MASS EFFECT ANDROMEDA SERIES II

CHAPTER 22

Over two weeks later…

"We are all set to go…just give the word, Archangel," Sidonis' voice came through Garrus' commlink. He was crouched down behind cover with his Salarian squad mate. The Salarian was not really a talker but his bio was that he used to be on the STG. He was good with explosives and managed to rig up the nearby facility that the Eclipse used for illegal arms. This was practically their storehouse and they would divide it up to their "dealers" to sell it in the streets and off world.

"Standby, I need to verify something," Garrus maneuvered gingerly around the Salarian, making sure he didn't blow their cover. He had to be certain of something. He raised up slowly and used the scope of his sniper rifle to get a closer view of the facility's main entrance. He noticed movement ahead, which drew his attention. Several mercs were going inside to pick up their daily stash orders and one Salarian merc who seemed to be the ring leader stood at the door to keep a close eye on their product. The well-known paint markings over his eye gave him away, it was Dorvan, one of the top operatives. More importantly, he was the brother of Jaroth, who ruled the gang on Omega. Dorvan arrived moments earlier via transport. Lowering his rifle, he got back into cover beside his partner. He tapped his communicator, "Here we go." The STG member beside him took out the detonator and pressed the button.

Within seconds, an explosion was heard first as the charges all around the facility blew causing chaos and an inferno on the unsuspected mercs. Many of their bodies were flown to the side, charred beyond recognition. Others that were lucky enough to be standing just far away were thrown, including Dorvan. Garrus' team led by Sidonis rushed in with their guns blazing to take down the remaining mercs. The Eclipse stumbled as they tried to get a grip on the situation.

Garrus raised his head up again to see the progress, but only see that Dorvan was moving away towards his transport. Leaping over the crate he was using, he moved ahead and switched to his pistol, a more short-range weapon. Seeing the assault coming, Dorvan yelled out in frustration as he switched on his shields and launched an attack drone. Dodging the drone's attack, Garrus shot past its shields, immobilizing it. "You bastard!" Dorvan screamed in rage as he knew he wouldn't be able to get to his transport. He raised his sub-machine gun and took a blinding aim.

"Pathetic," Garrus muttered under his breath, seeing this, he raised his sidearm and took aim as well. Setting his sights within seconds, he fired, hitting the Salarian's shields relentlessly. Finally, one round managed to pierce through and struck the Salarian squarely in the forehead. He was killed instantly before being able to fire off a single shot. His lifeless body slumped up against the transport. Turning his head, he noticed that Sidonis' team managed to take everyone else down. His men yelled in triumph. With a sigh of relief, he went inside the facility to see the place stacked to the ceiling with all kinds of arms. Pivoting around, he saw the look of anticipation on his men's faces. "Take what we need and let's try to sell as much as we can carry out of here." With cheers, his men raced inside to take their pick of the bounty.

Sidonis walked up to Garrus as he looked on, "We could transport all of it. I mean he did leave us this vehicle," he patted the vehicle beside him.

"No," Garrus shook his head. "It will be hard to stay out of sight with that. They probably have a damn tracker on it. Leave it here."

Sidonis bent down to check on one of the charred bodies and chuckled, "Poor bastards didn't see it coming. What do we do with them?"

Studying all the corpses, Garrus felt a rush of pleasure throughout his body. He was getting the payback he wanted against the mercs. They will finally feel the pain that they inflicted on others on Omega. "Leave them here. Let Jaroth see."

"He will be pissed. I'm sure he will put a pretty big price on your head," Sidonis stood back up to address his friend.

"Good," Garrus stared off in the direction that they came. "Finish it up and tell them they have to leave in five minutes." He slung his sniper rifle back over his shoulder.

"Where are you going?"

"I need to check in on something,"

"Garrus…don't do anything rash."

"I won't."

Hour later…

After changing out of his armor, Garrus took to the streets on Omega once more and came back to the one spot that drew him: Afterlife. Andromeda could be inside at the moment, still a slave for Aria T'Loak. He told himself and to Moklan when he first arrived that he wouldn't dare break Omega's number one rule. Ironically, his position placed him to do so just that. He just hoped that when the time came, he would be able to get out of the station and back into Council space before Aria found out.

Seeing Jaroth storm up to Afterlife made Garrus tense up and he held his breath. Jaroth was fuming. He must have seen Archangel's calling card. The Salarian with white facial paint markings didn't bother looking around as he approached the club. Within seconds of his arrival, a Batarian came out to greet him and the two walked away. Garrus tried to move as close as he could without becoming suspicious. He made his way towards the line to act like another patron wanting to get in. "I need to speak with Aria!" He could hear Jaroth demanding of the Batarian.

"Sorry, you know the rules. Aria doesn't care about merc wars," the Batarian answered shortly.

"Damnit, listen to me, Anto. This Archangel killed my brother! She needs to do something. I want him dead!" Jaroth fumed. He seemed on the verge of a typical Krogan blood rage.

"I'll tell her what's going on in the streets. I make no promises."

"Tell her there will be hell to pay. I don't care if I have to blow up this entire station. I will find him and kill him," Jaroth shot back as he stormed back off the way he came.

Seeing him in so much anger made Garrus grin. So far, his attacks against the mercs was working. Anto walked back into the club, but didn't seem like he was in a hurry. With a smile, Garrus turned and walked to head back to his base of operations. He knew that Aria wasn't going to get involved. As long as he kept her out of it for now, then she had no business in this. It wasn't affecting her and he knew which lines not to cross. At least for now. He mused about the name that was already given to him, "Archangel." He first came across that when he saved a human elderly couple from Vorcha.

The Vorcha…the vicious looking species that affiliated with his next merc band to hit, the Blood Pack.

A few days later, Garrus stared out from his base. His mind deep in thought. Just a day after his attack on Jaroth, he went back to the market to see Andromeda being escorted by Krogan body guards to Afterlife. He felt an emotion he never felt before as he first saw her. After all this time, she appeared well, but clearly not her choice to be there. He wanted to pull the trigger and take out the body guards to give him time, enough time, to run down and pull her away. But he wasn't ready. He had no way out and the station was only so large. Aria would be onto him within seconds. He fought back all the urges to pull the trigger and decided to set his sights on the Blue Suns who were heckling Kenn vas Qwib Qwib. Poor kid. Still stuck on Omega. He made a note that once things calm down, he was going to take some of his selling of the "hot" merchandise and get him off this station.

"Garrus?" Sidonis spoke up as he approached him. They were alone in the room. The others were down in the lower section, preparing for their next mission. "You haven't been the same since you saw her in the markets. Just what is going on."

"I'm just plotting our next move," Garrus lied. He didn't want to express the feelings he was overcoming; especially when he himself didn't know how to handle them.

"You sure we should take on two merc bands at one time?" Sidonis questioned as he motioned Garrus to follow him over to grab their gear.

"My plan will work. They won't suspect us hitting them at the same time. I only need one man. Your team will hit our largest target." Garrus began to suit up.

"I know. We are hitting the Suns' red sand storage facility. How did you know about that?"

"Picked up from a little interrogation I did while I was still on the Citadel. My contact said the stuff came back to Omega."

"So, you still with C-Sec?"

The question irked Garrus. "No," he coldly spat. "They won't do what's needed to get information out. I left, remember?"

"I know," Sidonis grabbed some ammo packs. "But going up against the Blood Park with just one man?"

"It's a small mods storage. Garm won't be there. I'll hit it from a distance. They won't even know. Should be one or two guards there. Then I'll have my Batarian tech expert blow it." Garrus slipped on his helmet as he saw the rest of his men coming into the room for their orders.

"You see, Garm, you leave. You got it?" Sidonis placed on his own helmet.

As they neared the Blood Pack building in the Kenzo District, Garrus motioned for his Batarian tech expert to stay back as he neared the compound on his own. He noticed a maintenance catwalk that went near the area so he climbed up to it. Laying down on his stomach, he aimed his rifle down to the compound's entrance. As he suspected, he only saw one guard there. He would wait a few moments before taking the shot and then give the word to his tech. He needed to be sure. Zoning in on his target, he noticed the guard appeared to be a Krogan. Zooming in more, he made out more details of their face, his eyes became wide when he thought he recognized this particular Blood Pack member. "It can't be…" he muttered under his breath as he tried to look without the scope and then look again with the aid of the device. Sure enough, his eyes didn't deceive him. There standing on guard duty was Horde. The female Krogan that they encountered on Noveria. Apparently, Synthetic Insights didn't pay enough so she left the frozen world and came to Omega to seek work. For the wrong employer, but after talking with Wrex, he felt kind of bad. She was like Wrex when Garrus first encountered him. A merc that was paid to do one job: Take out Fist for the Shadow Broker. After that job, he would have to take more work, but fortunately he ran into Shepard. Wrex was like many Krogan. They took jobs to whatever they could find. A lot of Krogan sought work with the Blood Pack. Less competition for targets and it had its own benefits. His talon paused on the trigger. He couldn't do it. After seeing Wrex showing interest in her well-being. He had to do the impossible. He had to risk himself to be exposed and make her see the light so to speak.

Moving slowly from his position, not wanting to give himself way too fast, he made his way back down and then slowly tried to get as close as he could without getting shot himself. "What are you doing?" His teammate's voice of concern came through the link. He ignored it. How was he going to explain this?

Taking a breath and trusting on the reliance of his shields, Garrus stood up slowly from his position. "Horde!" He called out to alert the guard.

The Krogan took interest and raised her weapon up. "Identify yourself!"

Garrus swallowed hard. He had to do this tactfully. He couldn't give his name out loud or his relation to Shepard just in case another gang member was around. Then again, he couldn't announce it to the world that he was Archangel and just making himself an easy target. He held up his hands slowly as he approached a few more steps. "Listen to me, Horde. I don't have much time. We met on Noveria awhile back. "

"What the fuck are you doing?! Are you crazy?!" The Batarian screamed into his ear piece.

Horde tilted her head some to ponder the accusation and lowered her rifle slightly. "Hey, you are- "

"Archangel!" A voice raged nearby.

"Shit…." Garrus looked over in dread to see Garm approaching with couple of his Vorcha flunkies. He dove to the ground and scrambled to get to cover as he felt gunfire already hitting his shields as Garm and Vorcha fired their weapons. "Abort! Abort!" Garrus yelled at his team mate as he waved back at him desperately. He saw in the distance that the Batarian scrambled to take off. Thank the spirits that Garm didn't take notice.

"You are mine, Archangel!" Garm roared as he charged.

"Not today, Garm," Garrus sprang up and opened fire with his assault rifle. Despite him hitting the Krogan's shields, the Krogan kept charging. Garrus blinked as Garm neared. His ammo wasn't doing enough effective damage. Was he regenerating already?! Deciding it would be best for his shields to take a few ammo rounds than face the pounding of a Krogan physical assault, he turned to follow his team mate. The Vorcha laughed menacingly as they leaped over crates making the distance between them and Garrus shorter.

"Don't let him get away! He's mine!" Garrus could hear Garm bellow from behind. He knew it was useless to try to take another position to open fire, the Vorcha were quick. The proper tactic now for survival was to try to lose them through the back alleys of the Kenzo District and pick a fight with Garm another day. As much as he hated to do so.

"Come back, Archangel," One of the Vorcha teased devilishly as they descended upon him.

He felt a bullet pierce past his armor breaking through his shields and grazing his arm. Pain coursed through his arm. He bit his tongue to ignore it as much as he could and the blood that was now oozing from the open wound. He would have to hold off and patch it up with medigel at the base if he survived.