Chapter 11

"Go down to the spaceport and secure those pods." The orders had rung out in the silent briefing room, the command coming from a projection of Saren Arterius. "Leave no witnesses, No one is to know your mission."

Garrus's thoughts were still on those orders as his shuttle struck the dirt on Eden Prime. Nihlus was already moving, his eviscerator shotgun sweeping back and forth, scanning. Garrus and Lantar came out beside him, hefting Phaeston rifles as they watched the hillside. They'd landed in a small field, their shuttle crushing tall green plants as it landed. The plants were thin towers, with bulbous ends covered in leaves.

Nihlus's voice came over the intercom through Garrus's helmet "Right, Spaceport is about two clicks to the East, we'll be moving through fields like this one, pretty much just farmland. This side of the spaceport was left mostly alone, with the berserker forces being deployed all around. With the Krogan being supplemented by our commandos, the local marines will be plenty busy for us to go in uncontested. Once we secure the objective, the shuttles come in for pick-up. Any Questions?"

Do we kill on sight? Garrus wanted to ask, but stayed silent. He knew Nihlus wouldn't be any happier than he was about the whole situation.

The fields were abandoned, and Garrus need only listen to be reminded why. The sound of gunshots soared through the air from what felt like all directions. This field was the eye of the hurricane.

The three of them hurried along a dirt road through the farmland, watching as much as possible in all directions for any sign of activity. They needn't have bothered, whatever marines that had been in this area, and chances were high those were a precious few, had left to help the fight against the invaders already.

The Spaceport sat ahead, twin buildings, two-floored and slopped to form a valley between. They twin angled sides were marked on their outer edges with multiple landing pads, all of which sat empty. Through the central chasm jutted a railway, running through the port, allowing travelers to move beyond, board or disembark here.

Once they were within half a mile, Nihlus had the three soldiers duck into the tall plants, staying unseen until they were almost upon the port. It wasn't necessarily needed, as not a soul was visible from outside, but the caution only slowed them down slightly. When they came close, the team simply climbed the steps to an outer platform. No alarms sounded, no guns flared to life around them, no marines called out warnings. The outer edge was deserted.

Garrus took point from the landing pad inward, his Phaeston raised to fire at a moment's notice. The main area was built about the railway station, with open areas above, three bridges crossing the gap, and no less than two separate platforms on each side down at the rail path. Garrus ducked into cover behind storage crates as he entered. "Enemies spotted, avoiding contact."

Three marines stood guard across the bridge, one held a sub machine gun, with a sniper rifle on his back, while the other two carried assault rifles. They seemed on-edge, a sensible reaction to standing guard over ancient Stasis Pods while their planet was being invaded.

Lantar and Nihlus weren't far behind, but they lacked adequate cover to venture out from the stairwell, unless they intended to fight lying on their stomachs. Garrus would have to act alone. Switching his Phaeston for his Raptor, Garrus lined up the sights on the leftmost target, activating his Omni-tool on his left hand as he did, the weapon balanced on the back of Garrus's wrist so that he could aim his palm at the soldiers. "Shot Ready Major, requesting leave to engage."

"Granted." Returned Nihlus, his voice thick, displeased. Garrus couldn't blame him, there wasn't supposed to be anyone here. Killing mercs, privateers, raiders… that was different. They were criminals and murderers. But taking out a garrison? They hadn't done anything to make this fight concern them.

The omni-tool flashed, and an arc of electricity bounded into the first soldier, his shields shattering in an instant. It was as secondary bolts arced from the marine's shields that Garrus planted his first shot, a clean impact into the soldier's head. Never felt a thing. Garrus turned immediately, sending another shot into the middle marine, another headshot, a quick death. The third marine was moving when the sights came on him. The third shot was poorly aimed; Garrus was pushing himself too much. It hit him in the shoulder, a painful, slow wound that would leave him bleeding to death without medi-gel. Garrus sent a fourth shot into the man's throat before he hit the ground, and, after a moment's aiming, a mercy shot to the head. "All Clear."

Lantar and Nihlus came from behind him, hurrying past the bodies to check the platform ahead, and Garrus followed.

The Flat platform overlooked a small depression in the ground ahead, a vibrant green environment filled with odd, bulbous floating creatures. Atop the flat metal expanse, were laid out a small sea of prothean artifacts.

Each was a lone, tubular object, bigger than a Krogan, held off of the ground by a small wheeled platform of human construct placed below. There were at least two dozen pods, maybe thirty in all spread across the area forming low-walled pathways between, Awaiting pickup from the landing pads to the platform's left and right. The three soldiers walked in between the pods, scanning the area.

As Garrus walked between two pods, he went to one knee, examining one of them. The top was some sort of dark, opaque glass, there seemed no way to see through it.

Suddenly, Garrus's head snapped about to a sound from the other side of the pods, his gun raising even as the Human's words came out, panicked and fearful. "Don't shoot, please! We're unarmed!"

Three humans were standing among the pods, two men and a woman. All three wore matching white uniforms, no armor, no weapons. They were probably archeologists, the team that had uncovered these pods. Luck had not been on their side. Neither was Nihlus.

For a few tense moments, Garrus thought he was going to give the order to shoot. His weapon was aimed, safety off, but these three weren't soldiers, weren't armed, and hadn't even tried to hide, surrendering as quickly as they could manage. The three Turians were aiming at point-blank range. They were so close that the scope on Garrus's rifle was a hindrance, not an asset in aiming, easily within range for Nihlus's shotgun too. It would have been over in less than half a second.

Until Nihlus lowered his gun. "Go humans." He said aloud. "Run West through the corn fields." He gestured the way the three of them had come. "You stay here and you're as good as dead."

One scientist, the one who'd talked earlier, spoke again, no less afraid now than he seemed when they'd found him. "What if we're attacked? We have no weapons, we'll be slaughtered if they catch us-"

Garrus raised his gun and fired into the empty air above him, silencing the human with the noise. He spoke quietly, praying to the spirits that they wouldn't call him on this. "He said run, human." He tried to add a layer of disgust into his voice, to frighten them. "You're safer taking your chances out there than you are taking them with me."

The three were running before he got the last word out, moving so quickly that Garrus wondered if they even saw the bodies of the marines lying where they'd fallen up the stairs.

Nihlus simply looked to him, as he turned on his comm, giving Garrus a nod and an appreciative smile. "Open Palm, this is Specialist Kyrik, we have the cargo, repeat, we have the cargo. Send the shuttle to our current location, let's get these stasis pods out of here."

[Notes, YAY!]

Dear god did this one take awhile. Not because it was overly hard to write (Took some time because of that too though) but because I started school on the 20th, been making snail's pace progress since then.

Some of you might be wondering why this says chapter 11, there was a bit of a fiasco there. I posted A chapter 11 awhile back, but took it down within maybe 24 hours. I'd rushed it, and it just wasn't up to the standards I try to keep, as well as switching to Joker's perspective for no reason whatsoever, and generally being a pointless chapter. I'll make it and Anderson bit in a few chapters if I can make it consequential.

Now to the chapter. Did you guys like the Garrus-shooty bit? I enjoyed the challenge of walking the line between making Garrus "Evil" by making him remorseless about shooting human marines, or by shooting too many, or making him a pussy by making him unwilling to kill. Niether of these things is in-character for him, and neither works for the story, but I feel like I found a pretty solid balance. And yes, they did land in a corn field. Re-read that bit about the plants, that's me describing a corn plant from the eyes of an alien who's never seen a corn plant before.

So I'm falling somewhat behind in my classes, so my writing isn't going to pick up any time soon. Not "I'll never write again I don't have the time" falling behind, but bad enough that there isn't a chance in hell this story will be done by 2013, and if it'll be done by the end of the school year is an unknown.

Oh yeah, I also turned 16 today. No I don't have my permit yet.

Also, because writing the notes takes less time than writing dialogue and stuff, I'm going to go into little details like what weapons are made by who in the author's notes from now on in semi-codex things. If those go well I might do some history via codex, but I'm going to avoid it, because it'll be more interesting if presented in-story.

I'm also feeling sad that my favorite character won't be appearing for a few more missions, but I can't do anything about that without really forcing it, so I'll manage.