INTERMISSION: ARCHANGEL- 143 Days

Garrus enjoyed the setup for jobs, and boy did he love the payoff, but there was one part that could really grind his plates.

The waiting.

To keep the crew safe and take the mercs off guard, they always got the right intel to set the gangs up. They'd make a killbox, lure them in, and use everything in their arsenal to knock 'em out before they even knew what was happening.

This hit, they were freeing an Asari captive from Eclipse. Well, she used to be one of them. But when Alla wanted out, Eclipse made it... difficult for her. The mercs were taking her out to this dock to be spaced, and Garrus and the team were waiting to stop that.

With them was Alla's half-brother, Oliver. His human mother had an affair with Alla's Eclipse mother when Ollie was a few years old. He didn't know about her until his mom was on her deathbed. Inconvenient timing, since just about the same time Eclipse almost got Alla killed, prioritizing a cash drop over her safety.

The night she was packing was the night Ollie called her on the extranet, and during their call Eclipse took her. Within the hour, Ollie quit his military post in the Alliance, because he'd be damned if he let his baby sister die.

So there they were, waiting, hiding in the overhang of the space dock and a few other key vantage points.

As far as their intel went, there was supposed to be a whole squad overseeing her execution, to make sure things went right. Apparently, Alla knew too much for it to be any other way.

But once Eclipse got there, Garrus and co. would make sure to change that plan.

For now, they just twiddled their goddamn thumbs. Butler, his cover fire next to him, went real twitchy when he got bored.

Over the comms, though, he could tell a few others were getting antsy, too. Ollie most of all. "Christ, what if they bring her in her gear and there's other Asari? We can't shoot the wrong one."

Garrus tried to bring some levity. "Via, we just won't shoot the one who doesn't have a gun and isn't shooting at us. It'll be okay."

Butler added, "Anyway, Eclipse wouldn't have kept her in their gear. Trust me. I know." The scowl that Butler got made Garrus curious, but it probably wasn't the best time to ask. Anyway, it was easy to guess that this wasn't Nikolai's first Eclipse execution.

Much better at trying to keep spirits up, Sidonis piped in. "Hey, we got this, Via. We set up traps, hacked the doors, have some flashbangs and anti-biotic ammo. This is going to be a clean rescue. You'll get to meet your sister."

Ryel chuckled on the other end. "Hope you like her. If you didn't that'd be awkward." Garrus almost growled. Ryel could be a little shit sometimes.

"When we talked, she was ready to try to be a family. I don't give a shit if it was just because she wanted asylum. That's enough." Via sighed and added, "Anyway, I could see elcor theatre posters in her room. My mom loved them, too."

"Who would pay to see an elcor act?" Danit didn't seem as moved or amused as everyone else.

Gibbon cut in. "It's a matter of sentimentality for Oliver. When one misses a person, they attach to familiar memories. Though elcor acting is banal, his mother and Alla share the interest and therefore ties his sentimentality to both women."

"I think he was asking about the elcor part, not what it meant." Butler chuckled next to him. "But people like weird shit. My Nalah likes-"

"Hanar music, we know." Jawth was grumbling, but his voice got quieter as he added, "My brother used to have a pet Varren. Makes me bitter sometimes to shoot 'em."

"And Sidonis has all those old comic books. And Danit has his puzzlebox from his father. And Gibbon has his old STG tags, but just because he got to burn them. We all have our sentimental bullshit. Now stop crying or you idiots will set off my traps." Ro wasn't exactly one for these conversations, and Garrus wasn't surprised by his outburst.

But luckily, no one gave a shit about his crankiness. Ryel instead just continued talking. "I used to have a friend when I was a kid, an army brat. When my family was helping the Alliance, she didn't treat me like an alien freak. I still have the bracelet she gave me when I left. She called it Kolodochka, whatever the hell that means."

Garrus was getting flashbacks to all of Shepard's random dialect inserts. "Wait, isn't that Russian?"

"No clue." Looking at Butler, the man also shrugged. Great, so now he had a weird part of his brain collecting and flipping through Shepard memories, and no one had any answers for him. He could feel the back of his neck heating up, wondering if she had ties to Ryel. Didn't she tell him, on Noveria, that she kissed a Drell in a closet or something? Ryel interrupted his thoughts, though. "Why do you ask?"

Caught way off guard at this point, words just starting spilling out of his mouth. "I don't know a lot about human culture, but I had a... friend whose mother was from Russia. It came up a lot. She even danced ballet to classic Russian music when she was stressed- wait, she wouldn't want me talking about that."

Across the line, Ro snorted. "Sounds like Garrus had a Russian girlfriend. That's a surprise."

Okay, he was officially over all this conversation. "Don't have a thing for humans, Ro. Now get it together before you pop the suit laughing and ruin your own traps." Everyone was quickly distracted by his joke, and started talking low about their strategies and who made what better thing.

But next to him, Butler cut his comms and asked, "But you did like her, didn't you?"

Garrus was not about to deal with this shit again. "No. Now focus on the mission."

"C'mon, I'm the married one. If anyone gets it, I do. What was her name?"

Throughout his skull, Shepard's name started beating like an unstoppable drum. And he didn't need that right now, not when he was moving forward with his life. He was supposed to be moving forward. That's what you did when you lost people, and he couldn't keep falling into traps and looking back.

He couldn't keep looking back for her. She wasn't coming back.

"Butler, I'm not asking you again."

"Garrus, you don't--"

Before he could say another word, there was a crash down below. Over comms, Danit's monotone voice was a pitch or two higher. "Where the hell did they come from? The door wasn't triggered."

Using the sights on his sniper, Garrus pin-pointed an equally shocked-looking woman. She was steadying herself, tan skin sweaty, a smirk on her lips despite the clear tension in her muscles. In her hand was a detonator. Shit.

Standing up, he had to act fast. Yelling down from his vantage point he said, "I don't know how the hell you got in here, but you're surrounded. Put the detonator down and nobody has to get hurt."

"Without this detonator, you're going to get hurt." He thought his spot was well hidden, but she tossed it up his way. It sailed with a lot more force than he thought a human arm was capable of. "You brought the wrong one."

Garrus grabbed the one she gave him and sent Gibbon a concerned look. After a quick look in his pack, Gibbon looked more alarmed than he did. "Shit. She's right."

"We can talk about you forgetting our detonator later." Looking down at the strange woman on the space dock floor, he asked, "Thanks? But how'd you know-"

"It's better you don't ask questions. Especially since your target will be here any second now. Just stay alive, Mr. Vakarian." She started to run towards the exit, but then added, "If you ever run into me again, name's Sam." And then before she hit the door, she disappeared completely.

Jawth was the first to say, "Why the hell don't we have that tech?"

They started to bicker about it, whether it be about the science behind it or the fact she didn't trigger a single trap. But Garrus was more concerned about the fact she found them and that there was a chance they could run into her again.

If they didn't have the right detonator, in theory the job would've still worked. In theory, she didn't need to come, whatever she was. But maybe she knew something they didn't.

Before he could even get a word in, join in on the confusion or hype, the doors started to open across the space dock. He shoved Butler's head back down and got behind cover. "Get down and shut up, we're about to have company."

And what company it was.

It was more than their contact told them; three squadrons and even a mech, loaned from the Blue Suns. Without Gibbon's explosives, they might've lost some people trying to fight it out. Whoever the mysterious "Sam" was, she helped save their asses.

But chatter about the disappearing woman was overruled by getting the dangerously weak Alla back to base and realizing they were making bigger splashes than ever before.

In some ways, it was thrilling, knowing they were getting this far underneath the mercs' skin. Others? They had some powerful targets on their backs. While he felt a little cynical and sour about the situation, Sidonis was much more positive. While they watched Butler's doctor wife patch Ollie's sister up, he said, "They've started noticing us, Garrus."

"I'm pretty sure they always noticed us."

"No, you don't get it. They expect shit to go haywire sometimes, or that a rando might play hero. But we're doing more than that now." Sidonis shook his head, looking at the people around the room, like he was in awe. "They hear us now and they're scared. Scared enough to bring 3 squadrons to an execution they heard we might raid."

Sidonis patted his back and walked out of the room. No matter how grumpy he wanted to be, Garrus had to admit Sidonis was right. This meant they were changing things.

But that didn't mean he had to feel secure about it quite yet. What he needed to do was prepare for the pushback. Sidonis could be their silver lining guy; Garrus was there to keep them alive.

And dammit, he was not about to lose anyone just because they wanted to save lives and some asshole decided to snuff them out. Not again.

It was time for some upgrades.

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