The Lionhearted Lamb

Garrus forced himself to sideline his emotions in favor of the more pressing task at hand: obtaining access codes for the shuttle before it left in about... six minutes. He briefly made eye contact with Kaidan and Mordin. They needed to get moving. The rest of the team was waiting for them on the dock, hidden but vulnerable.

"It's over here," Kaidan said, referring to the dock-keeping information terminal that he'd hacked the first time they'd come through the prisoner warehouse. It was exactly as he'd left it. A few basic firewalls were intact, but between him and Mordin, they were able to clear them in no time. They located the name of the ship they were to board, the Steel Cog, and copied its access code into Kaidan's omni-tool. They were about to take off when a voice stopped them.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" A batarian had seemingly materialized out of thin air. He had his gun trained on Kaidan, who had only just lowered his omni-tool.

Garrus turned around. Spirits, where did he come from? Nevermind. Come on, Vakarian, think dammit... "I've been authorized to take a load of prisoners through the relay. Special circumstances."

"On whose authority?"

Garrus froze. "The, uhhh, the Sha-"

"The Ardat-Yakshi authorized the transfer. Kamala Nasar won't be pleased to hear that this shuttle was delayed by some low-ranking scrub," Kaidan interceded smoothly, waving his hand at the batarian insultingly.

But a real agent of the Shadow Broker would not be so easily fooled. "State your name and business here, human."

Now it was Kaidan's turn to stammer. Luckily Mordin had already anticipated the question and come up with a response. "Bounty hunters. Spent considerable resources tracking targets. Would like to receive bounty. Sooner, preferable than later."

All four of the batarian's eyes swept over the strange trio suspiciously. "I'll need to see a record and signed transfer request form for each prisoner." Damnable bureaucrat!

Garrus was about to claim that all the paperwork had been forwarded to Kamala, hoping that mentioning her name might invoke some measure of fear within the batarian, but before he could, a figure dropped down from the ceiling and landed silently behind the soldier. Thane. Somehow, he'd made it all the way from the opposite end of the warehouse. The drell made a swift approach, then snapped the batarian's neck in one clean motion before he could even make a sound.

"Quite an entrance," Garrus said with a nod.

"I've been practicing."

They were about to move out when suddenly an obnoxious alarm began blaring, the dim lighting replaced by frantic red flashing. Shadow Broker agents began pouring out of a guard post. Garrus figured they might have been tipped off by the sound of the tense exchange and had realized something was amiss, or maybe caught something on the cameras. Mordin, Kaidan, Thane, and Garrus drew their weapons, but it soon became apparent that they were sorely outmatched and without any kind of cover whatsoever. Not wasting another second, they turned and sprinted back towards the exit.

Gunfire sprayed their heels, urging them forward. Garrus had counted nearly a dozen Broker agents, with more assuredly on the way. He cursed their luck. They'd be lucky to make it out of the warehouse alive, let alone leave Illium. Bullets washed over their shields. They were running out of time.

They were almost at the end when Garrus realized that their exit was blocked – behind a row of sturdy cargo crates, a group of black-armored agents had opened fire. A trap! But after a moment, he realized that the agents were actually his own team laying down cover fire. He could pick out Jack's small form, jumping on top of a crate in order to launch a pull field at one of their enemies before ducking to avoid a missile.

"Go!" Their sprint became faster still. Over the roar of the guns and the sound of his own heart hammering in his ears, Garrus could hear his teammates breathing next to him. Kaidan in quick, even puffs. The salarian in longer draughts: superior lung capacity at work. And Thane with a little hitch at the end of every breath. They were pushing themselves to the limit. If they had to sustain their pace any longer, one of them would surely drop from over-exertion.

Heavy pistol in hand, Liara tried to take out as many of the Shadow Broker's agents as possible. But as many as she felled, twice as many took their place. She glanced at the four figures sprinting towards her, their knees and arms pumping in order to attain maximum speed. Would it be enough? Their shields were nearly drained. They had mere moments before their backs were left completely exposed and their armor was shredded to bits by the ruthless Broker agents.

"Goddess," she breathed. They weren't going to make it. They were going to be killed.

A second later, each of them was vaulting over the crates, a storm of bullets in their wake. Mordin landed lithely, his flexible limbs coiling into a crouch. Thane tucked into a classic roll. Kaidan hit the ground on his side, then scrambled to slide into cover. Garrus sprawled gracelessly, panting, before taking his place next to Kaidan.

Liara resisted the urge to fling her arms around both of their necks and kiss them. But their survival was a small victory, and their mission had barely begun.

Jacob flung a biotic attack over the crates before turning to Garrus. "We need to get out of here, now!" Daryn caught his attention by gesturing down at his omni-tool. They had a little over five minutes remaining. If they were going to leave on schedule, they'd need a better plan than simply punching in the access code and taking off.

Miranda had read his mind. "We won't be able to leave under heavy fire. We'll be shot down!" she shouted over the din of battle. She was right: the Shadow Broker's troops would tear apart the unarmed transport shuttle with their heavy weapons.

For once, Liara agreed with the Cerberus operative. "Not to mention they'll probably alert the Broker to our presence if we don't take them out," she added. That meant that they would have to take out the forty-plus agents within the warehouse to get a clean escape. Garrus poked his head out of cover to confirm that number. In that brief glimpse, he picked up something he'd missed on their initial pass through the warehouse moments ago: black crates the size of the Kodiak, lining the walls of the warehouse and almost completely obscured by the blocky cages.

There wasn't a shadow of doubt in his mind that they were the same charges that had destroyed Gemini Alpha. And by the look of it, there was enough of them to take out the whole warehouse. The blast radius would be immense. It was exactly what they needed.

"Okay," Garrus said. "I have an idea."

Mordin recognized the military-grade ordinance from his time spent in STG and explained in clipped phrases that their external shells were impervious to gunfire and were only vulnerable from within; they were designed solely to be set off by a detonator. However, the detonation signature would have to be manually assigned to each crate of ordinance, or else the crate's sensors would not recognize the detonate command and fail to go off. A small stealth team, led by Thane, would sneak through the warehouse and activate as many explosives as possible. Samara and Jack were going along to provide biotic barriers for Mordin, who would be the one to enter in the detonation response signature. As soon as they returned, the shuttle would take off.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team would be the diversion. They would do everything in their power to distract the Shadow Broker's forces from the stealth group. At some point, Garrus would need Daryn to enter the access codes and open the shuttle door. Garrus hoped that they'd be able to spare one or two of them to go in and subdue the pilot before he took off.

One thing at a time. First, they had to get the stealth team started. Garrus glanced into Thane's charcoal eyes. The drell nodded. His team was ready. Garrus signaled to Kasumi. A sly smile was visible beneath her hood. She whipped out a handful of flashbang grenades, priming them all at once and tossing them into the air. Right on cue, Kaidan hit the airborne grenades with a throw field, scattering them into the mass of Shadow Broker troops.

The flashbangs exploded, sending shrapnel flying in every direction. More importantly, the noise and smoke screen veiled the movement of the stealth team. Thane disappeared into the warehouse, followed by Mordin, Samara, and Jack. The Broker troops were none the wiser. The timing had worked out perfectly. At least something went right on this mission.

Now it was time for the rest of them to do their part: creating a loud, violent mess for their enemy to focus on. Miranda, Jacob, Liara and Kaidan shot biotic attacks indiscriminately over their cover, barely taking the time to aim. Garrus and Grunt weren't picky when it came to choosing targets to hit with concussive rounds. Switching to his trusty old sniper rifle, Zaeed was picking off the heavy weapons specialists at the back of the room and shouting, "Goddamn batarian terrorists!" over the roar of gunfire. Even Daryn threw in the odd incineration blast when there seemed to be a break in enemy fire.

After a minute or so, when Garrus was convinced that the agents of the Shadow Broker were unaware of the stealth team's progress, it was time for Daryn to open the ship. "Specialist!" Garrus shouted, getting the younger turian's attention. His head snapped up at the sound of his new title. Garrus jerked his thumb towards the ship's door. Daryn nodded and got to work. Liara guarded his back as he entered the access code into the operations console. When Garrus heard the mechanical whir of the door lowering, the knot in his chest loosened. Slightly.

"Grunt: go!" Garrus needed the krogan to assist Liara and Daryn in subduing the pilot. He prayed that Grunt's Claymore would be reason enough for the pilot to agree to help them. As the trio disappeared inside the ship, Garrus shouted to Grunt, "We need this one alive!"

The only response was a hearty chuckle. That's somewhat worrisome. But at the moment, there were more urgent matters that needed addressing. The Broker's troops realized that the strength of the attacks coming from behind the crates had suddenly dwindled. They took advantage of the situation and went on the offensive: two groups were posted on either side of the warehouse's opening. This could be potentially problematic. The stealth team was still inside – Garrus hadn't seen where Thane and the others had entered, but it looked like their exit route was blocked off.

"Concentrate your fire!" Garrus ordered. Their attacks were divided into powerful bursts: Kaidan and Miranda would unleash their biotics while Zaeed lobbed inferno grenades at the frontal assault groups. As they were recovering, Jacob would pick off stragglers with a pull field and Kasumi focused on plunging them further into a state of disorientation with her flashbangs or a well-timed shadow strike. Yet even as they fell, more agents came to replace them. They were fighting an uphill battle, and it became more and more obvious that their best chance at clearing the warehouse was indeed to blow the whole thing up.

Garrus kept his ears tuned for any signs of combat within the transfer shuttle or the return of the stealth team. Another minute and a half later, Garrus was pinged with an incoming transmission. It was Thane. "We're nearly finished with the last charge. But we may have been spotted. We need you to distract them as we make our return."

Garrus thought that they were already distracting them. Somehow, it wasn't quite enough. They needed a big finish. Grabbing the grenade launcher off his back holster, Garrus switched the safety to off. Originally, he'd planned to save all of its ammo for whatever was on the other side of the relay, but that was before everything had gone so awry. "Thane: get ready. You're gonna have a short window."

"Understood."

Garrus turned to his teammates, the last ones that remained to hold their little fortress of crates. He was amazed at how whenever the team had been forced to split, they'd each compensated for the loss and made sure that there were no gaps between them. Hold the line. Hold the line. Two years later, Captain Kirrahe's words were as powerful as ever. "Hit them with everything you've got! Now!"

All at once, an explosion of force emanated from behind the crates. Biotics, grenades, incendiary and concussive rounds, and a merciless barrage of ballistics all blended into a violent symphony of destruction that washed through their enemies. The Broker's troops fumbled, their numbers rapidly thinned and unable to recover from the sudden bombardment.

The eruption ceased when Thane, Mordin, Samara, and Jack slid into cover mostly unscathed. Garrus ducked below the line of fire to receive a status report on the charges.

"Everything's in place. This warehouse is going to blow in thirty seconds!" Thane explained hurriedly.

Garrus was taken aback. "Thirty seconds? What happened to the detonator?"

A grim look was on Mordin's face. "Had to improvise!"

"Everyone get on the ship! Kaidan, tell them to take off, now!" Kaidan nodded in affirmation. He was the first to sprint through the open door. As quickly as they could, the rest of them began boarding the ship, some staying behind to empty their clips at the Broker's troops before peeling off. Nearly the whole team had made it by the fifteen second mark.

"Garrus!" a voice screamed. Liara. She was barely audible over the increasing roar of gunfire and the sound of the prison ship's engines waking up, whirring to life. Garrus popped a final heat sink, then turned and sprinted back to the ship. Twelve seconds before the warehouse was leveled. The rest of the team providing cover fire, he made it through the opening, nearly losing his balance as he barreled forward. Liara grabbed him, relinquishing hold of Daryn in order to squeeze Garrus closer. She'd almost lost him yet again.

The balance couplings released, and the ship transitioned into the final preparation stages before take off. Whoever was in charge of convincing the pilot to fly had succeeded. Either that, or it was Grunt sitting in the pilot's chair. Garrus whirled to face the prison shuttle's door, giving the field of their hard-fought battle one last glance.

That brief moment made his heart drop into his stomach. One of the Shadow Broker agents, presumably the one who Thane suspected caught sight of the stealth team, was posted next to a crate of explosives right next to the door. Disabling it. Undoing their work. A split second later, his fear was confirmed by the beeping of Mordin's omni-tool. The salarian raised his arm, blinking in surprise. Garrus spotted the countdown timer: two seconds left. It was frozen at two seconds.

Those bombs had to go off no matter what. Without them, any surviving agents would unquestionably alert the Broker. The rest of the team would be killed before they could even reach the prison where Shepard was being held. Shepard. She'd never see the light of day. If the charges didn't detonate, all the pain and effort would be for nothing.

Garrus had sacrificed too much for that to happen. He was willing to give up what little he had left in order for the mission to have a shot at success.

Hold the line. He brushed off Liara, making his way towards the door and drawing his assault rifle. Is this how Ashley felt? Knowing that she'd be consumed by the blast but seeing the mission through anyway? Williams was immortalized by her actions on Virmire. She was a soldier through and through, and not even the certainty of death had swayed her from her objective. There was so much at stake. The way Garrus saw it, he didn't even have a choice: he had to reactivate those charges.

He was halfway out the door when a powerful blow tossed him aside. Liara must have yanked him back with her biotics. "What are you doing?" she screeched. But her words weren't directed at him. They were meant for Daryn.

Upon realizing what Garrus was about to do, a sudden clarity had fallen over Specialist Forsythe. A divine flash of intuition had shown him exactly why he was brought along on the mission: it was his destiny to reactivate the charges, not Vakarian's. This was how he was supposed to prove his worth. This was going to be what cleared his name as a coward and deserter, and instead honor him as a selfless, brave individual.

An unexpected spurt of strength from within Daryn had allowed him to knock over Garrus and leap out of the door, then sprint at full speed towards those charges.

Garrus was about to go right after him when Mordin shouted, "Wait! Only two seconds until detonation after reactivation! Need to escape blast radius!"

Daryn was getting farther away by the millisecond. Even if Garrus went after him, there was no way that either of them would be able to make it back in time before the blast took out them and the ship. The countdown may have been stalled, but after Daryn reactivated it, if he reactivated it, there were only two seconds left before they were cooked. The ship needed to leave immediately, or it wasn't going to make it. He knew it was a one-way trip. Just like I did. "Everyone, lay down some cover fire! Go, go, go!"

Liara yelled in protest. "No!" She threw herself forward, trying to jump off the ship even as it was taking off. Jacob restrained her from behind, pulling her back. She fought with savage, desperate strength even though she knew it was useless. She screamed his name, "Daryn!"

But he was too far gone. Daryn was sprinting across the battlefield, his black armor fooling the other agents into thinking that he was one of them. Though that advantage didn't last long: heavy pistol raised, he opened fire as he ran, every heat sink lodging in the skulls of the Broker's troops. Daryn felt as if the Spirits themselves had commandeered his body, guiding their vessel to glory. They wanted him to succeed. By their will, he would become a legend. Yet he wasn't invincible. A spray of bullets washed over his shields, draining them. He was nearly at the charge, almost at the site of reactivation. He could feel white hot projectiles embed themselves in his armor, his skin. Omni-tool raised, he gave the command to re-initiate countdown. Two seconds. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the prison ship speeding away. One. He would be welcomed home a hero. Him, Daryn Forsythe. Zero. Welcome home.

The transport ship bucked forward, the force of the blast rattling it angrily. It stopped after a few seconds. The door was safely shut, but when Garrus closed his eyes, he saw the smoldering ruins of the Shadow Broker's base of operations in Nos Astra. It's done.

"Oh Goddess," Liara was sobbing. She'd collapsed to her knees, Jacob carefully letting her down. "He should have... oh, why..."

Garrus sunk to the floor, sliding against the wall and letting his head rest against it. I was ready to die. That was supposed to be me down there. His side still stung from when Daryn had shoved him aside. As he tried to figure out what exactly had motivated the younger turian to sacrifice himself, Garrus realized that Daryn wasn't just some kid who got in the way: he was the one who cleared it for the rest of them.

"Why'd he do it?" Miranda said softly.

Jacob glanced down at where Liara was wiping her eyes, then helped her to her feet as she composed herself. His gaze came to rest on the door that only moments ago Daryn had jumped out of. He couldn't help but feel a clenching guilt in his throat. He'd been assigned to watch over the kid, and he'd failed. After a moment, he said, "He wanted to be remembered for something good."

Thane, whose head had been bowed and his hands clasped in prayer, looked up. "I will make sure that his sacrifice is made known by his family. His name will no longer be scorned, but revered."

Garrus stared at his gloved hands. What kind of pride is worth a damn that a kid has to die? What kind of twisted, fucked-up society do I belong to that would rather have him throw himself into a war like this than be accepted back into his own home? But maybe Daryn hadn't done it for the people of Palaven. Maybe he'd sacrificed his life in order to make his existence meaningful. Daryn was now no longer just another reclusive deserter who wanted to get away from his overbearing parents: he was a hero. Like Williams. Like Garrus would have been if he'd gone instead.

After a moment, Garrus got to his feet, feeling a thousand pounds heavier than when he'd first sat down. "Specialist Forsythe... Daryn, gave his life for every one of us. For Shepard." The team watched his blue eyes darken. "We owe it to him to keep it together and finish this."

They nodded, accepting those words. They took deep, steadying breaths. One of them had died, but there was still a long way to go. As Garrus strode up to the bridge, a brief flash of memory crossed his mind: one of his last exchanges with Daryn.

"No more running. I'll see this through to the end. If... when I make it home, I promise to do better. Not gonna turn into a complete waste of air, right?"

"Your life is valuable, Daryn. Remember that."

"I'll try."