"Wait, watch your ass!" Kal'Reegar warned Shepard though the radio. "You got a Dropship coming in!"

Shepard was skeptical about that. If there really was a dropship coming in, I would have heard it by—

A Geth Dropship suddenly appeared above his and his squadmates' heads. How it had gotten so close for none of them to have not noticed—and yet Kal'Reegar had—was beyond Shepard.

It fired down on the quarian marines battling the geth on the ground. They never stood a chance; they were dead before their bodies hit the ground.

The Dropship, whether it be from negligence or ignorance—if the geth were capable of either—immediately began flying away without so much as dropping additional troops to deal with Shepard's team. Shepard watched as one of the pillars outside the building the marines had died defending, damaged by the explosion, started to fall.

Garrus and Thane started running for the door, trying to beat the pillar. Shepard, meanwhile, watched them do so with no intention to mimic the pointless endeavor.

Sure enough, the broken pillar landed with a loud thud in front of the door. Garrus and Thane hadn't made it more than a couple steps. Luckily the geth that had been firing on the marines failed to them. Geth on this planet are so inefficient. The sun must be frying their circuits as bad as are shields.

"Crap. Doorway's blocked!" Kal'Reegar said into Shepard's ear.

"How do you know that?" Shepard asked. "And how did you know a Dropship was coming? Can you see us?"

The question was ignored. "Grab the demo charges in the buildings nearby! Use them to clear a path!"

Before Shepard could object to another pointless endeavor—or ask why there were demo charges readily available—the geth finally noticed the non-quarians and attacked.

EDI spoke to Shepard and the others as they faced down the geth. "Shepard, I have scanned the area and located the demolition charges the quarian commander mentioned."

"You too, EDI?" Shepard asked, ducking out of cover to Throw an advancing Geth Prime. "What's so important about the damn charges?"

Again he went unanswered. "You will need both sets of charges to clear the rubble," the AI said.

Shepard sighed.

When the smoke cleared, and all the geth were destroyed, Garrus and Thane started crossing the desolate battlefield to the next closest building, a garage of sorts.

"Where are you two going?" Shepard asked.

Both turned at the same time and gave Commander Shepard a curious look. "To get the demo charges," Thane said in a what-does-it-look-like tone.

"We don't need charges," Shepard said. He went straight ahead towards the fallen pillar. As he expected, his squad followed suit.

"How do you propose we get past the barrier then?" Thane wondered aloud.

"My Concussive Shot won't be strong enough to blast through that," said Garrus, "not without a lot of attempts. And your and Thanes' biotics aren't enough to pick it up and move it."

Shepard waited until they'd all reached the fallen pillar, the top of which being hardly taller than him, easily within reaching distance, before responding to what he considered were dumb inquiries. "We climb."

"Climb?" Garrus asked, as if the word was a foreign concept.

"Yes. Climb. Like this." Shepard holstered his pistol and pulled himself on top of the pillar with little effort. He turned and faced the two men on the ground. "Don't you think this is a little better than getting demo charges that could potentially blow up the building we want to get into?"

Garrus and Thane exchanged glances, then shrugged.

As they scaled the collapsed construct, Garrus mumbled, "that's why your the boss, Shepard."

A/N: Don't get me wrong; Mass Effect 2 is my favorite of the series. Just this situation in-game makes me want to tear my hair out every time I play it. How does the first human spectre, Savior of the Citadel, end up on a wild goose chase because of a pillar?

He doesn't (at least this time), that's how.