Mass Effect A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed

**Disclaimer: **I do not own or make any claim to the Mass Effect universe or the characters contained in this story, all of which are owned by BioWare and Electronic Arts. This is simply my interpretation of some events within the game universe.

**[AN: And here's another piece.**

**This time, it's my take**** on Garrus' ME2 recruitment mission.**

**Not much more to say on that really, I hope you enjoy the story./AN]**

* * *

**Archangel's Base, Omega (October 22, 2185, 1320 hours, Station Time):**

"That bridge is a guddamn killing field; Archangel's got himself a nice cosy spot with complete lines of sight all the way down to this barricade." Zaeed remarked as casually as one might inquire about the weather.

As if to punctuate his point, the crack of a high powered rifle was paired with the sight of a Blue Sun's merc being thrown off the barricade… with half of his head turned into red-grey ooze and bone splinters.

"Let's go find Cathka before we end up like him." Shepard said as he gestured towards the recently deceased mercenary.

It didn't take long to be directed to a Blue Suns Sergeant working on a seemingly pristine A-61 Mantis Gunship painted in a garish blue and white colour scheme with the Blue Suns emblem emblazoned across its hull.

"Are you Cathka?" Shepard asked without preamble as he approached the Batarian merc.

"_Sergeant_ Cathka." The Batarian replied, stressing his rank, "You must be the group Salkie mentioned. Looks like you're just in time too; it shouldn't be long 'til the infiltration team is ready to move."

"You're using a gunship? Isn't that a little excessive?" Shepard asked, playing for more information.

"Nah, we tried that already; it wasn't even a fair fight. Archangel disabled it in two shots, knocked out the stabilisers and thrusters. But it provided a useful distraction, that's how we got the infiltration team across in the first place. I've been trying to fix it for the last couple of days."

"So is it ready to fly? Could it give us some cover while we're on the bridge?" Shepard asked, already trying to work out how he could take the gunship out before being turned into Swiss Cheese.

"Eh, it can fly but probably not too well, though it should be ready to go in an hour or two. Doesn't matter though, there's no way Tarak's going to risk his bird again just to help out you freelancers. Besides, you four look like you can take care of yourselves. You don't have to get across the bridge, just hold Archangel's attention long enough for the infiltration team to take him out."

"Right, we'll just wait over –" Shepard was cut off by Cathka waving his hand for him to quiet as he keyed the comm in his helmet.

After a couple of seconds he turned back towards the group in front of him.

"The Infiltration team is go, get your asses over that barricade and keep that damn Turian distracted." He said dismissively before turning back to the gunship and heavily upping the polarised tinting on his visor before grabbing an arc-welding torch.

As soon as his back was turned, the Commander stepped up directly behind him, grabbed his chin and the base of his skull and then twisted sharply to the right, instantly snapping his neck. Cathka's lifeless body slumped forward against the gunship's landing struts, head bent at an impossible angle.

Without any further ado, Shepard walked back through the group and towards the barricade.

"Come on, we have an infiltration team to deal with." He commanded as he unholstered his shotgun and launched himself one-handed over the barricade, landing with a solid thud on the other side next to pair of bodies.

Each one bore the tell-tale sign of a high velocity sniper round with a large, bloody hole adorning each of their chest pieces. These must have been two of the first freelance mercs over the top and they had been taken down immediately.

The rest of the bridge bore more evidence of the wrath of the Archangel, littered with corpses and slicked with blood. There were blue and yellow armoured corpses along with multitudes of Vorcha, mechs, drones and other forms of cannon fodder; all of which had fallen prey to the skill of Archangel and his team. Zaeed landed next to him shortly after and they were soon joined by the two Cerberus operatives.

"Let's deal with these freelancers first; I don't want to discover just how powerful Archangel's rifle is first hand." Shepard commanded as he moved up on the unsuspecting back ranks of mercs, cowering desperately behind the scant cover present on the bridge and spraying wildly up at the balcony.

One brave merc stood up and fired a grenade from an M-100 towards Archangel's position. The wraith-like black armoured Turian didn't even flinch as the grenade sailed clean passed his head and exploded on the far side of his hideout, before he squeezed off a round that caught the grenade launcher in its energy cell, blowing it, and its owner, to pieces and raining fire and shrapnel on the freelancers nearby.

On the Commander's signal, the four of them opened fire on nearest hostiles, completely decimating the already fragile mercenary lines with disturbing ease, allowing Archangel to pick off targets at his luxury.

Soon enough, they had entered the hideout proper and it didn't take long to locate the five members of the infiltration team; the none-too-subtle colours of the Blue Suns and Eclipse saw to that. Three of them were working on cutting through the door that led to Archangel's position while two more worked hurriedly on placing a number of explosive charges on the various support struts inside the building; all were apparently oblivious to the four reinforcements that Archangel had just received.

Walking up behind the first of the two demolition men, Shepard pressed the barrel of his shotgun against the base of his skull and pulled the trigger, effectively decapitating the unfortunate Turian while Zaeed used the butt of his rifle to smash the other into the pillar he was trying to attach a charge to, before firing a burst into his skull. The four man team stormed up the stairs just in time to see the last three mercs finish cutting through the doorway, still oblivious to the fate of their comrades.

That task would be there last however, as the door slid open to reveal a directional anti-personnel mine, which detonated immediately. The point blank explosion ripped their armour and shields like so much tissue paper, mutilating their bodies as shrapnel ripped into their flesh. Shepard stood in shock for all of two seconds before motioning his team carefully forward.

When he reached the door he motioned for the others to wait as he walked into full view of the doorway with his weapon raised above his head.

"Archangel?" He asked carefully, still not sure if he would be answered with a bullet or not.

The Turian in red and black armour held up a single finger in an oddly human gesture, indicating that Shepard should wait just a bit longer as he sighted down his rifle on the last target.

Now that he had a clear view of Archangel, he could see why he seemed so familiar at first; he wore a set of Phantom armour, the same make Garrus had worn during the hunt for Saren. Come to think of it the rifle he used also looked strangely familiar, a Punisher model, just likes Garrus'. In fact, the techniques and skills employed by this 'Archangel' seemed strangely reminiscent of his Turian friend.

Shepard was jolted out of his thoughts by the crack of another shot as Archangel depressed the trigger one last time before turning to face him. He sat down wearily on a nearby crate, placing his rifle by his side as he reached up to take of his helmet, revealing a very familiar face (and visor.)

"Shepard…" Garrus said quietly as he met Shepard's very surprised eyes, exhaustion evident in his voice.

Shepard's mind worked at a feverish pace as it tried to comprehend the odds of running into two of his closest friends within a week of his resurrection. His mind eventually gave up and settled on simply accepting this unexpected good fortune and going from there.

"Garrus?! What-what are you doing here?" He asked as he removed his helmet and approached his favourite sniper.

"Just keeping my skills sharp; a little target practice." He replied, wearily grasping the Commander's forearm in greeting.

"This looks like a hell of a lot more than target practice. What happened here Garrus?" Shepard asked, his shock and joy fading, now finding himself gravely concerned for his friend's well being, considering the situation.

"I made a bad call, trusted someone I shouldn't have; it's a long story. How about you? I thought you were dead, all of us did… and do you mind explaining how the hell Cerberus got involved?" Garrus shook his head sadly, his rifle cradled lightly in his arms but its laser sight rested unwaveringly over the Cerberus logo on Jacob's helmet.

"That's a long story as well. We can swap stories over drinks when we're done here, just like old times."

"It better be a damn good story because the Shepard I knew would never willingly associate with Cerberus." His laser sight drifted to Shepard's chest in warning before Miranda stepped in, after waving Zaeed and Jacob towards the balcony to keep watch.

"Be that as it may Mr Vakarian, you need our help if you want to make it out of here alive."

"And who says I want to? Because frankly, if I had a choice between working for Cerberus and dying with the rest of my squad then I'll choose the latter every time." Garrus said, a slight growl rumbling from his throat.

Shepard just laughed quietly to himself, seemingly oblivious to the high powered rifle pointed at his heart.

"Good to see you're still suspicious as hell. Still, you're reacting better than Tali did; you haven't started threatening me with a slow and immensely painful death for being a 'Cerberus created monstrosity', 'imposter' and a couple of untranslatable khelish curses yet."

Garrus' head shot up at the name and the laser dot trembled slightly.

"Tali? You've seen Tali? And she believed you?" Shepard just nodded his assent. "Then why isn't she here? How do I know you didn't just kill her when she realised you weren't actually Shepard?" Garrus accused, watching his response carefully.

Shepard visibly recoiled at the suggestion, it was slight, but it was there. A flash of pain flitted across his face and Garrus knew that this really was Commander Shepard, the first human spectre and the best man he'd ever served with.

He knew that Shepard had feelings for their mutual friend and he knew that he'd die before he let anything happen to her, let alone do anything to hurt her himself. Tali was one of the few things that could crack his nigh-impenetrable emotional armour and an emotional response is what he needed.

A Cerberus soldier made to look like Shepard could imitate his posture, his speech and his ice cold exterior but he'd never look that visibly hurt at the prospect of hurting an alien.

"Damnit Garrus, you know I'd never do that! Why can't you just trust-" Shepard seethed before cutting himself off abruptly and backing off slightly. "It was a test wasn't it? To see if I was really me? I guess I must have passed then because I don't have a new hole in me anywhere."

Garrus nodded in confirmation.

"Only you'd react that strongly to being accused of killing Tali. Now you can explain the rest to me when we don't have half of the mercs in the Terminus Systems plotting how they're going to inflict pain and suffering on us; well, mainly me." Garrus smirked as he slapped his helmet back on and grabbed an assault rifle resting on a bullet riddled couch before tossing it to the Commander.

"M-15 Vindicator, Battle Rifle made by ERCS. Three round burst or full auto with an integrated scope and VI enhanced stabilisation and targeting. This one's already loaded with a tungsten ammo block, concussive round launcher and an enhanced heat dissipation system, plus I may have tweaked the ME generator for just a bit more kick. Figured it will serve you better than that M-8 on your back." Garrus explained while Shepard checked the gun over before slipping the Avenger he had been carrying off its attachment point and tossing it over to Miranda.

"I like the way you think Vakarian." Shepard grinned as he took cover by a pillar as he too replaced his helmet and used the rifle's scope to survey the mercenaries' barricade.

"What are they waiting for…" Garrus muttered under his breath as he sighted down his rifle's scope as well.

The next minute was tense, both sides seemingly waiting for the other to make a move, until finally the barricade shifted slightly, then a little more, then slightly more again until a wide hole appeared in its centre and varren came pouring out of the gap and charging headlong down the bridge.

"It's the Bloodpack! We've got varren incoming so the Krogan and Vorcha won't be far behind." Garrus called out as he squeezed the trigger and the lead varren dropped in a spray of blood and scales. Within a second, Shepard's team were all firing at the approaching horde and thinning their ranks considerably.

"Zaeed, Miranda, stay here with Garrus and patch him into our comms. Jacob, you're with me; we're covering the ground floor." Shepard called out as he paused to eject the spent heat sink in his new rifle before simply vaulting over the interior window and slamming into the ground below, turning and directing a stream of tungsten grains at the approaching mass of slavering varren as he did.

The Vindicator really was a great weapon, pinpoint accurate, superb rate of fire and hard hitting on top of it all. His opinion of it only increased when he sighted on the Vorcha who were following closely behind the remainder of the varren and began putting burst after burst through their skulls, rendering their impressive regenerative capabilities moot.

Jacob had joined him and was in the process of mopping up the rest of the varren before joining Shepard in dropping the Vorcha that were charging towards them. A fireball erupted on the bridge as the fuel tank on the back of one flamethrower-equipped Vorcha erupted spectacularly, blowing three others off the bridge, wreathed in flame and sending the original target sprawling on the ground, coated in the sticky, and burning, fuel and missing its legs, its pained screams cutting off shortly after as the fire consumed its body. The rest of the Vorcha fell soon after, none making it more than two thirds of the way across the bridge.

"Something's up; that was too easy. Where were the Krogan?" Shepard called over the comm as he took the time to replace his spent heat sinks and check his stock of grenades.

"They were just cannon fodder, they wanted to test our new defences, chew through some of our supplies before they committed their real force." Garrus replied, each comment punctuated by a soft whump as small disks were fired and then impacted at various points across the bridge, presumably coming from Garrus' rifle.

"Proximity mines, nice. I like the way you think Archangel; how's about you try this one on for size." Zaeed noted appreciatively over the comm as a larger object impacted heavily near the middle of the bridge. Shepard guessed it was a larger mine of some type.

The mercs didn't wait for long and soon Krogan shapes could be seen pouring out of the gap in the barricade, assault rifles hammering at the group's positions.

"Wait 'til they hit my surprise package, they'll be easy pickings after that." Zaeed whispered over the comm and Shepard decided to wait and see what the grizzled veteran had planned.

Emboldened by the lack of resistance, the Krogan began to pick up pace and soon they had broken into an all-out charge towards the hideout.

This, as it turned out, only hastened their demise.

The first Krogan tripped the Zaeed's mine, blasting small red canisters across the bridge which then ignited when they hit the ground. A 6m length of the bridge around the mine was instantly turned into a raging firestorm as painfully bright molten thermite splashed across every surface, including the numerous Krogan who had been in the centre of it and were now coated in one of the highest temperature incendiary materials in the galaxy.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Zaeed exclaimed with a cackle as he and the rest of the team opened fire on the remaining Krogan.

"A couple of inferno grenades strapped together and set to proximity detonation. It's absolutely guddam magic against Krogan, and those dumb-ass Vorcha. That thermite will keep burning for a while yet, too." Zaeed explained for everyone else's benefit as his rifle barked and ended the life of another painfully writhing Krogan.

With the Krogan offensive stalled by the intense heat, Eclipse mercenaries poured onto the bridge and began to lay down heavy fire on the team's position while their engineers tried to douse the flaming bridge with cryogenic tech attacks.

Unfortunately for them, their cover fire was wild as the thick smoke obscured any view towards the hideout and that allowed Garrus to shift positions and, courtesy of his IR sensitive scope and visor, line up shot after shot on the engineers, dropping them with cold precision.

This clinical pattern was only interrupted when he saw an immense object being lowered over the top of the barricade, one that began to unfold and activate as soon as it touched the ground; a YMIR Heavy Mech.

"YMIR incoming! Get down, it can see through the smoke!" Garrus alerted everyone, the concern evident in his voice.

YMIR's were difficult to take down at the best of times, but with the amount of support from the other mercs, it would be nearly impossible to stop before it seriously damaged their position. As such, he was more than a little surprised when Shepard began to laugh and told him to just watch the show.

Sure enough, the sound of the giant mech's multi-barrelled heavy machine guns winding up to speed was heard over the roar of the flames and was soon accompanied by screams of surprise and terror as the mech opened fire on the mercenaries surrounding it. Its two heavy machine guns chewed into everything nearby and soon the mercs completely forgot about Archangel and the traitorous freelancers in favour of trying to stop their own rampaging mech from killing them all.

"What did you do to it?" Garrus asked as he switched his focus to an Eclipse trooper hefting a missile launcher towards the giant mech, effectively decapitating him before he could fire as his round passed through the weak point of their armour where the helmet connects to the clavicle section.

"Completely fried its Friend-or-Foe routines, now it will attack whatever's closest." Shepard replied as he watched the muzzle flashes and leaping flames, not having much else to do with the smoke blocking his vision.

He just knew Garrus was sending him an incredulous look, even though they were a floor away from eachother.

"What? You're not the only one that learned some tricks from Tali."

Garrus was about to retort when a bone shaking explosion rippled through the building and his proximity alarms began to blare. Before anyone could ask, Garrus was already explaining.

"Damn it, well they had to use their brains eventually. They've breached the tunnels; we collapsed them as best we could but they must have blasted through the debris and they've fried my remote lockdown commands for the blast doors down there. They'll need to be locked down manually to stop them overriding the system."

"I'm on it! Zaeed, you're with me. Jacob, Lawson, keep Garrus safe!" Shepard called before racing off to the stairwell that led down to the tunnels, not waiting for Zaeed to join him.

* * *

The basement of the hideout was connected to a series of tunnels, as were many similar buildings in Omega. And like so many other things about the station's design, it was haphazard and largely rough work that had probably been carried out by one of the building's previous owners.

The new blast door fitted to the first one that greeted him, however, was definitely Garrus' work.

Also like much of Omega, the tunnels were crawling with mercenaries, Eclipse primarily if the yellow and black armour was anything to go by.

"Zaeed, light them up while I lock the door down." He commanded the grizzled merc as he readied his pistol and sprinted to the blast door controls.

Zaeed had evidently decided to take Shepard's instruction literally as a 20m tongue of incendiary liquid lashed out from his Firestorm flamethrower, coating the entire tunnel, and its occupants, in flame.

There really was no better area denial weapon in such confined space and the effect it had on the mercs was immediate as they fled from the roiling inferno before them, while those closer to the door fell as the flames engulfed them, their armour simply not designed to withstand such intense heat. The cries of the trapped mercenaries was silenced immediately as the heavy blast door slammed down, sealing the tunnel completely.

"Come on, we've still got four more doors to shut." Shepard said before dashing off to the next door on his right.

* * *

"Archangel, there's an Eclipse sniper moving into position at your 2 o'clock." Miranda alerted the Turian vigilante as he put a round through another merc's skull.

"He'll take care of himself; I'm more concerned by the Krogan charging our YMIR with a really big hammer." The Turian replied sardonically as he lined up a shot on the Krogan in question.

Sure enough, the sharp crack of a proximity mine detonating and a small cloud of dust and blood signalled the end of the sniper in question. Now Miranda had the opportunity to focus on the aforementioned Krogan and what she saw chilled her.

He was immense, even by Krogan standards, reaching over 8ft in height and covered in 10cm thick super-heavy armour. To make matters worse, he was casually hefting a battle hammer that probably weighed as much as she did and the heavy swirling of Dark Energy around him indicated a potent biotic barrier on top of the armour's likely high shield strength. Indeed, even the combined fire of both the YMIR's guns and Archangel's rifle wasn't enough to start hitting the armour beneath. She watched in shock as the Krogan reached the mech and began to actually _overpower_ it.

The Krogan grabbed both of the mech's arms and forced them up before slamming his head-crest into the mech's 'face'. The heavy robot rocked backwards from the impact and before it could recover, the Krogan had hefted his hammer high and brought it crashing down on top of the metallic chassis, crumpling it like a tin can.

The Krogan roared in victory and wrenched his hammer from the newly formed lump of scrap metal as he turned to face their position.

"You're next Archangel! And your turncoat freelancer friends too!" He bellowed as Vorcha and more Krogan, flanked by eclipse mercs and LOKI mechs began to advance down the bridge.

"Nice to see you too, Garm. The hammer's new, is it compensating for something, perhaps?" The Turian shot back nonchalantly as he pulped the upper body of the Vorcha standing next to him with another shot from his rifle.

"Why are you intentionally antagonising him? We need to kill him before he goes into a Blood Rage." Miranda sneered as she crippled an advancing Krogan with a warp field before glaring at the insolent Turian as he blew the head off another Vorcha that was charging towards their position.

"No, we _need_ him to Rage. Garm regenerates faster than any Krogan I've ever fought, so him raging won't make much of a difference. He's a Battlemaster though and a good one based on some of the jobs he's pulled off. Making him fall into a Blood Rage will strip him of his most dangerous weapon, his mind." The black-clad Turian replied while lining up and firing on another target before turning to lock eyes with her, "Just because he's a Krogan doesn't mean he's a mindless animal, _Cerberus_."

* * *

"Garrus, this is Shepard. We've locked down the tunnels and are on our way back to your position." Shepard called into his mic after the last blast door sealed shut and finally cut off the sounds of panicked mercenaries on the other side.

"That's probably for the best because we've got a couple of new friends here, including one _very_ angry Krogan Battlemaster and his lackeys." Garrus replied as nonchalantly as possible, though the strain was becoming evident in his voice. "You, ah… may want to hurry." He said as a Krogan bellow of anger could be heard in the background; it must have been quite close to be heard _inside_ his helmet.

"Feel like fighting some Krogan in CQC?" He asked Zaeed as he readied his Katana shotgun.

"Sure, sounds like fun." The merc smiled viciously as he too extended his shotgun, a vicious-looking weapon with a wide-bore silver barrel, a hefty grip-stock and tactical rail.

Noticing the Commander eyeing his weapon, he grinned in amusement and decided to explain it a bit.

"You like it, eh? M-22 Eviscerator, nasty piece of work but you won't find a better general purpose combat shotgun. Some civilian boffin worked out how to make the shaver produce flechette rounds instead of the usual pellets; boosts the aerodynamics or somethin'. All I know is that shoots a helluva lot further than any other shotgun and it mangles flesh like nobodies business." The heavily scarred mercenary said as he softly caressed the weapon.

Shepard just nodded in acknowledgement and sprinted back towards the Garrus' position.

Gunfire could be heard through the door so Shepard and Zaeed took position on either side of it as it slid open, revealing the carnage beyond.

The interior of the building was now covered in scorch marks, bullet holes, mech parts and Vorcha blood. Many of the owners of that blood now lay strewn across the ground and on the stairs while still more were firing up at Miranda who was positioned behind the windows that overlooked the interior, alternating between her biotics and her heavy pistol to neutralise the Vorcha. Zaeed and he moved at the same time, coming out right on the Vorcha's flank and taking down four of them before they knew what was happening.

Shepard motioned for Zaeed to take care of the rest of the Vorcha while he dashed towards the stairway and into the balcony to find three dead Krogan and one massive one that was still very much alive and causing a lot of problems for Garrus and Jacob. Most of the problems centred around the fact that they were both dodging said Krogan's War Hammer that was being swung in their direction and pulverising everything in its path.

So far it seemed they had been successful, but the new dents on their armour testified to glancing blows. Whenever one was dodging a swing, the other was firing at the heavily armoured Krogan, but most of the rounds weren't doing much of anything as the Krogan's eyes blazed with rage at being denied his prize. Assessing the situation quickly, Shepard entered the fight by running up right behind the 8ft tall alien, shoving his shotgun barrel into the only weakpoint in the armour he could see and pulling the trigger.

The incendiary shotgun pellets ripped into the flesh of Krogan's right shoulder, causing it to drop the hammer it had been about to bring crashing down as its arm buckled suddenly under the weight that it could no longer support. The Krogan wheeled in anger with surprising speed to face the one who had managed to wound it before snarling with rage and brought his still useful arm thundering towards John. He ducked inside the blow and began to rain punches of his own on the Krogan's head.

Garm had faced many powerful opponents and come out victorious, but never had he faced an opponent who could strike with such force _and_ with such speed. Garm flailed wildly, trying to land a blow on his attacker but Shepard deftly blocked every swipe while still raining hit after hit on the nearly defenceless Krogan. By now, Garm was actually being forced _back_ as his head-plate began to crack from the repeated impacts. Shepard had soon forced him to the window that overlooked the bridge and by this time dark energy could be seen swirling around his fists as they hit with more and more force, the combination of his biotics, cybernetics, natural strength and his armour's kinetic exoskeleton combining to create blows of incomprehensible force.

Garm was still conscious, more due to his Blood Rage than anything else but he would soon wish he wasn't as Shepard took a step back and released a monstrous kick that connected with his snout, snapping his head back and toppling the top-heavy Krogan out of the window and falling into the abyss beneath the bridge.

John took a moment to catch his breath as he flexed his hands slightly, feeling the burn from the bruises he knew he was going to have and the sharp, fiery twinge of what was probably a fracture in his left hand. Turning back to Garrus and Jacob, he could see they had fared reasonably well, too. Garrus was favouring his left side a bit, an opinion reinforced by the large dent know present over his hip while Jacob was clutching right side, where another solid dent and series of cracks could be seen.

"You guys alright?" The Commander asked, just in case he had missed something in his quick once-over.

"We'll be fine, he just winged us a couple of times, that's all. Honestly Shepard, I'm more worried about you." Garrus replied, wincing slightly as he bent down to recover his discarded rifle.

"I know, I'm a bit concerned myself, but now isn't the time to discuss it." Shepard replied, easily able to imagine the concern in his friend's eye's beneath the helmet.

"Yeah, you're right. It should really only be the Blue Sun's left, I say we take them head on; they lost the most men in the original assault and they don't have the number of expendable troops that the Bloodpack and Eclipse had. They're well trained, but they couldn't hold a candle to the Geth and they'll just try to starve us out if we wait in-" The rest of what Garrus was going to say was cut off by a barrage of rockets that erupted inside the room, two of which caught Garrus dead on while the others knocked Shepard into nearby pillar.

The source of the rockets became apparent as the Blue Suns' gunship swung into view in front of the window and opened up with its nose-mounted heavy machine gun. Jacob dived for cover while rounds stitched across Garrus's unmoving form and on towards Shepard, who was just recovering from his sudden flight and impact.

His shields shattered quickly under the firepower and multiple rounds embedded in his armour and flesh before he managed to get out of its line of fire. John could feel the cool sensation of medigel and the burning sting that accompanied it as it was leaked across the wounds, stemming the blood flow that could have been catastrophic. Jacob was firing at the gunship now and Zaeed and Miranda had obviously heard the commotion and begun firing as well, but the heavy, vehicle grade kinetic barriers on the ship were all but ignoring the pitiful rounds directed at it.

Overall, it was a bad situation. Garrus was down, possibly dead, Shepard was wounded and their only heavy weapon was with Jacob, who was in no position to use it as the gunship kept him pinned under heavy fire. They needed to take the heat of Jacob so the operative could take out the gunship, but that would require giving the gunship a sufficiently good reason to focus on something else, even though Jacob was the only threat to it. Seeing Garrus' lifeless body gave him an idea.

Grabbing his pistol and opening fire at the gunship, he half-limped and half-crawled towards Garrus and grabbed him by his armour's collar and began to drag the 140kg of Turian and armour behind cover, leaving a smeared trail of indigo blood as he went.

Sure enough, the gunship took notice and swung around to open fire on then. Round after round thudded into their cover, little pieces of masonry raining down on their heads as the wall cracked and groaned under the punishment.

The gunship began lining up for another rocket barrage when a missile streaked into its tailfin, blowing it away completely. The gunship stayed in the air, but without its stabilising thrusters, it was powerless to dodge the next missile that rammed straight into the arched body of the vehicle, nearly ripping it in half. The gunship fell from the sky unceremoniously and crashed into the bridge, its wreck effectively blocking the path to or from the hideout.

"Shepard to _Normandy_, we need immediate CassEvac at my location. Repeat, we need _immediate_ CassEvac." Shepard shouted into his radio.

"Chakwas and the shuttle are on their way Commander; they should arrive within five minutes." Joker replied quickly but Shepard barely heard it as he quickly began applying whatever aid he could to Garrus' broken form.

He was still alive, barely, but he was losing a lot of blood from the bullet wounds and particularly from where the two rockets had impacted. The first had impacted near his chest, it might have hit his sniper rifle judging by its mangled condition, and it had cracked the armour all across the right side of his chest.

The second impact must have hit the armour's collar because that area of armour simply didn't exist anymore, and neither did half of his helmet or the fabric that normally protected the neck. All of it was replaced with blackened flesh, smouldering armour and continually flowing indigo blood.

Shepard had already ripped open a pack of the dextro medigel he always kept on hand and had begun coating as much of the exposed flesh as he could in an effort to staunch the bleeding; it was working to a degree but the sight was still horrific.

John worked quickly as his mind raced; the wounds Garrus had sustained were bad, very bad. Even with state-of-the-art medical technology and Chakwas' skill as a surgeon, there was no guarantee that he would survive or that he could ever regain full functionality if he did. The situation was very dicey all of a sudden but all Shepard was focused on was doing what he could for Garrus and hoping fervently that he wasn't witnessing the last moments of another friend.

He was still working frantically when Garrus' eyes suddenly shot open and he gasped in oxygen, before coughing up the blood that must have found its way into his lungs, coating the ground and Shepard with droplets of the sticky fluid.

"Hold on Garrus, we're getting you out of here and then Chakwas can fix you up, just hang on!" Shepard said quickly as Garrus continued to gasp for air and cough up more blood, clutching the barrel of his destroyed rifle desperately in his hands.

The shuttle swung into position outside the window a minute later and Zaeed and Jacob helped manoeuvre Garrus' limp body inside without jolting him to much. Miranda leapt into the shuttle last and rapped on the door, telling the pilot to punch it.

Shepard had never had such a tense flight as Dr Chakwas immediately set to work on Garrus, only sparing a surprised glance towards the Commander as she recognised her patient, before administering more medigel and a powerful sedative to her semi-conscious friend.

There was nothing more Shepard could do except wait and hope that Garrus would survive.

* * *

**[AN: Thanks for reading and I hoped you enjoyed it!**

**I'm really looking for feedback on, well, everything, so if you have anything to say about it, be it positive, negative or neutral, then please do.**

**Also, if you have any questions, please ask.**

**Thanks again!/AN]**


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Mass Effect, Sci-Fi