Chapter 5: Garrus Is Not Left Handed
Garrus quickly decided to try to play stupid. "What is this?" He asked, gesturing towards the armed turrets that sat on the floor. His eyepiece's VI quickly analyzed them: Batarian State Arms make, rapid fire rounds, motion tracking VI, immobile, probably the same kind of turret that he destroyed earlier but floor mounted instead of ceiling…
"Really, Spectre?" Drawled the ambassador from his cushy hoverchair, "Do you honestly believe I will fall for that?"
"Fall for what? What are you talking about?" Replied Garrus with the best innocent expression he could muster. Cover, cover cover, recited a mantra in his head.
He glanced about the room. There were two large pillars that flanked him and if he was fast enough, he could jump back behind the corner he came from. The walls were undoubtedly Prothean, and the pillar, while probably decorative, looked to be Prothean as well.
The ambassador laughed, a full hearty laugh as if Garrus told the funniest joke he'd ever heard.
Now! Decided Garrus and he grabbed his pistol from his hip mount and opened fire at the turret on the left, and jumped towards the pillar on his right. The rounds made sparks as they hit the turret and the machine shuddered. Light burst from the barrel and a roar of gunfire echoed through the room. Garrus shoved himself against the pillar, and pain erupted from his arms and shoulder. He flattened his back to the pillar as best he could, and the heat and shockwave of an explosion passed by his face. He didn't hear the explosion.
The noise wound down, and Garrus's ears were ringing in the silence. "Is this it? Is this the best of the Council's finest?" A distorted voice taunted. The ambassador's voice, Garrus thought. He sounded muted.
Garrus moved to put away his pistol and found his hand empty. He looked around and found it laying on the ground not far out of cover. I must have dropped it when I hit my shoulder, he thought.
Garrus reached for his assault rifle on his back and grimaced in pain. He sighed and braced himself, and reached for it again, this time grabbing it and disengaging it from its mount. He gingerly cradled the gun against his right arm and recalled the position of the leftmost turret. Spirits, he prayed, I am going to need help with this. He carefully swapped the hands holding the gun and positioned it in mirror-image as best as he could of how he would usually hold it, with it braced against his left arm instead of his right.
Garrus poked out of cover facing the leftmost turret and opened fire. His aim was wild but enough disruptor rounds hit and quickly overwhelmed the electronics within the turret, which soon exploded from the strain.
Garrus stepped back into cover just a rocket flew past. He watched it hit a damaged shelf expensive clutter and explode, showing him with debris that bounced off of his shields. The sounds of rocket and gunfire slowed to a halt and the taunting resumed. He breathed hard, his shoulder hurt, and he counted to three.
Garrus leaned out of cover again, towards the rightmost turret and opened fire. The shots went wild again and only a few hit the turret. The turret moved and he ducked back into cover. Rounds flew past and rockets exploded against the pillar. He carefully set his rifle against the pillar and loaded an overload into his omnitool.
He leaned out from the other side of the pillar and launched the overload at the huge, glowing shield that the ambassador sat under, and leaned back into cover and grabbed his assault rifle. Gunfire resounded as Garrus positioned the rifle in his left arm again. Then he leaned out of cover again and fired at the turret. Sparks flew as rounds hit and the parts of the turret exploded.
Garrus ducked back into cover as a rocket exploded. More taunts rang out, or were they rants? He found that he did not care enough to listen and find out.
More rockets exploded against the pillar and back wall. Hasn't he run out yet? Garrus wondered. He activated the replay function of his eyepiece and rewound it to the last time he saw the ambassador's shield and then paused the recording. He searched the image and found the shield generators, large and exposed near the turrets. He sighed in relief that no one had developed a nearly impenetrable personal shield generator that was small enough to actually fit in the shield.
Garrus deactivated his eyepiece's replay function and readied his rifle. He leaned out of cover and fired at one of the generators. The machine overloaded quickly and cut off, and the shield around the ambassador collapsed. An enraged scream filled the air.
Garrus turned and opened fire upon the ambassador as the ambassador aimed the rocket launcher at Garrus. Garrus's shots were wild again and hit the ambassador's hoverchair, the disruptor rounds made short work of the delicate electronics maintaining the hover function and the chair dropped out of the air. The electricity from the rounds and the chair shocked the ambassador and his muscles spammed. His finger squeezed the trigger of the rocket launcher before he hit the ground. The rocket flew up and exploded against the ceiling, showering Garrus and the floor with more debris.
As the ambassador struggled to right himself on his chair and find his rockets to reload his launcher, Garrus stormed up and kicked the launcher out of his hands, which smacked the ambassador in the face. Garrus pointed his rifle down at him and said, "Ambassador Jath'Amon, you are under arrest."
It was at that moment S-Sec burst into the room.
******************** Garrus Is Not Left Handed: End *******************
Talk for reader:
Sorry about the pillars. I know the architecture of the Citadel doesn't use them much as decorative pieces, but Garrus really needed some cover in reach or he would die. I am also sorry about the chapter name. I couldn't think of anything.
Used "mounts" instead of "holsters" as Mass Effect guns do not rest in anything I can recognize as, or call, a holster. The mechanism is more like a wall mount attached to body armor instead of a wall.
Had Garrus shoot lefty because of his injury. I think he is right handed, but I am not sure. It is really hard to shoot a gun if you have a shoulder injury. As the round (armor piercing by the way, causes less damage to flesh because it leaves a fairly clean hole) managed to miss a lot of the important parts of bone, nerve and muscle structure so Garrus retained quite a bit of motion. But he cannot brace a gun against that arm anymore and his range of motion is now limited.
I was asked a question, Why does Medigel violate the Citadel Conventions? The Citadel Conventions, a series of laws created after the Krogan Rebellions, have genetic modification illegal. Medigel, however, uses genetic modification as some of its functions to have the body regenerate the area applied. Genetic modification is probably also used in medigel's manufacture, but the process of its creation is a well-kept secret of the corporation that manufactures it.
If you think a moment, you realize STG violated the Citadel Conventions when they updated the Genophage. Even if the act was cleared by the rest of the Council, the act makes it clear that the rulers of Citadel Space consider genocide preferable to the krogan regaining some of their lost power and that only others besides themselves should obey the Conventions (for whatever rationale they use to justify it).