Story Notes
I'm not entirely sure if what happens in this segment is actually possible. I TRIED to do research into this. I really did. I finally brought myself to the conclusion that it could be done. Anyone can correct me on it in a PM if you'd like. :D
"Normandy crew, we're thirty minutes away from our destination." Joker's voice came over the speakers, and Garrus pulled himself out from underneath one of the guns in the main battery. "Ground team personnel are asked to meet in the War Room for a final briefing."
Garrus grabbed a cloth from the side of the room and rubbed some of the grime off of his talons. Even in this day and age, grease still got onto machinery. There was just some things that you couldn't get rid of. He grabbed his communicator, latched it to the right side of his head over his scars, and walked briskly out of the main battery. As he power walked, he spotted Liara at the end of the hall, practically jogging towards the elevator.
"Hey, wait up!" Garrus called out as Liara was about to round a corner. He jogged towards her and they both walked towards the elevator.
"You're late as well? You're supposed to be there on time." Liara scolded.
"Oh, says who?" Garrus countered. "What makes me so special?"
"You're the captain." Liara replied back in a monotone.
"Well... that doesn't mean anything. Besides, I'm not late. Everyone else will just be early."
"I'm sure, Garrus." Liara frowned as they both pressed the elevator's controls. The door opened and gave view to Javik and James, standing on opposite sides of the elevator. James grinned in relief, meanwhile Javik nodded to Liara. They both settled into the elevator, and it wasn't long before they were on the CIC floor, and in the war room. Ashley and Tali had beaten them all.
"Slow!" Tali exclaimed as the four walked quickly into the room. "Unacceptable!"
"Yeah yeah." James and Garrus grunted in unison. Ashley smirked.
Garrus only felt mildly offput by the situation. "Alright, alright. Let's have a little bit of order. Here's our course of action." He pressed on the table and called up a virtual keyboard, into which he typed an input. "Joker, pay attention."
"Yes sir." Joker's voice came through an intercom.
"We're going to have to go in with stealth systems. Nothing SHOULD be on the Citadel, however the Citadel could have some rogue systems that may target anything that approaches. As long as it doesn't have eyes on us and manual controls, we should be alright underneath the stealth shielding."
"Can't see why it would have eyes. I'll bring us in silent." Joker's voice crackled.
"Why the caution?" Tali asked.
"Can't be too careful. We have no idea what state the Citadel is in now." Garrus replied back. He brought up a diagram of the Citadel and used his talon to continue tracing a route.
"Now. From what we know, the distress signal is coming from this point... here." He commented as he pointed towards the top of the Citadel, to a platform overseeing the Presidium. "Joker, is there any way to get us a direct drop off at this location?"
"I don't see how, Garrus." Joker replied apologetically. "I'm good, but I can't get a ship of this size into that space. Not safely at any rate. I can get you close though." Garrus watched the map as Joker inputted a location about five floors beneath the location. "That's about as close as I can get you."
Liara stood up from the table, tapped the drop zone and then tapped the platform location. A red line extended between the two locations. "We can do it. We'll need to climb the wall, but it's possible."
"Brilliant. Thank you Joker." Garrus nodded. He then looked at the team. "Alright. I'll be assigning myself to the ground team this mission. Javik is also automatically on the ground. Who's our third, guys?"
Ashley shook her head. "No, I'll leave this to one of you. Someone's gotta overlook the bridge while Garrus is off the ship."
Tali, James and Liara glanced at each other, and then Liara shook her head. "As much as I would like to, I will stay behind. I may be able to glean some information about this signal, and I will need my lab. James? Tali?"
"Take Tali." James said. He looked disappointed. "You'll be more likely to need a door hacked then a door shot."
"Tali?" Garrus looked at the quarian. "You in?"
"Garrus... you need to ask?" Tali replied wickedly. Garrus couldn't help but smile. He always had a soft spot for Tali's mischievous side.
"No problems yet Garrus." Joker's voice came over the speakers as Garrus popped on his helmet. He felt the hiss of the helmet's sealing, giving him an environment to breathe in. After a minute, the vision system kicked in, making his entire vision a shade of blue mixed with colour. There was green for anything synthetic and mechanical; varying shades of red for anything organic. He turned his head to Tali, who already had a helmet on and was checking her shotgun. Then he turned his head to Javik, who was doing absolutely nothing... not even putting on a helmet.
"Javik, how do you breathe without a helmet?"
Javik stared down the turian and laughed menacingly. "In my cycle, breathing apparatuses were for primitives." Garrus heard Tali laugh nervously, and even Garrus let out a little bit of a chuckle.
"Was that a joke?"
"No. You are truly bad at humour, turian."
Garrus felt a bit miffed but he didn't have much time to reply. Joker opened up the airlock, and Tali and Javik jumped to the platform nearby, Garrus not far behind. He raised his sniper rifle to look around and nodded.
"Alright. I'm on your six. Javik, up front."
"Aye." Javik replied as he raised his assault rifle. Tali settled in behind Javik, with Garrus close behind Tali. The three walked along, Garrus keeping his eyes out for any sign of activity.
"Keelah... it's so quiet." Tali muttered as she looked around. Garrus nodded. It was hard to imagine that anything could be on this wreck and still be alive. It was only after Javik barked that they should pay attention that Garrus and Tali focused again.
When they came to the wall, Garrus turned on a setting on his omni-tool, and watched Javik and Tali do the same. He then tested the setting by placing his left foot on the wall. As he expected, his foot attached to the wall, and he settled himself onto the wall.
"Alright. We climb up three levels, and then there should be a door that we have to go through to get into a hallway. Javik, you're on point until we get to that door."
"Aye." Javik replied back, and the three of them proceeded up the levels. Garrus always hated this part of travel. If he had any weakness, it was definitely vertigo. He looked down below him, seeing the abyss, and he forced down the lump in his throat. Now to hope that his boots held against the wall.
They climbed over crevices and ledges in the wall, until finally they hit their floor. The three of them made sure they were above the platform before turning off their gravity, and all three hit the floor at roughly the same time. Tali immediately went to the door to open it.
"Huh. It's locked. Hold on boys, this will take me a couple of seconds."
Garrus lifted his sniper rifle and used the sight to look at their goal. They were so close, but there was no way they were going to get up there by climbing the wall. They had to take this access route. He frowned, trying to bite down on his nerves. What would they find up there?
"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"
"QUARIAN!"
Garrus whipped his body around to see Javik grabbing Tali's arm and wrenching her back. Then, Garrus himself nearly cried out.
On the other side of the door, two Keepers stood, one of them making a mad swipe at Tali. Their bug-like eyes, normally green, were filled with an eerie red glow. Garrus didn't think much further than that. He dropped his sniper rifle to the ground and grabbed his assault rifle, aiming for the first Keeper's head.
Javik kept himself between the Keepers and Tali, shielding the quarian with his body. With one arm, he was shooting at the Keepers with a heavy pistol. Meanwhile, Tali had taken out her shotgun and was trying to shoot at the Keepers from the ground.
The Keepers took another swipe for Javik and Tali, prompting Javik to shove Tali off to the side. Garrus tried to down the Keeper that was attacking Javik, but the Keeper managed to grab Javik with one of his stubby arms.
Garrus stopped shooting the Keeper, worried about shooting Javik by accident, but the prothean had it covered. He started beating the Keeper with the butt of his pistol rapidly. The Keeper made a piercing shriek as the pistol hit it in the eye and let go of Javik. Garrus grinned.
"Go for the eyes!"
"Go for the optics, Chiktikka!" Tali yelled out as she summoned her combat drone. The glowing yellow orb flew itself in the middle of the two Keepers and started to discharge electrical energy, hitting straight into the eyes of the Keepers. They shrieked and started to rub their eyes. Garrus shot down the first Keeper and it crumpled into a heap.
"Scratch one!"
Javik shot at the other and did not say any such silly phrases as he attacked. Finally the second Keeper crumpled, and the three of them stood victorious. The combat drone disappeared, and Garrus held out a hand to Tali.
"You alright?"
"Never better." Tali replied sarcastically as she accepted Garrus' help. He easily pulled the tiny quarian to her feet. She brushed herself off and stared at the two disabled Keepers. "What the hell was wrong with them? They've never done that before..."
"They should not be able to." Javik replied grimly as he kneeled to examine one. "They were not violent in my cycle, they were merely mindless groundskeepers."
Garrus shook his head. "They weren't violent to us either. They just did repairs on the Citadel... they self-destructed if you tried to tamper with them though." He frowned. "I don't understand why they would attack."
"I... don't think that we should be concerned about that." Garrus heard Tali comment weakly. Garrus turned around and looked in the direction that Tali was facing, and even he started to feel sick.
On the other side of the doorway stood a corridor lined with human bodies. All of them were dead it seemed, most of them bloodied. The whole room seemed to be painted in red, and was dark. Garrus walked towards the doorway, staring in horror.
Was Jane here?
"Keelah se'lai..." Tali murmered beside him, and for once Garrus couldn't agree more, if that meant what he thought. Javik seemed to be unphased by the bodies however, and instead he kept his gaze locked on the door on the opposite side of the room.
"Your commander was here."
Garrus' head snapped to the direction of Javik. "You're sure? Was she alive?"
"She was. She was... badly injured. Limping. She..." Javik turned his gaze towards Garrus, frowning more then usual. "She does not look good, Captain."
Garrus was left with nothing to say. Too many thoughts were churning through his head. Why did he get injured and have to leave her? That was the top question on his mind. His stomach was doing somersaults in his body. But he didn't have much time to ponder that, before he felt Javik's hand on his shoulder.
"Look." He commanded, before Garrus' mind was suddenly assaulted with images that weren't his own.
"Anderson?! You made it too?" A ragged looking human female called out. Her armor was barely in tact. It was burned to her body, practically grafted by some sort of damage. Faint tinges of red could be seen amongst the burn marks on the armor. The woman pointed a pistol upwards weakly, hobbling along, barely keeping awake. She stumbled over one of the bodies on the floor. She almost hit the floor before she threw out her right foot to keep herself from going all the way down. She moaned with the pain, gripping her side where it looked like she had been stabbed or shot. She wiped some of the blood off of her brow and panted.
"Stop there, Anderson. I'll catch up to you. Don't go ahead alone!" She snarled as she hobbled faster down the hallway, and exited through a door on the opposite side of the room.
Garrus wrenched himself away from Javik's hand, gritting his pointed teeth together. It took all he could muster to not cry out when he saw that image in his head. It was taking all he could to not charge down the hallway without them... he had to remind himself that these events were in the past. He choked on his words, making incoherent sounds, barely registering Tali's grip on his arm.
"Jane..." He coughed. "Why the hell did you go ahead alone..."
It took Garrus a couple of minutes to regain his composure again, and when the fog cleared over his brain, he saw Tali's mask staring straight at him. Javik had leaned against the wall, crossing his arms, staring at him. He looked at them both and then pointed towards the door.
"She went through there. Let's move!"
Chapter Notes
In Javik's cycle, they breathed whatever the hell they wanted. That's the real reason why he has no helmet. :D
Songs:
Lots and lots of Within Temptation.