The Snare

Even as Miranda held her baby sister in her arms, she felt her anger threatening to spill over. Garrus had made the decision to leave the prisoners in the warehouse, and it was his fault that Oriana was so badly injured. Her face was beaten and bloodied nearly beyond recognition. In fact, if the girl hadn't revealed herself to be Miranda's sister, the two Cerberus agents probably would have just sent the captive on her way.

"We're going to get you some place safe, Ori, don't worry," Miranda said, giving her sister some comfort in hopes of quieting her sobs. Oriana bobbed her head, wincing as she did so. She was obviously in intense pain. Despite Miranda's relief that they'd found her alive, her joy was marred by an underlying animosity towards Garrus. That turian was going to pay in twofold for the pain he'd caused Oriana.

But at the moment, she and Jacob had to concern themselves with getting Oriana back to the Normandy. There were still Shadow Broker agents lurking about, and there was no way Miranda was going to lose her sister to them again. Not when they were so close to getting her to safety. She motioned for Jacob to carry her on his shoulders so Oriana wouldn't have to strain herself. As an afterthought, Miranda took Jacob's shotgun and handed him the heavy pistol she had strapped to her thigh, which could be wielded with one hand.

Miranda felt the shotgun's unfamiliar weight in her hands. Of course, she'd gotten all the best combat training after joining up with Cerberus, so she knew how to use it, but she still was uncomfortable with the bulky, brutish thing. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. They needed firepower, and Jacob's Eviscerator would deliver.

She primed it, training it on the path before them. She could hear footsteps approaching from the other end of the street. Shadow Broker agents were already on their tail, no doubt. Both she and Jacob put up their biotic barriers. "Now let's get the hell out of here."

Thane and Grunt had brought back an exhausted, terrified Oriana not long after Kasumi gave them the okay to bring her on board. As soon as they'd arrived, Kasumi had taken the poor girl down to Dr. Chakwas to be examined. Thane watched Miranda's twin through the window of the med bay, his restless soul soothed at the sight of her alive and well. He hadn't been able to save the other girl, but he took comfort in this one small victory. Anxious to hear news of the others' returns, he went back up to the comm room where Liara and Daryn were overseeing the mission.

Immediately after the elevator doors slid open, Thane saw that there was a commotion by the airlock of the ship.

"Get the stretcher!"

"Tell Doctor Chakwas to prep the dextro compounds, now!"

There was such cacophony that Thane could barely tell who the voices belonged to, or who was injured. He saw Kasumi, Mordin, Samara, and Liara gathered at the door, and between them, Legion and Tali. Except for that something was wrong, very wrong with the both of them. Legion's optic nerve flashed and sputtered, the bulb slightly cracked. His armor was torn off in places and a greenish gray liquid was spilling from his internal circuits. Even the N7 shoulder plate seemed to be holding on by a thread. Not to mention the fact that his gait was choppy, as if his legs were uneven.

Then, Thane realized that Legion was supporting Tali by the waist, one of her arms looped around his shoulders and cinching around his neck. Her feet were dragging as Legion moved, making Thane think that she wasn't even conscious. Maybe not even alive. Her blood was spattered all over herself and the geth, emanating from her dripping leg wound. Combining blood loss with the heightened risk of infection, Thane didn't know if the quarian could even survive that kind of injury.

Thane released the breath he'd been holding when he saw the light at the base of Tali's helmet flicker. She was breathing, if only barely.

"Thane! Get the elevator!" Liara shouted. The assassin sprang into action, moving to hold the doors open. Mordin was wheeling an emergency gurney out of the tech lab, brushing past Thane and nearly clipping him on the elbow. Thane watched, black eyes unblinking, as Mordin, Liara and Samara loaded Tali onto the gurney. Legion clung onto her for a second longer than necessary, as if his runtime was sluggish, or perhaps he was still under the impression that he needed to continue protecting her.

As soon as the injured quarian was secure, Mordin, Liara, and Samara wheeled her past the galaxy map and into the elevator. Thane punched the down button, then stepped out onto the CIC deck. But before the doors slid closed, his acute hearing picked up a few soft words from Tali: "Prisoner... my shotgun..." Then, the elevator took her away to be treated in the med bay.

Thane turned around. Legion was standing there, staring forlornly through Thane, to the elevator. His optic nerve dimmed almost completely and suddenly the geth collapsed, stabilizers unable to keep him upright for any longer. There was a loud clang when he hit the ground. Thane approached the geth and knelt down to where the machine lay crumpled, intending to determine whether or not he was still alive. If geth had such a term. But he did discover that the optic nerve was glowing dimly. Legion was aware for the moment, if only barely.

A soft jumble of scambled noises slipped out of the geth. The only part that was intelligible to Thane was the last bit. "-ator Tali." He felt something nudge against his knee. When he looked down, he saw Tali's shotgun, coated with a rainbow of different types of blood. Thane's brow furrowed. He started to ask Legion what had happened when he realized that the light had completely gone out.

"Tali was injured at their first location," Kasumi said, stepping out from the shadows, where she had been watching the assassin and the geth. Thane looked up at her. "Instead of continuing on, Legion brought her back. He must've known that she was going to die without immediate medical attention. I'm guessing that they were ambushed on their way back here by the Shadow Broker's agents."

So Legion had defended Tali's life at the expense of his own well-being. "I never thought I'd describe a geth as... selfless," Thane said, looking down at the motionless heap. Especially when it came to quarians. "Do you suppose Legion is... alive?"

Kasumi looked as unsure as Thane about whether Legion would be able to turn back on again. "I don't know. Let's stick him in the research lab. Once Tali is able, we'll ask her about it."

Thane bobbed his head. "A suitable repayment for the debt she owes him, I think."

From beneath the shadow cast by her hood, Thane could see Kasumi's lips curve upwards. "She might not see things in the same light. Still, we should get him out of the way. You never know who's going to come through the door."

As it turned out, Kasumi couldn't have spoken truer words. After she and Thane had successfully deposited Legion in the research lab, they returned to the main deck to retrieve Tali's shotgun. Immediately as Thane hefted the weapon securely into his grip, out of the airlock stepped Miranda, Jacob, and another girl that appeared vaguely familiar...

"Alert Doctor Chakwas," Miranda said. Her hair stuck to her head, matted with sweat and blood not her own. There was a frenzied, desperate look in her eyes. "Oriana's badly hurt; she needs our help."

"We're approaching the first site, Garrus. ETA forty-five seconds," Donnelly announced. The shuttle ride had been tense, and not just because they had a ticking clock over their commander's head; the news that they had received wasn't what Garrus had wanted to hear. Tali and Legion were severely injured, definitely out for the rest of the mission and potentially suffering from permanent damage. Too many lives had been lost already. The commander hadn't been found. Time was running short, and Garrus and Kaidan still hadn't reached their first destination.

"Okay. Open the side door." But in spite of all that had gone against them, Garrus remained determined. They were closer than ever to finding Shepard. He glanced at his omni-tool, synced with the kill timer. In four and a half minutes, maybe even less, they would be reunited. All they had to do was get to her. He couldn't let himself consider the alternative: that in four and a half minutes, Shepard would be dead.

Kaidan, however, was unable to think of anything else besides the worst case scenario. He couldn't fathom what he'd do if Shepard died again, this time for good. And yet it felt like no other outcome was possible. He'd do his job and follow Garrus into battle, fight his heart out and give his life if it was needed. But in his mind, the inevitable had already occurred. The battle had already been lost.

Neither of them could dwell on their thoughts for long. The Kodiak's side door rose slowly, giving them a visual on their targets: the twin Gemini Towers. Garrus checked his omni-tool for confimation. Inside each one of them was a blinking orange triangle, marking their objectives. Like the rest of Nos Astra, the towers were sleek, imposing, and beautiful. And absurdly tall. Kaidan got a near overwhelming sense of vertigo as he leaned even a little bit forward. He swallowed. He took comfort in the fact that their pilot probably had tons of experience flying shuttles.

Donnelly glared at the control panel. If he could only figure out which of those damn buttons activated the landing gear...

Garrus got to his feet and grabbed onto the hand rail just above the side exit's doorway. "Take us in low over that plaza; we'll drop in hot and you can circle the tower until we're ready for transfer to the next tower."

"You got it," Donnelly affirmed, letting out a sigh of relief. Doing a hot drop meant that he wouldn't even have to use the landing gear. He'd just have to slow down and get low enough for them to jump out without breaking their legs. Simple enough.

Gemini Alpha had a palatial balcony that served as a foyer to the extravagant penthouse suites on the highest floors of the tower. It was there that Garrus believed Shepard was being held. However, there was equal chance that she was inside Gemini Beta, the mirror image of its twin. Choosing which tower to investigate first came down to nothing more than going with his instincts, and Garrus decided on Alpha. He couldn't say why. He just did.

The shuttle came in low, and Garrus noticed that the balcony was completely devoid of life. The usually lively outdoor lounge area was utterly abandoned, as if everyone had just gotten up and left.

Donnelly flew the shuttle over the deck, bringing Kaidan and Garrus as close to the entrance of the main building as possible. Garrus leaned out the door, scanning the ground for possible threats. That was when he noticed crates the size of the Kodiak, lining the balcony and all wired together. His brow furrowed. The hell? Donnelly brought them right up to the main entrance and started to lower the shuttle. It hovered at thirty meters. Garrus looked at the main building, through the enormous pane of glass that served as a wall. Eighteen meters. The penthouse floor was empty except for three people: the hostage and two guards.

But something was wrong. The Shadow Broker's agents were surrounded by more of the crates, these ones closer in proximity. One of the agents raised his arm. Garrus was just close enough to make out a tiny handheld device.

Everything came together in Garrus' mind like the gears and cogs of a machine fitting into each other and starting to turn. The people on the balcony hadn't just left. They were forced out or killed. Those weren't merely crates. They were heavy ordinance, rigged to explode. And the device in the Shadow Broke agent's hand was, undoubtedly, a detonator. The plaza was a death trap meant to end the hunt for Commander Shepard once and for all, and Garrus had walked right into it.

They were at nine meters when Garrus yelled, "Get us the hell out of here, now!" Startled, Donnelly was about to ask why, when he found out for himself.

Crates exploded and glass shattered. Garrus could feel the heat of the blast wash over the Kodiak's shields, and his own. A millisecond later, the raw force of the explosion slammed the Kodiak back. Garrus was vaguely aware of a symphony of alarms going off within the shuttle, but more pressing was the shock of the Kodiak bucking about. The aircraft was knocked back and Garrus saw Gemini Alpha's terrace spinning below them.

That was when the secondary explosives went off. The crates rigged on the balcony exploded with a force greater than that of their predecessors, sending the Kodiak into a sprialing turmoil. As Garrus lost his footing, he was thrown back against the opposite side of the shuttle, into Kaidan. Through the still-open side door, Garrus could see the cloudless sky looming overhead, and he realized that the vehicle had been tilted nearly a hundred eighty degrees. Seconds later, there was an awful plunging sensation as the shuttle began to lose altitude.

"We need to get horizontal! Hit the emergency stabilizers!" Garrus ordered, trying to get himself upright despite the fact that gravity was doing its best not to allow him to do so.

Donnelly frantically jabbed at the automated flight sensors in a desperate attempt to get them back online. But it was no use; the automatic systems had been fried in the explosions. If they were going to get out alive, it would be because of Donnelly's flying, not a VI's. He assumed direct control of the manual flight interface and got to work. The Kodiak shuddered at his fingertips, as if it were threatening to fall apart. He could actually feel its lopsidedness. "Come on, baby," Donnelly whispered. "Show me what you got."

The shuttle began to climb in altitude, though it was still fighting to right itself. Garrus could tell that their flight vector was crooked; he kept getting pushed back into the wall, into Kaidan. "Please return to your seats for the duration of the flight," the VI asked pleasantly. The Kodiak gave a stumbling lurch, tossing Garrus and Kaidan into the air before slamming them back down again.

Outside, Garrus could hear the blare of alarms, emergency vehicles responding to the explosion at Gemini Alpha. The constant drone of traffic had crescendoed, skycars swerving madly to avoid the catastrophe.

"Hold on, gents! Going's getting a little rough," Donnelly warned Kaidan and Garrus. But in reality, to say he was understating it would be understating it. There was a multi-ton truck headed right towards them, showing no sign of slowing or turning.

Donnelly hit the auxiliary boosters, jerking them out of the path of the truck at the last second. But the sudden acceleration threw Garrus and Kaidan around the cabin like dolls. Neither of them could control their movement. The VI sensed this and bleated out another warning: "Please keep arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times..." Powerless to stop it, Garrus began sliding towards the open door, and before he could fully process what was happening, he had tumbled out of the shuttle.

The Kodiak was still rocking back and forth uncontrollably, and somewhere in the back of his mind Kaidan knew that it would be more than likely that he'd share Garrus' fate if he released his death grip on the bench. But that rational part of his mind was quickly silenced by the courageous, foolish part of him. He launched to his feet, revving up his biotics as he rose. Standing at the edge, Kaidan gripped the door rail with one hand, and with the other, unleashed the largest pull field he'd ever created.

One second, Garrus was falling. In a few more, he was sure he'd be dead. But then, as if suspended by a divine bungee cord, he felt his body being snapped back up, towards the shuttle. The telltale crackle of biotics told Garrus that it wasn't a spirit or angel that had saved him, but the one and only Kaidan Alenko. Kaidan let go of his handhold on the shuttle rail, dropping to his stomach to grab Garrus out of the air. As soon as their fingertips brushed, Kaidan's biotics fizzed out, unable to sustain the enormous amount of energy for a second longer than needed.

Dangling outside the shuttle by one arm, the city below him, Garrus could've sworn he was about to die. But the expression of fortitude on Kaidan's face told him otherwise. "Come on!" Kaidan shouted. He could almost feel the shuttle about to lurch once more. That would be the death of both of them. He wasn't about to let that happen.

Sensing Kaidan's urgency, Garrus reached up with his other hand to grab the edge of the shuttle. Both of them strained to pull Garrus in, but one final heave did the job. They backed away from the door to relative safety and latched onto the emergency hand rail.

"Donnelly, bring us down on Beta," Garrus ordered.

"What? Are you insane? We're about to fall apart as it is!"

"Just dump us as close as you can, then get back to the docks. We'll take care of it from here," he replied. The shuttle was in no condition to hang around for pick-up. Besides, they were at the very last location. There was no where else they needed to be other than that tower.

With a hint of resignation, Donnelly said, "Okay. Brace yourselves: it's gonna be a fast one."

Already, they were almost above Gemini Beta's balcony. Across the skyway, Kaidan and Garrus saw Alpha go up in flames, the efforts of the emergency response teams barely damping the destruction. If Beta was rigged with the same explosives, there was no chance that Kaidan, Garrus, or anyone else inside would live.

"Garrus," Kaidan said, his brow furrowed with concern. "What are we doing?" If they jumped out onto that tower, they had no way back. There could be any number of the Shadow Broker's agents waiting for them. They could be overwhelmed in a second, killed in a heartbeat. Even if they weren't immediately slaughtered, that still left the issue of escape. There were a thousand scenarios where they'd end up dead, a million things that could go wrong.

But all of that was overcome by a single thought. Garrus turned to Kaidan and said,"Shepard's in there."