Squishy/Beir – Present.

The squad we're with on Palaven are, despite their faults, good people to be around. They have their moments, mostly Lirin's, but at the end of the day, I trust them with my back and they know the cost all of us are likely to pay before this is over. Some would think that would make us morose or depressing, but it doesn't. Instead, we cling to what normalcy we can get, knowing that it's probably going to be the last few times we'll ever experience it. When you're faced with the possibility of not waking up tomorrow, you make the most of what you have today.

Even if that means putting up with Lirin's revolting eating habits. It's not so much that I can see him eating, what with the suits and everything, but he makes a mess of his dextro paste every time. It kind of puts you off eating yourself.

Trin's just as unamused as I am and keeps giving Lirin sideways looks and soft noises of contempt. Gabi doesn't really notice, and Reegar's sleeping like a baby behind us from being so drugged up with antibiotics he couldn't stay awake any longer.

"Lirin," Trin eventually grumbles and our infiltrator pauses and stares at him.

"What?" Either he doesn't realise what he's doing, or he does and he's being a prick about it. Both are equally plausible, given it's him.

Trin sighs and shakes his head. "Never mind." He moves to turn away, before something catches his eye. He glances at Gabi and murmurs a soft, "stay still."

She mumbles something that I can't make out but obeys, and Trin's hand glows softly blue as he realigns the scarf over her helmet that got shifted when they were fighting the reapers. Who were pushed back a few hours ago, for the time being.

Gabi inclines her head up to try and look at what he did, before realising she can't glimpse it without a mirror anyway. She thanks Trin, but the moment is interrupted by Lirin.

"How'd you get to be a biotic, anyway?" There's half accusation in his voice and he might be narrowing his eyes at Trin.

"How do you think?" Trin doesn't seem overly impressed with Lirin's questioning. When he doesn't reply, the biotic sighs and continues. "My mother was in an eezo accident when she was away from the fleet and pregnant with me."

"Huh. So, is that what makes you so grumpy all-"

"She died," Trin says bluntly and Lirin cuts himself off. "I almost did too."

Lirin stares at him for a good few minutes then, before he inclines his head briefly and looks away. Trin nods but doesn't press the subject, because we all know this is our way of apologising. Things change when you're in a situation like we are, and spoken apologies become less meaningful, insincere, so that a silent look of understanding between two individuals means more.

Squishy/Beir – Haestrom.

Reegar is particularly attached to his mantis fighter ship. Only he can fly it, only he can go within a ten metre radius of it, and only engineers that he trusts can repair and maintain it. And even then they require constant supervision. So the fact a whole army of geth is landing out of the sky from one of their drop ships, right next to his mantis, is causing him to make strangled half noises.

"That's my ship!" is the first thing that leaves his mouth.

"And that's enough geth to flatten us in less than a second!" Zeke shouts frantically.

I notice Reegar's ship is facing a wall. A fragile looking wall that extends higher than the geth drop ship is hovering. I frown, consider for a few minutes, and then bring up my omni tool. I remember the access codes to Reegar's ship from the few times he's given me the privilege to repair it. Reegar startles when he sees his ship flicker to life.

"Squishy?" He turns to me, horrified. "What are you doing?!"

"Buying us time," I reply. I can't actually fly the ship remotely like this. In fact, I can't really do much at all. What I can do, is override the engine and kick it into hyperdrive. Which given the ship's facing a wall, would be a pretty dumb idea most of the time. But not now.

The ship launches straight into the wall. There's an explosion of smoke, Reegar screams in horror, and the wall crashes down on top of the geth drop ship. The drop ship spins for a few seconds, before smashing into the geth on the ground. Another explosion. They're probably not all dead, but it took out a good chunk of them. I don't have time to assess how many though because Reegar grabs me by the shoulders and slams me into a wall.

"You blew up my ship!" he accuses.

I retort with an annoyed, "it was kind of necessary."

"Blowing up my ship is never necessary! We could have taken them on!"

"Maybe if we had a thanix cannon," Siri murmurs.

"Or a really angry krogan," Jen offers.

"You sound close enough to one when you sleep!" Reegar shouts at him over his shoulder, and then realises he was still pissed at me. "I can't believe you blew my ship up!"

"There's more coming," Zeke points out. I follow his gaze and see more drop ships coming. They aren't as big the one that just blew up, but we're still going to be in for a fight.

Reegar sobers and releases me. He takes a moment to pause and collect himself, before he's back into being the hardened marine I'm used to.

"Hold-" he starts, but a frantic and patchy call for help flashes over our omni-tools. Tali, she's still in the conservatory where she was researching, and the courtyard in front of it is open and exposed. It wouldn't be hard for the geth to drop troops down there. Reegar curses to himself and then turns to us.

"Everybody hold this position, if I see a single geth get through here..." he pauses and there's something akin to a gulp from one of the younger members of his squad. But they all nod at him regardless. Reegar turns to me and inclines his head towards the conservatory. "With me."

o0o

"Tali's over there, we need to- Bosh'tet!"

The explosion rocks my sense of balance and I stumble before Reegar tackles me to the ground as the characteristic noise of a geth prime landing fills my ears in the clearing ahead of us. Tali's in the building on the other side of it, I hope. My head's aching from where I've been slammed to the floor, but I sit up and crouch behind the ledge which is our only form of cover.

Reegar's panting beside me, cursing to himself and we're so thickly immersed in the situation around us that I miss the fact it was him that probably just saved my life.

"Can you see-" Reegar tries to glance over the top of our cover but a bullet flies just shy of his head and he thinks better of it. "Shit."

"Give me a moment." I configure my omni-tool for a few seconds and make it send out a scanning array, giving us both a visual of the area ahead of us and every geth nearby. They're everywhere. I groan. "Great."

"We're getting past them," Reegar assures me and taps his rifle affectionately. "My job is to protect her."

"It's suicidal. Call for back up from your squad," I suggest. He shakes his head.

"They're holding the geth off so we don't get surrounded." He's right, but I wish he wasn't, given the circumstances.

"What do you want to do?" Bullets are hailing down on us without mercy and Reegar motions to the right. I frown at him and as if he can actually see it, and he answers my question.

"Go, I'll cover you."

"But-"

"I won't stand a chance getting into that building alone if Tali's locked it, which I know she has, and we both won't make it across without covering fire." I know he's right, but it doesn't make me feel any less sick. "Besides, I'm expendable."

When Reegar leans out of cover and fires again, I rush towards the ramp up the right side of the clearing, dodging bullets and shooting fire at whatever geth I can target long enough. I slide into cover at the other edge, panting, and I can see a group of geth clustered beneath the ledge I'm on. Just down there, and a little further ahead and then to the right, I know Tali's locked herself inside the conservatory.

I can hear Reegar still shooting at geth behind me so I steel myself, send a haphazard incinerate down at the group of geth beneath me, and then chuck a grenade right on top of them. The sparks the electric packed grenade carry ignites the flames and I duck and bury my mask in my hands as there's a deafening explosion of fire.

I wait for a few seconds, then glance at my area scan. There's one geth still struggling on the ground, but I can deal with him easily. I jump down from the ledge, fire a single shot from my pistol into the remaining geth's head, and then hurry towards the entrance to the building.

Just as I reach the door and start trying to hack it open – Tali's sealed it well, smart girl – I hear something gigantic land behind me. Horrified, I turn around and find a gigantic colossal geth moving up onto it's feet behind me and priming an attack.

Fear rushes through me, so much so I almost miss the voice in my earpiece at first. "Reegar? Beir, are you-"

"Open the door," I yell frantically. "Before I get stomped into quarian mush."

"I'm not going to let..." Reegar's voice cuts off again as our comm fails because of that fucking sun again, or maybe the geth are making it worse too. I can hear crackling white noise from both him and Tali, trying to reach me and each other. I can only pick up some words here and there. Door. Open. Bosh'tet. Expendable.

Expendable.

That one came from Reegar.

My blood turns to ice and I glance behind me, towards the colossus. From the entrance to the room behind us, where Reegar had been covering me, a rocket fires, straight at the colossus. It hits the geth square in the neck, but it only recoils angrily, stomping it's unnatural feet on the ground before sending a huge shot of plasma attack straight at where I know Reegar is.

"Shit!"

It's the last thing I hear before everything goes dead quiet. I stare for a good few moments in disbelief, before someone's hands grab me from behind and yank me away. Tali's opened the door and is dragging me inside before I get the both of us killed when the colossus turns around to finish us off.

I yell and resist her, desperately, stupidly needing to rescue him, when I know he's probably dead already.

I screamed his name that day brokenly, and Tali just stares in mixed shock and anguish as I bash against the door closed behind us and sink to my knees.


Male Quarian Engineer + incinerate + arc grenade (= fire explosion) + carnifex = multiplayer god :3