AN: A new chapter in honor of my one year anniversary of writing fanfic! I must say, it's been quite the adventure. Infinite gratitude to everyone who has been reviewing, favoriting, alerting and following my stories. It means a lot to me to know that there are people out there who enjoy reading what I write. Now on with the show!

Fighting Fire with Fire

Feron sat in his cell with his head in his hands, his preferred meditative position. But before long, he was on his feet, pacing, suddenly restless. Something was amiss. Commander Shepard hadn't been brought back to the prisoner block for an inexplicably long time. And there had been commotion in the halls earlier, yet the silence that had followed was far more mysterious. He hated not knowing what was going on in the rest of the prison compound. Of course he wouldn't be able to do anything about whatever it was that was happening, but the uncertainty was killing him.

He didn't have to wait much longer before Shepard was brought back to her cell. He heard the door next to his clang open then clang closed again, which struck him as strange. Usually she put up some sort of fight or at least shouted insults at Varick's back as he walked away.

But now, nothing. Feron pressed his face to the patch of depolarized mirror. She was on the floor, curled up in fetal position with her back to him. He tried calling her name a few times to get her attention before he realized that she was whispering something.

"Just let me be with them, please, take me now..."

"Shepard," Feron said, more loudly than he had been. "What happened? What did they do?"

The whispering stopped. Shepard covered her face with her hands and Feron had to strain to pick up her muffled words. "They killed my team. They're all dead."

It was a blessing when Garrus passed out after downing nearly half a bottle of turian ale in less than two minutes. Dr. Chakwas was able to work without being asked to be more gentle or having to put up with her patient's squirming. She hummed to herself as she finished stitching him up. The doctor found that the rhythmic movement of her needle and thick medical cord weaving back and forth across the wounds was incredibly soothing. For a moment she was able to lose herself in her work and forget exactly how much was at stake.

Of course, it wasn't long before she was reminded of the dire circumstances. Alenko came in, his worried eyes immediately settling on Garrus. "Hi, Dr. Chakwas," Kaidan greeted her. She nodded in return, too engrossed in what she was doing to do much more. He took a seat across from where Garrus lay, close enough to observe yet still not so close as to break the doctor's concentration. Dr. Chakwas didn't mind his presence. In fact, she liked having him around. As soon as she tied off the cord, Kaidan asked how Garrus was doing.

"He took a lot of damage, you know. Ordinarily, I'd have him out of action for at least a week." Dr. Chakwas said, peeling off blue-stained gloves. Kaidan followed her across the room when she went to the sink to wash up. "But I understand that you need him for the mission. I've doubled the dosage for the rally pack and I'll put him on pain-killers as soon as he's awake."

"Thank you, Doctor," Kaidan said, relieved. There was no way they'd be able to complete the mission without him. He was on the verge of turning away when Dr. Chakwas took him by the arm.

"I don't do these things lightly, Kaidan. Vakarian's immune system could suffer permanent damage from the overload of chemicals that I've put in him."

Kaidan nodded solemnly but didn't say anything more about the matter, because both of them knew that if Garrus didn't lead the mission, they couldn't get the commander back. And without Shepard, Garrus wouldn't live long enough to suffer the effects of immune system failure.

Six hours later, Garrus woke and everything was numb. At first he wasn't sure if his limbs were still attached, but after a minute, he was able to wiggle everything around just fine. He even mustered enough energy to sit up, groaning slightly as he did so. He threw his feet over the edge of the bed before propping his elbows on his knees and resting his head in his hands. He needed a minute to collect his thoughts. He knew for sure that he and Kaidan had made it back to the Normandy mostly in one piece. He also remembered getting drunk. Really drunk. Dr. Chakwas had been sewing him back together right before he passed out.

But that all left him with no idea of how long he'd been out. Probably too long. He lifted his head slowly and was surprised to find Miranda watching him.

"The doctor said you should take it easy," she said in a quiet, wavering voice. Not Miranda. It was the twin, Oriana.

"She always says that," Garrus said. "Doesn't mean any of us listen to her." The girl smiled. She looked weak and sick, but she was alive. No thanks to Garrus. The memories of the innocents dead because of him came flooding back. That was the kind of pain that morphine had no power over.

"Should I call the others?" she inquired as she realized that Garrus was standing up. Garrus was about to tell her that there was no need, when the others came to him. Kaidan strolled in, leading two black-clad figures. Garrus jumped back in alarm before he realized that it was only Miranda and Jacob, their Cerberus uniforms traded for Shadow Broker armor.

Garrus looked up at Kaidan, who was smiling proudly. "I see that you've been busy," Garrus noted.

He placed a set of armor on the bed Garrus had previously occupied. It was pitch black. "Get dressed. There's a lot to explain."

Everyone, including Oriana respectfully cleared out of the med-bay to give Garrus a moment to change. Rather stiffly, he donned the armor of the troops that he'd been killing for the past day or so. The strange part was that he didn't even feel any different putting on this armor than his own. Sure, it fit a little more snugly in a few places, but Garrus was expecting to be repelled by the uniform, possibly as if he'd been forced to wear a Blue Suns uniform after he'd been chased off Omega. He examined himself in a full-length mirror near his gurney.

The black made him appear ruthless and utterly without compassion. What made him even more uneasy was the fact that much of his face-paint had been smudged off, presumably after it had been coated in his own blood and Dr. Chakwas had cleared it away. He wished he had time to touch it up, but there were greater things at stake than superficial preferences. Kaidan and the others were waiting for him, and he was dying to hear what Alenko had come up with. But just as he was leaving the med-bay, he caught sight of his own armor, sitting on an empty chair. The chest plate was riddled with bullet holes. It's a miracle that I'm alive. The blue armor had been rendered completely useless, too far gone to be saved. Absentmindedly, Garrus ran his hand over a few blood-lined bullet holes, then the section that had been destroyed by a missile back on Omega. To Garrus, that seemed like ages ago. But he didn't dwell on the past for long. He set the broken shell back down on the chair and left the med-bay wearing his new armor.

"It's actually a damn good plan," Jacob said as he, Miranda, and Kaidan led Garrus down to the hangar. "Alliance dude really came through."

Kaidan shrugged modestly, allowing Miranda into the elevator first. "It wasn't all my idea. It was actually Kasumi and Thane who found the armor on the shuttle, and Daryn who figured out the prisoner transport schedule."

"Are you ever going to tell me the actual plan?" Garrus demanded impatiently, anxious to wrap his mind around the details. He was wary of plans that were not his own, but whatever Kaidan had come up with was currently all they had.

"Oh, yeah," he said. The elevator doors opened, letting them out on the bottom level. They strode out into the hall and Kaidan gestured at the glass window that overlooked the hangar. "We're going to infiltrate the Shadow Broker's prison."

Inside the hangar was the Shadow Broker gunship that Garrus and Kaidan had rode in on. It was being rebuilt. Parts stripped from the Hammerhead replaced the broken bits of the gunship. All of the Normandy's engineers were hard at work. One of them paused to look up at the window. It was Donnelly. He waved cheerfully. Garrus was glad to see that he had made it out alive. Next to Donnelly was Mordin, his omni-tool scanning one of the thrusters. At the other end of the hangar, a black-armored krogan was helping one of the engineers move what looked like an engine part. Grunt. They carried it over to Mordin and let him inspect it.

"Impressive," Garrus said, nodding.

"We'll need it to sneak back in to the prisoner warehouse," Miranda said, indicating the gunship. The medium armor she was wearing overwhelmed her slight frame, but, renewed with vigor at her sister's rescue, her resolve was stronger than ever. "From there, we'll hijack an outgoing transfer shuttle and force the pilot to take us to the Broker's base."

Garrus assumed that meant that Daryn had succeeded in working out an accurate shuttle schedule. "Sounds good. Do we have any idea of what we'll encounter on the other side of that mass relay?"

Jacob turned to face Garrus. "Not exactly." Good thing Garrus loved surprises. "But what we're expecting is some kind of prison. Most likely where the Broker keeps all his captives. Where he's keeping Shepard."

So this is it then. No more running around Illium or dancing around Kamala's ultimatums. No more wasting time and getting people injured or killed. It was time to go find Shepard and get her back once and for all.

"I'm guessing that's where these uniforms come in," Garrus said, gesturing at the armor.

Miranda bobbed her head. She appeared to be somewhat uncomfortable beneath the protective plates, unaccustomed to their bulkiness. "Precisely. Once we reach our destination, we'll pose as Shadow Broker guards. The Illusive Man has confirmed that there are bounties on at least five of us. The plan is that we'll escort our own team into the prison, then go find where Shepard is being held and get her out of there."

There were a lot of things that could go wrong. For starters, the pilot could refuse to take them through the relay. Garrus hoped that they'd be able to convince him more easily than they had Nyxeris. Secondly, if the pilot didn't alert the Shadow Broker base to their arrival, there was the issue of fooling the other guards into thinking that they were also Broker agents. Garrus imagined a bit of a road block there. And if they did somehow manage to past the other agents, the ultimate challenge would be finding Shepard and getting her out of there. Then there was also the problem of the Ardat-Yakshi. If she was with the commander, their mission just got that much more impossible.

"When do we leave?" Garrus asked.

Kaidan felt triumphant. His plan had the turian's approval. And after all, planning was half the battle. Well, maybe in this case, about an eighth of the battle. "As soon as the gunship's ready. Engineer Daniels tells us that should be about another hour."

An hour. In an hour they'd be on their way to wherever it was that the Broker held his prisoners. On the way to being reunited with Shepard. Garrus checked the date on his omni-tool. It was nearly dawn of the fourth day since she was missing. That made it three whole days she'd been at the mercy of the Shadow Broker. Three days too many. Garrus swore to himself that before the sun set on Nos Astra again, he'd bring her home safely. He glanced at Kaidan and Miranda and Jacob. He'd bring them home, too.

"Good. Have everyone up in the comm room for a final briefing in forty-five minutes," Garrus said.

Miranda nodded curtly. "You got it." She and Jacob took the elevator back upstairs alone, leaving Garrus and Kaidan standing in front of the mirror.

"We're finally gonna end this," Kaidan said, taking a deep breath. They'd come a long way, but there was still more yet to go.

"Yeah," Garrus replied. The two of them were idly watching the engineers below, their minds on other things.

"You know we'll have to face the Ardat-Yakshi, right?"

"Yeah, I know."

There was a pause. "We'll have to kill her to get to Shepard."

Garrus narrowed his eyes. "I hadn't planned on letting her live."