OMG! A PONY!

Liberties taken with Wrex: Family Armor sidequest. Unfortunately, this ended up shorter than I was expecting. Writers' block. :( Thanks to waiting4morning for input on this chapter and being an awesome cheerleader when I needed it. (I did resist writing Wrex as a grouchy old man. But only just.)

Retcons, retcons everywhere: Due to ME3, I've got to change a few minor things, but won't be doing so for a while yet. This story will remain spoiler-free where it can. I will be calling Adams "Greg," Pressly "Charles," and Dr. Chakwas "Karin" from here on out though since they were given first names in the game. I'll go back and change their names in the story later. An apology in advance if this causes any confusion.

I intend to resume my twice a week schedule; I just haven't had the inclination to do so for a while because of writers' block. Apologies.

The thrum of Normandy's drive core reverberated against the deck. Wrex moved restlessly within the cargo bay, already having grabbed his weapons. Kaidan snapped his armor breastplate into place and looked up as the elevator door slid open to reveal the recon team. Williams removed her helmet, her neat hairstyle of this morning gone. In its place was a shaggy mop that she ignored. Helmet hair came with being a marine.

The team walked in his direction, towards the armor lockers. He went back to securing everything in place, running a diagnostic on each piece of ceramic as he connected it to the hardsuit's mainframe to check for any errors. As a marine, he was trained in the operation of heavier armors, but as a biotic he preferred the lighter-weighted armors. Heavier armors required physics threshold modifiers on the joints in order to execute most of his mnemonics. Giving up protection for biotic damage was a choice he'd taken after seeing the horror of the attack on Eden Prime. He couldn't afford to hold back.

"Skipper said she's on her way down," Williams told him as she stepped up to her locker. Her voice was clipped. She opened it and slammed her helmet in. Kaidan was tempted to ask what was wrong, but thought better of it. He'd let her cool down first. Knowing the Chief, it was probably an after effect of an adrenaline rush.

"Thanks."

By the time Shepard arrived, Kaidan was dressed and had his weapons checked out of the armory. He even had time to put in an order for the newest patch to the operating system of his Logic Arrest to download when they got back from the mission.

Tuntau would have been a nice place to visit if weren't for the methane atmosphere and radiation from the hypergiant.

And the band of turian pirates.

Shepard groaned and brought her hand up, but thought better of it and dropped it to her side again. "Wrex." Kaidan felt sure she would have pinched the bridge of her nose were it not for her SCABA faceplate.

"So much for 'Trojan Horse,'" he said as he hunkered down behind a make-shift barricade. Two rounds nearly punched through his barrier. Whatever the pirates were using was military-grade. Definitely illegal outside of the Terminus Systems. It might have been illegal inside the Terminus Systems. Who knew?

"It would have worked if we didn't have a krogan," Shepard insisted. She primed a grenade and threw it into the fray.

Kaidan chuckled despite the situation. "Should I make a memo? 'Krogans don't work for infiltration missions.'"

"Noted," Shepard groused and ducked. The explosion took out a few of the pirates. The shockwave knocked Wrex back.

"Watch it, Shepard!" the krogan yelled as he picked himself off the ground. "Get the door, not me!" He tossed a few of the pirates into the air with his biotics. Kaidan took a few shots at them with his Kessler, wasn't surprised when their shields held. He charged an EMC and threw it into Wrex's biotic field. Once their shields were down, Wrex took them out with his shotgun.

"This armor better be worth it," Shepard said quietly as she warped the door and depressurized the base.

Kaidan swallowed. Most of the pirate gang was outside firing at them. They were going to die anyway. Wrex was busily ripping off arms and Kaidan, himself, had clipped quite a few armors, dragging out breathable air.

It didn't take the rotten taste out of his mouth, and it was a decision he was glad he didn't have to make.

Wrex charged in, but Shepard didn't follow. "Keep them from flanking him," she ordered. "Once we've cleaned up here, we'll go in guns blazing."

Wrex's voice came over the comm, "You two are getting all the fun."

"No one said you had to go in right now, Wrex," Shepard told him.

After years of looking for his grandfather's armor…

So close.

It was just a piece of junk, Wrex reasoned. But it was his junk. And he wanted it back. The turian bastard had no right to it.

It was a relic. A leftover from a time before. The krogan were dying. There was no going back.

Neutered.

Females willingly accepting the Void when they couldn't bear children.

There was no saving the krogan from their current ways. He couldn't help the krogan. They didn't want to be helped. He had tried, and he had failed. In the terms of one of the human whelps, he had failed spectacularly.

And still bore the scars of the Hollows.

Of Jarrod.

But preserving them…

Not preserving them as the galaxy believed the krogan to be. To the Void with that. The galaxy could swallow itself whole and leave them alone for all he cared. No, it was preserving the Old Ways. What it meant to truly be Krogan. That had to mean something.

Didn't it?

Wrex shook his head, ignoring the thoughts that only took him in circles, and trudged on, shotgun at the ready. Thinking in circles only made his head hurt.

The vented bunker had caught most of Tonn Actus' remaining men by surprise. Not that there were that many left inside. When turians fought, they usually threw themselves at the enemies in waves meant to whittle down defenses. Of course, "throwing themselves at the enemy" wasn't really how they operated. Everything was calculated, organized. Efficient. Even the way the pirates operated was based on their damned military doctrine.

Bastards.

He nodded in approval as he looked over the bodies, his lip curling in hate. Damned turians. Dead turians. Many were still in the stages of putting on armor. They hadn't been expecting a fight from Shepard with her trade of a krogan battlemaster for plate armor from the Rachni Wars. In fact, at first, the pirates seemed to think Shepard would help them when he jumped out of the Mako with a roar.

Stupid turians.

Of course, he was supposed to wait until they were inside the bunker to turn on them. Something to do with ponies? Damn translator. What the hell was a pony, anyway? Sounded edible.

But… to the Void with that. He wasn't going to allow a damned turian to gloat over his capture. Not even for Shepard.

Shepard knew how to be ruthless when she needed to be and knew how to negotiate when the time was right. A formidable opponent. If she ever turned against him, he'd have the fight of his life on his hands. Might even be as good as his fight with Aleena.

He found Tonn Actus in his office, armor on. Too bad someone forgot to tell him the air was rushing out. The turian was laid over his desk reaching for his helmet on the floor. Wrex scoffed and went to the safe behind the desk punching in the code his contact had given him. Shepard would probably kill him when she found out the price of the code and the information, but it was worth it.

Besides, Shepard knew how to be ruthless enough to meet Helena Blake's price.

The last pirate dropped with an audible squelch as his head exploded from Shepard's shotgun blast. Dark blue splattered the bunker behind him, the parched, cracked ground greedily absorbing the alien blood.

Kaidan checked his HUD for hardsuit signatures. Inquiry: None. "No contacts, Commander."

"Wrex?"

"On my way out."

"Good." Shepard turned away from the dead turian and started towards the Mako, her footsteps crunching on the gray silicate. "Normandy, base is clear. Rendezvous in thirty minutes at the DZ. Tell Liara we've got time for her to explore the Prothean ruins if she's in gear."