently."
Garrus nodded, taking everything in stride. He looked at each of the feeds, and none of them showed Shepard. His chest tightened anxiously. "Right. So we need to reclaim the engines."
Then – like a sign from the Spirits – his headset buzzed to life and Shepard's blessed voice rang through: "Vakarian, are you still here?"
His hand raised, pressing to the set as he responded a bit too eagerly: "Reading you loud and clear, Shepard. The flight deck is secured."
A relieved sigh sounded on the other end. "Thank god."
"What's going on down there?" Garrus pressed, hiding his concern under a mask of professionalism. He didn't know how good it was – he'd always had trouble censoring his emotions.
"One of the pirates managed to open the maintenance shaft where I was," she explained. "When I took them out, it got attention. I had to take care of the follow up, and then try and get the hell away."
It made sense. Her only ally was her ability to stay hidden – to get in an out and hopefully save the civilians on this ship. A headset could be a distraction just as much as it could be an asset.
"There are pirates in the engines," he explained. "We can't regain control of the ship until they're taken care of. I'm going to head down and deal with that. I'm also going to lock the pilots in – that way if anyone else tries to get in, they'll have to really work for it."
"Are you sure it's safe?" Shepard asked, concern creeping into her tone.
"Of course not," he said easily. "But it's what we've got."
There was unintelligible mumbling on Shepard's end, and he felt his mandibles twitch into a smile. She obviously didn't approve of this change of plans. He was starting to think it was a pattern. He couldn't say he blamed her – after what she went through, he was even surprised she was handling herself so well.
Well. Comparatively speaking. He still remembered her panic attack in the maintenance shaft – her heavy breathing, punctuated by what could only be described as a whimper. He hadn't even thought about it when he shoved her into the narrow passage. He should have considered she was claustrophobic. It fit the mental profile he'd constructed of her, at the very least.
With a shake of his head, he pushed it aside. What's done is done. He needed to focus on what there was left to do.
"What about you, Shepard?" he asked. "How are you doing?"
"Oh, I'm great," she said, her tone deceptively perky. "After killing 6 batarians, I managed to get some of the civilians into the maintenance tunnels. Uploaded a map of the ship to their omni-tools, and told them how to get to storage. They should be safe down there for now."
"Until the pirates go down there," Garrus pointed out helpfully. There was a pause of silence.
"Yeah, that's the thing," she said slowly. "I don't think these are pirates, Garrus."
That left only one answer. "You think they're slavers?" he asked, turning his back to the pilots. The tension that entered the room with his words was palpable.
"I caught a few slivers of conversation," she said. "And none of them have gone beyond the cabins. If they were pirates, it makes sense that their first targets would be the cargo hold. Not the people."
He inhaled slowly, his mind quickly adjusting to the new information. "Then it's imperative that we get the people to safety," he said. "After I secure the engines, I'm coming to help you."
"That wasn't the-"
"Shepard, we don't have time to worry about the plan," he interrupted. "We're dealing with slavers. These people are in way more danger than we thought."
There was a long moment of silence on both ends, Garrus waiting patiently for her response. "There is an upside to this, you know" Shepard said reasonably.
Garrus's browplate shot up. "Really? And that would be?"
"They're not aiming to kill. I am."
…
The engines were covered in slavers, rounding up humans like cattle. Garrus had the good fortune of finding a nice nest that had a view spanning the whole of the deck, and though he couldn't see every batarian he figured (as they always did) that once the slavers started dropping like flies they would accidentally file themselves into his line of sight. Panic had a way of making people stupid.
He took his time, tucking himself just out of sight, his sniper rifle resting easily in his hand. His omni-tool said there were 30 life signs on deck – any number of those could be batarians. He took in a deep breath, raising his scope to his eye and carefully bringing the first slaver into scope.
He inhaled, his entire body in tune with his rifle, and on the pause between breaths he pulled the trigger. A silencer muffled his shot and the slug flew through the space between them, burrowing in the head of the batarian. He fell to the floor with a loud thump, and Garrus moved on to the next one.
Six batarians fell to his rifle before they noticed someone was picking them off like flies. Shouts of alarm went up as the slavers ran into their fallen comrades, and before they could look for the source they were already falling.
Ten batarians fell, and more started coming out of the works. Garrus took them down one by one. He counted fifteen before one bellowed above the din: "There he is!"
"Shit," Garrus cursed under his breath. Someone must have spotted him, because suddenly he was facing return fire. His shields held up admirably as he moved along the overhand, ducking behind the slim bit of cover.
The bright side was that he'd cut down the number of slavers by at least half, so he was still had the advantage. The only way for the slavers to get to him was to go up the stairs at the far in, and from there he would just have to take them out one at a time.
The batarians did as Garrus thought they would, hurrying to the stairwell in question, but Garrus was a professional. They fell on the stairs, holes ripped through their armor and blood staining the stairwell as they lost their footing and fell.
Eventually the return fire stopped – 23 batarians in all. Garrus finally rose from his nest, scanning the floor and looking for any more opposition. Nothing.
Finally he made his way down the stairs, his sniper swapped for a pistol, and when he reached the deck he could see a few workers cowering behind whatever cover they could find. Garrus counted 7 in all – that accounted for the remaining life signs on his omni-tool.
"Hey," he said to the first engineer – an asari, cowering under a panel. "It's all right now."
The asari looked up, nearly sobbing in relief as she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms gratefully around his waist. He couldn't tell how old she was – he never could, really – but based on her reaction she had to be young.
"Thank the goddess!" she cried. She pulled away, wiping at her eyes and trying to right herself. "Are you from the Hierarchy?"
"No, ma'am," he responded, carefully scanning and watching as workers – two salarians and a few humans – crawled from their hiding spaces. "I'm a passanger."
"Thank god," a human woman breathed, bent at the waist as she gulped in air. "If it weren't for you they would have –"
"They took the others!" A salarian interrupted, catching Garrus's attention. "There were five other workers on this level. Non-essential. The batarians grabbed them, said they were taking them back to their ship."
Garrus cursed under his breath, his hand leaping up to his headset: "Shepard? Engineering is secured. But one of the workers is saying that the slavers already grabbed five others and took them to their ship."
"Dammit!" Shepard cursed. "Garrus, we can't let them get on that ship."
He looked to the salarian, asking: "How long ago was this?"
The salarian shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. "I-I'm not sure. It must have been ten minutes ago."
Garrus relayed the information to Shepard, who murmured under her breath. He waited patiently, his eyes always scanning the area for potential hostiles.
"Alright, I've got seven life signs that might be your guys," she said. "They're near the shuttle bay."
"Dammit, that's too far away," he cursed, anxiety gripping his stomach. "I can't make it in time."
"Well then," she responded, a bit smugly. "It's a good thing you have me."
...
A/N: I resurface!
Just letting you know: this wasn't proof-read. If you see any problems, please let me know and I will fix them ASAP!
I hope this chapter is satisfactory - it's not my favorite so far, but you've all been waiting for so long, and it is a bit of an essential chapter. I don't just want to skim over how they get things done. Next chapter: Shepard VS Slavers!
B.E. Nomads