Something Like Home Chapter 4, a mass effect fanfic

This is an emergency broadcast. Enemy ships spotted near Trebia Relay. Attack imminent. Arm yourselves. This is not a test. Stand by for further instruction. This is an emergency broadcast. Enemy ships spotted near Trebia Relay. Attack imminent. Arm yourselves. This is not a test. Stand by for further instruction. This is an emergency broadcast. Enemy ships spotted near Trebia Relay. Attack imminent. Arm yourselves. This is not a test. Stand by for further instruction. This is an emer—

"Sir? Advisor Vakarian, sir?"

Garrus didn't look up. His map was a mess—the red of battles lost across the planet and battles in the process of being lost across the galaxy; dark spots where whole colonies, whole planets, whole systems had gone silent—and he didn't know what to do about it. In the brief moments when they were able to have their comms up and running, reports came in faster than he could keep up. None of them good. He'd done what he could, organized what he could, bolstered defenses and shored up tactics where he could, and it was still falling apart. The Reapers weren't playing by any known set of rules, and they were using tactics no organic would ever have attempted. They could move without supply lines, without rest, evidently without refueling. Even thinking fast, Garrus simply couldn't anticipate what they might do next. No one could. Turian forces were three moves behind, defending tooth and talon in a battle that always, always meant the difference between survival and obliteration.

Maybe it was foolish, maybe she'd be just as helpless as the rest of them, but he couldn't help thinking Shepard might've known how to turn the fight around to bring it to the invading forces instead of constantly running, running, and leaving the slow behind to die.

She'd done the impossible before. It wasn't like he believed in her without evidence to back that conviction up.

But Shepard wasn't here. His messages to Anderson—the few he'd managed to send; the ones that hadn't bounced back or remained undeliverable in his outbox—went unanswered. Maybe she was out there. Hell, maybe she was already on her way, but he had a planet to mourn and a moon to save and no time to waste on maybes and uncertain variables. He had a map. And determination. And for now that had to be enough.

It had begun with Taetrus. For the turians, at least. The batarians had taken the first blow, and even that slight advance warning had been enough to start the mobilization of the turian armada. Garrus had prepared them well enough for that. But while the ships gathered around Palaven, waiting for the inevitable strike, the Reapers took another route. A crueler one. No one had anticipated an attack against Taetrus. In the scheme of things, it was a small world, a mere colony. Small, but oh, it hurt. Which was, Garrus privately believed, one of the oddities of the Reapers. For beings claiming to be unconcerned with the matters of organics, except to destroy them (to help them ascend), they showed an alarming ability to strike where it most hurt. Not physically, but psychologically. Emotionally, even. Even Harbinger's taunts had so often seemed designed to dig at Shepard where they might do the most damage. When it wasn't going off about bacteria and ascendance and assuming direct control, of course.

To the observant, a weakness is an opportunity. And the Reapers knew how to observe. They knew how to make the most of an opportunity. The terrorist attack on Taetrus, so fresh and so devastating, had been an open wound, but broadcasting the second fall of Taetrus to the entirety of turian space? It was almost like they enjoyed it.

Wherever they'd got their observations, they'd missed something important. Taetrus hurt. But the blow had only galvanized them, uniting every turian in the galaxy against those that would dare kick at the fallen just as they were attempting to right themselves again.

That, Garrus thought, was a hell of a Spirit. Not one he'd want to pit himself against.

The fall of Taetrus had led to the Battle of Palaven and Coronati's Fifteen-Minute Plan. There hadn't been time to bring Garrus in on that one, so what he knew he'd learned after the fact. It'd been a hell of a risk. Broke most of the rules poor Laetus had been so keen on obeying. Clever. Garrus certainly had to grant Coronati that. But still not enough. Oh, they'd managed to take some of the Reaper capital ships; that counted for something. But the turian losses were staggering, and the red on Garrus' map kept spreading. So did the dark.

With as much contact as the disruptions to the comm buoys would allow, Garrus was trying to adapt, trying to guide the turian defense as best he knew how. He'd been observing, too, after all. The Reapers were cocky. They believed themselves invincible. But Garrus had been there when Sovereign fell. They had flaws. They could be overcome.

The galaxy would lose millions, billions, but if anyone survived, anyone, he'd count it a win. Every turian would.

Which left him here, at his map, determined to hold Menae. They had to. Palaven was burning beneath them—don't think about it, don't think about them, Dad will make sure they get out, don't think about how you haven't heard from them in days, don't think about—and if Menae fell?

Menae couldn't fall.

Menae could not fall.

"Sir?"

"Spit it out, Laetus," he barked, stealing one of Shepard's phrases ("Spit what out?" he'd asked the first time he'd heard her use it. "Words, dumb-ass," she'd replied, grinning. "What do you think?") to cover his own wandering attention. He couldn't afford to let his attention wander. Not now. Not with so much at stake.

The lieutenant looked momentarily baffled. Then he blinked, puffed up his chest ever so slightly and said, "Ahh, we've… sir, communications are down all over the place and the buoys are going down again almost as soon as we get them up, but we're finally picking up chatter on Systems Alliance channels. Or. Uh, we were. Sir."

Suddenly he understood why all the 'sir's. His gut twisted. He tried not to let it show on his face. The map could wait. For a minute. Its sea of red and dark would still be waiting for him once he heard what he didn't want to hear. "Report."

The soldier didn't squirm. His voice was crisp around the pauses, and if a faint tremor altered his subharmonics, Garrus pretended not to notice. He'd known they were coming and the Reapers still scared him shitless. It was a wonder the uninitiated could keep it together at all. Especially the uninitiated who'd held to their doubts until it was almost too late. "They've lost Earth, sir."

Four words. Four words and he was standing in his apartment in the Citadel years ago now, while Anderson said I thought you should hear it from me. A shiver of cold ran the length of his spine, but Garrus held himself straight, stiff, and allowed no hint of his feelings to pass over his face or lurk in his body language. The Turian Hierarchy's Expert Reaper Advisor couldn't fall to pieces because of one unsubstantiated report. Garrus made himself nod once, sharply. Perfectly composed.

Try not to die this time, he hadn't said.

"Status of the Alliance fleets?" he asked. Solana—don't think about it, don't think about them, they'll get out, they'll be fine—would have known what his subvocals were saying, but the lieutenant only took a breath and launched into the last known coordinates of the major Alliance players. Garrus took it in distantly, already calculating, reducing lives to numbers and numbers to pieces on his map. With their own homeworld under attack, he knew they couldn't count on aid from humanity. No last minute miracles this time. It wasn't going to be like looking down his scope and seeing Shepard shooting her way across the bridge on Omega.

Only then did he admit to himself how much he'd been hoping for just such a reprieve.

An alarming ability to strike where it hurt.

This time the damned Reapers didn't even know how accurate their aim had been.

When the soldier was finished his report, Garrus nodded again.

He turned back to his map. Tapped the panel that brought up the Sol system.

Earth burned red. Red as Palaven, as Taetrus, as Khar'Shan.

One talon hovered over the command to turn the planet dark.

He couldn't press it.

Come on, Shepard. Do what you do best. Prove them all wrong.

And in the meantime, Menae couldn't fall.

He wasn't going to let it.

Message sent: 7 OCT 86

Anderson?