Integration – Garrus Vakarian
–
The forward battery suited Garrus. It was hardly a fitting place to recover from a serious injury – cramped, no place to sit down, a little too hot. The red glow of emergency lighting was sickly and unnatural, reflecting off of exposed pipes and equipment.
And yet it felt like home. It felt like Omega.
Garrus didn't like the idea – was that hellhole of a station really the only place that felt like home to him anymore? Couldn't he feel that way about Dekehrus City, or Cipritine, or even his little apartment on Aroch Ward? Did he need reminding of that awful place to be content?
Was this really the home for an archangel?
The name had been given to him. When he'd first heard it, he hadn't even known what it meant, and in fact it had only upset him – he had gone to great lengths to keep as unnoticed as possible on Omega, and celebrity status, however soothing to his pride it might have been, could only complicate his plans. As the name had spread, however, he had come to see its value. It gave a fantastical face to him, a dash of the supernatural to dig at his enemies' fears. Archangel incited the public in a way that Garrus Vakarian never could. Archangel was loved and hated so passionately his name alone created ripples of change in a society that had stood static for centuries. When the first man had sought him out, not to kill him but to join him – when Garrus realized the power that Archangel had to inspire hope – he looked up its meaning.
A character from human mythology. An executor of one of their most popular gods. As soon as Garrus had read it he'd been filled with memories of Ashley Williams. He hadn't gotten along with the human, but he'd respected her, and he would regret always that he'd missed his chance to find some peace with her before she'd died on Virmire. He remembered overhearing her speak of her faith to Shepard from across the cargo bay, remembered the pride in her voice, and wondered what she would think of a turian as one of God's angels? He doubted it would go over well. He wasn't entirely sure if he felt worthy – archangels were supposed to be forces of good, of purity, and Garrus' work on Omega had been anything but pure.
But then again, despite the humans' constant ministrations, their god's work was hardly pure either. Garrus read passages from their bible, passages about violence and vengeance, about purging bad elements, about harsh punishments, and had concluded that perhaps Archangel was a fitting name after all.
"Forgive me, Ashley," he muttered to the emptiness of the forward battery.
–
Shepard came to visit him. Garrus turned from the console, beady eyes sweeping over his former friend and mentor. He hadn't gotten a chance to properly ponder the magnitude of Shepard's reappearance while fighting for his life on Omega, and it hit him full force now. The man silhouetted in the doorway looked exhausted but, aside from a few glowing scars criss-crossing his cheeks and arms, it was the same old Shepard. A dead man.
"How are you holding up, Garrus?" he asked, arms crossed.
In truth, Garrus felt like a dead man himself. He'd slept very little in the three weeks since his team's deaths. He'd fought and fought and fought, hunting and killing his friends' murderers, with little keeping him going but a shipload of confiscated stimulants and the desire to take as many of the bastards down with him as he could. He'd never admitted it to himself, but he'd wanted to die, and he'd very nearly gotten his wish. "I am... going to make it," Garrus said, flexing his right mandible under his bandages to test the pain. "Yourself?"
"I'm going to make it too."
A silence passed between them, a new awkwardness as Garrus fought for the right words. What did you say to a friend who had died? A friend that died and then came back to life just in time to see you cross the line he'd taught you never to cross? A friend you let down, though you respected him more than anyone in the galaxy? A friend whose timely arrival had been the only thing that stopped you from throwing your life away in a pointless bid for revenge? Garrus didn't know.
Luckily, Shepard didn't seem in the mood to reminisce either. They'd both been through hell and back, and neither was eager to revisit it anytime soon. "I wasn't talking about your injuries, Garrus," he said after a minute.
"I know. Me neither."
Shepard nodded his understanding. He entered the battery and leaned up against the railing, staring absently down the length of the Normandy's main guns. "Tell me about Omega," Shepard said. He was trying. Starting that slow process of breaking down his allies' personal walls that was his specialty. Garrus remembered it well.
"Actually, Commander, I was thinking of doing a little work on these guns," Garrus said, changing the subject. This was not the place to talk, not with a half-dozen hidden cameras listening in on their every word. He caught Shepard's gaze and flicked his eyes upwards, hoping the Commander would understand him.
We are being watched.
"Thought I'd take them apart, see how they work," Garrus said. "I wanted to warn you, though. There's a chance that I'll have to shut down all the peripheral electronics in the room. Scanners, consoles, that kind of thing. They generate electric fields that can interfere with the calibrations." He zoomed his headpiece display in and out, causing the reticle to dilate in his best approximation of a camera lens.
Shepard nodded his understanding. "Do what you have to do, Garrus," he said, patting Garrus' shrapnel-pocked shoulder. "Maybe while you're in there you'll get some ideas about how to upgrade them."
"Perhaps," Garrus agreed. "I still have a few contacts from my army days."
"Sounds good. We'll talk later." He stared seriously at Garrus, his gaze making it clear that they were only shelving this conversation temporarily.
"I'd like that, Shepard," Garrus said. He meant it.
"Good to have you aboard, Garrus," Shepard said, and left.
2 weeks previously…
–
Vigilantism wasn't easy – Garrus and his team had made a name for themselves as some of the most destructively effective in the field, but Omega had seen their type before. Misguided acts of justice were as much a part of the station as crime was; an endless dance of opposing forces which Omega always won. Each time a do-gooder would rise up and kill a few criminals the station would press on them until they could go no further. Eventually, even the best of them would make a mistake, and they would be crushed under Omega's weight.
This trend had not been lost on Garrus. He'd known Archangel was a temporary position, but he'd done everything he could to make things last. His skills had kept him alive for months, alone, before he'd found a team. Of course, hiding on Omega was easy by yourself, hiding a whole squad was another matter entirely. Twelve soldiers. All different backgrounds. And no room for mistakes. Garrus had been convinced he could do it, however, convinced he could turn his ragtag collection of specialists into a team worthy of the late Commander Shepard. From the very beginning, they'd had rules.
One of the rules: Never fight a straight fight. Straight fights let luck into the equation. Luck will eventually let you down, so find ways not to rely on it. That was one of the big ones, and one of the hardest to teach. Some of his squad had been ready to take on all of Omega all at once, and it had taken a great deal of effort before Garrus had gotten across to them that vigilantism was primarily a waiting game.
Garrus ignored that rule now. His assault rifle kicked in his hands and one of the mercenaries crumpled. Next. He paid no heed to the sound of projectiles sizzling against his shields, ignored the flash of tracer rounds as he fired again, taking off another assailant's head. Next. A third mercenary stepped too close and Garrus slammed the butt of his rifle down on the man's skull, dropping him. Next. One more, across the room, took a concussive round to the chest and slammed against the wall with an audible crunch. He fell to the floor and did not move.
Garrus whirled around, frantically scanning for his next target as the echoes of the fight dissipated and silence filled the room. At length he stopped and lowered his gun, panting heavily while the realization that he was still alive caught up to him. Four more mercenaries down. Archangel still standing. He was getting tired – he hadn't slept more than an hour or two since his team had been killed – and yet the mercs still couldn't kill him. He ignored the bullet he'd taken in the flank and the steady patter of his blue blood against the floor.
One of the mercs – the one he'd struck with his gun – groaned from the floor, and Garrus was on him in an instant. The human cried out in strangled surprise as bloody talons wrapped around his throat and hefted him a meter off the floor. His eyes bulged and he blinked stupidly, the concussion Garrus had given him already muddying his thoughts. Garrus' rage pulsed through his veins. Some part of him – the part still back in the warehouse, still looking at the remains of his teammates – wanted to just squeeze and be done with it.
Another rule: Do what you have to do, but remember you're one of the good guys.
Garrus set the man down, propping him against the wall as he scooped up the man's fallen submachine gun and thrust it under his chin. "Where is the batarian? The one with one foot?" he growled, pressing the barrel forcefully into the man's throat.
The man stared up at him blearily, blood trickling down his face. "The hell are you?" he mumbled.
"I'm Archangel," Garrus said. He flicked his head towards the shiny golden symbol emblazoned on his right arm. He'd worn it less than a week now, ever since the night he'd discovered his team's bodies. He'd made it himself, cut from a piece of ceremonial salarian armor they'd liberated from the Blue Suns. It was a badge of remembrance. He was Archangel, and he would wear it in his team's honor until he met his end. "Where is he?"
"Archangel's… dead."
"I AM ARCHANGEL!" Garrus roared, slamming a foot down into the man's stomach. He yelped and spit a mouthful of blood into his lap. Garrus stared fiercely down at the man, daring him to disagree. He was silent. "Tell me where the batarian is and I will let you live," Garrus continued after a moment, voice quiet. The SMG trembled in his hands a centimeter from the man's throat. The man licked his reddened lips and swallowed nervously.
"S…Sutka? He's right in the," he waved his hand limply behind him, "right in the next room with Tarak. Down the hall." He glanced up, hopeful.
Garrus pulled the trigger and the man's head disappeared under a hail of bullets. His body slumped down with a sickening squish.
One of the good guys…
His next move decided, Garrus worked quickly. He had little doubt Sutka and Tarak had heard his approach and were scrambling to prepare for him – if he ran in blind, he'd die before he'd even caught a glimpse of them. If he wanted them to die with him, he would have to be smart.
Another rule: Use whatever you can find.
Vigilantism didn't pay well, but luckily Omega's markets overflowed with everything they had needed and then some. All they had had to do was wait until someone tried to smuggle it, and then take it for themselves. Expensive guns, omni tools, armor, medical equipment – anything you wanted – someone on Omega was trying to smuggle it somewhere it didn't belong. They'd had a strict no-stealing-from-the-innocent policy, but it was hardly necessary.
Garrus drew a pair of omni-directional mines from a compartment on his belt. Small, easy to conceal, and absolutely lethal at short range, the versatile little explosives had been spirit sent ever since Garrus and his team had lifted them from an Eclipse warehouse a few weeks ago. Though Garrus' mind tried desperately to forget the memory of Mek explaining their proper use (wild hand gesticulations included), his hands remembered perfectly and worked without guidance, plugging the detonators into the panel on the blast door that led to Sutka and Tarak. A couple quick commands on his omni tool later and he'd jury-rigged a deadly booby trap, set to go off on the first person stupid enough to come looking for him. A subtle whine filled the air as he armed both explosives and took shelter behind a large metal shipping container across the room, sniper rifle trained on the door.
He finally set to tending his injuries as he waited.
He didn't have to wait long. Hardly half an hour later, he heard muffled voices from the far end of the door and the tell tale click of the panel being activated. He grit his sharp teeth.
There was a pregnant delay as the door slid into its frame and four armed mercenaries stepped into the room. For a heartbeat, time seemed to stand still. Then the mines went off with tremendous report, filling the room with a flash of blinding light and the shocked screams of the mercenaries. There was an ear-splitting rending of metal as the doorframe blasted apart, sending steel fragments in every direction. The sound of the explosion trailed off, leaving behind the tinkle of shrapnel raining down across the room. Garrus poked his head up to take a look - the mercenaries were nowhere to be seen. He heard shouting from beyond the door as more Suns came running to investigate, and steeled himself.
He leapt up and started firing. His first shot found an unprepared mercenary square in the sternum. He reloaded and fired again – a turian twisted and died in a spiral of blue blood. The mercenaries opened fire, sending projectiles raining down upon him, but Garrus did not flinch. He poured his anger into his weapon, firing over and over again and feeling his resolve only harden as each target fell. He did not hear his shields short out, nor the sound of a bullet grazing his arm.
The most important rule they'd had: Don't die. Never fight a losing battle. Dying for the cause was not as good as living for the cause.
Garrus knew his team would be ashamed of him for breaking this rule, but he didn't care.
Presently...
–
Garrus' talon clenched and the Blue Sun died, his upper half sent spiraling through the air pouring its contents out across Korlus' acid-stained ground.
"The heavy is down," he said, calmly pressing a new heat sink into his rifle and taking aim again.
"Jacob, hit my mark." Shepard's voice was quieter than it had used to be, back when they'd fought against Saren and the geth. Garrus supposed the man's enthusiasm had run out. Garrus felt the same. Empty. Drained. He was doing better than Shepard, however – he could hear the commander's exhausted panting through his headset already. The man was exhausted and they'd been on Korlus less than an hour. Still, Shepard had not lost any of his talent as a squad leader – he still knew exactly what point to strike, what point to cover. Out of shape or not, he set the pace of battle and kept it where he wanted it, and Garrus fell into the familiar rhythm like he'd never left. The mercenaries didn't stand a chance.
Garrus watched from the rear of the battlefield as the corona of blue enveloped one of the mercenaries attempting to flank Shepard. The man flailed helplessly in midair for a moment before Jacob silenced his cries with a quick shotgun blast.
"Garrus, see if you can deal with our friend up on that ledge."
He could and did.
"Down," he said. He heard Jacob's sound of amused disbelief.
"Daaaamn. Nice shot, Garrus."
Garrus said nothing. There was a time in his life that he'd enjoyed the look of a target falling in his scope and the rush of competing with his allies for the most spectacular kills. In the military it was practically all they did – most of them had even hooked cameras onto their scopes after the tales had started to get too far-fetched. His superiors had actively encouraged the game – it fostered unit cohesion and relieved stress – but C-Sec had frowned upon it (and on any modification to their gear), and so he'd let it drop until Wrex had dragged him back into the habit on the first Normandy. He remembered being amazed how much fun it had been, even if the moody krogan inevitably won. It had been a contest among friends.
Jacob was not his friend. The game had died for good with the first Normandy.
"Sometimes you get lucky," Shepard said after a moment, parroting Garrus' words from back on the Citadel. "Ten to one says he misses the next one." Garrus could hear the smile on the commander's face. Some part of him wanted to smile back, to give it another try, but that part was quickly buried under the guilt and anger that had been his constant companion since the loss of his team. He had to stay focused. This wasn't a game. No one – not even Shepard – was going to cost him his focus again.
"Let's keep going."
3 weeks previously...
–
Garrus had seen the spots turn as he worked his way back towards his base of operations. He was in a bad mood already – Sidonis' job had dragged him all the way to Treiza district, lugging a ten-kilo sniper rifle and thirty kilos of armor along for the ride, only for him to arrive and find the meeting place abandoned. No Sidonis, no drugrunners. Nothing.
Mistakes happened, but now, as he stalked his way through the looming shadows of a dozen empty warehouses towards the one where he and his team were holed up this week, an ominous feeling tugged at his scales. He couldn't point a talon at any one thing to make him so worried, but he was utterly convinced all the same. The spots had turned (Shepard would have said it was the calm before the storm, but he had never been to Palaven to see the heatwaves that followed any change in the sun's face). Something... terrible had happened. He quickened his pace, his heartbeat rising.
By the time he'd reached home base (the Warehome, as Mek had sarcastically dubbed it), he was so convinced of disaster that the sight of blood spattered across one of the windows did not slow him in the slightest. He tore up the stairs as fast as his long legs could carry him, assault rifle loaded and ready.
He kicked in the door.
Garrus was a turian, his already steely nerves having been hardened by decades of violent life and rigid society, or he might have been paralyzed at the sight that greeted him. Everything was destroyed. Crates of weapons and supplies – neatly stacked when he'd left a few hours earlier – lay splintered, their contents scattered across the room. Vortash's terminal was ruined, perforated down the center by a line of bullet holes. Windows struck by biotic attacks had been pulverized into powder, which hung about the room like a fresh coat of snow.
Then there were the bodies. Tam, Mek, Vortash. The whole team, along with thirty or forty Blue Suns, armored head to toe in blue and white. Only one remained on his feet: a human merc was picking his way through the wreckage for valuable salvage, several of the team's nicer guns already strapped to his back.
Garrus snapped. He roared in fury and charged, striking the man like a runaway maglev train. The stunned merc's shout of surprise was cut short in a flash as Garrus yanked a blade from his boot and buried it to the hilt in the man's neck. He gurgled and died, adding to the mountains of dead already piled about, but Garrus did not stay to watch.
Tam and Mek were clearly beyond help, but Vortash was still alive. Garrus found the grouchy tech expert underneath a pair of dead mercs. He tossed them aside with a strength he rarely had.
"Vortash!" he shouted, leaning down and patting the batarian's cheek. There was no response. Vortash's breath was coming in shallow spurts, each exhalation sending little rivulets of blood from his nostrils. A pair of bulletholes oozed in his chest. Garrus worked quickly, tearing a strip from Vortash's shirt, wadding it up, and pressing it into the wounds. Scanning the remains of the room, he quickly found one of their med kits and drew out a few syringes of medigel. He injected them as fast as he could, listened to the quiet crackling sound as they started to work, and yet Vortash's breath grew shorter and shorter.
Still Garrus worked to save him, gently dragging him back to prop him against the crates they had once used as a makeshift couch. Even as he tried to focus on his shaking hands, however, his mind worked furiously. Sidonis. Sidonis had done this. That was why he'd sounded so off, so nervous. He'd dragged Garrus away so the Suns could move in on the rest of the team. Sidonis had betrayed them.
No.
"Garrus?" a voice from across the room, "Is that you?"
Garrus sprang up and hurtled himself to the source of the voice. "Weaver! Are you alright?" he asked, desperately ignoring the small lake of blood around her. He grabbed the human woman's hand and squeezed it as tight as he dared. She smiled weakly.
"No," she said. She was a great deal more lucid than Vortash, but her skin had gone almost white as her life leaked out around her. "No, can't say that I am."
Sidonis had done this.
Garrus was at a loss for words. "Wh... what happened?"
"They found us," she said simply. "We made them pay for it, though." Weaver didn't boast lightly – she didn't look like much (the other humans on the team had often joked that she looked like their grandmother) – and yet she was one of the best snipers Garrus had ever seen. Her dinged rifle – a gift from her late husband, she'd once told him – laid at her side along with the five or six men it had killed in its final efforts to protect her. It would never fire again.
Sidonis.
"We need to get you and Vortash help," Garrus said. "Can you walk?"
"No. No," she said, voice stern. "We're done. You get out of here before they come back."
"I'm not leaving you behind."
"Yes you are. We did not do all of this so you could get yourself killed. We all knew how this would end. We all knew our parts in this. You're the Archangel. Omega needs you." From across the room, Vortash gave a deathly gurgle.
"It isn't about me," Garrus protested.
Weaver gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. "It is," she said, eyes filled with pity. "They think you're dead. Tam told them he was Archangel. It... wasn't pretty. But you should have seen the look in his eyes. He was damn proud to do it in your place." Garrus felt overcome with shame. He cast a glance towards Tam's headless body. Melenis Tam had been a mountain among turians, easily twice Garrus' weight. He'd been quiet in life, shy to the point of seeming unkind and yet imperviously honorable and free of fear. A model turian. And now he was quiet again, courtesy of the Blue Suns. They weren't fit to clean his talons, and yet soon his head would hang from their wall.
Sidonis.
"Go, Garrus," Weaver said. Her voice sounded quiet and distant already. "Save the galaxy." Her eyes closed, and Garrus felt her grip slacken.
"Weaver?" he asked, fearful. "Weaver!?" He wouldn't dare shake her. She said nothing. Horrified, Garrus stood, looking for something he could use as a stretcher. He would get her to help. He would.
"Garrus?" She was back.
"Weaver," he said, new hope returning to his eyes. "Give me a second, I'll find some kind of gurney."
She ignored him. "Is Siddy alright?"
Sidonis.
Garrus was silent, paralyzed by indecision. The weight of Sidonis' betrayal hit him full force. Sidonis. His friend. His ally. Betrayed them. It was almost too horrible for words. He looked at Weaver – the last seconds of her life seemed to slow to a crawl as she stared hopefully up at him. She deserved the truth. But could Garrus give it to her?
"Yes, he escaped," he said, hating himself. It was what Shepard would have done.
Weaver smiled contently. "Good," she said, and she drifted off again.
–
By the time Garrus had dragged his team's bodies into the most honorable positions he could, Vortash had died. Garrus put him with the rest, his omnitool set gently atop his sternum.
He sat amongst the mess for a long time, mind empty except for thoughts of Sidonis.
Presently...
–
Garrus stared imperiously across folded hands. The smell of grease was heavy in the air. Forgotten on the floor in front of him were the hundreds of components he'd removed from the guns and neatly stacked. He'd understood their workings with little difficulty – most of the Normandy's weapons technology descended from turian designs, and he'd seen them all in his military years.
He let the pieces lay. His mind was quiet, just listening to the pulse of pain in his right mandible. He considered going to Chakwas to get some more painkillers, but quickly dismissed the thought. His team was dead, and it was his fault. He could endure a few superficial wounds without the comfort of medication.
His thoughts turned to Shepard again. He knew the commander would be coming for him again soon. Shepard was too damn nice for his own good – he wasn't going to let Garrus stew in his guilt like he deserved. Poor bastard had been killed and brought back to life and still wanted to put his own demons on hold to fix Garrus'.
Garrus sighed. Shepard was a good friend. His only friend these days, if he was honest.
As if on cue, the door opened.
"Shepard," Garrus said, lifting his head, but he stopped as Engineer Donnelly entered the room, tripping over one of the gun pieces on the floor.
"What... the... hell?" Donnelly asked no one in particular. His eyes widened as they took in the scene. He stooped to pick up a piece of the targeting computer, holding it up to his eyes and giving a little gasp of crushing disbelief. His brows narrowed and he cast an angry glare at Garrus. "What did you do!?" he demanded, shaking the piece in Garrus' face.
"Research," Garrus replied.
"Wonderful! Jus' goddamn wonderful!" Donnelly shouted, tossing his hands up in exasperation and surveying the mess. "I come up here investigatin' a power short and I find the main guns spread across the goddamn ground!? It's gonna take me three days to get this put back together! Just so the turian could satisfy his curiosity!"
Garrus rolled his eyes. "I'm not an idiot. I spent six years as a gunnery officer aboard a Phalanx-frigate in the turian fleet."
"Well congratulations!" Donnelly said sarcastically, vaulting over the railing to stare into the disassembled barrels. "What if we came under attack!?" He leaned down into the barrel, his angry mutters echoing through its length.
"We would make do with the Normandy's other armament," Garrus said calmly. "I informed Commander Shepard and Joker that I would be taking them offline. I don't owe you an apology."
Donnelly popped back out of the barrel, face red and oil-stained, and climbed back over the railing. "Oh yes you do. I'm the ship's engineer and you're a bloody merc. Keep your hands off the ship before you get us all killed."
Garrus' eyes narrowed in anger. "I am not a merc," he said darkly. "And I've been on the Normandy a lot longer than you have."
"I don't care if you're the President of Earth," Donnelly responded, unconcerned over Garrus' mounting rage. He clicked two of the gun components back together. "Leave the ship maintenance to me. If I need someone murdered in the streets I'll give you a call."
Garrus felt his temper flare. The rage he'd been quietly carrying for weeks came surging to the surface, fanned to an inferno by Sidonis' betrayal. "Take that back."
"Yeah? Or what?"
Garrus felt the man's jaw break under his fist.
–
Shepard did come to visit him that evening, as he put the final pieces back into the guns. He looked up at the sound of the door. Shepard stood, framed in the light and looking as haggard as ever.
"Commander, I apologize for my behavior," Garrus said immediately, climbing over the railing. "I... I lost my temper. It was inappropriate. I'm not trying to make things difficult for you. I just... I couldn't st-"
Shepard raised a hand, silencing him. "I'm not here to yell at you, Garrus," he said quietly, taking a seat on the bench.
Garrus frowned. "You should be," he said. "There are no excuses for my actions."
"Don't beat yourself up about it. Tension are high. Joker told me that he and Donnelly have been fighting all week. Incidentally, he asked me to give you this." Shepard was straight-faced as he held out a little folded piece of polymer paper. 'Hit 'em with the stick' was written across the top, just above a short list of names of crewmembers Joker wanted beat up next.
Garrus set it aside. "Is Donnelly alright?"
"He's fine. He's got a bruise to rival yours, but Chakwas said he'll be good as new in a few days." Garrus looked ashamedly at his feet. "Speaking of which," Shepard said, "did you fix the… uh," he flicked his eyes up to the hidden cameras.
"Yes, Commander," Garrus said, eager to change the subject. "Turns out what I told you was right on target. When I set the guns into their calibration mode all the peripherals shut down automatically so they don't throw off the calibrations. So as long as I keep the calibration mode on, the cameras stay offline and nobody's the wiser."
Shepard raised an eyebrow. "But won't someone get suspicious if you spend the whole mission calibrating?"
Garrus shook his head. "First rule of space gunnery, Shepard. You can never be too calibrated." Shepard shrugged, accepting that explanation.
They fell silent. It was a few minutes before Shepard broke the quiet again. "What's up with you, Garrus?" he asked, staring lazily into the ceiling.
"I'm fine, Shepard," Garrus said, perhaps a little too forcefully.
"Didn't say you weren't. But you're not yourself. What's eating you?"
"Don't worry about me Commander," Garrus said, dodging the question. "I'll do my job."
"I am worried about you. You're my friend. Someone I trust. You don't know how much it means to me to have you here. Having you sniping on Korlus? Christ, Garrus, They didn't know what hit them."
Garrus smirked. "Yes, well, at least one of us has been keeping in shape since Ilos."
"Kiss my ass, Garrus. I'm working on it." They laughed, and Garrus suddenly felt fifty pounds lighter.
"It's... good to be here, Shepard," he said. "I just... It's going to take me some time. I was part of a team on Omega..." He hung his head. "It didn't end well."
"Perhaps someday you'll tell me about it."
Garrus frowned. Part of him wanted to share the story right now – it would feel good to get it off his chest. But another part knew exactly what Shepard would say. That it wasn't his fault. That he had done the right thing. That his team's death was a horrible accident and that he had to let it go. True things, perhaps. Things he needed to hear, definitely. But they weren't things he could hear yet. His team deserved better.
"I will," he promised. "Maybe when you tell me what it's like to die."
"It's a deal. We'll save the galaxy again first, and then we'll share our sob stories until we're all cried out."
They fell silent. Garrus had always respected that about the Commander – unlike many of his species, he was content sometimes to just let things remain unsaid. After a few minutes, Garrus opened his mouth to speak. "I'm going to lie low for a while," Garrus said (he'd heard that Engineer Daniels had not taken his mauling of her partner in good humor at all). "But tell Donnelly I put his guns back together."
"Tell him yourself. I have a job for you."
Garrus raised a plated brow.
Shepard folded his arms across his chest. "I don't trust Cerberus, Garrus," he said simply.
"Well neither do I, but I can hardly judge them after the things I've done."
"You can and you should. They're bad people. They are planning to betray us and I am going to be prepared for them when they do."
"If that day comes I'll be at your back, Commander," Garrus promised, not quite seeing where this was going.
"Good. Here's what I want you to do, then. I want you to apologize to Donnelly. I am assigning you two to rework some of our electrical systems together. Ostensibly it's to force you to get along, but really I want you to find out what you can about him. Keep your eyes and ears open. See what you can get out of the ship's computers when you're working on them. I want to know what Cerberus is up to." He gestured up to the ceiling. "That camera? You saw it right away. I don't have the head for that kind of stuff, but you do, Garrus. I need you on my side. Can you do that for me?"
Garrus frowned. He did not relish the idea of working alongside Donnelly, even if it was for a greater cause. Still, his answer was obvious. "Of course I can, Commander."
"Good." Shepard stood up. "And try not to punch him again, would you?" He opened the door to leave.
"Commander?" Garrus said. Shepard stopped. "This is really just an attempt to get poor, traumatized Garrus to come out of his shell and make a friend, isn't it?"
Shepard shook his head. "No. It is an attempt to get poor, traumatized Garrus to find me the information I need to survive." He smiled. "Though if you do accidentally make a friend besides me, I promise I won't be jealous."
–
That night, Garrus was trying to think up what he'd say to the engineer when the door opened behind him. To Garrus' surprise, Donnelly walked in. An ugly bruise peeked out from around the edges of the bandage on his jaw. He gave a bemused smile and thrust a bottle into Garrus' hands.
"Here," He muttered. Garrus lifted it to his eyes. "It's just water," Donnelly said sheepishly. "Ship doesn't have any dextro beer on board, so it'll have to do." He opened his own bottle and took a swig, wincing at the pain in his jaw.
"Shepard put you up to this?" Garrus asked, opening the water.
"No, not really," Donnelly said, leaning on the railing to avoid looking at him. "Now shut up or this'll be even harder." He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Garrus. Some of the things I said... They were uncalled for. I know you're not a merc. Hell, you were on the team that stopped Saren. I shouldn't have doubted you."
"I'm... sorry too," Garrus admitted.
They fell silent, enjoying their drinks to the hum of the main guns.
"So. Phalanx class, huh?" Donnelly asked after a moment. "You ever get to fire the X-T81 main guns?"
"Only once in combat. Batarian pirate ship."
"Bet it was pretty wicked."
Garrus smirked. "Pretty 'wicked' indeed," he admitted, remembering the way the plumes of escaping air had glowed on the pirate ship's hull after the T81's fragmentation slugs had exploded outwards.
"They let women in the turian army?" Donnelly asked. He stared pointedly away from Garrus, trying to act nonchalant, but even Garrus recognized the embarrassed blush on his cheeks.
"...Really?" he asked, dubious.
"Yes really. Never seen a Her-ian. Curious."
"Well... yes," Garrus said after a moment. "There was this one scout in my unit. Beautiful."
"What did she look like?"
"Narrow waist," Garrus said, letting his mind take him back. Donnelly nodded his approval. "Blue eyes and clan markings, like mine."
"Sexy," Donnelly said.
"Mandibles sharp enough to cut glass," Garrus said, picturing said mandibles vividly. He hadn't thought about Shara in years – she really had been a gorgeous creature.
"Err... okay," Donnelly said, a little hesitant. "Love a girl with sexy mandibles."
They stared at each other for a moment before bursting into laughter. Garrus shook his head in disbelief. Was he actually enjoying Donnelly's company? Damn Shepard and his manipulations. He took another sip of water.
Donnelly clapped him roughly on one armored shoulder. "Keep goin'."
–
Codex Entry: Turian Vision
–
Like humans, turians are primarily a visual species, and put a great deal of psychological weight on how objects appear. The specifics and evolution of their vision, however, differ greatly from that of humans, a fact to which evolutionary psychologists attribute many of the cultural differences between the two species.
Human vision is generally thought to have evolved primarily from a need to recognize and distinguish brightly colored fruits. As brains expanded and the earliest primate cultures developed, the need for recognizing individual faces and the subtle muscle movements that made up facial expressions became tantamount for surviving in the social landscape. These factors are believed to have influenced the evolution of primate vision, which tends to recognize colors over a broad spectrum and is well suited for noticing small, relatively-static details.
Environmental constraints on Palaven, however, forced turians down very different evolutionary pathways. High levels of solar radiation pressured most Palaveni lifeforms into developing thick, protective surfaces, filled with an array of metallic pigments to help reflect high-energy radiation. Turian eyes are no exception – on Palaven, soft tissues like human eyes would develop cataracts in a matter of days, and so turian eyes are small and hard, loaded with many of the same light-reflecting pigments as the skin, and sunken within bony sockets. The pigments block most incoming light and limit the turians' color vision – turians cannot see red or purple.
Like humans, turian vision is stereoscopic, giving them excellent depth perception. Unlike humans, however, who are believed to have inherited stereoscopic vision from early primates who used it to judge the distance between branches in their arboreal habitats, turian stereoscopy is a result of their niche as apex predators. Turian vision can be compared in many ways to Earth's birds of prey – they have phenomenal distance vision that can track movement from kilometers away. Their low-light vision is also quite sharp, in large part due to their eyes' reflective pigments which, like the reflective tapetums in the eyes of many Earth vertebrates, help efficiently channel light through the eye.
Turians' armored bodies had another important evolutionary consequence for their psychology: unlike humans, whose soft faces convey a range of expression through the interaction of dozens of small muscles working in concert, turians have relatively stiff, inflexible faces. Expression in turians is therefore typically conveyed through motion, not only of the head but of the motile mandibles on either side of the face. Turian eyes process motion very quickly (in fact, computer displays with refresh rates designed for other species often look choppy to turian observers), and the difference between a happy and sad turian may often be found only in the precise speed at which they flick their mandibles. Needless to say, turians and more soft-bodied sentients often have considerable difficulty interpreting one another's expressions.
The evolution of turian vision has several key ramifications for their culture and society. First, their motion-attuned sight, along with fast, predatory reflexes, makes them naturally talented marksmen, and turian snipers and gunners are regarded as the galaxy's most accurate.
More broadly, turians, like humans and other visual species, tend to put a great deal of cultural stock in appearances. Unlike humans, however, who use visual cues as a means of differentiating individuals, turians primarily use visual cues as a means of integrating themselves into larger groups. Turians are tetraploid organisms, phenotypically stable and visually less variable than individuals of many other species. That said, turians tend to have a very acute awareness of their own appearances and their dedication to looking like they are supposed to look can often be mistaken for vanity. Part of this visual fixation may descend from their armored plates – mature plates are predominantly dead tissue, virtually devoid of feeling, and thus adult turians require frequent careful preening to check themselves for hidden injuries and to keep themselves clean.
Turians are, while not necessarily xenophobic, sensitive to visual stereotypes. Most turians believe that an individual's traits can be reasonably understood just by knowing to which groups the individual belongs. Thus, skin colors (which in turians often reliably signal an individual's origin – young turians raised in heavy sunlight will develop darker hides than turians raised aboard ships, though after adolescence the color is essentially permanent) and clan markings are considered not only badges of pride but badges of integration. Turians – especially adult turians – who lack tattoos or otherwise violate the visual norms of turian culture are often stigmatized and thus turian parents often get their children tattooed at a very young age. This tendency towards visual stereotyping is the chief reason most turians rarely remove their armor – armor is identified so tightly with their militant society that many turians feel uncomfortable (or even dishonest) wearing anything else.
Turian fixation on looking 'correct' means that any body modification – earrings and other jewelry, body paint, off-color clothing, non-clan-tattoos, etc – is very rare, except in turian societies where it has become normalized as part of the widely-accepted turian appearance. Though there are no laws expressly forbidding visual accouterments, they are typically seen as signs of rebellion and a lack of commitment to duty. It goes without saying, then, that turians who do choose to alter their appearance or associate themselves with some particular mark or logo generally take these symbols seriously – turians see their appearance as inextricably attached to their identity and only violate the social norms after considerable thought.
Though turians often go to great pains to fulfill the visual status quo, there are also stigmas against hiding individual differences. Scars, especially, are considered to be a part of their wearer's identity, and concealing them in order to fit in is generally seen as tantamount to lying, or at least self-delusion.
Turians, like humans, appreciate visual arts. Owing to their motion- and distance-based, rather than detail- and color-based, vision, they tend to be especially fond of dance, animation, and other moving arts, and are easily impressed by scale (like, for instance, massive architecture). They have very little interest in so-called abstract art, however, and tend only to appreciate the beauty in real objects that have some spectacular, functional awesomeness.
–
UPDATED 09/26/21 – Mostly trimming superfluous prose and fixing formatting. Minor tweaks to continuity. Slightly reduced the cringy, maudlin onerousness of the first few sections.
A/N: So, here's chapter 6. Garrus is one of my favorite characters and this chapter was a lot of fun to write. I have to give huge thanks to my new beta, Angurvddel, who has traded an already utterly-excessive number of emails full of Mass Effect speculation with me already, and was of great help in deciding what fit the story and what didn't. (He/she actually convinced me to CUT a scene, which I'm sure you authors out there know is an awful hard conclusion to arrive at when you wrote it). I am aware (again, my new beta told me) that this codex entry is a bit drier than previous ones. My apologies for that - I tried to think up something more gimmicky but it just wasn't coming to me, so I decided to share some of what I've been writing about turians for my other, even nerdier project. Hopefully it isn't too boring to get through.
On Donnelly's possible OOCness - Originally I planned to have Garrus maul Hawthorne or one of the other nearly-nameless crewmembers, so I could depict them as a bigot without stepping on a beloved personality. But then I decided Ken needed more screen time anyway and I ended up conjuring up a whole Garrus-And-Ken-As-Bros subplot. So it's Ken. What can I say, he had a bad day.
So, almost everybody who reviewed chapter 5 voiced their support for Kelly Chambers, so I take what I said back. That said, I feel more confident in saying that Chapter 7's main POV is not a super popular character, and, as it turns out, is even harder to write than Kelly! Stay tuned. It'll go up when I finish chapter 8.