A/N: Contrary to all reasonable expectation, I haven't abandoned this one. I just got sidetracked for a while. I've been writing fluffy romantic stuff, and it was hard transitioning between writing about people staring into each others eyes one minute and then describing someone punching mass accelerator rounds through some poor bastard's thoracic cavity the next. Anyway, I'm going to try to wrap this one up (I have two more chapters outlined after this one) before I get sidetracked again. I doubt this'll ever draw much of a following, but just once I wanted to see a fic about Garrus that didn't involve him slipping it to FemShep. After all, he's pretty much a badass in his own right, and there's enough of the other stuff on this site to choke a varren.
Chapter 2: Horatio
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
I'm thinking about this Batarian slave trader we killed. Kron Harga. He was a real piece of work. He had a habit of spacing a few slaves from every shipment to make a point to the others. Most of those poor bastards were fresh from batarian pirate raids in the Terminus systems, didn't even really understand what was going on yet. Men, women, children, Kron didn't care; he'd pick a few at random and drag them screaming to the airlock. He had a holding facility down on the sunwise side of level 40. Bastard had his technicians build in a viewing wall right next to the airlock, so the other slaves could watch while hard vacuum tore the poor victims apart, eyes popping and blood boiling in their veins. He and his crew were hardcases to a being; they'd rather kill their "merchandise" than surrender it. We knew going in hard while he was there would trigger a bloodbath, so we waited until he was inbound on a run and hit the facility as quietly as we could. Took Vortash a week to set up the hack, but it was a beauty. First stage gave us control of internal surveillance and rerouted comms to Sidonis, who could do a passable impression of Harga's Turian comms officer. Second stage locked down the pressure seals on the holding cells and locked everything else wide open. Third blew the airlock. After that it was just a matter of walking in the front door, setting up, and waiting for him to show. He came walking in with his crew, right into an ambush. After Ripper took out his legs with a grenade and Krul broke his head plate with a rifle butt, he decided to try to negotiate. We let him. Crew went out the airlock, one at a time, and then we let the slaves out and let them take turns picking a part of him to shoot. By the time he finally died, there was a smouldering pile of heatsinks four inches deep on the deck in front of him.
Blood Pack, this time, half a dozen vorcha with a krogan squad leader. Vorcha are easy, they never bother with shields, and incendiary rounds burn right through their armor and suppress their regenerative capabilities. A headshot apiece does for them. The krogan is more of a challenge, but I remember fighting beside Shepard on Virmire, and I start with the legs to immobilize him while I line up a couple of headshots. He's a tough bastard, just like Harga, and it takes most of a heatsink to put him down for good.
The day I found the mess they'd made of my squad is probably the only day I can think of that was worse than the day Shepard died. Racing frantically back from that damned fake meeting Sidonis sent me to, I was praying to every ancestor spirit I could remember that I'd get there in time, but there was never a chance. They'd already done their work and left before I got there. I could see the way it'd gone. As soon as I cleared the door I could see Sensat and Ripper by the entryway. It looked like they had been playing cards, probably with Weaver and Meirin. Sensat, eager to help, would have been the one to go answer the door when he saw Sidonis's codes. He was dead in the doorway, a hole between his eyes and a surprised expression on his face. I doubt he even saw it coming. Ripper had been shredded, the big squad support weapon he always carried with him a few feet away. He wouldn't have fallen back. He never did. I know he'd have told the others to fall back and tried to hold the door as long as possible. They must have hit him with fifty rounds; I could barely recognize him with one mandible shot off and his crest and faceplates cracked and shattered. I never found any enemy bodies in the whole place, but there was a lot of orange and red blood in the doorway, so I know he gave a good account of himself. Guess they carried out their dead and wounded, even the blood pack, which was kind of a surprise.
Eclipse, this time, mostly mechs supported by engineers and an asari vanguard. She gives me trouble - damn barriers are hard to crack without biotics of your own, but I manage to get her twice through the pelvic girdle, and that immobilizes her. I don't finish her off, I just wait a minute while I listen to her scream. Sure enough, a pair of salarians come over the barricade with another asari to try to save her. I put the salarians down, then chip away at the second asari's barrier as she tries to reach her teammate. Once she realizes that she's losing the barrier, she turns to run, and that's when I get her through the spine. She hits her head hard on a box and rolls bonelessly off of the bridge into space. That's a shame, I think. Two wounded asari might draw flies even better than one. It's not that I want her to suffer, it's just that that whole "sexy asari" thing makes other races stupid enough to leave cover to try to save them. Well, that and I guess I really do want her to suffer. I'm pretty sure it was a biotic that got Melenis, and that means eclipse, and probably an asari. It could have been this one, I suppose. Either way, I figure if she's Eclipse, she's got it coming.
Melenis and Erash fell together. Looks like he got hit in the midsection, and she was trying to drag him out. There were tiny gashes and tears all over her face and thorax and one of her arms was dislocated. Even her facepaint looks damaged. Probably hit with a warp, maybe a singularity. The broken neck is what killed her, though. She looks peaceful under all the damage. Erash was tough, STG doesn't take them any other way. He was still breathing when I got there. Melenis was still gripping onto him - I had to peel her digits away to get his chestplate off, but it didn't matter how much medigel I dumped into his chest or how many pressure bandages I slapped on, that green blood just kept running out anyway until he stopped breathing.
Grundan and Krul were nearby. Grundan was a big krogan, and he had a lot of blood in him. He fell face down with that giant shotgun of his behind him, shattered and broken by blunt impact and mass accelerator fire. He must have charged bare-handed, at the end. Krul was behind that, slumped on his knees, his chest a mess of bullet holes. I don't know how old Krul was, but he told me once that his battlemaster in the rebellions had served against the Rachni. He was proud of Grundan, said he was his last, best student. I figure he went down first, and Grundan made his last charge in his honor. No way to know, really, but it'd be in character, and I like to think Krul lived long enough to see his protege die like a krogan.
The asari has stopped screaming, she's just sobbing now. I see another salarian poke his head up from behind the barricade to check her position, and I shorten him by eight centimeters or so with a concussive shot that lifts the top off his skull. I have to hunker down after that, as five or six homing missiles streak by overhead or detonate against my cover. That'll be the blue suns. They try a rush, but the thing about batarians is that no matter how much they like to fight, they never seem to get any better at it. While I'm dealing with them, a pair of turians find cover behind the remains of a mech, but that just means I have to take my time and line up my headshots. The blue splash is a nice change from all the red and orange I've been seeing. I've always liked blue. I think Shepard made fun of me for it, once.
Most of my squad fell in the rec area. There was good cover and they must have figured they could catch the attackers in a crossfire. Butler's grenade bandoleer was completely empty, detonator discarded on the floor next to him. I'll bet he made them hate him - he was an artist with high explosives. Vortash and Monteague were across the room, sprawled out behind the couch. Vortash never was much good with a gun, but all four of his eyes were open and I could see that he went out like a man, heat sink at capacity and three holes in his chest. Monteague was right next to him, and I could see she got hit by something explosive by the way her clothes were shredded, leaving the old faded gang tats on her arms and back visible. The blood trail says she dragged herself over to Vortash before she died. I never did get why those two were friends, a batarian hacker and a human ex-gang member, but they were always hanging out together around the holotube, drinking and laughing.
I couldn't find Mierin and Weaver at first, but I'd been seeing a lot of purple blood along the way, so I knew it wasn't going to end well. I found them in the bedroom they'd shared. The former alliance marine was the only one of my team that I found still conscious. He had Mierin pulled up across his lap, her head cradled in his one good arm. The other was missing below the elbow, pressure bandage wrapped around the stump and holding in the blood by some miracle. I recognize Mierin's handiwork in that; she was a great medic, in addition to all her other skills. Weaver was pale as presidium marble, blue eyes and red hair standing out starkly against his bone-white skin. He looked up as I cleared the door. His breathing was shallow and his pupils were different sizes, but he managed a smile for me. His remaining hand was slowly stroking Mierin's face from forehead to chin, red and purple smears mixing together in swirls and streaks. I could see that her body was mangled by rifle and shotgun fire, but there was a peaceful expression on her pale blue face.
"We had a good run, didn't we Garrus?" he asked.
I looked him in the eyes and nodded. What else could I do? "I'll make them pay for her," I said. "For all of them."
He nodded in turn. "Doesn't matter," he said. "I'll see her soon enough. Wouldn't be heaven without her."
His breathing had gotten faster, and even shallower than before. "Y'know," he said, "I never would have met her if it hadn't been for you." He paused, and took a deep, rattling breath. "For Archangel." He leaned forward slowly and touched his pale lips to Mierin's blue ones before looking back up. "Thanks for giving me the chance to do something right," he said.
I nodded, and then he leaned down again to kiss her and I could seen the moment when he stopped breathing. I left them as they were, her cradled in his arms, his head bent low over hers, her pale blue hand still resting on his shoulder - they shouldn't be separated, not by death and certainly not by me.
The vanguard I wounded has dragged herself to cover, but her "buddies" seem to have decided she's not worth dying for anyway. I can see flashes of them pulling back from the barricade in small groups. Looks like I get a break while they figure out what to try next. That's not a good sign - sooner or later they're going to stop being stupid and start thinking about how to bypass this bridge. I know there are service tunnels beneath. I've mined and boobytrapped and sealed them up as best I can, but if they're determined enough, they'll get through. I'd better take advantage of the opportunity to rest while it's possible. The sensors should alert me if they start moving again.
I've decided that I don't want to remember my team the way I found them yester... is it yesterday, or the day before now? I'm too tired to check. Anyway, I've decided that I owe it to them to remember them in better time, like they were the day after we took down Gus Williams. He was a weapons smuggler, which is actually a fairly reputable occupation, by Omega standards. Problem is, he dealt primarily with Batarian pirates. Sensat got a line on him while he was scamming access codes out of one of Kron Harga's guards. Williams was supplying half of the pirate crews operating in the Terminus. I remember clearing out nests of those monsters with Shepard and the old crew. They did some pretty horrible things, especially to human colonies, and Williams was making a fortune off of it.
We sent Sensat in to make the buy. Glib little bastard was our go-to spy and interrogator, mostly because he just liked to talk to people. He had a real gift; he'd go in and talk about his Dalatrass, and the latest holovids, and the gravball standings, and next thing they'd be discussing access codes and sentry timing. It was the damnedest thing. Anyway, the buy went without a hitch. Brand new M-29, fresh out of the box. Pretty decent rifle: great against shields, not so much against armor. Gus liked kinetic barriers, and even had aftermarket shield units bolted onto his armor.
We caught him coming out of a club down on level 29. I took the shot. The incisor fires in 3 round bursts. The first two took down his shields, and the third snapped his head back, pulping his left eye and the brain behind it. We left the weapon, and the receipt. Wanted everyone to know it was his gear.
Of all the jobs we pulled, I think that one went the smoothest. Afterwards we were so amped up and happy that we threw an impromptu party. That may have been the happiest I've been since Shepard died.
The party was a blast; Erash and Monteague cleared a space in the rec room so they could teach Grundan to break dance. Kron just watched, shaking his head and scowling the whole time. Sensat drank three pints of Batarian Ale on a bet with Vortash, and got so hammered he spent most of the rest of the night talking to a potted plant. He was animated and gesticulating and everything. I never did get around to asking him who he thought it was. Ripper was over in the corner playing cards with Melanis, but Butler finally dragged them into the rec room just in time to watch Grundan faceplant in spectacular fashion. Ripper laughed so hard I thought he was going to be sick. Weaver and Mierin did their usual stare-into-each-other's-eyes-while-slow-dancing" thing over in the corner until cries of "get a room" drove them off, smirking, to the back bedroom. Wasn't two minutes before we could hear her shrieking something about "eternity," and the emotional spillover from that freaky eye thing asari do made everyone's eyes glaze over for a few seconds. By that point, Melanis and I had been eyeing each other up for a while, so we headed back to her room for some old-school, furniture-cracking turian sex. We had a semi regular thing going - more about stress release and exercise than anything else, but she meant a lot to me all the same, and she was turian enough not to let it affect the chain of command. I think maybe if she'd lived something might have come of it, but it doesn't really matter now.
I figure that's a good thought to quit on, so I close my eyes and see if I can grab a few minutes of rest before they get organized over there and try again. I doubt they'll wait long.