Unfortunate But Necessary
The Cerberus crew had assembled in the hangar to send off the rest of the team. Those staying behind knew that the team would either return with the commander, or not at all. And if the latter did come to pass, the crew would surely disband, just as the crew of the first Normandy had done when Shepard had died. Dr. Chakwas didn't think she would be able to bear it. As Garrus passed by, she said to him, "We're counting on you to come home."
"That's the plan." Dr. Chakwas knew that. She just needed to hear him say it.
Garrus approached the hastily repaired gunship and saw Joker trying to climb in through the side door, muttering to himself, "Why do these damn things have to be so high... Garrus!" Joker turned around, gingerly setting his feet back on the ground. "Good thing you have me to fly this piece of crap, right? Wouldn't be a very good start to the mission if you crashed five feet from the hangar door!"
"Nice try, Joker. Besides, I need you here."
The pilot's eyebrow raised. He was still hanging on to the edge of the gunship. "For...?"
"As soon as we leave, get the Normandy out of here. I don't want the Broker to have a lock on us. And Shepard's gonna need a ship when she gets back," Garrus explained. Joker glanced at the gunship's cockpit. He hated feeling so weak and infirm, but Garrus was right. He could still be useful by doing what he did best: flying the Normandy.
"I... yeah, okay. I guess I'll see you when you get back, then," Joker said, backing away. Kaidan was in the pilot's seat, firing up the engines. Garrus hopped on the gunship. "Keep her low – you'll drop right out of the sky if you push her too hard!" Joker called, slipping in some final advice. The Cerberus crew was waving its farewells. "Easy on the thrusters, and don't forget to double check the output of the combustion mani-" But his words were drowned out by the guttural growling of the gunship's engines. A little unsteadily, it swung around, then sped out of the hangar and out of sight.
Joker watched them go, his chest heavy. "I really hope that's not the last time we see them."
Donnelly, who shared the pilot's concern about the integrity of the gunship, reached out and gave Joker a friendly slap on the back. "I feel the same way."
The team was seated on the benches where Shadow Broker shock troops would normally be. Each one was mentally preparing themselves for the upcoming battle in their own way: both Samara and Thane seemed to be immersed in their prayers and meditation, while Jacob and Zaeed methodically checked and rechecked each of their weapons. Grunt was cracking his knuckles and grinding his teeth, a ritual that Garrus had seen Wrex go through countless times.
The only person who looked out of place was Daryn. He sat next to Kaidan, in the copilot's chair, shifting around to try and make himself comfortable. Jacob had given him the smallest set of turian armor that they'd found, which would serve all functional purposes, but it was definitely too big. Garrus watched him for a moment, realizing that Daryn remind him a lot of himself when he was that age. Headstrong, fiery, and a hint of cockiness. Running around with the notion in his head that he could make something more of himself than the military career path set out for him. The only difference was that Garrus had stuck to that path a little longer before leaving. Before Shepard came along. In a way, that made Daryn even braver: against the wishes of his clan and the social standards of an entire culture, he'd chosen his independence.
But the time had come for him to go back. Whatever Daryn ended up doing with the rest of his life, the kid needed his family. Immediately after Shepard was safely returned home, Garrus would personally escort Daryn back to the Forsythes on Palaven. He imagined that Daryn would stir up quite a commotion, but at least he would be back where he belonged.
"Touchdown in two minutes," Kaidan said from the pilot's chair. Garrus nodded and relayed the message to the rest of the team. They were ready.
Daryn flicked through his omni-tool. "Looks like the next prisoner transport shuttle is going to leave in... nine minutes. We'll need to move fast."
Seven minutes. That would have to be enough. After all, they would only have to sneak onboard the shuttle just before it left and force the pilot to continue flying. In theory, it would take a matter of seconds.
Kaidan brought the gunship down by the back end of the unremarkable warehouse, home of the Shadow Broker's prisoner holding cells. True to Daryn's schedule, there was a transport shuttle in the docking bay. It was unexpectedly large; about half the size of the Normandy. Garrus wondered just how many prisoners passed through the holding warehouse, never to be seen again. With any luck, Shepard would not be included in that statistic.
"Nice and slow," Garrus said, hovering over Kaidan's shoulder. "Right next to the shuttle." They needed to get as close as possible to their objective in order to avoid being detected. Even with the Shadow Broker armor disguises, the sudden reappearance of a missing gunship might raise a few too many questions and expose them before they even had a chance to leave Illium.
The gunship's undercarriage made contact with the port, thunking audibly. There was a slight hiss of pressure release as the balance couplings latched on to both airfoils. Everyone held their breaths. There were no alarms. No swarm of troops flooding the docking bay. It appeared as if the prisoner shuttle had already been loaded. All they needed to do was sneak onto it before it left.
"Get on that shuttle, now," Garrus said, sliding open the gunship door. "Go."
The team filed out silently, moving as fast as they could while still making as little noise as possible. Garrus and Kaidan were the last ones out, sealing the doors behind them in case anyone got the idea to follow them.
As it turned out, the Shadow Broker's warehouse was right on the edge of the city block, at least a kilometer above street level. Garrus remembered riding in an elevator to get to the room full of cages. But he'd had no idea they were so high up. The dock was a metal structure that hung off the main building like a balcony. Currently, it was empty besides the gunship and the prisoner shuttle, but it looked like it could hold up to half a dozen ships. That struck Garrus as unnecessarily large. However, overlooking Nos Astra's financial district with its towering skyscrapers and bustling city traffic, the dock really didn't seem that big at all.
"Garrus, get over here." Liara's hushed voice seemed too loud in the open space. He made his way towards the transfer shuttle, bypassing the rest of the team in order to reach Liara. She was standing next to Daryn, who was knelt by the command console of the shuttle's loading door. The young turian's hands were a blur, his mandibles clicking insistently. "It's not opening."
"What do you mean it's not opening?" As Garrus spoke, his eyes were scanning the docks. The doors to the holding warehouse were shut, which meant that anyone inside was oblivious to their presence. Unless... Shit. The cameras.He motioned to Kasumi to scan the area for them and disable the ones she found. Hopefully whoever was on monitoring duty was taking a long break.
"It's demanding an access code. It's not interfaced to any internal systems, and any bypass algorithms are being rejected." Daryn paused and looked up. "I'm sorry. I -"
But Garrus had already turned his back on him. Daryn had failed to fulfill his sole purpose on the mission and was costing them precious time. Daryn started to go after Garrus, but Liara put a hand on his arm, shaking her head.
Access codes. Garrus had an idea of where he could find those. "Kaidan, that terminal you hacked when we were here the first time. Did it have anything about ship access codes?"
Kaidan's brow creased as he recalled the complex data. "There was a long list of ship names, each with a twelve or thirteen digit number sequence. I thought they might have been serial codes, like a docking manifest."
Those number sequences have to be the access codes. "Okay. Let's go." Then, he addressed the rest of the team. "Get behind some cover, out of sight. We're going to open those doors to get the codes. As soon as we get back, we're out of here." They acknowledged the order. Daryn jumped to get the docking bay doors open, while Garrus led Kaidan and Mordin, who was needed in case there were any other unexpected tech barriers, through to warehouse.
It was just as dim as it had been the first time Garrus had come through. Except there was one major difference: there was a complete absence of noise. Garrus tried to place exactly why that was so unsettling when he realized that it meant all the prisoners were gone. His sharp eyes swept over the cages. Empty. He saw dark forms splayed out on the ground and wondered why they'd been left behind before it hit him that they were dead. Each body was riddled with gunfire, their dirty, unwashed flesh already starting to putrefy.
"Oh my God," Kaidan said, the stench slamming into him full force. "They're all dead."
"Sporadic gunfire indicates haste. Executions carried out under time pressure," Mordin said, pausing for a moment to do a quick scan of a nearby body with his omni-tool.
"The Shadow Broker must have known that we passed through here. He used Shepard's look-alikes to lure us out, then killed the rest in case we came back to rescue them," Garrus theorized. If I had set them free the first time we came, they'd all be alive. And the Broker wouldn't have been able to use those other women to trick us into thinking that Shepard was here in Nos Astra. It was his fault that they were dead, Garrus knew. Their blood was on his hands. He had the opportunity to save them and he chose not to. But even as the overbearing odor of death assailed his nostrils, Garrus knew that he'd made the right decision. As long as the Shadow Broker and the Ardat-Yakshi thought that everything was going according to plan, Shepard would live. If they'd seen that things were going downhill, they could have killed her in order to spare themselves further trouble.
But does that justify the loss of all these lives? Garrus clenched his fists. It has to. It has to.
Varick left the infirmary feeling satisfied with the way the plan had progressed despite the considerable setbacks on Illium. They'd expected some sort of resistance from Shepard's former team, and they'd delivered most admirably. Varick was impressed with their attempts to get their beloved commander back, but that crusade had come to a swift, predictable end. Drained of energy and willpower by their hunt around Nos Astra, Garrus Vakarian had ordered their retreat. The Normandy left Illium several minutes ago, and Varick had the departure records to prove it. Varick supposed they might be regrouping with Cerberus infiltration teams, but by the time they managed to pick up a lead and discover Shepard's location, it would be too late.
With that nuisance out of the way, Varick could finally shift his attention to the final phase of their plan: molding Shepard into the perfect biotic super soldier. The few short days that he, Kamala, and Tayir had spent breaking down her mental barriers were the equivalent of decades spent in meditation that any powerful biotic usually underwent in order to attain their peak biotic capacity. But even the strength of the drell assassin or the asari justicar would not be compare to Shepard's once Kamala was finished with her work. The Ardat-Yakshi had the ability to force others to follow her command, bending them to her will. Shepard would become the ultimate weapon, and the Shadow Broker had no end of uses for her talents.
Varick glanced back at the infirmary before heading towards the command center, a rare smile on his face. He felt himself relaxing, even feeling a twinge of joy. At last, the pieces were falling into place. Everything was going according to plan.