Garrus ducked behind a crate, drawing his Mantis close. He scanned the room with his visor; three heartbeats pulsed directly in front of him, and thirty-two degrees to the left of those were another four. Yet another group – a set of two – were fifteen degrees up and over to the right of those, hunkered down on an upper level that encircled the room. Garrus turned his head, searching. He spotted the salarian from earlier, unconscious but alive just beside the elevator. But where was-
Sparks flew inches away from his face as a bullet grazed the crate's metal. Garrus cursed and ducked further down. He took a quick glance at his monitor and then popped around the corner, detonating a quick Overload followed by two pulls of the trigger before retreating back down. One of the heartrates cut off as his bullet found its mark in the owner's right eye, but the other merely spiked as his second bullet took down what was left of the merc's shield. Garrus reloaded as he scanned through the room again, searching for the familiar bio readings he'd somehow missed in his first sweep.
Damnit, Shepard, where the hell are you?
Seemingly in answer, a heart rate spiked from the loft-like area in front of him, jumping erratically before abruptly disappearing. He turned his head in its direction, watching through his monitor's thermal readings as a new silhouette raced towards the remaining merc. Garrus exhaled, releasing the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding as he watched Shepard close in on her target. She paused as she came up behind it, placing her gun inches away from the oblivious mercs skull.
A sharp series of cracks echoed through the room and the merc's heart rate cut off.
"That's two to one, Garrus. I expected better from Archangel." Shepard's voice crackled in his ear.
Garrus flicked his mandible as he ducked out of his cover and fired, finishing the merc he'd left earlier. "Figured I'd give you a head start, try and make things fair." he said as he knelt back down.
Shepard laughed, the sound raw and full, and Garrus felt his own pulse quicken in response. "Just try and keep up this time, Vakarian." she almost sang as static fizzed in his ear, telling him she'd reCloaked. "Switching to Cryo ammo."
"Two on your six." Garrus told her as the pair of mercs reached her level. He gave a quick survey of the room, settling on a group of three that had circled around to his right in an attempt to flank him. He doubled over and ran to cover behind another crate, feeling his shield flicker as it held against the enemy's fire. Garrus took in a quick breath and then released it as he stood up and aimed. "Firing Concussive shot!" he yelled, pulling the trigger and sending the modded ammo soaring.
It smashed into the middle merc, taking down his biotic barrier and blasting the entire group into the wall behind them. Garrus took the opportunity, finishing the biotic with a shot to the head before the other two had a chance to shake off their stupor. Then he let loose, whittling down one's shield with four consecutive shots before finally retreating back down behind his own cover. He searched for Shepard as he reloaded.
She'd disappeared from the upper level, leaving two fresh bodies to join the other pair. His eyes darted from the stairs to the ladders that led up to the loft, looking for her thermal readings and finding nothing. He swore inwardly as adrenaline pulsed through him. How the hell was he supposed to watch her back if he couldn't even find the damn thing to begi-
Something cold shot past him, close enough that the hide on the good side of his face tingled from the chill. A strangled gurgle followed it and Garrus spun around, gun aimed and his finger hovering over its trigger. He lowered it slightly as he spotted the now ice encased merc just feet away from him, frozen with its own gun raised in his direction. Quick as a breath, another bullet whizzed past Garrus and sent the merc shattering.
"Watch your ass, Garrus." Shepard's voice was hard, any traces of her earlier teasing gone. Later, when they got back to the ship, Garrus knew she'd make a joke out of it all. She'd mock him for his slow reflexes. She'd say he was getting old, tell him he was going soft from sitting in that battery calibrating all the time. But right now, here in the middle of it all, she wasn't that Shepard. She was his commander, and she didn't have time for the friendly jibes. All she had time for was keeping them both alive and making sure there was a later back on the ship.
And Garrus knew this because once he'd been the one saying that very thing. Once, in a different time in a place not unlike this one, he'd been the leader whose only purpose had been to get his men out alive.
He tightened his grip on his Mantis, turning back around and firing a shot into the eye of the shieldless merc. He denoted an Overload on the other one as the first dropped, and then sent his next bullet through the middle of the stunned merc's forehead.
Garrus might have failed his men – his friends – back then, but he would be damned if he failed Shepard.
Shepard uncloaked as the last merc fell, lowering her gun slowly as she scanned the room for any they might have missed. She'd counted ten mercs when the assault had begun, and she counted ten bodies now when it was over.
"Five to five, Shepard." Garrus' voice said in her ear. She turned her gaze to where he was standing on the lower level of the floor, looking up at her with his head cocked to the side and his rifle held loosely in his hands. "Guess that head-start helped you out after all, hmm."
Her lip twitched. "Not as much as my bullets did you, Vakarian."
Garrus glanced towards the mess of merc and ice behind him. "What that? Come on, Shepard, did you forget you're looking at the Arch-Angel? I knew he was there the whole time."
"Uh-huh."
Shepard collapsed her Widow and rehooked it behind her back as she headed down the flight of stairs beside her. She paused at the end of it, bending down to look at the small pile of corpses behind a nearby group of crates. Three humans, all taken down by headshots. Smug bastard, she thought, already imagining the look Garrus would have on his face at his handiwork.
"Admiring the view, Shepard?" Garrus asked, coming up next to her. She glanced up at him form the corner of her eye and bit down a smirk when she saw she really had pegged his expression; mandibles gently spread, showing just a hint of his sharp teeth, and eyes slightly narrowed, the bright blue burning with the intensity of some emotion. Satisfaction, maybe? Pride? "I could give you some pointers, you know. All you have to do is ask."
She narrowed her own eyes. "I didn't see you complaining about my aim when it was saving your ass, Garrus."
His mandibles twitched. "Again with that? And I'm not saying you don't know your way around a gun, Shepard. But there is a certain difference between proficiency and…well, artistry, really."
Shepard rolled her eyes and turned back to the bodies in front of her. The mercs – two women and one man – all wore some sort of armor, but lacked any real cohesion aside from that. The colors and designs were varied, and Shepard could find nothing that even remotely indicated the three had once been united together in merc band. "Whoever these guys are, they're obviously just starting out."
She saw Garrus nod in her peripherals. "Their tactics were sloppy. Didn't look like they were used to fighting in teams."
"New recruits, then?" Shepard's forehead creased with concentration. The salarian said they'd only been here a couple of days, so unless they brought these guys to Omega with them…
"That merc must have lied to us, Shepard. There's no way this Ghost guy could have recruited so many new members in just a couple of days, trust me." Garrus said, finishing her thought. She saw his grip tighten on his Mantis and felt her own hand twitch in response.
"And they were waiting for us. Somehow they knew we were coming here." Shepard continued. Setting all this up must have taken a lot of effort on their part, so why risk it by sending the recruits to catch us?
Unless the recruits weren't meant to catch us.
"Garrus," Shepard said, reaching back for her Widow as she began to stand up. "Get re-"
She hissed softly as floodlights blazed to life around them, their intensity stinging her unadjusted eyes. In one motion, swift from habit, she uncollapsed her Widow and reached to activate her Tactical Cloak.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Shepard." a voice called from somewhere above them, "Not unless you want us to pump that turian there with plasma."
Shepard paused, throwing a glance at Garrus. He had his Mantis up and aimed into the white mass of light above them, probably relying more on his visor than his own sight. His eyes met hers for a moment, then he sweeped the room with them before coming back to hers. They're all around us, the movement said.
She blinked in acknowledgement and turned her focus to where she'd placed the voice, just above them in the center of the upper landing. It was a vague position, but she was pretty sure the voice was close enough to her target for a Sabotage to work if she was careful. It'll be risky, but if we move fast enough the explosion should give us-
"I mean it, Shepard. Try anything and your friend dies." the voice said, making her hesitate as something flickered in the back of her mind. I know that voice, she realized as she narrowed her eyes to try and see past the light. But where…? "But then that's never really mattered to you before, has it Commander?" the voice continued as a silhouette walked forward, growing clearer with each step.
Shepard felt her breath catch as she recognized the face that looked down at her.
After all, how couldn't she? She'd spent weeks etching every detail of that face – along with the forty-nine others – into her memory after what happened on Akuze, pouring over their personal files again and again and again until her eyes blurred and burned. It was the face that had been in her dreams night after night, broken with fear and pain as it was pulled underground by something as dark and terrifying as a nightmare itself. It was the face whose screams were so loud they'd stayed with her even when she would jerk awake, her body coated with cold sweat and heaving with adrenaline.
It was the face of a dead man who'd never died, a ghost she'd thought she'd finally put to rest years ago.
"Toombs?" she whispered.