Chapter 7: The Possibility of Being Wrong
1.
Miranda, Jacob, and Cleo were in the quarantine zone, and they'd picked up an addition, too.
A mercenary named Zaeed Massani was waiting for them next to the quarantine zone's barricade and informed them that they looked like the humans he'd been told wanted his services. Sooner they had a goddum meet-and-greet the sooner they'd get to paying 'im. Miranda didn't say much except to tell him to get in the skycar—they were running out of time—and then they could sort out logistics.
Sorting out logistics apparently meant Miranda confirming to everyone that, yes, Zaeed—who's armour looked old enough to have been forged during the Big Bang (which was probably where he got that head wound of his, too)—was one of the people Cerberus intended to recruit. Then the three Cerberus agents realizing they were stuck in a skycar with a walking, talking health-hazard.
"The three've you made so much goddum noise I thought they'd start executing humans on sight," Zaeed had said in the car. "Bloody unprofessional, all of you."
"This guy's got a dossier?" Jacob said.
"'Course I've got a fucking dossier—an' you should be goddum grateful for it."
"As long as he can fight and follow orders," Miranda said, resisting the urge to drop him from a moving vehicle and make up an excuse about him getting killed in a firefight, "we're following the dossier list exactly."
"I can fight," Zaeed said, "and don't either of you forget it. Did a job on Terrivan Six right after a census'd gone out—people in this settlement were thrilled they'd just become the biggest on the planet. Time I was done, they'd been kicked back down to number three. What's the second thing again?"
"Following orders," Miranda said.
"I don't follow orders—they never work."
"Maybe we should pick a management style before we land," Cleo said, similarly contemplating jumping out of a moving vehicle and taking her chances with whatever god cursed her to this life.
"Maybe the boss-lady should re-read my dossier, so I don't end up deciding the money's not worth it."
"We're paying you a ludicrous amount," Miranda said. "If that doesn't motivate you, then your reputation is clearly false advertising."
"Calling me a coward, are we?" Zaeed said. "Lucky for you, I've got pent-up rage that needs releasing—otherwise all your reverse psychology would be pissing in the wind."
Miranda kept her eyes ahead.
"What? Banter's over, then?"
"Miranda doesn't banter," Jacob said.
"Christ," Zaeed said. "When did Cerberus get so goddum boring?"
Rocky start or not, Zaeed could fight; and so the Cerberus squad of four blitzed their way through looters, the Blue Suns, and the Blood Pack that'd been moving into the area via their legions of vorcha. They reached Dr. Solus's clinic and found the place so overrun with plague patients and human refugees that they walked right in undetected.
"Security's a mess," Zaeed said. "Never rely on mechs. Too unreliable—just about anything could go wrong."
"Appears as though Dr. Solus is taking in humans," Miranda said. "Very noble of him, but I can't imagine he has the resources to do this for very long."
"Still," Jacob said, "nice to know someone's looking out for people here, no matter what species they are." He looked around. "Maybe we should give them some supplies from the Nor—er, Widowmaker. Just to keep the clinic around for a while longer."
"That's very noble of you too, Jacob," Miranda said. "But I know we don't have the resources to do that."
"Any chance the doc could fix my shoulder before we leave?" Cleo said.
"They call that a security door?" Zaeed said. "A quarian weighing ninety pounds wet could break that open just by leaning on it. Bloody pathetic, this whole place. How in the hell haven't they been burnt to the ground already?"
"The doctor is a…unique, individual," Miranda said. "There's your answer." And with that, they walked deeper into the clinic, past some patient and storage rooms, and soon could hear a voice coming from one of the larger rooms near the back of the clinic. A very quick voice, that never seemed to pause for breath.
Dr. Mordin Solus, a salarian that looked to be winning his fight against age-related burnout only by the slimmest of margins, had his face right up against the holographic monitor of one of his many computers, data circling around his head like a neon-blue halo. He didn't appear to notice that anyone had come into his room; probably couldn't, given that there were more computer terminals than air particles.
"Dr. Mordin Solus?" Miranda said.
Up came his head, passing through one of the monitors. His eyes narrowed, opened wide, narrowed again. Out came his omni-tool and before anyone could object, he'd scanned the entire Cerberus party.
"Hmm," he said. "Don't recognize you from area. Too well armed to be refugees. No mercenary uniform—quarantine still in effect."
Miranda opened her mouth but Mordin was already on the other side of the room.
"Here for something else. Vorcha? Crew to clean them out? Unlikely—vorcha a symptom, not a cause. The plague!"
Mordin was back in the middle of the room.
"Investigating possible use of bioweapon? No. No no no—too many guns, not enough equipment. Soldiers, not scientists. Yes yes."
He was talking faster than the speed of light and yet, somehow, also fiddling with two different computer terminals.
"Hired guns, maybe? Looking for someone? Yes! But who? Someone important. Valuable. Someone with secrets. Someone like…me."
"You just gonna let him piss around like that?" Zaeed said. "Bloody menace is giving me a goddum headache."
"Impressive deductive skills, Dr. Solus," Miranda said. "We are, in fact, here for you. We need your assistance with some matters of galactic importance."
"Assistance? Leave station? No no—too busy. Clinic understaffed. Plague spreading too fast. Can't leave. Who sent you?"
Miranda looked at Jacob; Jacob looked at Miranda. Then Miranda looked at Zaeed to make sure he didn't blurt anything out; which, thankfully, he didn't.
"We're an organization that has a particular interest in stopping the abduction of human colonists," Miranda said.
"Human colonists?" Mordin was fiddling with another computer monitor. "Particular interest. Not Alliance—would say Alliance. Secretive. Possibly Unknown organization. Possibly…yes known organization. Established reputation. Expecting poor reception if said out loud." Mordin paused, inhaled, finally abandoned his computers and gave the group his full attention. "With Cerberus, correct?"
"Damn," Jacob said. "Yeah, that is impressive."
"You're familiar with us, then?" Miranda said.
"Reputation, mostly. Crossed paths on occasion…thought they only worked with humans."
"Cerberus isn't above asking for help from other species," Miranda said, a little more forcefully than she intended. "Especially when dealing with threats we know little about. The Collectors are behind the abductions, and we need to know why and how to stop it."
"Collectors?" Mordin said. "Interesting. Plague hitting these slums is engineered. Collectors one of few groups with technology to design it. Our goals may be similar."
Just as Miranda was about to state that he had no reason to refuse their offer, Mordin darted back to another one of his computer terminals. "But—must stop plague first. Already have a cure. Need to distribute it at environmental control centre. Vorcha guarding it." He inhaled. "Need to kill them."
"We don't have much time to spare," Miranda said.
"C'mon, seriously Miranda?" Jacob said. "You saw the bodies out there. Things are getting bad and we're just about the only people who can do anything about it."
"Umm…well Miranda's got a point, though," Cleo said.
"I haven't said no yet, have I?" Miranda said. She directed that more at Cleo than Jacob, but the response was intended for both of them. "I'm only stating that human colonies are disappearing as we speak. How long will it take to distribute the cure?"
"Depends. Vorcha may have damaged environmental systems. Delay cure distribution. Resistance possibly heavy—vorcha healing factor prolongs any encounter."
"Not when you've got enough ammo," Zaeed said.
The lights dimmed then flashed red as the sound of engines powering down then thundering to a stop rattled through Omega's metal walls. Everyone looked towards the ceiling; it was hard not to notice the lack of pressurized air coming out of the vents.
"What the hell was that?" Jacob said.
"Environmental system," Mordin said. He inhaled. "Appears to be damaged."
"Must have a vorcha stuck in it," Zaeed said. "Things're barely smart enough to walk."
"No—deliberate sabotage," Mordin said. "Trying to suffocate district. Kill everyone. Must hurry."
"Guess it's settled then," Jacob said. "Let's go turn those back on and get the cure flowing."
"I suppose it is settled," Miranda said. She turned to Mordin. "What do you need from us."
"Here—take cure," Mordin said. "Also, bonus in good faith: extra medi-gel. Heal shoulder wound of other party member. Extra strength. Shouldn't affect aim. Non-drowsy."
"Umm…thanks, doc," Cleo said. "Much appreciated."
"One more thing. Daniel. One of my assistants. Went into vorcha territory. Looking for victims." Mordin's head dipped. "…hasn't come back."
"One less mouth to feed, then," Zaeed said.
"Getting the cure out is our priority," Miranda said. "Unless you know exactly where Daniel is, we'll only help if we cross paths."
Mordin inhaled, blinked his eyes. "Understood. District priority. Bright kid. Resourceful. Might still be alive. If not…"
"We'll help him if we find him," Jacob said. He turned to Miranda. "Right?"
"I didn't say no," Miranda said.
"But with the timetable and everything…?" Cleo said.
"Let's move," Miranda said. Jacob followed behind her and Zaeed started too. Cleo stayed where she was (Mordin had already gone back to his computer monitors) and she might've stayed standing there, wondering how much The Illusive Man paid attention to detours on missions and whether he just killed agents outright or tortured them first, when Zaeed stopped and turned around.
"You 'eard him, right? Place is gonna suffocate us if we don't get a move on."
"Yeah…yeah I'm coming."
Zaeed stared at her until she started moving. When she finally did, he said, "Not sure what you're so spooked about, but we got 'ere in one piece, right? Just gotta kill some more vorcha an' we're home free, no problem."
"Right," Cleo said. "Hope that optimism rubs off on me."
As they caught up to Miranda and Jacob, Zaeed said, "Optimism? Nothing optimistic about it. I can kill these bastards with my eyes closed. An' I'm not exaggerating either: got sleepy after a night of drinking once and woke up on a bed made outta dead vorcha. Could tell I'd been the one that killed 'em since my gun 'ad overheated to the point the barrel melted."
"I uh…guess that makes me feel better?"
"Should do," Zaeed said. "Nothing like some dead vorcha as a pick-me-up."
2.
Only one way to pull this off—or, at least, Garrus could only see one way. Couldn't sneak through an entire Blue Suns complex on his own, even if it was just an office building; he had the training and experience to stay hidden in urban environments but he wasn't an assassin. Going straight in like an idiot wouldn't work either, not the least because Tarak might've rented out the building to people outside the organization. Meat-shields—the Blue Suns had done worse than that and would continue to do worse than that, not just here on Omega but in every corner of the galaxy where they felt they could get away with it. If Garrus walked in and started shooting down mercs with wild abandon, Tarak wouldn't hesitate to start executing hostages…and Garrus wasn't going to risk any hostages, much as he needed Tarak and whatever information he kept in that evil head of his.
No, that wasn't Garrus's style…and he was pretty sure he meant that and wasn't just lying to himself now that people from his past life were around. People who'd seen him grow out of that mindset—where vengeance took precedence over the victims and results were the only thing that mattered—and eventually learn to play things more along the lines that Shepard followed. People he trusted and who he knew trusted him back…
The turian way of doing things...
That thought reached out from the past, and Garrus knew exactly where in time he'd said that. He and…he and Sidonis, they'd been talking. Of course that's the part of his history that'd get dredged up now that Ashley and Kaidan were back—or, from their point of view, he was back since he'd been the one that left—and of course it'd been from one of the last conversations that Garrus had with Sidonis before everything went straight to hell.
They'd been talking about the Reapers, of all things. The Reapers and Shepard.
"So after all that," Sidonis had said, "after everything you've seen, you came to Omega."
"I told you I had my reasons. Never said they were good ones."
Garrus and Sidonis were out of armour, in a crowded bar, slugging back turian-friendly drinks on what Sidonis insisted was his treat, no questions asked. Garrus still wondered where the money for those drinks had come from—wondered about the whole damn conversation, in fact, since as far as he knew, Sidonis had given up the squad's plan long before it got put it into action and Garrus had been too stupid to notice. At that point in time, though, Garrus was just grateful for something in his system that made him feel less stressed.
"See, that's the thing," Sidonis said. "You still haven't given me a reason. And everything you've told me, I'm gonna be honest, I'm struggling to find one."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning…look, I fully buy that you and your Commander found something. No question there—I've learned not to doubt you when you say something crazy."
"Glad to see I've beaten proper respect into you," Garrus said.
"But if we're really all just a few years away from dying—or, y'know, there's a good chance that we're only a few years away from dying, since I can't imagine what a whole fleet of Sovereign's would do to our ships—then I've got no idea why you'd waste your time on Omega."
"As opposed to wasting my time…where, exactly?"
Sidonis shrugged his shoulders. "Someplace you could sort out before the apocalypse? Pretty sure the Hierarchy has a list of places like that."
Garrus took a sip from his drink, stared at the people mulling around in the bar. "Any place the Hierarchy thinks it can sort out in a year or less, is a place that's drowning in red tape. It'd be more hopeless there than here."
"Never thought I'd see someone who made it through their service talk about the Hierarchy that way."
"You're ex-military too."
"Exactly," Sidonis said, "and notice the one thing I haven't insulted yet."
Garrus took another sip. "So you're saying I'm not a very good turian, then."
"No c'mon Garrus I—" Sidonis shook his head, stared at his glass. "No. There're plenty of things the Hierarchy expects of us that make no sense."
"But?"
"But—yeah, there's a but—I look at someone like Saren—and everything you've told me about him makes me pretty sure I'm onto something here—but I look at someone like Saren and I think, we do a lot less damage to the galaxy when we toe the line than when we break it."
Garrus went to take another drink but stopped himself just as his hand was around his glass. Something told him he'd better avoid drinking, as if he'd show Sidonis just how serious he was if he wasn't doing anything except looking at him and speaking. "Saren strikes me as someone who took the turian way of doing things to its most extreme."
"How? Since when do turians call it a day and let the enemy take over everything?"
"Since when've we fought an enemy that could?" Garrus said. "What've we been taught, since day one? Weigh the costs, weigh the benefits, make a decision. This colony gets overrun so these two colonies get a fresh resupply of troops. Saren figured that a human colony and the entire notion of free will was worth sacrificing if it meant the Reaper's kept us alive."
"Except these things wouldn't've kept us alive no matter what."
"Exactly. And Saren was too blind to see that. All he cared about was the equation he was running in his head. Or whatever was left of his head after Sovereign stuck its tech in there."
Sidonis looked at Garrus for a good long while before he chuckled and started shaking his head.
"What?" Garrus said.
"You confuse the hell outta me," Sidonis said.
"All right, go ahead and explain."
Sidonis straightened his posture, as if he was telling Garrus just how serious he was being. "You just told me that the turian way of doing things nearly led to all of us getting massacred by sentient starships. But you left C-SEC because you didn't get results, and now you're here, and you just said it's less hopeless on a place like Omega than anywhere that the Hierarchy has its eyes on. Aren't you focusing on results just like…y'know…"
"Just like Saren?"
"Not in that way, no. I mean…you know what I mean—not in a 'who needs freedom if we wanna stay alive yadda yadda' kind of way, but in a 'it's not how you do it but that you do it' kind of way."
"I was saving most of my negative feedback for all the bureaucratic red-tape," Garrus said.
"Sure but, c'mon Garrus—it wasn't red tape that made Saren do what he did. You said it yourself."
Garrus searched for an answer and couldn't find one; and he hadn't had enough to drink to use alcohol as an excuse. He realized around that point that his posture had been rigid, like he was ready to fight, and that wasn't what he wanted from a night out. Not with life being stressful enough as it was. That stick in his ass, as Joker used to say, was going to replace his spine if he wasn't careful—which may've been just a nonsense sentence but something about it sounded…right, at least.
Joker, Shepard, the Normandy…funny how these kinds of conversations always involved that group, somehow.
He saw Sidonis lean just a bit closer. "Can I ask? Are you here just because…well, just because? You talk about making a difference and everything—seeing results, that's what I'm hearing, whether you agree or not—but…are you just looking at the Reapers and thinking, here, on Omega, I can pretend I'm not powerless?"
Garrus didn't have an answer for that either. "What about you? Is that what you'd do? In my position?"
"I don't know." Sidonis folded his arms over the table and stopped looking Garrus in the eye. "After everything you said—about Saren, about him being blind and everything—it's…it's hard to argue against seeing survival as a good thing."
"There're worse things than being dead."
"I don't know if that helps, exactly."
Garrus chuckled and leaned back in his seat. He'd told himself the conversation had reached its zenith and the mood could shift, if it could be so kind. "Shepard used to grill me like this," he said.
"Well, there we go," Sidonis said. "Nice to know turians and humans like to…there's a saying for it. Something about balls."
"Mmm, turians don't usually go for that kind of language," Garrus said. "Don't know many that try to psychoanalyze other men in their unit, either. Usually it's about who's giving out orders and who's following them."
"Yeah, well," Sidonis said, then paused, then looked down at the table, "guess I'm the one that's not a very good turian."
And back in the present—back in the shadows of the alleyways around Tarak's headquarters—Garrus sighed. Yeah, who's not a very good turian? The one who betrayed every person that trusted them? Or the person that invited a backstabber into the group and didn't see the writing on the wall? Maybe he was just reading too much into things, but every time he looked back at that conversation (and it'd been a while since he had, but immediately after Sidonis betrayed him? He'd replayed that conversation endlessly), it seemed more and more obvious that Sidonis's course was locked and there wasn't a damn thing Garrus could do to save his team after that.
Spirits…all of that felt like forever ago. Hard to believe that most of what would really stand out in Garrus's life had happened before he'd ever even heard of Omega…
"Garrus? It's Kaidan—we found the place. Whatever you need to do, you're in the clear."
Garrus took a breath and then pulled up his omni-tool. "Understood. I'll meet you two at the spaceport. Keep me posted if anything goes sideways."
"Yeah, will do," Kaidan said.
Another breath. Time to do what he was course-locked into doing.
There was a guard—a turian in plain clothes, but clearly Blue Suns based off the pistol—walking a route around the system of alleyways that Garrus had been hiding in. Conspicuous, but not overly so; just enough to be a security presence and watchman in case Tarak needed to leave in a hurry.
This was the right thing to do, tactically. No other option made sense.
When the guard got close enough, Garrus thrust out his omni-tool and let electricity arc its way through the guard's body. It knocked his shields out and stunned him long enough for Garrus to wrap his talons around the guard's mouth, cut off his scream, and drag him deep into the shadows of the alley. One pistol-whip to the temple and the guard was out; for a while, based on the gash. Turian's had hard carapaces but it didn't take much to bruise one, if you knew where to land a blow.
Off came the guard's omni-tool, and with some technical fiddling, Garrus was able to set up a remote connection with his own omni-tool. So long as the guard remained unconscious and wouldn't contradict the call, Garrus could set off a priority alert for that second whenever he wanted, hopefully drawing a significant number of guards into the alleys and away from Tarak. He could kill the guard, make sure he didn't wake up in time, but…no, no that wasn't his style. It wasn't.
Garrus sneaked his way into position and pressed the code into his holographic keyboard. Near-by omni-tools began to flare up and soon all Garrus could hear were hurried footsteps. Into the building he went, and up towards Tarak's office he climbed.
He was nearly there when it dawned on him just how similar his plan had been to the way Sidonis lured him away from his team, right before Tarak and a merc army consisting of far more than just Blue Suns slaughtered everyone that'd been on their team.
Spirits, he hoped he'd been right about the plan being tactically sound. He hoped he hadn't let the past blind him.
3.
Ashley and Kaidan found the place easy enough. Tarak wasn't wrong about the number of humans in "The Big Apple" and, by the looks of things, the fact that two humans with official looking armour were the one's asking questions made them a lot more open-lipped than they might otherwise be.
"Guess this means most of these people couldn't cut it in Omega," Ashley had said. "Here they are, trying to recreate a little bit of Earth. Makes you wonder how many of them even bother leaving this part of the station."
"My guess is, a lot of these people didn't end up on Omega by choice," Kaidan said. "Hunkering down when you think you're out of your depth is pretty natural, all things considered."
"Yeah, no disagreement there. Though, coming here against your will? Omega draws people in, sure, but I can't imagine it goes out looking for victims. Or, maybe I can, now that I think about it."
"I more meant that some of these people probably got fed a lot of lies about what Omega's like, but…yeah, you never know with this place. It's more than a little predatory."
"All the more reason to get the hell off this rock," Ashley said.
Yeah. Question was, though: would they be leaving with a destination in mind, or would Shepard's trail be completely cold?
The people who'd seen a quarian and a human in N7 armour pointed them to a rotting apartment complex next to a closed-down corner-market. And that's what the two of them were staring at, out in an Omega street that was completely deserted—a sign of many things on this station, few of them good. Apparently you'd find the occasional squatter in this area but, an Alliance type? With the kinds of weapons this N7 person was carrying? Everyone had stayed way the hell away from that place, thinking that there was some Spec Ops business being conducted that shouldn't be disturbed. Ashley never got the chance to ask Shepard what life as an N7-certified soldier was like, but it was possible they'd come into the Terminus System and try extracting information from whoever they could find in shady, oh-so-shady ways. Possible…and possible enough that if this person was Shepard, maybe she was doing exactly…
Ashley shook her head. No—no distractions and, oh goddammit Alenko noticed her doing that, didn't he?
"You all right, Ash?"
"Just running some scenarios," Ashley said. "Not liking how many exits there are in this place."
"Yeah but, we'll probably hear it if one of them's being used. We've just gotta be faster than Shepard is if she tries to run."
"Right, yeah...good luck with that."
Kaidan turned to Ashley. "Does that mean you're at least considering this is really Shepard we're after?"
Ashley glared back. "Been doing that since we got the assignment."
"Honestly?"
"Hell Alenko, you want in my head so bad? Better make sure you wipe your feet on the rug first."
"Ash, c'mon, I'm not trying to…look, that came off, I dunno, paternalistic. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to make sure we're all mission ready."
Ashley crossed her arms. "So you've been doing the same checks with yourself?"
"Yeah sure, of course."
"Really?"
Kaidan had to think about that, and reaching back…not quite like he'd been doing with Ashley, no, but he was still trying to get focused after being pulled back into Shepard's life so suddenly. And—
"You really want me to be honest?" Ashley said, pulling Kaidan out of his head. "And, you've gotta understand: I'm not trying to bicker with you, because we've got shit to do. But you want me to be honest?"
"I do," Kaidan said.
"I don't get how you're so casual about this. About the possibility this is really Shepard we're tracking."
"Casual?" Kaidan's posture stiffened. Ash didn't want to bicker, sure, but Kaidan's brain chemicals were prepped and ready regardless.
"Not once've I heard you say that, hey, maybe this is some lunatic that stole her CBD's. Just entertaining that, even a little bit…"
"You think I'm being disrespectful."
"No. I dunno. Yeah, I don't…look," Ashley uncrossed her arms. "I just don't think I'm the abnormal one for hoping it's not their friend that's on the hook for hundreds of dead colonists."
Kaidan's brain chemicals were buzzing, but nothing coherent was coming to his head. And no implant headache to blame, either: his neural network just wasn't chugging along like it should.
So eventually, Kaidan simply said: "I just haven't been thinking about it."
He expected Ashley to get mad, but instead he watched her posture soften.
"All right," she said. "Well…let me know how you manage to pull that off."
And then she turned and headed into the apartment.
There it was—there was some openness. Worried about being a rookie again, for some weird reason; worried about Shepard being back; worried about how the mission started, maybe? Kaidan wasn't sure about the last one; he knew, though, that Shepard would've been able to sort through this, one way or another. That'd been her gift, after all.
Great, well…now Kaidan was thinking about Shepard. Or how Shepard was in the past, anyways.
Kaidan followed Ash into the building and hoped, at least for the duration, that he'd go on ahead and continue to not think about things, except for what he needed to think about.
Of course, he wasn't all that sure it'd be a good thing if his brain listened to him on that.
4.
Ashley and Kaidan weren't alone. A figure was crouched in the abandoned corner-market, hidden, waiting for footsteps to move past. She'd just gotten back on the station—in between the time that Ashley and Kaidan had left Tarak's office and returned to their empty skycar, unbeknownst to anyone—and was returning with an omni-tool full of fresh geth data when she heard noises and knew she was being tracked.
Somewhere in her charred skull, faceless people with guns and armour were dancing from synapsis to synapsis, failing to find grip, disappearing into a red-hot fog.
She wasn't sure if these two individuals were threats or not, but something from within that red-hot fog was saying they could be.
5.
The route from Mordin's clinic to the districts environmental controls was packed with vorcha and krogan—and the closer you got to the controls, the less and less you saw krogan. That wasn't, unfortunately, a good thing, because it meant that the total number of combatants you had to keep on eye on grew exponentially. There was something to having sheer numbers that skill and tactics had a hard time overcoming; Miranda told herself she'd find a way, but the added time-constraint (how long until everyone suffocates? Dammit, should've set a timer) made it seem more and more likely that numbers would beat brains in the race to save the district.
A part of Miranda wondered if Dr. Solus would still come with them if the district died and they made a convincing argument that they'd tried to reach the controls but were stopped—overwhelming odds and all that. It wasn't a pleasant thought but…she'd keep it in reserve, just in case.
Jacob likely wouldn't go for it.
Miranda, Jacob, Zaeed, and Agent St. Pierre were pinned down in a hallway that led to a large atrium; the balcony on the other side had two, maybe three vorcha with missile launchers. Nobody had brought a marksman's rifle—in fact, Zaeed was the only person with something that could hit a target at greater than three hundred yards; and Miranda was fairly certain that gun would detonate a thermal clip at any point in the next five minutes, it was so bloody old—so they'd have to move through cover and hope that nobody suffered from any splash damage.
She reiterated this plan to the others.
"You bastards cover me and I'll get 'em with Jessie," Zaeed said.
"Pretty sure only psychopaths have names for their guns," Jacob said.
"Is that an insult? Pretty sure a psychopath is exactly who you lot are paying for, am I right?" he turned to Miranda. "So we're agreed: you bastards cover me and I'll get 'em with Jessie."
"Do you actually have a chance of hitting them?" Miranda said.
"Is that an insult too?"
"It's a genuine question. If you're not a complete imbecile and know what you're talking about, then fine, we'll cover you and move forward once you've neutralized the heavy ordinance." Zaeed was already about to charge over cover, but Miranda grabbed his arm. "If you're just going to get yourself killed, then do it quickly so we can move on."
Zaeed's one good eye blinked, then he smiled. "Finally—some fucking orders I can follow."
He vaulted over cover—well before anyone could start actually covering him—and popped a few shots off in the direction of the rocket-troops. Miranda yanked out her submachine gun, Jacob pulled out his pistol, and Cleo asked Miranda for her pistol. "Twice the bullets, right?"
Fair enough.
Their suppressive fire managed to confuse the vorcha long enough for Zaeed to blast two of them apart with "Jessie" and confirm that, yes, there was a third rocket-trooper—key word being was since Zaeed melted his head with another spray from Jessie.
"And you'll notice," Zaeed said, as everyone else emerged from cover, "that I've not popped a heat-sink yet. They don't make 'em like they used too—just like Jessie's old man."
"For the love of…" Jacob avoided making eye contact and went to Miranda's side. "No sign of Daniel yet."
"Best assume that Daniel's dead," Miranda said, "Let's keep moving. Good work, Zaeed—you may have saved us some time."
"I'm still keeping my eyes open," Jacob said.
"Unless I order you to keep moving," Miranda said.
"How uh…how much time do we have anyways?" Cleo said, looking skyward. "Because I'm still not seeing any air coming out."
"A good point," Miranda said. She reached into the kit stored on her hip. "Everyone: breathing masks on. Let's hope Mordin decides to do the same, just in case."
"I'm really hoping you're not about to just turn around, Miranda," Jacob said. "Lot of people counting on us."
"So let's stop wasting time," Miranda said, pointing at the exit from the atrium. "We've been making good progress so, as long as there aren't any interruptions we shouDOWN QUICKLY!"
A vorcha burst out of the atrium's exit, cackling and wielding two assault rifles, and started firing at the group before most could scatter. Or, at least, before Cleo could scatter, who'd been caught flat-footed as she fumbled for her mask. She had enough time to let out a curse before being roughly shoved to the ground; Zaeed was over her, and he'd taken a couple of shots to the gut too, but you'd be hard-pressed to tell since he was returning fire with "Jessie" like it'd been the first firefight he'd ever been involved in.
After the vorcha went down, Zaeed grimaced and looked at his chest. "Since when're vorcha smart enough to use disruptor rounds. Bastard scuffed my armour, too."
Cleo got to her feet. "Oh…shit, Zaeed are you all right?"
"Just fine," Zaeed said, not even bothering to look at her as he slapped at his wound, testing it. "Been shot at so much I've developed an immunity. Besides, I'm not getting killed by a fucking vorcha."
"Let's keep moving," Miranda said, rushing past and towards the door. "If you need medi-gel, say so. If not, we're burning precious time."
Cleo hesitated but, after a second, started following Miranda. So did Zaeed. It took Jacob a second longer—just long enough for Zaeed to look back and smirk at him.
"Former Alliance, right?" he said.
Jacob just glared.
"Shows," Zaeed said.
Jacob put his breathing mask away and then followed the others out of the atrium.
6.
Tarak's guards had bought it, more or less, and that left Garrus with a fairly clear shot to the batarian's office. Assuming he hadn't left and gone into hiding; Tarak wasn't a coward, so far as Garrus could tell, but when self-preservation was your only goal in life, you'd be surprised just how cowardly you could become….
Tarak was still in his office. Good. Just fine. So the only question was: how dramatic did Garrus want to play it? No voices from the other side—could be waiting, anticipating someone coming through—so…
Garrus slowly opened the door to Tarak's office, his body hidden on the other side, a thick wall at his back so any bullets would have a hard time getting to him. Slowly, slowly, the door slid open…
"Huh? What—who the hell's there? Is this security?"
Garrus took a breath, then rounded the corner and let a concussive blast go. He saw Tarak hit the wall and the monitors on the batarian's desk evaporate. Garrus put away his rifle with one hand, pulled out his pistol with the other, and slowly, slowly walked over to Tarak.
Tarak was holding his chest and gasping for air, but he was still alive. That was all Garrus needed. After so long…it was all Garrus needed.
"Tarak. Know who I am?"
Tarak coughed, spat up some blood. He wiped at it with the sleeve of his business shirt—a nice looking business shirt, too, because Tarak had gotten fat off enough people's misery to look respectable—but it kept pouring. Garrus might've hit something vital; time might be ticking.
Garrus grabbed Tarak by the throat and hauled him up against the wall. "I'll gladly waste whatever medi-gel I have on you if it means keeping you alive for some answers." His talons dug into Tarak's neck.
Another cough—some blood and phlegm splatted on Garrus' visor. "Th-hen…gimme it…bastard."
Garrus dropped Tarak's neck and dispersed some medi-gel into Tarak's distributor system. The batarian hacked out two more portions of his lung and then, after a heavy breath, seemed to stabilize. He was able to get up under his own power, at least. If Garrus had killed him, he wasn't going out just yet.
"What…what the hell do you want, Archangel?" Tarak said. He finally wiped away the last of the blood; his entire right arm was coated with red.
"You're planning something big," Garrus said. "Trying to finish the job, is that it? Hobbling together what's left of your men to take me out for good? I've heard the rumours, Tarak, and I know what mass recruitment of freelancers means in your business."
Tarak stared directly into Garrus' visor and then, damn him, he smiled. "I'm doing a lot more than hobbling, you son of a bitch. And there are a lot more moving parts than just me—you kill me, and there'll still be an army after you."
The smirk, what Tarak said…could just be faux bravado. Try to make Garrus think he wasn't scared or he had a kill switch somewhere, see if that saved his life. But Tarak might be telling the truth—he wasn't known for being a coward, anyways—and he should focus on that, but…
"If you're not lying, Tarak, then maybe there's a way I can disappear without you going to so much trouble."
Tarak laugh-coughed. "You? You're trying to negotiate? After all the shipments you've raided—all the Lieutenants you've killed and drugs you've stolen—after everything you've done to us, you're trying to negotiate?" Another laugh, this time without a cough, and Tarak's smirk became a full-on smile. "A lot of people would interpret this as you being scared Archangel. And why wouldn't you be? You're the only one left, aren't you?"
Garrus leaned in close, and with enough suddenness that he nearly headbutted Tarak. "Maybe you'll interpret this as me reacting to you. Maybe you'll interpret this as a prideful turian lashing out at someone who called him scared." Now his visor was touching Tarak's forehead. "I'm not."
"What the hell are you—"
Garrus grabbed Tarak's arm and twisted until the elbow joint popped, and then twisted some more so that the wrist-jointed shattered too. Garrus yanked the now-dead arm of Tarak and sent him sprawling onto his back, screaming out and coughing up blood again. Tarak might've tried to crawl away at that point, but Garrus wasn't planning on giving him a chance. He stomped his boot down on Tarak's chest and pushed until he could hear wheezing instead of screaming.
"I want information," Garrus said. "And I know you're the animal I need to talk to, because you're the only one with the money to make it happen."
Garrus pushed down harder on Tarak's chest.
"Want to guess what I'm talking about?"
Up came Garrus' boot, and after gasping breaths and coughs, Tarak managed to set himself up on his good elbow. "Sidonis…" Tarak said.
"Exactly. You're the one that paid him—you're the one that had him draw me out, alone, taking every security protocol with me—and all so your Blue Suns could surround my team they were good people, Tarak." Garrus stomped his boot onto Tarak's ankle and let his screaming subside before he said anything else. "So you help me find that coward, and I'll leave the station. I won't have a choice—he's not dumb enough to stay here, not after what he did."
Tarak yanked his leg away from Garrus and tried to get up on his good elbow. It wasn't working. Still laying on his back, he said: "After all this, you're just going to…drop everything to go after him?" Finally, Tarak managed to pull himself up off the ground. "And what about me? You're here telling me I…personally killed your people, even though you're the one that fell for Sidonis's trap. You're telling me you weren't hunting me down too?"
"I haven't done a damn bit of good on this station," Garrus said. "And you're useful—right now, at least. You give me what I need to get Sidonis, and I'll consider myself preoccupied."
"Bullshit," Tarak said. "You're right that you haven't done a damn bit of good, but I don't buy for a second that your self-righteous ass actually thinks that. Or that some turian with a weak stomach is worth more than pissing off every gang in Omega." Tarak spat onto Garrus' boot. "And I don't buy you letting me live if I give you what I want, either. So if you're gonna kill me, then do it. But I'm taking what I know about Sidonis with me."
Mental images and snippets of past conversations all flittered around in Garrus' head, and he'd been trying to make a coherent picture of all of it for long enough that Tarak managed to slide away from Garrus' reach, back towards the centre of his office. Nothing coherent was forming, except that Garrus had a pistol, Tarak didn't, and Tarak deserved to die.
Up came the pistol. Tarak turned around just in time to see the gun and despite a flash of panic in those four black eyes, Tarak cracked a toothy smile.
"Told you," he said.
Garrus pulled the trigger and then nearly bolted for the hallway. He had just enough sense to turn back, reboot Tarak's computer, notice that there wasn't a damn thing about Sidonis on it, and then delete the bank accounts of the entire Omega-branch of the Blue Suns.
As he leapt his way down the emergency staircase, trying to think about how every Blue Suns on the station was now broke did little to make Garrus feel like less of a failure.
7.
They'd successfully stopped the vorcha from killing the whole district. And they'd managed to discover that the Collectors were behind the plague; one of the vorcha's smashing up the environmental control centre said something about the Collectors promising them technology and genetic treatments to "make them strong."
They'd accomplished their goal and found out about just how many dark corners the Collectors were willing to slither into and yet the only thing Jacob was thinking about was mutiny procedures in the Alliance and how relieving someone of command wasn't possible in Cerberus. Not without an "okay" from The Illusive Man, of course.
On the way to the environmental control centre, they'd found Daniel. Or, more specifically, they came across a storage room that had its door propped open with a piece of metal, and the voices inside could be heard for a hundred paces in any direction. It was a group of batarians and they were pointing pistols at Daniel; everyone in that room seemed equally scared, whether they were holding the gun or were standing right in front of it's barrel.
"Do you know what I've LOST!" one of the batarians had said. "Do you know what this PLAGUE has taken from me?"
"I do!" Daniel said. "I work with Dr. Solus—I know exactly what this plague has done! That's why I'm here! I-I'm trying to help you!"
"This thing, kills everyone except humans and vorcha. EVERYONE…except you and the freaks that're running around. So I'm supposed to believe a human, people who've done nothing except point a gun at me and people like me, no matter where I go—I'm supposed to believe you're here to help?"
"Check the bag! Check it! I swear—honestly, I do!—I swear that there's medicine in there! A-an antidote, straight from Mordin's clinic!"
"He's tricking you!" another batarian said. "It's just more plague—gotta be! You touch it and we'll get it too!"
"You might already be infected!" Daniel said. "Please, I can help! J-just let me go and I'll give you all a dose right no—"
"Don't let him reach for it!"
Jacob had taken up position outside the storage room…and nobody else in the group had. Miranda just stared at him, her expression totally unreadable. Zaeed and Agent St. Pierre's expressions were crystal clear: they were practically shouting at him "What the hell are you doing?"
"We can vouch for him," Jacob said. "We know he's with Dr. Solus—we've just gotta convince them."
"Good fucking luck with that," Zaeed said. "Batarians can't count past twelve at the best of times, but these one's're past the point of hysterics. Just listen to 'em in there."
"You got a crack for everyone that isn't you?" Jacob said.
"What, accusing me of being a racist? Nothing racist about it—I think humans're plenty stupid too." He nudged his gun at Jacob. "Case in goddum point."
"Jacob," Miranda said. "We're wasting time. If we don't move now, we'll just give the vorcha more time to amass in the control room."
"Fine—just a show of force then," Jacob said, pointing back at the room. "Unless you seriously think The Illusive Man will kill us for stopping to save someone."
"The Illusive Man trusts my judgement," Miranda said. "And I'm saying that if we stop here—for any amount of time beyond this conversation—we give the vorcha a chance to slow us down. A district or a doctor's assistant, Jacob. Make the right choice."
And so he did: he went along with Miranda.
Now, here they were, in Mordin's clinic…and he was forced to hear Miranda lie directly to Mordin's face.
"We couldn't see any sign of your assistant," she said. "I'm sorry, Doctor, but there were too many hostiles in that area. Anyone from the vorcha to looters could have found him before we did."
The only part of Mordin that was moving while Miranda talked to him were his eyes; they were darting around the room, locking onto different objects. The speed was incredible and, yet, they were moving a hell of a lot slower than they had been when they first met the doctor.
Mordin closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"Understood. Told him not to go—too dangerous. Hopefully…died painlessly. Quickly. Ideally before knowing he was in danger."
Miranda didn't move a muscle. Jacob nearly broke a molar.
Another deep breath from Mordin. "Still, mission successful. Environmental controls restarted; cure distributed. Seeing rapid patient recovery even in those without a previous dose. Efficient work. Cerberus…accustomed, to these sorts of missions?"
"We are," Miranda said. "We're not so different from the Special Tactics Group. You'll feel right at home with us."
"Mmm, yes. Am sure environment is…familiar, in many respects." Mordin began shutting down monitors and packing away equipment. "Never been against technologically superior enemy before. Salarain Union advanced even by modern galactic standards. Exciting challenge; many working variables. Unknowns. How much should I pack?"
"Whatever you think you need, Doctor," Miranda said and, damn her, Jacob saw her smile. "But we have a fully stocked laboratory onboard out ship. You'll not be wanting for anything, as far as Cerberus is concerned."
Mordin paused his shuffling, then Jacob saw him grab a few trinkets that didn't look all that important. Then he saw a name, "Daniel," written on one of them and a whole new round of molar-grinding commenced. "Fascinating. Looking forward to seeing it."
Miranda followed Mordin out of the lab, letting the lights dim as they left. Jacob was standing in a dark room now, with the outline of Zaeed in the doorway.
"Thought you were gonna squeal," Zaeed said as Jacob finally left the room. Jacob lowered his shoulder and brushed past the mercenary's bulk.
"I should've," Jacob said.
"Kid, I envy that all of this hasn't been beaten right out of you," Zaeed said. He grabbed Jacob's shoulder before he could get too far. "But don't get any of us killed over it, right?"
Jacob yanked his shoulder free and just kept walking. Zaeed let out a chuckle and Jacob…just kept walking.
Agent St. Pierre was already outside the clinic, having had to flee when she saw her omni-tool light up. Huddled next to some crates, she opened her omni-tool and saw, of course, that there was a message from her handler.
Cleo decided not to bother listening to it and just called her handler instead.
"Agent St. Pierre—you uh, got my message?" her handler said.
"No—yes I mean, I haven't listened to it. What's wrong? What'd I do?"
"Easy easy—just a data-burst from…well looks like from on-high, if you get what I mean."
"That doesn't put me at ease at all."
"I was just told to pass on that Archangel is apparently heading towards the spaceport. Message was: Mission Is Still Ongoing."
"Oh god…get Archangel to join us or else. Thanks boss, really really soothing."
"Hey you've got Lawson with you. Just…get it done and no harm, uh, done."
Footsteps, coming right up beside Cleo's crate. "Right yeah, message received. Over and out." Cleo rocketed to her feet and…neither Lawson nor Taylor had noticed, same for the salarian doctor. Cleo had to tell Miranda but…yeah put it the right way, thank you very much, since she could tell either Miranda or Jacob was on the verge of killing the other and…well okay she could tell that Jacob was on the verge of killing Miranda but presumably the perfect super soldier that was Miranda Lawson could take down everyone here without much effort, and might decide to do so just to lighten her load a li—
"You waitin' for Mommy and Daddy to get in another fight?" Zaeed said behind her. Cleo jumped and smacked her wrist on Zaeed's shoulder. One of those two objects gave and it wasn't the slab of metal that'd been across the galaxy fifteen times and counting.
"Ah fucking Jesus fuck!"
"Shit, yeah, that sounded like it 'urt. Need some medi-gel?" Zaeed said.
Cleo waited for the tingling in her hands to die down before she answered. "I'm…good, fuck me. Sorry."
"Not my wrist that got bent ninety degrees." Zaeed motioned that they ought to keep pace with the rest of the team and, nodding, Cleo started walking. "You popped outta nowhere," Zaeed said. "Anything we need to know?"
"No not…sort of, I guess," Cleo said. She glanced at her omni-tool and then at Miranda, who was next to Jacob but was paying him neither good nor bad attention. Jacob was clearly looking to start an argument but there didn't seem to be an opening. "Uh," Cleo said, "I got an update from…the boss, by the looks of it. Said that another dossier that told us to pound dirt is heading in the same direction we are, so we can intercept him."
"An' kill 'em?" Zaeed said. "Or 'ave another go at recruiting 'im?"
"The second one…uh, I hope."
"Right," Zaeed said. "Want me to let the scary boss-lady know?"
"Uh that's…I don't think that's strictly necessary or anyth—"
"Oi, Lawson!" Zaeed, unsurprisingly, caught Miranda's attention immediately. "The lady here says that someone you've already met is 'eading back to the spaceport. Says we might want another go at brining 'im aboard."
Miranda stopped walking, spun on her heel, faced Cleo and Zaeed. Cleo couldn't read her face all that well but, for a second, she thought she saw a bit of concern. Just a bit, nothing that you'd be able to see if you were just a little further away from her.
Then, Miranda nodded.
"Understood," she said. "Doctor, you're free to return to the ship if you want."
"Will…consider it, on the way," Mordin said. "More recruits from Omega. Fascinating. Hoping to acquire a gun for hire? Or someone more substantial?"
"And whaddya mean by that, doc?" Zaeed said.
"Decide quickly, Doctor," Miranda said. "Everyone else—let's move. Jacob?"
Miranda stared down Jacob, who returned the stare with equal intensity. "I'm ready. Don't worry about me."
"Just checking," Miranda said.
The group sprinted for what would be a very tightly packed skycar. Cleo couldn't quite keep up—there was a difference between field work and whatever the hell these people did—and so she couldn't pull up beside Zaeed.
Otherwise she would've at least tried to say "thank you."
8.
Ashley and Kaidan got a message from Garrus just as they tried to pry open the door to the third room they'd tried in the apartment complex.
"Ashley, Kaidan—I'm done on my end. I'm heading to the spaceport now."
"Gotcha Garrus," Kaidan said back. "We'll…I think he hung up."
Ashley let go of her side of the door. "That's…probably not good."
"Yeah. Guess we'll have to deal with that when we're done."
"Guess we will," Ashley said.
They each grabbed one half of the door and, trying not to make too much in the way of embarrassing noises, pulled until a motor somewhere in the wall clicked back into gear and the metal sheets started retracting on their own. That was around when the stench really hit them, too.
"Oh god…that's not good either," Kaidan said.
Ashley drew her pistol, started crouching. "Hear anything inside?"
Kaidan drew his own pistol, eased his head a bit more into the room. "Hard to tell…could be hearing things outside."
"But you hear something that sounds like breathing too, right?"
Kaidan nodded.
Slowly, the started to move inside the room.
A small hallway led deeper into the room, then hooked to the left around where Ashley and Kaidan assumed was the start of the living room. The only lighting inside was the artificial, endless Omega orange coming in through the room's small, grimy windows. The floor was wet, too; it wasn't slick but fluid had been leaking onto it for a long time, and nobody had bothered to clean. But someone had been living in here recently: there were boot prints in the fluid.
Ashley pushed herself against the wall, right before the hallway hooked to the left, and moved her head to look deeper into the apartment. Kaidan saw her eyes widen.
"Shit—there's a body."
"Human?"
"Looks…oh god, I think it's quarian."
Ashley pushed off from the wall and quickly closed the gap between her and the quarrian, pistol outstretched and head darting back and forth. Kaidan stowed his pistol and got his medi-gen dispenser ready, even though if this was Shepard there…well he'd see for himself, no use rushing ahead.
Ashley was on the ground, checking the quarian for injuries. "Laceration on the wrist, but…otherwise looks fine. I think—I'm not a medic."
"The suit probably locked down the infected area before it could spread," Kaidan said. He ran a quick scan with his omni-tool. 'Yeah, looks to be the case. Is he just sleeping?"
Ashley gently moved the quarian's head so she could see his eyes, or at least the purple lights underneath the mask that were supposed to be his eyes. "No…no he looks awake."
"Shit, all right, help me get him up and we'll try to—"
As soon as Ashley touched the quarian's arm he shot up onto his knees and started skidding into the corner, throwing up fluid and discarded bits of metal everywhere. Ashley was nearly knocked backwards into Kaidan and Kaidan had nearly drawn his pistol again, but both marines found their nerve again the moment the quarian started shaking in the corner. They exchanged a look, Ashley put her pistol away, and both held out their hands like they were approaching a wounded dog.
"Easy, easy there buddy," Ashley said. "We're here to help—honest."
"H-human…human, demon—all the same, both the same," the quarian said. "P-please, no more questions—no more hurt. Leave Veetor alone."
"Veetor?" Kaidan turned to Ashley again. "Okay, we've got a name at least."
"No more questions, he says." Ashley slowly stood up. "Is there any way to calm him down?"
"Besides leaving? I don't know. I'm not sure what drugs I have on me that're compatible with quarian physiology."
Ashley looked back at Veetor, who had fully buried his head into his arms. She started to back up, back to the other side of the living room. "Hey—hey Veetor? Can you hear me? I'm backing away from you now. I'm not coming anywhere near you. But we need to ask you some questions."
"We can help you," Kaidan said, following Ashley backwards. "We can get a hold of the Migrant Fleet. We'll make sure you get off this station and get proper medical treatment."
Veetor stayed huddled and shaking long enough that Ashley nearly started saying something else. But, slowly, he lifted his head out of his arms. The blinking lights behind his mask locked onto Kaidan, then Ashley, then Kaidan again, back and forth, back and forth.
"Y-your face…not like the other. Whole. Normal. Look like…normal humans."
Yet again, Kaidan and Ashley exchanged a look. This time, they both looked more than a little nauseous.
"There's another human with you?" Ashley said.
"Demon…face horrible, wires and red red skin. No eyes, no eyes, only lights. Could see through me, could see through me…"
Ashley felt her knees buckle. "Jesus…what the hell did they do to her?"
"Veetor, listen to us," Kaidan said. "We're not with the person who attacked you. We're not with the person that was at Freedom's Progress. We're here to track that person down—we're here to stop her."
"V-Veetor, whatever you can tell us," Ashley said, "whatever you can…whatever you know, it can help us make sure nothing like that ever happens to you again."
Veetor's lights, now unblinking, seemed to stare off into nothingness. Eventually, he said something else: and Kaidan and Ashley could tell it took great mental effort to make the words come out fully formed.
"How c-can V-Veetor trust you?"
Nothing came to mind, not immediately. And both Kaidan and Ashley could tell that the longer they waited for inspiration, the more Veetor was convincing himself that they shouldn't—couldn't—be trusted.
And then Ashley remembered.
"We've worked with a quarian before," Ashley said. "I don't know if you know her, but she helped us save the galaxy. You can trust her, and if we can find a way to contact her, I'm sure she'll vouch for us. Her name is Tali, Tali'Zorah, and—"
"Tali?" Veetor said. He struggled to his feet. "Y-you know…Tali?"
Kaidan nodded, took a deep breath of his own. "We do, Veetor. Like Ashley said, she helped us save the galaxy." He pointed at himself with his thumb. "Kaidan Alenko," and then pointed at Ash, "Ashley Williams. We've got medical supplies and we've got the funds to get you back to the Migrant Fleet, but we won't do anything unless you give us permission. How's that sound?"
Veetor was quiet but, after an eternity, he nodded. He couldn't keep his eyes on either Alliance Officer, though: his head stayed pointed straight downwards at the fluid-soaked floor.
"D-don't know a name. Never used a name. O-only spoke with…with a voice. Terrible voice, Demon's voice. H-had geth data, w-wanted more from my omni-tool."
"The omni-tool on your wrist?" Ashley said, pointing at his mangled arm.
Veetor nodded. "Asked about…Reapers. I-I don't know about Reapers. I couldn't answer the questions and…and if the demon comes back, is Veetor useful anymore? I-I d-don't know w-what will—what will…"
"Hey, hey Veetor easy," Kaidan said, holding out his hands. Veetor didn't reach for them. "Nothing's going to happen. We're here, we'll protect you."
The look he gave Ashley, though, lacked any and all confidence.
"Reapers," he said. "That sounds like…that sounds like Shepard."
"Yeah," Ashley said. "It…it definitely does."
Gritting her teeth, Ashley took a couple steps closer to Veetor. "All right, Kaidan's right: we won't do anything that you don't agree to first. So," she held out a hand, "what do you want our next move to b—"
"DUCK!"
Kaidan slammed into Ashley's back and knocked the both of them onto the floor and Veetor, screaming, kicking, punching at the air, leapt backwards into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster like a sheet of ice. The cacophony was almost loud enough to disguise the shotgun blast that obliterated the window that Ashley had been standing next to—almost, because Ashley's ringing ears still managed to pick up most of the soundwaves while the nerves on her left cheek told her that it was an inferno round that nearly decimated the upper part of her body.
She spun on her back and saw a figure in N7 armour slowly walking into the apartment.
The shotgun was still raised.
Shepard.
Muscle memory took over and out came Ashley's pistol. The bullets dissipated on Shepard's shields and Shepard didn't even blink at them she just kept coming forward slowly with her shotgun pointed right at her head and it was Shepard no denying that it was Shepard and—
"ROLL!" Kaidan shouted.
Ashley rolled to the right, Kaidan rolled to the left, the space in between them became a crater as Shepard fired off a round. Kaidan was glowing purple already and Ashley knew she'd only have a few seconds to get Shepard's shields down, few seconds at most, so she held the trigger of her pistol down until her hand nearly caught fire. Shepard's shields were still up but they didn't have a choice, stasis or try and overload her shields Kaidan couldn't do both effectively, so with as much concentration as he could manage Kaidan unleashed a stasis field and hoped prayed begged that it might bypass the kinetic barriers.
Shepard's kinetic barriers kicked away the stasis field, but it at least buckled her knees and swept her gun arm wildly to the side.
"SHOCK HER!" Ashley screamed.
Kaidan did. Down went Shepard's shields. Up went Ashley's pistol. A concussive round from a pistol wouldn't pack as much of a punch as from a longer barrel but what fucking choice did they have.
Shepard was off balance enough that the concussive round sent her flying out of the room. That bought Kaidan and Ashley ten seconds. At most.
"I'll grab Veetor—you get a window open," Ashley said. The window nearest Veetor exploded from Kaidan's pistol fire and Veetor was resisting, goddammit the stupid idiot was resisting, so Ashley would have to apologize to the trauma victim later as she smashed her pistol into the side of his head. Nothing cracked and there weren't any alarms that Ashley could hear, but Veetor was out and limp and through the window she went, out into Omega. Shepard could be behind them right now she could literally be right there with her shotgun pointed at the back of Ashley's head HOW THE HELL WAS SHEPARD ALIVE?
"Garrus! Garrus dammit come in! Fuck!" Kaidan closed his omni-tool and glanced behind them. "Garrus isn't responding—if he's not at the spaceport—"
"We've gotta lose her with the skycar—that's our one chance." Ashley glanced back behind her again as Veetor's limp frame bounced off her armour and she didn't turn to salt, that was how that story went right? Lot's wife looked back at Sodom and turned into a pillar of salt. Why wouldn't that be what happened? HOW THE HELL WAS SHEPARD BACK FROM THE DEAD?
They reached their skycar without another Shepard sighting and so off to the spaceport they went. Neither marine could remember the last time they were shaking they way they were now but, no, that was a lie, the last time they'd been shaking like they were now was Illos, as the Mako dropped from the sky right on Saren's head and the Commander was assuring everyone in that cramped coffin of a tank that they'd get through this, she promised them, nobody was dying on her watch.
That Commander had died and she was back, and Veetor had her pegged as a demon.
If Kaidan and Ashley had been able to see a rooftop near the parking lot where they'd just fled from, they would've seen Shepard decloak and follow their skycar as it sped out into Omega's packed skyways.
There was another skycar just below her, a stunned family just outside of it, watching Kaidan and Ashley go and wondering what the heck had them in such a rush?
Shepard pulled out her shotgun, and jumped to the ground below.
9.
Garrus was at the spaceport, sans helmet, ready to get off this station. So was Aria's guard from earlier, who Garrus learned was named Grarek when a passerby commented on the turian getting a good reaming from Aria's farvorite bouncer.
Evidently, Aria knew exactly who Archangel was, and now so did her doorman.
"I don't have time for this," Garrus said. "If Aria's got a problem with me, she just has to wait five more minutes. Then she won't see me ever again."
"You'd better make time for this," Grarek said. "Because you've messed up a very delicate balance, executing Tarak like that."
"So Aria's got spies inside the Blue Suns? Figures that she'd spy on them and not actually do anything about it."
"Delicate balance, you fucking idiot. Do you have any idea what Aria's had to do to keep the gangs—we're talking all of them, big and small, not just whatever one you hate the most—do you know what Aria's had to do to keep them in line?"
Garrus got as close to Grarek as his turian-made visor would let him. "If all she can do is keep the status quo going, then I don't see why you'd bother following her like you do."
Grarek pushed back with his boney forehead. "The alternative is a hell of a lot worse."
"If you're trying to make it seem like Aria cares about these people, you can shove it. If she cared? She'd've booked every one of the hostages on this station a flight into Council space."
"You keep acting like there's a clear line on Omega," Grarek said. "And if you haven't learnt your lesson by now, maybe you're too stupid to do Aria any good. Maybe I should just dump your body in Council space, what about that?"
"There's nothing stopping Aria from getting good results except her own greed."
"What the fuck d'you think she was getting before you showed up?"
Garrus pulled away from Grarek and was about to say something—anything—to prevent a scum ball like that from getting the final word in, but a familiar voice sounded out over his shoulder, from the direction of the markets.
"Archangel," Miranda said. "You're still here."
"Archangel?" Zaeed said behind her. "Gettin' ambitious are we?" He sized up Garrus through his one good eye. "You're not much to look at, now that I get the chance."
"I made my decision already," Garrus said. "Find someone else."
"What about saying you'd join up if our paths crossed again?" Miranda said. "We're still looking to do good in the galaxy—Dr. Solus here can attest to that."
Before Garrus could comment, Grarek's laugh cut him off.
"If 'Archangel' did anyone any good, we wouldn't be talking to him right now. He'd be dead in an Omega alleyway with his own gun in his mouth."
Garrus raised his fist to slug Grarek right in the eye, knuckle set to dig right into the iris for maximum damage, when the sound of a skycar pulled everyone's attention upwards. There was, in fact, a skycar heading straight for the sidewalk outside Afterlife, sending pedestrians and guests scattering as it messily landed. The door shot open and out came Ashley and Kaidan, with a quarian draped over Ashley's shoulders.
Grarek snarled. "Do you idiots actually think you can parl—"
"Shut it!" Ashley said, brushing past to get to Garrus. "Garrus, we've gotta go. Now."
"Garrus," Miranda said, "remember what I just—"
Kaidan pushed in front of her. "Everyone should leave—right now. If we were followed in any way then we're—"
"Followed?" Cleo said. "Who the hell is hunting Alliance Marines?"
"Question that deserves an answer," Mordin said. "Implications…unsavory. Civilians present, too. Are we in danger?"
Garrus' mandibles clicked. He looked at Ashley, at the quarian over her shoulders. "It's her, isn't it?"
Ashley nodded.
"What the hell are you people mumbling about?" Grarek said.
And then the sound of another skycar.
This one was heading for the group as well.
This skycar wasn't slowing down.
"MOVE!" Kaidan screamed.
Everyone hit the deck, spreading out over the floor like they'd been poured out from a bucked of toy soldiers. The skycar plowed into the ground, bounced off the sheet-metal floor, kicked up sparks as it tore into the small parking area just next to the spaceports entrance. The skycar was on fire, and the light from that fire drowned out everything else in the area except for the orange spewing out from Omega's skyline.
The skycar's door opened, and out stepped Shepard.
Cleo's trajectory meant that she was the closest person to Shepard. "Oh…oh shit," she said.
She'd just barely gotten to her feet when a shotgun round tore through her shields and ignited her civilian clothing. Her scream lasted long enough for a second round to obliterate her chest.
Zaeed managed to catch the body as it rocketed backwards. His one good eye stared at it as he brought Jessie up to bear on the figure in the cracking N7 armour.
"Zaeed HOLD YOUR FIRE!" Miranda shouted.
"FUCK OFF!" Zaeed squeezed the trigger as he laid Cleo's body on the ground. Once his other arm was free to gripped the underside of Jessie and charged forward. Shepard's shields flickered, failed, exposed her to a full clip of assault rifle firepower. She didn't move at all until her arm shot forward, ripped Jessie from Zaeed's hands, and smashed him across the face with it.
Zaeed went down on one knee. Shepard stood over him.
"Ffffuck…yyyyou," he said.
It took Shepard only two more strikes to rupture his head and send bits of red and white and cracked carbon fibre skittering across the floor.
Everyone watched Shepard discard Jessie. Then her body glowed purple.
"Spirits," Garrus said.
Full disclosure, I didn't plan on killing off Zaeed but uh...I started realizing once the skycar car was rocketing towards the ground that somebody was gonna die. It made the most sense, to me at least, for that someone to be Zaeed.
Cleo, on the other hand, was supposed to die two chapters ago, but (RIP) she managed to truck it out just a little longer.
Anyways, let me know if I'm being too excessive with the gore. And if this chapter was, y'know, any good.
Otherwise, stay tuned for a (hopefully a much shorter) new installment where we see what other damage Shepard can do!