Grand Theft Auto: Skycar Edition

The comm room was buzzing with activity. Kasumi and Daryn were desperately working on getting a link to the shuttle, but as of a few minutes ago, they were drawing blanks.

"Dammit!" Kasumi cursed in an uncharacteristic display of frustration.

Daryn put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure they're fine. The Kodiak's communications array could just be damaged." She still didn't look convinced (though it was hard to tell beneath that hood) so Daryn added, "Those two can handle themselves. They'll be alright."

She threw him a wan smile. It was mostly just for show. She knew Garrus and Kaidan were both capable, more than capable, in a firefight, but they hadn't been walking into just any old firefight. They were up against hordes of troops, several gunships, and a metric shit ton of explosives. There was no report back, even four minutes after the countdown had run out. Kasumi had no idea if Donnelly, Kaidan, Garrus, or the commander were alive.

Liara, Jacob, and Thane were gathered around the Nos Astra city map that was still projected on the holo screen. Only two targets were still listed as active. The light that represented Garrus and Kaidan had gone off the map at around the three and a half minute mark.

Jacob stared hard at the map for a moment before saying, "I wonder if they're alive."

"To whom are you referring?" Thane inquired.

Jacob waved his hand at the map. "Garrus. The engineer. That Alliance dude. The commander."

Liara had been thinking the exact same thing. She was sure that was the only thing on any of their minds. "That is... an excellent question. What do you think, Feron – excuse me. Thane," Liara corrected herself, embarrassed.

Thane dipped his head, showing that there were no hard feelings. Though he did wonder who Feron was. "Perhaps we should send search parties to either location. If the shuttle was indeed damaged, they could require transportation."

Jacob shook his head. "I don't buy it. Something as important as this, they would've found a way to contact us. It's been over five minutes." They were all studying the map intently, as if it would unravel before them and reveal the answers they were so hungrily searching for.

When EDI broke their concentration with an announcement, the trio nearly jumped out of their skin. "Oh!" Liara cried out when the map was suddenly replaced by the AI's spherical blue avatar. It was obvious to any of the crew that especially after the brawl with Miranda, the asari's nerves were shot. She was barely holding together. Peevishly, Liara thought that there had better be a good reason for the interruption.

"There is an emergency news alert being broadcast that may be of some use," EDI informed them in her cool, robotic voice that seemed, to Liara, strangely humanoid. "It is regarding the locations of Officer Vakarian and Staff Commander Alenko."

"Play the broadcast," Liara insisted, her tone low and urgent. She motioned at Kasumi and Daryn to stop messing with the communications channels so there would be no interference.

Jacob leaned back a little so Liara couldn't see his face, then turned to Thane and mouthed, Alliance dude's a commander? Thane shrugged, open palms facing the ceiling. Apparently, he mouthed back.

"The twin Gemini Towers of the uptown Salieri district were the site of a terrorist attack just a few moments ago. Fires from the explosions still rage on Gemini Alpha despite the attempts of the Nos Astra Emergency Response Teams and a level six hazard warning has been issued. Evacuation of the towers is still in progress; however, it is believed that there were no survivors of the bombings..."

The broadcast went on to list traffic pattern diversions, but Liara barely heard them. She began to feel light-headed and dizzy and queasy all at once. Somewhat unsteadily, she stumbled away from the projection table. No survivors. From across the room, Liara heard Kasumi stifled a gasp of disbelief.

"They're all dead, aren't they?" Liara said to no one in particular.

Thane took a step back from EDI's avatar and put his hand on the wall, leaning against it. "It is possible that they were able to escape the blast," he said softly.

"It was a trap!" Liara said, borderline hysterical. "It was a trap, and they walked right into it." Kaidan and Garrus were dead, and with them, any chance of getting Shepard back. Any chance of avenging Feron. "They never meant to let us find Shepard. All of this was just a ruse. They died for nothing." Liara left the comm room in a state of shock. She stood in front of the galaxy map, desolate and empty-looking without the commander's presence. Her sapphire blue eyes glimmered, then overflowed with crystalline tears. Shepard was lost to her. So was Feron. Now Kaidan and Garrus, too. Even Tali was hanging on by a thread. Liara collapsed and held her face in her hands. All of her friends were gone and this time, there was no way to bring them back.

It had been a long time since Garrus had been behind the wheel of a skycar. He'd passed his licensing exams back on Palaven, but honestly, he never really had the need to use it . He was more accustomed to driving military-grade vehicles, like the Mako and even the odd gunship back on Omega. Expertly, Garrus hot-wired the thing, knowing that it would take less time than searching for the key. The engines roared to life and Garrus jerked it to cruising height.

Kaidan looked impressed. "That was fast."

Garrus shrugged it off. "I lived on Omega for two years. You learn things." Hot-wiring civilian vehicles, yes. Driving them... not so much. The expression on Kaidan's face grew uneasy. Garrus added, "I always returned them, of course. But usually they were in pieces." He cleared his throat. "That was a joke." They both knew it wasn't.

Which did not bode well for their journey. Double checking, Kaidan asked, "You do know how to drive this thing, right?"

"Of course." A pause. "It's really not too complicated." Garrus cracked his knuckles, eyes scanning the dashboard. "Put on your seat belt." Kaidan didn't need to be told twice.

They'd follow the same exit that the gunship had taken: several meters worth of sliding glass doors had been removed, allowing a relatively wide berth for the skycar to get through. If that gunship could make it through there, then so can we. Garrus eased the controls forward. The car lurched forth like a jittery varren. Kaidan braced himself for what would turn out to be the ride of his life.

Garrus managed to maneuver the car through the opening, only barely scraping the door along the glass. That'll buff right out. All traffic had been cleared from the area due to the fires on Gemini Alpha, so Garrus had a moment to get oriented. He punched the coordinates to the docking bay into the nav system, which was luckily a preset, then started following the directions orated to him by the VI.

"Take a left, handsome," the VI cooed. Garrus cocked his head to the side. The VI was a holographic representation of the famous asari stripper, Mila Margarita, wearing very little clothing. Somehow, I expected more out of highly trained agents of the Shadow Broker. Neither him nor Kaidan mentioned anything of it.

Garrus started left, but he realized they were heading straight towards Gemini Alpha. He swerved right, and Mila Margarita chided him, "Ooh baby, you're getting all turned around. Pull a U-turn here."

"Are we going the wrong way?" Kaidan asked.

"We can't go left. They're putting out fires."

"Pull a U-turn here."

"Uhh, Garrus?"

"Yes, Alenko?" Garrus said through gritted teeth. It was hard enough figuring out the skycar's controls without that harpy of a VI breathing down his neck and Kaidan's backseat driving.

"Pull a U-turn here."

"I think we should -" SPIRITS WHY WON'T THEY JUST SHUT UP? "Gunship!"

One of the Shadow Broker's gunships was streaking right towards them. They must have known that Garrus and Kaidan would take the spare skycar, then waited around to ambush them once they left the tower. Its machine guns were priming. "Shit!" Garrus yanked at the controls, sending the skycar into a dive. Automatic fire rattled overhead, a few rounds pinging off the top of the skycar, before the gunship roared past, missing the the car by inches. As gravity took over and they began accelerating towards the ground, Kaidan could feel himself being lifted out of his seat.

"Pull up!" Kaidan yelled, his stomach flip-flopping in response to the sudden G-force fluctuation.

"I'm trying!" The altitude meter beeped a warning. Mila Margarita made a saucy joke about "getting low." Amidst the cacophony, Garrus could hear the gunship swinging around to make another run at them.

Aha. Stabilizing thrusters. There you are, you little bastards. Garrus seized the throttle and hit the button on top, pulling it back. The skycar jumped forward, jolting Kaidan back in the seat. Thanks to his L2 implants, Kaidan was more susceptible to the negative effects of external forces. Such as gravity. His vision started to tunnel, and he promptly proceeded to black out.

Garrus swung the skycar around Gemini Beta in hopes of losing the gunship. No such luck. In the rearview mirror, he saw that if anything, it was gaining on them. On top of that, regular traffic patterns were resuming. Garrus stepped on the gas. If he could just get in the correct lane, they might be able to blend in with the rest of the nearly identical skycars, confusing the gunship and shaking it once and for all.

Thanks to a little auto-piloting from Mila Margarita, they were able to seamlessly merge into the lane that was actually going in the right direction before the gunship was able to open fire. Garrus let out a sigh of relief. They were heading towards the Nos Astra city center, a short ways from the docks. There was no way that their pursuers would be able to follow them with all those other cars around. He leaned back in his chair and said to Kaidan, "I think we're good."

The human didn't reply. Garrus looked over at him. "Oh." He was passed out. But Garrus lost interest in Kaidan after a second. What was more alarming was the fact that the gunship was pulling up right next to them, the low growl of its engines decidedly out of place amongst the insect-like drone of the skycar collective. This vehicle has Shadow Broker designations. They must have locked on to us. In which case, hiding in the traffic flow wasn't doing any good. Garrus already knew, just by looking at the damage done to Gemini Alpha and the innocent lives already lost, that the Shadow Broker would have no qualms about shooting down more skycars to get to him and Kaidan.

But when Garrus tried to guide the car out of traffic, the controls froze up. Mila Margarita called him naughty, then said he wasn't allowed to break traffic regulations. He swore loudly at the infuriating VI. "Where is your off switch?" he demanded. Mila directed him to the right button on the dashboard. "Warning: deactivation of VI will also deactivate the auto-piloting systems." Garrus glanced back out the window. The gunship was sidling closer.

"That's a chance I'm going to have to take."

Immediately, the skycar began to twist and shudder at the hands of an inexperienced driver. There were a few honks from behind them, but all of the other cars' auto-piloting systems were activated, so there were no crashes. At least, none caused by Garrus. As soon as he took the controls into his own hands, the gunship made its move. It swerved into traffic, cutting straight through the other skycars. A few of them smashed together and began to lose altitude or spin wildly, engines squealing. The gunship was charging right at Garrus and Kaidan, like it was about to ram them.

"Alenko!" Garrus shouted, trying to bring Kaidan around. "Wake up, you son of a -" But Garrus was too preoccupied with weaving through traffic to give much energy to getting Kaidan's attention. So, for the second time that day, Garrus reached across and punched him in the face.

Kaidan snapped awake to the sound of machine gun fire and the terror-inducing driving of his turian comrade. And for some reason it felt like he'd gone ten rounds with a heavyweight boxing champ. The passenger side window shattered and Kaidan flattened himself against the seat, sinking down to get out of of the gunship's line of sight. "Get us out of here!"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Garrus roared back at him. He tugged upwards on the controls and the skycar lifted straight out of traffic. The last thing he wanted was the blood of more dead civilians on his hands, even if it meant sacrificing a little cover.

The gunship hung with them, speeding up as it singled out its target. "Alenko," Garrus said. "You need to distract that thing, or we're going to get blown out of the sky."

"How?"

"The grenade launcher; it's on my back holster." He leaned forward and Kaidan managed to free it without too much effort. "Now!"

Unbuckling his seat belt somewhat hesitantly, Kaidan leaned out the window, crunching broken bits of glass that still clung to the edges, and took aim. He felt the skycar slow, but the gunship didn't. It inched closer and closer, the distance between them decreasing every second.

"Just a little more," Kaidan breathed. Garrus gave the engine even less gas. Right as Kaidan was about to pull the trigger, the gunship beat him to it. Four missiles launched from the ammo pod. The skycar's systems blared a proximity warning.

"Hold on!" Garrus yelled. The skycar flew into a barrel roll, nearly tossing Kaidan out of the window. Illium's cityscape tumbled before them, skyscrapers doing somersaults while the lines of traffic helixed and twisted around themselves. The bizarre kaleidoscope righted itself when Garrus bumped the throttles in opposite directions, distributing power evenly. Still, one of the missiles found its mark, causing the skycar to jump and vibrate.

More wailing alarms. Garrus didn't really know what any of them meant, but what he did know was that they were about to be run over by the gunship. It rammed them from behind, metal screeching in protest. Auxiliary power went dead. There was no way they'd be gaining any altitude.

Which was troubling, considering they'd sunk back into the hectic rush-hour traffic of inner city Nos Astra. For the most part, Garrus managed to scrape past most of the skycars, but they were losing maneuverability by the second. The gunship rear-ended them yet again. The engines sputtered.

"Garrus, I don't want to freak you out or anything..." Kaidan began. "But we are going to hit that truck in about five seconds if you don't do something." The freighter Kaidan pointed to was in the process of pulling up to the side of a cargo port . It was too long to swerve around; there was no way that the skycar, in any sort of condition, would be able to make a turn that sharp. They couldn't go over it either, seeing as they were barely staying in the air as it was. And Garrus feared that going under it would be the beginning of a short, unpleasant plunge all the way down. The way he saw it, there was one option left to them. And even that window of opportunity was fading fast.

He responded by activating what turbo thrusters were left to them. Kaidan was jolted back in his heat. "You're not doing what I think you're doing," he said in a low voice. Garrus was silent. He leaned forward, as if somehow that would make the skycar go faster.

"Come on baby," he whispered to it, hoping that wouldn't somehow reactivate the Mila Margarita VI. He had enough trouble in his lap as it was. The freighter was slowing down. Meters remained between it and the cargo port couplings.

The gap was getting smaller. Already smaller than the width of the skycar. Kaidan gripped the grenade launcher, as if that somehow was going to help him. There was no way the skycar was getting through the space.

Maybe not horizontally. A split second before Garrus and Kaidan were about to be crushed between the freighter and the side of the skyscraper, Garrus flipped the stabilizing thrusters, which wrenched the skycar onto its side, much to its protest. The two of them saw the other side of the city through the narrowest of windows as they slipped through the still-shrinking gap. Kaidan could feel himself being simultaneously propelled forward by the skycar's blaring thrusters and falling downward towards Garrus inside the lopsided vehicle.

An awful metallic screeching filled their ears, shook their bones. Glass and metal debris assailed their bodies like a cruel hurricane of claws and teeth. Even turned on its side, the skycar hadn't been slim enough to make it through the space unscathed. The top of the vehicle had been shorn clean off.

The hail storm of shrapnel receded to howling wind and Garrus couldn't be happier. They'd made it. The car was still intact... relatively so. And they were alive. But even that could turn out to be only temporary. The gunship had swung over and was bearing down on them from above, no doubt targeting their very, very exposed heads. We need to get some place where they can't get at us from above. And the perfect opportunity had just presented itself.

They pulled into the tunnel with their newly-converted convertible, right up along next to the rest of the commuters. A few people shot them crazed looks, but they all pulled out of the way fast enough when they saw the gunship in pursuit. The symphony of engines crescendoed against Garrus and Kaidan's eardrums, the rush of air stealing the breath from their mouths before they had a chance to exhale. With what little control was left to him, Garrus guided the skycar in practically a straight line.

"There's no way we're going to lose them like this!" Kaidan shouted to his companion, who nodded in return, his eyes hardening. Garrus needed a plan. For a plan, they needed time. Time to conjure up another miracle. And to do that, they had to make sure they weren't blown out of the sky in a few short seconds.

"Can you distract them?" Garrus yelled back. Kaidan bobbed his head, swiveling around to brace his back against the dashboard. He knew it wasn't going to be enough, though. The grenade launcher was too low on ammo, their transport too close to giving out. In fact, there was only enough fuel left for one good jump before the thing plummeted to the ground.

One good jump. Garrus had a plan. And Kaidan was going to hate him for it.