After another 3 hours of flight, Normandy made a jump into a Hades Nexus cluster using the mass relay. The ship ended up in Hekate system. Shepard was standing in the cockpit behind Joker.
"Alright, captain. We're in Hades Nexus. What planet should we land on?"
"I'll try to contact Garrus to see if we have connection." Shepard said send a signal to Garrus' omni-tool. He made a connection, "Garrus, Shepard here."
"Shep… is th… can't h… strong interference!" Garrus spoke through his omni-tool but the connection was being interrupted.
"Garrus! Tell me where are you! Tell me where to land!"
"Ca… h… a thi… Shepard! La… Asteria!" the connection was disrupted as soon as Garrus said name of the planet.
"Joker, head to Asteria. Time to pick Garrus up and leave!"
"Commander?"
"What is it, Joker?"
"How did your date with Liara go?" Joker asked and Shepard went away, face-palming himself. Joker laughed to it. This time, Shepard changed the squad selection and chose Legion and Liara to follow him on the planet. They all got in shuttle and Cortez was piloting it once Normandy got on the orbit of Asteria.
"What are we going to do, Shepard? We don't know where Garrus might be." Liara asked.
"I believe that the interference was caused by the distance. We might have better signal once we land." Shepard said.
"Shepard-commander, if we may suggest something, it would be better to connect to local communication network which might help up increase the strength of signal by 50%."
"Do it, Legion." Shepard said and Legion activated his omni-tool, connecting to the network.
"Shepard-commander. Try to contact Garrus Vakarian now." Legion said and Shepard used his own omni-tool to call Garrus.
"Garrus, do you hear me now? We're on Asteria."
"Shepard! Be careful! I'm in some batarian base and it doesn't look nice here! Something bad is about to happen because Cerberus is here also!"
"Cerberus! Why do they… well never mind. Hold on, we're going for you!" Shepard closed the communication, "Get ready… it's gonna be hot down there."
"Asteria is known for asari living only by the poles. They don't live in other parts because the average temperature rises up to 65°C during the day." Liara notified.
"We'll land and we'll act. We have to be as fast as we can." Shepard finished. Soon they landed near the location of some batarian base, lying on the ground.
"Garrus, we are near your location. We could send Normandy to hit the base with some fire and distract enemies."
"I wouldn't do that, Shepard. This base has AA gun so if there is only a sign of Normandy peeking in the perimeter, it will be taken down in no time."
"Damn! What do you suggest?"
"I'll try to make my way through so we- Shit!" Garrus said and Shepard could hear firing, "My cover was blown! I have no time to talk, Shepard! I sent you coordinates of the rendezvous point! Be quick!" Garrus ended the communication.
"Let's go!" Shepard said and Liara with Legion followed him to the base. They were careful not to alarm the base but since Garrus was the only one who has alarmed the base, they had it quite easy to get in. Particular about this mission was that Shepard chose Liara and Legion in his group. After the incident it would be embarrassing for Legion, but thanks to the fact that Legion was Geth, he didn't feel embarrassed.
"On the right!" Liara shouted as they saw few Cerberus troops coming at them. She threw singularity at them and Legion could shoot them with his sniper rifle. They kept on running through the batarian base, meeting enemies until they came across a hangar full of transport containers.
"This doesn't look right…" Shepard said.
"Shepard, where is Legion?" Liara asked and Shepard looked around. He saw Legion up at the ceiling, hiding on the traverses.
"He's gonna cover us from above. Come, Liara!" he said and they continued in running through the hangar to the meeting point. Cerberus troops were coming from all sides, Shepard was shooting them, Liara used her biotic powers. Legion was making sure that Shepard and Liara wouldn't get hurt from behind so he was shooting enemies coming at their back. Once all Cerberus troops were dead, Shepard was thinking that something wasn't right.
"Shepard?"
"Liara, something seems off. It was too easy…" Shepard said and as soon as he finished the sentence, the containers flew to the sides once there was an explosion. Shepard and Liara were thrown back with the shockwave. Shepard supported himself with elbows and recognized Cerberus' Atlas coming towards them. Atlas aimed to the ceiling and Shepard looked at Legion.
"Shepard-commander?"
"Legion! Watch out!" Shepard warned but it was too late. Atlas shot at the ceiling which exploded right behind Legion and the Geth fell down and hit the ground hard, "Legion!" Shepard shouted. Legion's eye darkened after experiencing short-circuit caused by the explosion.
"Shepard… we cannot win this!" Liara said and Shepard glanced over at Atlas which had his gun prepared to fire. It almost looked like end but then something happened. Atlas' back exploded. When Shepard looked behind him, he spotted Garrus standing with a grenade launcher.
"Nobody hurts my friends without paying for it!" Garrus said with deep tone of his voice shooting grenades at Atlas' back, "You made a mistake by making this turian angry…" he added and Atlas knelt down, followed by falling to the ground. Liara and even Shepard were quite shocked by the happenings. Garrus ran up to them.
"Shepard, Liara, it's good to know that both of you are in one piece." He said and helped them both up. Then he looked at deactivated Legion, "Well it's better not to see somebody."
"He is with us. He was covering us from behind." Liara said.
"Liara is right, Garrus. Even you might have your own opinion about Legion, he is part of my crew. We're not leaving anybody behind." Shepard said and Garrus sighed.
"Still the same old stubborn Shepard. I'm glad some things haven't changed." Garrus smiled, "We should get out because another troops are coming. We need to use the opportunity and escape."
"We're with you, Garrus. Just help us to get Legion out." Shepard said and Garrus helped to carry Legion out of the base. So far they haven't get caught by anybody. No Cerberus troops were after them so they arrived at the shuttle, got in and flied back to Normandy. There wasn't much space where to put Legion's body. The AI core was under reconstruction and so Garrus with Shepard rested Legion on a medical berth next to Daniel. Garrus noticed sleeping Daniel so he needed to ask.
"Oh, what happened to this guy?" he pointed at Daniel, "Shepard?" he asked because Shepard banged his head against the metallic wall.
"It happened again. Legion is deactivated and this time I'm not sure I'll be able to see him back up. I was expecting Daniel to end up like this but Legion… what is happening to me? There weren't casualties on my missions before…" he said and banged his head against the wall again. Garrus grabbed Shepard and pulled him from the wall.
"Then don't be the next patient! Come on, Shepard. Let's go to the main battery so you can tell me everything." Garrus said, having arm across Shepard's shoulders and leading him out of medical bay. In the main battery, Garrus was preparing the console for his lovely calibrations that he planned to make. Shepard told him everything that had happened since his return to the Alliance.
"Man, Shepard. Sounds like you experienced really interesting things while I was gone!"
"You can't even imagine, Garrus. Sometimes I miss the old days when we met for the first time. It wasn't so complicated before."
"Yeah I miss those, Shep. So you say that you don't know why Anderson entrusted you with this 190 years old guy?"
"No but it must be big. I'm telling you, Garrus… when Thane explained to me what autists are capable of, I don't know what could Cerberus do if they find out. Probably they will try to track him down and use him."
"We will not allow that. There's no Shepard without Vakarian, right?"
"Perhaps you are right, Garrus."
"Of course I am! Heh, and you mentioned something about Legion too. What's with that guy?"
"Legion has been acting strange since we brought him back on Normandy. He says that he tries to understand concept of humanity but the questions he asked me… it almost seems like he's got something that he tries to verify." Shepard said and Garrus snickered.
"That would be funny to know that we've got a Geth able to contain emotions!"
"And he also spotted me and Liara in bed…" Shepard said and Garrus couldn't find words to it.
"That is… interesting. Shepard, you know what we both need?"
"Kill over thousand Geth units? No, thank you. I feel sorry for the dead one in medical bay."
"No… we need to blow off some steam if you know what I mean."
"Right… I'll tell Joker to change the course to the Citadel." Shepard said and Garrus poked him in shoulder.
"That's the Shepard I like!" Garrus and Shepard smiled. They turned their gazes at the door which opened and revealed Daniel standing in them.
"Dan! You're fine!"
"Yeah. I never slept so good in my life though!" Daniel smiled and noticed Garrus, "You're… Garrus Vakarian. The others told me about you."
"Hopefully only the best stuff!" Garrus chuckled shook hand with Daniel.
"Daniel, I and Garrus decided to take a pause from battles so we're gonna head to the Citadel and drink something. Care to join us?"
"I think I could… I try to get used to the things I don't like…" Daniel said and so the next stop of Normandy was a Purgatory club on the Citadel.