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Solid Fluidity, Chapter 16

Mass Effect fanfiction, Alternate Universe
Pairing: Garrus Vakarian + Jane Shepard (femShep)
Rated M, don't read this story if you don't like reading about sex.

A whole freighter full of dead bodies. That's the kind of sight nobody wishes to see before their first cava. Garrus was immensely grateful for the filters in his helmet as the krogan and asari corpses around him had already begun to decay. The floor was sticky with orange and purple blood and greenish fluids, mingled and congealed to form a multi colored gel.

Other than the sick gel on the floor and the blood speckles on the walls, the ship looked pristine. Even though the dead all seemed to be mercs with plenty of battle experience, they evidently didn't fight back. They had all died by headshots, some from the back, some from the front. Even the three krogan had been killed by headshots, vicious looking wounds in their headcrests, probably from a shotgun.

Garrus stepped over the bodies of two asari and looked around the cockpit. The dead pilot still sat in the chair, slumped back at a strange angle. The ship, originating from somewhere in the Terminus, had been programmed with a course to the Citadel and had jumped out of the Widow relay, slowly drifting towards it. The panels in the cockpit were still active from the last input that had been put in. Garrus had steered the ship from the co-pilots seat to leave the pilots inputs untouched. He checked over the navigation inputs, they looked simple and professional, practically textbook like.

He sighed and programmed a drone to trace the whole ship for DNA. He didn't expect anything useful, whoever had killed the mercs was probably just another merc, a freelancer maybe. He downloaded the ships logs and anything he could find of the inner ship sensors. Then he retraced his steps towards the airlock and advised the forensic crew to take pictures and samples of everything. He received the expected muffled replies that this wasn’t their first time doing their job, and he spread his mandibles in a grin, forgetting for a second that they couldn't see it under his helmet. He made a short laughing sound instead.

Stepping out on the dock he released the clamps on his helmet and took it off. He breathed in the mostly clean Citadel air and made his way back to C-Sec. After checking the time he placed a call to Shepard back in his apartment. Frank had woken him early in the morning to tell him that he was on to get this ship into the docking area. Enough people had covered for him in the last two days so that when this rather unpleasant job came up, he had to do it. Without waking Shepard he had gotten up and had taken a shuttle towards the Widow relay.

The ship had jumped out of the mass relay, not answering the calls from Citadel control. No life signs had been detected. It was drifting, so someone had to board it and put it into controlled docking. That job had been given to Garrus. He had ordered the shuttle to drift alongside the freighter. After shooting an adhesive anchor over to the ship, he rappelled himself over to the airlock. It had opened without delay, meaning that the door had not been locked. The inside of the ship was pressurized and heated against the harsh coldness of space but Garrus had still decided against taking his helmet off. One look at the multicolored goo on the floor had convinced him of keeping it on.

After maneuvering the ship into the docking bay with a slightly louder bang than he had wished, he had ordered C-Sec forensics to come on board. He didn't expect much to come out of it, a fight among mercs tended to yield the expected results of one merc alive when others were not.

His call finally was answered and the screen showed him a disheveled looking Shepard who made some noise in greeting him and then buried her face back into the pillow.

"Good morning sunshine," he called out in a greeting that he had heard in an old Earth movie. He liked that expression, it was close to the many turian endearments involving the sun over Palaven. Even turians who had never been to Palaven in their life would praise their mates with the beauty of the golden sun rising over the silver mountains of Palaven. 'Sunshine' was just close enough to that picture for Garrus without entering the seriousness of turian poetry for bondmates.

Shepard was clearly not in the mood for endearments of poetry, her answering grunt sounded more like a krogan in a bad mood waking up.
"Hey, sunshine, I just wanted to tell you that I'm at C-Sec today, there's food in the kitchen for you and there is even a coffee maker. I'm sure you know how to use that one." The word 'coffee' seemed to have magical abilities as the woman actually turned her face to her omni-tool and looked at him.

"Hey, Garrus, where are you?"

"I'm at C-Sec, I have to work today. How are you feeling?" he asked, remembering that Shepard had been more than slightly drunk last night. He practically had to carry her home and she had fallen asleep as soon as her position was close to horizontal.

An indistinguishable sound came from her and some words that his translator didn't attempt to make sense of. She raised herself up on her elbows and brought her arm with the omni-tool in front of her. That way she was looking down at him and her scruffy hair fell forward to frame her face. His talons were itching to comb through them. Finally she smiled a little at him but then scrunched up her face in pain. "Ugh, headache," she said, her voice rough.

"There are pills on the table," Garrus said and he saw her searching for them.

She gave him a little smile again. "Pills against headaches and coffee - you are an angel." She sat up to take some of the pills and drank all the water he had put on the table for her. "When are you coming back, my angel?" she asked, now looking much more lively.

Garrus sent her his shift calendar for the coming week. He was aching - aching - to go to her right now, to kiss her smile and trail his fingers along her soft waist. But he actually had to show some effort at work this week to at least hit the average for this month. "I'll call you again later this afternoon and I'll see you tonight after my shift is done."

"I would like to do some workout today, maybe we could meet at a fitness center?" Shepard asked, her face disappearing for a second as she stretched. His perspective shifted and he found himself looking down on her almost naked form as she stretched out her arms. He groaned slightly.

"I usually work out at C-Sec's center, I can bring you along. I'll call you before I'll be heading there and we will meet at C-Sec. What are you going to do with the rest of your day?" Garrus felt like he wanted to prolong the conversation, wanted to keep talking to her.

"First I'm going back to sleep. Then I'm going to slouch on the couch and read, and sleep some more. And then... I haven't decided yet," she said, falling back on her pillow and placing her arm next to her so that he could still see one of her blue eyes peeking over the pillow. "Thanks for the pillow, by the way, that was very thoughtful of you, my angel." That smile, again.

Garrus sighed, he was still standing in the docking area and he already got funny looks from the turian dockworkers who could recognize a lovesick smile on a turian. "I have to go now, Jane, I'll talk to you later."

"Alright, be careful." She winked at him and ended the call. Garrus breathed in, trying to calm his fast beating heart. He started walking again but urgent calls from the freighter stopped him.

"Officer Vakarian! Hello, sir!" Someone from the forensic crew was waving him back.

Slightly annoyed, Garrus made his way back to the ships airlock and fixed the young turian with an intense stare. "What?" He barked.

The young guy with the green markings looked at him unfazed and pointed inside the ship. "Your drone, sir, it's complaining about you leaving range."

Garrus stretched his throat in embarrassment, he had never before forgotten his drone anywhere. He trilled apologetic at the young guy for barking at him like that but the young turian just shrugged his shoulders. That was a distinctly human gesture and Garrus was surprised to see a turian use it.

He checked the drones progress on his omni-tool, it had swept over 90% of the ships area for DNA. He had to wait for a few more minutes until the drone returned to him and sent the data to his omni-tool before disappearing with a pop. The automatic search algorithms on his omni-tool went to work and Garrus could finally leave the foul smelling ship for good.

Back at C-Sec he took a quick look over the preliminary results of the DNA-Scan but so far it was like he had suspected. A bunch of dead mercenaries, some with long files at C-Sec. The only unusual thing about this case was that they all had died from very precise headshots. It looked more like a professional execution than a fight among mercs.

Garrus let the software churn away at the data and worked his way through the reports he had to write. As his father had always said, an arrest is nothing without the data trail binding it tight. Back in the beginning of Garrus's days at C-Sec, when his father was still a leading officer, his father had drilled that into him after one case had blown up in their faces. Aethius Vakarian had let a criminal named Kishpaugh go after Garrus had arrested him on shaky grounds. Kishpaugh was a criminal scumbag but evidence was hard to come by.

The resulting Vakarian shouting match in the C-Sec halls went down in the annals of C-Sec and was one of the reasons why the Executor had them never work together again. Garrus had been yelling at his father that he was so covered up in his rules that he didn't even know how bad the crime situation was on the Citadel. Aethius held against it with his tried and true rule of 'do it right or don't do it at all', ignoring how much shit went down in the lower wards while he sat at his desk, making data trails. His last words to his son about C-Sec was that he couldn't change the rules just because he didn't like them. They never spoke about work again after that.

Despite disagreeing with his father about the amount of data trails he had to tie together for a good case, he really did try to follow the mantra of doing it right or not doing it at all. Right now this meant mind numbing report writing, whether he liked it or not.

Two hours later Garrus was about ready to shoot the cava-maker or maybe just his cup. Something. Anything. Just to put an end to this.

He signed another datapad and sent the file to the database and decided to take a break. Outside in the main hall of C-Sec where the water dispensers and cava- and coffee-makers were installed, a small crowd was greeting him with friendly nods. Somehow his colleagues appeared friendlier towards him than usual. He had always been a bit of an outsider in the force. He was the only turian who had been friends with a human and had gotten some flack for it. Somehow that had changed.

Maybe it was the "All Together Festival", or something that Frank had done while he was in the hospital. Or maybe it was the attack on Elysium reminding everyone that every species faced the same problems in this galaxy. Garrus saw turians joking with humans, salarians talking agitated with asari and turians. He made a mental note to tell Shepard about it later. She would love that.

Only a few turians remained clustered in one area all by themselves, looking suspiciously at the C-Sec officers from other species. You can't make everybody happy.

Nodding another friendly greeting to an asari ex-commando and another to the turian next to her, he realized with shame that he didn't even know anybody's name. When it came to interspecies understanding, he really should put in more effort than just having a human girlfriend that nobody was supposed to know about.

He was searching for Frank but couldn't find him. In the back of the room he noticed the human Katrina Peters in an argument with the salarian Berdin Lerv and made his way over to them. Both of them had been assigned as a junior-team together, an idea that Frank had had. Two rookies were teamed together and got mentored by a veteran. That way they could make valuable experiences and still be under the watch of seasoned C-Sec officers. Peters and Lerv had been assigned to Garrus but as he had been suspended and then been kind of out of it after the attack on Elysium, another colleague had taken them under his wing; Garrus felt guilty about that.

As he came closer, he heard his name come up and when they saw him they both shut their mouths. The sudden silence was kind of embarrassing. Garrus looked between them with a smirk, fluttering his mandibles.

"Now what is going on and why have you been talking about me?" he asked and made his voice sound threatening with a deep thrum of his subharmonics. It had the desired effect of nervousness in the two people in front of him. Peters turned deep red and cast her eyes down, Lerv was blinking rapidly and his horns turned slightly green. He let them suffer for a bit before he changed his vocals to a more friendly tone. Lerv relaxed immediately, evidently having a good understanding of turian subharmonics. The human woman looked slightly confused but she gradually relaxed as well. Berdin Lerv had apparently decided that he would tell the whole story and in typical salarian fashion started talking right away and way too fast.

"We made a routine check down in the Zakera wards in the Factory district and we met a group of traders, checked their info, everything fine but there was one asari who looked kind of nervous..." Lerv rattled on. Garrus stopped him with a raised hand.
"Let's go into my office and you tell me everything there," he said.

Lerv looked like someone had stolen his cookies. "But I was just saying..."

Katrina Peters took his arm and pulled him along while Berdin kept on muttering about wasting time. Patience was not a salarian virtue.

When they had reached his office, Garrus sat down on his desk and motioned to Berdin that he was now ready to hear the story. The salarian spoke even faster than before like he had to make up for the lost time and Garrus turned to Katrina with a helpless look. She stopped her salarian teammate and handed Garrus a small datapad.

"The nervous asari handed us this pad when nobody was looking," Katrina explained, "and whispered that we should bring it to Vakarian. Then she went back to them." She gave him an apologetic smile, "We weren't sure if we should give it to you right away, we didn't know if it was legit, you were so busy, sir, and the name Vakarian is not exactly unknown at C-Sec. With you and your father..."

Garrus waved his hand, he didn't need to hear about his father's famousness at C-Sec. He turned the pad in his hand but nothing appeared on the screen. He looked up to the two young officers. "Next time someone has something for Vakarian, you inform me right away, okay?"

The pad suddenly sprang to life, "voice match confirmed" sounded out and writing appeared on the screen. It read, 'Help me Garrus, something is going on, maybe Red Sand or slavery. I can't leave, they'll kill me. Please help me! Don't trust anyone, they have connections at C-Sec. Dalinia'.

"Who's Dalinia?" Peters asked.

"An old friend who is not even supposed to be on the Citadel," he answered. He did not mention that she had also been a frequent sex partner for him. He turned to his young colleagues. "Tell me exactly where and how you got this datapad."

The human woman and the salarian man looked at each other and then started talking at the same time. He stopped them and then had Peters tell him first while Lerv was fidgeting beside her.

"We were doing a routine checkup on the traders in the Zakera Ward, in the lower Factory district, comparing orders and transport lists, the usual."

The salarian couldn't keep quiet anymore and took over, rapidly telling the rest of the story. "The asari had seen us and faked an accident with a cargo box. The contents, some kind of beads or beans spilled over the floor and as she was cleaning it up, she moved closer to us. Peters was crouching down to help her and the asari gave her the pad and said..."

The human woman took the conversation over again, slightly annoyed at having been interrupted. "She said, 'give this to Officer Vakarian, only him, no one else,' and then some human called her back."

Garrus thought about his options. He needed to help Dalinia, that was without question but he needed a team. According to Dalinia's warning he couldn't trust other C-Sec officers but he also couldn't go alone. He looked at the two rookies in front of him and sighed. "Dalinia warned me that these guys have someone at C-Sec to help them, so I can't ask any of the other guys. Do you two have combat training?"

They both straightened and said simultaneously, "Yes, sir!" Garrus had to smile a little at their eagerness. But then his smile turned to worry, they were so young, inexperienced. Hardly the kind of backup he needed to take up arms against a bunch of Red Sand smugglers.

Berdin Lerv spoke up. "But if you can't trust anyone, why do you trust us?"

Katrina Peters answered for Garrus. "Because we are hardly far enough up the foodchain to be helpful for a bunch of criminals. Bribing us would have served no purpose, we are clean by default."

Garrus nodded at that, it was true. "You two go down to the armory, armor up and pick your weapons. Limit yourself to two, maybe three weapons, you don't want to clank around like you're selling cooking ware. I'll meet you down there in a few minutes. Don't talk to anybody about this case, understood?"

Two eager,"Yes, sir!"s were called out and the young man and woman disappeared. Garrus went through his options, he needed more than just two rookies without combat experience if he wanted to help Dalinia without getting killed. He called Frank, who answered after a considerable long time.

Frank had arrived in the bar late last night and Hyun Su and Luiza, the third woman in Shepard's Badass-Girls Circle, had instantly taken a liking to him. They had involved him in a complicated drinking game and when he had left with Shepard, the three of them were supporting each other to not fall down. Garrus had carried Shepard on his shoulder and together with Mary, who had been surprisingly sober, made sure that Frank got to his apartment and the girls to their hotel.

Waking up now, Frank looked considerably worse than Shepard had this morning and Garrus felt a little sorry for him. But he needed his help, he needed someone he could trust.

"Good morning, monkeyman. You have to get up."

"Fuck you, birdy," Frank grumbled with his voice almost inaudible. He didn't even open his eyes.

"Seriously, I need you down in Zakera Ward in the Factory District. Dalinia is in trouble, possibly Red Sand smugglers." An urgent trill left him that made Frank flinch.

"Why don't you ask one of the guys who isn't very hungover and practically still asleep?" Frank had at least raised his head now and his eyes were open.

"I can't trust anybody, they have an inside connection."

"Ah, fuck." Frank groaned as he got up. The camera picture switched off as Frank started moving about and Garrus heard him rattle a can of pills. Hopefully he had something that would sober him up quickly. His voice still reflected many drinks and lots of singing from the previous night.

"Send me the coordinates, birdy, I'll be there in twenty, I just have to grab a coffee on the way."

"Armor up and bring guns," Garrus reminded him.

"Fuck yeah," was the friendly reply before they ended the call. Garrus placed another call, he knew one more person who could help him and who he could trust.

His call was answered immediately and he was greeted with an intriguing view of a little dent on Shepard's stomach, a belly button he remembered her calling it.
"Hey, sunshine," he said, his subharmonics singing to her.

The camera turned up to her smiling face, "Hey, angel, you miss me already?" She was still mostly naked and Garrus couldn't stop thinking about that belly button he had never paid attention to. He regretted that now.

He groaned quietly. "You have no idea how much. But I'm calling for a different reason. I know you're on vacation but a friend is in danger and I can't trust anybody at C-Sec. Could you help me bust a bunch of criminals? You could even use your toys, it would be nice to have someone to interrogate afterwards."

She grinned. "Now that sounds like my kind of party. Send me the coordinates, I'll throw some armor on and meet you there with my girls."

Garrus was confused, "What girls?" he asked.

Her grin got even wider. "My guns of course. The ladies are itching for a nice dance." She blinked one eye towards him and then closed the call. He took a deep breath to calm himself and shook his head to shake out all thoughts of belly buttons and a naked girlfriend who called her rifles 'girls'.

As he went down to the armory to get his weapons, his omni-tool beeped with the results of the DNA traces his drone had collected. Garrus scrolled through the list of names and numbered designations for unknowns. Nothing out of the ordinary. Down to the bottom of the list came the names with the least markers on the ship and he was about to close the list as one name jumped out at him. He almost stumbled against a doorframe as he stared at it.

Arterius, Saren (Spectre, current location unknown)

Saren Arterius?

Garrus's mind was churning the name over and over again while the skycar traveled to the Factory district. Saren Arterius. The simple case of some dead mercs had suddenly turned into a highly classified investigation because a Spectre was involved. He send a short note about the case to Pallin, this thing had just elevated itself to, 'have to tell the boss about it' level.

He noticed Katrina and Berdin looking at him, probably confused why he had been so silent the whole time. He gave them a short grin to indicate that everything was fine and turned back to his omni-tool. He rechecked the information they had from the freighter that was now sitting at the dock. All he could see was that it had come from the Terminus system, made a few stops in between, probably to discharge the drivecore and then jumped on a programmed course through the relays to the Widow-Relay by to the Citadel.

Nothing in the navigation logs indicated at what point the ship had turned into a ghost ship, carrying only decaying corpses on board. Garrus snarled in frustration and noticed how Katrina looked at him in fear. He trilled apologetic and then realized that he would have to use words with the human woman.

"Sorry, forgot that you don't have much experience with turian subharmonics. I didn't mean to scare you. I just received information for another case that had looked so simple and now isn't anymore and now I'm... frustrated. The sound you heard had nothing to do with you."

Berdin cut in in typical salarian fashion. "Yes, using subharmonics with humans can be problematic. They don't really hear them..."

Garrus smiled at that comment and interrupted him. "Wrong, they can hear it. Can even copy some sounds but of course they have only one voice box so they can't underline their speech with subharmonics."

Berdin stared at him like Garrus had just told him that the Citadel was made out of chocolate. Katrina snickered at that and then looked at Garrus again with great interest. "So the sounds have individual meanings? Why is that not commonly known?"

Garrus tried to shrug his shoulders like he had seen the turian at the docks do and noticed that Katrina seemed to immediately understand that he didn't know. That was a practical gesture, it acted like a trill of uncertainty that a turian would make.

Katrina now looked even more interested. "So humans can make the sounds too?"

Garrus realized that he needed to be a bit more cautious with the information he was spreading. That Shepard was able to make voices that sounded like subharmonic hums might not be a common ability, he had to be careful how much he revealed about that.

"That's what I heard somewhere," he mumbled and turned back to his omni-tool. Luckily Katrina didn't pry further and Berdin was busily working on his omni-tool. Probably researching human voices and subharmonics.

The skycar came to a stop a block away from the warehouse where Katrina and Berdin had met Dalinia. Frank was already sitting on some container with his head leaned back against the wall; he seemed to be asleep. Another skycar stopped next the one where Garrus and his young colleagues were sitting in. Shepard waved over to them and he saw Katrina stare slack jawed. "That's Commander Shepard! What is she doing here?"

Garrus didn't even try to hide his smug grin. "I called her, I asked her if she could help us."

Katrina and Berdin gaped at him. "You know Commander Shepard and just called her?" Berdin asked, his voice slightly higher than usual.

Garrus's smug grin made his mandibles flutter.

Shepard stepped out of the car and as she made her way over to them Garrus saw her transform from Jane, his soft human girlfriend to the hardened Commander the rest of the world knew. She exuded an air of authority and strength as she strode over to them. With a nod she greeted Garrus and he knew that this was the professional side of their relationship. There would be no kisses here.

"Officer Vakarian, would you explain the situation please," she said, her voice friendly but confident. Garrus fluttered his mandibles once at her and he saw from the tiny tug at the corner of her mouth that she noticed.

"In a moment, Commander," Garrus answered and walked over to Frank, who was still asleep on the container. Somehow he had managed to fall asleep without spilling the coffee from the cup in his hand.

"Hey, monkey, wake up!" Garrus called out to him and to Frank's credit he woke up right away, still not spilling his coffee. He took one look around and as his eyes fell on Shepard, he visibly relaxed.

"Ah, come on, birdy," he said, yawning and stretching, "what do you need me for if you have Commander Shepard with you? You could have let me sleep."

"Well, I couldn't do it without your unique brand of happiness that you bring into my day," Garrus said with a grin. He collected his small troop around himself and projected a map of the building from his omni-tool.
"The building has two entrances. The back entrance is small and two of us should be able to cover it. I suggest Frank and either Katrina or Berdin take that side. The rest of us take out the guards in front and enter the building from there." He looked around and saw everyone nodding.

He brought up a picture of Dalinia next to the map of the building. "We are looking for an asari named Dalinia, a friend of mine." Garrus saw that Frank threw him a meaningful look and that Shepard noticed it. She didn't say anything but there would be questions later, of that he was sure. "We don't know how many people are in there or how many of them are hostile."

Shepard spoke up. "Will you talk to them first or do we go in shooting?" She clearly considered this to be his show and let him be in command. He was grateful for that.

"Let's try normal C-Sec procedure first, we don't have a warrant but there could be someone in immediate danger so that gives us an entry. Let's see how they react to that. Our priority is to get Dalinia out but I would also like a search of the place. Dalinia suspects Red Sand so we keep our helmets on and let our omni-tools search for the stuff. Everybody clear?"

The two young recruits answered with an enthusiastic, "Yes, sir!" while Shepard and Frank just nodded.

He fixed Berdin and Katrina with a look. "You two stay in cover, is that clear? This isn't combat training, this thing can go sideways in a second and I don't want to have to worry about you two! Understood?"

The answer was a notably less enthusiastic, "Yes, sir" from the kids.

Frank took Berdin with him around the back and Garrus walked with Katrina and Shepard toward the front door. Two guards raised their weapons and Garrus saw from the corner of his eye that Shepard raised a heavy pistol that looked so heavily modded that it looked more like a machinegun. He noticed Katrina behind her fumble with her pistol and he got a very bad feeling about this situation.

"Katrina, fall back. Stay behind cover and look for anyone coming up behind us." For a moment it looked like she wanted to object but then she nodded and hid behind a container.

Garrus stepped forward to one of the guards and projected his badge. "Vakarian, C-Sec. We have received a distress call from this building that we have to investigate. Where is your boss? We would like to..."

The guard opposite Shepard suddenly raised his gun and started shooting. At least he tried to shoot before he fell down, clutching his shoulder, his gun clattering to the ground. The other guard met the same fate before Garrus even had his gun trained on him. He stared at Shepard for a second, she shot faster than anybody he had ever met.

She grinned at him and said, "I'm sorry, I forgot to ask, are we going for injured or dead?" The grin on her face had a deadly tinge to it.

"Let's go for injured for now but if they overwhelm us we have to go for killshots," Garrus replied, settling beside the door frame to peer inside. Shepard positioned herself on the other side and with a nod they both moved in.

The attack was immediate and brutal, shots whizzing around them and they both dove to the side behind cover. Shepard had taken her sniper rifle from her back, peered down the scope, and shot shoulders and arms into pieces. Another wave of humans stormed in from the other side, all of them armored and armed with shotguns. Shepard looked over to him and Garrus nodded at the question that she didn't need to ask.

"Yes, I think we go for killshots now."

"Understood, Vakarian." She shifted her aim and the attackers began dropping down with holes in their foreheads. Garrus had a hard time keeping up with her. After a few minutes the attackers finally realized that they needed a better position and took cover behind some crates.

Their comm units came alive with Frank muttering in their ears. "Guys, we're coming in, cleaning up from behind. Don't shoot at us."

"Understood, Frank," Garrus answered and contacted Katrina outside, "Katrina, how's it looking?"

A confident voice came back. "I have made three arrests and the SWAT team is en route. This entrance is secure."

Garrus didn't hide his surprise and looked over to Shepard who chuckled quietly, "I like that girl."

Garrus shook his head, "Human women are full of surprises, I guess."

Shepard looked over to him and he could almost make out her smile behind her helmet. A shot hit her cover a bit too close to her head, speckling dust and shrapnel against her helmet.

"Permission to go in and kick some ass?" she asked with an angry snarl. He hesitated for a second, could he really send her into the middle of the fight? But he knew that she was Commander Shepard right now, not his mate that he needed to protect.

"Permission definitely granted," he said, trying to sound more sure of it than he was.

She grinned and jumped over the container and ran into the cover where the other humans were hiding behind. Garrus's heart almost stopped. She still had her sniper rifle raised and used it for close-range shots without really aiming. He flinched at that, this was certainly not how his father had taught him to use the sniper rifle.

When she came closer, she switched to her vicious looking pistol and he saw a blade extrude out of her armor. With a battle cry she jumped into the middle of the fight and carved her way through the room. Garrus picked off any of the enemies that came up behind her back as she shot and stabbed her way over to a set of doors. She was like a deadly whirlwind among them, jumping and sliding from cover to cover and rushing into groups, decimating them with her knife and her pistol. He couldn't stop a growl building up in him, just watching her made his plates shift.

The last five humans soon realized the futility of their positions and raised their hands in surrender.

It was suddenly eerily quiet in the warehouse. Footsteps approaching a door had them aim their weapons again until they heard Frank calling them through the door. "Are you guys alright?"

"Yes, we're fine. The room is secured," Garrus called out and lowered his rifle. Frank and Berdin stepped inside and put handcuffs on the remaining humans. Garrus checked his omni-tool, it showed no sign of Red Sand in the air so he decided to take his helmet off. Shepard did the same and stepped around the dead and injured, checking everyone over.

She raised her head towards Garrus. "I don't see any asari," she called out to him.

Loud banging and calls for help drew their attention towards another door on the side. Garrus and Shepard positioned themselves on either side of it. Shepard overloaded the lock with a blast from her omni-tool before Garrus could even begin hacking it.

He looked at her annoyed and she whispered, "Sorry" through the comm unit and smiled at him. Her hair was sticking out and blood dripped off her armor. Garrus couldn't take his eyes off her. His deadly warrioress, he wanted to shove her against the next wall and bite through her armor, among other things.

The door slid to the side and Garrus pointed his rifle inside. "Everybody, come out now!" he called into the room. Slowly, one by one, six asari came out of the room dressed in typical asari dance dresses. At last Dalinia came out and Garrus sighed in relief. She recognized him right away and with a happy squee jumped up on him and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

Shepard stared at them, one eyebrow cocked up. Garrus groaned in embarrassment but Dalinia apparently took that in a completely different way. She pressed her cheek against his face, shrieking, "Thank you, thank you for saving me!" Over and over again.

Shepard looked at them without any emotion showing on her face. He was keenly aware that this woman was dangerous and probably not amused.

Garrus carefully pried Dalinia's hands and legs off him and lowered her back to the floor. Dalinia stilled, noticing his unusual behaviour.

"What's wrong, Garrus? Aren't you happy to see me?" She looked at him confused.

He sighed, "Dalinia, I'm glad to see that you are well but..." He didn't know what to say.

She still looked confused but then suddenly she smiled again. Moving closer to him she whispered, "I see, you want to keep it a secret, don't worry, I'll show you my gratefulness later on." She stroked over the codpiece of his armor and Shepard noticed it. And she also noticed Dalinia's hand gently scratching under his fringe, making him shudder for a second. Shepard's lips were pressed together in a thin line as she watched every movement that the asari made.

He took her wrists in his hand a bit more roughly than he should have and spoke to her hurriedly, "Dalinia, that's not going to happen, I'm with someone. I'm glad you're okay but we won't be meeting... ahem... like that again."

Dalinia stared at him in surprise. "I see. Are you sure?" She lowered her arms, but cocked her head with a flirty smile.

Shepard stepped up to them and turned to Dalinia with a very friendly smile on her face. "Why don't you go outside to make a report with officer Katrina Peters. We would like to know everything about this operation here." Shepard still smiled. It was the kind of smile that made the room a few degrees colder.

Dalinia looked her in the eyes and opened her mouth to say something. Shepard just kept looking at her, the smile slowly fading from her face. Any protest that the asari wanted to voice suddenly seemed to die and Dalinia, who had served drinks to drunk krogan without even flinching, suddenly shrunk back from the human woman. She nodded and turned away without another word.

Garrus looked at Shepard whose eyes followed the asari until she had stepped through the front door. With a jerk of her head she turned back to Garrus. "So... we were busting out your old girlfriend?"

Garrus stretched his throat and hummed insecurely. Shepard was mad, that he could see but he didn't know how he was supposed to deal with it.
"She wasn't exactly my girlfriend. We are friends and sometimes we would have sex... It didn't mean all that much." He glanced over to her as she stood next to him, not looking at him anymore.

"Friends with benefits, I see," Shepard mumbled. Her fists were opening and closing at her side. She looked like she was about to explode.

"Shepard, what's wrong?" he asked to get her to look at him again.

She did and her eyes were like fire. "What's wrong? Come on Garrus, you're the expert on human expressions, don't tell me you don't know what jealousy looks like!"

He put his hand on her armored shoulder. "Shepard... Jane, you have nothing to worry about, that was all in the past, you have no reason to be jealous."

She looked at him again and he saw with relief that some of the fury had left her gaze.

"Reason? Who said anything about reasonable?" She threw up her arms. "Garrus, I know I shouldn't be jealous, I know we both didn't enter this relationship as virgins but... I can't help it." She raised herself on her tiptoes to whisper close to his ear. "If I ever see her touching you like that again, I will rip the tentacles off her head and stuff them into her fucking face!" An angry grumble left her throat and she turned around and stomped off.

Garrus needed a minute until he had the stupid grin on his face under control again.

Description
Solid Fluidity, Chapter 16

Mass Effect fanfiction, Alternate Universe
Pairing: Garrus Vakarian + Jane Shepard (femShep)
Rated M, don't read this story if you don't like reading about sex.

A whole freighter full of dead bodies. That's the kind of sight nobody wishes to see before their first cava. Garrus was immensely grateful for the filters in his helmet as the krogan and asari corpses around him had already begun to decay. The floor was sticky with orange and purple blood and greenish fluids, mingled and congealed to form a multi colored gel.

Other than the sick gel on the floor and the blood speckles on the walls, the ship looked pristine. Even though the dead all seemed to be mercs with plenty of battle experience, they evidently didn't fight back. They had all died by headshots, some from the back, some from the front. Even the three krogan had been killed by headshots, vicious looking wounds in their headcrests, probably from a shotgun.

Garrus stepped over the bodies of two asari and looked around the cockpit. The dead pilot still sat in the chair, slumped back at a strange angle. The ship, originating from somewhere in the Terminus, had been programmed with a course to the Citadel and had jumped out of the Widow relay, slowly drifting towards it. The panels in the cockpit were still active from the last input that had been put in. Garrus had steered the ship from the co-pilots seat to leave the pilots inputs untouched. He checked over the navigation inputs, they looked simple and professional, practically textbook like.

He sighed and programmed a drone to trace the whole ship for DNA. He didn't expect anything useful, whoever had killed the mercs was probably just another merc, a freelancer maybe. He downloaded the ships logs and anything he could find of the inner ship sensors. Then he retraced his steps towards the airlock and advised the forensic crew to take pictures and samples of everything. He received the expected muffled replies that this wasn’t their first time doing their job, and he spread his mandibles in a grin, forgetting for a second that they couldn't see it under his helmet. He made a short laughing sound instead.

Stepping out on the dock he released the clamps on his helmet and took it off. He breathed in the mostly clean Citadel air and made his way back to C-Sec. After checking the time he placed a call to Shepard back in his apartment. Frank had woken him early in the morning to tell him that he was on to get this ship into the docking area. Enough people had covered for him in the last two days so that when this rather unpleasant job came up, he had to do it. Without waking Shepard he had gotten up and had taken a shuttle towards the Widow relay.

The ship had jumped out of the mass relay, not answering the calls from Citadel control. No life signs had been detected. It was drifting, so someone had to board it and put it into controlled docking. That job had been given to Garrus. He had ordered the shuttle to drift alongside the freighter. After shooting an adhesive anchor over to the ship, he rappelled himself over to the airlock. It had opened without delay, meaning that the door had not been locked. The inside of the ship was pressurized and heated against the harsh coldness of space but Garrus had still decided against taking his helmet off. One look at the multicolored goo on the floor had convinced him of keeping it on.

After maneuvering the ship into the docking bay with a slightly louder bang than he had wished, he had ordered C-Sec forensics to come on board. He didn't expect much to come out of it, a fight among mercs tended to yield the expected results of one merc alive when others were not.

His call finally was answered and the screen showed him a disheveled looking Shepard who made some noise in greeting him and then buried her face back into the pillow.

"Good morning sunshine," he called out in a greeting that he had heard in an old Earth movie. He liked that expression, it was close to the many turian endearments involving the sun over Palaven. Even turians who had never been to Palaven in their life would praise their mates with the beauty of the golden sun rising over the silver mountains of Palaven. 'Sunshine' was just close enough to that picture for Garrus without entering the seriousness of turian poetry for bondmates.

Shepard was clearly not in the mood for endearments of poetry, her answering grunt sounded more like a krogan in a bad mood waking up.
"Hey, sunshine, I just wanted to tell you that I'm at C-Sec today, there's food in the kitchen for you and there is even a coffee maker. I'm sure you know how to use that one." The word 'coffee' seemed to have magical abilities as the woman actually turned her face to her omni-tool and looked at him.

"Hey, Garrus, where are you?"

"I'm at C-Sec, I have to work today. How are you feeling?" he asked, remembering that Shepard had been more than slightly drunk last night. He practically had to carry her home and she had fallen asleep as soon as her position was close to horizontal.

An indistinguishable sound came from her and some words that his translator didn't attempt to make sense of. She raised herself up on her elbows and brought her arm with the omni-tool in front of her. That way she was looking down at him and her scruffy hair fell forward to frame her face. His talons were itching to comb through them. Finally she smiled a little at him but then scrunched up her face in pain. "Ugh, headache," she said, her voice rough.

"There are pills on the table," Garrus said and he saw her searching for them.

She gave him a little smile again. "Pills against headaches and coffee - you are an angel." She sat up to take some of the pills and drank all the water he had put on the table for her. "When are you coming back, my angel?" she asked, now looking much more lively.

Garrus sent her his shift calendar for the coming week. He was aching - aching - to go to her right now, to kiss her smile and trail his fingers along her soft waist. But he actually had to show some effort at work this week to at least hit the average for this month. "I'll call you again later this afternoon and I'll see you tonight after my shift is done."

"I would like to do some workout today, maybe we could meet at a fitness center?" Shepard asked, her face disappearing for a second as she stretched. His perspective shifted and he found himself looking down on her almost naked form as she stretched out her arms. He groaned slightly.

"I usually work out at C-Sec's center, I can bring you along. I'll call you before I'll be heading there and we will meet at C-Sec. What are you going to do with the rest of your day?" Garrus felt like he wanted to prolong the conversation, wanted to keep talking to her.

"First I'm going back to sleep. Then I'm going to slouch on the couch and read, and sleep some more. And then... I haven't decided yet," she said, falling back on her pillow and placing her arm next to her so that he could still see one of her blue eyes peeking over the pillow. "Thanks for the pillow, by the way, that was very thoughtful of you, my angel." That smile, again.

Garrus sighed, he was still standing in the docking area and he already got funny looks from the turian dockworkers who could recognize a lovesick smile on a turian. "I have to go now, Jane, I'll talk to you later."

"Alright, be careful." She winked at him and ended the call. Garrus breathed in, trying to calm his fast beating heart. He started walking again but urgent calls from the freighter stopped him.

"Officer Vakarian! Hello, sir!" Someone from the forensic crew was waving him back.

Slightly annoyed, Garrus made his way back to the ships airlock and fixed the young turian with an intense stare. "What?" He barked.

The young guy with the green markings looked at him unfazed and pointed inside the ship. "Your drone, sir, it's complaining about you leaving range."

Garrus stretched his throat in embarrassment, he had never before forgotten his drone anywhere. He trilled apologetic at the young guy for barking at him like that but the young turian just shrugged his shoulders. That was a distinctly human gesture and Garrus was surprised to see a turian use it.

He checked the drones progress on his omni-tool, it had swept over 90% of the ships area for DNA. He had to wait for a few more minutes until the drone returned to him and sent the data to his omni-tool before disappearing with a pop. The automatic search algorithms on his omni-tool went to work and Garrus could finally leave the foul smelling ship for good.

Back at C-Sec he took a quick look over the preliminary results of the DNA-Scan but so far it was like he had suspected. A bunch of dead mercenaries, some with long files at C-Sec. The only unusual thing about this case was that they all had died from very precise headshots. It looked more like a professional execution than a fight among mercs.

Garrus let the software churn away at the data and worked his way through the reports he had to write. As his father had always said, an arrest is nothing without the data trail binding it tight. Back in the beginning of Garrus's days at C-Sec, when his father was still a leading officer, his father had drilled that into him after one case had blown up in their faces. Aethius Vakarian had let a criminal named Kishpaugh go after Garrus had arrested him on shaky grounds. Kishpaugh was a criminal scumbag but evidence was hard to come by.

The resulting Vakarian shouting match in the C-Sec halls went down in the annals of C-Sec and was one of the reasons why the Executor had them never work together again. Garrus had been yelling at his father that he was so covered up in his rules that he didn't even know how bad the crime situation was on the Citadel. Aethius held against it with his tried and true rule of 'do it right or don't do it at all', ignoring how much shit went down in the lower wards while he sat at his desk, making data trails. His last words to his son about C-Sec was that he couldn't change the rules just because he didn't like them. They never spoke about work again after that.

Despite disagreeing with his father about the amount of data trails he had to tie together for a good case, he really did try to follow the mantra of doing it right or not doing it at all. Right now this meant mind numbing report writing, whether he liked it or not.

Two hours later Garrus was about ready to shoot the cava-maker or maybe just his cup. Something. Anything. Just to put an end to this.

He signed another datapad and sent the file to the database and decided to take a break. Outside in the main hall of C-Sec where the water dispensers and cava- and coffee-makers were installed, a small crowd was greeting him with friendly nods. Somehow his colleagues appeared friendlier towards him than usual. He had always been a bit of an outsider in the force. He was the only turian who had been friends with a human and had gotten some flack for it. Somehow that had changed.

Maybe it was the "All Together Festival", or something that Frank had done while he was in the hospital. Or maybe it was the attack on Elysium reminding everyone that every species faced the same problems in this galaxy. Garrus saw turians joking with humans, salarians talking agitated with asari and turians. He made a mental note to tell Shepard about it later. She would love that.

Only a few turians remained clustered in one area all by themselves, looking suspiciously at the C-Sec officers from other species. You can't make everybody happy.

Nodding another friendly greeting to an asari ex-commando and another to the turian next to her, he realized with shame that he didn't even know anybody's name. When it came to interspecies understanding, he really should put in more effort than just having a human girlfriend that nobody was supposed to know about.

He was searching for Frank but couldn't find him. In the back of the room he noticed the human Katrina Peters in an argument with the salarian Berdin Lerv and made his way over to them. Both of them had been assigned as a junior-team together, an idea that Frank had had. Two rookies were teamed together and got mentored by a veteran. That way they could make valuable experiences and still be under the watch of seasoned C-Sec officers. Peters and Lerv had been assigned to Garrus but as he had been suspended and then been kind of out of it after the attack on Elysium, another colleague had taken them under his wing; Garrus felt guilty about that.

As he came closer, he heard his name come up and when they saw him they both shut their mouths. The sudden silence was kind of embarrassing. Garrus looked between them with a smirk, fluttering his mandibles.

"Now what is going on and why have you been talking about me?" he asked and made his voice sound threatening with a deep thrum of his subharmonics. It had the desired effect of nervousness in the two people in front of him. Peters turned deep red and cast her eyes down, Lerv was blinking rapidly and his horns turned slightly green. He let them suffer for a bit before he changed his vocals to a more friendly tone. Lerv relaxed immediately, evidently having a good understanding of turian subharmonics. The human woman looked slightly confused but she gradually relaxed as well. Berdin Lerv had apparently decided that he would tell the whole story and in typical salarian fashion started talking right away and way too fast.

"We made a routine check down in the Zakera wards in the Factory district and we met a group of traders, checked their info, everything fine but there was one asari who looked kind of nervous..." Lerv rattled on. Garrus stopped him with a raised hand.
"Let's go into my office and you tell me everything there," he said.

Lerv looked like someone had stolen his cookies. "But I was just saying..."

Katrina Peters took his arm and pulled him along while Berdin kept on muttering about wasting time. Patience was not a salarian virtue.

When they had reached his office, Garrus sat down on his desk and motioned to Berdin that he was now ready to hear the story. The salarian spoke even faster than before like he had to make up for the lost time and Garrus turned to Katrina with a helpless look. She stopped her salarian teammate and handed Garrus a small datapad.

"The nervous asari handed us this pad when nobody was looking," Katrina explained, "and whispered that we should bring it to Vakarian. Then she went back to them." She gave him an apologetic smile, "We weren't sure if we should give it to you right away, we didn't know if it was legit, you were so busy, sir, and the name Vakarian is not exactly unknown at C-Sec. With you and your father..."

Garrus waved his hand, he didn't need to hear about his father's famousness at C-Sec. He turned the pad in his hand but nothing appeared on the screen. He looked up to the two young officers. "Next time someone has something for Vakarian, you inform me right away, okay?"

The pad suddenly sprang to life, "voice match confirmed" sounded out and writing appeared on the screen. It read, 'Help me Garrus, something is going on, maybe Red Sand or slavery. I can't leave, they'll kill me. Please help me! Don't trust anyone, they have connections at C-Sec. Dalinia'.

"Who's Dalinia?" Peters asked.

"An old friend who is not even supposed to be on the Citadel," he answered. He did not mention that she had also been a frequent sex partner for him. He turned to his young colleagues. "Tell me exactly where and how you got this datapad."

The human woman and the salarian man looked at each other and then started talking at the same time. He stopped them and then had Peters tell him first while Lerv was fidgeting beside her.

"We were doing a routine checkup on the traders in the Zakera Ward, in the lower Factory district, comparing orders and transport lists, the usual."

The salarian couldn't keep quiet anymore and took over, rapidly telling the rest of the story. "The asari had seen us and faked an accident with a cargo box. The contents, some kind of beads or beans spilled over the floor and as she was cleaning it up, she moved closer to us. Peters was crouching down to help her and the asari gave her the pad and said..."

The human woman took the conversation over again, slightly annoyed at having been interrupted. "She said, 'give this to Officer Vakarian, only him, no one else,' and then some human called her back."

Garrus thought about his options. He needed to help Dalinia, that was without question but he needed a team. According to Dalinia's warning he couldn't trust other C-Sec officers but he also couldn't go alone. He looked at the two rookies in front of him and sighed. "Dalinia warned me that these guys have someone at C-Sec to help them, so I can't ask any of the other guys. Do you two have combat training?"

They both straightened and said simultaneously, "Yes, sir!" Garrus had to smile a little at their eagerness. But then his smile turned to worry, they were so young, inexperienced. Hardly the kind of backup he needed to take up arms against a bunch of Red Sand smugglers.

Berdin Lerv spoke up. "But if you can't trust anyone, why do you trust us?"

Katrina Peters answered for Garrus. "Because we are hardly far enough up the foodchain to be helpful for a bunch of criminals. Bribing us would have served no purpose, we are clean by default."

Garrus nodded at that, it was true. "You two go down to the armory, armor up and pick your weapons. Limit yourself to two, maybe three weapons, you don't want to clank around like you're selling cooking ware. I'll meet you down there in a few minutes. Don't talk to anybody about this case, understood?"

Two eager,"Yes, sir!"s were called out and the young man and woman disappeared. Garrus went through his options, he needed more than just two rookies without combat experience if he wanted to help Dalinia without getting killed. He called Frank, who answered after a considerable long time.

Frank had arrived in the bar late last night and Hyun Su and Luiza, the third woman in Shepard's Badass-Girls Circle, had instantly taken a liking to him. They had involved him in a complicated drinking game and when he had left with Shepard, the three of them were supporting each other to not fall down. Garrus had carried Shepard on his shoulder and together with Mary, who had been surprisingly sober, made sure that Frank got to his apartment and the girls to their hotel.

Waking up now, Frank looked considerably worse than Shepard had this morning and Garrus felt a little sorry for him. But he needed his help, he needed someone he could trust.

"Good morning, monkeyman. You have to get up."

"Fuck you, birdy," Frank grumbled with his voice almost inaudible. He didn't even open his eyes.

"Seriously, I need you down in Zakera Ward in the Factory District. Dalinia is in trouble, possibly Red Sand smugglers." An urgent trill left him that made Frank flinch.

"Why don't you ask one of the guys who isn't very hungover and practically still asleep?" Frank had at least raised his head now and his eyes were open.

"I can't trust anybody, they have an inside connection."

"Ah, fuck." Frank groaned as he got up. The camera picture switched off as Frank started moving about and Garrus heard him rattle a can of pills. Hopefully he had something that would sober him up quickly. His voice still reflected many drinks and lots of singing from the previous night.

"Send me the coordinates, birdy, I'll be there in twenty, I just have to grab a coffee on the way."

"Armor up and bring guns," Garrus reminded him.

"Fuck yeah," was the friendly reply before they ended the call. Garrus placed another call, he knew one more person who could help him and who he could trust.

His call was answered immediately and he was greeted with an intriguing view of a little dent on Shepard's stomach, a belly button he remembered her calling it.
"Hey, sunshine," he said, his subharmonics singing to her.

The camera turned up to her smiling face, "Hey, angel, you miss me already?" She was still mostly naked and Garrus couldn't stop thinking about that belly button he had never paid attention to. He regretted that now.

He groaned quietly. "You have no idea how much. But I'm calling for a different reason. I know you're on vacation but a friend is in danger and I can't trust anybody at C-Sec. Could you help me bust a bunch of criminals? You could even use your toys, it would be nice to have someone to interrogate afterwards."

She grinned. "Now that sounds like my kind of party. Send me the coordinates, I'll throw some armor on and meet you there with my girls."

Garrus was confused, "What girls?" he asked.

Her grin got even wider. "My guns of course. The ladies are itching for a nice dance." She blinked one eye towards him and then closed the call. He took a deep breath to calm himself and shook his head to shake out all thoughts of belly buttons and a naked girlfriend who called her rifles 'girls'.

As he went down to the armory to get his weapons, his omni-tool beeped with the results of the DNA traces his drone had collected. Garrus scrolled through the list of names and numbered designations for unknowns. Nothing out of the ordinary. Down to the bottom of the list came the names with the least markers on the ship and he was about to close the list as one name jumped out at him. He almost stumbled against a doorframe as he stared at it.

Arterius, Saren (Spectre, current location unknown)

Saren Arterius?

Garrus's mind was churning the name over and over again while the skycar traveled to the Factory district. Saren Arterius. The simple case of some dead mercs had suddenly turned into a highly classified investigation because a Spectre was involved. He send a short note about the case to Pallin, this thing had just elevated itself to, 'have to tell the boss about it' level.

He noticed Katrina and Berdin looking at him, probably confused why he had been so silent the whole time. He gave them a short grin to indicate that everything was fine and turned back to his omni-tool. He rechecked the information they had from the freighter that was now sitting at the dock. All he could see was that it had come from the Terminus system, made a few stops in between, probably to discharge the drivecore and then jumped on a programmed course through the relays to the Widow-Relay by to the Citadel.

Nothing in the navigation logs indicated at what point the ship had turned into a ghost ship, carrying only decaying corpses on board. Garrus snarled in frustration and noticed how Katrina looked at him in fear. He trilled apologetic and then realized that he would have to use words with the human woman.

"Sorry, forgot that you don't have much experience with turian subharmonics. I didn't mean to scare you. I just received information for another case that had looked so simple and now isn't anymore and now I'm... frustrated. The sound you heard had nothing to do with you."

Berdin cut in in typical salarian fashion. "Yes, using subharmonics with humans can be problematic. They don't really hear them..."

Garrus smiled at that comment and interrupted him. "Wrong, they can hear it. Can even copy some sounds but of course they have only one voice box so they can't underline their speech with subharmonics."

Berdin stared at him like Garrus had just told him that the Citadel was made out of chocolate. Katrina snickered at that and then looked at Garrus again with great interest. "So the sounds have individual meanings? Why is that not commonly known?"

Garrus tried to shrug his shoulders like he had seen the turian at the docks do and noticed that Katrina seemed to immediately understand that he didn't know. That was a practical gesture, it acted like a trill of uncertainty that a turian would make.

Katrina now looked even more interested. "So humans can make the sounds too?"

Garrus realized that he needed to be a bit more cautious with the information he was spreading. That Shepard was able to make voices that sounded like subharmonic hums might not be a common ability, he had to be careful how much he revealed about that.

"That's what I heard somewhere," he mumbled and turned back to his omni-tool. Luckily Katrina didn't pry further and Berdin was busily working on his omni-tool. Probably researching human voices and subharmonics.

The skycar came to a stop a block away from the warehouse where Katrina and Berdin had met Dalinia. Frank was already sitting on some container with his head leaned back against the wall; he seemed to be asleep. Another skycar stopped next the one where Garrus and his young colleagues were sitting in. Shepard waved over to them and he saw Katrina stare slack jawed. "That's Commander Shepard! What is she doing here?"

Garrus didn't even try to hide his smug grin. "I called her, I asked her if she could help us."

Katrina and Berdin gaped at him. "You know Commander Shepard and just called her?" Berdin asked, his voice slightly higher than usual.

Garrus's smug grin made his mandibles flutter.

Shepard stepped out of the car and as she made her way over to them Garrus saw her transform from Jane, his soft human girlfriend to the hardened Commander the rest of the world knew. She exuded an air of authority and strength as she strode over to them. With a nod she greeted Garrus and he knew that this was the professional side of their relationship. There would be no kisses here.

"Officer Vakarian, would you explain the situation please," she said, her voice friendly but confident. Garrus fluttered his mandibles once at her and he saw from the tiny tug at the corner of her mouth that she noticed.

"In a moment, Commander," Garrus answered and walked over to Frank, who was still asleep on the container. Somehow he had managed to fall asleep without spilling the coffee from the cup in his hand.

"Hey, monkey, wake up!" Garrus called out to him and to Frank's credit he woke up right away, still not spilling his coffee. He took one look around and as his eyes fell on Shepard, he visibly relaxed.

"Ah, come on, birdy," he said, yawning and stretching, "what do you need me for if you have Commander Shepard with you? You could have let me sleep."

"Well, I couldn't do it without your unique brand of happiness that you bring into my day," Garrus said with a grin. He collected his small troop around himself and projected a map of the building from his omni-tool.
"The building has two entrances. The back entrance is small and two of us should be able to cover it. I suggest Frank and either Katrina or Berdin take that side. The rest of us take out the guards in front and enter the building from there." He looked around and saw everyone nodding.

He brought up a picture of Dalinia next to the map of the building. "We are looking for an asari named Dalinia, a friend of mine." Garrus saw that Frank threw him a meaningful look and that Shepard noticed it. She didn't say anything but there would be questions later, of that he was sure. "We don't know how many people are in there or how many of them are hostile."

Shepard spoke up. "Will you talk to them first or do we go in shooting?" She clearly considered this to be his show and let him be in command. He was grateful for that.

"Let's try normal C-Sec procedure first, we don't have a warrant but there could be someone in immediate danger so that gives us an entry. Let's see how they react to that. Our priority is to get Dalinia out but I would also like a search of the place. Dalinia suspects Red Sand so we keep our helmets on and let our omni-tools search for the stuff. Everybody clear?"

The two young recruits answered with an enthusiastic, "Yes, sir!" while Shepard and Frank just nodded.

He fixed Berdin and Katrina with a look. "You two stay in cover, is that clear? This isn't combat training, this thing can go sideways in a second and I don't want to have to worry about you two! Understood?"

The answer was a notably less enthusiastic, "Yes, sir" from the kids.

Frank took Berdin with him around the back and Garrus walked with Katrina and Shepard toward the front door. Two guards raised their weapons and Garrus saw from the corner of his eye that Shepard raised a heavy pistol that looked so heavily modded that it looked more like a machinegun. He noticed Katrina behind her fumble with her pistol and he got a very bad feeling about this situation.

"Katrina, fall back. Stay behind cover and look for anyone coming up behind us." For a moment it looked like she wanted to object but then she nodded and hid behind a container.

Garrus stepped forward to one of the guards and projected his badge. "Vakarian, C-Sec. We have received a distress call from this building that we have to investigate. Where is your boss? We would like to..."

The guard opposite Shepard suddenly raised his gun and started shooting. At least he tried to shoot before he fell down, clutching his shoulder, his gun clattering to the ground. The other guard met the same fate before Garrus even had his gun trained on him. He stared at Shepard for a second, she shot faster than anybody he had ever met.

She grinned at him and said, "I'm sorry, I forgot to ask, are we going for injured or dead?" The grin on her face had a deadly tinge to it.

"Let's go for injured for now but if they overwhelm us we have to go for killshots," Garrus replied, settling beside the door frame to peer inside. Shepard positioned herself on the other side and with a nod they both moved in.

The attack was immediate and brutal, shots whizzing around them and they both dove to the side behind cover. Shepard had taken her sniper rifle from her back, peered down the scope, and shot shoulders and arms into pieces. Another wave of humans stormed in from the other side, all of them armored and armed with shotguns. Shepard looked over to him and Garrus nodded at the question that she didn't need to ask.

"Yes, I think we go for killshots now."

"Understood, Vakarian." She shifted her aim and the attackers began dropping down with holes in their foreheads. Garrus had a hard time keeping up with her. After a few minutes the attackers finally realized that they needed a better position and took cover behind some crates.

Their comm units came alive with Frank muttering in their ears. "Guys, we're coming in, cleaning up from behind. Don't shoot at us."

"Understood, Frank," Garrus answered and contacted Katrina outside, "Katrina, how's it looking?"

A confident voice came back. "I have made three arrests and the SWAT team is en route. This entrance is secure."

Garrus didn't hide his surprise and looked over to Shepard who chuckled quietly, "I like that girl."

Garrus shook his head, "Human women are full of surprises, I guess."

Shepard looked over to him and he could almost make out her smile behind her helmet. A shot hit her cover a bit too close to her head, speckling dust and shrapnel against her helmet.

"Permission to go in and kick some ass?" she asked with an angry snarl. He hesitated for a second, could he really send her into the middle of the fight? But he knew that she was Commander Shepard right now, not his mate that he needed to protect.

"Permission definitely granted," he said, trying to sound more sure of it than he was.

She grinned and jumped over the container and ran into the cover where the other humans were hiding behind. Garrus's heart almost stopped. She still had her sniper rifle raised and used it for close-range shots without really aiming. He flinched at that, this was certainly not how his father had taught him to use the sniper rifle.

When she came closer, she switched to her vicious looking pistol and he saw a blade extrude out of her armor. With a battle cry she jumped into the middle of the fight and carved her way through the room. Garrus picked off any of the enemies that came up behind her back as she shot and stabbed her way over to a set of doors. She was like a deadly whirlwind among them, jumping and sliding from cover to cover and rushing into groups, decimating them with her knife and her pistol. He couldn't stop a growl building up in him, just watching her made his plates shift.

The last five humans soon realized the futility of their positions and raised their hands in surrender.

It was suddenly eerily quiet in the warehouse. Footsteps approaching a door had them aim their weapons again until they heard Frank calling them through the door. "Are you guys alright?"

"Yes, we're fine. The room is secured," Garrus called out and lowered his rifle. Frank and Berdin stepped inside and put handcuffs on the remaining humans. Garrus checked his omni-tool, it showed no sign of Red Sand in the air so he decided to take his helmet off. Shepard did the same and stepped around the dead and injured, checking everyone over.

She raised her head towards Garrus. "I don't see any asari," she called out to him.

Loud banging and calls for help drew their attention towards another door on the side. Garrus and Shepard positioned themselves on either side of it. Shepard overloaded the lock with a blast from her omni-tool before Garrus could even begin hacking it.

He looked at her annoyed and she whispered, "Sorry" through the comm unit and smiled at him. Her hair was sticking out and blood dripped off her armor. Garrus couldn't take his eyes off her. His deadly warrioress, he wanted to shove her against the next wall and bite through her armor, among other things.

The door slid to the side and Garrus pointed his rifle inside. "Everybody, come out now!" he called into the room. Slowly, one by one, six asari came out of the room dressed in typical asari dance dresses. At last Dalinia came out and Garrus sighed in relief. She recognized him right away and with a happy squee jumped up on him and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

Shepard stared at them, one eyebrow cocked up. Garrus groaned in embarrassment but Dalinia apparently took that in a completely different way. She pressed her cheek against his face, shrieking, "Thank you, thank you for saving me!" Over and over again.

Shepard looked at them without any emotion showing on her face. He was keenly aware that this woman was dangerous and probably not amused.

Garrus carefully pried Dalinia's hands and legs off him and lowered her back to the floor. Dalinia stilled, noticing his unusual behaviour.

"What's wrong, Garrus? Aren't you happy to see me?" She looked at him confused.

He sighed, "Dalinia, I'm glad to see that you are well but..." He didn't know what to say.

She still looked confused but then suddenly she smiled again. Moving closer to him she whispered, "I see, you want to keep it a secret, don't worry, I'll show you my gratefulness later on." She stroked over the codpiece of his armor and Shepard noticed it. And she also noticed Dalinia's hand gently scratching under his fringe, making him shudder for a second. Shepard's lips were pressed together in a thin line as she watched every movement that the asari made.

He took her wrists in his hand a bit more roughly than he should have and spoke to her hurriedly, "Dalinia, that's not going to happen, I'm with someone. I'm glad you're okay but we won't be meeting... ahem... like that again."

Dalinia stared at him in surprise. "I see. Are you sure?" She lowered her arms, but cocked her head with a flirty smile.

Shepard stepped up to them and turned to Dalinia with a very friendly smile on her face. "Why don't you go outside to make a report with officer Katrina Peters. We would like to know everything about this operation here." Shepard still smiled. It was the kind of smile that made the room a few degrees colder.

Dalinia looked her in the eyes and opened her mouth to say something. Shepard just kept looking at her, the smile slowly fading from her face. Any protest that the asari wanted to voice suddenly seemed to die and Dalinia, who had served drinks to drunk krogan without even flinching, suddenly shrunk back from the human woman. She nodded and turned away without another word.

Garrus looked at Shepard whose eyes followed the asari until she had stepped through the front door. With a jerk of her head she turned back to Garrus. "So... we were busting out your old girlfriend?"

Garrus stretched his throat and hummed insecurely. Shepard was mad, that he could see but he didn't know how he was supposed to deal with it.
"She wasn't exactly my girlfriend. We are friends and sometimes we would have sex... It didn't mean all that much." He glanced over to her as she stood next to him, not looking at him anymore.

"Friends with benefits, I see," Shepard mumbled. Her fists were opening and closing at her side. She looked like she was about to explode.

"Shepard, what's wrong?" he asked to get her to look at him again.

She did and her eyes were like fire. "What's wrong? Come on Garrus, you're the expert on human expressions, don't tell me you don't know what jealousy looks like!"

He put his hand on her armored shoulder. "Shepard... Jane, you have nothing to worry about, that was all in the past, you have no reason to be jealous."

She looked at him again and he saw with relief that some of the fury had left her gaze.

"Reason? Who said anything about reasonable?" She threw up her arms. "Garrus, I know I shouldn't be jealous, I know we both didn't enter this relationship as virgins but... I can't help it." She raised herself on her tiptoes to whisper close to his ear. "If I ever see her touching you like that again, I will rip the tentacles off her head and stuff them into her fucking face!" An angry grumble left her throat and she turned around and stomped off.

Garrus needed a minute until he had the stupid grin on his face under control again.