The rocky ridge was perfect.
The sand of the rise they were upon was as black as midnight and the stones atop it a dark orange. It was nearly invisible compared to the dark sky and the twinkling stars when one looked up at it. Garrus' black visor was even less visible as he poked his head over the wall of stones, watching the fight below with his mandibles close together in concentration.
Below the Geth base was an anthill of activity.
Its circular outer wall, dark purple in colour, looked vaguely organic with its wavy crenellations and peaked sniper lookouts. Lookouts currently manned by five, six...ten Geth snipers, the crenellations themselves manned by Geth troopers too difficult to count in the dark night and the many shots arcing back and forth between them and those besieging them.
Within the protective wall the Geth had dug six round foxholes with edges reinforced with more of the purple metal the machines preferred, each one holding a Geth Prime along with seven Geth troopers. Second line of defence, another source of reinforcement. They'd better move soon... Garrus' gaze darted to the small bunker at the centre of the base, the thing a low hexagon no doubt concealing an entire complex beneath...and with its one door open as it spewed out Geth troopers that in calm order filtered out towards the walls, their white armour against the black sand making them look like shooting stars.
Sighting down his sniper rifle Garrus held his fire though, patient, waiting... "This is Eagle Eye, situation unchanged, status?"
He felt...good. Like a weight had been lifted off his chest, there was...a calm within him now, a calm he hadn't felt since...before he even joined c-sec, if that. Dr Saleon was dead, the criminal had finally been brought to justice. It had taken so many years...too many...but it had finally been done. The humans had a saying – Garrus liked their sayings, they were...purer then Turian ones – that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
But it works the other way too, when good men do something...evil cannot triumph. Beneath his helmet Garrus grinned, hands steady with a near endless patience even as his heart thudded with exhilaration.
To his right Ashley crouched, the woman aiming down at the besiegers as she checked them with the scope of her rifle, voice tinged with pride as she said: "No casualties among the marines, they're holding their own."
Garrus nodded, pleased. The human marines were perhaps not as...thorough as the Turian army...but they had a tough attitude Garrus had begun to like. They improvised, kept their goals realistic and didn't let the increasing return fire of the Geth startle them as they kept hugging the cover of the boulders outside the Geth fort...and for a near forty minutes they had fought the increasingly intense Geth defence with a tenacity that would make any Turian commander proud.
To his left Tali lay against the stone wall, the Quarian keeping her glowing omni-tool close to her hip to hide its amber glow, the light instead throwing her soft shape in stark relief to the jagged rocks around her. Her visor seemed to glow like a sun as she looked down at it: "Geth energies around walls at seventy percent, their numbers are concentrating around it, as planned." Predictable, no other threat visible, therefore they're increasing the defence to win through attrition, unimaginative creatures...
Garrus nodded to Tali, pleased. Just a bit more...
With the issue with Doctor Saleon settled Garrus had embraced their hunt for the Geth with a vengeance, eager to wreak justice upon the servants of Saren. Saren...the name still leant a bad taste to Garrus tongue. A Spectre going against everything his rank stood for, an oppressor instead of a protector...a criminal instead of a servant...a stain on the honour of all Turians, of the entire galactic community!
As such he had felt elated when they had found the last Geth base, hidden on the base of Solcrum. The last of Saren's little push.
"Thunder in position." Shepard's voice through the com-link was low, calm, waiting, an echo of Garrus' emotions as he sighted down on the Geth moving to the walls. Garrus nodded, knowing fully well his responsibility as the one to call the correct moment, of the trust Michael, who did not allow slip-ups, was putting in him. I will not fail you, not after having given me...peace.
A moment later a more eager human voice, barely recognised as one of the marines the Alliance had supplied them with to get rid of the Geth with, called out through the com-link as well: "This is lightning, deployed and ready to fire."
"Hold until I give the command." Garrus replied, knowing it was unnecessary, but unwilling to risk leaving room for the eager human to 'interpret' his orders.
Timing is everything...
"Geth energies at the walls at seventy-five percent." Tali muttered even as Garrus watched two Geth troopers in each foxhole leave their cover to further reinforce the small army atop the walls, the pulse-fire from its crenellations a constant flash of white light that in small white orbs flew out over the darkness around the walls, towards the tiny shapes among the rubble...
"The marines are having a bit of difficulty now..." Ashley turned her head to him, eyes behind her visor narrowing at him. Garrus was no fool, Ashley respected him, even liked him it seemed like, but there were still moments...when she was guarded against his behaviour. Like when I risk the lives of fellow human soldiers of hers...
He offered her a curt nod. Patience, patience... His scope moved to watch the marines, and indeed seeing several of their shields flare with the impact of Geth fire as they pushed themselves into the dirt, barely able to return fire any more.
Tali's voice came a moment later, breathless and eager. "Eighty..."
That will have to do. "This is Eagle Eye, requesting lightning."
A pause.
Then the eager human, his voice raising in a near-cheer: "Lightning's away, I repeat, lightning's away!"
Looking up from his scope Garrus was just in time to see the bright red lights streak from behind the struggling marines, fired from the hidden artillery detachment that had hidden away a near hour ago and set up their targets.
Even from a distance Garrus could hear the odd shrieking of the heavy missiles as he watched the fiery explosives shoot forth in contrails of smoke.
Michael and Tali had studied Geth standard defences in detail before, hours labouringly calculating vectors and force – Well...mostly her calculating while Shepard went through the ammunitions and weapons available, Garrus admitted with a chortle – and now it paid of.
With an almighty crash the missiles struck the weak spots on the wall, the point just before it started to slope outwards, just beneath the Geth defenders. There was dust, a crash...and the defenders were torn down in an almighty roar of collapsing walls. The sniper lookouts too were struck, a missile on each 'tower', folding them like a house of card and crushing the snipers within.
Can Geth feel panic? Garrus doubted it, but if they could surely the ones in the foxholes would feel it as they saw the walls around them suddenly turn to clouds of smoke and debris, feel their brethren simply...disappearing...and knowing they were next.
"Two percent survivors on walls!" Tali exclaimed with a loud grin in her voice, equally proud as she was pleased of the destruction of her ancestral foe no doubt.
Garrus offered her a grin he knew she couldn't see behind his dark visor. He too felt it, the...rightness of what they had done, the justice. Perhaps for different reasons...but we're together in it. "Leaving nearly no survivors, excellent."
"Thunder incoming." Barely had Shepard's words cleared the com-link before there was a roar of the Normandy's engines as the ship flew over their heads, the frigate turning sharply upwards even as a lone object detached from it.
Job not done yet... With a feral grin on his face Garrus turned back to his scope, voice low and pleased: "Fire at will."
A Geth trooper tried to claw its way out of the debris of the fallen walls...only for Garrus' shot to tear its head off. Another...still firing out at the marines now advancing upon the broken walls...fell with its torso opened by Ashley's bullet.
"Wall defences down, Geth in retreat." Tali said, even as Garrus watched one of the Geth Primes in its foxhole start to climb up and towards the illusion of safety offered by the central bunker...only to be severed at the spine when the Mako landed upon it, another bouncing wheel crushing a Geth trooper and sending its broken remains flying.
Already the bouncing Mako's gun was turning to track the Geth, one of the foxholes disappearing into black dust as a grenade landed right in it, tearing all but the Prime in it apart...which too fellmoments later as Garrus and Ashley simultaneously opened up, gutting the stumbling machine like a fish.
The Mako swerved a hard right, driving around the central bunker and casting up a cloud of black dust in its wake as its main gun barked, heavy calibre bullets tearing into another foxhole, forcing the Geth there to duck. Pinning them for Garrus and Ashley to near mechanically finish them off with regular thumps of their sniper rifles.
All remaining Geth were now firing at the Mako, many shots missing as the vehicle swerved hard lefts and rights, more intent on dodging the enemy fire then to properly return it. To Garrus' left he could practically feel Tali wince at the sight...and chuckled under his breath even as he put a bullet through the eye of another Geth trooper, watching as it stuttered and fell...even as the one next to it fell forward, back riddled with shots from the advancing marines.
And then it was over.
Smoke still rose from one of the foxholes.
A lazy haze of dust drifted from the fallen walls.
A Geth Prime, its large bulk prone just before the entrance to the central bunker, glowing amber as a fire within ravaged it.
And the small echoes of scrapping boots as marines with lowered weapons slowly tightened the circle around the central bunker and the Mako parked next to it, the door on its side opening and letting out three shapes, Michael Liara and Wrex looking focused as they made their way towards the bunker.
"Geth readings at five percent." Tali calmly stated, the Quarian rising from her cover as she nodded to herself and put a hand against the side of her helmet as she spoke through the com-link to their Commander. "Only a few left inside the bunker."
"Moving in, marine detachments in support." Shepard replied, voice calm, as if it was nothing but a training exercise, even as Garrus saw the human lead his Asari and Krogan escort through the doors of the bunker. "Alenko, ready the bomb and come down on my command."
"Roger that, Commander." The lieutenant replied with a crackle of static, the human far above them in the cargo hold of the Normandy, as he had been for their entire mission, preparing the nuclear bomb.
Personally Garrus thought the idea of moving such a destructive thing into the underground complex of the Geth a bit of an overkill after the machines had already been defeated... But Tali had insisted, wanting to make sure no Geth spontaneously reactivated and rebuilt when they had left...and Garrus couldn't fault Michael who wasn't known for taking any risks for listening to the Geth-expert.
"Eagle eye standing down." Garrus curtly spoke, knowing Michael wouldn't need them as he tore through what little surviving Geth there were with the human marines in support. So it was with a pleased sigh he stood up, turned...and carefully sat down on the stones he'd been using as cover, letting aching legs relax as he put his sniper rifle away with the gentle care of a man loving his weapon.
Looking up he saw Ashley doing the same...and smiled in appreciation, for all her...bluntness...the marine sure knew how to take care of a weapon... Even as he watched the woman put her rifle away he heard her mutter: "If he manages to blow himself up I'll kill him..." Garrus couldn't' help but chuckle...and Ashley looked sharply up at him. "What?"
"So protective...I'm sure Kaidan knows how to handle the bomb, or Michael wouldn't have chosen him to take care of it, right?"
He grinned in amusement as Ashley looked away, hands coming up to rub her shoulders, voice somewhat awkward: "Of course...right."
She was a curious thing, that Ashley...Garrus had seen her fight with Shepard...and even though he wasn't good at reading human social cues...he was sure she was one bump away from simply pouncing the man. Yet at the same time she had started to act so awkwardly around Kaidan...as if unsure how to treat the man...and Garrus could only shake his head at the entire thing. Back on Turian ships there had been no issue with a little bed-wrestling, but apparently the human military had a taboo on such things...and as such Garrus couldn't help but wonder if the poor woman was about to explode from a hormone build-up. Do humans go into heat? I should check that...
"So..." Tali too was looking away, the Quarian sitting in the sand with her back against the stones, fingers idly drumming against a thigh. "...what's with you and Kaidan anyway chief? I thought that you and...you know..."
Uh oh...
Garrus suddenly felt as if he'd been dropped between two hard places...that were far too close to crash together in an almighty clash. He knew Tali and Ashley were friends, Tali's all too cute behaviour and willingness to work for the team having dropped Ashley's somewhat guarded stance on other species...and Ashley's welcoming drawing a Tali too used to distrust from others like a moth to a flame.
Shame Ashley should be distrusting of Tali. Garrus looked from left to right licking the tips of his mandibles in worry. For all the good things they say about cat fights I really don't want to be in the middle of one...not when it comes to these two...
"Well...yes..." Ashley nodded, looking over at Tali. "...we...I...am...but it's not like anything is happening. And...Michael isn't really...he's not all there you know...while Kaidan's actually a good man...not some sort of...machine."
"He's not a machine." Tali protested, voice a bit too high in pitch before she controlled herself with a cough. "I mean you saw it yourself..."
Garrus grimaced, he'd heard about Shepard's collapse...but had been too focused on his victory to actually think much of it...and now he felt a little worm of guilt in his gut as he realised it might have been more than what Michael had made of it. "Look, I like the girl talk too, but could you not have it around me?" Please shut up before someone explodes...
"Oh shut up, you know you love the gossip." Ashley chuckled at him, unaware of the danger as she turned back to Tali: "Well I guess...but...damn it's a bit frightening isn't it? I mean...it's like he's suffering from a split personality disorder or something. Yet I still..." There was a small shudder in the woman's voice as an armoured gauntlet reached up, fingers moving down a neck, Ashley seemingly unaware of it...
And Tali looking away, the Quarian tensing in what could only be jealousy. Oh dear... "I don't think he is actually..." She seemed about to say something more, but held her tongue.
Garrus only shook his head. That Ashley didn't understand that Tali too was suffering from a crush on the poor Commander was a small wonder considering how much the two talked...and perhaps it was for the best, he sure didn't want to see the two start fighting, they'd likely tear the Normandy apart with that fight...
Amazingly, Michael himself didn't seem to notice it, as if he couldn't register the Quarian as a woman but only as an alien and comrade in arms.
Perhaps that's for the best...wonder if it's a human thing? Though I don't understand cross-species attraction either... He glanced over at Ashley. The woman's eyebrows barely visibly beneath her visor, just one part of that silly human fur that didn't seem to serve any purpose...as if they had tried to become like the monkeys Garrus had seen in the zoo only to stop mid-development. There were also those ridiculous bumps on her chest that human women sported...looking far too soft on a creature supposed to be moving... Not to mention that stocky waist of human women that only looked slim due to the wide hips only a Quarian could beat. I can't even imagine being attracted to a human...
Maybe Quarian's look more similar underneath those suits, can't make sense of it otherwise...
"Oh?" Ashley asked, too focused on Tali to notice Garrus' scrutiny. "Perhaps...he is..." A sigh and she shook her head. "...but he's avoiding me, I don't know how to...understand him."
"Perhaps he's avoiding you because..." Tali's voice failed, the Quarian looking away with a shudder. "...I don't know..."
"You think he's avoiding me because..." Ashley's voice rose in sudden happiness as she grasped at the thought. "...because he is attracted? That would...Tali you're my hero."
"Yeah..." The Quarian nodded, looking away...and Garrus felt a pinch of sympathy for the poor girl that already knew she stood no chance. Probably for the best, Shepard's not the best choice for a Quarian girl...
Then there was a crackle of the com-link, Michael's voice calling through, cold and professional: "Normandy's to land, Alenko, prepare to deploy the bomb, site secured."
"Roger that, Commander." Kaidan replied a moment later.
A pause, then a hint of eagerness in Michael's voice: "Joker, begin plotting a course for Feros, Geth strategic data suggesting an imminent assault on the planet, and we will be there to greet them."
"On it, Commander." Joker replied with a chuckle. "I'll prepare the red carpet."
A pause, this time longer then the first, and Michael's voice spoke up again, this time the coldness was gone, replaced by...amusement? "Oh and Tali...I think we have something for you..."
Garrus and Ashley both looked to the Quarian in surprise, who despite the visor looked utterly bewildered as she nervously fiddled with the hands in her lap. "You have...what?"
"You'll see..."
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Thanks to Abydos Jackson for her ever helpful comments.