A/N: This chapter didn't really flow for me. I apologise if it seems rushed to any of you guys.
###
Neither Lizzie or Garrus had the security clearance to attend the summit itself, instead submitting their reports to Saren and heading out into the Citadel. Nari needed some proper clothes and Lizzie wanted to do the tourist circuit, so they made their way to Tayseri ward to hit the shops.
Four yellow eyes shone from the shadows. The brown chitinous barrel of a sniper rifle swung round, coming to bear on the red hair that lit up the store like a beacon. The Collector behind the sniper rifle rustled its wing cases. Sneaking onto the Citadel had been all too easy. For all their vigilance, C-sec didn't know their station even one per cent as well as its creators.
The Collector shifted its aim, briefly wondering if it could shoot through the Batarian and still hot the Human. However it quickly rejected the notion - the Batarian was not the target.
The soft purring whisper of its master sounded in its head, the silky voice twisting what little remained of the Collector's mind to its will.
Take the shot.
Kill.
The scope centred on the Human target's head.
It pulled the trigger.
Lizzie's instincts told her something was wrong the instant before the golden beam lanced out from the rooftop of the adjacent building. She threw herself to the side, erecting a biotic barrier that deflected the glancing blow from the sniper as she reached into her jacket and pulled out her Navy issue SN7 sidearm. Garrus instantly dropped to a crouch, pulling Nari behind cover as his own sidearm, this time a Turian Mataris model, materialised in his hand. Nari yelped and cowered behind Garrus as the two soldiers communicated through hand signals. Lizzie leaned out of cover and peeped round the sturdy shelves, whipping back just in time to avoid a beam to the face. As the sniper was focused on Lizzie, Garrus quietly ushered Nari out of the shop and towards a waiting aircar.
Waiting until every screaming citizen had either gone to ground or fled, Lizzie strengthened her barrier before popping out from behind the shelves and sending a spray of rounds at her unseen assailant. The sniper responded with another particle beam, but the wavering of the aim told her that she'd hit something.
"Lizzie, jump in!"
She sprinted through the store, hurling herself into the aircar's passenger seat.
"Get after him!"
He gave her a warning glare.
"Lizzie ..."
"Fucker took a shot at me, get after him!"
He growled low in his throat as he pulled away, throttling the vehicle to an absurd speed as they rocketed towards the rooftop from which the sniper had taken a shot. Lizzie looked around the vehicle.
"Got anything heavier than a pistol stashed in here?"
"Just a personal K-barrier generator. I'm not one of these crazy survivalist types who drives around with a missile launcher on the backseat."
The car surged upwards, allowing Lizzie to get a good look down at the sniper. It seemed she had clipped the Collector in the right arm - the limb hung uselessly by its side. With its left arm it was doing something with its sniper rifle.
"Got you."
The Collector chittered as it swung its left arm up, hurling the sniper rifle at the car as it sprinted towards an access port for the Keeper tunnels. Lizzie opened her mouth to spit out another hated comment when the rifle detonated.
The blossom of yellow plasma from the violently overheating weapon smacked into the underside of the car, knocking the thrusters out of commission and buckling the entire cabin. Nari screamed shrilly as Garrus wrestled with the non-responsive controls.
"Use your biotics!"
Surrounding the car in a mass-lightening field allowed Garrus to use the one remaining thruster to decelerate them just enough that the car wasn't smashed on impact. There was a blessed moment of silence before Nari's agonised howls filled the vehicle.
###
Lizzie paced up and down the waiting room of Huerta Memorial. Ever since the crash she had been beating herself up about it and Garrus hadn't said a word to her the whole time. He seemed very, very angry.
She spun round as a doctor entered the room, Nari walking behind him with her arm in a cast. Initially ignoring the doctor, she scooped up the Batarian child and planted a kiss on her forehead. Then she turned to the doctor.
"Thank you so much, Doctor."
The Salarian nodded rapidly.
"Mm, yes. Clean break. With splint and cast should heal nicely. Bone weave not necessary, good thing, better to heal naturally. Take care, you may leave, goodbye."
Nari buried her face in Lizzie's shirt and mumbled something before perking up and looking around.
"Milkshake?"
Lizzie faintly recalled promising Nari a milkshake while they rode in the ambulance in a desperate attempt to stop her crying. Goddamn eidetic memory. After the attempted assassination C-sec had confined her to the Presidium while they combed the Wards for any sign of the Collector who attacked her, so her favourite gelateria on Bachjret ward was off limits.
"Hey Garrus, you know anywhere on the Presidium that does milkshake?"
A talon poked her hard in the chest.
"This is your fault. You were too damn reckless and look what happened."
She immediately went on the defensive.
"My fault? You were *urk*"
Garrus had wrapped both her and Nari in an enormous bear hug.
"Just ... Just promise me you'll be more careful in future."
After a moment of dumb surprise she leaned into the hug, patting Garrus on the back.
"Okay. I promise."
"So. Milkshake, then."
###
Anderson pinged the C-sec report to Saren's Omnitool. The Turian Spectre surreptitiously read it, then nodded briefly and sent back a reply.
-Citadel not secure
On the opposite side of the room, the Krogan leader, Urdnot Wrex, and his second, Ravanor Inamorda, muttered to each other as they kept their eyes on the swivel. Anderson knew the feeling, like an itching between his shoulderblades, the sensation that shit was about to match coordinates with the fan.
Following the Krogan overlord's gaze, he noticed the red plated Krogan was trying to keep an eye on every single Keeper maintenance catwalk at once. He met Wrex's eyes, then glanced meaningfully up at the catwalks directly above the Krogan. The message was clear. I'll watch that one.
He wasn't quite sure who reacted first, him, Saren or Inamorda. He saw four yellow eyes and pulled out his sidearm as Saren erected a biotic barrier round the table and something appeared in Inamorda's hands. Anderson had just enough time to think 'holy shit! He's got a stealth shrouded autocannon!' before all hell broke loose.
The first five seconds of the firefight separated the armchair strategists from those who had actually served along the neat line of screaming in panic vs. diving for cover, grabbing for sidearms or biotic abilities. Wrex joined Inamorda in pulling out a stealth capable minigun from somewhere, the four barrelled weapons spinning up with an ominous hum before unleashing hell on the Collectors on the upper balcony.
A lone Collector leaped down from the catwalks, holding an assault rifle in each hand as chitinous feet scrabbled across the table. Unlike other Collector warriors, this one had alien red symbols painted on its exoskeleton and seemed to look around with a cold intelligence behind its gaze. Anderson could tell the newcomer was dangerous.
"ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL"
The painted Collector threw its arms out to the side, lifting off the ground as fiery cracks opened up in its carapace. Saren waved an arm.
"Everyone else focus on the others. I'll handle this one."
The Collector seemed to like that answer. It levelled both assault rifles at Saren as the Spectre jumped up onto the table, biotics flowing over his body as he formed a protective barrier, awaiting the start of his duel with the burning creature that stood before him.
"Your form is fragile."
The Collector's voice was deep, distorted and raspy, yet beneath it all the tone was almost ... curious.
"Resistance is pointless. Kill one and one hundred will replace it."
Saren summoned a Warp field, energy swirling around his palm.
"You want to fight, let's fight. You want to keep monologuing, let me know when you're done."
The Collector levelled both rifles at Saren.
"A pity. You would have made a useful tool."
The Warp field lashed out from Saren's hand as the fiery Collector unleashed both rifles, microscopic globules of hyper-accelerated molten metal becoming distorted by the passage of the Warp projectile as it unerringly homed in on its target.
The initial spray of rounds splashed against Saren's barrier at the same time as the Warp attack hit the Collector. Both combatants staggered back under the force of the impacts, their focus momentarily broken as each one focused on repairing their biotic barriers. Saren's biotics were some of the most powerful out there - in fact, he was arguably the strongest Turian biotic in recorded history - but this Collector was easily keeping pace with its barrier. The creature clicked to itself as it slung its rifles on its back, the neural spikes retracting smoothly from its wrists. The neural spike from the heavy rifle Saren had picked up had been easily picked out from his cybernetic arm - the problem with them was that in biological material they produced microfibres that latched onto the victim's sensory neurones, extending right into the central nervous system. Apparently the Collectors could remove these microfibres at will, something he should look into.
His wandering train of thought was broken off by a yellow aura appearing around the Collector's right hand. He knew that aura, if the colour was unfamiliar. Biotics. Wonderful.
With a flick of its wrist, the Collector sent a yellow biotic orb flying at him. He rolled to the side, returning the favour with another Warp that impacted the creature's barrier, weakening it slightly. The Collector responded with another attack that slammed into his barrier. His mouth opened in a silent scream as the biotic attack, like a Warp on steroids, sent his nerves into overdrive, shooting pain signals through his body.
"Gah ... Fuck!"
He rolled a biotic orb in each hand, flinging a double warp at the alien. Double warps were an advanced and exhausting biotic technique, the fields combining to negate the biotic barrier and apply warping damage directly to the Collector's chitinous armour. Saren's amp buzzed its displeasure as heat spiked in the back of his head, but the attack had been successful. The biotic aura was slowly splitting the Collector open, chunks of exoskeleton falling off and flaking to the floor.
"Turian!"
The Krogan Overlord threw him a shotgun. He snatched the enormous weapon out of the air, briefly staggering under the weight of the weapon before dragging it up and jamming the muzzle into the Collector's head.
The weapon's recoil was powerful enough to knock Saren to the other side of the room as the blitz of flechettes reduced his foe's head to mist. The headless body collapsed, the fiery light inside it flaring up and dissolving it into a nasty orange paste. He glanced up at Anderson as the Human approached, concerned.
"The Citadel isn't secure. We should move this elsewhere."
Anderson hauled his Spectre friend to his feet.
"I think it's about time we activated the project."
###
Lizzie anxiously hopped from foot to foot as she waited for Anderson and Saren. They had sent her a cryptic message telling her to meet them at dock D24, and she had immediately made a beeline for the location.
Beside her, Nari sat on Garrus's shoulders and slurped her chocolate milkshake, the cup held in her right hand as her left arm rested in a sling across her chest. Because of the little girl on his shoulders blocking his fringe, Garrus's eyes were directed towards the ground as his entire head bent forwards at an awkward angle.
She looked up sharply as Saren and Anderson approached her.
"Lieutenant Commander, Centurion. You have both been reassigned to our investigation team."
Saren gestured grandly out of the window.
"Welcome to the Normandy Project."