Chapter Twelve

Mieren, as it turned out, was a far more reliable partner than Garrus might have initially thought. When he'd barked at Shepard to pull herself together, he'd anticipated hearing a backlog of complaining. Garrus wasn't stupid – it took one good conversation with Shepard, without all the deflecting and wry jokes, to know that she wanted to die. Maybe it was because he knew exactly what she felt like.

Despite his demands that she get out of this alive, he knew full well he couldn't lie to himself anymore. He was going to Omega to die on his own terms. He wasn't going to roll over like a varren too old to fight, resting at its masters feet and waiting for his life to pass him by. No – Garrus was a fighter. He always had been. He'd been born with a blood clot in his fist, something the doctors teased meant he would be a hell of a soldier, and their jokes hadn't been wrong.

No – if Garrus was going down, it was going to be fighting. What better way than to go down fighting by the still-beating memory of his Commander?

Jane Shepard wasn't his Shepard – wasn't John – but she was something. She pulsed with a life and a vivacity that reminded him so starkly of his mentor that he wondered sometimes if she was even really there, and not just a hallucination – an invocation of a desperate and depressed man who wanted nothing more than to regain what he'd lost.

Fortunately, he didn't think that was the case. He hadn't lost his mind – just his heart and his will – and though part of him wanted to just sleep and never wake up, his mind was stronger.

For now.

Those thoughts were dangerous, though, and Garrus shoved them aside as he moved through the cabins, taking out every slaver he passed on his way. There wasn't much he could do, really, considering the fact that he had a sniper rifle and nothing else. That didn't make for close-range fighting. Garrus was good though. No-scoping, while not something he practiced often, was something he took some pride in. Probably just instincts, he supposed.

"You," he barked to a fellow turian, large and imposing even by turian standards. "Can you lead people down to storage while we clear the level?"

We. Shepard and Mieran weren't by him, but he still included him. Maybe it was just to give the others hope. Maybe Garrus just didn't like being alone. Shit, but he really needed to get out of his own head.

"I can," the turian agreed. "I've got a pistol in my bag."

Garrus nodded, the other lifting his omni tool so that the sniper could program a map of the ship into it, accompanied with friendly little labels to let them know where the maintenance shaft ended and began. "Thanks. I'll send more down after you. See any slavers, shoot to kill."

Taking orders like any good Turian would, they nodded and turned to quickly gather as many panicking faces as he could. Garrus left them then, moving ever onward. Just because that section was clear didn't mean the others were.

Five hallways and thirty dead batarian slavers later, his headset finally buzzed. "We got to storage. There are a lot of people here, Garrus."

"Good. That means we're winning."

A heavy sigh. "Unfortunately, no, it doesn't. This is a huge ship. We've only got maybe twenty percent of the passengers here. That isn't even including the staff."

"Staff makes up fifteen percent of the total ship body count," Mieran interjected. "So, we've probably only scraped the surface."

Garrus cursed under his breath. Of course. It was a buzz kill, but it was important to consider. He shouldn't have let himself get cocky. "Any recommendations?"

"I say we find out who here has weapons, let them fight," Mieran said simply.

"Bad idea. They're civilians," Shepard argued. "Even if they know how to shoot, they've probably never shot at anything bigger than a varren."

"That just means they've got a larger target now," Mieran argued. "Besides – we can at least arm the turians. Mandatory military service is a thing on Palaven. More than likely, they know how to fight."

"That's if all the turians grew up in the hierarchy," Garrus added helpfully.

"Christ on a – fine!" Shepard snipped. "Any weapons you find, give to the turians who have training. But they need to focus on protecting the other civilians, not on killing the slavers."

It was a compromise – one that Mieran didn't wholly agree with, judging on the impatient huff that followed – but it was one Garrus could approve of whole-heartedly. It sounded like something his Shepard would have done.

"We're headed towards the shuttle bay," Shepard said when neither of them disagreed. "We'll meet you there, Garrus."

"Try not to get shot anymore, Shepard," he said in a warning tone. "I'm not a medic."

"Someone on this ship has to know how to patch people up," Shepard said in a falsely encouraging tone – one that Garrus saw through with ease. "I'll be fine. Just keep fighting."

The connection died and Garrus sighed, looking towards the ceiling and sending a silent prayer to the Spirits to give him patience. Shepard wasn't an easy woman to deal with. Garrus could barely keep himself alive – what made them think he could do the same for both?

…

It took a half-hour to clear the rest of that level, ushering all passengers and staff that he found into the maintenance tunnels and towards storage. Several armed civilians turned up in that bunch, and they were assigned the task to guard the others. Protection was the most vital job they had – and it was the one that they needed the most. No one was seriously injured, as the slavers no doubt preferred their newest stock was kept in one piece, and a few passengers with medical training stepped forward to offer their assistance. Garrus prayed storage had enough medical supplies to go around.

After he finished that level he forced himself to go towards the shuttle bay. He navigated quickly and quietly through the halls, suspicious of the lack of interceptions from the slavers, and when he reached the entrance he spotted Shepard and who he assumed was Mieran. The only reason he recognized them was the familiar blue turian-shaped helmet currently protecting the clearly human-shaped body. There was a human-shaped helmet hooked to the belt of her newly acquired armor. It probably got in the way.

"Sorry for the delay. Wanted to finish clearing off that level," he said. Shepard pulled his helmet off, her red hair plastered to her forehead and neck as she handed it back to him.

"That means we've gone through a third of the passengers," she said as he took his helmet back. The asari pulled her helmet off next, and he quickly memorized her appearance. "Any slavers still on the boat are probably on the upper floors or dead. Which means we just have to deal with their shuttles."

"Any idea what we're looking at?" Garrus asked.

"Slavers typically enter ships with anywhere from two to five shuttles," Mieran said, cocking her hip as she glanced between the two. "That depends on the size. We're a larger ship – so we should expect anywhere from five or up."

"If they packed those shuttles full, they could have gotten over fifty slavers in here," Shepard said. "How many have we taken out?"

"I've counted about sixty," Garrus said, glancing between them.

"I've got about ten," Mieran said.

"Fifteen, easily," Shepard nodded.

That alone was ninety batarians. Which meant there had to be way more than just the five shuttles. Garrus looked at the door, mandibles drawn close in concern.

"How many shuttles can you fit in there?" he asked Mieran.

The Asari's expression wasn't helpful. "On a good day? ten. If we're pressed for space? Twenty."

Shepard hissed out a breath, closing her eyes. "If we're unlucky, then we've only cut through half of them."

"If we're lucky, then we've nearly cleared them out," Mieran countered. "Look. There's only one way to know for sure what's happening, and that's to get in there and start getting their shuttles the hell off this ship."

Shepard and Garrus looked at each other, their expressions – though limited by their different anatomies – matched each others for displeasure.

"Alright," Garrus said, prepping his rifle. "Then we know what we have to do."

Meiran and Shepard nodded, their faces stern, before pulling their helmets on. Garrus replaced his own helmet, sighing slightly at the familiar and comforting confines.

"Right," Shepard exhaled. "Lets do this."

...

A/N: Here you guys go. Hope this lives up to expectations. This story is probably going to come to a close soon - I'll give it about anywhere from 5-10 more chapters. This was never meant to be a huge expansive thing.

Hopefully, you guys are enjoying this still.

Lots of love,

Kate